After two Democratic congressmen called for her resignation Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that she’d asked to be temporarily replaced on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Continue reading “Schumer Quickly Promises Action On Feinstein’s Request To Temporarily Step Down From Judiciary Committee”Jack Smith Barrels Toward An Epic Confrontation With Donald Trump
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Shit Is Getting Real
Over the past several days, the full scope, scale and speed of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Donald Trump have come more fully into focus. The daily drip of accounts from witnesses, defense lawyers, and others almost certainly not associated with the government provides a somewhat skewed but still clarifying view into the legal jeopardy the former president faces at the federal level.
A few takeaways:
- Speed: Smith is moving as fast as the legal system will allow and doesn’t appear encumbered by lack of resources or institutional support. We don’t know exactly how many grand juries he’s overseeing in DC, but, as was reaffirmed yesterday by the WaPo, at least two of them “are meeting every week about Trump and his advisers on multiple fronts.” Trump and others are putting up various fights over executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, and the Speech or Debate Clause, which must be litigated and that necessarily takes time. But the courts are moving quickly (for them), allowing Smith to speed those arguments through the appeals process, where for the most part he keeps winning. The clock is ticking, though, with a pressing need to make charging decisions before the 2024 campaign season is in full swing.
- Scope: The most self-contained probe involves the Mar-a-Lago documents case. The Jan. 6 probe is much more wide-ranging (more on that in a moment). But the thoroughness and aggressiveness with which Smith picked up from the original DOJ components handling these cases suggests a clear understanding of the stakes, the risks, and the historic significance of what is unfolding.
- Scale: The Jan. 6 investigations of the higher ups, especially when coupled with the hundreds of criminal prosecutions of the rioters, which the Justice Department has already called the biggest probe in its history, appears to be as sweeping and all-encompassing as it deserves. We still don’t know the exact contours of this probe, but it ranges from the fake electors scheme, to the financing of the Jan. 6 rallies, to the bogus fundraising the Trump campaign was doing off the Big Lie, to the connections between Trump World and the leading edge of the provocateurs at the Capitol. In other words, the investigation seems to rise to the historic moment.
If it sounds like I’m cheerleading Jack Smith and certain outcomes of his investigations, I’m not. The point all along hasn’t been to send Trump to jail, or to win indictments, or to punish those responsible. The point has been to investigate it with the speed, scale and scope the democracy-rending scheme deserves and then let the facts and the law lead where they may. For a time in 2021, it looked alarmingly unlikely that a proper investigation was ever going to happen. That is no longer the case.
Smith Eyes Trump’s Bogus Fundraising Off The Big Lie
WaPo adds to what CNN has been reporting for a while: The Big Lie-focused fundraising between Election Day 2020 and Inauguration Day 2021 is a specific focus of Jack Smith’s investigation:
- Smith has sent subpoenas since the beginning of March about the fundraising angle to Trump advisers and former campaign aides, Republican operatives and other consultants involved in the 2020 presidential campaign, according to the report.
- “[P]rosecutors are said to be interested in whether anyone associated with the fundraising operation violated wire fraud laws, which make it illegal to make false representations over email to swindle people out of money.”
- “The subpoenas seek more specific types of communications so that prosecutors can compare what Trump allies and advisers were telling one another privately about the voter-fraud claims with what they were saying publicly in appeals that generated more than $200 million in donations from conservatives, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.”
Tell Me More About The Map, Please!
In the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation, Jack Smith has zeroed in on a sensitive map containing intel that Trump took with him when he left office and allegedly showed off to aides and visitors, the NYT reports.
The story is full of new nuggets:
- “One person briefed on the matter said investigators have asked about Mr. Trump showing the map while aboard a plane.”
- “A third person with knowledge of the investigation said the map might also have been shown to a journalist writing a book.”
- Investigators are also reportedly looking at whether Trump delayed his annual departure from Mar-a-Lago last year and sifted through boxes between the May grand jury subpoena for the return of documents and a June 3 visit from DOJ officials to retrieve them. Not all the sought-after documents were returned then, leading to the FBI search of MAL in August.
Abortion Pill Case Looks Headed To SCOTUS
The overnight ruling in the big Texas abortion pill case by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was frankly a disaster.
You probably woke up to alerts that the appeals court issued a stay, which is true, but it’s only a partial stay and it’s reasoning is flawed in numerous ways.
This will almost surely force the Justice Department to go the conservative Supreme Court to try to obtain a more thorough stay blocking the lower court decision. I know that may sound like a fool’s errand, but these decisions are so bad that even the six-justice conservative majority may have trouble swallowing them. Either way, DOJ doesn’t have much choice and better to know the legal terrain as it is rather than as we might guess or imagine it to be.
TPM’s Kate Riga has a closer look at the late-night ruling.
Fox News Is In A World Of Hurt
The rapid-fire developments in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox landmark defamation case were nothing short of startling:
- The judge imposed sanctions against Fox for withholding evidence from Dominion and misleading the court.
- Angry about the conduct of Fox’s high-powered and respected legal team, the judge signaled he would appoint a special master to investigate the withholding of evidence and related matters, including it appears the failure to reveal that Rupert Murdoch is an officer of Fox News.
- As if that weren’t enough, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner obtained some of the allegedly withheld evidence: audio tapes made by a former senior Fox News producer Abby Grossberg who is now suing the network. Here’s that segment:
Navarro Has To Cough Up Presidential Docs
For real now, Peter.
Madness
Donald Trump sues Michael Cohen – the lead witness in the New York state criminal cases against him – in federal court in Florida for half a billion dollars.
Trump Begs To Delay Carroll Defamation Trial
All Trump’s criming is going to make it hard for him to get a fair trial on E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him in New York. Okay, that’s not exactly Trump’s argument, but it’s laughable, especially with the prospect of more indictments soon in Georgia and DC.
Trump To Be Deposed Today In NY
This is almost ancillary at this point, but there remains the giant civil lawsuit by the New York attorney general against Trump, three of his adult kids and the Trump Org. Trump is being deposed today in that case and he’s not happy about it.
Feinstein Machinations
Amid new calls from Democratic elected to step down, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced last night that she was stepping away from the Senate Judiciary Committee indefinitely. This allows Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to fill her seat on the committee and resume confirming federal judges. Judicial confirmations have been at a standstill for some two months on the closely divided committee as Feinstein was in poor health in California and unable to fulfill her duties.
Amazing Story
WaPo homes in on the Discord leaker.
Who Needs A Dog Whistle Anymore?
I hope you will become a TPM member!
No, The Appeals Court Didn’t Save Us From Insane Decision Blocking Abortion Pill
The notoriously right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling on mifepristone from late last week in an early Thursday decision that may prompt the Justice Department to seek relief from the Supreme Court.
Continue reading “No, The Appeals Court Didn’t Save Us From Insane Decision Blocking Abortion Pill”Ethics Watchdog Urges Justice Department Investigation Into Clarence Thomas’ Trips
This article first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
A Washington ethics watchdog is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose luxury trips he received from a billionaire GOP megadonor.
“This high-profile ethics matter has historic implications far beyond one Supreme Court justice,” attorneys for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center wrote in a detailed letter on Tuesday to the Judicial Conference, the principal policymaking body for federal courts. The Judicial Conference could trigger an investigation by referring the case to the Justice Department.
The financial disclosure law that covers justices and other federal officials states that “knowingly and willfully” failing to make required disclosures can result in fines. If someone intentionally falsifies their disclosure reports, they can face criminal penalties — a warning printed below the signature line of the reports themselves. But such prosecutions are rare.
ProPublica’s investigation last week revealed that Thomas has taken international cruises on conservative donor Harlan Crow’s superyacht, flown on Crow’s private jet and regularly vacationed at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
If the Judicial Conference were to refer the case to the Justice Department, it could lead to a remarkable historical moment. One of the few instances of a federal investigation into a sitting Supreme Court justice occurred in 1969, when Justice Department officials signaled an inquiry into outside payments that Justice Abe Fortas had been accepting. Fortas eventually resigned.
Lawyers for the Campaign Legal Center, which was founded by a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission and pushes for tighter ethics enforcement in Washington, wrote that there’s ample “reasonable cause to believe that” Thomas knew the trips had to be disclosed.
“If the Judicial Conference fails to publicly address the substantial evidence of blatant violations of a disclosure law that other federal judges understand and regularly follow,” the attorneys wrote, “it creates an exception for Justice Thomas that swallows the rule.”
The Judicial Conference and Thomas did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.
The letter is the latest in what have been days of mounting pressure to address the revelations. Last week, Democratic lawmakers called on Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate. This Monday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans to hold a hearing “regarding the need to restore confidence in the Supreme Court’s ethical standards.” They also announced an effort to reform ethics rules for federal judges.
In response to our story last week, Thomas issued a statement acknowledging the “family trips,” which he said he was told that he didn’t need to report.
“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” Thomas wrote. “I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”
Seven experts consulted by ProPublica, including former ethics lawyers for Congress and the White House, said the law clearly requires the disclosure of gifts of transportation, such as private jet flights. If Thomas is arguing otherwise, the experts said, he is incorrect. Among the experts was a top official at the Campaign Legal Center.
Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years.” He said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”
Attorneys with the center said that the federal Ethics in Government Act and judiciary regulations have always required the disclosure of free travel — even before the regulations were updated last month. They argued that Thomas himself implicitly acknowledged as much when he disclosed similar flights in the late 1990s, including one on Crow’s jet.
The attorneys pushed for the Judicial Conference to make good on its recent promises to “ensure timely action is taken on credible allegations of misconduct” and refer Thomas’ case to the Justice Department before the next judicial ethics disclosure deadline in May.
Uncomfortable Conversations
There’s an ugly political spectacle playing out in press reports and on social media tonight about Sen. Dianne Feinstein who has appeared frail and sometimes confused in recent public appearances and has been absent from the Senate since February suffering from shingles. Feinstein agreed under pressure last year to announce that she would retire at the end of her present term in January 2025. Now there is another round of media pressing her to resign sooner. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) became the first high-ranking Democrat today to call for Feinstein to step down.
This is an undignified and unkind spectacle that shouldn’t be playing out on Twitter or in press stories. Feinstein should simply step down. There is no issue she espouses that wouldn’t be advocated for by an appointed successor in 2023–24 and an elected one in 2025. The idea that it is acceptable to be absent from the Senate for months at a time with no clear prospect of return is absurd.
I said on Twitter this afternoon that rather than allowing the current spectacle to play out publicly, it is incumbent on Gov. Newsom and Sen. Schumer to go to Sen. Feinstein and/or her family and/or her staff and say she needs to step down. A number of people responded that those conversations have probably already taken place but to no avail.
Is that true? Maybe. Probably. But clearly not directly enough or clearly enough.
Continue reading “Uncomfortable Conversations”Where Things Stand: Elon Airs His Regrets
The world’s second richest man has been having a really “painful” time running Twitter, the once-handy and dare I say functional social media platform that has become completely unusable since his takeover.
Elon Musk also admitted that he only went through with the $44 billion purchase because a judge was about to force him to buy it.
In a wide-ranging interview with BBC, the billionaire addressed a number of issues that have been plaguing his image and his social media platform in recent months as he’s instituted mass layoffs and claimed he’s wiping the website of bots and fake news, while deplatforming journalists and trusted media organizations.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Elon Airs His Regrets”U.S. Congressman Calls For Absent Feinstein To Step Down
After months of tense silence and off-the-record quotes, a sitting congressman is publicly calling for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to step down.
Continue reading “U.S. Congressman Calls For Absent Feinstein To Step Down”Another Far Right Group Was Posting Conspiracy Theories About Voter Roll Program As Red States Cut Ties
As Republican-led states pull out of a multistate voter roll program in response to Gateway Pundit-pushed conspiracy theories about the organization, a conservative nonprofit was apparently also part of fanning the flames.
Continue reading “Another Far Right Group Was Posting Conspiracy Theories About Voter Roll Program As Red States Cut Ties”Judge Sanctions Fox For Allegedly Withholding Evidence In Dominion Defamation Case
“What do I do with attorneys that aren’t straightforward with me?”
With a trial looming next week in Dominion Voting Systems billion-dollar defamation claim against Fox News, the judge in the case has slapped the right-wing cable news net with sanctions and suggested that he would order an investigation into whether the network misled him.
Continue reading “Judge Sanctions Fox For Allegedly Withholding Evidence In Dominion Defamation Case”With Unanimous Vote In Shelby County, Both Expelled Dems Have Been Returned To Tennessee House
The Shelby County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to return expelled Tennessee Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson back to the state House on Wednesday, with a 7-0 vote.
Continue reading “With Unanimous Vote In Shelby County, Both Expelled Dems Have Been Returned To Tennessee House”