I don’t really know how to summarize it. But to great fanfare this evening Elon Musk announced the release of “The Twitter Files,” basically an exposé of the purportedly corrupt decision of Twitter’s former management to suppress links to the NYPost’s story on the Hunter Biden laptop in the final days of the 2020 campaign. He pulled back the curtain and it was none other than Matt Taibbi, now apparently another of Musk’s hirelings, laying it out in one massive Twitter thread.
I was frankly shocked at how underwhelming it was.
We’ve discussed already how a GOP-connected defense contractor, Vertol Systems Company, was awarded a no bid contract to run Gov. Ron DeSantis’s controversial immigrant relocation program which flew those bamboozled Venezuelan asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard back in September. The guy who ran the program for DeSantis, public safety czar Larry Keefe, was Vertol’s longtime lawyer. So everyone is real tight. The state of Florida had to waive its normal rules to pay Vertol in advance for the Martha’s Vineyard “project” and two more stunts, the latter two of which ended up getting scuttled or at least delayed after the controversy blew up in September and October. That meant that the state of Florida had paid Vertol $1.5 million for transporting just fifty immigrants to Massachusetts.
You may have noticed that storied Disney CEO Bob Iger is back in his old job after successor Bob Chapek was unexpectedly fired last month, the corporate equivalent of a drumhead trial and summary execution. The issues at Disney are partly the bearish stock market, partly Chapek’s poor performance. But the central issue is managing Disney’s transformation or attempted transformation into a streaming behemoth. You may already subscribe to Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu or AppleTV. If you do, maybe you’ll sign up for one or two more such services. But not more than that. There’s been a furious competition to be one of those one or two more. Under his long tenure at Disney, Iger made a series of acquisitions — Marvel, the Star Wars franchise, Fox entertainment and more — that made that plausible. Now the future of Disney as a streaming business is in question and that is a central reason why Iger is back.
This may seem far from your concerns. But it is part of a larger dynamic that is central to the early 21st century world. We live in an informational and entertainment world in which there are successive cycles of lavish spending to build market share followed by job losses, diminished quality and general chaos when the winners and losers get sorted out.
The cartoonish staring contest between the House Republicans has lingered this week, with neither side showing any signs of blinking. The small but mighty chorus of MAGA-aligned detractors in Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) caucus have stepped up their opposition and are now calling on McCarthy to drop out so they can find an alternative.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Devastating Ruling In MAL Case
A DC lawyer emailed me shortly after the 11th Circuit panel handed down its decision in the Mar-a-Lago case: “Wow. Complete and total rejection of everything the district court did.”
That pretty much sums up the reaction from legal observers.
Joyce Vance: 11th Circuit to Trump: You’re Not Above the Law!
George Conway: “To say that the court of appeals today completely eviscerated Judge Cannon’s ruling and Trump’s arguments is an understatement.”
Barb McQuade: “11th Circuit decision dismissing the special master in the Mar-a-Lago case is obviously correct, yet still a relief to see the court get it right. This will clear the way for special counsel Smith to review all of the documents and make a charging decision.”
Neal Katyal: “The Mar-a-Lago Trump investigation is now going forward with the blessing of the Court of Appeals, in a decision signed by all 3 judges (two of whom were appointed by Trump and one by President George W. Bush) This Trump maneuver backfired spectacularly. Like all he touches.”
More Really Bad News For Trump
As if the Mar-a-Lago loss wasn’t enough, CNN first reported Thursday that Trump also lost his bid to use executive privilege to block the grand jury testimony of his own White House counsel.
In secret proceedings, the chief judge of federal district court in Washington, D.C., has ordered former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin to provide additional grand jury testimony in the Jan. 6 investigation.
And to state the obvious, DOJ's decision to fight Cipollone & Philbin's executive privilege claims shows they are moving like a freight train directly at Donald Trump.
The NYT buries this little nugget in its MAL coverage:
In recent weeks, several witnesses connected to the investigation have appeared in front of a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington. On Thursday, that included three close aides to Mr. Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The aides included Dan Scavino Jr., Mr. Trump’s former social media guru, William Russell and William B. Harrison, who worked for Mr. Trump when he was in the White House, the people said.
Mike Flynn Still Fighting Georgia Grand Jury Subpoena
Former Trump National Security Adviser turned conspiracist Mike Flynn has been ordered by a Florida judge to testify to the Georgia grand jury investigating 2020 election subversion, but he’s appealing that decision trying to avoid having to appear as scheduled on Dec. 8.
Jury Will Soon Get The Trump Org Criminal Case
Closing arguments in the criminal case highlighted by the testimony of Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg should wrap up today and the case will go the jury.
Making Sense Of the Oath Keepers Verdict
The mixed verdict was a huge win for the rule of law and the Justice Department, but the way the jury approached the case leaves a lot to chew over: “Five Stray Thoughts on the Oath Keepers Verdict.”
Bad News For Tina Peters
Tina Peters’ ex-deputy has agreed to testify against her in her upcoming trial. Peters, the Mesa County, Colorado clerk who boosted election conspiracy theories, is facing criminal charges arising from a data breach at her office.
Flat Out Funny
Republicans are starting to figure out that Trump’s war on mail-in voting may not be good for them. Go figure!
I snorted over this Politico headline: “Pennsylvania Republicans reconsider their war on mail voting”
And this quote is golden:
“There’s no question in my mind that Republicans have to have a different mail-in strategy,” said Andy Reilly, a Republican National Committeeman in Pennsylvania. “When one party votes for 30 days and one party votes for one, you’re definitely going to lose.”
Joel Greenberg Sentenced To 11 Years
The Matt Gaetz buddy who ultimately cooperated with prosecutors was sentenced to 11 years in prison, the upper end of the sentence range prosecutors were seeking.
IRS Audits Of Comey And McCabe Were Legit Random
A Treasury Department inspector general has concluded that the unusual audits of former top FBI officials James Comey and Andrew McCabe were in fact random. The IG found no evidence of political mischief involved in the surprising coincidence that two of Donald Trump’s leading provocateurs were singled out for IRS scrutiny.
Another Kanye Meltdown
How to sum it up? A totally masked Kanye West went full Nazi on Alex Jones’ Infowars show and was suspended from Twitter after posting a swastika. As crazy as all that sounds, it really doesn’t do Kanye’s day justice.
The Infowars interview was too much even for Alex Jones:
This InfoWars interview with Kanye West is getting so thoroughly antisemitic that even Alex Jones is pushing back, after West has spent the last few minutes accusing Jews of being pedophiles. “I think most Jews are great people,” Jones says. “But I agree there’s a Jewish mafia.”
Benjy Sarlin: “We are in the worst case scenario mode here of celebrity, neo-Nazism, conspiracy thinking, partisanship, and reflexive anti-woke contrarianism all colliding at once and it’s genuinely extremely concerning.”
Even chief twit Elon Musk couldn’t take it anymore: “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”
It was too much even for the Jim Jordan Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who had steadfastly refused to delete their notorious tweet until yesterday:
Supreme Court Takes Up Challenge To Biden Student Loan Debt Relief
The top line news: Biden’s student loan debt relief program is now on a Supreme Court fast track, and the court is keeping in place the pause on the program while the case proceeds.
But equally interesting is the dramatic pattern of the Supreme Court intervening in high-profile cases with deep partisan stakes before the appeals courts have finished weighing in. Take a look:
The student loan case is now the *18th* case since February 2019 in which #SCOTUS has granted certiorari “before judgment” — expediting a merits dispute by bypassing the intermediate federal appeals courts.
PAGE, AZ – OCTOBER 23: The Colorado River and the Glen Canyon Dam is seen from the Glen Canyon Dam Overlook on October 23, 2022 in Page, Arizona. The water in Lake Powell and the Colorado River has been receding due to recent droughts leaving parts of the lake and river parched. The federal government are moving forward with plans to reduce water allocations from the Colorado River Basin to Arizona and is asking millions of residents to reduce their water consumption as the drought get worse. (Photo by Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
I wanted to slow down a bit and make sure you absorb the full weight of the 11th Circuit ruling today in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Specifically this was a ruling on the civil suit which Donald Trump brought to short circuit and hobble the Justice Department probe of his theft and illegal possession of a host of highly classified documents at his South Florida villa. Remember Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee judge who Trump forum-shopped into the case and who then proceeded to disregard logic, precedent and self-respect to take up as, in essence, Trump’s own lawyer from the bench? The three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit, made up of two Trump appointees and one George W. Bush appointee, ruled against every aspect of Cannon’s involvement in the case, including being involved at all in the first place. The whole special master episode? Nope. Done. Josh Kovensky walks us through the details.
There are about a hundred Donald Trump-related investigations happening at the moment, so today I’ll save you the Google with this brief rundown of the Trump Organization criminal tax fraud case, which is wrapping up closing arguments either this evening or sometime tomorrow morning. The jury will then begin its deliberations.
Federal appeals court rules that the U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has no jurisdiction to hear former President Trump’s challenge of the FBI’s seizure of government documents at Mar-a-Lago and orders her to dismiss the case.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ordered the dismissal of former President Trump’s civil lawsuit challenging the seizure of government records at Mar-a-Lago.
The much-anticipated decision by the appeals court fully repudiated the district court’s controversial early decisions in the case and effectively ended the use of a special master to review documents in the case.
Far right Twitter clone site Parler announces Kanye’s purchase of Parler is off.
From Parler HQ: “Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November. Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”
