Kate Riga and I just recorded a quick debate recap insta-pod which should be showing up in your feed a bit later in the evening if you’re a Josh Marshall Podcast subscriber. If not, we’ll post it here on the site too. Our first impressions were pretty similar: surprisingly strong showing by Mike Pence. We debated today on the regular episode whether Hutchinson or Christie would be the one who brought the fight to Trump. Pence was also possible but he simply didn’t seem to have it in him. But as it turned out, it was Pence who took up that challenge and he managed to wrestle applause from the audience for doing it. There’s a strong element of “not that it matters.” But in the context of this debate, it was Pence.
Continue reading “Debate Reaction”The Non-Trump Republicans Gathered In Milwaukee To Fight With Vivek
Eight of the Republican 2024 hopefuls not named Donald Trump gathered in Milwaukee Wednesday night for the first debate of the presidential cycle.
Continue reading “The Non-Trump Republicans Gathered In Milwaukee To Fight With Vivek”Ragged Debate Live Blog
10:23 p.m.: Needless to say this debate is a total mess. The way that this cranked-up weirdo Ramaswamy basically takes over the whole debate with his inane claims is the story in microcosm of the contemporary GOP.
10:11 p.m.: Pence helped himself with that little speech that he gave when he briefly took over the debate.
Here We Go Debate Blog
10:04 p.m.: DeSantis gives a highly principled explanation of why he has to dodge the question.
9:58 p.m.: Finally Christie at least justifies his being on the stage … I would say Christie did okay with that. But he could have done better. Sorta meh.
9:38 p.m.: Fascinating to me that Pence makes an unabashed, bible-based anti-abortion stand and then embraces the 15-week national ban. That’s a pretty good barometer of where the pro-life movement is.
9:26 p.m.: Fox just let them veto the climate hand raise. Amazing.
9:16 p.m.: Even though I expected it, it’s kind of amazing to me how much of this debate is being conducted as though Trump never happened.
9:14 p.m.: Kind of a small thing but Tim Scott said unemployment was 3%, the lowest ever when they lost their majority. Actually in November 2020 it was 6.7%.
9:08 p.m.: I was hoping Chris Christie would entertain me tonight. But this is weak. Mealymouthed.
8:58 p.m.: Tonight is going to be pretty traditional coverage for us. But we’re going to be doing more live, real-time coverage of some breaking events in the future. Likely election nights, perhaps major breaking news and possibly debates. So let us know what you think about that. I like being able to get immediate audio and video commentary but I don’t necessarily want to get the canned stuff from the cable networks. So we’ll be experimenting with that.
8:55 p.m.: Trey Gowdy: “All eight have something in common. They’re behind.” Good one. Lol.
8:52 p.m.: This debate could decide who will come in second place for the GOP nomination.
How Big Will The Big Lie Be?
After getting sued and paying out a massive settlement to avoid a trial over it’s coverage of the last presidential election, Fox News is inserting itself into the 2024 narrative right off the bat by hosting tonight’s first GOP primary debate — a forum that will guarantee the network plenty of eyeballs and plenty of ad dollars.
Continue reading “How Big Will The Big Lie Be?”Federal Judge Denies Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark Bids To Stave Off Arrest
A federal judge on Wednesday shot down the efforts of two high profile Fulton County racketeering defendants to block their arrests, all but assuring that the Trump cronies will be booked this week like the other 17 defendants.
Continue reading “Federal Judge Denies Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark Bids To Stave Off Arrest”Debate Pod
In today’s episode of the podcast, Kate Riga and I did a preview of tonight’s GOP debate. So if you’re going to be watching tonight try to listen before the show. We did our best to give pointers on what to look out for. It should be showing up in your feeds this afternoon if you subscribe.
Prigozhin’s Jet Goes Down, And The Russian Gov’t Claims He Was On Board
Two months to the day after launching a mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, a plan belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed north of Moscow. Russian wire services cited government agencies as saying that Prigozhin was on board.
No agency has yet claimed that Prigozhin is dead; only that he was on a manifest listing passengers aboard the plane that crashed.
Continue reading “Prigozhin’s Jet Goes Down, And The Russian Gov’t Claims He Was On Board”The Hucksters of the Right
It’s a bit off our radar. But I wanted to point your attention to this eye-popping story on defeated former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro embraced the Trump comparison in office and followed that pattern with his own failed insurrection which broke out after he refused to recognize his reelection defeat in 2022. Since then he’s been under a number of investigations into subjects ranging from his failed coup to various Watergate-like infractions in office to other instances of corruption. But the one that is his most immediate threat turns on his allegedly fencing fancy gifts he received from foreign heads of state at stores and auction houses in the United States.
Continue reading “The Hucksters of the Right”Big New Reveals In The Mar-a-Lago Case
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Aileen Cannon Forced Jack Smith’s Hand
Special Counsel Jack Smith in a new filing Tuesday outlined how it came to be that a third defendant was added to the Mar-a-Lago case in a superseding indictment.
Some of this may sound familiar to you because it mirrors reporting by CNN and the WaPo in late July, but now we have it confirmed by Smith. The short version is this: Trump Employee 4 (identified by news outlets as Yuscil Taveras) receives a target letter that conflicts out his attorney Stanley Woodward, Taveras gets a new attorney, Taveras meets with the feds, a superseding indictment soon follows adding Carlos De Oliveira as a co-defendant and new charges against Trump and Walt Nauta.
But there’s quite a bit more to this whole episode, the new filing reveals:
- In March 2023 testimony to the DC grand jury, Taveras and De Oliveira perjured themselves by denying having any conversations about the security footage at Mar-a-Lago.
- In June 2023, Smith advised Woodward that Taveras was a target of his investigation and sought a hearing with the chief judge in DC over Woodward conflict of interest. Woodward was repping both Nauta and Taveras.
- U.S. District Judge James Boasberg provided Taveras with a public defender to confer with about the conflicts of interest Woodward had. On July 5, Taveras informed Boasberg that he was changing lawyers from Woodward to the public defender.
- Soon after, Taveras recanted his prior false testimony to the grand jury and implicated Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira. The superseding indictment soon followed.
There’s a lot more there, beyond the scope of Morning Memo. But suffice to say, that Smith is hitting back hard on three main points: (1) his use of the grand jury in DC was proper; (2) Woodward is deeply conflicted for all the above reasons but also because he was provided to Taveras and paid for by Trumpworld entities; and (3) there is zero precedent for resolving this kind of conflict by barring the testimony of a key witness, which is what Woodward proposed.
One irony here is that Smith was forced to put it all on the public record because U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon rejected his effort to file under seal in a more discreet way.
From The Sublime To The Ridiculous
A few words before we dive into the maneuverings of Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark.
Both have colorable claims for removal of the Georgia racketeering case to federal court and possibly for immunity from state prosecution because each was a federal official at the time of the charged conduct. I don’t want to minimize their legal arguments because they’re not frivolous or contrived. That’s not to say they’re airtight cases, but they do have factual and legal bases for the arguments.
Each man is trying, understandably, to secure the protections from state-level prosecutions afforded to federal officials before they have to surrender to authorities in Atlanta. Here’s the rub: Fani Willis has given the 19 defendants until Friday at noon to surrender, but the federal judge has scheduled a hearing on removal for next Monday. That’s too late for Meadows and Clark to avoid having to surrender. Hence the maneuverings of the last 24 hours, with each of them filing emergency motions with the federal court.
It’s just that in each instance, things get weird fast because of who we’re dealing with.
Let’s start with Jeff Clark.
Entitled Much?
The lol funny argument from Jeff Clark came in the form of a demand for the federal judge who is considering removing the state prosecution to his court to decide immediately on Clark’s emergency motion to stop the proceedings in state court. His argument: please don’t require me to make “rushed travel arrangements to fly into Atlanta.”
UPDATE: In his motion for an emergency stay of the Fulton County prosecution, Jeff CLARK says he wants to avoid
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 22, 2023
"the choice of making rushed travel arrangements to fly into Atlanta or instead risking being labeled a fugitive"
He wants a decision by 5pmhttps://t.co/vw9cwXJzDg pic.twitter.com/sEzoG8TYpI
As one might expect, this entitled tone elicited howls of laughter from legal types. The general reaction was: Welcome to being a criminal defendant. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance called Clark “the Karen of criminal defendants.”
In response, the federal judge did not rule immediately but instead gave Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis until 3 p.m. today to respond to Clark’s motion. Stay tuned on this.
Fani Willis To Mark Meadows: Talk To The Hand
For his part, Mark Meadows asked Atlanta DA Fani Willis to grant him an extension to surrender until after the federal court hearing next week. Willis was having none of it:
Willis’ refusal to play along led to Meadows’ seeking emergency relief.
For his part Trump looks prepared to surrender Thursday, even though it is expected that he too will eventually seek removal of the case to federal court.
This is where the early action is in the Georgia case. I’ll have more as the federal judge issues rulings and makes decisions.
It’s Really Happening, Folks
The dribble of defendants surrendering in the Georgia racketeering case continued Tuesday and overnight, yielding this John Eastman gem:
Good Read
NYT: How Mark Meadows Pursued a High-Wire Legal Strategy in Trump Inquiries
Trump Comes To Rudy’s Aid
2024 Ephemera
- Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) is challenging Sen. Rick Scott (R).
Join Us Tonight!
Need some company tonight while enduring the first GOP presidential debate of the 2024 cycle? We’ll be here live-blogging it. Come hang.
!!!
Politico: D.C. Attorney General is probing Leonard Leo’s network
Ed Blum Is Back At It
Edward Blum, who engineered the lawsuit behind the Supreme Court’s June decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, sued the international law firms Perkins Coie and Morrison & Foerster over their fellowships for diverse candidates.
The lawsuits, filed by Edward Blum’s two-year-old, anti-affirmative-action organization, American Alliance for Equal Rights, accuse the law firms of unlawful racial discrimination against white candidates. They ask the courts to remove race from consideration when selecting fellows. The law firms have offices in Texas and Florida. The suits are filed in federal courts in both states.
A Rare Instance Of Voter Fraud
An Ohio attorney supportive of Donald Trump who voted twice in multiple elections went straight to jail after being found guilty of voter fraud Tuesday. James Saunders voted in Ohio and in Florida in 2014, 2016, 2020, and 2022. He was convicted for the last two elections; the first two were beyond the statute of limitations. Sentencing is next week. Saunders faces probation to three years in prison.
What A Swell Guy
CBS News: Burner phones, mistress on payroll… revelations emerge about Texas AG Ken Paxton’s relationship to developer Nate Paul
What A Swell Guy II
The snare is closing on former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, but not for the scheme(s) you might expect. Nope. How about this instead: “Selling embezzled watches at a shopping mall outside Philadelphia.” Here’s how the NYT describes it (emphasis mine):
This month, Brazilian federal police carried out raids as part of an investigation into what it says was a broad conspiracy by Mr. Bolsonaro and several allies to embezzle expensive gifts he received as president from Saudi Arabia and other countries. In one case, authorities accuse Mr. Bolsonaro’s personal aide of selling a diamond Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a jewelry shop at the Willow Grove Park mall in Pennsylvania last year.
Like Morning Memo? Let us know!