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Trump Hugs Up Jan. 6 Insurrectionist At New Hampshire Campaign Stop
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
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:
Cross-examining E. Jean Carroll is Joe Tacopina.
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) April 27, 2023
Tacopina: "Good morning, Ms. Carroll."
(Silence)
Tacopina: (somewhat louder) "Good morning, Ms. Carroll."
(Pause)
Carroll: "Good morning."
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?
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Voting Rights Group Sues Florida For Registration Process That Sets Former Felons Up To Fail
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
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”You Have A Moment?
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Trump Leans Into Globalist Conspiracy Theories With New ‘Make America Great For Us Again’ Ad
Former President Donald Trump debuted a new web ad on Wednesday night that is chock full of allusions to globalist conspiracy theories and a modified version of his famous slogan. The video is the first ad Trump has shared on his Truth Social platform since President Joe Biden officially kicked off his re-election campaign on Tuesday.
Continue reading “Trump Leans Into Globalist Conspiracy Theories With New ‘Make America Great For Us Again’ Ad”Jack Teixeira Allegedly Fantasized About Mass Shootings
The airman accused of leaking classified information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other foreign policy topics researched mass shootings, was suspended from high school for remarks about weapons, and was denied a gun permit before joining the military, prosecutors said in a Wednesday court filing.
Continue reading “Jack Teixeira Allegedly Fantasized About Mass Shootings”McCarthy Flexes His Historic Weakness As Speaker
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) squeaked his $4.8 trillion grab bag of a debt-ceiling bill through the House Wednesday. The final vote was 217-215.
The prize: The House GOP seized the debt ceiling as a hostage in negotiations with the Senate and White House.
Last week, McCarthy didn’t have a plan or the votes. He cobbled together a plan that threw nearly every far-right wish list item into a bill that didn’t go through the regular committee process and then vowed to take it to the floor before he had the votes.
Along the way, despite repeatedly vowing he wouldn’t, McCarthy once again bent to the pressure from extremists in his caucus and was forced to make changes to the bill to get it through the House Rules Committee.
With only a handful of votes to spare, McCarthy got the final holdouts to fall in line Wednesday morning.
The House-passed bill is DOA in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden has promised a veto. But passing something – anything really – was the barest minimum bar McCarthy, a historically weak speaker, had to overcome. He barely did so.
Mass Shooter in the Making
There’s a new filing out in the Jack Teixeira case, written up here by the Times. It’s a government motion to keep Teixeira locked up while awaiting trial. The government argues, unsurprisingly, that Teixeira is a major flight risk and that he still knows lots of information that could cause grave damage if shared with hostile foreign powers. But what is new and newsworthy if not entirely surprising is that Teixeira’s record suggests he was carrying most of the red flags we’d expect for a future mass shooter. You can see the filing here.
As the government filing explains, Teixeira was suspended from high school in 2018 when a classmate “overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school and racial threats.” Later that year he was denied a firearms identification card because of the local police department’s concerns about his threats and suspension at the high school.
Continue reading “Mass Shooter in the Making”