For years during Trump’s presidency, the losers and haters wondered: might there be a conflict of interest in having a famously tax-averse President be audited by an IRS that he controlled?
Continue reading “Trump Got Stunningly Lax IRS Treatment While POTUS, House Finds”Cassidy Hutchinson’s Ex-Attorney Is Staring Down The Barrel Of A Whole Lotta Trouble
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Stefan Passantino Is In A World Of Hurt
When your lawyer tells you its okay to tell investigators you don’t remember when in fact you do remember …. wow.
Over the last 48 hours, things have come apart quickly for former Trump White House deputy counsel Stefan Passantino.
Monday the executive summary of the Jan. 6 committee, without naming Passantino, detailed some of what he was allegedly doing and saying when he represented former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson before the committee.
By Tuesday, Passantino — who denies any wrongdoing and says he represented Hutchinson “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me” — had taken a leave of absence from one of his law firms.
By late Tuesday, CNN had publicly identified Passantino as Hutchinson’s former lawyer. The NYT soon followed suit.
What in the world?
What Cassidy Hutchison Alleges
The key allegations raised against Stefan Passantino in the Jan. 6 executive summary are presumably coming from Cassidy Hutchinson herself:
Again, Passantino is not named in the report, but the report notes this is what the witness said “about her decision to terminate a lawyer who was receiving payments for the representation from a group allied with President Trump.”
There is reason to believe the Jan. 6 committee already referred this matter to the Justice Department even before the much-publicized criminal referrals it made this week. “Much of this evidence is already known by the Department of Justice and by other prosecutorial authorities,” the committee noted in the executive summary.
“Two sources familiar with the situation tell CNN that Hutchinson has discussed the episode with the Justice Department,” the cable news network reported.
What’s Been Reported About Stefan Passantino’s Role
Some of the key bits of reporting around this episode:
- Passantino’s representation of Hutchinson was paid for by Trump’s Save America PAC, anonymous sources told CNN. Passantino had previously represented the Trump Org.
- Passantino was an ethics experts in the Trump White House counsel’s office and had previously served as a general counsel to Speaker Newt Gingrich.
- Hutchinson terminated Passantino’s representation of her and replaced him with former Trump DOJ official Jody Hunt.
Reaction And Fallout Over Passantino News
- Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told CNN Monday: “She was advised to say that she didn’t recall something when she did. So that’s pretty serious stuff.”
- Harry Litman: “The accusations involving Stefan Passantino — that he advised Cassidy Hutchinson to say she did not recall when in fact she did — is absolutely career ending if it pans out. Virtual instant disarmament (sic) and lucky if he stays out of jail.”
- Ryan Goodman: “Stefan Passantino identified as lawyer Jan. 6th Committee alleged told Cassidy Hutchinson to tell Committee she did not recall details that she did. Telling a client to lie = 18 U.S.C. 1001 liability for lawyer”
- Andrew Weissmann: “This phenomenon happens so much in political corruption investigations. Lawyers doing bidding for the boss, not the lower level client.”
At Long Last, Trump’s Tax Returns!!!
The House Ways & Means Committee voted late yesterday to release publicly six years of former President Trump’s tax returns. The tax returns won’t actually be released for a few more days, but the committee did release a report that previews some of the revelations contained in them:
- The IRS did not perform the mandatory audits of Trump during his first two years in office.
- The Trumps reported negative adjusted gross income in four of the six years from 2015 through 2020, according to the WSJ.
- The Trumps paid federal taxes each year, but reported income tax liability of $750 or less in three of the six years, the WSJ reported.
- The IRS hasn’t completed audits of the Trumps for any of those years.
TPM On TV
Hunter Walker talks with CBS News about the Meadows Texts series:
More Coverage Of The Meadows Texts
Bill Lueders at The Bulwark: “Texts reveal the wholesale embrace of madness and criminality by GOP members of Congress in the weeks surrounding January 6th.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Minnesota businessman Marty Davis met Trump, pushed Meadows to fight 2020 election loss”
Key Election Protection Legislation Is On Track
It was touch and go for a while, but the provisions of the proposed Electoral Count Reform Act have made it into the giant must-pass omnibus bill Congress is racing to complete this week. It’s a huge win for advocates trying to close the potential loophole that let Trump toy with the notion that the vice president could reject the Electoral College results from the states.
Zelensky In DC
In his first trip outside of his country since the Russian invasion, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday will visit the White House and give a primetime address to Congress.
A No-Brainer On The Climate Front
In a huge win for everyone, the U.S. Postal Service will spend billions of dollars on 66,000 new electric vehicles for its fleet.
First Of Its Kind Probe
The Education Department’s civil rights enforcement division is investigating a Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books.
Musk Says He Will Step Down As Twitter CEO
Don’t bet on anything Elon Musk says, but for the record: Late Tuesday, the chief twit said he would eventually step down as CEO once he found “someone foolish enough to take the job!” The very next sentence renders the whole thing even more absurd and hard to believe: “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
Brand Damage
Tesla owners are embarrassed by Elon Musk.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Did George Santos Establish Residence in Florida?
One additional fact about this reinstatement filing Rep-Elect George Santos (R-NY?) filed today for his Florida-registered company. When he registered the company in May 2021 he listed a company called D&D International Investments as his registered agent in the state. When he refiled today he listed himself as the registered agent.
That’s significant.
Exclusive: Clean Up On Aisle George Santos
This morning we noted that incoming congressman and apparent flimflam artist George Santos (R-NY) has a rather sketchy background with numerous false claims in his bio and a company which dissolved for failure to file an annual report just three months ago. The story was first reported yesterday in a gobsmacking exposé in The New York Times.
Rep-Elect Santos had registered the Devolder Organization LLC in Florida back in May 2021. On his congressional disclosure form he reported $750,000 in income from the company and between $1 million and $5 million in dividends. This compares with $55,000 in income he reported two years earlier from a different employer when he ran for the same seat in 2020. But the company was dissolved in September 2022, the same month as the disclosure form was filed, because the company never filed an annual report. Just today, Florida records show that Santos has filed documents to have his company reinstated. You can see the filing below the fold.
Lake Says She’ll ‘Take Anybody’ As Lawyers Drop Out Of Beleaguered Election Suit
Unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who staked much of her 2022 election bid on peddling Donald Trump’s big lie, admitted Tuesday that she’s having trouble retaining lawyers in her quest to get her own election loss overturned.
Continue reading “Lake Says She’ll ‘Take Anybody’ As Lawyers Drop Out Of Beleaguered Election Suit”Light At End Of Tunnel For ECA Reform: Lawmakers Include It In Year-End Spending Bill
After months of negotiations, it now appears to be official: The proposed Electoral Count Reform Act has hitched a ride on the much-anticipated 2023 omnibus funding package that was released Monday night, setting up a path for the legislation to pass the Senate.
Continue reading “Light At End Of Tunnel For ECA Reform: Lawmakers Include It In Year-End Spending Bill”Years Later, Ways And Means To Vote On Releasing Trump Taxes
Nearly four years after gaining the power to retrieve former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, the House Ways and Means Committee will vote Tuesday on whether to release them.
Continue reading “Years Later, Ways And Means To Vote On Releasing Trump Taxes”A Texas Superintendent Ordered School Librarians to Remove LGBTQ Books. Now The Federal Government Is Investigating.
This article was co-published by ProPublica, NBC News and the Texas Tribune. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm has launched an investigation into a North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books.
Education and legal experts say the federal probe of the Granbury Independent School District — which stemmed from a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and reporting by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune — appears to be the first such investigation explicitly tied to the nationwide movement to ban school library books dealing with sexuality and gender.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights notified Granbury school officials on Dec. 6 that it had opened the investigation following a July complaint by the ACLU, which accused the district of violating a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender. The ACLU complaint was based largely on an investigation published in March by NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune that revealed that Granbury’s superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, instructed librarians to remove books dealing with sexual orientation and people who are transgender.
“I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women and there are women that think they’re men,” Glenn told librarians in January, according to a leaked recording of the meeting obtained, verified and published exclusively by the news outlets. “I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries.”
Later in the meeting, Glenn clarified that he was specifically focused on removing books geared toward queer students: “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ and the sex — sexuality — in books,” he said, according to the recording.
The comments, combined with the district’s subsequent decision to remove dozens of library books pending a review, fostered a “pervasively hostile” environment for LGBTQ students, the ACLU wrote in its complaint. Chloe Kempf, an ACLU attorney, said the Education Department’s decision to open the investigation into Granbury ISD signals that the agency is concerned about what she described as “a wave” of anti-LGBTQ policies and book removals nationally.
“In this case it was made very clear, because the superintendent kind of said the quiet part out loud,” Kempf said in an interview. “It’s pretty clear that that kind of motivation is animating a lot of these policies nationwide.”
An Education Department spokesperson confirmed the investigation and said it was related to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits schools from discriminating on the basis of sex, gender and sexual orientation. The Office for Civil Rights doesn’t comment on pending investigations, the spokesperson said.
If the investigation confirms violations of students’ rights in Granbury schools, the agency can require the district to make policy changes and submit to federal monitoring.
Neither Glenn nor the district responded to messages Monday. In an earlier statement following the news outlets’ reporting in March, the district said it was committed to supporting students of all backgrounds. And the district said that its primary focus is educating students but that “the values of our community will always be reflected in our schools.”
Granbury, a town 40 miles west of Fort Worth, has been embroiled in a heated debate over what types of books children should be allowed to read at school.
Last year, voters in Granbury elected a pair of school board members who campaigned against LGBTQ-affirming school curricula and library books. Afterward, Glenn began asking district administrators about several books that an unnamed school board member had found in the district’s online catalog, according to text messages reviewed by NBC News, ProPublica and The Tribune. The messages from the board member to Glenn included screenshots of eight titles, all of which dealt with LGBTQ topics, with the words “gay,” “trans” and “gender” highlighted in some of the book descriptions.
In January, when Glenn met with librarians, he told them that the new school board was “very, very conservative” and that any employee who holds different political views had “better hide it,” according to the recording of his comments. In the days that followed, the district embarked on one of the largest mass book removals in the state, pulling 130 titles, most of which featured LGBTQ characters or themes.
After a volunteer review committee voted to return all but a few of the titles, two disgruntled members of the committee filed a police report in May accusing district employees of providing “pornography” to children, triggering a monthslong criminal investigation by Hood County Constable Chad Jordan, which remained open as of August. Jordan didn’t respond to messages requesting an update on the investigation.
All of that — including the fact that Glenn has never apologized or walked back his comments — has created an unwelcoming environment for LGBTQ students in the Granbury district, the ACLU argued in its complaint.
“These comments, combined with the book removals, really send a message to LGBTQ students in the districts that: ‘You don’t belong here. Your existence is shameful. It should be censored,’” Kempf said.
In recent months, Granbury parents and voters have continued to pressure the district to remove books with LGBTQ themes or descriptions of sex. Last month, Karen Lowery, one of the women who sought criminal charges against Granbury librarians, won a seat on the school board; she has vowed to purge books that she has deemed inappropriate for children. Of the nearly 80 titles conservative activists want banned, 3 out of 5 feature LGBTQ characters or themes, according to an analysis of books posted on GranburyTexasBooks.org, a website where they have compiled parent reviews.
Lowery didn’t respond to messages requesting comment.
At her first meeting as a school board trustee on Dec. 12 — one week after the Office for Civil Rights notified the district it had opened an investigation — Lowery called for all “obscene” books to be pulled from shelves. In response, Glenn asked her to provide a list of titles so the board could discuss it at a future meeting.
“I think as a district, we do want to resolve this,” Glenn said of the library book controversy. “Speaking on behalf of every administrator in the room, and probably community members because I know there are a few of you that are ready to have this behind you, too.”
Education and legal experts said the Education Department’s decision to open an investigation in Granbury is significant because it sets up a test of a somewhat novel legal argument by the ACLU: the idea that book removals themselves can create a hostile environment for certain classes of students.
“It’s certainly the first investigation I’ve seen by the agency testing that argument in this way,” said W. Scott Lewis, a managing partner at TNG, a consulting firm that advises school districts on complying with federal civil rights laws.
The ACLU of Texas made similar legal arguments in another civil rights complaint filed last month against the Keller Independent School District in North Texas in response to a policy banning any books that mention “gender fluidity.” The Education Department has yet to decide whether to open an investigation in Keller, Kempf said.
Jonathan Friedman, the director of free expression and education at the nonprofit PEN America, which has tracked thousands of school book bans since last year, said the same legal argument could be made in districts across the country where parents, school board members and administrators have expressed anti-LGBTQ motivations.
“It’s not uncommon to see people explicitly saying that they want to remove LGBTQ books because they believe they are indoctrinating students,” said Friedman, who cited a case in Florida in which a teacher called for the removal of a children’s picture book about two male penguins because, she said, it promoted the “LGBTQ agenda.”
Granbury isn’t the only North Texas school district facing federal scrutiny.
The Office for Civil Rights over the past year has opened five investigations into allegations of discrimination at the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, a wealthy Fort Worth suburb that has been at the center of the national political fight over the ways schools address racism, gender and sexuality. If the Education Department finds Carroll students’ rights have been violated, experts said, the federal agency could require the district to implement the same types of diversity and inclusion training programs that conservative activists have fought to block in Southlake.
Carroll Superintendent Lane Ledbetter has said the district has taken steps, including retraining staff members in how to handle bullying complaints, to ensure students from all backgrounds feel safe at school.
“If OCR determines that there are steps that we can take beyond what we have implemented, then we will absolutely comply,” Ledbetter said in a video address to the community after news of the federal civil rights investigation broke last year. “My priorities are kids, and we’re going to keep them safe.”
As in Southlake, some students and parents in Granbury say they’re counting on federal investigators to force changes.
Lou Whiting, 17, a nonbinary senior at Granbury High School, said Glenn’s recorded comments made them feel unsafe and unwelcome at school. Whiting, who helped organize student protests of the book removals, cried when they learned that the federal government had opened an investigation.
“It’s just really good to hear that there are people who are listening to us and actually doing something about it,” Whiting said. “It means a lot to hear that our efforts meant something.”
Charting the Coming Fall of George Santos
I thought I’d take a brief moment to whet your expectations about the story of Mr. George Santos, soon to be Representative George Santos (R-NY), possibly soon to be former Representative George Santos (R-NY). This is mainly just elaborating on points made in the Times piece from yesterday with a few tidbits from my digging last year.
Let’s consider the timeline.
Santos’ biography turns on a purported family real-estate business which owns 13 properties. He made news during the pandemic grousing about how his tenants were taking advantage of eviction holidays. That family real-estate firm appears to the Devolder Organization LLC, maybe, which we’ll come back to in a moment.
Continue reading “Charting the Coming Fall of George Santos”MTG And Boebert Fight Over Jewish Space Lasers And Who’s Crazier
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Pass The Popcorn!
Kevin McCarthy’s struggle to nail down the speakership is powering venomous recriminations among far-right members who have split over his candidacy. Sad to see it.
- Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who opposes McCarthy, took a shot at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA): “I’ve been asked to explain MTG’s belief in Jewish space lasers, why she showed up to a white supremacist’s conference, and now why she’s blindly following Kevin McCarthy and I’m not going to go there.”
- Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who supports McCarthy, fired back with a reference to Boebert’s tiny victory margin in November.
- Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is publicly splitting with Trump over McCarthy, and he’s not afraid to tell you about it:
Give Me Everything On George Santos
The epic NYT exposé alleging that incoming GOP Rep. George Santos (NY) is a serial fabulist went unrebutted yesterday. Santos put out a statement attacking the newspaper’s report but not denying a single factual allegation in the report. Some highlights from the day:
- The Santos statement closed with a fake quote attributed to Winston Churchill.
- Dems pounced. Republicans were largely silent.
- Where’d Santos get $700,000 to loan to his own campaign?
Highlights From The Jan. 6 Committee’s Big Day
What jumped out from the coverage:
- TPM: 4 Big Takeaways From The January 6 Committee’s Public Finale
- NBC: Ivanka Trump, Hope Hicks, and Kayleigh McEnany were not forthcoming with the committee
- Just Security: How Jan. 6th Committee’s Revelations of Interference in Their Investigation Can Enable the Special Counsel
- Bloomberg: Committee has serious concerns about testimony of former Secret Service Agent Tony Ornato
- NYT oped: The Jan. 6 Committee Just Made History. Here’s What That Means for Prosecutors.
- Politico: The Jan. 6 committee’s big reveal hasn’t happened yet
Liz Cheney Takes Her Final Shot
The defeated Wyoming Republican went out with a bang: “No man who would behave that way, at that moment in time, can ever serve in any position of authority ever again. He is unfit for any office.”
Profile In Courage
Mike Pence remains an insipid little man:
‘Something Is About To Happen’
CBS News obtained more video footage of Mike Flynn’s deposition by the Jan. 6 committee that shows interesting lines of questions about what Flynn knew the day before the Capitol attack. While the former national security adviser turned conspiracist took the 5th repeatedly during the deposition, the committee’s questions reveal quite a bit about alleged communications Flynn was having:
Trump’s Final Words On Jan. 6
SCOOP!
Longtime judicial activist Leonard Leo appears to have helped facilitate the sale of former White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s polling company in 2017 — as she was playing a key role in advocating for Leo’s handpicked list of Supreme Court candidates, according to previously unreported financial documents reviewed by government ethics and finance experts.
Some Serious Muckraking
NPR: In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics
Going Deep On The Rising Violence Against Transgender People
Insider closely examines the killings of 175 transgender people over the last five years:
Insider has compiled the most comprehensive account to date of the rising homicidal violence targeting transgender people, systematically filing hundreds of public-records requests and sending reporters around the US to gather information on five years of homicides targeting transgender and gender nonconforming, nonbinary, and two-spirit people across the United States and Puerto Rico from 2017 through 2021.
Happening On The Hill
Negotiators from both chambers and both parties unveiled a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund the government in 2023. Congress is racing to pass the mammoth bill before the holidays.
Weinstein Convicted On California Rape Charge
A Los Angeles jury deliberated for nine days before finding disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein guilty on one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault, not guilty on a count of sexual battery, and hanging on the remaining three counts.
Earthquake Rocks Northern California
An earthquake with an preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck Humboldt County, California, at around 2:34 a.m. local time. Initial reports are that the quake knocked power out to more than 50,000 customers in the area.
Teenage Concentration Camp Secretary Sentenced
NYT:
BERLIN — A court in Germany on Tuesday sentenced a 97-year-old woman to two years’ probation for her role in abetting over 10,000 murders committed during her tenure as a teenage concentration camp secretary in World War II, as prosecutors race to bring justice to the last surviving participants of the Nazi killing machine.
Black Celebs Pitch In To Extend A Broadway Run
The Broadway run of “Ain’t No Mo” had barely gotten underway but by Dec. 9, it was petering out. The provocative premise of 27-year-old Black playwright Jordan Cooper’s play: The U.S. government offers Black Americans one-way tickets to Africa to eliminate racism. After the imminent closing of the show was announced, Tyler Perry, Queen Latifah, Shonda Rhimes, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade stepped up to buy out entire shows. The run has now been extended a bit, to Dec. 23. Morning Memo saw “Ain’t No More” during its DC run earlier this year. It’s a great show. Check it out.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!