A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The District Attorney And Race

The smoldering confrontation in an Atlanta courtroom between District Attorney Fani Willis and the coterie of Trump co-defendants had so many layers of gender, race, and power dynamics that it felt like a theatrical production in which the playwright got a little too exuberant and ended up with an over-the-top script.

Any playwright would die for Willis’ meme-a-minute dialogue, throwing off lines so memorable and original that it was hard to keep up:

“A man is not a plan.”

“I’m not going to emasculate a black man.” (Oh, but she did.) 

“I’m not a hand holder.”

The hearing was ostensibly about whether her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to manage the RICO election interference case was disqualifying. But that was a thin veil over the roiling cauldron of disrespect, racist tropes, and public humiliation that the defendants were indulging in.

Willis came in red hot, literally running from her office to the courtroom when it was her time to testify. She took over the room. She raised and waived objections from the witness chair. She refused to be led down primrose paths by defense counsel. She talked over everyone: defense counsel, the judge, and her own team. I couldn’t help but think that Trump himself would secretly admire her command and bravura.

But it wasn’t the performative high dudgeon that Bill Clinton patented and every politican since has doubled down with. It was the seething, barely controlled anger of a Black woman put in a position none of her white male counterparts have had to endure, at the hands of a criminal defendant no less. White prosecutors have used the power of the law to torment Black people for centuries, but a Black woman becomes prosecutor and finds herself tormented by white criminal defendants.

The most telling moment of the day for me came midway through her testimony, when Rudy Giuliani’s local attorney Allyn Stockton took his turn. He politely introduced himself to Willis and addressed her as “Madam District Attorney” and “Madam DA.” It was a modicum of respect. It was properly deferential to her position and role. Don’t be confused: He was adverse to her, and he proceeded to go after her, in a measured and professional way. But that show of cordiality and basic respect seemed to me to make Willis’ face relax, her body language loosen, her volume go down, and transformed her argumentativeness into a more conversational tone. He gave her deference she had earned, deserved, and was demanding for herself.

I personally think Willis erred by becoming involved with Wade. It put the prosecution of her career at risk. Maybe that would be the conversation to have if white male DAs who boink people in their office were dragged into court by criminal defendants on the regular. Not saying it’s never happened, but I’ve never seen it.

Most of the news coverage elided the racial and gender power dynamics at play. But Black people recognize this modern day spectacle of demeaning and dehumanizing treatment: Willis’ personal life scrutinized, her sex life exposed to public ridicule, her ways of handling money and relationships treated not as a difference of culture or social class but as unethical and disqualifying. And racists recognize it, too! Fox News was beside itself with the spectacle. To take one example, actually just one word: “pedigree.”

If Black people know what’s going on here and racists know what’s going on here, then why is everyone else content to leave their heads in the sand?

What Happens Next

The Georgia hearing continues today. Willis is due to continue her testimony, but I’ll be curious to see if her team declines to ask her any questions given her strong performance yesterday and instead just proceed straight to its case.

As for the judge, I suspect he’s looking for any way not to disqualify her. She’s the elected DA! Her office handles thousands of criminal cases a year. Judges don’t want to open the door to criminal defendants seeking to delve into the personal propriety of the prosecutor. It would be a nightmare beyond this historically important case.

There was one strong witness against Willis, a former friend of hers who was fired as an employee of the DA’s office who testified that the Willis-Wade relationship began before she hired him in the RICO case. That upsets the timeline to which Willis’ has staked her defense. But Willis’ own testimony was compelling (and to a degree so was Wade’s). My own sense was that by the end of the day the judge was satisifed with the explanation and has found himself a way out of this mess.

Don’t expect a ruling today. The judge said it would come later.

Trump’s First Criminal Trial Is All Set

The other significant news in Trump prosecution world yesterday was in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, where the judge denied Trump’s motions to dismiss and kept the March 25 trial date. Jury selection is a little over a month away.

Waiting On SCOTUS

Following Trump’s reply filing late yesterday, the Supreme Court could announce as early as today whether it will take Trump’s immunity appeal up in the Jan. 6 case. Stay tuned.

BREAKING …

Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, 47, has died in prison, according to a statement from the federal penitentiary service for the region where he was incarcerated.

Big, Big, Big Deal

An unexpected surprise indictment from Special Counsel David Weiss, Hunter Biden’s tormentor: The ex-FBI informant who was at the center of the GOP’s bogus Burisma allegations against the Bidens was charged with the fabricating his claims.

It’s an unbelievable turn of events for Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), and the far-right media-propaganda complex who had trumped up Alexander Smirnov’s allegations. Philip Bump grapples with the implications for the Bidens’ accusers (and what a fantastic kicker to Bump’s story – be sure to click on it).

How’d it play on Fox News? It didn’t.

2024 Ephemera

• MT-Sen: After one week in the race, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) has dropped his bid for the GOP nomination to take on Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). Rosendale was totally screwed when Donald Trump endorsed NRSC-backed GOP candidate Tim Sheehy on the same day Rosendale announced his candidacy. The move does put Republicans in a stronger position to unseat Tester.
• WI-Sen: Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) will be challenged by Republican businessman Eric Hovde.
• Nikki Haley: Trump’s court “chaos” will sink Republicans in November.

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A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Decision Time

In a new filing late Wednesday, Special Counsel Jack Smith got his first shot at Trump’s effort to persuade the Supreme Court to consider his claims of absolute presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

With veteran Supreme Court advocate Michael Dreeben on the brief, Smith presented an elegant and economical argument against Trump’s unprecedented and ahistorical bid for presidential immunity.

But the brief was more notable for what it was trying to steer the justices toward: not taking up the case at all. By reinforcing and amplifying the unanimous DC Circuit decision against Trump, Smith tried to offer the high court the easiest off ramp of all. If the justices decide not to take the case, the appeals court ruling stands and the case immediately goes back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to set a new trial date for Trump.

I remain skeptical that the Supreme Court will pass entirely on the case, but I’m less skeptical than I was. The appeals court opinion was strong, unanimous, and clearly designed to give the Supreme Court few loose edges to grab ahold of. It was from that position of strength that Smith urged the justices to let the appeals court decision stand as a formidable statement on the law, the framework of the Constitution, and history.

In the alternative, Smith argued that if the Supreme Court wants to take the case it should treat Trump’s original filing last week as a request to do so (so far Trump has only asked the Supreme Court to pause the underlying proceedings while he prepares to ask it to take up the case) and expedite a briefing and argument schedule that would still allow the trial to take place before the November election.

Indeed, timing was the real subtext of the Smith brief. The window for getting a trial in before Election Day is narrowing dangerously, and Smith kept hammering home the need for a prompt resolution to the matter:

[T]he public interest in a prompt trial is at its zenith where, as here, a former President is charged with conspiring to subvert the electoral process so that he could remain in office. The Nation has a compelling interest in seeing the charges brought to trial.

Smith’s filing was ahead of schedule; it wasn’t due until Tuesday. Trump will likely file a reply in the coming days. No fixed timetable for when the Supreme Court will render its decision, but I would be surprised if we don’t get something from the court by the end of next week.

Trump In Court Today

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s hush money prosecution of Donald Trump is coming back to life with a hearing scheduled for 9:30 ET this morning with the trial judge. Among the issues expected to come up at the hearing:

• Trump’s bid to dismiss the indictment;
• firming up the trial date, currently March 25; and
• various other pretrial matters, including the mechanics of jury selection.

Trump is expected to attend in person.

Duly Noted

With the criminal cases bearing down on him, Trump is reviving his calls for the House GOP to impeach Joe Biden.

Fani Willis In The Hot Seat

This morning, state Judge Scott McAfee will convene an evidentiary hearing in the Georgia RICO case on whether Atlanta DA Fani Willis should be disqualified from prosecuting the case.

This is the needlessly sordid matter involving Willis’ romantic relationship with a prosecutor she hired. The judge seems less interested in the romance than the claim Willis is improperly benefiting financially from the prosecution. It’s a stretch, but the judge has indicated that’s where his focus is.

Willis’ defense has placed considerable import on her claim that the relationship didn’t commence until after she hired the prosecutor. Whether that holds up to scrutiny (and the damage it will do to her credibility with the judge if it doesn’t) is what I’ll be keeping an eye on.

The hearing could stretch into tomorrow. We have a liveblog covering it for as long as it goes.

The Chesebro Docs

The final installment in TPM’s series on a trove of documents obtained by reporter Josh Kovensky in the Michigan fake electors investigation:

Supreme Pressure Campaign: Trump Attorneys Gamed Out Which Supreme Court Justices Might Help Them Steal the Election

Ouch!

Punchbowl: The disaster that is the House Republican leadership

Tea-Leaf Reading In the NY-03

I’m a huge skeptic of immediate post-election analysis. It’s burdended by a lack of data, a surplus of partisan spin, competitive pressures to “explain” results, and groupthink. One tell: The tendency to land on single proximate cause for the result. With those caveats out of the way, here’s a taste of the post-election analysis in the NY-03 special election to replace George Santos:

• Semafor: Democrats think they’ve found a winning border message
• Aaron Blake: Suozzi gives Dems an immigration road map. It could be tough to follow.
• WaPo: Democrats see 2024 blueprint in N.Y. election that centered on immigration
• Politico: Some Democrats see an immigration blueprint in NY win. Progressives are worried.

Ain’t Nepotism Great?

With Lara Trump to be installed as RNC co-chairwoman, some Republicans are worried Donald Trump will once again start using party funds to pay his legal bills.

2024 Ephemera

• Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee who just oversaw the bogus impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, announced he will not run for re-election this year. Green is the fifth committee chair who has decided not to seek re-election this cycle.
• Michigan GOP chair officially ousted after weeks of chaos.
• AP: “Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled Legislature on Tuesday passed legislative maps that were proposed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers — a move designed to prevent the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court from implementing maps that might be even worse for Republicans.”
• CA-22: Democrats find themselves in a messy primary battle for a swing seat that had been a potential pickup opportunity.

Matt Gaetz Pickup Lines: A Primer

The Valentine’s Day gift we all needed: Someone read to ABC News some of the Matt Gaetz texts obtained by the House Ethics Committee in its probe of the sex trafficking allegations against Gaetz that the feds declined to prosecute.

The man has such game:

• “Hey — any interest in flying on a private plane to the keys May 19-21?”
• “2 guys, 4 girls. A very high-quality adventurous group”
• “As is true with all time you spend w me, it’ll be fun and chill”

Aside from the cringe factor, ABC News describes the texts’ import in this way:

The messages, if accurate, mark the first known example of alleged direct private communication between the Florida congressman and a woman who his one-time close associate Joel Greenberg told investigators he had been paying to have sex with other men, according to documents and interviews with multiple sources.

The woman in question was underage at the time she was being paid by Greenberg to have sex with other adult men, but by the time of the Gaetz texts above she was over 21, according to the ABC News report.

Headline Of The Day

And the winner is: “Putin Trolls ‘Soft’ Tucker Carlson”

Credit to Politico Europe, which has a bit more edge than its domestic counterpart:

Of course, had Putin actually wanted to go toe-to-toe with a formidable opponent, the Kremlin wouldn’t have hand-picked Carlson for his first interview with a Western journalist since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Carlson, the famously Russia-friendly ex-Fox News host, is known more for a penchant for cozying up to autocrats than for probing reportage.

Sad Blast From The Past

Remember Rachel Dolezal, the white woman busted almost a decade ago for pretending to be Black? And when I say pretending to be Black, I’m not sure I’m doing it justice.

Dolezal was the head of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington, and an African Studies professor. So she wasn’t just playing pretend in her own head, she was holding herself out in a very public way as a Black activist. It all came crashing down around her in spectacular fashion.

She popped up again this week, under a new name, when she lost her job with an Arizona school district after a local TV station found her OnlyFans account.

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