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.
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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”The Mystery Of The Bedminster Documents
Even after months of asking nicely, the issuance of a grand jury subpoena, searches executed by FBI agents, and a federal indictment of Donald Trump, it’s far from clear that the government knows the location of all of the records that the former president took after leaving office.
Continue reading “The Mystery Of The Bedminster Documents”Maybe It Wasn’t the Greatest Booking Rally Ever?
For now I’ll put this out there simply as an impression, an intuitive or atmospheric one. I think Donald Trump is going to have trouble keeping up the unified support and defense facing these indictments. To be clear, I’m still very confident that Trump will be the nominee. The basic dynamics are the same. The indictments all but seal the nomination for him; they hurt him in the general. But look close and the ship is taking on water, hemorrhaging a bit at the seams.
In the upside-down world of Trump the day he gets indicted, gets called into court and taken, albeit briefly, into custody is the high point. It’s the day of maximum unity.
But it wasn’t quite perfect.
Continue reading “Maybe It Wasn’t the Greatest Booking Rally Ever?”Trump’s Arraignment Caps A Wild Ride For DOJ
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Whiplash
Imagine being one of the thousands of DOJ attorneys slogging away on criminal, civil and appeals cases over the last, say, five years:
- You’ve had Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr as your ultimate boss.
- You narrowly avoided a decapitation event where one Jeffrey Clark — “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.” — became attorney general.
- You went to work knowing Bill Barr was meddling in criminal cases, even in ones that had already won convictions.
- You had run-amok Special Counsel John Durham at Barr’s behest targeting DOJ itself.
- You knew in your bones that the usual firewall between DOJ and the White House was in ruins.
And after all that came the whiplash of Donald Trump sitting in a federal court yesterday being arraigned on Espionage Act charges, with Special Counsel Jack Smith observing him from the front row.
These people have been through a lot, y’all.
A Dispatch From Inside The Courtroom
LawFare’s Anna Bower waited in line for 27 hours to get a seat in the courtroom for Trump’s arraignment. Read her report.
DOJ Is Actually Taking It Easy On Trump
As you listen to the continuous GOP uproar over the unfair, disparate, and unequal treatment Trump is receiving, remember that it’s true … but in the completely opposite direction:
- NY Mag: The DOJ Tried to Give Trump a Pass. He Wouldn’t Take It.
In January of last year, in response to a subpoena, Trump returned 197 classified documents to the federal government. Despite his willfully retaining those documents for months, the federal indictment released last week does not charge Trump in connection with any of them — which is to say, the DOJ gave Trump a pass on 197 potential counts of willful retention of national defense information. Instead, it charged him with only 31 counts corresponding with the number of highly classified documents Trump knowingly withheld from the government in January 2022 and the FBI later obtained.
- DOJ recommended extraordinarily lenient conditions for Trump’s pre-trial release from custody: no bail, no travel restrictions (including no surrender of his passport), and he may still interact and communicate with witnesses in the case (though the judge ordered that he may not discuss the case itself with them …).
The point isn’t to knock DOJ. These are arguably appropriate measures of deference to the Trump’s unusual status as a former president. But they give lie to the Deep State nonsense Trump World is spouting.
Dip Into The Madness For A Moment
On occasion it’s worth your while to check in on what Trump is saying in these long, rambling, self-indulgent speeches of his. Aaron is so good at putting these video threads together. It makes it quick and easy to get a taste:
Last night’s speech — carried live by FOX but not by MSNBC or CNN — included:
- Trump again vowing to appoint a “real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden and the entire Biden crime family.”
- Trump again attacking Special Counsel Jack Smith’s wife;
- Trump accusing the FBI of staging the photos in the indictment;
- Trump again declaring the documents to be his own under the Presidential Records Act.
Just another day at the office.
Scared Shitless
Former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Trump’s public bravado in the face of criminal charges:
He’s scared s—less. This is the way he compensates for that. He gives people the appearance he doesn’t care by doing this. For the first time in his life, it looks like he’s being held accountable. Up until this point in his life, it’s like, I’m not going to pay you, take me to court. He’s never been held accountable before.
Keep An Eye On Bedminster
Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann: Donald Trump was indicted in Florida. Could he also face charges in New Jersey?
Meanwhile …
While Trump was being arraigned in Miami, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation kept cruising along. Spotted in the area of the DC federal courthouse where Smith’s Jan. 6 grand jury meets: two Nevada fake electors.
The two men were Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald and Vice Chair Jim DeGraffenreid.
Fox News Is Unchastened And Unbowed
I’m sorry but in this instance Fox News fomenting civil war actually made me laugh:
Biden Is So Inside Their Heads
The marvel of the moment for me is how Joe Biden can simultaneously be:
- A doddering old man but also running the most corrupt crime family in the history of the universe;
- Barely able to stay upright on his own two feet but an evil genius who has orchestrated a vast conspiracy with the Deep State to take down his chief political rival;
- Inept and bungling but somehow managed to defeat the incumbent MAGA president, haul the United States into Marxism, and seize dictatorial powers.
This Biden guy is pretty amazing when you think about it.
Thanks, Chris Licht!
The now-notorious CNN “townhall” with Trump that hastened the end of Chris Licht’s tenure as CEO of the cable news net has also led to a new defamation claim against Trump by E. Jean Carroll.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Carroll can amend her original defamation lawsuit to include remarks made during the televised CNN event.
Michigan GOP Chair Sanctioned By Judge
Amid all the judicial sanctions being handed out for frivolous lawsuits over the 2020 election, what jumps out about this case is that the judge is sanctioning the Michigan GOP chair and the party’s lawyer for a bogus lawsuit about the 2022 election. Way to distinguish yourselves!
Republicans in Disarray
David Dayen catches us up on the House GOP’s internecine budget battle:
The important thing here is that the goals of reducing spending below the non-defense caps, above the defense caps, and having that be something Senate Democrats will pass and the president will sign are irreconcilable. McCarthy is being implicitly threatened with his speakership if he doesn’t hold to lower spending. McConnell, meanwhile, is getting enormous pressure from the lobbying blob to plus-up military budgets.
All of that points to stopgap funding to prevent an October 1 government shutdown, if the votes can be found. That would render all the work on the debt ceiling spending caps rather meaningless, especially if a continuing resolution to fund the government were to persist. That said, a shutdown is a definite possibility given all the chaos.
*Snicker*
WHOA …
The first 40 seconds are mesmerizing, then it gets really cool:
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Decoding The Supreme Court’s Silence On The Independent State Legislature Theory
The Supreme Court asked for an additional round of briefings on what it should do with a major, potentially mooted election law case out of North Carolina over a month ago. Since then, crickets.
Continue reading “Decoding The Supreme Court’s Silence On The Independent State Legislature Theory”Where Things Stand: A Dark Turn In DeSantis’ MAGA Grievance-Focused Campaign Strategy
While former President Donald Trump makes plans to excise the so-called “deep state” that supposedly formed in the bowels of the DOJ before he took the White House in 2016, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is vowing to act against it with a blunter instrument.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: A Dark Turn In DeSantis’ MAGA Grievance-Focused Campaign Strategy”Trump Enters Not Guilty Plea
President Trump didn’t speak at his arraignment on Tuesday.
Instead, attorney Todd Blanche entered a plea on his behalf to the 37 counts facing the President.
Continue reading “Trump Enters Not Guilty Plea”Berlusconi Had A Great Relationship With Bush. With Obama, Not So Much.
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
When the administration of Geroge W. Bush needed an ally to help sell its proposed invasion of Iraq to a skeptical European audience, Silvio Berlusconi stepped forward.
It wasn’t that the Italian prime minister was particularly concerned over the threat of Saddam Hussein’s imagined weapons of mass destruction to his country, or the region — he wasn’t. But it was a chance for the former businessman to burnish his credentials as an international statesman and to draw the U.S. closer into Italy’s orbit.
Indeed, strengthening U.S.-Italian relations was the key driver of Berlusconi’s foreign policy, as I learned while interviewing Berlusconi government officials for my 2011 book “America’s Allies and War.” The fact that Berlusconi couldn’t repeat the trick some years later when Barack Obama came to power was in large part entirely of his own making — he reportedly never recovered in the eyes of Obama from comments widely seen as racist. Eventually, Berlusconi would again fall in line with Washington’s interventionist foreign policy — this time in Libya — but by then the damage had been done. Fair to say, the legacy in regards to U.S.-Italian relationship left by Berlusconi — who died on June 12, 2023, at 86 — is mixed, a tale of two halves.
A friend in need
Italy never had the “special relationship” that the U.K. still claims to possess in regards to Washington. Nor did it have the clout of post-war France and Germany, whose economies were more central to the well-being of the European Union. Moreover, Italy’s political instability — it is currently on its 69th goverment since 1945 at a rate of one every 13 months or so — makes it more difficult to establish lasting bilateral political relationships.
Nonetheless, by the time Berlusconi came to power for a second time in 2001 — following a one-year stint as prime minister between 1994 and 1995 — Italy had gone some way to ingratiating itself with successive U.S. administrations. In 1990, Italy supported President George H.W. Bush’s military operation in the Persian Gulf, joining a coalition of 39 countries opposing Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and sending fighter jets to support the subsequent aerial bombing campaign.
Then in 1999, Italian jets participated in airstrikes and Italian bases served as the main launching site for U.S. and NATO jets during the alliance’s military operations in Kosovo.
But the war in Iraq was different. By fall of 2002, George W. Bush had made it clear that he intended to invade. But by then, the U.S. had lost some of the near-unanimous international support that it was afforded after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Europe was divided. The public was very much against invasion. But governments had to weigh political consequences at home, with the benefits of supporting the world’s largest economy.
Outside of the U.K., Berlusconi was Bush’s biggest European ally. Shrugging off massive street protests in Italian cities, the opposition of many within the Italian parliament and public opinion that put support for the invasion as low as 22%, Berlusconi went to bat for Bush’s war.
Unlike the U.K. — and to a lesser extent Australia and Poland — Italy did not directly participate in the invasion itself. But by April of 2003, Italy agreed to send a contingent of 3,000 troops to help stabilize Iraq. Explaining his rationale to the New York Times in 2003, Berlusconi said it was “absolutely unthinkable” to decline Bush’s request for an Italian military presence given how the U.S. had come to Europe’s aid after World War II.
Even sending that peace mission was controversial in Italy, especially after 17 Italian soldiers were killed in a November 2003 attack. in Iraq. Indeed, with elections around the corner, in 2005 Berlosconi announced Italian troops would withdraw from the war-torn country.
Surplus to US requirements
Sticking his neck out for Bush’s war won Berlusconi friends in Washington. During the Bush’s administration, the Italian prime minister visited the U.S. on 11 occasions and was invited to address both houses of Congress — a rarity for overseas leaders.
The deployment of Italian troops both in Iraq and also Afghanistan — where some 4,000 Italians were sent and 48 died — helped stabilize the U.S.-Italian ties.
It wasn’t a one-way relationship. In return for military support, Berlusconi benefited from his elevated role in trans-Atlantic relations, being able to sell himself as a major international player at home. And remaining friendly with the world’s biggest economy is also prudent for a country prone to economic instability.
So while he was ejected from office in Italy in 2006, he departed with a legacy of building up Italy’s standing with leaders in the U.S.
And then came the Obama years. Berlusconi returned to power in 2008, the same year that Obama was elected to his first term in office. But even before Obama could be sworn in, the Italian prime minister had soured the relationship, referring to the U.S. president elect as “young, handsome and tanned.”
It may have been meant as a compliment, but it certainly came across as at best off-key, at worst racist.
Such eyebrow-raising remarks were, of course, not uncommon for Berlusconi, who gained a reputation for saying at times outrageous things. But the incident didn’t bode well for bilateral relations.
Conversations I have had with officials in Obama’s White House and State Department and others in Washington suggest that it wasn’t primarily about Berlusconi’s comments; there was a feeling that by the late 2000s he wasn’t reliable and had little to offer.
There was, however, one last U.S.-led foreign intervention that the aging Italian prime minister could play a role in. In 2011 a coalition of NATO countries were entrusted to implement a U.N.-sanctioned no-fly zone over Libya, amid claims of civilian attacks by Moammar Gaddafi’s regime. Berlusconi — mindful of Italy receiving a quarter of its oil from Libya and reliant on the country to implement a deal aimed at preventing African immigrants arriving on Italian shores — resisted.
But after Obama threw his wholesale support behind NATO’s intervention, Berlusconi acquiesced and joined Italy’s allies in the military coalition. To Berlusconi, not being aligned with the U.S. was one thing; opposing Washington’s wishes entirely was a step too far.
A precursor of the populist premier
Much comment has been made over the similarities between Berlusconi and another U.S. president: Donald J. Trump. No doubt, the pair share commonalities — businessmen whose forays into politics were marked by right-wing populism and many, many scandals.
But Berlusconi’s legacy as an Italian leader on trans-Atlantic relations is best seen through the lens of Trump’s two predecessors. And it is a very mixed legacy.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
