Jan. 6 Panel Asks Gingrich To Tell Them About Big Lie Ad Campaign He Helped Craft

Posted on by John Light

The House Jan. 6 Committee announced on Thursday that it had sent a letter to former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich requesting info about his role in advising Trump’s team as it pushed the Big Lie — up to, and even after, the Jan. 6 insurrection.

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Trump: I Know How To Stage Fake Documents And The FBI Stole My Schtick!

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Donald Trump won’t have you believing for a second that the FBI busted down his door and found a pile of classified documents strewn across the floor, as if he were preparing an entry for his Burn Book. Instead of protecting himself against further incrimination or addressing the new picture proof that he was hoarding classified materials at his Florida home, Trump simply cannot move past the messy floor papers. 

The optics-obsessed president spent the last 48 hours offering multiple different explanations for why the documents were on the floor (which is where FBI agents placed them to take evidence photos). While claiming he had telepathically declassified all the records pictured, Trump scolded the FBI for throwing “documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!).” By Thursday morning, Trump came close to admitting he knew the classified materials were at the resort — all for the sake of clearing up any “confusion” about his pig pen office.

“They dropped them, not me – Very deceiving…”

Trump is known for his use of props – often fake, like bloated crowd sizes – to up the drama of his message du jour. The problem with the FBI pulling documents out of a box and placing them on the ground to snap a pic is not that it makes him look even more guilty of hoarding classified documents than he already seemed. It’s that they beat him at his own game – a game that only Trump is playing. 

Here’s an inexhaustive rundown of all the times Trump was caught using fake props to project bigly-ness.  

10/3/2020

Just after Trump tested positive for COVID-19 in October 2020, the White House released two photos of him sitting and working very hard. Twitter immediately noticed that the photos were likely staged — because the papers he was supposedly signing and flipping through were … completely blank. Journalists at the time also noted that the metadata on the photos showed they were taken just 10 minutes apart. (Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/The White House via Getty Images.)

12/14/17

Here Trump is seen holding some cartoonishly large golden scissors to cut a red tape tied between two stacks of papers. The piles of paper were meant to represent governmental regulations of the 1960s versus regulation under his administration. Those piles are not only wrongly sized, but they’re also made up of blank pieces of stock paper. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images.

9/4/2019

Sharpiegate is an iconic episode of the Trump era. In short, Trump was utterly convinced that the path of Hurricane Dorian would extend to Alabama, even though all the weather experts maintained that it would not do that. Trump presented a map of the storm’s predicted path, which had been altered with a sharpie to show the storm reaching Alabama. Our deep-dive on the entire ordeal is a must read. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. 

1/11/2017

Just before becoming president, Trump staged a little press conference to show him handing his business over to his children. He stood by a pile of folders and told reporters the records were “just some of the many documents that I’ve signed turning over complete and total control to my sons.” It’s believed that the folders were filled with blank sheets of paper. His favorite prop. Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images. 

1/10/2019

Going to let the Getty Images caption speak for itself on this one: Trump travels to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of his all-out offensive to build a wall. At the event, the props in the center of the room, include an AR-15 rifle, colt handguns, a plastic bag full of cash, and black-taped bricks of heroin and meth, examples of things Border Patrol agents have seized. Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images.

12/24/2018

Another classic fake out. On the brink of the third government shutdown in 2018, the then-president tweeted out a picture of himself sitting at his desk signing some bills. The tweet was mostly meant to criticize Democrats, but no one could move past the fact that the bill he was supposedly signing looked like a blank sheet of paper. Photo from Donald Trump’s old Twitter page. 

07/16/2020

In 2020 Trump held an event to deliver remarks about more deregulation stuff. His speech had quite the backdrop. In an effort to illustrate how “crushing” governmental regulations can be on the economy, the White House set up the above spectacle, featuring comically enormous anvil weights and big boy trucks. When reporters questioned if the weights were real – some pointed out that the trucks would not have been able to hold that much weight – the White House admitted the weights were … not as crushing as they might have appeared. Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images.

Judge Says Graham Can’t Avoid Georgia Grand Jury, But Limits Scope Of Questions

Posted on by Matt Shuham

A federal judge on Thursday again declined to quash Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-SC) bid to avoid testifying to a Georgia grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s interference in the 2020 election. But the judge did limit the issues on which Graham could be questioned. 

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Trump Flirts With Bolduc Endorsement But Resists Committing In Key New Hampshire Senate Race

Posted on by Kate Riga

With less than two weeks left until the New Hampshire Senate primary, former President Donald Trump is playing coy with his endorsement, which could dramatically reshape the race. 

Continue reading “Trump Flirts With Bolduc Endorsement But Resists Committing In Key New Hampshire Senate Race” →

After Dem Wins Alaska Seat, Right Wingers Think Ranked-Choice Voting Is A Scam

Posted on by Matt Shuham

After Republican voters seemingly delivered a Democrat Alaska’s sole congressional seat Wednesday night, right-wing commentators declared ranked-choice voting a terrible, no good, very bad idea.

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Can The Polls Be Trusted?

Posted on by Josh Marshall

There’s no question that Democrats’ chances in the midterms have improved dramatically over the course of the summer. From the point in May when Sam Alito’s draft of the Dobbs decision leaked to the press until now, the generic ballot average has shifted just over 3.5 points in Democrats’ direction. For the generic ballot average, that’s a big shift. But could the polls themselves be underweighting Republican strength? Like many others I’ve been figuring that Trump being on the ballot has been the key in recent elections. He and his party’s chances were underrated in 2016 and 2020. In 2018, they were pretty much on the mark. But Philip Bump of the Post and I were apparently both watching G. Elliott Morris’s Twitter feed yesterday when he noted that this wasn’t quite true. The national averages were on the mark in 2018. But at the state level key contests still underweighted Republican chances. Bump pulled the numbers himself and sure enough, that skew was there in Senate races in 2018 too.

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Florida Man Declares National Secrets Belong To Him

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Big Day Ahead!

Pump the Mar-a-Lago scandal straight into my veins.

Where do we even start after the explosive DOJ filing from two nights ago?

Yesterday began with a parade of wtf! exclamations from legal experts about how much effing trouble not just Trump – but his lawyers – are potentially in here.

By the end of day, there was a new bombastic Trump filing for legal experts to ridicule.

Today: a closely watched hearing in federal court in Florida to consider Trump’s request for a special master to review the materials seized by the FBI in the Mar-a-Lago raid.

A lot going on! Let’s break it down.

What’s On Tap Today?

The Justice Department and Trump’s D-team legal defense squad meet in court in Florida at 1 p.m. ET for arguments on Trump’s motion to appoint a special master in the case. Here’s what to expect.

Folks Cannot Get Enough Of That DOJ Filing

Philip Bump: The photo of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, annotated

Adam Klasfeld: What the DOJ’s Footnotes Reveal About the Mar-a-Lago Probe

NYT: Trump’s Legal Jab Left Him Open to Justice Dept. Strike

A punch to the face:

Another Clunker Of A Trump Filing

Trump’s official response last evening to that damning DOJ filing from two nights ago left legal Twitter chortling over its many shortcomings:

Declassification? Who Said Anything About Declassification?

In typical Trump fashion, he’s throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks to defend himself in the media and social media, but when it comes to what he actually is willing to tell the court, it’s a different story.

Trump and his supporters have merrily declared that Trump had secretly declassified everything he kept at Mar-a-Lago. Like duh you idiots, Genius Trump can declassify stuff in his mind!

Trump’s legal team has not made any such defense in court.

In the special master case, including in Wednesday’s filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers again stopped short of claiming that he had declassified all the documents; lying in court filings can lead to professional sanctions for lawyers. Indeed, Mr. Trump’s lawyers instead said they thought “that it would be appropriate for the special master to possess a top secret” clearance.

Maybe because it’s not that good of a defense:

Who Is Repping Trump Now?

Some tea leaves to sift through based on which Trump lawyers signed the new filing.

No sign of Christina Bobb, who famously certified to the feds that she had turned over all material at Mar-a-Lago responsive to the grand jury subpoena. (Did we mention what a world of trouble she’s in?)

Also missing from the filing: Chris Kise, a former solicitor general in Florida, who was reported to be the new gun Trump was bringing in.

Still on the case: Evan Corcoran, who is also potentially in a world of hurt over his role in the scandal.

The other two Trump lawyers on the filing: Lindsey Halligan and James Trusty.

That Photo Is Driving Trump Crazy

The Best/Worst Trump Defenses

Charlie Kirk is reliably unreliable:

Alina Habba, what are you doing?

Nice to see you here, too, Mark Levin:

Get Enough Mar-a-Lago?

Good, me either!

Here’s more:

Adam Serwer: If It Were Anyone Else, They’d Be Prosecuted

Josh Kovensky: A New York City Rug Expert Weighs In On Mar-a-Lago’s Flooring

Frank Figliuzzi: The Justice Department’s case for obstruction at Mar-a-Lago is growing stronger

Now Back To That OTHER Scandal

Don’t forget we’re all still trying to get to the bottom of the Great Device Migration scandal that resulted in the mass deletion of Secret Service (and others’) texts from around Jan. 6.

Straight No Chaser

Sarah Palin Loses

Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin to serve out the remaining few months of the term of the late Rep. Don Young (R-AK). They will face off again (along with others, in the ranked choice system) in the November general election to permanently fill the seat.

Shel Silverstein Weeps

A New Jersey township cut down all the trees around its town square to … keep homeless people from gathering there.

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