If you’re interested in how TPM functions as an organization and a business and the history of the operation, including the radically changed business model, you’ll want to check out this special episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast. My cohost Kate Riga and I were joined by Publisher Joe Ragazzo to discuss how the place operates, what moved us from an advertising to a subscription business model and some ways that may not be obvious in which we differ pretty dramatically from other media organizations. Along the way I even discuss a few things I haven’t gotten into before: like how exactly do I know so much about how the advertising economy is the taproot of bothsidesist journalism? And what was I thinking when staff came to me and said they wanted to form a union? You can listen to the episode here on the site or on your device if you already subscribe to the pod through one of the standard services.
Where Things Stand: Biden Has Politicized The DOJ So We Must Make Sure The DOJ Is Properly Politicized, Trump Admin Officials Argue
Jeffrey Clark, the man who sought to become attorney general in the tail days of the Trump administration so that he could steal the election, has teamed up with another former Trump administration official to put forward a plan to remake the DOJ the next time we have a Republican president.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Biden Has Politicized The DOJ So We Must Make Sure The DOJ Is Properly Politicized, Trump Admin Officials Argue”Bernie Kerik Pitched Mark Meadows on ‘$5 to $8’ Million Plan To Reverse Trump 2020 Loss
Bernie Kerik had a plan to keep former President Trump in office after losing the 2020 election — and he knew how much it would cost. Roughly.
Continue reading “Bernie Kerik Pitched Mark Meadows on ‘$5 to $8’ Million Plan To Reverse Trump 2020 Loss”Rudy Giuliani Used A Female Alias In Emails About Plan To Overturn The Election
Rudy Giuliani used an email address with the name “Helen” in some of his communications about his efforts to oppose former President Trump’s 2020 election loss. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and personal attorney to Trump, has discussed his use of the email address “rhelen0528@gmail.com” in court appearances as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against him by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, two Georgia election workers. According to court documents made public on Thursday, the address is one of seven that is at the center of a fight over documents in the case.
Continue reading “Rudy Giuliani Used A Female Alias In Emails About Plan To Overturn The Election”Abbott Busses Migrants To Los Angeles, Continuing Effort To Out-MAGA DeSantis
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced Wednesday that he had bussed a group of migrants to Los Angeles for the first time, adding yet another blue state destination to the stunt he and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) have been using to out-MAGA one another and score political points — all at the expense of vulnerable migrants.
Continue reading “Abbott Busses Migrants To Los Angeles, Continuing Effort To Out-MAGA DeSantis”Hero Or Goat? Meet Trump’s Chief Enabler In The Mar-a-Lago Case
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
We Have So Much To Thank Tom Fitton For
Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton is widely credited with waltzing Donald Trump straight into criminal charges by advising him that he was legally entitled to keep the documents he had squirreled away at Mar-a-Lago.
Fitton, who heads up the conservative legal activist group but is not himself a lawyer, offered Trump misguided advice about the law, the precedent, and the issues involved in the Mar-a-Lago case.
The irony for those old enough to remember the Clinton years is that Fitton was mistakenly drawing on a case Judicial Watch was involved in back in the day when it was among the leading right-wing nemeses of Bill Clinton. Remember Larry Klayman?
The kicker to all this is that despite Fitton’s horrendous advice and Trump’s subsequent indictment, Trump still holds him close. Fitton had dinner with Trump and Nauta and their lawyers Monday night at a steakhouse at Trump’s Miami club.
Trump’s Lawyers Tried … They Really Did
It’s important not to reduce Trump’s mess of his own making to bad advice from Tom Fitton. It’s just an amusing addendum to the Trump train wreck.
The truth is that multiple Trump lawyers (reminder: Fitton is not a lawyer) advised him of his legal peril if he did not surrender the documents in his possession. Self-interested accounts from lawyers now caught in bad situations? Sure, but this is no-brainer legal advice. You don’t have to be a high-powered superlawyer to reach the conclusion that Trump was facing a world of hurt if he persisted on his defiant course.
Trump did what Trump wanted to do, as he always does. He ignored the advice he didn’t like, and proceeded as he saw fit.
And here we are.
The Biggest Question Of All
As TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports, the chances of getting the Mar-a-Lago case wrapped up before Election Day 2024 seems super remote. You can’t rule it out, but it’s really hard to see it happening.
Tack on any indictments of Trump and his inner circle in the Jan. 6 investigation, the looming Georgia indictments, and the ongoing hush money case in New York, and you have a million reasons why these cases are all going to be tied up in pre-trial wrangling for months or even years.
And yet …
Not to engage in magical thinking, but it’s feels like we might be underestimating Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel Jack Smith if we expect them to be undertaking these massive, historic, unprecedented prosecutions involving a former president without taking into account the election calendar in a strategic way.
They know their federal cases will go away if Trump is re-elected. I don’t know how they’ve accounted for it. Maybe they haven’t. But I doubt it.
The timing – the crunch between now and the 2024 election – is what has me perched on the edge of my seat, more so than the pre-trial fights themselves, or the difficulty of proving this or that charge, or the jury pool in Miami.
The window is tight and it’s closing. The stakes could not be higher.
Love Seeing ‘Radical’ In NYT Headline
NYT: The Radical Strategy Behind Trump’s Promise to ‘Go After’ Biden
Aileen Cannon Is A Real Wild Card
The judge in the Mar-a-Lago case tried very few cases as a prosecutor and has presided over a similarly small number of criminal trials since taking the bench in 2020.
All The President’s Men
One thing worth mentioning about the conditions of Donald Trump’s pre-trial release. The Justice Department was willing to let Trump continue to have contact with witnesses in the case without restriction, an unusual accommodation in a criminal case. The magistrate judge was displeased with that much leniency and imposed the condition that Trump could interact with witnesses but not talk to to them about the case.
Now, if you know Trump or anyone like him, setting a boundary of any kind is the equivalent of an invitation for them to cross that boundary. It’s like waving a red cape in front of a bull. The existence of the boundary is itself an irresistible attraction.
Add to that the extraordinary number of witnesses who are Trump lawyers, former lawyers, employees, former employees, aides, former aides, and assorted hangers-on, and you have a recipe for witness-tampering disaster.
What A Fine Paragraph
Premium use of the verb “toggle,” too:
Nauta — who spent Tuesday bizarrely toggling between the roles of co-defendant, equal under the law to Trump, and dutiful “body man,” subservient to the former president — has showed no signs that his loyalty to Trump is waning.
And, no, Nauta does not seem poised to cooperate with prosecutors.
Fani Willis Is Undeterred
The Atlanta DA’s office says the Mar-a-Lago indictments “will not have any impact on the Fulton County election investigation.”
Hate To See It
Smooth, Guys, Real Smooth
Marine Arrested In Abortion Clinic Firebombing
Two men, including an active-duty marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, have been arrested in last year’s firebombing of an abortion clinic in California.
Ya Don’t Say?
Between South Carolina And Me
Judd Legum: Why a South Carolina high school decided to censor Ta-Nehisi Coates
What’s Your Idiot-Detection System?
Like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Trump Has Lots Of Ways To Delay His Trial Until The ’24 Election
For years, faced with civil, congressional, and criminal investigations, Trump has returned to one strategy: delay.
Now, because of the nature of the charges he faces in the federal Mar-a-Lago indictment, he’ll have ample opportunity to employ those tactics again, likely pushing his trial beyond the November 2024 election.
Continue reading “Trump Has Lots Of Ways To Delay His Trial Until The ’24 Election”Miami, It’s a Whole ‘Nother Country
Now that Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez has filed paperwork to seek the Republican presidential nomination, I’m finally going to write about something that’s been bugging me and making me laugh for a few weeks. Just to keep up on things, I subscribe to a number of papers in swing or swingish states around the country. One of those is the Miami Herald. For several weeks the Herald has been advancing a story about Mayor Suarez and his relationship with one of the city’s rising real estate developers, Rishi Kapoor. In these cases “relationship” usually means a shadowy and uncertain series of ties. But in this case it’s not shadowy: the mayor is literally on Kapoor’s payroll. It’s started with people raising questions about the fact that Kapoor had been working to get a series of accommodations from the city for a major development project and had also been paying Suarez $10,000 a month for vaguely defined consulting services.
Continue reading “Miami, It’s a Whole ‘Nother Country”Help Us Keep This Moving
We’re approaching a key milestone: halfway to our goal in this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. We started this year’s drive on Wednesday June 7th. Today, one week later, we are coming up on $250,000, halfway to our critical goal of raising $500,000. As of this moment we are at $243,034. That total is made up of contributions from fully 2,172 TPM readers and supporters. We’re just $6,966 from the halfway point.
If you’ve been considering doing so please take a moment to make your contribution today by clicking right here. Thank you.
Late Update: Now $3,432 to go!
Judge Imposes Sanctions On Michigan GOP Chair Karamo After Baseless Election Lawsuit
A judge this week ordered the Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Kristina Karamo and six others to pay more than $58,000 in legal fees racked up by the Detroit clerk’s office as it fought a lawsuit filed by the party last year claiming — without evidence — that there was wrongdoing in Detroit’s election.
Continue reading “Judge Imposes Sanctions On Michigan GOP Chair Karamo After Baseless Election Lawsuit”