Kate Riga is giving us the play by play on Speaker Mike Johnson’s attempt to do exactly what Kevin McCarthy did while not paying the price McCarthy did for doing it. As we’re seeing, he’ll almost certainly pull it off. The House Freedom Caucus guys know he’s one of them, at least genetically related if not identical. That’s helping. They also realize they need to give him some time to get his footing before tossing him overboard. But what stands out most is House Republicans’ great reluctance to shut the government down – more reluctance than I expected. New boss, old boss, the same dynamics govern in the spring, the fall and now in the winter.
Continue reading “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Shutdown?”Damning New Evidence That Trump Planned Not To Leave The White House
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Let’s Go To The Videotape!
Portions of the video recordings of the proffer sessions by the four defendants who have pleaded guilty in the Georgia RICO case were leaked to news media, providing a vivid, unexpected – and I can’t emphasize this enough – incomplete glimpse of their potential testimony at trial.
This gets a little confusing so let’s break it down into manageable bites.
What Are Proffer Sessions?
In working out a plea agreement, especially when cooperation is an element of the deal, prosecutors want to know exactly what the defendant/future witness has to say. So the defendant and their lawyer will sit down with prosecutors, and the defendant is supposed to spill their guts.
In this instance, Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis held proffer sessions with each of the RICO defendants around the time each entered their guilty pleas. Those sessions were recorded on camera.
Who Leaked And Why?
It’s not clear who leaked. There doesn’t seem much reason for Willis to leak it. All of the remaining defendants would be given access to the recordings in discovery, so the list of potential leakers isn’t short.
As for why they leaked and whose interest it was to leak them, it’s hard to make that assessment without know what portions of the recording were not leaked. That’s why I emphasize that these are incomplete recordings. With only a portion of them, it’s difficult to tell what impressions were sought to be created and why.
Who Got The Leaks?
ABC News was first out of the gate with a portion of the proffer sessions of Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell.
WaPo soon followed with Ellis, Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall.
How To Think About The Leaks
Let me throw up a bit of caution sign here and offer a way to process this information. For legal types, including the former prosecutors who populate cable news, there’s a tendency these days to look at new developments like this one through the prism of the prosecutions of Trump. Which is to say, a very narrow criminal procedure prism, with things like admissibility, reliability, and probative value.
But you are not a judge or a juror. In making your own judgment, you need not concern yourself with the high standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. Journalists, historians, and politicians also don’t need to use such a narrow prism.
A lot of what comes out at the trials is going to be things we already knew. We may learn new things in other venues that don’t come out at trial. All of that can go in the hopper as we make a collective judgment about Trump, Jan. 6, and the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
The Most Tantalizing Reveal
The WaPo story zeroes in on this never-before-reported meeting between Trump and Kenneth Chesebro:
Chesebro disclosed in his recorded statement that at a previously unreported White House meeting, he briefed Trump on election challenges in Arizona and summarized a memo in which he offered advice on assembling alternate slates of electors in key battlegrounds to cast ballots for Trump despite Biden’s victories in those states.
Chesebro’s recollection could provide evidence that Trump was aware of the elector plan.
Dan Scavino: The Boss Ain’t Leaving The White House
The juiciest morsel in the recordings comes from Jenna Ellis:
It Wasn’t Just Scavino
This would be a reference to Mark Meadows:
Why Trump’s Advice Of Counsel Defense Ain’t Going Anywhere
Harry Litman: Trump could try to blame his lawyers for Jan. 6. But it just got a lot more difficult
Another Preview Of What Awaits With Trump II
Former President Trump’s allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios.
Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents.
Quote Of The Trump Era
In response to a WaPo story titled “Trump calls political enemies ‘vermin,’ echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini,” a Trump spokesperson went full dictator:
[T]hose who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung
Cheung later clarified that he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence,” the WaPo noted.
Charges Against Jan. 6 Rioter Yetman Unveiled
The Jan. 6 defendant who was the subject of a manhunt in New Jersey last week has been charged with various crimes in connection with the Capitol attack.
Fired Fox News Reporter Sues Network
Former Fox News producer and reporter Jason Donner has sued the network claiming his termination was retaliation for speaking out against its bogus coverage of the 2020 election. The most striking part of the lawsuit describes Donner’s reaction to the Fox News coverage on Jan. 6:
When Donner heard Fox News’ false reporting of the insurrection at the Capitol, he called the Fox News’ control room and stated, “I’m your Capitol Hill Producer inside the Capitol where tear gas is going off on the second floor in the Ohio clock corridor, rioters are storming the building, reports of shots fired outside the House Chamb4r. I don’t want to hear any of this fucking shit on our air ever again because you’re gonna get us all killed.
Unmarried To The Mob
Joan Walsh has a deeeeeep dive on the ex-wife of Barry Weisselberg, the son of the Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg. Jennifer Weisselberg turned against Trump World and has paid a heavy price.
SCOTUS Issues Ethics Code With No Enforcement Mechanism
Welp, the public pressure and hard-edged reporting from ProPublica about Justice Clarence Thomas’ ethics scandal finally forced the Supreme Court to come up with an ethics code for itself. But it contains no enforcement mechanism, no consequences for violating it, or any other accountability features.
University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, who is very smart and level-headed on this stuff, responded:
Nothing in the 14-page document, or the one-page cover note, addresses the elephant in the room: *Whatever* rules the justices *say* they are bound to follow, *who* is going to enforce those rules—and how?
For Your Radar …
The House Ethics Committee has said it would announce its next steps in the investigation of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) on or before Nov. 17. Stay tuned …
Paul Pelosi Testifies About Home Attack
The husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) testified in the federal criminal trial of the alleged assailant who hit him in the head with a hammer in their San Francisco home last year.
Mike Johnson Is One Of THOSE Republicans
Like so many of his brethren, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) started out in 2015 as anti-Trump before starting to sip the Kool-Aid: “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”
Mike Johnson’s Shady Finances
The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger tries to piece together the story of Speaker Mike Johnson’s finances: “However, his financial history, as reviewed by The Daily Beast, is evasive, confusing, and anything but forthright. It’s difficult for any American to understand Johnson’s financial situation—let alone relate to it—because Johnson has provided very little information.”
Israel-Gaza Fallout
- Jewish groups are rallying on the National Mall in DC today under the banner “March for Israel.”
- Jewish cemetery near Cleveland is defaced.
Hurtling Toward Climate Disaster
The 5th National Climate Assessment is out today. As these types of public-facing reports often do, it tries to balance sounding the alarm with optimism that policy action can still help mitigate the worst effects of climate change. But perhaps the most salient point of the report for those of us who don’t need our feelings coddled lest we fall into hopelessness and despair is that climate change is not some future hypothetical but a clear, present and rapidly unfolding danger right now:
For more in-depth coverage of the new National Climate Assessment:
- Grist breaks down the report region-by-region.
- E&E News: “The assessment details how climate change is already battering the nation with extreme heat, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods and swiftly rising sea levels.”
- NYT: “[T]he United States and other industrialized countries are still curbing their emissions so sluggishly that a certain amount of additional greenhouse warming is essentially locked in, forcing societies to learn to live with the effects.”
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Help Us Find Our Newest Reporter
I hope you can take a moment to read this. We’re trying to hire a reporter for an open reporter position at TPM. (You can see the listing here.) If you think you might be a good candidate, I hope you’ll apply. But I’m mostly posting this because I suspect some of our many readers and members might know good candidates they might encourage to apply. We would really love your help spreading the word. Hiring is always a vexing process for us since we’re a small outfit and the process of hiring pulls editors away from … well, editing and writing and all the other stuff. So all help is appreciated.
As you can see in the listing, we’re looking for someone with 3-5 years of reporting experience. Good writing and reporting skills, hungry to break news, etc. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Here’s the listing. We’d greatly appreciate your sharing it through your networks.
Worth Watching This
New Boss Same As the Old Boss
Pretty remarkable things emerging in the House. It appears that Speaker Johnson can’t move his own compromise plan with Republican votes. Or actually he can’t pass the rule that governs how to bring up his bill. So now he’ll now go back to relying on Democratic votes to get it done. He’s already back to the McCarthy rules – what is it? a three weeks in? The difference, presumably, is that House hardliners know he can’t and they’ll give him a pass. They won’t make him pay any price for passing something they claim is unacceptable with Democratic votes. Because he’s their guy.
Not clear how this evolving. But a pretty decent chance we’re looking at a new MO: House hardliners remain pure and Democrats take on the responsibility for actually governing.
MAGA Honeymoon Comes To A Halt
It was hardly a honeymoon to begin with.
After emphatically congratulating themselves for managing to elect a speaker — and after leaving the position vacant while they fought for nearly a month — House Republicans took a minor break from public displays of dysfunction the last few weeks, a move guised as a “grace period” for new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
In reality, it may have just been a calm before this week’s storm.
Continue reading “MAGA Honeymoon Comes To A Halt”Netanyahu’s Rule Is Getting More Perilous for Israel and the USA
Several times I’ve noted this key oddity of the Israel-Hamas war: it is certainly the gravest crisis in Israel in a half century and yet it is being led by an Israeli leader who is now overwhelmingly discredited within his own country. And there is no sign that that public rejection is fading as the war enters its second month. Polls continue to tell the same story. Indeed, last week the right wing daily that was literally founded to support Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel HaYom, called on Netanyahu to resign at the close of the war. The difference is that the costs and dangers of Netanyahu’s continued rule are growing graver and appearing in a starker relief.
One confusion for some in the United States is the belief that the intensity and ferocity of Israel’s response to the events of October 7th is tied to Netanyahu himself. That is not the case. While public opinion is complicated and there are disagreements over strategy, the current war has overwhelming support within Israel. It’s quite unlikely that any head of government who seems at all plausible would be prosecuting it in a different way.
To the extent there are disagreements it’s over what comes afterwards. What happens in Gaza? Who controls Gaza? Is it again governed by some kind of Israeli military occupation? Is it governed by the Palestinian Authority? Is it governed by some kind of international force?
Continue reading “Netanyahu’s Rule Is Getting More Perilous for Israel and the USA”SCOTUS Grudgingly Issues First-Ever Ethics Codes To Clear Up ‘Misunderstanding’
The Supreme Court on Monday released a code of conduct laying out ethical rules for its nine Justices after nearly a year of revelations of unreported luxury trips, gifts, and secret real estate deals at the high court.
Continue reading “SCOTUS Grudgingly Issues First-Ever Ethics Codes To Clear Up ‘Misunderstanding’”My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell Is Not Taking Last Week’s Elections Very Well
After last week’s off-cycle elections, it’s time to do a wellness check on one of America’s most prominent promoters of voting conspiracy theories, My Pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell.
This won’t come as a shock to anyone familiar with Lindell’s oeuvre, but he was, once again, pretty disturbed by the democratic process.
In an email to his devotees that was filled with technical jargon and odd grammatical choices, Lindell claimed the internet somehow swayed elections all over the country.
“Although electronic voting machine companies have emphatically declared their machines are not online and do not contain Bluetooth modems- we have reports of Ballot printers going online with multiple tabulators tethered to the printing machines during Tuesday’s elections,” Lindell wrote, adding, “This is supposed to be impossible.”
The thoroughly discredited notion that algorithms and internet connectivity could be used to manipulate votes has long been a core part of Lindell’s schtick and the broader Big Lie mythos. Given that states use different election systems, many of which are hand recounted and not connected to the internet, it is a technical impossibility. Nevertheless, Lindell has persisted. As he made his latest shocking allegations, Lindell stopped short of providing any concrete evidence. Instead, Lindell insisted he’s actually withholding further proof because of unspecified dangers.
“For now, we are concealing critical details to protect election clerks from retaliation,” he explained.
Lindell delivered his fevered assessment of the vote in an email to supporters who signed up after his grand “election summit” in August. Since then, those Lindell fans have been treated to a relentless barrage of election conspiracies and promotional deals for bedding. At his event, Lindell debuted his “plan” to “secure elections” from a mysterious and malevolent cabal he dubbed “The Evil.” Lindell’s plan was a convoluted one involving drones and scanners that he dubbed “W.M.D.,” and vowed would expose the supposed internet connections. He also debuted social media site where people could share rumors and alleged evidence of malfeasance.
Thanks to all of Lindell’s planning, he doesn’t think last week’s elections were a total disaster. Lindell declared that his social media platform and “W.M.D.’s” were “wildly successful” in exposing “anomalies.” He dubbed it “a huge victory for the people.” Lindell also rattled off some of these supposed issues with the vote in the email. It was a mix of paranoia and already debunked claims. For example, in Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear was re-elected in a state with Republican legislative majorities, Lindell baselessly declared the result impossible without much elaboration.
“**Kentucky Governor election has an unbelievable outcome. So much so that all hands are on deck to fight the suspicious outcome,” Lindell wrote.
Lindell followed up his paranoia with a reference to discredited social media rumors that a “gas leak” that postponed voting for about a half an hour at a church in a largely Democratic county somehow affected the result. He did not explain how exactly it would have helped Beshear to have voting disrupted in a Democratic area.
The Kentucky conspiracy was a perfect example of how Lindell’s ongoing election paranoia is coming from a place beyond explanation or logic. In the email, he also cited debunked rumors about a voting machine error in Pennsylvania and suggested a power outage that delayed voters for an hour in Indiana was nefarious.
According to Lindell, he and his social network were addressing these claims that were not being reported in the “MSM.” He suggested that these various rumors were being censored and ignored. Of course, that’s not true at all. Several of them received widespread coverage and analysis.
After dropping the supposed truth bombs that failed to detonate, Lindell directed his readers to a link for an “Election Alert Feed” that would further detail “significant incidents.” Like so many of Lindell’s supposed blockbusters, the link didn’t work and literally went nowhere.
The litany of falsehoods and fever dreams in Lindell’s email ended as so many things do in the pro-Trump election conspiracy universe: He plugged his social media site and made a request for donations before signing off with a “God bless.”
Trump Gets Called Out For Pre-Trial Trickery Yet Again
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
All Gamesmanship All The Time
In the grand scheme of things, this probably doesn’t rank as the Trump legal team’s worst offense, but I mention it because his lawyers continue to quickly use up whatever benefit of the doubt U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan may have harbored.
The same pattern has played out in other Trump cases: An over-the-top defense combined with playing fast and loose with the rules while making it abundantly clear that the audience is a political, not a legal, one. The only case where it hasn’t resulted in Trump becoming adversarial with the judge is in the Mar-a-Lago case. Looking at you, Aileen Cannon.
The latest gamesmanship from Trump went like this:
- Media coalition seeks live TV coverage of the trial of Trump in the Jan. 6 case.
- Special Counsel Jack Smith opposes it, arguing that the judge doesn’t have authority to override the procedural rule prohibiting the broadcast of proceedings.
- Trump tells Smith he’s taking no position on this issue, and Smith conveys that to the judge.
- Days later, Trump reverses course and supports broadcasting the trial, submitting a filing long on invective and short on the law.
In a follow-up filing yesterday, Smith brought the switcheroo to Chutkan’s attention and asked for leave to file a brief four-page reply to Trump’s newfound support for TV in the courtroom: “[T]he Government sought the defendant’s position on the applications, and his counsel requested that the Government represent to the Court that he took no position. The Government accurately reported that to the Court.” Smith noted that his brief was ready to file as soon as the judge gives him leave to do so.
In an epitome of Trump’s gamesmanship, he opposes Smith’s motion for leave to reply.
Judges do notice this kind of thing.
Trump Wants More Time In Jan. 6 Case
While all of the above gamesmanship was going on, Trump made a last-minute appeal to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to extend the deadlines for filings due this week. Smith opposed that motion.
Aileen Cannon’s Latest Disaster
I wanted to make sure you saw the sleight of hand from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon late last week in the Mar-a-Lago case. She pushed several pre-trial deadlines, and while she didn’t move the trial date back … yet … she all but ensured she would later by creating a nearly impossible schedule.
Stone Cold Jack Smith
Politico: New book details Trump lawyers’ secret meeting with Jack Smith ahead of DC indictment
Trump Attacks Jack Smith And His Wife … Again
While the federal courts keep the gag order against Trump on hold while considering his appeal, Trump continues to spew threatening, inflammatory, and inciting public attacks against his chief prosecutor and his family:
Never Say We Vermin Weren’t Warned
Trump takes the darkest fears harbored by progressives, animates them, then takes them up a few notches:
So About That NYT Headline …
How it started:
How it ended:
How it played:
Bannon Contempt Case Lingers On
TPM’s Kate Riga on the oral arguments before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals as Steve Bannon attempts to get his contempt of Congress conviction overturned.
BREAKING …
AP: Secret Service agents protecting Biden’s granddaughter open fire when 3 people try to break into SUV
Self-Proclaimed ‘Sniper’ Threatened To Kill MTG
A Georgia man was arrested after allegedly leaving a threatening voicemail for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greeene: “I’m going to murder her. I’m going to shoot her in the f—ing head and kill her, OK.”
Let’s Check In On The Jan. 6 Defendants … WTF?
- NBC: Tennessee man admits to conspiring with Jan. 6 defendant to kill FBI agents
- ABC: Jan. 6 suspect Gregory Yetman surrenders to police after widespread manhunt
Speaker Johnson A-Okay With His Role In The Big Lie
National Review’s John McCormack:
When I asked Speaker Johnson on November 2 whether he regretted any of his actions between the 2020 election and January 6, 2021, he told me: “No, I stand by that position, even today, adamantly.”
🚨Red Alert🚨
In this NYT weekend piece – Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans – you see the peril of Trump II:
The constellation of Mr. Trump’s 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.
Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.
2024 Ephemera
- NYT: With Manchin Out, Democrats’ Path to Holding the Senate Is Narrow
- Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) announced that she will run for Virginia governor in 2025 instead of seeking re-election to the House.
- NPR: 5th Circuit sets a January deadline for a new Louisiana congressional map
- NBC: How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda
- Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) suspends his presidential campaign:
GOP Gov’t Shutdown Watch
The House GOP is a expected to bring to the floor as soon as Tuesday a gimmicky continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this week.
Eric Adams Is In Hot Water
This is starting to look a lot less like a campaign finance case and a lot more like a foreign influence case:
- FBI is investigating whether NYC Mayor Eric Adams cleared red tape on a building project backed by the Turkish government.
- The FBI seized Adam’s electronic devices in the probe.
The Case Of Crystal Clanton
Ruth Marcus on what happened to the protégé of Clarence Thomas who allegedly sent racist text messages.
What Israel’s Far Right Looks Like
You probably know the drill by now. Isaac Chotiner gets some dubious personality on the phone and let’s them self-eviscerate across the pages of the New Yorker. At this point, if Isaac Chotiner asked me my favorite flavor of ice cream, I’d go into hiding. In the latest installment of his notorious Q&A, Chotiner hands the knife to Israeli settlement leader Daniella Weiss.
Just.Asking.Questions.
AP: Media watchdog says it was just ‘raising questions’ with false insinuations about photographers and Hamas
Israel-Gaza Fallout
- Long Island: Swastikas, Anti-Semitic Graffiti Found At Restaurant/Bar In Montauk
- NYC: Man of Indian descent wearing Arab scarf says he was violently confronted by a woman in Brooklyn park
- Paris: More than 100,000 demonstrators march against anti-Semitism
WHOA
WaPo exclusive: Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack
Pope Francis Removes Conservative US Bishop
AP: “Pope Francis on Saturday ordered the removal of the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative prelate active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and has come to symbolize the polarization within the U.S. Catholic hierarchy.”
‘God Is A Bunch Of Drunks Together In A Room’
Hank Azaria on how his friend Matthew Perry helped him to get sober.
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