Cheryl Parsa is the latest in a long line of women who have come forward with allegations of violent behavior against Georgia’s GOP senate nominee Herschel Walker in recent months and years. And she’s the first to come out on the record with accusations since he announced his Senate bid in August 2021.
Dallas resident Parsa described an intimate yet turbulent five-year relationship with Walker to the Daily Beast.
Let me game out a few possibilities on the speakership vote. And let me say first, these remain quite hypothetical. I think Kevin McCarthy will become Speaker. But it’s worth walking through how different scenarios could play out.
First, as we know, to be elected Speaker you have to win a majority of the chamber. In other words, 218 out of 435 votes. A majority of your own party doesn’t cut it. That’s why having such a narrow majority makes everything so difficult. Other unexpected events can become very important. The passing of Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA), who died on Monday, could turn out to be significant in how this plays out, a point we’ll get to in a moment.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
A Pyrrhic Victory
Back in early 2019, after Democrats won the House and were poised to start holding Donald Trump accountable, I cautioned our staff that these things take time, so don’t be impatient and don’t rush to judge the pace of accountability.
At the time there was growing public pressure on House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-MA) to immediately obtain Trump’s tax returns from the IRS. A lot of people thought Neal was being too cautious and too slow. I was dubious. Give the guy a half a second to get his feet under him and sort out an order of priorities. Tax returns are one avenue for accountability … blah blah blah.
I was wrong.
Congressional Democrats across the board were slow, they weren’t ready on Day One for the legal and political warfare ahead, and it cost them and the country.
And so it is that almost four years later, with one month left before Dems lose control of the House, Richie Neal finally obtained Trump’s vaunted tax returns with too little time left to do much about them.
A New Investigative Angle on Jan. 6?
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has subpoenaed raw video footage of Jan. 6 from filmmaker Alex Holder in what Playbook calls “a new avenue” in the Justice Department’s criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack. “The new subpoena … does not appear to be related to the DOJ’s criminal investigation of Trump himself,” Playbook reports.
Stanley Woodward Is Not A Household Name
Politico: Meet the legal nerd who MAGA bigwigs are turning to for help.
How Bad Is It Going To Be? Very Bad
Just a taste of the corrosive, toxic, retaliatory, and absurd approach to politics the House GOP will bring to the last two years of the Biden presidency:
Kevin McCarthy is the passive-aggressive flip-side to Jim Jordan’s undisguised aggression. McCarthy sent Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson a pissy, disrespectful letter yesterday demanding that he preserve all records from the panel’s work. It hits all the notes of a troll in the Fox News comments section.
Jan. 6 Committee Is Done With Witnesses
As the Jan. 6 committee winds down, it completed its last witness interviews Wednesday, according to panel char Bennie Thompson (D-MS). The final witness was Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos (R). Also interviewed this week: Kellyanne Conway and former Secret Service agent Tony Ornato.
It’s Gettin’ Good Down In Georgia
The chair of the Georgia GOP was so central to the 2020 fake electors scheme that he can’t share defense counsel with the other fake electors caught up in the investigation by Fulton County DA Fani Willis, a state judge ruled.
Keep An Eye On This One
Closing arguments begin today in the New York criminal trial of the Trump Org.
Here’s a good cheat sheet on a key issue jurors will have to resolve.
We’re Down To One Holdout In Arizona
The last Pennsylvania county holding out on certifying the 2022 elections has relented. I believe that leaves Cochise County, Arizona, as the only laggard in the country.
Irony of All Ironies
The game GOP-controlled Cochise County is playing in Arizona could cost Republicans a House seat.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is warning in filings made in her lawsuit against Cochise County that if it doesn’t certify the results by Dec. 8, the ballots from the county will not be included in the final count. That would be enough to flip the results of the House race in the AZ-06.
That would flip the results of the race for Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani holds a 5,232-vote lead over Democrat Kirsten Engel in unofficial results, as well as the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, where the Republican candidate has a narrow lead.
Greenberg To Be Sentenced Today
Rep. Matt Gaetz’s old running buddy Joel Greenberg is scheduled to be sentenced in his sex trafficking case today. Greenberg pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators, who are trying to give him some credit for his cooperation when its comes to sentencing, but in a surprise development the sentencing judge expressed deep skepticism toward both sides in a hearing Wednesday. The judge seems to think Greenberg deserves a stiffer sentence than range prosecutors and the defendant came up with. “The parties are under agreement about something I don’t agree with,” the judge reportedly said.
House Wades Into Railroad Labor Dispute
The House intervened in the labor dispute between railroads and workers, trying to avert a nationwide rail strike during the holidays. The 290-137 vote to impose a new labor agreement comes at a steep price for workers. The bill’s future in the Senate is very uncertain.
On Point
(Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Since the Georgia Senate race headed to a Dec. 6 runoff, GOP nominee Herschel Walker has been plagued by revelations that he is more Texan than Georgian. It is questionable how much of the new information around his residency will matter in a state where many see him as a football god, but reporting solidifies that the Georgia football star appears to have been living near Dallas until last year.
Whatever happened to reforming the Electoral Count Act (ECA)? Earlier this year, Democrats were confident they would be able to pass some sort of reform to the 1887 law that dictates how election results are certified. But time for the 117th Congress is running out, and pro-democracy groups and election law experts have begun to worry that the lame duck session could wrap up without the legislation making it across the finish line.
“The closer you get to the 2024 cycle, it’s not helpful,” Holly Idelson, a policy advocate at the nonpartisan think tank Protect Democracy, told TPM. “We really think it’s vital that this get done this session. That is a sentiment we’ve heard from many believers as well.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is facing a floor fight as he hopes to become speaker of the House of Representatives when his party assumes the majority next month. However, you wouldn’t know that by looking at his official website, which is already touting McCarthy as the “House Speaker-elect.”
So much for the entire new House Democratic leadership team being selected by unanimous acclamation.
In a surprise announcement, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) said Wednesday he will be running against House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) for a top leadership spot.
I’ve written repeatedly that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) remains highly likely to become Speaker of the House on January 3rd, despite all the sturm und drang to the contrary. But I admit I’m a bit less sure than I was. We should also remember that if McCarthy cannot muster the votes to become Speaker, that is almost certainly the end of his career in electoral politics. (It’s not like he can run statewide in California.) And if tradition holds his defeat would be followed in short order by his resignation and departure from Congress. You don’t get passed over twice for Speaker and remain in the leadership or in Congress.
Yet, to understand this drama, we must remember that it has nothing to do with Kevin McCarthy. To the extent McCarthy’s opponents have made an argument against him it largely turns on the mean things his predecessors John Boehner and Paul Ryan allegedly did to them when they were Speaker.
Pre-election, Republican lawmakers baffled political observers with their candor: they openly spoke about their plans, should they flip the House, to demand cuts to Medicare and Social Security in exchange for not sending the United States careening into default on its debts.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
A Historic Verdict
A quick rundown of the coverage of the verdict in the seditious conspiracy trial of the Oath Keepers:
WaPo: “Rhodes and his co-defendants were the first accused of seditious conspiracy and the first to face trial and be convicted on any conspiracy charge to date in the massive Jan. 6 investigation.”
NYT: “The conviction of Mr. Rhodes underscored the seriousness and intensity of the effort by pro-Trump forces to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, and was the highest-profile legal reckoning yet from a case related to Jan. 6.”
Politico: “Rhodes’ conviction is the most significant to emerge from the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when dozens of Oath Keepers joined the mob that stormed the building and chased Congress, as well as then-Vice President Mike Pence, into hiding.”
WSJ: “U.S. sedition laws, dating to the early days of the Civil War when President Lincoln and Congress sought to punish armed resistance to the Union, have been used sparingly and not always successfully over the past 160 years.”
Legal Types React
Randall Eliason: “Now the only remaining question is how much higher did those plans go, and who else might be held criminally responsible.”
Elizabeth de la Vega: “Prosecutors view a guilty verdict on any serious charge against a defendant as a win of the entire case, even if a jury finds the def not guilty on other charges. Defs view it the same way because they know they are still likely to receive a prison sentence.”
Joyce Vance: “The result today gives DOJ a little bit of momentum … because it is clear that Stewart Rhodes is not the most culpable participant in the events on Jan. 6. There were people who were more accountable, people who had greater intent to interfere with the transfer of power and now DOJ can go about that business having won this case.”
What Next?
The seditious conspiracy trial of the Proud Boys is still scheduled to start in December, though the judge has proposed delaying the start by one week. The proposed new start date for jury selection in Washington, D.C., is Dec. 19.
Mark Meadows Must Now Testify In Georgia
The South Carolina Supreme Court roundly rejected Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ bid to avoid testifying to the Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to subvert the 2020 election. The court found Meadows’ arguments to be “manifestly without merit.”
Jan. 6 Committee Still Taking Witness Testimony
Yesterday it was Anthony Ornato, the Secret Service agent who became a Trump White House official then returned to the Secret Service before retiring. This was Ornato’s third time testifying to the committee, but his previous accounts were reportedly in some tension with those of former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Ornato, in Hutchison’s telling, was a witness to President Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, including the notorious moment in the Beast when Trump allegedly lunged at a Secret Service agent who refused to drive him to the Capitol.
Monday it was Kellyanne Conway’s turn to testify as the committee wrap’s up its work. She testified for some five hours.
Let me just say that there is no room in the Republican party for anti-Semitism or white supremacy. Anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view in my judgment is highly unlikely ever to be elected president of the United States.
Twitter Thread Of The Day
Worth a read:
The problem with seeing Nick Fuentes as evidence of a clear white supremacy lurch within Trumpism is that first, Trumpism has always quite explicitly had white supremacy as a key feature. Second, this white supremacy is always relational. 1
The Senate voted 61-36 to enshrine same-sex marriage protections at the federal level.
Sweet Justice
TPM Illustration/Getty Images
Two of the wackiest right-wing conspiracists – Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman – have been sentenced in Ohio for illegal robocalls intended to intimidate Black voters from casting mail-in ballots in the 2020 presidential election.
Their punishment: They must spend 500 hours registering voters in low-income neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C., area.
“I think it’s a despicable thing that you guys have done,” the sentencing judge told the duo, described aptly by one commentator as “chronically unsuccessful political operatives.”
Herschel Walker’s Residency Problem
It was broadly known that Herschel Walker lived in Texas for years before moving back to Georgia for run for Senate. But new details reported by various outlets over the past week reveal that Walker continues to maintain Texas ties and that his re-established Georgia roots don’t run very deep. Take note:
The Georgia house owned by Walker’s wife that he has claimed has been his residence for years generated rental income for the Walkers as late as 2020-21, according to his financial disclosure forms reviewed by the Daily Beast.
Walker has been getting a tax break intended only for a primary residence on his home in the Dallas, Texas, area as recently as this year.
Walker’s Texas address was used to receive PPP loans in 2020 and 2021, according to the Daily Beast’s findings.
They’re Coming For Social Security
Senate Republicans are on board with threatening to undermine the full faith and credit of the U.S. government and to unleash economic turmoil in order to extract cuts to Social Security.
DOJ Intervenes In Jackson’s Water Crisis
The Justice Department has reached agreement with the city of Jackson and the state of Mississippi to allow third party oversight of the broken municipal water system. The latest step is a stopgap measure while DOJ negotiates a consent decree to bring stability to the chronically deficient water system. A federal judge will need to approve both measures.
Can Personally Confirm
The infrastructure for EV charging in the U.S. is a mess.
Mauna Loa Still Churning
Lava fountains on the flank of Mauna Loa were shooting to heights of 131-164 feet, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported Tuesday.
Christian Pulisic suffered a “pelvic contusion” while scoring the U.S. men’s team’s sole goal in its win over Iran in World Cup play. He watched the end of the game from the hospital:
