We talked to economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman today in a TPM Inside Briefing. The full interview will be available for members tomorrow. But the biggest surprise for me came when we spoke about the debt ceiling. I think most of us assume that minting trillion dollars coins or invoking the 14th amendment amount to a kind of politics nerd fanfic — cool and probably the right thing to do but not at all things that are actually going to happen. Krugman told TPM he assumes that that’s exactly what will happen. They’ll deny it till the last moment. But if it comes down to the wire and the White House has to choose between default and one of several legal stratagems to save the full-faith-and-credit hostage from the House radicals’ firing squad they’ll do just that.
To be clear, he didn’t say he was sure or that it was guaranteed. But the fact that it’s his working assumption came as a pretty big surprise to me. He also points so much less discussed strategies as ones that may be more likely than boffo ideas like the trillion dollar coin.
Today Nikki Haley formally announces her thoroughly hopeless campaign for the 2024 Presidential nomination. Give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she’s running for Vice President. Ron DeSantis has gained most attention in recent days for his continued unwillingness to engage Donald Trump’s mounting attacks. Meanwhile every other conceivable contender for the nomination remains mired in low single-digit support. It’s hard to know what to make of this incipient primary campaign, not least because it’s so unprecedented in modern American politics to have a defeated former President running to be President again. But if we step back from the details we can see a clarifying picture. There is no candidate in the race whose campaign isn’t entirely about Donald Trump. And that is probably the best reason to think Donald Trump will be the eventual nominee.
More than half of Republicans support Christian nationalism and believe the United States should be a strictly Christian nation — that’s according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution.
Freedom Caucus staple Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) announced on Wednesday he will back former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in the next presidential race, saying the Republican Party is in need of a “new vision.”
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Unpacking The Trump Classified Docs News
I would hope by now it’s obvious to regular readers that I’m trying to use Morning Memo to bring together the scattershot incremental developments in the various Trump investigations into a coherent narrative.
The challenge for readers is that the federal probes of Trump are largely operating under the veil of grand jury secrecy. Especially after the bizarro special master review in the Mar-a-Lago classified docs case was shut down by an appeals court, the probes have been mostly underground. Reporters occasionally penetrate the veil of secrecy and get tidbits about who has been testifying, what they’ve been asked about, and other nuggets that in isolation can be confusing, misleading, or incomplete.
Case in point: We learned Friday that two Trump lawyers appeared before the DC grand jury investigating the Mar-a-Lago case (yesterday CNN learned of a third). Note it’s “appeared” not “testified.” That’s because it wasn’t clear whether they’d actually answered questions. The obvious out for them would be attorney-client privilege. The suspicion, however, was that Special Counsel Jack Smith was preparing to do an end run around attorney-client privilege using one of the exceptions, in particular the crime-fraud exception. Now that’s been confirmed in new reporting from the NYT and others.
It appears Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran answered some but not all of the grand jury’s questions, and cited attorney-client privilege in refusing to answer others. Smith is now seeking court approval to pierce the attorney-client privilege. I suspect it’s not on the grounds that Corcoran himself was a party to Trump’s crimes but rather an instrument of those crimes.
Among the many reasons this is significant news:
Trump used multiple lawyers to interact with the National Archives, FBI, and Justice Department and if they’re compelled to testify about those interactions it opens up new avenues of potentially explosive evidence deeply damaging to the former president.
It suggests Smith is in the later stages of obtaining the evidence he needs to make a charging decision, as this former Mueller prosecutor notes:
These are the final steps in the investigation. Manafort was indicted just a few weeks after Chief Judge Howell in DC ruled Mueller could use crime-fraud exception. Shouldn’t be a long delay for a charging decision once CJ Howell rules on this one. https://t.co/ok7RqRr5sf
A “win” by Smith in the attorney-client privilege dispute would mean a federal judge has found sufficient evidence of a crime involving Trump and his lawyers to dispense with the privilege, itself a notable conclusion.
What’s Up With Boris Epshteyn?
One final point that is worth having on your radar. The NYT keeps noting that Smith is paying a lot of attention to Trump attorney Boris Epshteyn. I don’t want to get ahead of the reporting, but let’s just say Epshteyn is being treated in their coverage in a different category than the other Trump lawyers, who seemed to be instruments of Trump’s scheming. The suggestion here is that Epshteyn was somehow more than an instrument:
Prosecutors overseeing the documents investigation have also been asking witnesses questions about Boris Epshteyn, who has played a central role in coordinating lawyers on several of the investigations involving Mr. Trump, according to multiple people briefed on the matter. It was Mr. Epshteyn who first brought Mr. Corcoran into Mr. Trump’s orbit.
At least three lawyers have sat for interviews with the Justice Department during which questions about Mr. Epshteyn were asked — among them Ms. Bobb and, more recently, Alina Habba, people with knowledge of the matter said. A third lawyer close to Mr. Trump, Jesse Binnall, has also spoken with prosecutors about Mr. Epshteyn, the people said.
…
But prosecutors are asking questions indicating they’re interested in whether Mr. Epshteyn was trying to improperly influence witness testimony, the person briefed on the interviews said.
Reax To Pence Subpoena Fight
Legal experts and others spent Tuesday grappling with the argument former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to raise to resist complying with a federal grand jury subpoena in the Jan. 6 investigation:
Harry Litman: How Mike Pence’s flawed argument against a subpoena just might get him what he wants
Aaron Blake: What it means for Pence to fight his subpoena — politically and legally
Pence is expected to address the subpoena from Special Counsel Jack Smith today at a not-yet-campaigning appearance in Iowa.
Appeals Court Upholds $110,000 Contempt Sanction Against Trump
I forgot about this one. Last April, a state court judge in New York found Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to comply with discovery orders in the NY AG’s fraud investigation of his business.
You may remember that the judge imposed sanctions at the time of $10,000 a day. Eventually the judge ordered Trump to pay the AG a total of $110,000 for his contempt. In the meantime, NY AG Tish James filed a $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, his adult children and the Trump Org.
Neal Katyal: Under Trump, Barr and Durham Made a Mockery of the Rules I Wrote
DiFi Heads For The Exit
Dianne Feinstein, president of the board of supervisors, holds a press conference following the killing of Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. Feinstein, who is Moscone’s designated successor, was in her office a few feet away from the shootings. ‘I heard shots. I heard three,’ said Feinstein. At right is Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver.
Dianne Feinstein’s Senate career is ending on a sad note.
At 89, her declining vigor has been a painful revelation to Senate colleagues and supporters, as documented in numerous stark accounts in recent months. She made her decision not to run for re-election in 2024 official Tuesday, but only after prominent House Democrats like Adam Schiff and Katie Porter had already launched their campaigns for her California Senate seat.
Feinstein’s remarkable career was largely shaped by her fierce determination, sharp questioning, and toughness. It’s hard to see it end this way, with a wince-inducing encounter with reporters on the Hill in which Feinstein didn’t seem to know that her office had already sent out the announcement that she’s not running again.
There’s a lot going on in this new Politico report, with critical caveats and hedges and nuance, so rather than paraphrasing it, let me just give you a taste and encourage you to read the whole thing:
Hackers linked to Russia got very close to being able to take a dozen U.S. electric and gas facilities offline in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine, the head of a top cybersecurity company warned Tuesday.
Robert M. Lee, the founder and CEO of Dragos, which helps companies respond to cyberattacks, said hackers with a group Dragos calls “Chernovite” were using a malicious software to try to take down “around a dozen” U.S. electric and liquid natural gas sites.
“This is the closest we’ve ever been to having U.S. or European infrastructure, I’d say U.S. infrastructure, go offline,” Lee told reporters in a briefing. “It wasn’t employed on one of its targets, they weren’t ready to pull the trigger, they were getting very close.” Lee declined to offer details on what prevented the attack from succeeding, but said it was halted by a coalition of U.S. government and cyber industry groups.
George Santos, Mitt Romney, And The Loss Of Shame
NPR: When politicians have no shame, the old rules don’t apply
Chumming The Right-Wing Waters
Oh, look, it’s James Rosen, most recently of Newsmax, doing his schtick:
really important questions being asked in the white house press briefing today pic.twitter.com/ZCvJgScS0j
Elon Musk descends further into self-parody in this amazing account of an insecure billionaire rigging his own social media platform to boost his fragile ego.
Elon Musk ordered major changes to Twitter this weekend after … President Biden's tweet about the Eagles got higher engagement than his did.
At the end of February — the sleepy, dead days of winter when the 2022 midterms have shrunk in the rearview and 2024 still feels far off — Wisconsin will host a blockbuster primary for an open seat on the state Supreme Court, a race with significant national ramifications.
After a lot of heated speculation and a bunch of scrambled jet fighters over Canada and the far North of the United States we’re finally getting a credible explanation of the Chinese balloon saga. According to a new report from The Washington Post the United States is now examining the possibility that the People’s Liberation Army simply lost control of the balloon intended to surveil Guam. The U.S. was monitoring the balloon since it went aloft from Hainan Island along China’s south coast. It was tracking along a path to Guam but then seemed to veer north until reaching Alaska.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced on Tuesday she will not run for reelection in 2024, but will complete her existing term.
“I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,” Feinstein wrote in a Twitter post. “Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives.”
I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends. Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives.
Her announcement is not all that surprising. The 89-year-old trailblazing senator has faced some questions around her cognitive health recently, raising speculation about a possible upcoming retirement.
In anticipation, announcements of Senate bids for her seat have been pouring in from California Democrats in the past couple of weeks.
Early last month, Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) launched a Senate campaign for Feinstein’s seat. Her announcement was surprising as it came before any official announcement from the longtime senator.
Just a day later, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) told lawmakers she is running for Senate in a closed-door Congressional Black Caucus meeting. She hasn’t made an official announcement for her bid but one is expected soon.
Similarly, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) has indicated he will consider a bid “over the next few months.”
It was an important endorsement for Schiff in what is expected to be a crowded and fiercely contested Senate race.
Feinstein was first elected to the US Senate in 1992. During her 30 plus years in the chamber, she fought for gun control, civil rights, and abortion access — including passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban and chairing the committee that produced the 2014 CIA torture report.
Feinstein’s announcement emphasized she will stay committed to passing crucial legislation during her final year in office.
“I also remain focused on passing commonsense legislation to fight the epidemic of gun violence, preserving our pristine lands and promoting economic growth – especially to position California for what I believe will be the century of the Pacific,” Feinstein wrote. “And I will use my seniority on the Appropriations Committee to ensure California gets its fair share of funding.”
