It appears House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is resigned to the fact that his conference’s far-right flank will likely continue to hold the appropriations process hostage when the House returns next month.
Continue reading “McCarthy Says Short Term Bill Is Prob Needed To Avoid Shutdown Far-Right Is Risking”Another Special Episode
For those of you who are subscribers/listeners to The Josh Marshall Podcast, Kate Riga and I just recorded a special instapod on today’s mifepristone decision from the 5th circuit, in addition to today’s regularly scheduled weekly pod. So that special episode should be showing up on your device some time later today if you subscribe.
Fani Willis Asks For A March 4 Trial Date On Trump Case
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office filed a motion on Wednesday requesting a March 4 start date for the criminal trial against former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-conspirators.
Continue reading “Fani Willis Asks For A March 4 Trial Date On Trump Case”State Bar: Eastman Already Waived Fifth Amendment Privilege, Georgia Charges Don’t Change That
The California State Bar is arguing that recent criminal charges against John Eastman in Fulton County, Georgia should not prevent disbarment proceedings against the former Trump lawyer from restarting next week.
Continue reading “State Bar: Eastman Already Waived Fifth Amendment Privilege, Georgia Charges Don’t Change That”5th Circuit Rejects Challenge To Abortion Pill’s Approval, But Upholds Some Restrictions
A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel handed down a decision Wednesday batting down challenges to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) initial approval of abortion drug mifepristone, but reinstituting restrictions that the agency has lifted in recent years.
Continue reading “5th Circuit Rejects Challenge To Abortion Pill’s Approval, But Upholds Some Restrictions”Ex-Fundraiser For George Santos Hit With Federal Fraud Charges
A Brooklyn federal grand jury on Tuesday returned an indictment against a top former fundraiser and vendor for Rep. George Santos (R-NY)’s campaign for impersonating a top House Republican staffer.
Continue reading “Ex-Fundraiser For George Santos Hit With Federal Fraud Charges”How Not to Fall for Trump’s ‘What He Believes’ Nonsense
You’ve probably noticed that Donald Trump has announced that he’s holding a press conference Monday in which he’ll release a 100-page report which shows both that the 2020 election in Georgia was “stolen” and that all charges against him and his criminal associates should be dropped. In other words, he’s responding to the charges by doubling down on the Big Lie. This isn’t surprising. Trump only has one gear — all-in and over-the-top. But as Clark Neily says in this post at CATO, “Being an inveterate liar is a major liability in litigation.”
He also has an apt description of who Trump is. These are all points we’ve made before. But it’s a tight and concise run-through.
Continue reading “How Not to Fall for Trump’s ‘What He Believes’ Nonsense”Trump And Co-Defendants Expected To Be Booked At Fulton County Jail With Possible Mugshots
Former President Donald Trump and the 18 co-defendants that were charged alongside him for various alleged attempts to overturn the result of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election have until Aug. 25 at noon to turn themselves in voluntarily, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told reporters late Monday night after the indictment was made public.
Continue reading “Trump And Co-Defendants Expected To Be Booked At Fulton County Jail With Possible Mugshots”Why Georgia Was Always a Special Case
There seems to be a consensus that the coup indictments out of Georgia are unexpectedly strong. I don’t know why it’s “unexpected” or exceeded expectations. The Fulton County DA’s office has been working on this for a very long time and they’ve always seemed in earnest about it, even when it was unclear whether federal investigators were focused on the people at the top of the conspiracy. But it’s a reminder that Georgia was always unique in the broader story of Trump’s failed coup. It’s not simply that there was a more aggressive local prosecutor on hand.
Continue reading “Why Georgia Was Always a Special Case”Was Elon Musk Trying To ‘Cozy Up’ To Trump In Fight With Jack Smith?
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Federal Judge Pulls No Punches
An unsealed transcript of a court hearing in the fight earlier this year between Special Counsel Jack Smith and Elon Musk’s Twitter shows an extremely suspicious federal judge questioning why the social media company was so intent on warning Donald Trump that it had received a search warrant in the Jan. 6 criminal investigation.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who while chief judge of the district court in DC presided over many of the grand jury disputes in the Trump investigations, noted that Twitter was taking what she called “momentous” steps that were unlike any the company had taken before in response to a search warrant.
Her questions were brutal:
- “Is it because the new CEO wants to cozy up with the former president?”
- “Is this to make Donald Trump feel like he is a particularly welcomed new renewed user of Twitter?”
At issue wasn’t merely whether and how Twitter would respond to the search warrant for Trump’s Twitter account. It focused instead on a nondisclosure order that prevented Twitter from notifying Trump, as account holder, of the search warrant.
Ultimately, Howell ruled against Twitter, enforcing the nondisclosure order and the search warrant. She then held Twitter in contempt and sanctioned it $350,000 for being delinquent in complying with the search warrant. An appeals court just upheld the sanction.
(As for the substance of the search warrant, it’s intriguing but don’t get too excited.)
MUST READ
TPM’s Hunter Walker: How Kanye West’s publicist, an “MMA fighter,” and a Lutheran pastor teamed up to pressure a Georgia election worker.
Mark Meadows Wastes No Time
With a real lawyer and a lot at stake, Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows quickly took action to remove the Georgia indictment from state to federal court.
Trump Will Try It, Too
Laurence H. Tribe, Donald Ayer, and Dennis Aftergut: Don’t Let Donald Trump Take His Case to Federal Court
What Dumping Trump Looks Like
Making Sense Of The Georgia Indictment
- TPM: The 6 Interlocking Schemes Fani Willis Is Trying To Make Stick To Teflon Don
- LawFare: The Fulton County Indictment: An Initial Examination
- Norman Eisen and Amy Lee Copeland: This Indictment of Trump Does Something Ingenious
- Rick Hasen: The Biggest Difference Between the Georgia Indictment and the Jan. 6 Indictment
Book ‘Em, Danno
Fulton County Sheriff’s Office: “At this point, based on guidance received from the District Attorney’s office and presiding judge, it is expected that all 19 defendants named in the indictment will be booked at the Rice Street Jail.”
Want More Georgia Indictment News?
- NYT: Inside a Georgia Prosecutor’s Investigation of a Former President
- LawFare: What the Heck Happened in Coffee County, Georgia?
- TPM: Meet The 18 Others Charged With Trump
- AP: Special prosecutor will examine actions of Georgia’s lieutenant governor in Trump election meddling
ICYMI
Special Counsel Jack Smith: There is no ‘law or precedent’ for building a criminal defendant a SCIF to see classified evidence.
Success!
After some delay, all three defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case have now been arraigned.
‘Trump’s Toast, Folks’
Clark Neily: “Being an inveterate liar is a major liability in litigation. So is being openly disdainful of the entire process. And so is complexity. But put all three of those together at the same time for the same defendant, and his goose is cooked. So you can put a fork in Donald Trump—he’s done.”
‘You Better Recalculate, Motherfucker!’
Texas Tribune: Bodycam video shows confrontation between Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) and law enforcement
What A Tool
WaPo: Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes
Hunter Biden Poised To Fight Over Plea Agreement
The attorney who helped negotiate Hunter Biden’s plea deal with federal prosectors is moving to withdraw from representing Biden because he may be a witness in the case. The implication is that Biden will seek to enforce the agreement. In what looks like a corresponding move earlier this week, DC uberlawyer Abbe Lowell, who has been representing Biden for a few months but hadn’t been of record in the Delaware case, entered his appearance in the case.
McGonigal Pleads Guilty In New York Case
WaPo: “Former high-ranking FBI official Charles McGonigal pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions and to laundering money by secretly working on behalf of a Russian oligarch he had been tasked with investigating.”
DiFi’s Difficult Twilight
San Francisco Chronicle: Dianne Feinstein’s bombshell new lawsuit alleges financial abuse over husband’s estate
2024 Ephemera
- Still not clear whether Donald Trump will participate next week in the first GOP presidential debate of the 2024 cycle.
Maui Death Toll Reaches 106
Difficult stories to read:
- Star-Advertiser: Maui Officials Begin to Formally Identify the Dead
- NYT: Honolulu Burn Unit Put to the Test by Fires in Maui
- NPR: Cell phone photos and some metadata. A son’s search for his mother in Maui
Ben Shapiro Batted Around Like A Piñata
All it took was one ill-advised tweet:
Remember when you wrote a whole book advocating the prosecution of President Obama under the RICO statute? https://t.co/hlpMoZvW5B pic.twitter.com/P9qYBMKUKs
— Christian Vanderbrouk 🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻 (@UrbanAchievr) August 15, 2023
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