To take Justice Neil Gorsuch at his word, the Supreme Court’s consideration of Moore v. United States Tuesday was littered with landmines and replete with the threat of an avaricious Congress targeting regular people’s savings as a tax windfall.
Continue reading “Gorsuch Warns Congress Is Coming For Your Savings In Totally Real, Not Made Up Threat”Trump Serves Up Grossest Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theories To Get Himself Off The Hook
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Speaking In Code
A keen-eyed story from the WaPo observing that some of the fringiest conspiracy theories about what happened on Jan. 6 have made it into Trump’s legal filings in his federal prosecution in DC.
Trump has been trying to rattle the cage of prosecutors (and amp up his supporters) by seeking discovery on some of the most bogus and debunked conspiracy theories around Jan. 6 — and by baselessly suggesting the government is hiding information.
Among the things Trump has sought to amplify via his legal filings:
- Rioters nicknamed by conspiracy theorists as “Fence Cutter Bulwark” and “Scaffold Commander” whom they claim are government instigators of the Capitol attack.
- Ray Epps, the Trump supporter falsely accused by conspiracists of being an undercover operative, who has pleaded guilty to a Jan. 6 related crime.
- Antifa and “informants, cooperators [and] undercover agents … involved in the assistance, planning, or encouragement” of the events of that day.
Jury Selection Underway in Trump Jan. 6 Trial?
NBC News has obtained what appears to be “pre-screening” form for potential jurors in the Jan. 6 election interference trial in DC.
What matches up? The form seeks information about potential jurors’ availability to appear Feb. 9 to complete a written questionnaire for a trial set to start March 4 and last three months (not including jury selection).
Additional Reading
Dennis Aftergut on Trump’s two immunity defeats, with a focus on Judge Chutkan’s “artful” ruling.
If Trump Wins
The Atlantic devotes an entire issue to what a second Trump term would look like. A sampling:
- Barton Gellman: How Trump Gets Away With It
- David Frum: The Danger Ahead
- Franklin Foer: Donald Trump and his cronies left his first administration with a playbook for self-enrichment in a second term.
- McKay Coppins: In a second Trump term, there would be no adults in the room.
- Adam Serwer: In a second term, Donald Trump would appoint more judges who don’t care about the law.
The NYT, Too
The latest installment from the NYT in its loose series on a Trump second term: Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First
Counterpoint: Marcy Wheeler continues to bang on the NYT for not fully grasping how the first Trump impeachment, Ukraine and the bogus Biden impeachment are all connected. More on that from me below.
Why Liz Cheney Is Important
She’s not the most articulate Trump critic, she doesn’t come with the least baggage, and she no longer holds elected office or much sway in official GOP circles, but former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and people like her could serve as an important bridge for conservatives looking to re-enter normal, consensus-based, majority-rule politics. That’s an important function – creating and serving as a form of permission structure – for eventually bringing wayward conservatives back into the fold. I admit that “eventually” is doing a lot of work there.
Trump Gag Order In NY Trial Not Going Away
Donald Trump missed a deadline for expedited review of the gag order imposed in the New York civil fraud trial, meaning it will likely remain in place through the remainder of the trial.
Bogus Biden Impeachment Is Back On
The House GOP is gearing up its bogus Biden impeachment just in time for the 2024 campaign season. The timing is no accident of course. Here’s the latest:
- A House floor vote on impeachment could come as soon as this week.
- Joyce Vance on the revenge impeachment.
- A proper reaction:
It’s All Connected
The Biden impeachment is a direct result of the Trump effort to manufacture dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine even if it meant extorting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which of course led to the first Trump impeachment.
The impact has been an especially egregious setback for Ukraine, which lost or at least saw serious erosion of the bipartisan support in the U.S. for its defense. The fact that Ukraine funding is now being held hostage to performative border security agita by House Republicans is just the latest manifestation of the GOP’s anti-Ukraine/pro-Russian bent, which really got kicked off by Trump’s July 2019 “perfect call” with Zelensky.
2024 Ephemera
- Four candidates have qualified for Wednesday night’s GOP presidential primary debate in Tuscaloosa (which Donald Trump is again skipping): Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Vivek Ramaswamy.
- WSJ: “With President Biden struggling to bring his polling numbers up, he and his fellow Democrats are sharpening their focus on a different task—pushing former President Donald Trump’s numbers down.”
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) suspends his long-shot presidential campaign.
U.S. Ambassador Was Allegedly A Covert Agent For Cuba
Initial reporting that a former U.S. ambassador was charged with secretly acting as an agent of Cuba sounded like another run-of-the-mill lobbying-without-registering FARA case.
It IS a FARA case, but it’s hardly run of the mill, and doesn’t really involve lobbying.
The charging document unveiled Monday is much more in the vein of a classic counterintelligence investigation, alleging that former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia Manuel Rocha has served as a covert agent of Cuba’s intelligence services since 1981.
How he got caught and the self-ownage involved is a story in its own right, as TPM’s Hunter Walker reports.
Sign O’ The Times
Expelled Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is now on Cameo, and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) saw an opportunity to troll indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ):
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Did Hamas Short the Israeli Economy?
This is a fascinating story amidst the general tragedy and bleak carnage of the last two months. Two scholars analyzed trading in the days just before the October 7th massacres in southern Israel and put together a pretty strong case that someone essentially shorted the Israeli economy based on foreknowledge of the attacks. Specifically, they tracked short selling of an exchange traded fund, which gave investors broad exposure to the Israeli economy.
Continue reading “Did Hamas Short the Israeli Economy?”House GOPer Moves To Cut Off Pension Benefits For Ousted Members
Times are tough.
Today we learned that expelled-Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is using the website Cameo to sell videos for cash now that he no longer has a congressional salary and has been accused of, among many other things, misappropriating campaign funds to bankroll his expensive taste.
Continue reading “House GOPer Moves To Cut Off Pension Benefits For Ousted Members”Court Documents Describe Shocking Sting That Led A Former U.S. Ambassador To Be Accused Of Spying For Cuba
Manuel Rocha, the former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia was, in his own words, “pissed.” It was June 23, 2023, and he was in a Miami food court meeting with a man named “Miguel” whom he believed was working with Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence.
“The Dirección wants to ensure that you are still a Compañero of ours,” Miguel asked, using the Spanish name for the Cuban intelligence agency. “Are you still with us?”
The question set Rocha off..
“I am angry,” he said. “It’s like questioning my manhood … It’s like you want me to drop them … and show you if I still have testicles.”
An indignant Rocha then proceeded to outline his bona fides as a Cuban agent to Miguel.
What Rocha did not know was that Miguel was in fact an undercover FBI employee.
The tense scene was outlined by an FBI special agent in a criminal complaint wherein Rocha was charged with having “acted for decades as a covert agent” of Cuban intelligence. Based on the court document, Rocha was providing Havana with information — and misleading his State Department colleagues — as he rose through the diplomatic ranks including serving on the White House national security council.
Rocha was hit with multiple federal charges on Dec.1 including acting as an agent of a foreign government. The criminal complaint accuses him of working with Havana from the very beginning of his State Department career and describes the series of cloak and dagger meetings where the alleged betrayal unraveled.
According to an archived biography on the State Department website, Rocha joined the agency in 1981 and worked in Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Italy, Argentina, and Havana. He worked on the NSC between 1991 and 1994 as Director for Inter-American Affairs where his purview included issues involving Cuba.
Rocha became the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia in 2000 and remained in this capacity until he left the State Department in 2002. Following his departure from State, Rocha worked as a special advisor to the U.S. military commander of SOUTHCOM and held multiple high profile jobs in the private sector.
The criminal complaint says the FBI became aware of Rocha’s work as an agent of Cuba’s intelligence agency “prior to November 2022.” That month, an undercover agent messaged Rocha on Whatsapp.
“Good Afternoon ambassador, my name is Miguel and I have a message for you from your friends in Havana. It is in regards to a sensitive matter. Are you available for a telephone call?” the undercover agent wrote.
“I don’t understand but you can call me,” Rocha replied.
The pair set up a phone call where Miguel told Rocha they were “ordered … to make contact with you to give you a message.”
“I know that you have been a great friend of ours since your time in Chile,” said Miguel.
According to the complaint, Rocha subsequently set up three meetings with Miguel including the June 2023 conversation at the food court. En route to each of those conversations, the FBI observed Rocha using tactics that the criminal complaint described as “consistent” with Cuban intelligence “tradecraft” including taking an “indirect” route and watching the meeting location “for several minutes … from a safe distance.”
Despite Rocha’s precautionary measures, according to the complaint, when he sat down with Miguel, the former ambassador “repeatedly described and celebrated his activity as a DGI agent.” The FBI taped and filmed these encounters and translated them from Spanish to English.
During the conversations, Rocha allegedly asked Miguel to send “my warmest regards to the Dirección” and boasted of the loyalty to Cuba’s revolutionary communist government that he felt while working in the State Department.
“My number one concern, my number one priority was … any action on the part of Washington that would … endanger the life of … the leadership … or the revolution itself,” Rocha said.
Rocha also allegedly described how Cuban intelligence worked with him throughout his diplomatic career.
“I went little by little,” Rocha explained. “lt was a very meticulous process … obviously the Dirección accompanied me.”
Having a high-level diplomat working as a double agent would have been an immense coup for Cuba, which has had a contentious relationship with America for decades. During his conversations with Miguel, Rocha allegedly touted the importance of his subterfuge.
“What we have done … it’s enormous … more than a grand slam,” Rocha said.
The criminal complaint provides some hint of what led Rocha to let his guard down with the undercover agent. Along with learning about Rocha’s alleged involvement with Cuban intelligence, U.S. law enforcement seems to have found out specific signals he used with his handlers. In comments quoted in the document, Rocha indicated that he had been expecting someone named Miguel and that it was significant for this person to have referenced “Chile” when they reached out to him.
“They must have told you something because you mentioned Chile. … That … inspired trust in me,” Rocha said.
During his meetings with Miguel, the criminal complaint said Rocha also used a Colombian peso note as a signal. Along with describing his past work with Cuban intelligence — which included meetings in Havana — Rocha also allegedly expressed his desire to remain helpful. The charges against Rocha include some related to false statements he allegedly made to obtain a passport he used for some of his travel to Cuba. According to the Washington Post, Rocha faces up to 10 years in prison.
Following his lengthy diplomatic career, Rocha held multiple positions in the private sector including serving on the board of a cannabis business and working as a vice president at a coal company. On his Linkedin page, Rocha also described himself as a “senior international business adviser” at Foley & Lardner, a prominent white shoe law firm.
Rocha, who had an initial court appearance on Monday and did not enter a plea, could not be reached for comment. A phone number associated with Rocha in public records databases led to Foley & Lardner and an automated recording:
“Manuel Rocha is no longer with the firm.”
Inside the Tunnels
I’ve mentioned a few times over the last eight weeks that one of the key challenges in reporting on or making sense of events in Gaza right now is that at the most basic level we don’t know what is happening in the military engagement or even precisely what the aims are. According to the latest reports, some 15,800 residents of Gaza have died in the fighting over the last two months, just a staggering number. Some percentage of those are Hamas combatants. The Gazan health ministry doesn’t disagree. But the great majority are civilians. (The Gaza health ministry is run by Hamas but in previous conflicts there numbers have proven generally accurate.) At the same time Israel has estimated that it has killed some two or three thousand Hamas fighters, just a tiny percentage of a fighting force reputed to total 30,000 or more.
Continue reading “Inside the Tunnels”Listen To This: Manly Grievance And The Far Right
Kate and TPM’s Nicole Lafond are joined by Professor Karen Lee Ashcraft to discuss a masculinity “in crisis,” its intrinsic connection to right-wing politics and how the Josh Hawleys and J.D. Vances of the world are hijacking it for their own ends.
Belaboring The Point is now on YouTube! Check out the latest video episode of the podcast here.
Continue reading “Listen To This: Manly Grievance And The Far Right”What A Tangled Web – Florida Republicans Gone Wild
The case of the Zieglers, the Florida GOP traditional values power couple, caught up in a case of three-ways and alleged rape took several turns for the weird and the worse over the weekend. (David provided an update in this morning’s Morning Memo.) The story has a complicated, uncanny dynamic because, on the one hand, it’s that old as the hills story of a family values Republican caught up in sexual practices which, if harmless themselves for consenting adults, don’t at all square with their public personas or policy agenda. On the other, buried in that schadenfreude-y story of Republicans with their pants down is a very credible accusation of rape.
Let’s try to give each part of the story its due.
Continue reading “What A Tangled Web – Florida Republicans Gone Wild”George Santos Is Selling Videos On Cameo Now
After losing his job as a congressman, George Santos is apparently trying to cash in on his infamy by selling videos on the online service Cameo.
Within the past few days, Santos added a link to the site where a motley assortment of largely lower grade celebrities and influencers sell text messages and personalized videos, to his Twitter page. Santos’ Cameo account bills him as a “Former congressional ‘Icon’!💅🏼” and “the Expelled member of Congress from New York City.” He’s selling “personal” videos for $150 and text messages for $10. Santos did not immediately respond to requests for comment about his new venture.
Santos’ brief political career erupted into scandal shortly after he won a House seat last November when a local newspaper and the New York Times revealed he had lied about several aspects of his professional and personal history. As the spotlight fell on Santos, multiple reports — including several exclusives from TPM — uncovered irregularities in his campaign finances and allegations he ripped off donors’ credit cards. Santos subsequently faced criminal charges and a House Ethics Committee investigation that precipitated his expulsion. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him and dismissed the Ethics probe as a “slanderous report.”
The various investigations into Santos have painted a picture of him living a high roller lifestyle while operating on financial fumes and allegedly making up the difference by misappropriating campaign funds. Becoming just the sixth person expelled from Congress left Santos without a salary and, if the Cameo is any indication, needing to turn to new inventive sources of income.
Santos is not the first MAGA Republican to join Cameo while facing legal trouble and associated financial issues. Two of President Trump’s top advisers who have been caught up in investigations related to Jan. 6, Roger Stone and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have both operated accounts on the site. Their presence has led to some content that, depending on your viewpoint, is either embarrassing or amazing.
Trump Takes A One-Two Gut Punch On Presidential Immunity
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
No One Is Above The Law
A lot happened on Friday, and I unpack most of it below. But unquestionably the two most significant events were separate court rulings on the limits of presidential immunity.
The first decision came from the DC Court of Appeals and ruled that a civil lawsuit by members of Congress and law enforcement against Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 attack can proceed despite Trump’s claims of civil immunity. This was the less consequential decision of the day because while a blow to Trump it largely punted for now the question of whether Trump’s conduct as a losing candidate and around the Jan. 6 attack was within the scope of his duties as president. That’s a factual question that will need to be developed at the trial court level, and we are likely to see this issue back before the appeals court before all is said and done.
Later in the day, in a more significant decision, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s ahistorical argument that the president enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. This is Trump’s boldest, most sweeping legal defense and threatens to undermine any prosecution of him from his time in office. It’s also absurd, and Chutkan was unmoved by Trump’s arguments.
Importantly, the immunity argument is part and parcel of Trump’s delay strategy to push his prosecutions until after the 2024 election, gambling that he will win and then can use the powers of the office to make his personal criminal liability go away. The immunity ruling is appealable now and will likely end up at the Supreme Court, all of which takes time. This doesn’t, as Joyce Vance notes, fall into the category of preposterous Trump delays. “Appeals mean delay—not the sort of strategic, excessive delay that is Trump’s hallmark in court proceedings, but delay as a necessary incident to the process.” Still, time is short.
Rule Of Law Porn
So satisfying to read these lines from Judge Chutkan’s ruling against absolute immunity from criminal liability for American presidents:
Whatever immunities a sitting President may enjoy, the United States has only one Chief Executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong “get-out-of-jail-free” pass.
“If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny.”
(quoting Justice Felix Frankfurter)
Every President will face difficult decisions; whether to intentionally commit a federal crime should not be one of them.
By definition, the President’s duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ does not grant special latitude to violate them.
Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.
Former Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability. Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.
A former President’s exposure to federal criminal liability is essential to fulfilling our constitutional promise of equal justice under the law.
Georgia RICO Trial Date In Doubt
The trial judge overseeing Atlanta DA Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution of Trump et al. expressed skepticism from the bench Friday that the August 2024 trial date she is seeking is realistic.
Love To See The Trump Pardon Coverage
Trump’s pardons remain among the most corrupt acts of his presidency, so I happily wallow in any coverage that seeks to unpack what happened and why. Two gems over the weekend:
- WaPo: Trump pardoned them. Now they’re helping him return to power.
- Amanda Carpenter, a one-time aide to Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) who has become a relentless Trump critic, offers a helpful breakdown of three categories of what she calls Trump’s “henchmen pardons”:
Rudy In The Wringer As Defamation Trial Approaches
The DC federal judge overseeing the defamation case against Rudy Giuliani by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss has rejected his attempt to avoid the jury trial set to begin next week.
Giuliani had argued inexplicably that because a default judgment on liability was entered against him (as a sanction for not complying with his pre-trial discovery obligations), a jury trial on damages was somehow inappropriate.
Sorry, no dice, the judge breezily ruled. Trial is set for Dec. 11.
WARNING: Trump Is Still At It
Even as we contend with the slow-moving legal accountability for Donald Trump’s past misdeeds, he continues to engage in the same conduct that led to his indictment for subverting the 2020 election and is now directing it toward the 2024 election.
- Trump contends that the 2020 election was stolen and that he’ll prove it in court:
Trump claims that when he goes to trial in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, "we want to redo the election." pic.twitter.com/ybZQZc9yei
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 2, 2023
- Trump is seeking to delegitimize, undermine and indeed threaten free and fair elections in majority Black urban areas in 2024:
- Trump’s rhetoric is once again forcing election officials to defend publicly the integrity of the process. “When a former president is spreading disinformation, it’s up to us to be truth tellers,” said Philadelphia elections official Lisa Deeley.
Liz Cheney Keeps Sounding The Alarm
Goodbye, George Santos
Not even this House GOP, with its band of crazies and super-thin majority, could stomach any more of George Santos. That fellow members of the GOP conference were alleged victims of Santos, too, didn’t help.
There’s Effing Video??!?
The tale of the Florida GOP chairman and his Moms For Liberty wife who had a threesome with a woman who accused him of subsequently raping her – with me so far? – got a bit more sordid with the release of investigators’ search warrant affidavit:
- Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler admitted to police that he recorded a video of the Oct. 2 encounter that led to the rape allegation. He initially deleted the video.
- Bridget Ziegler acknowledged that she, her husband and the victim had sex together more than a year before the alleged rape. Christian Ziegler had known the alleged victim for more than 20 years.
- Christian Ziegler said he and the victim had sex during the Oct. 2 encounter but that it was consensual.
- The victim said she had agreed to meet with both Zieglers on the day in question but canceled when she learned Bridget Ziegler wouldn’t be coming, too.
- After the alleged rape, the victim, with police monitoring her communications, engaged with Christian Ziegler via text and telephone until he started to suspect he was being recorded.
Christian Ziegler has denied wrongdoing.
Appeals Court Sinks Abbott’s Rio Grande Buoys
The 5th Circuit ruled against Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and in favor of the Biden administration, ordering Texas to remove the border buoys in the Rio Grande. The buoys were but a part of Abbott’s long-running performance pretending that Texas is still a republic and in control of the border with Mexico.
I’m Sensing A Pattern Here
September: Unapologetic ex-ambassador avoids prison in illicit lobbying case
December: Former US ambassador arrested in Florida, accused of serving as an agent of Cuba
Sandra Day O’Connor, 1930-2023
The first woman on the Supreme Court lived long enough to see four women sitting on the high court simultaneously.
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