A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Ratio’d
The response to John Eastman’s bamboozling last night on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show was marvelous.
Ingraham’s mangling of the law and air quotes around “RICO” signal right off that this is a cotton candy interview. But that doesn’t mean Eastman can’t and doesn’t do real damage to himself.
First, Eastman:
Let the dunking begin:
- “What, like maybe the 101 emails that convinced a federal judge to take the extraordinary step of ordering them turned over to the Jan 6 committee? Those emails?”
- “They found those emails already. A federal judge said so.”
- “Ex-Trump lawyer John Eastman appeared on Fox News Tuesday for an interview in which he seemed to pretend like an incriminating email he sent—and which has been in the public record for some time—simply doesn’t exist.”
With Friends Like These …
Speaking of John Eastman, guess who signed on to a letter from former Clarence Thomas clerks defending the justice’s integrity as “unimpeachable”?
Jack Smith Is Focused On Rudy’s Drinking
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office has repeatedly grilled witnesses about Rudy Giuliani’s drinking on and after election day, investigating whether Donald Trump was knowingly relying on an inebriated attorney while trying to overturn a presidential election. …
[A]according to lawyers and witnesses who’ve been in the room with special counsel investigators, Smith and his team are interested in this subject because it could help demonstrate that Trump was implementing the counsel of somebody he knew to be under the influence and perhaps not thinking clearly. If that were the case, it could add to federal prosecutors’ argument that Trump behaved with willful recklessness in his attempts nullify the 2020 election — by relying heavily on a lawyer he believed to be working while inebriated, and another who he bashed for spouting “crazy” conspiracy theories that Trump ran with anyway.
Trump Tipped His Hand As To His Jan. 6 Defenses
I’m not saying these are good defenses, but it is perhaps where we should be focusing our attention:
- “executive immunity” claim
- “core First Amendment issues”
- alleged “selective prosecution”
More On Mark Meadows’ Surprise Testimony
Wanna go deep on Mark Meadows testimony Monday in the hearing on moving his Georgia racketeering indictment to federal court? Anna Bower at Law Fare has you covered.
Georgia RICO Miscellany
Two new developments in the Georgia case:
- The federal judge considering the removal of Mark Meadows case from state court has asked for additional briefing on this question: “Would a finding that at least one (but not all) of the over acts charged occurred under the color of Meadows’s office, be sufficient for federal removal of a criminal prosecution?”
- Atlanta DA Fani Willis is seeking clarification from the state judge overseeing the case on whether his earlier order was intended to sever Ken Chesebro’s case from the other 18 co-defendants and indicating that she wants to try them all together on the speedy trial timeline that sets up a fall trial date.
Proud Boys To Be Sentenced
Enrique Tarrio and Ethan Nordean are scheduled to be sentenced separately today in federal court for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors are seeking 33 years of incarceration of Tarrio, the longest sentence recommendation to date in the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
New Hampshire Looking At Disqualifications Clause
In a joint statement Tuesday, the New Hampshire attorney general and secretary of state announced that the applicability of the 14th Amendment’s Disqualification Clause to the 2024 presidential election under review.
2024 Ephemera
- We Hardly Knew Ya: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez suspends his presidential campaign.
- Lose Yourself: Vivek Ramaswamy agrees to stop performing Eminem’s work.
The Lucrative Middle
The centrist grift is one of the longest running plays in Washington, D.C., and Joe Manchin (and his daughter) are using the same old playbook.
Jacksonville Shooter Wore White Supremacist Symbol
The young white man who killed three Black people in Jacksonville over the weekend before killing himself was wearing a Rhodesian army patch on his tactical vest:
The patch — representing Rhodesia, a former white minority-ruled territory in southern Africa in the 1960s and ’70s that would become Zimbabwe — is yet another symbol of how the shooter, Ryan Palmeter, was racist and was influenced by racist ideology, investigators say.
Scalise Diagnosed With Cancer
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was grievously wounded in the 2017 shooting spree at a congressional baseball game practice, has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
The Post-Licht Era At CNN
Mark Thompson, formerly of the BBC and NYT, named the new honcho at CNN.
Idalia Makes Landfall In Florida
Like Morning Memo? Let us know!
