In today’s episode of the podcast, Kate Riga and I did a preview of tonight’s GOP debate. So if you’re going to be watching tonight try to listen before the show. We did our best to give pointers on what to look out for. It should be showing up in your feeds this afternoon if you subscribe.
Prigozhin’s Jet Goes Down, And The Russian Gov’t Claims He Was On Board
Two months to the day after launching a mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, a plan belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed north of Moscow. Russian wire services cited government agencies as saying that Prigozhin was on board.
No agency has yet claimed that Prigozhin is dead; only that he was on a manifest listing passengers aboard the plane that crashed.
Continue reading “Prigozhin’s Jet Goes Down, And The Russian Gov’t Claims He Was On Board”The Hucksters of the Right
It’s a bit off our radar. But I wanted to point your attention to this eye-popping story on defeated former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro embraced the Trump comparison in office and followed that pattern with his own failed insurrection which broke out after he refused to recognize his reelection defeat in 2022. Since then he’s been under a number of investigations into subjects ranging from his failed coup to various Watergate-like infractions in office to other instances of corruption. But the one that is his most immediate threat turns on his allegedly fencing fancy gifts he received from foreign heads of state at stores and auction houses in the United States.
Continue reading “The Hucksters of the Right”Big New Reveals In The Mar-a-Lago Case
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Aileen Cannon Forced Jack Smith’s Hand
Special Counsel Jack Smith in a new filing Tuesday outlined how it came to be that a third defendant was added to the Mar-a-Lago case in a superseding indictment.
Some of this may sound familiar to you because it mirrors reporting by CNN and the WaPo in late July, but now we have it confirmed by Smith. The short version is this: Trump Employee 4 (identified by news outlets as Yuscil Taveras) receives a target letter that conflicts out his attorney Stanley Woodward, Taveras gets a new attorney, Taveras meets with the feds, a superseding indictment soon follows adding Carlos De Oliveira as a co-defendant and new charges against Trump and Walt Nauta.
But there’s quite a bit more to this whole episode, the new filing reveals:
- In March 2023 testimony to the DC grand jury, Taveras and De Oliveira perjured themselves by denying having any conversations about the security footage at Mar-a-Lago.
- In June 2023, Smith advised Woodward that Taveras was a target of his investigation and sought a hearing with the chief judge in DC over Woodward conflict of interest. Woodward was repping both Nauta and Taveras.
- U.S. District Judge James Boasberg provided Taveras with a public defender to confer with about the conflicts of interest Woodward had. On July 5, Taveras informed Boasberg that he was changing lawyers from Woodward to the public defender.
- Soon after, Taveras recanted his prior false testimony to the grand jury and implicated Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira. The superseding indictment soon followed.
There’s a lot more there, beyond the scope of Morning Memo. But suffice to say, that Smith is hitting back hard on three main points: (1) his use of the grand jury in DC was proper; (2) Woodward is deeply conflicted for all the above reasons but also because he was provided to Taveras and paid for by Trumpworld entities; and (3) there is zero precedent for resolving this kind of conflict by barring the testimony of a key witness, which is what Woodward proposed.
One irony here is that Smith was forced to put it all on the public record because U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon rejected his effort to file under seal in a more discreet way.
From The Sublime To The Ridiculous
A few words before we dive into the maneuverings of Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark.
Both have colorable claims for removal of the Georgia racketeering case to federal court and possibly for immunity from state prosecution because each was a federal official at the time of the charged conduct. I don’t want to minimize their legal arguments because they’re not frivolous or contrived. That’s not to say they’re airtight cases, but they do have factual and legal bases for the arguments.
Each man is trying, understandably, to secure the protections from state-level prosecutions afforded to federal officials before they have to surrender to authorities in Atlanta. Here’s the rub: Fani Willis has given the 19 defendants until Friday at noon to surrender, but the federal judge has scheduled a hearing on removal for next Monday. That’s too late for Meadows and Clark to avoid having to surrender. Hence the maneuverings of the last 24 hours, with each of them filing emergency motions with the federal court.
It’s just that in each instance, things get weird fast because of who we’re dealing with.
Let’s start with Jeff Clark.
Entitled Much?
The lol funny argument from Jeff Clark came in the form of a demand for the federal judge who is considering removing the state prosecution to his court to decide immediately on Clark’s emergency motion to stop the proceedings in state court. His argument: please don’t require me to make “rushed travel arrangements to fly into Atlanta.”
UPDATE: In his motion for an emergency stay of the Fulton County prosecution, Jeff CLARK says he wants to avoid
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 22, 2023
"the choice of making rushed travel arrangements to fly into Atlanta or instead risking being labeled a fugitive"
He wants a decision by 5pmhttps://t.co/vw9cwXJzDg pic.twitter.com/sEzoG8TYpI
As one might expect, this entitled tone elicited howls of laughter from legal types. The general reaction was: Welcome to being a criminal defendant. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance called Clark “the Karen of criminal defendants.”
In response, the federal judge did not rule immediately but instead gave Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis until 3 p.m. today to respond to Clark’s motion. Stay tuned on this.
Fani Willis To Mark Meadows: Talk To The Hand
For his part, Mark Meadows asked Atlanta DA Fani Willis to grant him an extension to surrender until after the federal court hearing next week. Willis was having none of it:
Willis’ refusal to play along led to Meadows’ seeking emergency relief.
For his part Trump looks prepared to surrender Thursday, even though it is expected that he too will eventually seek removal of the case to federal court.
This is where the early action is in the Georgia case. I’ll have more as the federal judge issues rulings and makes decisions.
It’s Really Happening, Folks
The dribble of defendants surrendering in the Georgia racketeering case continued Tuesday and overnight, yielding this John Eastman gem:
Good Read
NYT: How Mark Meadows Pursued a High-Wire Legal Strategy in Trump Inquiries
Trump Comes To Rudy’s Aid
2024 Ephemera
- Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) is challenging Sen. Rick Scott (R).
Join Us Tonight!
Need some company tonight while enduring the first GOP presidential debate of the 2024 cycle? We’ll be here live-blogging it. Come hang.
!!!
Politico: D.C. Attorney General is probing Leonard Leo’s network
Ed Blum Is Back At It
Edward Blum, who engineered the lawsuit behind the Supreme Court’s June decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, sued the international law firms Perkins Coie and Morrison & Foerster over their fellowships for diverse candidates.
The lawsuits, filed by Edward Blum’s two-year-old, anti-affirmative-action organization, American Alliance for Equal Rights, accuse the law firms of unlawful racial discrimination against white candidates. They ask the courts to remove race from consideration when selecting fellows. The law firms have offices in Texas and Florida. The suits are filed in federal courts in both states.
A Rare Instance Of Voter Fraud
An Ohio attorney supportive of Donald Trump who voted twice in multiple elections went straight to jail after being found guilty of voter fraud Tuesday. James Saunders voted in Ohio and in Florida in 2014, 2016, 2020, and 2022. He was convicted for the last two elections; the first two were beyond the statute of limitations. Sentencing is next week. Saunders faces probation to three years in prison.
What A Swell Guy
CBS News: Burner phones, mistress on payroll… revelations emerge about Texas AG Ken Paxton’s relationship to developer Nate Paul
What A Swell Guy II
The snare is closing on former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, but not for the scheme(s) you might expect. Nope. How about this instead: “Selling embezzled watches at a shopping mall outside Philadelphia.” Here’s how the NYT describes it (emphasis mine):
This month, Brazilian federal police carried out raids as part of an investigation into what it says was a broad conspiracy by Mr. Bolsonaro and several allies to embezzle expensive gifts he received as president from Saudi Arabia and other countries. In one case, authorities accuse Mr. Bolsonaro’s personal aide of selling a diamond Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a jewelry shop at the Willow Grove Park mall in Pennsylvania last year.
Like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Georgia Republicans’ Fani Willis Payback Long Game
When Georgia Republicans began pursuing a Gov. Brian Kemp (R)-backed initiative last summer that would create a state-run board with authority to investigate and oust local district attorneys, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) didn’t hesitate to give away the game from the start.
Continue reading “Georgia Republicans’ Fani Willis Payback Long Game”How Tennessee’s Justice System Allows Dangerous People To Keep Guns — With Deadly Outcomes
This article was originally published at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom and produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with WPLN/Nashville Public Radio.
As America emerged from the pandemic, communities continued to experience a rising tide of gun violence. School shootings and the rate of children and teens killed by gunfire both reached all-time highs since at least 1999. ProPublica’s coverage of gun violence reveals how first responders, policymakers and those directly affected are coping with the bloodshed.
Michaela Carter felt like she was being hunted.
Continue reading “How Tennessee’s Justice System Allows Dangerous People To Keep Guns — With Deadly Outcomes”Eastman Gets A Two Day Delay In Disbarment Trial – So He Can Surrender In Georgia
The judge overseeing John Eastman’s disbarment proceedings in California is granting a delay in proceedings, but only to accommodate the former Trump lawyer’s planned surrender to authorities in Fulton County, Georgia.
Continue reading “Eastman Gets A Two Day Delay In Disbarment Trial – So He Can Surrender In Georgia”Should Be Fun
In addition to the prosaic matters of corruption, securities fraud, free home renovations from a donor and obstructing federal investigations, Texas AG Ken Paxton’s upcoming impeachment trial in the Texas state Senate will include evidence that he used a fake Uber account to hide visits to his mistress as well as burner phones and secret personal email addresses.
The Curious Unreality of the GOP Primary Race
Recently we were planning debate coverage. And to do that we went back and watched one of the early 2016 GOP debates. It was striking to me on a number of levels. Only seven years ago — but it was a lifetime ago, truly a different world in politics. A huge amount of the debate was about combating the ISIS threat. You had a bunch of grandstanding about the power and necessity of being willing to say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” But the biggest difference was that hard-to-quite-capture dimension of nothing Republican presidential candidates say really mattering because of the unspoken presence of Donald Trump.
Trump was on the stage in this debate. But it was early. It was before the only real question was whether or not any of the candidates would be able to stop Trump. Today you might see Nikki Haley, or Mike Pence or Ron DeSantis making a speech or doing an interview. But it doesn’t really matter what they’re saying. Because whatever they’re saying isn’t actually what they’re saying. It’s a way to make an argument or communicate something else about the thing that can’t be mentioned: Donald Trump. It’s like a mime performance where the unseen object they’re reacting against is Donald Trump.
Trump’s BS Ain’t Gonna Fly In Federal Court
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
What Price Trump’s Gamesmanship?
I always found that establishing yourself as a reliable narrator to the judge was good for you as a lawyer, good for your client, and not to be too earnest but just plain good overall.
But that is so not Trump’s style. He’ll make any argument at any time for any purpose without regard to whether it will withstand scrutiny, hold up to the slightest challenge, undermine other better arguments, or make him and his lawyers look like fools.
In a new filing Monday, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team used Trump’s absurdly over-the-top bid for a 2026 trial date in the Jan. 6 case to begin to show this pattern of unreliability to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan:
- Funny math: Trump’s team claimed that the median time for a prosecution of this kind to get to trial was 29.4 months, but DOJ pointed out that that 29.4 months is the median time not from indictment until the start of trial but from indictment to the completion of sentencing by the court. Shorter message: Trump deceived you, your honor.
- More funny math: The cases Trump used to arrive at its median number came from the period of October 2021 until September 2022 when federal courts were unwinding the COVID backlog and only 22 cases went to trial nationwide, DOJ argued. “This small and skewed sample provides no help to the Court in deciding an appropriate trial date,” DOJ argued. Shorter message: We’re helpful, your honor, and the defendant is not.
- Bellyaching: Trump complained loudly that it would be impossible to review the millions of pages of discovery in time for 2024 trial date, but DOJ pointed out that no one manually reviews every page of discovery any more. That’s what electronic discovery vendors do and Trump has one. Shorter message: Don’t be taken in by the defendant’s histrionics, your honor.
- Hyperbole: Trump compared the amount of discovery to tall buildings and Russian novels, but DOJ scoffed at the hyperbole: “comparisons to the height of the Washington Monument and the length of a Tolstoy novel are neither helpful nor insightful.” Shorter message: We can provide reliable input for the real decisions your honor must make.
- Fake conflicts: Trump bitterly complained that DOJ wanted jury selection in the Jan. 6 case to start on the same day as a scheduled hearing in the Mar-a-Lago case in Florida. DOJ acknowledged the conflict and adjusted it’s proposed schedule accordingly. Shorter message: We can reasonably resolve real conflicts and here we are doing so, reasonably.
It was a short, six-page filing. It won’t amount to much in the long run. But it’s beginning to establish a pattern for the judge of Trump being unreasonable and prosecutors being reasonable. One side is reliable and judicious; the other is voluble and self-interested.
By all accounts, these are things that Chutkan (and any good judge) will recognize early and take into account to avoid being led around by the nose, taken advantage of, and otherwise bamboozled into bad decisions. In contrast, the single most concerning thing about U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago case is that she may be too inexperienced or too biased or ideologically compromised to recognize a bad-apple defendant making preposterous arguments and representations to the court.
It took many journalists years to figure out they were being played by Trump (and some of the cable nets still haven’t learned). We can’t afford for Trump’s judges to be that slow on the uptake.
Trump Must Post Bond And Shut Up
No release on his own recognizance for Trump in Georgia. He must post a $200,000 bond and submit to the following conditions of pre-trial release:
Trump To Surrender Thursday
Or so he says:
The Rush To Federal Court
Two more defendants in Fani Willis’ Georgia racketeering prosecution are seeking to have the case removed to federal court: former Trump DOJ official Jeff Clark and former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer.
Clark’s basis for removal is plausible: He was a federal official at the time of the alleged criminal conduct.
Shafer, who was a fake elector for Trump in Georgia, has a more curious and provocative claim: He’s arguing that as a “contingent” presidential elector he was an officer of the United States and therefore entitled to have the case tried in federal court.
Eastman Gets His Delay. Kinda.
Coup architect John Eastman failed to in his bid to postpone his disbarment proceedings in California on account of his indictment in Georgia, but he has won a small delay … so that he may surrender on the Georgia charges lol:
Indicted Santos Fundraiser In Plea Talks
In a new filing, federal prosecutors said they are attempting to resolve the case against Sam Miele, a former fundraiser for Rep. George Santos (R-NY), short of trial. Miele was indicted for allegedly impersonating a one-time aide to Speaker Kevin McCarthy to juice Miele’s own fundraising efforts.
Looking Ahead
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to issue three significant rulings in the coming weeks that could bear on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work, CNN reminds us.
First GOP Debate Field Set
A reminder that the presidential primary debates are a far cry from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the presidential commission general election debates, or the old-style debates hosted by a civic-minded organization like the League of Women Voters.
These are not really civic endeavors but ratings boosts for the TV networks. It’s a bad situation we’ve gotten ourselves into, and we shouldn’t fall into covering these debates as anything other than what they are.
With that caveat out of the way, the lineup for the Trump-less Fox News GOP debate Wednesday night is set: Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum.
Factoid Of The Day
A Closing Note
Like Morning Memo? Let us know!