“There is a narrative the Supreme Court is corrupt,” she told Face The Nation. “We saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and now we see it that they’re in the tank for Trump. Not only is that narrative over-reported, it is patently false, and it is dangerous for the institution and the public’s faith and confidence in the rule of law.”
Chris has more of Crawford’s quotes. And he makes clear the most telling thing about Crawford’s defense is that she doesn’t even address the arguments against the Court’s practices and behavior. She just asserts it in a ‘the King can do no wrong because he’s the King’ kind of fashion. But this one passage is enough to make the point. Not only is the Court demonstrably not corrupt, Crawford claims, it is also dangerous for the Court to have itself be called “corrupt”. And, she claims, what is dangerous or threatening to this Court threatens the rule of law itself. In other words, you might say, the danger to the state is that child in the third row saying the King is naked.
It’s coming to the surface now. But it’s a marvel in itself that it has taken as long as it has. AI is really, really unpopular with the American people — even more unpopular than I’d realized, as I noted a week ago. And yet for most of the last couple years, in elite discourse, on TV and in the big news publications, you would feel very backwards and Luddite expressing more than a general caution that rogue AI intentionally blowing up the world would be a bad thing. Because it’s the new thing and who doesn’t like the new and innovation and all the good stuff? We remain, meanwhile, in an economic moment in which vast, almost unprecedented amounts of economic resources are being directed toward AI rollout. Public messaging in advertising and product development are filled with reminders of how many awesome things AI can do for you. And yet everyone basically hates it.
The lawless no man’s land between the holidays and the New Year are an apt time to announce the winners of the 17th Annual Golden Duke Awards, TPM’s yearly toast to the toads who took venality and nonsense to new heights.
In 2025, the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, those who specialize in political corruption, shameless capitulation and unabashed betrayals of public trust had ample opportunity to shine. And shine they did.
I wanted to let you know that we are now out of free TPM 25th anniversary baseball caps and t-shirts that we were giving away as inducements for people to become members of TPM or upgrade their memberships. Thanks to everyone who took us up on the offer. Your ultra-merch should either be in your hands or on the way.
I wanted to add an important additional point. This isn’t the last chance. A number of you wrote in asking if you could simply purchase a piece of ultra-merch or why newbs were getting first dibs while years-long-members were shut out. Here’s the deal.
The ultra-merch we commissioned for the 25th anniversary was also basically a proof of concept. We wanted to find good suppliers and get a sense of pricing and so forth for a different quality tier of clothing, something a few notches above the standard made-to-order, meh-quality stuff that any substack can set up to sell in a few minutes, stuff that is essentially a novelty. We wanted stuff that that was of quality you’d feel good wearing as a simple garment. That’s a different part of the clothing commission industry; pricing is different, fulfillment is different. And what we found is really nice stuff. Like the high end version of the kind of baseball cap you might buy from an MLB team or the kind of well-made t-shirt you might buy at a real clothing store. So it was done with the expectation that we would start selling similar ultra-merch in the new year. So there’s more coming and that was the point all along.
In a number of recents posts I’ve been trying to make sense of the climate of drift and enervation that now seems to suffuse the Trump administration and, in a way, the country. Making sense of these things isn’t just interesting in the abstract or an opportunity to dunk on the administration. It’s important to know just where we are, what’s possible now that might not have been possible in the Spring or even a few months ago. And that’s important because we’re all kind of worn out. It’s not just the Trump administration. In a way the opposition to Trump is, too, albeit in a very different way. It’s been a really long year.
I first proposed my DOJ-in-Exile idea back in April. If you’re not familiar with the DOJ-in-Exile concept, this post explains the idea. But the main points I’m about to make don’t require knowing those details. As I’ve mentioned a few times here and to a number of you in email correspondence, it was harder going than I anticipated. For a mix of reasons, I did not want to run it myself or even be involved. I wanted to find a group that wanted to do it and hand the idea and the name off to them. But people were scared. Without my really asking, various TPM Readers came forward with soft pledges totaling probably upwards of a million dollars. So money wasn’t going to be a problem. But the kind of people who would run it or take responsibility for it were scared. People in the key do-gooder groups were scared. People who are hard-chargers were scared. Sometimes they wouldn’t quite say as much in calls but I could read their intonations and I realized a conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere.
When Congress passed the Epstein Files law, the common and undoubtedly correct assumption was that the Trump DOJ would simply weed out the Trump stuff. And as we’ve seen, they’ve gone to town releasing everything about … say, Bill Clinton but in many cases obviously filtered out Trump stuff. So this basic part of the story is predicted, unsurprising and confirmed. But there’s a more complex if no less corrupt story coming into focus.
A few pretty damaging things have come out. I’m not sure for instance whether that purported jailhouse Epstein letter is real. But it’s pretty clear the White House/DOJ doesn’t have any evidence or hasn’t yet found any evidence that it’s fake. If they did, they’d release it. The best discussion of the authenticity question I’ve seen is this short piece in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. The gist is that, based on what we know in the public record, there’s no clear evidence pointing either to its authenticity or fraudulence. There are a couple potential red flags. But these have relativity straightforward explanations based on how the prison mail system works. They could be evidence of fakery but not necessarily. A handwriting analysis was done and that could at least point in one or the other clear direction. But we haven’t seen that report.
I got a host of very interesting responses to yesterday’s post about the tech platforms force-feeding the mass consumer market AI. I learned a lot from your responses, which included both direct personal experiences and expert perspectives on different dimensions of the topic. What is important to me about this moment is distinguishing two or three different very real things happening at once.
The first is a genuine critical mass in the development of LLM-based machine learning. This is a much better description than “AI” to my thinking, since the latter contains a vast range of meanings from simple and accurate to triumphalist and grandiose. But machine learning is real, and in recent years it’s developed real capabilities that are at least transformative in various areas of work and technology. I’m skeptical of what we’ve developed beyond this at this point but really don’t know. It could be a lot. And it will increase. I think this is the best way to understand the technology itself at this moment now.
GREENBELT, MD — For the first time since he was unlawfully deported to El Salvador in March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared in person this afternoon in front of U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland. He is no longer detained by El Salvador, the Justice Department, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But as his lawyer pointed out he remains in a “literal double bind,” with a bracelet on one ankle from his criminal case in Tennessee and an ICE bracelet on the other ankle from his immigration case in Maryland.
I just got a new iPhone. I didn’t need a newer version. But my old one was broken in a way that wasn’t easily fixed. So I submitted myself to the hard wheel of planned obsolescence. I’m always happy for ever-improved image quality. Otherwise, for me, it was just a need for a new, undamaged phone. But this is one of the models which Apple tells you very frequently has their AI bundled into the device. Which I’m told is awesome. Or that’s what they’re telling me. A lot. And my sense generally is that Apple is the least over-the-top of the big techs in this regard.
As I’ve been using the new phone, I’ve noticed that the Apple texting app now takes suggested phrases and completing your words to the next level — as in kind of an absurd level.
Donald Trump Jr. on Saturday said that his father did speak to fired FBI Director James Comey about his preferred outcome for the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, though President Donald Trump flatly denied doing so.
“When I hear the Flynn comments, you and I know both know my father for a long time. When he tells you to do something, guess what? There’s no ambiguity in it,” Trump Jr. told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro. “There’s no ‘Hey, I’m hoping. You and I are friends. Hey, I hope this happens, but you’ve got to do your job.’ That’s what he told Comey.”
On Friday, however, the President flatly denied making those remarks to Comey or pressuring him to drop the investigation into Flynn, implicitly or otherwise.
“You said you hoped the Flynn investigation he could let go,” ABC News’ Jon Karl asked Trump during a press conference.
“I didn’t say that,” Trump interrupted.
“So he lied about that?” Karl asked, referring to Comey.
“Well, I didn’t say that,” Trump said. “And I mean I will you tell you I didn’t say that.”
But, he added, “There would be nothing wrong if I did say it, according to everybody that I’ve read today, but I did not say that.”
Trump Jr. on Saturday claimed that “everything that went on in the Comey testimony was basically ridiculous.”
“For this guy as a politician to then go back and write a memo, ‘oh, I felt,’ he felt so threatened, he felt that — but he didn’t do anything!” Trump Jr. said.
Comey’s blockbuster testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, however, prompted Trump to offer to do the same.
Off message here for Trump Jr. Says his father did tell Comey he hoped he let the Flynn investigation go. His dad says that's a lie. pic.twitter.com/oOhaFgZY4a
President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested that there are more revelations to come from fired FBI Director James Comey, and questioned their legality.
“I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible,” Trump tweeted early Sunday morning. “Totally illegal? Very ‘cowardly!'”
I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible. Totally illegal? Very 'cowardly!'
Trump made similar remarks on Friday in another early morning tweet where he labeled Comey a “leaker,” referring to Comey’s decision to share the contents of memos about his conversations with Trump to the press via a friend.
Comey revealed that decision during his testimony on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he painted Trump as a liar and testified that Trump tried to obtain a loyalty pledge from the former FBI head and pushed him to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Trump on Friday said he was “100 percent” willing to match Comey and testify under oath to contradict Comey’s testimony.
A spokesman for Attorney General Jeff Sessions late Thursday pushed back on several aspects of James Comey’s Senate testimony after the former FBI director raised new questions about Sessions’ actions before and after he recused himself from the federal investigation of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.
Comey’s testimony touched on Sessions at several points. He hinted that the FBI was aware of information that led the bureau to believe Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia probe weeks before he actually did so, and reportedly told senators in a subsequent closed session that Sessions may have met with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. on a third occasion that the attorney general had not disclosed.
The morning after former FBI Director James Comey delivered blockbuster testimony in the Senate in which he painted President Donald Trump as a liar and said that the President pressured him to quash a probe into Michael Flynn, Trump published a tweet declaring “vindication.”
Trump published his tweet shortly after 6 a.m. on Friday morning, during the time frame when he typically shares his thoughts on Twitter.
He referenced “false statements and lies,” appearing to accuse Comey of lying under oath.
Trump also labeled Comey a “leaker,” referencing Comey’s decision to get a friend to share the contents of memos about his conversations with Trump to the press, a revelation the former FBI director shared on Thursday during with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication…and WOW, Comey is a leaker!
James Comey testified Thursday that he was “stunned” by requests President Donald Trump made to curtail federal investigations related to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and thought the President’s remarks were of investigative interest— and it seems other senior FBI officials agree.
Though the ousted FBI director did not go as far as accusing Trump of attempting to obstruct justice, Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered the clearest indication yet that the President may already be under scrutiny for exactly that.
Part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s job is to “sort that out,” Comey said, dismissing questions from the assembled senators on whether he personally believed Trump obstructed justice. His testimony made the case for why he felt “sure” that Mueller would look into the multiple one-on-one conversations that Trump requested of his then-FBI director.
Comey says Trump asked him to quash the FBI’s investigation into ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn in one Feb. 14 exchange in the Oval Office. In a March 30 phone call, Comey says Trump requested that he lift the “cloud” that the Russia probe was casting over his administration.
“I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct,” Comey said of the Feb. 14 meeting. “I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that’s an offense.”
Importantly, Comey noted that Trump asked other senior officials, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, to clear the room before initiating the conversation about the Flynn probe. He noted those officials hesitated before complying.
“Why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office?” Comey said. “That, to me as an investigator, is a very significant fact.”
Senior FBI officials briefed on that conversation said it was “of investigative interest” to determine the intent of Trump’s statements about Flynn, Comey testified.
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe made similar remarks in separate testimony before the committee on Wednesday, telling Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) that it was “accurate” to assume that Comey’s private conversations with Trump either already are or are “likely to become part of a criminal investigation.”
These loaded comments apparently did not trouble Trump’s legal team or his defenders on Capitol Hill, who insisted that Comey’s testimony actually vindicated the President. They noted that, as Trump previously said, Comey confirmed that he informed Trump on three separate occasions that the President was not the subject of a counterintelligence investigation.
Republican lawmakers, the White House and Trump’s own family members also argued that the President was merely looking out for the interest of Flynn, a longtime adviser, and never explicitly ordered Comey to end any investigation. Those defenders neglected to mention that Comey testified that a senior FBI official cautioned him against telling Trump he was not a part of the federal investigation, because that person believed that “inevitably his behavior, his conduct will fall within the scope.”
Whether Trump requested or ordered that Comey drop the investigation into Flynn is an irrelevant semantic distinction. As Comey testified, Trump asked him to swear “loyalty” and repeatedly brought up the status of his job in their conversations, leaving the former FBI director with the impression that his continued tenure at the bureau was “contingent upon how he felt I conducted myself and whether I demonstrated loyalty.”
He did not comply with Trump’s requests and was fired only four months into Trump’s term. By the President’s own admission, Comey was dismissed because of the “Russia thing.”
“I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted,” Comey testified. “That is a very big deal.”
The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday that it was “hard to overstate the significance” of fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), whose committee is leading its own investigation into Russian election meddling, wrote in a statement responding to Comey’s testimony that it “constitutes evidence of an intention to interfere or potentially obstruct at least a portion of the Russia investigation, if not more.”
Read Schiff’s full statement below:
“Today, former FBI Director James Comey testified that the President of the United States demanded his loyalty, and directed him to drop a criminal investigation into his former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. Director Comey further testified that he believes President Trump ultimately fired him in order to alter the course of the FBI’s Russia investigation. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this testimony.
“These discussions and others took place in one-on-one telephone conversions and meetings initiated by the President, or after the President cleared the room of other people. Director Comey wrote memoranda about his conversations with President Trump because he was worried that the President and his Administration would misrepresent them.
“In my view, this testimony constitutes evidence of an intention to interfere or potentially obstruct at least a portion of the Russia investigation, if not more. It will be important for Congress to obtain evidence to corroborate this testimony — the memoranda, certainly, as well as any tapes, if they exist. We should also interview those around Director Comey at the time of these contacts, to get their contemporaneous impressions of his conversations with the President and to supplement his testimony. Finally, we cannot accept the refusal of Directors Rogers and Coats to answer questions about whether they were asked to intervene with Comey on the Flynn case or any related matter. Similarly, we will need to ask Director Pompeo the same questions. These additional steps are vital to determining the ultimate significance of the President’s actions.”
A routine budget hearing in the Senate next week featuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions took on heightened importance following ousted FBI Director James Comey’s explosive Thursday testimony, which raised questions about what Sessions did both before and after he recused himself from the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
At least one member of the Appropriations Committee, Vice Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), plans to use next week’s budget hearing as an opportunity to grill Sessions about Russia, Comey and President Donald Trump. “I have many important questions for him to answer,” he said in a statement.
During his feverishly-anticipated testimony Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, ousted FBI Director James Comey made a host of major revelations about his handling of President Donald Trump and the federal investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election in the months before he was abruptly fired in May.
Importantly, Comey disclosed new information about actions he took when he became concerned about the Trump administration’s attempts to establish a “patronage” relationship with him and persuade him to drop the FBI investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn. Here’s an overview of some of the most significant moments from the hearing, where Comey revealed exactly what steps he took and why he took them.
Throughout his testimony Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey repeatedly stressed the serious implications of Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 election. He argued that the issue of Russian meddling it not about politics, but about the credibility of the American government.
Toward the beginning of the hearing, Comey said that he has no doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election and that Russian government officials were aware of the meddling.
He later stressed that Russian interference is very real, countering President Donald Trump’s constant dismissals of the Russia probe.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) asked Comey about the way Trump has discussed Russia’s election meddling, noting that the President has described Russian interference “as a hoax and as fake news.” In response, Comey stressed that there’s no doubt that the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 election and that the conclusion on Russia’s actions is “about as unfake as you can possibly get.”
“There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. And it was an active measures campaign driven from the top of the government. There is no fuzz on that,” Comey said.
“It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community — and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence — it’s not a close call,” he continued. “That happened. That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get and is very, very serious, which is why it’s so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that. Because this is about America, not about any particular party.”
Asked if it was a “hostile act by the Russian government,” Comey replied, “Yes.”
Later in his testimony, Comey emphasized that Russia’s attempt to meddle in the election is a threat to the United States and should rise above politics. He delivered a passionate monologue about just how grave a threat Russia’s meddling is to America.
“The reason this is such a big deal is we have this big, messy, wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time but nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for, except other Americans. And that’s wonderful and often painful,” Comey said. “But we’re talking about a foreign government that — using technical intrusion, lots of other methods — tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act.”
“That is a big deal. And people need to recognize it. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. They’re coming after America, which I hope we all love equally,” he continued. “They want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them. And so they’re going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible. That’s what this is about. And they will be back, because we remain — as difficult as we can be with each other — we remain that shining city on the hill and they don’t like it.”
The former FBI director also noted that Russia’s attempt to interfere in the 2016 election was part of an ongoing effort targeted at the U.S.
“It’s a long-term practice of theirs. It stepped up a notch in a significant way in ’16. They’ll be back,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He stressed that the probe into Russian election meddling is also about prevention of future attacks, saying that Russia is not a threat to any one political party, but to the country as a whole.
Comey also addressed some of the details of the the FBI’s investigation into Russian hacking attempts. He said there was a “massive” effort to target government agencies and non-governmental groups, estimating that hundreds, possibly around 1,000, entities were targeted. He also said that the FBI never examined the hardware that was hacked at the Democratic National Committee’s, but that the FBI got the information they needed from a third party.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Thursday reflected ruefully on his questions to fired FBI Director James Comey during an open session of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“I get the sense from Twitter that my line of questioning today went over people’s heads,” McCain said in a statement. “Maybe going forward I shouldn’t stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games.”
McCain said he wanted to find out whether Comey believed “that any of his interactions with the President rise to the level of obstruction of justice.”
“While I missed an opportunity in today’s hearing, I still believe this question is important, and I intend to submit it in writing to Mr. Comey for the record,” he said.
