A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss the Trump immunity case, the latest in the hush money trial and a well-timed announcement from the Biden administration about a major drug policy change.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
NEW YORK — Lead Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche admitted for just a moment on Thursday that his client was his own worst enemy.
Continue reading “Blanche Briefly Recoils While Defending Trump”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
The latest developments:
What happened last night at UCLA was similar to the efforts to arrest protesters on other campuses, but it was different from what happened at UCLA two nights ago, when police eventually intervened to separate protesters and aggressive counter-protesters who seemed eager to provoke a clash. Before law enforcement acted, UCLA professor David N. Myers inserted himself between the two sides and writes about his experience here.
While we wait for the Supreme Court to rule on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in the Jan. 6 case against him, NBC News’ Lisa Rubin found a potentially useful parallel case that shows how long it could take to resolve the immunity issue if it gets sent back down to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to sort out what is official v. personal.
The first order of business today is a hearing on additional alleged violations by Donald Trump of the gag order against him. These alleged violations occurred before the trial judge ruled Tuesday that Trump was in violation of the gag order for a separate batch of out-of-court statements, so it’s unclear how the judge will handle these add-on statements.
The hearing isn’t expected to last long before the trial testimony of Stormy Daniels lawyer Keith Davidson resumes.
The big suspense in the trial right now centers on when Michael Cohen will testify. Stay tuned for reporting from the courthouse from TPM’s Josh Kovensky.
A judge rejected a bid by former Trump campaign attorney and Jan. 6 figure John Eastman to delay her ruling suspending his law license.
On the occasion of the House passing a new bill to combat antisemitism, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took the opportunity to trot out a well-worn antisemitic trope to justify their opposition to the bill.
A defamation lawsuit by Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman is offering a glimpse of the internal operations of the notorious Gateway Pundit website.
A former Secret Service agent is suing the New York Post and The Daily Mail for defamation, claiming they published stories based on fabricated texts from Hunter Biden’s laptop that falsely tied him to Biden.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) cited one of the most prominent historical antisemitic narratives as her reason for not approving legislation aimed at combating antisemitism on Wednesday. Greene posted on the site formerly known as Twitter to explain her thinking.
“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene wrote.
Greene’s comment was accompanied by a photo of the bill text, which said it would use the “definition of antisemitism” adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016. The text noted this includes “claims of Jews killing Jesus,” which it described as “classic antisemitism.”
The belief apparently espoused by Greene is indeed one of the most well known forms of antisemitism. Various experts have described efforts to collectively blame the Jewish people for killing Jesus Christ as one of the major drivers of antisemitism for centuries. It is also — particularly in the way it was described by Greene — a false narrative.
Christ, who Christians revere as the son of God, was a Jewish religious figure who lived in the ancient Roman province of Judaea, which was largely located in what is currently Israel and the Palestinian territories. His teachings and growing following caused tensions with the established Roman and Jewish religious leaders in the province. Christ was ultimately crucified in the first century by the province’s Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
While some Jewish religious leaders and people in the province urged on the crucifixion, it was ordered by the Roman leader. The Christian Bible also describes many Jews who were distressed by Christ’s execution.
Nevertheless, claims like Greene’s collectively blaming all “Jews,” rather than focusing on individuals or including the Roman role, have persisted.
The role the narrative Greene cited as inspiring her opposition to the legislation has played in driving antisemitism — including violence — has led some Christian leaders to specifically clarify the matter. For example, in 2011, the late Pope Benedict XVI declared that there was no scriptural basis for the claim and wrote that “Jews are not responsible for killing Jesus.”
None of that stopped Greene, whose version of the classically antisemitic narrative was inaccurate on another level as well. Greene suggested Christ was “handed over” to be “crucified by the Jews” by Herod Antipas, who was the leader of a northern province that Christ was from. In fact, the Christian Bible’s Gospel of Luke specifies that Herod “sent him back” to Pilate, who ordered the crucifixion, which was carried out by Roman soldiers.
The Antisemitism Awareness Act was led by Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY) as a response to the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, which have rocked college campuses in recent weeks. The legislation was mostly driven by Republicans, but it had 15 Democratic co-sponsors.
According to the Washington Post, backers described the bill as designed to help the federal government crack down on the protests, which they see as having antisemitic elements. Some Democrats objected and argued it was an effort to restrict political protest.
The measure passed by a vote of 320-91 on Wednesday.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story referred to King Herod the Great rather than Herod Antipas, who was his son.
After Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) declared House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) the “Democrat Speaker of the House” on Twitter Tuesday, the newly-inducted Republican National Committee co-chair Michael Whatley sat Greene down and asked her nicely to cut it out with the whole motion to vacate thing.
Continue reading “MTG Decides It’s Worth Bucking Trump To Watch Dems … Do What They Already Announced They’d Do”A couple Arizona Senate Republicans crossed over Wednesday to help Democrats repeal the state’s 1864 ban as national Republicans hope to avert electoral punishment.
Continue reading “Fearing Blowback, A Couple Arizona Senate Republicans Join Democrats To Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban”Despite the fact that 92 percent of election officials across the country have taken steps to protect themselves and the election process since the chaos of 2020, election officials fear for their safety as well as the threat of political interference in November, according to a new survey from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Continue reading “Majority Of Election Officials Face Threats, And Significant Number Fear Assault, Survey Finds”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Jeff Clark, the DOJ attorney who Trump unsuccessfully sought to install mid-coup attempt as attorney general, is facing an effort to disbar him in Washington D.C. And things aren’t going well for him.
On Tuesday, a panel recommended that he be disbarred, finding that it is “the only possible sanction” befitting his attempt to “create national chaos.”
From the disciplinary counsel’s proposed finding of fact and conclusions:
It is not enough that the efforts of these lawyers ultimately failed. As a profession, we must do what we can to ensure that this conduct is never repeated. The way to accomplish that goal is to remove from the profession lawyers who betrayed their constitutional obligations and their country. It is important that other lawyers who might be tempted to engage in similar misconduct be aware that doing so will cost them their privilege to practice law. It is also important for the courts and the legal profession to state clearly that the ends do not justify the means; that process matters; and that this is a society of laws, not men.
The proceedings are not over, but Tuesday’s report was a serious blow to Clark.
(Perhaps the most serious since his boss at the DOJ swatted away his January 2021 power grab by reminding him he had only ever been appointed to lead the Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division: “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.” But we digress …)
In case you missed it, Trump made some of his most ominous noises yet about what to expect in 2025 in an interview with a publication close to his heart: TIME magazine.
He said it was up to the states to monitor pregnant women for abortions, promised mass immigrant deportations, declared he’d prosecute Biden if the Supreme Court didn’t grant him full immunity, mulled pardons for January 6 rioters, and speculated about violence if he doesn’t win.
Some reactions to that interview:
Kate Riga reports on a case out of Pennsylvania that could decide a close election, and may be SCOTUS-bound.
The fight centers on the date voters must write on the outer envelope holding the ballot; if it’s wrong or missing, the ballot goes uncounted. It’s a steep penalty given the reality that none of the parties involved in the case asserts that those dates are actually used for anything.
“People are gonna have their votes not counted under this ruling for totally immaterial reasons, like writing 2023 instead of 2024,” Ari Savitzky, lead attorney on the case for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing individual voters and a group of state civil and voting rights groups, told TPM. “Filling out the date on this form has nothing to do with anything.”
We’re off today.
On Tuesday, Josh Kovensky reported, prosecutors seemed to be building toward testimony by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer. It’s been unclear when — or even if — he would take the stand, but the information given by former Stormy Daniels lawyer Keith Davidson yesterday seemed to set the stage for him, with Davidson describing his interactions with Trump’s fixer, many of which were … unpleasant. “The moral of the story is no one wanted to talk to [Michael] Cohen,” Davidson said, per Josh.
So we’ll be looking to see if Cohen makes an appearance when things resume tomorrow.
Also Tuesday, Judge Juan Merchan found Trump in contempt, fined him and threatened to jail him if he continues to flout the gag order. He laid out what he’ll be looking for going forward. Here’s Josh:
Trump needs to “be able to fully campaign for the office which he seeks” and must “be able to respond and defend himself against political attacks,” Merchan wrote in the order, adding that witnesses shouldn’t take advantage of the gag and use it as a “sword instead of a shield.”
The limit, Merchan wrote, comes when there’s no precipitating political attack to which Trump might be responding. Merchan did not hold Trump in contempt for the Avenatti post in part because of what Merchan described as a “tenuous correlation” to a preceding post that Cohen had made. For the remaining ten, Merchan wrote, Trump’s attorneys had failed to identify any political attack which Trump might have been responding.
Trump immediately fundraised off the contempt finding.
Trump is, predictably, pissed at his lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, the Times reports:
He has griped that Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor and veteran litigator, has not been following his instructions closely, and has been insufficiently aggressive. Mr. Trump wants him to attack witnesses, attack what the former president sees as a hostile jury pool, and attack the judge, Juan M. Merchan.
Just as Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton will not recognize that the federal Border Control is in charge of the international border, they also want you to know that they aren’t going to let the U.S. Department of Education define what counts as discriminatory in schools. The more they can lob toward the Supreme Court, the better, it seems.
Nicole Lafond has the details.
As Florida’s six-week abortion ban goes into effect officially today — making access to the procedure nearly impossible for women in the state and ending Florida’s status as a stronghold for abortion in the southeast — both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are sending a message to Florida voters and those in the South who have relied on the state for the procedure:
After Arizona state House Republicans repeatedly blocked their Democratic colleagues’ efforts to advance legislation that would repeal the draconian abortion ban the state Supreme Court just allowed back on the books — mostly by mucking up procedural votes to advance it — three House Republicans ultimately voted with Democrats to pass the legislation last month. The state Senate is expected to vote on that legislation today. Democrats will need to pick up two Republican votes for it to pass.
But even if it passes and becomes law (Gov. Katie Hobbs is expected to sign it) the repeal won’t go into effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which may be June or July.
The Commission on Presidential Debates told Fox News Tuesday that, despite calls from the Trump campaign to move up the first presidential debate, it’s planning to stick to it’s OG schedule, meaning the first debate will be held in September. The Trump campaign is already trying to circumvent the CPD.
Per CBS News, which obtained internal federal docs:
In recent weeks, the documents show, senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents.
One of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt, according to the inter-agency planning documents.
New York state Sen. Tim Kennedy, a Democrat, has won the special election in New York’s Twenty-Sixth Congressional District to replace former Rep. Brian Higgins (D), who left Congress in February. Kennedy defeated a local Republican town supervisor and will serve for the rest of Higgins’ term, which ends in January.
Once Kennedy is sworn in, House Republicans’ majority will be temporarily reduced to one seat until other vacancies are filled. For example, the race to serve for the remainder of ousted-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) term will be determined during a runoff election later this month.
The recently redrawn congressional map included the addition of a second majority-Black district in the state. The Tuesday ruling from a Fifth Circuit panel leaves Louisiana without a congressional map six months out from a major presidential election, and the Supreme Court is expected to get involved in the case.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is reportedly moving to ease restrictions on cannabis, reclassifying it from a schedule I drug — alongside heroin and LSD — to a schedule III drug, part of a push by the Biden administration to decriminalize marijuana use. The move has to clear more regulatory hurdles, but, once it does, would be the biggest shift in DEA policy in 50 years, per the AP.
The Daily Beast: Fox News Quietly Deletes Hunter Biden ‘Mock Trial’ Series
As Morning Memo noted yesterday, Biden had threatened to sue.
David Kurtz will be back later this week.
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Earlier this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas Republicans responded to a Supreme Court ruling that allowed federal Border Patrol agents to cut through razor wire erected by state law enforcement at the border with vows to ignore the high court’s ruling. Abbott has been eager to make a big show of his efforts to usurp federal authority in the state.
Continue reading “A New Chapter In Greg Abbott’s Anti-Federalism Game Of Chicken In Texas”NEW YORK — He’s nowhere to be seen at Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, but he’s everywhere: Michael Cohen, the former president’s ex-fixer.
Continue reading “Latest Witness Is Leaving A Michael Cohen-Shaped Hole In Description Of Hush Money Scheme”
