There’s going to be a lot to talk about tomorrow with these new fake electors indictments out of Arizona. In fact, there’s so much happening in the news at the moment it’s a bit hard to keep your head straight. But I wanted to note just one exquisite point. One of the indictees is Christina Bobb, OANN talking head turned Trump lawyer, who just last month was appointed as the new head of the RNC’s “election integrity” chief. So yes, the GOP’s head of election integrity has now been charged with election subversion and election fraud. So we’re off to a strong start.
BREAKING …
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has obtained a state grand jury indictment in her probe of the Trump’s 2020 fake electors scheme – and she went higher up the chain than might have been expected.
Continue reading “BREAKING …”George Santos Decides Suing Jimmy Kimmel Is Better Way To Get Attention Than Running For Congress
When expelled-Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) campaign committee reported no fundraising and no expenditures in March, the former congressman — who had launched a new, long shot bid for the First Congressional District in New York — offered up a very Santosian excuse for why exactly his campaign was broke: he didn’t want people to think that he, a notorious fabulist and admitted liar, was scamming everyone again.
“I will not be raising a single dime until I’m confirmed on the ballot, unlike many in the media speculating I’m only running to ‘grift’ I’m setting the standard that only confirmed ballot access candidates should raise money,” Santos told The Daily Beast at the time.
At the start of last month, Santos sought to piggyback on Biden’s fiery State of the Union speech by announcing his plans to run as an Independent against his former colleague and lingering foe Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY).
The bid was largely viewed as a frivolous ploy for attention after the ex-congressman lost his political relevance and was hit with 23 federal counts for allegations including fraud. And even though he had spoken previously about his personal dislike of LaLota, he claimed to the Daily Beast that the only reason he was running in a new district, further from New York City, was so that he and his “husband” could have chickens in their yard. (I put husband in quotes because Santos used the late-Sen. Diane Feinstein’s (D-CA) death to soft launch a relationship that he had never previously mentioned.) Per the Beast:
“My husband and I both enjoy that kind of life. We’re dying to have a chicken coop and stuff like that, and in Suffolk County, it’s much easier to get that,” Santos told The Daily Beast earlier this month. “In Nassau County, it’s full of restrictions on where and how much, and can you get chickens and can you get roosters because of neighbors and noise and that stuff.”
But whether he was running against LaLota as payback for his expulsion from Congress or to enter a new farmstead era with his alleged husband, his candidacy clearly wasn’t garnering the headlines he was hoping for. Santos announced Tuesday that he is no longer running for Congress.
“It’s only goodbye for now, I’ll be back,” he announced on Twitter. His motivation for dropping the charade was simple: “I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems.”
In his tweet Santos went on to explain that “with the rise of antisemitism in our country” he didn’t want to be responsible for handing the House back to Democrats who, he claims, “have a very large issue with antisemitism in their ranks.”
(This is of course all coming from someone who lied about being Jewish and having family members murdered in the Holocaust, only to backtrack when he got caught lying to claim he meant he was “Jew-ish.”)
But the grifter’s true motivation for dropping out of the race may be as simple as the fact that he is more focused on his other ploy for attention. After Santos was expelled from Congress he created a Cameo account to earn a few extra bucks. It was a lucrative move for the former congressman — the account quickly attracted trolls far and wide, including late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who ordered up some Cameos which he then aired on his show. Santos is now suing Kimmel, ABC and Walt Disney, accusing Kimmel of fraud and copyright infringement for allegedly tricking Santos into making the videos, and using them in a way that he was not permitted to — as part of a segment on his show called, “Will Santos Say It?” Santos filed the suit in Manhattan federal court in February and is seeking $150,000 in statutory damages per video.
Kimmel, for his part, has mostly laughed off the suit. Before Santos filed suit in December, Kimmel mocked his threats on his show.
“Could you imagine if I get sued by George Santos for fraud? I mean, how good would that be? It would be like a dream come true,” he said.
The Best Of TPM Today
Catch up on Kate Riga live coverage of of today’s SCOTUS oral arguments here: Case Highlighting The Cruelty Of Anti-Abortion Regimes Hits The Supreme Court
And takeaways here: Conservatives Weave Anti-Abortion Fantasyland To Allow Emergency Room Abortion Bans
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Former Tabloid Exec David Pecker Back On Stand After Trump Contempt Hearing — Josh Kovensky
What We Are Reading
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to let Arizona doctors provide abortions in California — Seattle Pi
New York governor to Mike Johnson: Stay in Washington — Politico
Former Republican mayoral candidate gets 10 days in prison in Jan. 6 case — NBC News
Listen To This: Trump Trial Begins
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss the start of arguments in the hush money trial, Ukraine aid passing in the House and a packed week at the Supreme Court.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Conservatives Weave Anti-Abortion Fantasyland To Allow Emergency Room Abortion Bans
Prolapsed umbilical cord. Septic shock. Ruptured amniotic sac. Hysterectomy.
These, the gruesome reality of pregnancy loss, are not words we often hear during Supreme Court oral arguments, buttoned-up proceedings where the justices prefer theory and abstraction to blood and organs.
On Wednesday, the right-wing justices really preferred the safe world of legal abstraction, where they could pretend that Idaho’s abortion ban — which only has an exception to save the woman’s life — won’t inevitably leave women to gruesome suffering.
The Court’s conservative wing tried with increasing and atextual persistence to convince listeners that Idaho’s strict ban still allows emergency room doctors to provide abortions to women in varying states of medical distress, and not just when doctors are sure the patient is facing death. They crafted a kind of anti-abortion fantasyland where not only do exceptions work, but that the narrowest ones will amenably stretch to cover all the sympathetic cases.
Continue reading “Conservatives Weave Anti-Abortion Fantasyland To Allow Emergency Room Abortion Bans”Case Highlighting The Cruelty Of Anti-Abortion Regimes Hits The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case centered on whether emergency room doctors can provide abortions to women who need them to avoid serious illness and permanent damage — or whether they have to withhold medical care until those women are nearly dead.
The case comes out of Idaho, where the Biden administration says that the state’s abortion ban — with only an exception to prevent the death of the woman — must be superseded by a federal statute requiring hospitals taking in Medicare funds to stabilize patients by whatever means necessary.
The Supreme Court already interceded unusually early to let the Idaho ban go into effect while the case is litigated (not a good sign for abortion rights).
A Poll Obsessive Gives You a Calm and Sober Read
I routinely tell people not to look at every single poll but to focus on trends over time. That is, if you want to look at them at all. We’ll go into Election Day with the polls tight and the outcome still uncertain. I can say this because I actually watch them very, very closely … like unhealthily closely. It’s characterological. I don’t advise it for anyone else. But if you must, it’s okay, and I can relate.
This morning there’s a new batch of swing-state polls from Bloomberg/Morning Consult showing Trump ahead in all but one of those states and growing his lead versus the last of these polls a month ago. That’s not great at all. But as usual I would not invest too much weight in a single poll. These numbers are not in sync with other recent swing-state polls, though actually we have pretty few quality swing-state polls recently. But the overall trend over the last six or seven weeks still seems like what we’ve discussed in the last several posts on this topic. After several months of being behind by a small but real amount (2-4 percentage points), Biden has moved into roughly a tie.
Continue reading “A Poll Obsessive Gives You a Calm and Sober Read”Trump Lawyer Loses All Credibility With Trial Judge
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Gag Order Ruling Could Come At Any Time
Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments Tuesday about whether Trump had or had not already violated the gag order against him in the case multiple times. He didn’t rule from the bench, but with no trial today, I’d be surprised if he didn’t issue his ruling before trial resumes tomorrow.
Merchan was unsparing in his criticisms of the arguments made by Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, at one point telling him: “You’re losing all credibility with the court.” (The jury was not present for this exchange.) Merchan gave no indication how he would rule or the punishment, if any, he would impose.
I have no sympathy for Blanche or the role he’s put himself in, but clearly his effort to channel Trump himself is antagonizing the judge. No surprise there, really. Trump is his own worst enemy, and he’s taking a scorched-earth approach to the trial that is eliciting little sympathy from anyone and foreclosing viable defenses that, while they wouldn’t necessarily lead to acquittal, might soften the blow of a conviction.
Trump is all in on demonizing the whole process, denigrating anyone associated with it, and delegitimizing the court itself. It’s an all-or-nothing approach that would drive most criminal defense attorneys mad.
As if to make the point, Trump arguably violated the gag order again in an appearance on local TV in Pennsylvania later in the day.
Stay tuned today for a possible ruling from Merchan.
No Trial Today
After two partial days of testimony, the hush-money trial stands in recess today. It will resume Thursday.
Because of Passover and a juror’s dental issue, we’ve had a halting start to the trial proper. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker has only testified for a couple of hours so far.
Things ended yesterday with a bit of cliffhanger, as prosecutors had walked Pecker to the cusp of testifying about the Stormy Daniels story. Expect them to pick back up there tomorrow.
Trump And The Tabloid World He Came From
David Pecker’s testimony pulled back the curtain on the bizarro, self-aggrandizing world of Trump and the tabloid world from which he emerged. We knew all of this already, in a way, but it was striking to hear it straight from one of the principal operators in that seedy-but-lucrative publishing backwater:
- WaPo: A secret pact at Trump Tower helped kill bad stories in 2016
- Philip Bump: Ted Cruz spotted the Trump-National Enquirer alliance in 2016
- WaPo: Trump’s long, strange history with the tabloids
Coverage Tips
For the dedicated obsessives, a few deep-dive links:
- TPM’s Monday Live Blog
- TPM’s Tuesday Live Blog
- The transcript of Monday’s trial, including opening statements.
To its credit, the New York court system will be posting daily transcripts of the trial here (it looks like we’ll get those on the following day, not the same day, but beggars can’t be choosers).
Quote Of The Day
SCOTUS Takes Up Trump Immunity Claim Thursday
Ahead of tomorrow’s momentous Supreme Court oral arguments over Donald Trump’s strained claim of presidential immunity, Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann argue the high court has already botched the case.
Trump Executive Privilege Claims May See Light Of Day
Politico won an appeals court ruling ordering the unsealing of the court records in as many as five battles over executive privilege that Special Counsel Jack Smith fought to get high-level Trump White House officials to testify in his investigations of Trump.
Ukraine Aid Passes Senate
The Senate passed the foreign aid package that includes military assistance to Ukraine late Tuesday but not before Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) happily used the occasion of the bill’s imminent passage to slam Tucker Carlson:
Abortion Watch
- The Supreme Court takes up another post-Dobbs abortion case today. The issue is whether a federal law requiring emergency abortions to protect pregnant patients in medical distress overrides Idaho’s abortion ban. TPM’s Kate Riga will be on our coverage.
- Arizona Democratic legislators are expected to try today for a third time to repeal the state’s newly revived Civl War-era abortion ban.
- President Biden ripped Trump on abortion in a Tampa speech:
2024 Ephemera
- AZ-Sen: Where Does Kari Lake Stand On Arizona Abortion Law? Depends Who She Is Talking To.
- NY-01: Indicted and ousted former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has dropped his independent bid for the seat currently held by Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY).
- Politico: Why narrow majorities and House gridlock are here to stay in 2024
Who Is ‘We’ Exactly?
The Republican National Committee co-chair and daughter of its presumptive presidential nominee is just out there touting the Big Lie and threatening voters with prosecution:
Great Work, Tennessee
AP:
Protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” at Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.
Huge Legal And Business News
The Federal Trade Commission banned noncompete agreements for most employees in a remarkable 3-2 vote Tuesday.
In my brief legal career 20 years ago, I spent more time litigating noncompete agreements (on both sides) than on any other single area of law. It was a weird and rapidly evolving area of the law back then. Weird because noncompete agreements were generally disfavored at law as anti-competitive (duh!), but over time numerous exceptions had been carved out that left plenty of room both for trying to enforce them and trying to defend against their enforcement. Hence, lots of litigation.
My understanding is the new FTC rule still allows the kind of noncompetes I was typically dealing with: binding either top executives or former owners who had signed a noncompete as part of the sale of their business. Because of more equal bargaining power, those types of noncompetes are less objectionable from a public policy point of view.
The FTC targets noncompetes for employees, whose bargaining power is more limited and for whom the widespread and indiscriminate use of noncompete agreements does begin to have real anticompetitive effects in the labor market.
Have A Whimsical Day!
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Where Does Kari Lake Stand On Arizona Abortion Law? Depends Who She Is Talking To
A local Arizona news outlet published a story last week highlighting remarks the Republican Senate candidate and election denier Kari Lake made to a crowd at an event put on by the Mohave County Republican Party. She appeared to lament the fact that the 1864-era total abortion ban that the state Supreme Court just allowed back on the books won’t be enforced in the state, unless local sheriffs decide to do it.
Continue reading “Where Does Kari Lake Stand On Arizona Abortion Law? Depends Who She Is Talking To”Prosecutors Build Towards The Stormy Daniels Hush-Money Scheme
NEW YORK — Manhattan prosecutors teed up a key witness in Trump’s criminal trial on Tuesday to delve into the hush-money allegations that form the center of their case: concealed, and allegedly covered-up, payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Continue reading “Prosecutors Build Towards The Stormy Daniels Hush-Money Scheme”