What Exactly Is Going On In The E. Jean Carroll Trial?

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Things Went And Got Weird

The cross examination of E. Jean Carroll in her rape and defamation case against Donald Trump is set to resume this morning in federal court in New York City. But a couple of odd developments over the weekend:

  • First, there is some sort of sealed matter that the judge is overseeing related to the case. The first inkling came when the trial was delayed for a bit Thursday morning while the lawyers met with the judge. Then over the weekend, Carroll’s lawyer filed a letter on the record with the court that referenced Thursday’s “brief proceeding under seal concerning an issue that had arisen during trial.” It’s not clear what is going on exactly. MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin does a good job laying out in this thread what we do and do not know (teaser: She doesn’t think it’s a run-the-mill evidentiary issue):
  • Then early this morning Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to declare a mistrial over the judge’s own conduct during the trial. You don’t see this every day:

The best part of all this, however, is the complaint by the Trump team that the judge understood a literary reference that they themselves did not:

To follow the Carroll trial in real time, this is your guy: @KlasfeldReports.

The Latest On Jack Smith

  • NYT: Prosecutors in Jan. 6 Case Step up Inquiry Into Trump Fund-Raising

Here’s the key bit (emphasis mine):

But the Justice Department, with its ability to bring criminal charges, has been able to prompt more extensive cooperation from a number of witnesses. And prosecutors have developed more information than the House committee did, having targeted communications between Trump campaign aides and other Republican officials to determine if a barrage of fund-raising solicitations sent out after the election were knowingly misleading, according to the three people familiar with the matter.

  • WaPo: A second firm hired by Trump campaign found no evidence of election fraud

Here’s the key bit (emphasis mine):

Former president Trump’s campaign quietly commissioned a second firm to study election fraud claims in the weeks after the 2020 election, and the founder of the firm was recently questioned by the Justice Department about his work disproving the claims.

No Verdict Yet

The jury in the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case continues to deliberate.

WTF

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) responded to a mass shooting over the weekend in southeast Texas by highlighting the immigration status of the victims (and getting that wrong, too):

NC GOP Wants To Destroy UNC

A bill to eliminate tenure in the UNC and community college systems is on the move in the North Carolina General Assembly.

ICYMI

This isn’t a story about gerrymandering. It’s about the right wing seizing hold of the courts to undermine the rule of law. And it’s on full display in North Carolina right now, where the new right-wing majority on the state’s highest court is undoing its own precedent from last year.

Good Read

Jason Zengerle, who has a book coming out on Tucker Carlson, assesses last week’s firing of the top Fox New host.

Supreme Court Scandal Watch

  • NYT: How Antonin Scalia Law School cultivated ties to justices with generous pay and unusual perks to gain prestige, donations and influence.
  • Chris Geidner: April’s SCOTUS scandal-fest showed us just how out-of-touch the conservative justices are

Hmmm …

Immediate past White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain making sure DOJ hears him loud and clear:

First Republic Goes Down

First Republic Bank was seized overnight in the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, with its remnants sold to JP Morgan.

Welp …

The WSJ obtained a trove of documents that includes the schedules of Jeffrey Epstein, showing him associating with a wider circle of influential and prominent people than previously known.

Dark Brandon

US President Joe Biden speaks during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, April 29, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

The President went full Dark Brandon to end his WHCA speech:

Thank You!

Our membership drive was a huge success! Many thanks to all of you for your support and especially to the new members who came to TPM via Morning Memo. Welcome! We’re so glad to have you here. And if you haven’t joined yet, no need to wait til the next membership drive. Join year round!

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Final Day

Posted on by Josh Marshall

We’re now at 628 642 new members on the last day of our annual drive. We made it to our goal of 500 and now passed the revised goal of 600. Huge thanks to everyone who has joined over the last 30 days. We don’t want to be greedy but we want to add as many more as we can on the final day.

The truth is, it’s not greedy. The 500 number was a plausible reach goal we thought put us in a position to have the ship not taking on water and moving in the right direction over the course of the year. Joe Ragazzo and I especially sighed a big sigh of relief when we saw that we’d probably hit that goal.

With the the wave of new media site closures and layoffs just over the last week there’s been a little mini-chorus in the media debate of, “well those TPM folks really had the secret sauce, knew how to make it work, yada yada.” Well, appreciate the congrats and f— yeah and thank you, media types. But it’s a serious slog every day, running out single after single, I assure you. So driving that number higher still makes a big difference for us. So thanks to everyone who’s joined and if you’re still thinking about it make today the day. Click here.

University Of Nebraska Tweaks Its Logo As ‘OK’ Sign Became Gesture For White Supremacists

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

On April 17, 2023, the Nebraska Cornhuskers unveiled the latest version of their beloved mascot, Herbie Husker.

Herbie’s left hand no longer forms the “OK” symbol. Instead, an index finger is raised to indicate that the team is No. 1.

The change was made, University of Nebraska officials explained, because the universal symbol of approbation – curling the index finger to touch the thumb, forming an “O” – had become associated with white supremacy and hate speech.

Continue reading “University Of Nebraska Tweaks Its Logo As ‘OK’ Sign Became Gesture For White Supremacists” →

How South Carolina Ended Up With An All-Male Supreme Court

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article was originally published at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

When attorneys arrived for oral arguments in South Carolina’s high-profile abortion case last fall, state Supreme Court Justice Kaye Hearn took her seat up front, a ruffly white shirt beneath her black robe, the only woman on the dais. With piercing blue eyes, she scanned the courtroom.

Continue reading “How South Carolina Ended Up With An All-Male Supreme Court” →

Newly Right-Wing N. Carolina Supreme Court Reverses Its 2022 Gerrymandering Decision

Posted on by Kate Riga

The North Carolina Supreme Court became much more conservative after the 2022 midterms. On Friday, the newly minted justices flexed that power to overturn the court’s own months-old decision knocking down maps that were egregiously gerrymandered by the Republican state legislature. 

Continue reading “Newly Right-Wing N. Carolina Supreme Court Reverses Its 2022 Gerrymandering Decision” →

Trump Hugs Up Jan. 6 Insurrectionist At New Hampshire Campaign Stop

Posted on by Kaila Philo

Former president Donald Trump hugged and consoled a woman who breached the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, the Washington Post first reported.

Continue reading “Trump Hugs Up Jan. 6 Insurrectionist At New Hampshire Campaign Stop” →

Intended Victim Of The Jan. 6 Attack Reluctantly Testifies

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

What’s Next For Jack Smith?

After winning at the appeals court late Wednesday, Special Counsel Jack Smith wasted no time in hauling former Vice President Mike Pence before a DC federal grand jury investigating the Trump-led effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Extra security and an arriving motorcade at the federal courthouse were the first clues Thursday morning that something was up. Pence testified before the grand jury for most of the day before motorcades were spotted leaving the underground parking garage in the late afternoon. Soon after that, major news outlet began reporting that it was in fact Pence.

Pence, a primary target of President Trump and rioters (don’t ever forget the “Hang Pence” chants at the Capitol), has the air of a domestic abuse victim. His testimony is essential to the case, but he’s been reluctant to turn on his former political partner. When he has turned on him, it’s been short-lived and followed by excusing-making for Trump and more enabling.

It took months of negotiations, a grand jury subpoena, and two parallel court proceedings, including Wednesday’s appeals court ruling, before Pence would provide his account under oath.

While no details of Pence’s testimony have yet emerged, the fact of it suggests we’re closer to the end of Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation than the beginning (that is almost certainly true as well of Smith’s Mar-a-Lago probe, which by nearly every account is farther along). It’s not at all clear when we should expect to see charging decisions by Smith. Among the many unknowns:

  • Will Smith proceed first against a layer of figures between the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers and the White House?
  • Will Smith work his way up to Trump with charges against lower level figures directly within Trump’s orbit?
  • Will Smith first obtain guilty pleas and cooperation from people close to Trump? Has he perhaps already done so but kept it under wraps?

And of course, while it now seems unlikely, it’s possible Smith charges no one in his Jan. 6 probe.

A Look At Jack Smith’s Team

ABC News has a good rundown of the lawyers working with Special Counsel Jack Smith.

It All Started At ‘Good Morning’

E. Jean Carroll appears to have held her own through a full day of cross examination on the stand by Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina.

Things started testy and never let up:

No trial today. The cross examination of Carroll is set to resume Monday.

So Mockable

While Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was strutting around Thursday like a bantam rooster after he struggled to get his conference to pass their dream debt-ceiling bill, Senate Dems were laughing at him.

Watch The Politics Of Abortion Shift In Real Time

Republican-dominated legislatures in South Carolina and Nebraska failed to advance new abortion restrictions Thursday in the face of pushback by some conservative legislators.

Painful To Watch

Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D), the body’s only transgender member, spent Thursday working on a bench in a hallway outside the House chamber from which she has been banned by the GOP majority.

New Anti-Trans Law In Kansas

The GOP-controlled legislature in Kansas overrode the veto of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to pass one of the most sweeping anti-trans bathroom bills in the country.

Blowback In Florida

Retired NBA star Dwyane Wade, who won three championships with the Miami Heat and is the team’s all-time leading scorer, reveals he moved his family out of Florida because of the anti-LGBT atmosphere. Wade has a transgender teen.

Emmett Till Accuser Dies

Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman whose accusations against Emmett Till immediately preceded his lynching, has died in Louisiana at age 88

Fits The Profile

Jack Teixeira, the accused Discord leaker hailed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as “white, male, christian, and antiwar,” was armed to the teeth and fantasized about mass shootings, prosecutors allege.

‘We Got Him’

The Washington Post has obtained hundreds of photos taken at the White House on the day Osama Bin Laden was killed in a U.S. military raid.

LOL Elon

New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority will no longer issue real-time service alerts on Twitter after Twitter tried to gouge $50,000 a month from the transit agency for the privilege.

Lede Of The Day

AP: “Private armed guards aboard a famous yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton opened fire on Yemeni Coast Guard members Friday after mistaking them for pirates, sparking a gunfight in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was wounded.”

2024 Ephemera

  • Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV) jumped into the race against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
  • NYT: Top Republicans Balk at WinRed’s Plan to Charge More for Online Donations
  • Is Donald Trump impersonating Herman Munster? What is happening?

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Voting Rights Group Sues Florida For Registration Process That Sets Former Felons Up To Fail

Posted on by Kaila Philo

A voting rights group is suing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R-FL) administration for its “byzantine” voter registration process, which has led to the arrests of dozens of formerly incarcerated people who accidentally voted illegally.

Continue reading “Voting Rights Group Sues Florida For Registration Process That Sets Former Felons Up To Fail” →

Democrats Scoff At Republican Insistence That Poison Pill Debt Limit Bill Is Good-Faith Negotiation

Posted on by Kate Riga

Senate Democrats physically couldn’t contain themselves Thursday when TPM asked about the Republican insistence that their bill to extend the debt ceiling — which also repeals huge swaths of the Inflation Reduction Act, adds onerous work requirements to benefit programs and slashes agency power — is a good faith effort to negotiate. 

Continue reading “Democrats Scoff At Republican Insistence That Poison Pill Debt Limit Bill Is Good-Faith Negotiation” →