Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) is threatening to expel three Democratic members of the state House after they acknowledged and supported a public protest over lax gun laws and the deadly school shooting at Covenant School, a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooting took place one week ago today, March 27th. The shooter shot and killed three children and three adults before being killed in a firefight with police officers. Thousands descended on the capitol building three days later demanding greater restrictions on firearms.
That protest is at the center of plans to expel the three members.
There’s a lot of commotion to come as we wait for the details of the indictment and watch Donald Trump’s arraignment, and the circus around it, unfold over the next 24 hours, but I wanted to bring your attention to a small yet concerning trend I’ve noticed taking shape in the past week as Republicans continue to downplay the Jan. 6 insurrection.
We’re standing up a live blog of events leading up to and through tomorrow. So we’ll have you covered on all the developments. But we’ll do it a bit differently. There’s a strong Stations-of-the-Cross vibe to a lot of the coverage: Trump making his doleful march to meet justice or rather the HOAX WITCH HUNT in New York City, the humble sacrifice he makes of himself on behalf of real America. And we’ll capture some of that, with more irony and implicit mockery one would imagine. But we’ll try to focus also on the internals of the case, the more interesting nonsense the spectacle generates, how much the conventional press gets taken in by and how much the GOP — in spite of all the confident predictions last fall — manages to re-pledge its allegiance to Trump as steadfastly as it did in 2016, 2019 and 2020. It is also in our neck of the woods. So we’ll deploy our New York City knowledge to give you some more of that flavor.
This Sean Hannity clip is getting huge play today. (You can see it below the fold.) Hannity tells Trump during their interview, I can’t imagine you’d ever say bring me those documents we took from the White House. Trump responds no I can totally do that, I would do that. Hannity says, okay let’s move on, but Trump persists. It’s Hannity at his journalist-as-defense counsel best.
It seems like the whole political world is waking up to the reality that absent some dramatic and unlikely new development, the 2024 GOP primary isn’t just Donald Trump’s to lose, it’s very difficult to come up with a scenario in which he does lose. One new poll illustrates numerically what is clear enough from the news in front of us. In a head-to-head race, A Yahoo/Yougov poll showed Donald Trump jumping to a 26-point lead over Ron DeSantis (57%–31%) from a 8-point lead less than two weeks ago. As recently as February, it was a 4-point lead. In a ten-candidate field — the more real-world scenario — Trump holds 52% support while DeSantis falls to 21%.
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that House Republicans are considering using their thin majority to make a fuss about funding for federal law enforcement.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) defended calling Democrats “a party of pedophiles” in a widely panned “60 Minutes” segment Sunday, seemingly claiming that politicians who support children receiving gender-affirming care meets the definition of pedophilia.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Jack Smith Zeroes In On Obstruction In MAL Case
While we wait to see what’s actually in the Trump indictment in New York state, some potential bombshell news in the Mar-a-Lago documents probe.
The Washington Post story published Sunday seems to rely on the accounts of witnesses who have been questioned by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team. What they recount suggests an increasing focus on the obstruction of justice aspect of the probe.
To be clear, obstruction has been a key element of this probe for a while now. It was cited in the search warrant for MAL. But as WaPo puts it:
The new details highlight the degree to which special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified national security papers at Trump’s Florida home and private club has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case —whether the former president took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all the sensitive records.
But the bombshell in the story is the suggestion that Trump himself may have gone through the documents in question after a federal grand jury in DC issued a subpoena for their return:
In the classified documents case, federal investigators have gathered new and significant evidence that after the subpoena was delivered, Trump looked through the contents of some of the boxes of documents in his home, apparently out of a desire to keep certain things in his possession, the people familiar with the investigation said.
Investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence, that boxes including classified material were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served, and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes, these people said.
More on this in the coming days.
Big Week Ahead!
Former President Donald Trump’s expected arraignment Tuesday in New York City will of course be the story of the week. Some key points:
We still don’t know what’s in the indictment! It’s expected to be unsealed tomorrow. Will it stick closely to the Stormy Daniels hush money scheme or go deeper into Trump business practices? Not clear.
Trump to arrive in NYC today, with some supporters expected to rally at Trump Tower at 11 a.m. ET.
Trump will surrender at the DA’s office Monday before his arraignment in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. Another protest is planned nearby midday Tuesday, the NYT reports.
WaPo: “An advance team of Secret Service agents — mostly comprised of New York field office agents — conducted a site tour of the courthouse on Friday to map Trump’s path in and out of the building, according to a law enforcement official involved in the planning.”
The Guardian: “Donald Trump vows to escalate attacks against Alvin Bragg”
For those dismissing the hush money scheme as small potatoes, a reminder that Trump was cheating to win the 2016 election and then spent years trying to cover it up.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was doing interviews over the weekend and made some news by revealing that the Southern District of New York had asked his office to stand down in the hush money investigation. For the better part of a year and half Vance’s office did stand down, he said, but after SDNY obtained the conviction of Michael Cohen the case went dark.
Fox Takes Huge Hit In Dominion Case
Dominion Voting Systems won a huge victory Friday in its billion-dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News. The judge denied Fox News’ motion for summary judgment in its favor and granted in part Dominion’s motion for summary judgment on liability.
In his ruling, the judge said it was “CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” meaning that Dominion has already won on the issue of falsity. The jury won’t even get to consider whether the statements were untrue because the judge said it’s irrefutable that they’re false.
That leaves for the jury the issues of actual malice – did Fox News publish the false statements knowing they were false or in reckless disregard of the truth of the matter? – and damages.
Pro-Trump Ratfucker Convicted In Anti-Hillary Scheme
Douglass Mackey was convicted Friday of conspiracy in a long-running case stemming from the 2016 election. Mackey was convicted of circulating messages on Twitter encouraging Clinton supporters to vote by text and social media (which is, of course, not possible).
WTF 60 Minutes?
Lesley Stahl’s almost-fawning interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was painful to watch. Greene is “as famous as they get” thanks to her “sharp tongue and some pretty radical views.” Ain’t she cute?
Stahl describes Greene as “smart and fearless” with a “history of believing in conspiracy theories.” It’s just gets worse and gauzier from there.
It’s obvious that Stahl thinks she’s doing her duty by confronting Greene with some of her more incendiary remarks, but the whole interview is packaged and framed in a way that normalizes and excuses MTG. It’s remarkably bad, especially by the show’s historical standards.
A sample of the reaction to Greene NOT getting the usual 60 Minutes treatment made famous by Don Hewitt and Mike Wallace:
What is the point of this 60 Mins interview w/ MTG
Marjorie Taylor Greene joined traditionally staid ‘60 Minutes’ this week for a segment, where the Republican firebrand’s insistence that Democrats are a “party of pedophiles” was interspersed with footage of her working out. https://t.co/ORHPSe9wt2
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is back home after in-patient treatment for depression. As he prepares to return to the Senate when it reconvenes April 17, he spoke to Jane Pauley for a Sunday Morning segment:
Good To Be Back!
I’m back in the saddle after two weeks in southern Patagonia. It was an almost complete escape from politics (except conversations about the hyperinflation in Argentina and the controversial salmon farming industry in Chile were unavoidable).
I’m still recovering from a grueling 4-day, 40-mile trek with full packs in Argentina through some of the most rugged terrain I’ve ever hiked. A week of recovery and more modest excursions in Chile (a 12-mile day hike on the W felt low key by comparison) soothed the reentry.
We were fortunate to have splendid weather for almost the entire trip. Cloudless blue skies in Patagonia are apparently a rarity?
My reading material for the trip happened to be a galley of David Grann’s soon-to-be-released The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. I came to the gripping story as a blank slate and only realized on the flight down that the shipwreck at the center of the story occurred along the Chilean coast of Patagonia. Serendipity! The epic struggles of the crew were made more tangible having experienced a little taste of the Patagonian winds, cold, and ever-shifting skies. Before this trip, I hadn’t spent sustained time in such an inhospitable environment. It’s gorgeous, breathtaking even, but also forbidding, relentless, and indifferent. Highly recommend!
Thanks to the TPM Team, especially Nicole Lafond, for keeping Morning Memo afloat in my absence.
Former President Trump — and all of us — now exists in a weird liminal space.
On one side, Trump has been indicted. His attorneys confirm it: a Manhattan grand jury voted on Thursday to issue felony charges against the former President.
On the other side, the actual charges — and the charging instrument — have not yet been made public. The vote has taken place, the decision to indict has been made, but the charges remain under wraps.
So, we’re all in a strange limbo. Some reports suggest that the indictment includes dozens of counts focusing not only on the Stormy Daniels hush money scandal. The details of that may not be revealed in full until Tuesday, when Trump is scheduled for his first appearance in court.
