Month: March 2022

Ex-prosecutor: Trump is guilty of fraud beyond a reasonable doubt

Posted on by Brandi Buchman

In the now public resignation letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg from veteran prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, the cards, as they say, are on the table for all to see. 

Pomerantz, a special assistant district attorney in New York, was leading an exhaustive fraud investigation into former President Donald Trump’s finances, ultimately reviewing whether Trump or Trump Organization defrauded bank lenders and tax assessors when disclosing the value of various holdings to secure high-value loans. 

What Pomerantz now openly says he found was proof of Trump’s “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” and enough evidence to prosecute, which has piled up in Trump’s bogus financial statements and false claims that have compounded year after year.

Related: Prosecutors say exit in Trump fraud case spurred by indictment-shy DA

Pomerantz’s choice to step down, along with fellow prosecutor Carey Dunne, emerged from a deep well of gradually building frustration with Bragg, who had only recently replaced New York District Attorney Cy Vance. 

When The New York Times first reported the resignations, sources effectively told the paper the attorneys left because Bragg had amassed too many doubts that the case could survive a grand jury. 

Pomerantz would not comment to the press in February about his decision to leave. The publication of his letter on Wednesday reverses that course and presents the stakes urgently to the public. 

“The investigation has been suspended indefinitely,” Pomerantz wrote. “Of course, that is your decision to make. I do not question your authority to make it and I accept that you have made it sincerely. However, a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong.” 

He described the failure by Bragg to prosecute—quite baldly—as “misguided and completely contrary to the public interest.”

“Because of the complexity of the facts, the refusal of Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization to cooperate with our investigation, and their affirmative steps to frustrate our ability to follow the facts, this investigation has already consumed a great deal of time. As to Mr. Trump, the great bulk of the evidence relates to his management of the Trump Organization before he became President of the United States. These facts are already dated, and our ability to establish what happened may erode with the further passage of time,” Pomerantz wrote.

When Dunne stepped down, he told fellow attorneys working the case he had to “disassociate” himself from Bragg’s decision because he felt the district attorney was “on the wrong side of history.”

According to a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, the fraud investigation into Trump and Trump organization continues. 

“A team of experienced prosecutors is working every day to follow the facts and the law. There is nothing we can or should say at this juncture about an ongoing investigation,” spokeswoman Danielle Filson told CBS. 

Alvin Bragg.

But time is of the essence: The grand jury hearing evidence assembled under Pomerantz and Dunne’s scrutiny is set to expire in April. 

Well before they left, they emphasized this deadline repeatedly to Bragg. At a meeting in January, Pomerantz and Dunne told the newly sworn in official that it could take months to present the case. Bragg was reportedly well aware of the stakes—he had met with Pomerantz and Dunne weeks before in December. At that meeting, he reportedly sought an update on the case and appeared eager to pick up where his predecessor left off. 

Once formally in office, Bragg started off receptive to pursuing the path toward an indictment, but that enthusiasm fizzled after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the state’s civil investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization had turned up new evidence of fraud. That included, according to James, evidence that Trump grossly inflated property valuations to banks as well as the IRS for no fewer than a half dozen entities. 

The Times reported this January:

“Ms. James highlighted details of how she said the company inflated the valuations: $150,000 initiation fees into Mr. Trump’s golf club in Westchester that it never collected; mansions that had not yet been built on one of his private estates; and 20,000 square feet in his Trump Tower triplex that did not exist.”

On the criminal side, Pomerantz and Dunne were struggling to secure a witness for their grand jury that appeased Bragg. He was opposed to proposals calling Trump’s onetime fixer, Michael Cohen, before the grand jury. Bragg cited concerns over Cohen’s trustworthiness. The special prosecutors asked Bragg’s office to consider suspending the grand jury before it expired. 

The clock, however, kept running down, and Pomerantz grew more frustrated with delays. He proposed different strategies to coax Bragg, but those too fell on deaf ears. Pomerantz and Dunne allegedly conceded to Bragg just before their resignations that it would be a hard road to tread toward indictment, but it was a “righteous case that ought to be brought.”

“To the extent you have raised issues as to the legal and factual sufficiency of our case and the likelihood that a prosecution would succeed, I and others have advised you that we have evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe that the prosecution would prevail if charges were brought and the matter were tried to an impartial jury,” Pomerantz wrote to Bragg on Feb. 23. 

He continued: 

“No case is perfect. Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice. As I have suggested to you, respect for the rule of law, and the need to reinforce the bedrock proposition that “no man is above the law,” require that this prosecution be brought even if a conviction is not certain.”

Daniel Goldman, who served as lead counsel to Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, reacted to Pomerantz’s letter publicly on Twitter on Thursday. Goldman ran for the New York attorney general spot.

Knowing someone committed a crime and proving that crime in court are distinctly different events, Goldman said.

“The easy thing for Bragg to do would be to charge Trump. It certainly would be the politically expedient thing to do,” Goldman said.

Goldman wrote that Bragg, to his credit, has served as a former federal and state prosecutor who led probes into Trump when Bragg worked at the attorney general’s office. The newly elected official should be “applauded,” Goldman added.

Suggestions that Bragg’s decision was reached corruptly were deemed “preposterous,” he said. 

There is a BIG difference between *knowing* somebody committed crimes and *proving* those crimes in court. The problem with this case has always been the evidence of Trump’s knowledge — it is not enough to say “of course he knew.” And Michael Cohen is a tarnished witness. 2/

— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) March 24, 2022

An attorney for Trump, Ronald Fischetti, told The Guardian that Pomerantz’s departure was just the latest proof that prosecutors didn’t have the goods to indict Trump. Fischetti said Bragg should be “commended” for following the rule of law instead of the rules of politics. 

For Pomerantz, according to his February resignation letter, it was never about politics. 

“I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice,” he wrote.

Morning Digest: Mo Brooks just found out Trump’s Complete and Total endorsements are anything but

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

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LEADING OFF

● AL-Sen: Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he was "withdrawing my endorsement" of Rep. Mo Brooks ahead of the May Republican primary to succeed retiring Sen. Richard Shelby, a move that came after months of stories detailing the GOP master's unhappiness with the congressman' campaign. Trump concluded his not-tweet by saying, "I will be making a new Endorsement in the near future!"

There are two remaining available candidates in the GOP primary that Trump could back: Army veteran Mike Durant and Shelby's choice, former Business Council of Alabama head Katie Boyd Britt. Trump had disparaged Britt as "not in any way qualified" for the Senate back in July, but he's warmed up to her in recent months and, per a CNN report last month, even told her that "he would speak positively of her in private and public appearances."

That same story relayed that Trump saw Durant, whom he derided as "a McCain guy" because he functioned as a surrogate for John McCain's 2008 campaign, as unacceptable. That seems to also be changing, though, as Politico reports that Durant met with Trump on Monday. As for Brooks, who helped foment the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, the Club for Growth responded to Trump's Wednesday announcement by saying it was still sticking with him.

Trump argued he was abandoning the "woke" Brooks because the candidate told an August rally, "There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020. Folks, put that behind you." However, while CNN said last year that Brooks' performance at this event, as well as Trump's brief but friendly conversation with Britt backstage, were what "first sowed frustration" with the congressman inside Trumpworld, few observers believe that those seven-month-old comments from Brooks are the reason Trump is now leaving him for dead.

Instead, almost everyone agreed that Trump decided that Brooks was running a doomed bid and wanted to avoid being embarrassed by his primary defeat. Indeed, CNN reported all the way back in December that Trump, GOP insiders, and even Brooks' allies were unhappy with his weak fundraising and other aspects of his campaign: The candidate responded that month by "reassessing his campaign strategy" and replacing several members of his team, but CNN said last week that this shakeup only granted him a temporary reprieve from Trump's gripes. "He feels he has been more than patient and that Mo hasn't risen to the occasion despite many opportunities to do so," said one unnamed person close to Trump.  

But things intensified last week when Trump began to publicly discuss yanking his "Complete and Total" endorsement over the August comments. Brooks responded by saying that Trump had been told "that there are mechanisms by which he could have been returned to the White House in 2021 or in 2022, and it's just not legal." An unnamed Trump advisor told CNN afterwards that a Republican saying that the 2020 election couldn't be overturned represented a "cardinal sin," and that Brooks had just said "the quiet part out loud and it might cost him (Trump's) support." Brooks himself last week used his very first ad of the race to proudly showcase the Jan. 6 speech he delivered to the pro-Trump rally that preceded the day’s violence, but that messaging wasn't enough to keep Trump on his side.

Things got even worse for Brooks on Tuesday when the Republican firm Cygnal released a survey for the Alabama Daily News and Gray Television that showed the former frontrunner in a distant third place. Durant led with 35%, while Britt led Brooks 28-16 for the second spot in an all-but-assured June runoff; last August, before Durant joined the race, the firm showed Brooks crushing Britt 41-17.

There's no word if those ugly numbers influenced Trump, but he announced just a day later that he was finally done backing Brooks. The congressman himself responded with a statement saying, "President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency." He continued, "As a lawyer, I've repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit(s) what President Trump asks. Period." Brooks also declared that Trump has allowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to "manipulate" him.

The Downballot

● Joining us on The Downballot for this week’s episode is Jessica Post, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee—the official arm of the Democratic Party dedicated to winning state legislatures nationwide. Jessica talks with us about how the DLCC picks its targets and helps candidates, the impact of freshly un-gerrymandered maps in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and how Democrats are protecting vulnerable seats in a challenging midterm environment.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also discuss yet another shameful redistricting ruling from the Supreme Court, Donald Trump pulling the plug on Mo Brooks' Senate campaign in Alabama, and a brand-new special election for the top prosecutor's post in America's fourth-largest county. You can listen to The Downballot on all major podcast platforms, and you can find a transcript right here.

Redistricting

● WI Redistricting: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Wisconsin's new legislative maps in an unsigned "shadow docket" opinion on Wednesday, ruling that the state Supreme Court had violated the Voting Rights Act when it selected a map for the state Assembly earlier this month that would increase the number of Black-majority districts in the Milwaukee area from six to seven. However, the high court rejected a separate challenge on different grounds to the state's new congressional map.

As a result, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will now have to either pick new legislative maps or provide further evidence in support of the plans it originally selected, which were submitted by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. But as election law expert Rick Hasen noted, in a piece calling Wednesday's ruling "bizarre on many levels," the U.S. Supreme Court is using the Wisconsin case to "chip away at the Voting Rights Act." That suggests the justices would be hostile to the Evers maps no matter what additional arguments the Wisconsin court might adduce.

The decision also showcases the high court's stark hypocrisy: Six weeks ago, the Supreme Court blocked a lower federal court ruling ordering Alabama to redraw its congressional map in order to create a second Black congressional district, as mandated by the Voting Rights Act—the same law the Wisconsin Supreme Court cited as motivating its choice of maps. At the time, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained in a concurring opinion that the lower court's order in the Alabama case had come too close to the election for the state to revise its existing map, which included only a single district with a Black majority.

Now it's late March, yet the Supreme Court has nevertheless seen fit to send Wisconsin back to the drawing board. There's simply no legitimate reason for the differing outcomes: The original lower court ruling in Alabama came down four months before the state's primary, while the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision was issued just five months ahead of the primary there. In both cases, however, Republican interests benefit, and the cause of Black representation suffers.

Senate

● NC-Sen: Rep. Ted Budd, aka the far-right congressman running for Senate that Trump still backs, is running a spot for the May primary based around his support for finishing Trump's border wall.

● NH-Sen: Bitcoin millionaire Bruce Fenton tells Politico that he's considering entering the September Republican primary to face Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan and would self-fund $5 million if he gets in. Felton adds that he'll decide early next month after, naturally, the Bitcoin 2022 gathering.

● NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The Club for Growth has released a WPA Intelligence survey of the June Republican primary that gives its endorsed Senate candidate, former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a wide 57-19 lead over Army veteran Sam Brown.

The Club also takes a look at the race for governor, where it has yet to take sides: WPA shows Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo leading former Sen. Dean Heller 28-22, with North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee at 13%. A recent PPP survey for the Democratic Governors Association had Lombardo ahead with a similar 26%, while Heller and Lee tied with 13% each.

Governors

● GA-Gov: Newt Gingrich has waded into his home state's May Republican primary for governor by backing former Sen. David Perdue's intra-party bid against incumbent Brian Kemp.

● MD-Gov: Former Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker has publicized a GQR internal of the twice-delayed Democratic primary, which is now set for July, that shows him trailing state Comptroller Peter Franchot 23-15; former Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez and former nonprofit head Wes Moore aren't far behind with 11% and 10%, respectively. Baker, who was the runner up in the 2018 primary, has released these numbers to argue that he's the strongest alternative to Franchot.

On the Republican side, termed-out Gov. Larry Hogan has endorsed former state Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, whom the Washington Post called his "handpicked candidate" last year.

● PA-Gov: State Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman's newest spot for the May Republican primary consists of him calling for the impeachment of Larry Krasner, Philadelphia's reform-minded district attorney.

House

● CO-08: While Adams County Commissioner Chaz Tedesco initially sought to collect signatures to qualify for the June Democratic primary ballot for this new seat, he didn't end up turning in enough petitions before last week's deadline. Tedesco will instead seek to advance by competing at the April 5 party convention, where he'll need to win the support of at least 30% of the delegates in order to keep his candidacy alive.

The other major Democratic candidate is state Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who did turn in the requisite number of petitions. She's also competing for the party endorsement next month, but she'll make it to the primary ballot as long as she wins at least 10% of the delegates.

● FL-07: Longtime congressional aide Rusty Roberts announced this week that he was entering the Republican primary to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy. Roberts previously served as chief of staff for John Mica, the Styrofoam-obsessed Republican whom Murphy unseated in 2016. (Politico wrote during that campaign that Mica "obsessively hordes throwaway coffee cups in his office and home, insisting that his companions reuse the same paper or Styrofoam carries because 'it's recyclable!'")

● MO-01: Republican state Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch earlier this month that Democratic state Sen. Steven Roberts wants lawmakers to modify the boundaries of the safely blue 1st District to strengthen his chances for a potential primary campaign against Rep. Cori Bush. Roberts rejected Schatz's claim about his interest in shaping redistricting, though he did not deny he was considering a campaign against the high-profile freshman. "Is this on the record or off the record?" he asked a reporter, and when he was informed he was on the record, Roberts simply said he was focused "on my legislative duties."

Roberts appeared in the news again on Monday when The Intercept reported that someone with an IP address in the Missouri Office of Administration edited Roberts' Wikipedia page to delete a section describing how he'd been accused of sexual assault by two different women in 2015 and 2017, though he was never charged. A spokesperson for Roberts denied any knowledge of the edits and also deflected a question about a possible campaign against Bush. Missouri's candidate filing deadline is still set for March 29 even though the GOP-run legislature hasn't yet passed a new congressional map.

● NC-13: Law student Bo Hines uses his first spot for the May Republican primary to talk about his time as a college football player and to inform the viewer that he's Donald Trump's endorsed candidate. The spot features a montage of Hines jumping rope, lifting weights, and, in one weird moment at the 12-second mark, apparently talking to himself in the mirror.

● NJ-11: For the second cycle in a row, former Kinnelon Council President Larry Casha has dropped out of the Republican primary to face Democratic incumbent Mikie Sherrill.

● TN-05: Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles has announced that he's joining the August Republican primary for the open 5th District, which Republicans recently transformed from blue to red by cracking apart the city of Nashville. Ogles is a former state director for the Koch network's Americans for Prosperity, and he launched a primary bid in 2017 against Sen. Bob Corker days before the incumbent decided to retire. Ogles, though, attracted little attention in the new open seat race from the Kochs or anyone else, and he soon dropped out and launched a successful bid for Maury County mayor.

Ogles, who established himself as a loud opponent of Gov. Bill Lee's pandemic measures, responded to Lee's summer declaration that school districts could decide for themselves if a mask mandate would be required in elementary schools by calling for the legislature to hold a special session to address his "continued abuses of power." Ogles also didn't rule out a primary campaign against Lee before the new congressional maps were unveiled, but he soon shifted his focus to the 5th District.

Ogles joins a contest that includes former state House Speaker Beth Harwell; businessman Baxter Lee; retired Brig. Gen. Kurt Winstead; music video producer Robby Starbuck; and Trump's choice, former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. Ortagus' campaign, though, has attracted scorn from plenty of loud conservatives who have cast the recent Tennessee arrival as an outsider.

Ortagus gave her critics some fresh material last month when, during an appearance on Michael Patrick Leahy's conservative radio show, she bombed the host's quiz about the new district and state. Among other things, Ortagus couldn't answer when asked which "three interstate highways" are in the 5th, the names of the four living former Republican governors (she only got Lee's predecessor, Bill Haslam), and the identity of "[o]ne of the most famous NASCAR drivers living today [who] lives in the 5th District and has a large auto dealership in Franklin." (The answer is Darrell Waltrip.)

Each chamber of the state's GOP-dominated legislature has also passed a bill that would impose a three-year residency requirement on congressional candidates, and while its state House sponsor denied it had anything to do with any specific contender, observers were quick to note that it would keep Ortagus off the ballot. However, while the Senate version would take effect this cycle, the House bill wouldn't come into force this year. It likely wouldn't matter what the legislature ends up agreeing to, though, because of a 1995 Supreme Court decision that ruled that states cannot add further qualifications to candidates for Congress that aren't in the U.S. Constitution.

● VT-AL: Sianay Chase Clifford, who is a former aide to Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, announced last week that she was joining the August Democratic primary for Vermont's open House seat and campaigning as "a real progressive option." Chase Clifford, who is 27, moved to the Bay State for college, and she returned to Vermont during the pandemic. The candidate, whose mother is from Liberia, would be the first Black person to represent the state in Congress.

Attorneys General

● GA-AG: Donald Trump has endorsed Big Lie proponent John Gordon, who renewed his law license last year to try to help Trump overturn his Georgia defeat, against Attorney General Chris Carr in the May Republican primary. Carr warned his counterparts in other states against joining Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit to throw out the results in Georgia and other states Biden won, and Trump lashed out Tuesday by saying the incumbent did "absolutely nothing" to aid him.

Gordon, writes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "has little statewide profile," though he does have a close connection to another Trump ally. The paper reports that former Sen. David Perdue, who is trying to deny renomination to Gov. Brian Kemp, lives on property owned by Gordon because his own place is undergoing construction, though Perdue denied he had anything to do with this endorsement.

Carr and Gordon are the only Republican candidates, so this contest will be decided without a runoff. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Jen Jordan is the undisputed frontrunner against attorney Christian Wise Smith.

● ID-AG: The Club for Growth has dropped a survey from WPA Intelligence that shows former Rep. Raúl Labrador, who was one of the far-right's most prominent members during the tea party era, lapping five-term Attorney General Lawrence Wasden 35-14 in the May Republican primary. The Club hasn't made an endorsement, though it supported Labrador in his unsuccessful 2018 bid for governor.

Prosecutors

● Maricopa County, AZ Attorney: Three more GOP candidates have announced that they'll run in this year's special election to succeed their fellow Republican, soon-to-be-former County Attorney Allister Adel: City of Goodyear Prosecutor Gina Godbehere, attorney James Austin Woods, and prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. Republicans need to turn in just over 4,500 valid signatures by April 4 in order to make the primary ballot; Anni Foster, who is Gov. Doug Ducey's general counsel, launched her own bid earlier this week.

Godbehere on Tuesday earned a supportive tweet from former TV anchor Kari Lake, the far-right conspiracy theorist that Donald Trump is supporting for governor. Woods, for his part, is the son of the late Grant Woods, who served as state attorney general from 1991 to 1999. That link may not be helpful with GOP primary voters, though, as the elder Woods was a vocal Trump critic who became a Democrat in 2018.

Finally, Mitchell is a longtime sex crimes prosecutor who attracted national attention during Brett Kavanaugh's 2018 Supreme Court hearings when the all-male Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee brought her in as a "female assistant" to question him and accuser Christine Blasey Ford. She went on to tell the GOP senators that no "reasonable prosecutor" would prosecute Kavanaugh for sexual assault.

The next year Mitchell temporarily served as Maricopa County attorney after Bill Montgomery resigned to join the state Supreme Court: Both she and Godbehere were named as finalists for the appointment for the final year of his term, but Adel was ultimately selected. Mitchell made news again last month when she was one of the five division chiefs to tell their boss to resign due to serious questions about her sobriety and ability to serve as the county's top prosecutor.

On the Democratic side, 2020 nominee Julie Gunnigle said Tuesday that she'd already collected the requisite petitions in less than 24 hours.

Jackson’s hearings are over. Meet the 9 potential Senate swing votes.

Posted on (Updated by By Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is on a relatively smooth path to becoming the first Black woman on the Supreme Court after three days of Senate confirmation hearings that have run the gamut in tone, from tense to rowdy to emotionally supportive.

At the moment, Democrats expect Jackson to receive full support from their 50-member caucus — and that’s enough to get her confirmed. The biggest question, now, appears to be whether her final confirmation vote will be bipartisan.

While the White House and Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are hoping for GOP backing, the vast majority of Senate Republicans are expected to oppose her nomination to the high court.

“I think it’s south of three” Republicans likely to support Jackson, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “That’s what happened in her court of appeals hearing. She seems like a very nice lady, and certainly well-accomplished, but I don’t think anybody is under any illusion about how she’s going to line up on the court."

Indeed, Jackson got three Republican votes last year when she was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. One of those Republicans is heavily hinting he will oppose Jackson’s nomination, while the other two have yet to announce a decision.

Some Republicans recently suggested that they’re torn between supporting Jackson’s historic nomination and voting no based on opposition to her judicial philosophy. A few in that group are retiring this year, freeing them from the potential political risks of backing her nomination, although a vote to confirm Jackson would roil the GOP primaries currently underway to replace them.

With only that handful of Republicans even in play and a 50-50 Senate, Democrats have little room for error as they seek to confirm Jackson by their goal of the spring recess that's set to start April 9. Here’s who to watch as she gets closer to a final vote:

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

The Alaskan is one of three GOP senators who voted to confirm Jackson to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, making her one of the closest-watched votes once the nomination gets to the floor.

In an interview on Wednesday, Murkowski said Jackson’s sentencing record on child pornography cases is “worth looking into,” but that she wants to understand whether or not it’s a pattern before she determines its effect on her vote.

“If it really is a pattern, that’s something I think we should be paying attention to. If it is an issue of … one-offs that have been hyped into more than that, I think that’s something we need to try to discern,” Murkowski said.

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Susan Collins

The Mainer is widely viewed as the most likely Republican to support Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and Democrats are pushing hard for her vote. President Joe Biden has called Collins at least three times about the Supreme Court vacancy, including the day he made his selection, while Durbin reached out shortly after Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement announcement.

Collins met with Jackson earlier this month for more than 90 minutes and described their conversation as “lengthy and very productive.” While she's supported the vast majority of Biden’s judicial nominees, including Jackson's nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, she has indicated she would wait until after the confirmation hearings ended to make a decision.

Collins voted for six of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices. She opposed Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the high court, citing the proximity to the 2020 election.

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Mitt Romney

The Utahn has criticized the idea that Jackson’s sentencing record is disqualifying and said “my heart would like to be able to vote for her confirmation.” He still may be a tough sell.

Romney said on Wednesday that he doesn’t want to comment as Jackson’s hearings are ongoing and still wants to meet with her — insisting he’s undecided even as Republicans hope he votes no. He says he’ll “be weighing the capacity and philosophy and the decisions by a judge in her prior role.”

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Lindsey Graham

The South Carolinian was once viewed as among the most likely Republicans to support Biden’s Supreme Court pick. But while Graham supported Jackson’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court last year, he instead pushed for his home-state District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs to replace Breyer. Since Biden announced Jackson’s nomination, Graham has sent strong signals he will vote against her.

Graham was among the toughest GOP questioners in Jackson’s confirmation hearing: He engaged her in a tense exchange about her sentencing record on child pornography cases and asked about past judicial fights, including the confirmation hearings for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Democrats’ filibuster of appellate court nominee Janice Rogers Brown, a Black woman.

While Graham has said to "stay tuned" on how he'll vote, there’s little evidence that he’ll support Jackson’s nomination.

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Roy Blunt

The retiring Missouri Republican is one of those admittedly struggling with Jackson’s nomination, saying that he doesn’t want to rush his decision and thinks her sentencing record is a legitimate line of questioning.

But given her family’s history of serving in law enforcement, Blunt said he's also concluded that Jackson “doesn’t sound like a soft on crime person.”

“My early inclination was: I’d really like to vote for the first Black woman to go on the court,” Blunt said in an interview. But his ultimate view on Jackson comes down to her “view of what the court does and their view of what the law is all about."

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Rob Portman

The meticulous Ohio Republican has kept a staffer in the hearing room to monitor colleagues' questions to Jackson and her answers. He agrees with some of his colleagues that Jackson’s bid to join the court is “a historic nomination.” But it’ll be tough for him to vote for her in the end.

“She doesn’t share my judicial philosophy, for the most part. I think she’s a qualified person, and when I spent time with her I liked her. But I just need to take a look at everything,” said Portman, who's retiring after this Congress. “There are differences in philosophy.”

REPUBLICAN

Sen. Richard Burr

The retiring North Carolinian is not exactly a moderate swing vote in the Senate, but he’s also got plenty of surprises up his sleeve. The laid-back Burr ended up voting to convict former President Donald Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, so it’s worth keeping an eye on him.

But Burr isn’t giving anything away about how Jackson is doing in his view: “I haven’t seen any of it. I’ve got this day job, doesn’t let me watch TV.” He’s planning to meet with Jackson next week.

“I’m going to wait and see how she answers the questions and when she comes to meet with me,” he said.

DEMOCRAT

Sen. Joe Manchin

The West Virginia centrist Democrat said Friday that he would support Jackson, likely guaranteeing her ultimate confirmation. In a statement, Manchin said he is "confident Judge Jackson is supremely qualified and has the disposition necessary to serve as our nation’s next Supreme Court Justice.”

While Manchin quashed Biden's White House budget director pick and one of his Federal Reserve board nominees, Democrats had expected him to support Jackson for the high court. And it was clear earlier this week that Sen. Josh Hawley's (R-Mo.) broadside against the judge's sentencing decisions in child pornography cases had no effect on Manchin.

Manchin brushed aside the gambit: “It’s Hawley, right? Take that for what it’s worth.”

DEMOCRAT

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema

The centrist Arizonan met with Jackson earlier this month for a “productive” sit-down and suggested she would not make a decision until after the hearings. But Democrats are confident Sinema will support the nomination in the end, given that she’s backed every Biden judicial nominee — including Jackson’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit.

Sinema described Jackson’s nomination as a “historic milestone” and said she would evaluate the pick on three criteria: professional qualifications, belief in the role of an independent judiciary, and trust in her ability to “faithfully interpret and uphold the rule of law.”

Posted in Uncategorized

Markwayne Mullin takes his latest risk: a Senate bid

Posted on by By Olivia Beavers

When Markwayne Mullin sees a problem, he tries to tackle it. Sometimes literally.

The 44-year-old Oklahoma Republican’s tendency to run head-first toward threats hasn’t always helped him during his House career, and could complicate his run for Senate. Mullin’s bid to enter Afghanistan for an evacuation mission following the Biden administration’s botched military withdrawal there last year, for example, didn’t sit well with a military already dealing with enough crises without lawmakers willfully endangering themselves.

He was also the first House member to join the Capitol Police in responding to pro-Trump rioters trying to break into the chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, though he voted not to certify 2020 election results. Then there was the physical confrontation at last year’s House GOP retreat between Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter, and a man who had verbally accosted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo).

The man in question “tried to take off” after showing up at the Orlando hotel where GOP lawmakers were staying and calling Boebert “threatening and vulgar and disgusting” names, Mullin said in a wide-ranging interview. So Mullin pulled the man to the ground as he tried to leave the complex: “I drug [sic] him back and let the police take it from there.”

Mullin would easily win the crowded Republican primary to succeed retiring Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) if it were based solely on who voters might want to hang out with. As it is, the fifth-term daredevil is facing real competition from other candidates, including Inhofe’s former chief of staff. Still, he’s leaning into his black belt in jiujitsu and his spot in Oklahoma’s National Wrestling Hall of Fame, releasing a recent campaign ad titled “You don’t want to fight with him.”

And he’s opening up in typical freewheeling style about his highest-profile moment on the national stage: his off-the-books attempt to enter Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal last summer in order to evacuate a family from the war-torn country.

Mullin said he coordinated that effort, funded through private donors, with State Department and Pentagon officials. But as he explained it, he started hitting obstacles that he blames on the U.S. government and, in response, cut off communications with them.

Shortly after he went dark, Mullin said, came news reports that he was missing — including one broadcast that showed his picture and described him as a missing congressman carrying a large bag of cash. The published reports on his attempts to enter Afghanistan, he asserted, put a target on his back and ultimately forced him to abandon his attempted rescue.

In characteristically uncensored style, Mullin is anything but coy about who he blames for leaking his location. The White House, he said, didn’t want him showing in real time that American citizens, such as the family he tried to help, were left behind during the military’s exit from Afghanistan.

“Without question, they tried to kill me,” he said, alleging the White House deliberately put him at risk.

“All we were trying to do is just help get Americans out because we had the ability to do it. Why is that a bad thing?” Mullin added.

The White House referred questions about Mullin's version of events to the Pentagon, where spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement that the government was clear about its limited ability to support “uncoordinated travel to Afghanistan” and that it takes exception to “any suggestion” that it was not trying to help save lives. The State Department pointed to its clear warnings governing travel to Afghanistan; a spokesperson said “the brave men and women of the U.S. diplomatic corps and military worked around the clock” to protect and relocate Americans and Afghan allies last year. “Any statements to the contrary are not grounded in fact," the spokesperson added.

But the Republican, whose trip to the region alarmed officials in the moment and who blasted the State Department on Fox News after his return to the U.S., said he knew the risks when he set out. The father of six children, three adopted, had gone so far as to tell his wife Christie and two oldest sons that there was a good chance he wouldn’t be coming home.

And while Mullin has the backing of his Republican colleagues, some of them chafe privately at his propensity to pick a fight, no matter the underlying political dynamics.

Fellow Oklahoma GOP Rep. Stephanie Bice described Mullin as a “renegade,” acknowledging that his approach doesn’t always win him fans. Despite the controversy surrounding his Afghanistan trip, she said "it really goes to show that he just wanted to be helpful.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) put it simply: “He's intense. And he is always trying to figure out what he can fix or what he can do."

While Mullin said he has an itch to head to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion, he's staying stateside this time around.

Hailing from Cherokee Nation in eastern Oklahoma, Mullin is leaning on his rural rancher persona as well as his experience turning around a family plumbing business and generating hundreds of jobs in the state to distinguish himself in the GOP primary. As staunchly conservative as he is, having voted with Trump most of the time between 2017 and 2020, he's not considered among the conference's biggest acolytes of the former president and he doesn't belong to the House Freedom Caucus.

According to a polling memo conducted by Cygnal for Mullin’s campaign, Mullin is leading the other four other candidates in the primary by double digits.

His habit of putting himself in harm’s way while trying to be helpful dates back to his own first term. Another Oklahoma Republican, Rep. Tom Cole, recalled that during a 2013 tour of his hometown after tornadoes had torn through the area, Mullin decided to crawl "through all the rubble” to turn off a pipe shooting water into a damaged home.

Mullin brings his own unorthodox background to his work as a member of the House Intelligence Committee: He was among the House Republicans who in 2019 entered the chamber's secure intelligence facility, known as a “SCIF,” to break up the deposition of an official who was testifying as part of Democrats' impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump’s contacts with Ukraine. Mullin doesn’t regret it, arguing that Democrats treated Trump poorly.

Mullin also won't directly respond to the conclusion some of his colleagues have drawn about another part of his pre-Congress background — that he once worked as an intelligence community contractor, giving him experience in dangerous situations.

Asked to elaborate on that assumption about his past, Mullin said only: “No."

He's more open about his defense of Boebert during last year's GOP retreat. After hearing the first-term Coloradan describe her encounter with the heckler, Mullin said he tackled the man in question and then turned the situation over to the Capitol Police, who were in the vicinity.

That wasn't the first time he's stood up for female colleagues, either. During a closed-door GOP conference meeting near the height of the #MeToo movement raising awareness of sexual harassment, Mullin stood up to warn his fellow male lawmakers about the way some of them were touching or talking to women in Congress, both members and staff.

Some GOP colleagues called that episode confusing. But Mullin suggested he was speaking to specific Republicans who were serving at the time, saying he also privately confronted those members and they are no longer serving in the chamber. (More than a half-dozen members of Congress retired or resigned during the 115th Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, including five House Republicans.)

“I just wanted to let people know," Mullin said, "that that's not right.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Posted in Uncategorized

Slew of racist, violent memes and texts circulated by Wichita, Kansas cops leaked

Posted on by Rebekah Sager

In case you were wondering, there are some extremely bad apples in the Witchita Police Department. So many, in fact, that it may be time to defund the police. Just sayin’.

According to reporting from The Wichita Eagle, 11 officers were investigated after text messages found on one officer’s phone revealed a slew of racist memes and texts—many of which referred to civilians who’d been shot or killed by the police. 

RELATED STORY: Police union claims ‘dozens’ to resign over vaccine mandate, state says only one has so far

One of the texts found was sent by a white Wichita officer, Sgt. Jamie Crouch, showing a photoshopped image of Geroge Floyd’s murder but replacing the officer who killed Floyd, Derek Chauvin, with an image of a naked Black man sitting on Floyd’s head. 

A meme, sent by another Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy, showed an image of the cartoon character Elmer Fudd, holding a shotgun, saying, “Be very very quiet, I’m hunting [racial slur].”

Another Sedgwick County deputy allegedly sent a meme to a group chat of officers, mocking the discovery of a noose found in the garage of Black NASCAR driver, Bubba Wallace. The meme showed cone-shaped cups with the caption: “Breaking news: KKK hoods found next to water cooler in Bubba Wallace’s garage.” This officer was eventually placed on paid suspension and, in September, retired.

One of the most terrifying texts was sent from Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy, Sgt. Justin Maxfield, praising a colleague on the SWAT team for being one of the “ultimate de-escalators” who “permanently de-escalated people who needed permanent de-escalation.”

One of the three Wichita officers who responded to Maxfield’s message positively was officer Lee Foese, who was involved in two fatal shootings—one in 2012 and another in 2020. One of the shootings involved a Black man shot five times in the back as he ran from a bar shooting. Foese allegedly responded to Maxfield’s “de-escalated” message with Maxfield also “de-escalated people who needed it.”

Crouch, who sent the Floyd meme, also has a long history of civilian shootings, according to the Eagle. He shot a Black 17-year-old who he thought was involved in a double-murder. The teen turned out not to be the suspect police were looking for. 

Crouch was reprimanded, but not suspended, and remains employed by the Wichita Police Department. 

The messages were uncovered in April 2021, during an investigation into a domestic violence case involving Maxfield. The messages were shared with the Eagle by an unnamed source. 

Maxfield was arrested in April 2021 for allegedly stalking his ex-girlfriend. He was suspended without pay on the day of his arrest and was later convicted and placed on probation, according to The Daily Beast. 

Prior to his resignation, Maxfield allegedly shared another image of Floyd with the caption, “You’re telling me [racial slur] couldn’t breathe?” Arrows pointed to Floyd’s lips and nose, a source told the Eagle.

The three officers who commented on the “de-escalation” post were given “coaching and mentoring,” according to the Eagle.

Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter has called the texts and memes “a big deal,” and told The Daily Beast that three deputies have been fired over them and could “be impeached” if racial bias or deceitfulness is found. 

“By law, I had to notify the U.S. Attorney’s Office, because that’s potential information against these deputies, and also the District Attorney because that’s potential impeachment material,” he said.

Morning Digest: The top GOP candidate to run Nevada’s elections is an antisemitic Big Lie proponent

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Subscribe to our podcast, The Downballot!

Embedded Content

Leading Off

● NV-SoS: Both parties will be fighting hard to win the race to succeed termed-out Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who was the only Nevada Republican to prevail statewide during the 2018 Democratic wave, and with the close of candidate filing on Friday, we now know who all the contenders are. However, while former state Athletic Commission member Cisco Aguilar faces no opposition in the June 14 Democratic primary, Republicans have a seven-way contest that includes a well-connected election denier.

That conspiracy theorist is former Assemblyman Jim Marchant, who challenged Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford last cycle in the 4th District and lost by a 51-46 margin. Marchant, though, responded to that incontrovertible defeat by baselessly claiming he was the "victim of election fraud" and unsuccessfully suing to overturn the results. The ex-lawmaker, who has repeatedly addressed QAnon gatherings, has also said that he would not have certified Joe Biden's victory in the state had he been secretary of state at the time. And as for the endless string of courtroom losses Trump allies were dealt when they sought to undo the 2020 election, Marchant has an explanation for that, too: "A lot of judges were bought off too—they are part of this cabal."

Marchant continued to embrace the far-right last week by letting loose an antisemitic rant against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "We need to support the people in Ukraine that are not the Biden, the Clintons, the cabal," said Marchant, continuing, "They have patriots like us … that have been oppressed by the cabal, the central bankers for centuries. And that's who we need to support people that were oppressed by the Soros cabal." Yet Marchant is anything but a pariah in today's GOP, as he has the backing of former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who is the frontrunner to take on Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

Republicans have several other contenders, with the most formidable looking like Reno-area developer Jesse Haw. The Nevada Independent reported in January that Haw, who was appointed to fill a vacant state Senate seat for a few months in 2016, was "expected to bring at least half a million of dollars in campaign cash in the bank." The GOP field also includes Sparks City Councilman Kristopher Dahir, former TV anchor Gerard Ramalh, and former District Court Judge Richard Scotti.

Further below we'll be taking a look at Nevada's other competitive races now that filing has closed. Candidates running statewide or in constituencies containing multiple counties were required to file with the secretary of state, while candidates running for single-county seats, such as the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts in Clark County, had to instead file with their local election officials.

Redistricting

● OH Redistricting: A group of Ohio voters, with the support of Eric Holder's National Democratic Redistricting Committee, filed a new lawsuit on Monday challenging the replacement congressional map that Republicans passed earlier this month. The suit comes after the state Supreme Court ruled on Friday that it could not entertain plaintiffs' objections to the map in a pair of pending cases because it had issued a "final judgment" when it invalidated the GOP's original district lines in January.

In its decision, however, the court noted that plaintiffs were free to bring a new suit targeting the remedial map, which remains heavily gerrymandered in favor of the GOP. Meanwhile, the ACLU of Ohio, which served as counsel in the second case, said that it is "considering next steps."

Senate

● IA-Sen: Candidate filing closed Friday for Iowa's June 7 primaries, and the state has a list of contenders here. The Hawkeye State has an unusual law that requires party conventions to select nominees in races where no candidate receives over 35% of the vote in the primary, but that provision is unlikely to come into play this year in any of the contests we'll be watching.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is one of the two longest-serving members of Congress following the death of Alaska Rep. Don Young (Grassley is tied with Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is retiring), is seeking an eighth term in a state that swung hard to the right during the Trump era. The incumbent's only primary foe is state Sen. Jim Carlin, a pro-Trump die-hard who has baselessly claimed the 2020 election was stolen and spouted antisemitic conspiracy theories blaming wealthy Jews like Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros for the outcome. Trump himself, though, is supporting Grassley over Carlin, who barely raised any money in 2021.

The frontrunner on the Democratic side looks like former Rep. Abby Finkenauer, who lost a tight battle for a second term last cycle in northeast Iowa. Also in the running are retired Vice Admiral Mike Franken, who lost the 2020 primary for the state's other Senate seat, and Minden City Councilman Glenn Hurst.

● MO-Sen: Former Gov. Eric Greitens' ex-wife, Sheena Greitens, accused him of physically abusing both her and their children in 2018, as well as threatening to kill himself, in a court affidavit released Monday in the couple's ongoing child custody dispute. The former governor, who is competing in the August Republican primary for Missouri's open Senate seat, responded by calling the allegations "completely fabricated." His campaign manager also characterized the account as "clearly a politically-motivated attack against him."

In her filing, Sheena Greitens attested, "Prior to our divorce, during an argument in late April 2018, Eric knocked me down and confiscated my cell phone, wallet and keys so that I was unable to call for help or extricate myself and our children from our home." When her mother confronted the then-governor, Greitens continued, her husband said he'd sought "to prevent me from doing anything that might damage his political career."

The alleged incident occurred the month before Eric Greitens resigned as governor while under indictment for purportedly sexually assaulting a woman he was having an affair with and blackmailing her into silence, as well as unrelated charges of computer tampering involving his charity. The tampering charge was dropped in exchange for Greitens’ resignation, while Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker later abandoned the assault and blackmail case saying that, while she believed Greitens' accuser, she did not think she could prove the charges.

Sheena Greitens further said in her affidavit that, during "the spring and early summer of 2018," her husband had threatened to kill himself "unless I provided specific public political support." She continues that "multiple people other than myself were worried enough to intervene to limit Eric's access to firearms on at least three separate occasions, in February, April, and May 2018."

She also added that in June of 2018, the month following his resignation, "I became afraid for my safety and that of our children at our home, which was fairly isolated, due to Eric's unstable and coercive behavior. This behavior included physical violence toward our children, such as cuffing our then three-year-old son across the face at the dinner table in front of me and yanking him around by the hair."

Eric Greitens is currently competing against several other Republicans in the August primary. Donald Trump last week said, in the words of the Washington Examiner, that "Greitens is still in the running for his seal of approval."

● NV-Sen: Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will be a top GOP target in a state that both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden narrowly won, and eight Republicans have filed to go up against her.

The undisputed frontrunner is former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who lost the 2018 gubernatorial race 49-45 against Democrat Steve Sisolak and now touts endorsements from Donald Trump and the Club for Growth for his latest bid. Laxalt so far has shown no interest in tacking to the center, and he's repeatedly accused Democrats and the media of exaggerating the Jan. 6 attack, saying in September, "What the media and their left wing allies have done to weaponize this against Republicans and Trump voters is reprehensible."

However, Laxalt still faces a surprisingly well-funded intra-party challenge from Army veteran Sam Brown, though it remains to be seen whether Brown will be able to put up a serious fight. None of the other six Republicans have attracted much attention.

● PA-Sen: Self-funding attorney George Bochetto's new commercial for the May Republican primary is entirely devoted to attacking TV personality Mehmet Oz for his "pro-abortion views." Bochetto, who earned all of 1% in a recent Fox News survey, doesn't even appear at all except to provide the legally required "I approve this message" disclaimer at the very end.

● WI-Sen: In her second commercial ahead of the August Democratic primary, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski bemoans how prescription drug costs keep rising and declares that it's "[b]ecause Republicans like [Sen.] Ron Johnson—and let's be honest, too many Democrats—don't have the guts to stand up to the pharmaceutical companies. I'm Sarah Godlewski and I will."

Governors

● IA-Gov: Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds' sole Democratic foe is Deidre DeJear, who lost the 2018 general election for secretary of state 53-45 against incumbent Paul Pate. DeJear would be the first Black person elected statewide, but a recent poll from Selzer & Company gave Reynolds a 51-43 advantage.

● NV-Gov: Steve Sisolak's 2018 win made him the Silver State's first Democratic governor in 20 years, and 16 different Republicans are campaigning to unseat him this year. Most of the field has little money or name recognition, but the Republican side does include a few familiar names.

One prominent contender is former Sen. Dean Heller, who lost re-election to Democrats Jacky Rosen during the 2018 blue wave. Heller, however, has struggled to raise money for his gubernatorial bid. There's also Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who is the top lawman in a county that's home to about three-quarters of Nevada's residents and was the field's best fundraiser in 2021.

Another notable candidate is North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, a longtime conservative Democrat who switched parties just before he launched his new bid. Other contenders to watch are venture capitalist Guy Nohra and attorney Joey Gilbert, who has bragged that he was "definitely on the Capitol steps" on Jan. 6. The only recent primary poll we've seen was an early March survey from the Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling on behalf of the DGA that gave Lombardo the lead with 26%, while Heller and Lee tied for second with 13% each.

● NY-Gov: Empire Results, a dark money group run by a longtime consultant to Rep. Tom Suozzi, is running a new commercial for the June Democratic primary that once again amplifies the congressman's attacks against Gov. Kathy Hochul. This time it faults the incumbent for using "state aircraft to travel to fundraisers."

● PA-Gov: Pennsylvania Works, which is funded by a DGA affiliate, recently began airing ads touting Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the size of the buy is $1 million.

House

● FL-07: Democratic state Rep. Joy Goff-Marcil has announced that she'll run for the state Senate rather than for the open 7th Congressional District.

● FL-22: Attorney Chad Klitzman, state Rep. David Silvers, and Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis have each announced that they won't compete in the August Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Ted Deutch. The only notable contender remains Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz, who earned Silvers' support.

● IA-01: Freshman Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican who won the old 2nd District by all of six votes last cycle, faces Democratic state Rep. Christina Bohannan in a southwestern Iowa seat that Trump would have carried 50-48. Bohannan has no opposition in the primary, while Miller-Meeks should have no trouble getting past her one intra-party opponent.

● IA-02: Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who unseated Democratic incumbent Abby Finkenauer last cycle in a close race for the old 1st District, now faces Democratic state Sen. Liz Mathis in a northeast Iowa seat that Trump would have taken 51-47. Neither Hinson nor Mathis, who were once coworkers at the TV station KCRG (Hinson was a morning news anchor while Mathis hosted the evening news program) have any primary opposition.

● IA-03: Three Republicans are competing to take on Rep. Cindy Axne, who emerged from the 2020 elections as Iowa's only Democratic representative, in a district based in Des Moines and southwestern Iowa that Trump would have carried by a tiny 49.2-48.9 edge. The only elected official in the primary is state Sen. Zach Nunn, who is going up against businesswoman Nicole Hasso and Gary Leffler; Leffler, who took part in the Jan. 6 Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, didn't report any fundraising during his first quarter in the race.

● IL-01: While former 3rd District Rep. Dan Lipinski thankfully will not be on the ballot this year, he's endorsing pastor Chris Butler, who shares his anti-abortion views, in the June Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Bobby Rush. Lipinski represented about 10% of the new 1st until he left Congress early last year following his 2020 primary loss to Marie Newman.

● NV-01: Democratic Rep. Dina Titus is defending a seat in the eastern Las Vegas area where her party, in order to make the 3rd and 4th Districts bluer, cut Biden's margin of victory from 61-36 to 53-45, and eight Republicans are now running against her. The most prominent name belongs to former 4th District Rep. Cresent Hardy, who launched a surprise bid just before filing closed on Friday; only 4% of the new 1st's residents live in the old 4th, but, because both seats are located in the Las Vegas media market, he should be a familiar presence here.

Hardy was a state assemblyman in 2014 when he waged what appeared to be a longshot campaign against Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford in a seat that Barack Obama had carried 54-44. However, the GOP wave hit Nevada hard, and with a little-known Democrat leading the statewide ticket against popular Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, Team Blue's turnout was a disaster. Both parties began spending serious amounts of money in the final weeks of the race, but it was still a bit of a surprise when Hardy won 49-46.

Hardy was immediately a top Democratic target in 2016, and state Sen. Ruben Kihuen ended up unseating him 49-45 as Hillary Clinton was taking the 4th 50-45. Kihuen, though, didn't seek re-election after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, and both Hardy and Horsford ended up campaigning for the unexpectedly open seat. Both parties spent huge amounts of money for their rematch, but this time, a favorable political climate helped Horsford prevail 52-44.

Both Titus and Hardy have primaries ahead of them before they can fully focus on one another. Titus' only intra-party foe is progressive activist Amy Vilela, who also ran in the 4th in 2018 and took third place in the primary with 9%. The GOP field includes conservative activist David Brog, who previously ran a group funded by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; Army veteran Mark Robertson; and former Trump campaign staffer Carolina Serrano.

● NV-02: Republican Rep. Mark Amodei learned Friday that he'd have the pleasure of a primary fight against Douglas County Commissioner Danny Tarkanian, who ended his legendary losing streak last cycle after relocating from the Las Vegas area. Three other Republicans are also running for this northern Nevada constituency that would have backed Trump 54-43, and while none of them look formidable, they could cost Tarkanian some needed anti-incumbent votes.

Tarkanian previewed his strategy in a video posted just before he filed, saying that the incumbent has "voted for amnesty for illegal immigrants, for giving your money to Planned Parenthood, for voting for the $1.5 trillion budget which gave him a 20% increase." The challenger continued, "Mark Amodei was the first GOP congressman to join the Democrats in support[ing] President Trump's first impeachment inquiry, and he also blamed President Trump for Jan. 6."

Amodei, of course, never voted to impeach Trump, but he did piss off conservatives nationwide in September of 2019 when he became the first House Republican to identify as impeachment-curious, saying of the inquiry into Trump, "Let's put it through the process and see what happens." Hardliners immediately called for his ouster, and while the congressman soon protested that "[i]n no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment," Trump's campaign notably snubbed the Silver State's only GOP member of Congress by leaving him off its list of state co-chairs for 2020.

Amodei avoided a serious primary fight, but he wasn't done inflaming Trumpists. Right after the Jan. 6 attacks, the congressman told Nevada Newsmakers, "Do I think he (Trump) has a responsibility for what has occurred? Yes." The congressman, though, this time used his interview to say upfront that he'd oppose any impeachment effort, and he soon joined most of his party colleagues in voting against impeachment. Tarkanian, however, is betting those anti-impeachment votes won't actually matter to a base looking to purge the party of anyone who's shown even a hint of disloyalty toward Trump.

● NV-03: Democratic legislators sought to protect Rep. Susie Lee in this southern Las Vegas area seat by extending Joe Biden's margin of victory from just 49.1-48.9 to 52-46, but five Republicans are still campaigning against her. The frontrunner appears to be attorney April Becker, who narrowly failed to unseat state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro by a 50.5-49.5 margin last cycle; Becker then tried to challenge her 631-vote loss in court and demanded a "revote," but she failed to get what she wanted. None of the other four Republicans have generated much attention yet.

● NV-04: Three Republicans are challenging Democratic incumbent Steven Horsford in a northern Las Vegas area seat where Democratic legislators doubled Biden's margin from 51-47 to 53-45. The only elected official of the trio is Assemblywoman Annie Black, who attended the Jan. 6 Trump rally the preceded the attack on the Capitol. She was later censured by her colleagues on a party-line vote for refusing to comply with the chamber's COVID mitigation rules.

Also in the running is Chance Bonaventura, who works as an aide to another far-right politician, Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore (Fiore herself recent ditched a longshot gubernatorial bid to run for state treasurer instead). Finally, there's Sam Peters, an Air Force veteran and businessman who took second place in the 2020 primary to face Horsford. However, while professional boxer Jessie Vargas announced he was running last year, the secretary of state doesn't list him as a candidate.

● NY-01: 2020 2nd District nominee Jackie Gordon has earned an endorsement in the June Democratic primary from 4th District Rep. Kathleen Rice, who represents a seat on the other end of Long Island.

● NY-04: Retiring Rep. Kathleen Rice has backed former Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen in the June Democratic primary to succeed her in this Nassau County-based seat. The congresswoman's endorsement comes not long after Jay Jacobs, who chairs both the state and county parties, publicly talked down Gillen's chances, though he did not explain his rationale. Rice, though, has made it clear she's not at all a fan of Jacobs: Earlier this month, after the chair implored donors to refrain from contributing to anyone "until we have had an opportunity to discuss the complexities of the race," she responded by tweeting, "No wonder Democrats in Nassau county lose with this kind of leadership."

● NY-16: Pastor Michael Gerald last week ended his nascent Democratic primary bid against freshman Rep. Jamaal Bowman, telling Jewish Insider, "Rather than crash-landing, I think it was the best thing for me to do." Little-known opponent Manuel Casanova exited the race days later and endorsed Westchester County Legislator Vedat Gashi, who is now Bowman's only intra-party foe.

● SC-07: On Monday, the State Law Enforcement Division confirmed it was investigating allegations leveled by former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, who said that a blogger named David Hucks tried to bribe him to quit the June Republican primary at the behest of another candidate, Horry County school board chair Ken Richardson. Both McBride and Richardson are trying to deny renomination to Rep. Tom Rice, though they've each been overshadowed in recent weeks by Trump-endorsed state Rep. Russell Fry.

McBride claimed in early March that Hucks told him in a call, "There's an opportunity for you, there's a $70,000 job opportunity for you to step out of this race and support another candidate." Hucks responded both by denying the bribery allegation and that he'd "taken a cent from Ken Richardson." Richardson himself was asked about McBride's claims at a March 7 candidate forum and declared, "I didn't know anything about this until you dropped your bomb. I didn't know anything about it."

Attorneys General

● IA-AG: Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat who is already the longest-serving state attorney general in American history, is seeking an 11th term this year. (Miller was elected in 1978, left in 1994 to unsuccessfully run for governor, and regained the post in 1998.) The one Republican taking him on is Guthrie County Attorney Brenna Bird, who previously worked as chief counsel to then-Gov. Terry Branstad.

● NV-AG: Democrat Aaron Ford made history in 2018 when he became the first Black person elected to statewide office in Nevada, and two Republicans are now campaigning to unseat the attorney general. Until last month the only contender was Sigal Chattah, an attorney who has sued to try to undermine the state's pandemic response measures and who has complained that the attorney general has done a poor job investigating (baseless, of course) voter fraud allegations. February, though, saw the entrance of Tisha Black, who lost a 2018 race for Clark County Commission and whom the Nevada Independent identified as a former head of a cannabis industry trade group.

Secretaries of State

● IA-SoS: Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate has no primary opposition in his bid for a third term, while the Democratic contest is a duel between Clinton County Auditor Eric Van Lancker and Linn County Auditor Joel Miller.

Prosecutors

● Maricopa County, AZ Attorney: Republican Allister Adel announced Monday that she was resigning as the top prosecutor of America's fourth-most populous county, effective Friday, a move that the Arizona Republic writes came after negative attention "over her sobriety and absences from the office, which prompted investigations by the State Bar of Arizona and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors." Her situation grew worse last week when Attorney General Mark Brnovich asked her to provide more information about 180 misdemeanor cases that were dropped because Adel's office failed to file charges before it was too late.

The Board of Supervisors, which appointed Adel in 2019, must choose a fellow Republican to replace her. Adel herself won a four-year term in a close 2020 contest, but it's not clear if her soon-to-be-vacant post will be on this year's ballot or if voters will need to wait until 2024. The paper says that normally an appointed incumbent would be up whenever an election next takes place, but the deadline to turn in signatures for the 2022 cycle is fast approaching on April 5.

● Suffolk County, MA District Attorney: Sen. Ed Markey on Monday endorsed Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo in the September Democratic primary, a development that came a week after Markey's home-state Senate colleague, Elizabeth Warren, also backed the city councilor. Arroyo is campaigning as a criminal justice reformer against appointed incumbent Kevin Hayden in a heavily blue county that's home to Boston and the nearby communities of Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop.

Kentucky Democrat makes impassioned plea in defense of reproductive rights. You need to see this

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Let’s see: In the past few years, Republicans have hitched themselves to Vladimir Putin, violent insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States, a sore-loser campaign to undermine democracy, a former president who stole boxes of classified information from the White House and called a murderous tyrant a savvy genius, and a cruel campaign to gut  (particularly poor and vulnerable) people’s reproductive freedoms.

Seems like that’s a fuckuvalot for Democratic hopefuls to campaign on! Tell me again why so many of us are so pessimistic about the midterms?

Every time I see Republicans attempt to establish a tough-on-Putin narrative after spending four years suckling the scurfy teats of the Moscow murderer’s mucilaginous manservant, I want to effing scream. Where’s the pushback on these ghouls? Come on, now! Let’s get fired up, hey! Let’s get fired up!

In other words, we need more fire like this: Kentucky state Sen. Karen Berg has some choice words for her GOP colleagues when it comes to their support of cruel and benighted anti-choice legislation. In the following clip, she responds to a vote on Kentucky’s SB 321, which would ban abortions after 15 weeks. The bill is designed to mirror a similarly restrictive Mississippi law that’s currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. If SCOTUS upholds that law, Kentucky’s own back-alley clinic bill will be ready to go on Day One. This is straight fire, y’all. 

if you watch one thing today make it this pic.twitter.com/RN2wiq61rr

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) March 19, 2022

BERG: “You know, I’m a diagnostic radiologist, and diagnostic radiologists, historically, and in many places in this state still do all of the first trimester OB ultrasound. So I am extraordinarily, personally familiar with the development of a fetus in the womb. And for you to sit here and say that at 15 weeks a fetus has a functional heart, a four-chamber heart, that can survive on its own is fallacious. That is not true. There is no viability. You know, I look around at my colleagues on this committee. I am the only woman on this podium right now. I am the only physician sitting on this podium. This bill is a medical sham. It does not follow medicine. It does not even purport to listen to medicine. And for each and every one of my colleagues to be so willing to cast an aye vote, when what you are doing is putting your finger, putting your knee, putting a gun to women’s heads. You are killing women, because abortion will continue. Women will continue to have efficacy over their own body, whether or not you make it legal. I vote no and I really, really apologize to the people of Kentucky that we are spending this much time and this much energy when we have families in poverty. We have single women heading households in poverty at a higher rate than any other group in the state. And you all are not addressing that. You are making it worse. Thank you.”

Democrats! This is how you do it! Interjection! Show excitement! Or emotion! Alleluia! 

Republicans’ war on women’s reproductive rights has now come dangerously close to victory. By a wide margin, most Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade—but the GOP clearly doesn’t care about most Americans’ opinions.

Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of Republicans opposed Volodymyr Zelenskyy before they supported him. And their longtime standard-bearer, Grampa Rage Diapers, is best buds with the butcher of Mariupol and still refuses to directly criticize him. 

Of course, if you want to support Democrats across the country in November, tossing a few ha’pennies Berg’s way might be a good start. 

Thank you to those asking where you can support my re-election. Here is the link: https://t.co/oQfaCkggft

— Karen Berg (@karenforky) March 19, 2022

Thanks, Karen. We need more Democrats like you. Hell, we need more Karens like you. Republicans are counting on a wave election in November. Let’s show them we have enough fight and grit left in us to withstand their tsunami of everlasting bullshit.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 

The Democrats’ complicated dance with neoconservative heiress Liz Cheney

Posted on by The New Republic

This article, written by TNR deputy editor Jason Linkins, first appeared on newrepublic.com and in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter. Sign up here.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who in recent years has emerged as the Harley Quinn of Washington’s Never Trump suicide squad, is facing a tough reelection fight against Harriet Hageman, a former Cheney adviser who has since been Trump-pilled. Hageman has won the former president’s endorsement, but Cheney still has friends in high places: Republicans from the pre-Trump era continue to support her, fueling speculation that she’s “laying the groundwork for something more,” according to CNN, which notes that she has “demonstrated impressive fundraising prowess, including raising a personal record $2 million in the final quarter of 2021.” And yet, for all that prowess, it’s becoming clear that she will probably need some additional assistance to win back her seat—specifically, from Democrats.

It’s truly an odd thing to contemplate. Not too long ago, the thought of a Cheney-less Capitol Hill would have been a dream of Beltway Democrats, who saw Liz ride on her father’s coattails to a seat in Congress. But that was all before her opposition to Donald Trump—and her votes to impeach him—earned her a place in the Resistance and a perch on the Jan. 6 commission.

To defeat Hageman in the GOP primary in August, Cheney will need a certain percentage of Democrats to become crossover voters. (Wyoming allows voters to change their party affiliation as late as Election Day. A pro-Trump attempt to change that law failed last week.) As POLITICO’s Tara Palmeri reported this week, “Wyoming political strategists say the only path to victory for Cheney is with the help of Democrats and independents.” Party-switchers have, notably, come through for Republicans before: Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon relied on such voters to propel him to victory over a far-right opponent.

It’s one thing for voters in Wyoming to strategically align themselves for the best of a bad result; it’s another thing entirely for institutional Democrats to put their heft behind Liz Cheney. But that’s what some Democratic donors are doing, despite the massive headwinds facing the party’s own candidates in the fall midterms. As CNBC’s Brian Schwartz reported last October, liberal buckrakers of real renown have lately lined Cheney’s larder, including Ron Conway, one of President Joe Biden’s “top campaign bundlers,” and John Pritzker, cousin of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.

I get that Cheney has done an inspiring job clearing the very low bar of opposing Trump’s corruption and assault on democracy. But is this truly a good use of finite resources, to ensure that Wyoming’s ruby-red House seat remains in the hands of someone who only voted with Trump 93% of the time, instead of one who will exceed that loyalty by a few percentage points? While it would be unfair to dismiss Cheney’s opposition to Trumpism as insincere—she’s surely seen little political benefit for taking the stances she’s taken—this might be a good occasion for Democrats to consider how much longer they want to be in the Liz Cheney business, given what a poor defender of democracy she has actually been during her career.

In fact, Democrats should ponder whether to seek out the Never Trumpers as dance partners at all. That movement’s only clear success has been to draw outsize media attention. While Trumpists are snatching up key positions in the country’s electoral mechanics, with an eye toward tilting the next presidential contest, Never Trumpers are writing op-eds, retiring from the fight, and occasionally making a complete mess of trying to help Democrats win elections.

Perhaps the most worrisome part of this partnership is the extent to which the Democrats have allowed these disaffected Republicans to colonize the Democratic Party’s aesthetic. Biden’s own Democratic National Convention was an often perverse display of moderate Republican courtship, with spare-no-expense production values given to Ohio Republican John Kasich to stand at a literal crossroads to make a point about a figurative crossroads, while Maine’s Sara Gideon was reduced to introducing a musical guest despite being in a competitive Senate race against Susan Collins—a seat that Democrats would dearly love to have now.

Writing for The New Republic, Samuel Moyn pinpointed an even more troubling aspect of this partnership: the extent to which Never Trumpism was being driven primarily by the foreign policy lifers of the Bush-Cheney era, the “stalwart crew” who “feared that Trump threatened the Cold War national security consensus” that gave rise to so much neoconservative misadventure. It’s worth noting that earlier this week, Commentary’s John Podhoretz crowed that neoconservatism had been vindicated, in part because “hip liberals” are no longer its loudest critics (instead, he argues, “‘traditional conservatives’ … have taken their place as the leading anti-American voices of our time”).

Do Democrats believe that the vindication of neoconservatism is an acceptable trade-off for the chance to have Liz Cheney as an occasional ally? It seems a bad deal to me, especially in a week when the fruits of neoconservatism have been so vividly on display in reports that a Kuwaiti detainee, rendered to a CIA black site in Afghanistan, was used as a “living prop to teach trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns at knocking his head against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage.” With democracy on the line, is neoconservatism truly something that Democrats want to associate with? This marriage of convenience should be headed for a divorce.

This article first appeared on newrepublic.com and in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter. Sign up here.

Democracy in peril: Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign began months before Zelenskyy took office

Posted on by Charles Jay

Ukraine may have saved our democracy and its own back in 2019 by resisting Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the country’s government into announcing an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden.

What many people don’t realize is that Rudy Giuliani had already begun pushing to get the Ukrainian government to announce such an investigation as early as January 2019, when he met in New York with Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko. That’s months before Volodymyr Zelenskyy, running on an anti-corruption platform, won the April 21, 2019, presidential run-off election against incumbent Petro Poroshenko. Biden officially announced his candidacy just four days later.

I would recommend that everyone read the Ukrainegate timeline prepared by Just Security, an online forum that analyzes U.S. national security policy. It outlines the complex chain of events in the campaign to pressure Ukraine that eventually resulted in Trump’s first impeachment. And there was a a quid pro quo offered to Poroshenko—although it did not involve withholding weapons, according to the Just Security timeline.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in late Feburary 2019, Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman met with Poroshenko to press him to initiate an investigation of Hunter Biden and a debunked theory that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Hillary Clinton. They said if Poroshenko went along he would be rewarded with a state visit to the White House. That would have been a boon to Poroshenko, who was in a tough campaign for reelection against Zelenskyy.

Now imagine an alternate history in which Ukraine’s top prosecutor had announced an investigation of the Bidens in March 2019. Poroshenko was pushed to the brink, but did not yield to the pressure.

Poroshenko and Trump in 2017

It would have come completely out of the blue, since there was no “perfect” phone call or whistleblower at the time. Just think about how CNN or The New York Times would have reported on the investigation. How would Biden have reacted to a nasty smear campaign against his sole surviving son, who was in a fragile state as he struggled to recover from substance abuse problems? 

A New York Times story dated Feb. 26, 2019 said Biden had held a family meeting earlier that month in which there was a “consensus” that he should run for president. But at the same time, Biden acknowledged in a speech at the University of Delaware that he had been uneasy about “taking the family through what would be a very, very, very difficult campaign” against Trump. “I don’t think he’s likely to stop at anything, whomever he runs against,” Biden said.

If Ukraine had done Giuliani’s bidding, Biden might very well have decided against entering the race. At best, Biden would have entered the campaign as a weakened frontrunner, with a dark cloud hanging over his head. Either way, Democrats would have faced an even more contentious primary contest, which might have yielded a weakened candidate whom Trump would have had a better chance of defeating.

A second Trump term would have posed an undeniable threat to our democracy. As for Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s puppet would have continued undermining NATO and done little to help Kyiv resist Russian aggression.

In Trump’s mind, Ukraine, not Russia, was his enemy. 

***

Let’s look more closely at what happened in the months before Zelenskyy’s inauguration on May 20, 2019. What happened after his inauguration was well-documented by Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson in March 14’s “Trump’s Ukraine extortion campaign didn’t begin or end with `I would like you to do us a favor.”

In August 2018, polls showed that Biden was leading Trump in a head-to-head matchup, and also leading the potential Democratic primary field. Biden indicated that fall that he was strongly considering a 2020 presidential bid. Around the same time, Giuliani Partners was hired by the Boca Raton, Florida, company Fraud Guarantee, co-founded by Parnas, a Ukrainian-American businessman. Giuliani ultimately was paid $500,000 for undisclosed business and legal advice, according to Reuters.

Lev Parnas in 2020
Parnas and his associate Igor Fruman were later convicted in a campaign fraud finance case, for using funds from a foreign investor to try to influence political candidates through campaign donations. There was a $325,000 donation to the pro-Trump American First PAC from a shell company set up by Parnas and Fruman. That was enough for both men to get invited to an exclusive donors’ dinner in April 2018 with Trump at his Washington hotel, at which both men urged the president to fire U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, an anti-corruption crusader, claiming that she was unfriendly to Trump, The Washington Post reported
Parnas and Fruman became Giuliani’s facilitators and translators as he revved up efforts to go after Biden, even though he had yet to declare his candidacy.
 

WAS RUDY A “USEFUL TOOL” FOR A DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN BY RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE?

Now there’s one big unanswered question: Was Giuliani wittingly or unwittingly acting as a “useful tool” to spread disinformation prepared by Russian intelligence aimed at derailing Biden’s presidential campaign? It’s not implausible, because U.S. Intelligence has already confirmed that Russia was spreading disinformation about Biden’s mental health. 
Giuliani and Trump in 2016
The Washington Post reported in October 2020 that U.S. intelligence agencies had warned the White House in 2019 that Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence and being used to feed disinformation to Trump. Giuliani did ask Ukraine to probe accusations that Ukrainian officials plotted to rig the 2016 presidential election in Hillary Clinton’s favor, by leaking evidence against Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager. Giuliani wanted Ukraine to investigate a mysterious Democratic National Committee server that Trump believed was hidden in Ukraine.
During the November 2019, House Intelligence Committee hearings, Fiona Hill, the former Russia expert for the National Security Council, called out House Republicans for pushing the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” Hill said.
Giuliani was pushing allegations that Biden, while vice president to Barack Obama, pushed to get Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin dismissed, in order to avoid a corruption investigation of Ukraine’s Burisma energy company, whose board members included Hunter Biden. But Giuliani could not have come up with this conspiracy theory on his own, because it was totally baseless. It’s logical to assume that this notion was spoon fed to Giuliani, who eagerly swallowed it.
One method used by Russian intelligence operatives is to put ideas into the head of someone who is receptive to the same goal—in this case derailing Biden’s candidacy. The notion that Biden stood a good chance of defeating Trump in 2020 must have really stuck in Giuliani’s craw. It was Biden who turned “America’s mayor” into a national laughingstock in an October 2007 Democratic presidential debate.

“Rudy Giuliani. There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There’s nothing else! There’s nothing else! And I mean this sincerely. He’s genuinely not qualified to be president,” Biden said.

At the time, Giuliani was the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He ended up running one of the most humiliating campaigns in modern U.S. political history, raising more than $60 million and winning only one delegate before dropping out. Giuliani then vanished into the political wilderness for eight years, only to reemerge as Trump’s personal lawyer and hatchet man.

Giuliani had access to Trump, who had repeatedly expressed his willingness to get dirt on his political opponents from foreign sources. Giuliani’s international consulting practice had clients in Ukraine dating back to at least 2008, including Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion.
During Trump’s first impeachment trial, Giuliani put out this intriguing tweet:

...incriminating documents. It was already a fully-intact bribery/extortion case. The reason you don’t know about it is because of the cover up by the corrupt Democrats and their establishment media!

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 27, 2020

The dossier was allegedly handed to Giuliani sometime in the fall of 2018. That raises some obvious questions: Who prepared it? What were its contents? Who were the witnesses? And who gave the dossier to Giuliani?

There are many possible suspects. A month before Trump’s first impeachment trial, NBC News published a guide to the controversial figures helping Giuliani dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. The story noted that “most of them have ties to pro-Russian political figures or oligarchs.” Three names stand out in this rogues’ gallery: Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russia member of Ukraine’s parliament; Kostiantyn Kulyk, a former prosecutor; and Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian energy tycoon with deep ties to Russia.

Derkach studied at the FSB intelligence service academy in Moscow in the 1990s. Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin wrote that a top-secret CIA assessment had concluded that Putin and his top aides are “probably directing” a Russian foreign influence operation which involves Derkach, identified by U.S. intelligence as a Russian agent, who has been providing anti-Biden information to Giuliani.

Kulyk did prepare a seven-page, English-language dossier in late 2018 that accused Hunter Biden of corruption related to his service on Burisma’s board, according to The New York Times. The dossier also made the dubious claim that U.S. diplomats covered up for crimes committed by the Bidens. Ukrainian officials said Kulyk had ties to a warlord in eastern Ukraine, accused of working for the Russian intelligence services. It’s not clear whether this was the same dossier that Giuliani was referring to in his tweet.

Firtash has been fighting extradition from Austria to the U.S. on bribery and racketeering charges. Parnas has alleged that Giuliani offered help with Firtash’s U.S. legal problems, in exchange for helping with the hunt for compromising information on the Bidens. Federal prosecutors also alleged that Parnas received a $1 million loan from a lawyer for Firtash. 

Firtash was also involved in investment projects with Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who previously was paid millions of dollars to work as a political consultant for Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

HOW GIULIANI PUT THE SQUEEZE ON UKRAINE BEFORE ZELENSKYY’S ELECTION 

At the annual White House Hannukah party on Dec. 6, 2018, Parnas and Fruman held a private meeting with Trump and Giuliani. CNN reported that Trump tasked them to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens, according to associates of Parnas. 

Parnas and Giuliani in 2018

In December 2018, Parnas and Fruman arranged a Skype call between Giuliani and Shokin, the former Ukraine prosecutor general who was the source of the debunked reports that Joe Biden had him fired to stop him from investigating wrongdoing in Burisma.

Biden actually was among multiple Western officials who had urged Ukraine to dismiss Shokin from his post at the country’s top prosecutor because of his insufficient efforts to combat corruption.

Bloomberg News reported that Giuliani met for the first time with then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko in New York on Jan. 25-26, 2019. Giuliani held another meeting with the Ukrainian prosecutor in Warsaw, Poland, in mid-February. Parnas and Fruman attended both meetings.

And then in late February we get to the quid pro quo, with Giuliani’s associates telling Poroshenko that if Ukraine announced an investigation of the Bidens, he would be rewarded with a state visit to the White House.

Yet why didn’t the Trump administration try to extort Poroshenko by withholding shipments of lethal weapons? Perhaps because there might have been a previous quid pro quo.

In March 2018, the Pentagon approved the sale of 210 Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. In early April, a Ukraine anti-corruption prosecutor froze four cases involving Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, The New York Times reported. Ukraine also announced it was halting all cooperation with the Mueller investigation. One of the cases resulted from the mysterious black ledger. In August 2016, Ukraine officials revealed the existence of a secret ledger, which appeared to detail payouts totaling $12.5 million to Manafort for his work as a consultant to Yanukovych.

But there was a catch that rendered the Javelin sale mostly symbolic. The U.S. insisted that the missiles be stored in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the frontlines in the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainian forces were battling pro-Russian separatists, The Atlantic reported.

During their early 2019 meetings, Lutsenko fed some information to Giuliani, including bank records that detailed Burisma’s payments to Hunter Biden. But the records did not indicate any wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, according to a New Yorker profile of the Ukrainian prosecutor. Lutsenko told The New Yorker that he suggested to Giuliani that, if U.S. authorities opened an investigation into the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine, the prosecutor-general’s office would share any relevant information.

But Lutsenko soon realized that what seemed most important to Giuliani was to get him to announce investigations into the Bidens and into claims of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to The New Yorker. Lutsenko said he didn’t have any grounds to open such investigations under Ukrainian law. Lutsenko said he sensed that Poroshenko was worried that publicly announcing such investigations would damage Ukraine’s relations with the Democratic Party.

Ukraine had enjoyed strong bipartisan support until Trump came along. Trump’s Republican loyalists were already spouting conspiracy theories put forth by Russian intelligence that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 election to help Clinton.

“I was near the red line, but I didn’t cross it,” Lutsenko told The New Yorker. “I was wondering what kind of game he (Giuliani) was playing. I felt like we were getting scammed.”

WE NEED A COUNTERESPIONAGE INVESTIGATION OF TRUMP, GIULIANI, MANAFORT, ET AL.

Imagine the consequences today if Poroshenko and Lutsenko had crossed that red line back in early 2019.

Instead, Giuliani and his associates were back at square one with Zelenskyy’s election. That set in motion the series of events leading to Trump’s “perfect” phone call to Zelenskyy, the arms-for-dirt extortion plot, and the president’s eventual impeachment (the first one, anyway).

The Mueller probe barely uncovered the tip of the iceberg, because its scope was limited to looking only into collusion between Russia and Trump during the 2015-2016 presidential campaign.

The DOJ should make a deal with Parnas and/or Fruman to reduce their sentences in exchange for information about whether Russian intelligence used Giuliani to interfere in the 2020 election by undermining Biden’s campaign. It is also high time that a counterespionage investigation be opened against Manafort, if it is not already under way.

And above all else, we need a comprehensive investigation of Trump’s dealings with Vladimir Putin and Russian oligarchs over the decades. With the help of former Attorney General William Barr and others, Trump has been able to escape any consequences for his ties to Russia.

Our nation will never be secure until these criminals are exposed and held to account.

Republicans don’t want to talk about their past actions on Ukraine. They should have to

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Oh, hey, Republicans don’t think anyone should be talking about how they had Donald Trump’s back when he withheld military aid from Ukraine to extort personal political favors, and Politico is ready to report on just how unimportant Republicans think that was, drawing on quotes from six Republicans and, to rebut, one single Democrat.

Republicans “don’t see a shred of comparison” between Trump’s extortion effort and President Joe Biden not giving exactly the aid Republicans now claim to want the U.S. to send Ukraine, Politico reports. Republicans “are brushing off any suggestion that their frustration with Biden’s pace of Ukraine aid is at odds with their earlier defense of Trump’s posture toward Kyiv.” 

It took three Politico reporters to come up with this, an article that alternates between the reporters’ paraphrasing of Republican dismissals, Republican quotes (sample: “That was the biggest nothing-burger in the world that resulted in an impeachment by the House,” according to Sen. Kevin Cramer), and a few carefully chosen facts about what exactly it is that Republicans are dismissing.

RELATED: Two years ago, they voted against impeachment. Now suddenly they're deeply concerned for Ukraine

But lots of facts didn’t make it into Politico or are mentioned only in passing. The Washington Post reports, for instance, on the dozens of Senate Republicans who are attacking Biden for not sending more aid to Ukraine after they voted against the government funding bill including $13.6 billion in Ukraine aid. That vote and the funding at issue do not make a single appearance in the Politico article about how Republicans don’t think their past defense of Trump withholding support from Ukraine has any relevance to the current situation.

On that one, Republicans are deploying the “I voted against the thing I say I support because there were also things I opposed in the bill” argument, but as Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said in response, “Inside every piece of legislation are elements that many of us disagree with. Inside that budget that you voted against are all sorts of things that I disagree with. But in the end, in order to govern the country, you have to be able to find a path to compromise.”

Or, as Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz put it, “It’s very simple: If you don’t vote for the thing, you’re not for the thing,” Schatz said. “That is literally our job, to decide whether we are for or against things as a binary question.”

Republicans decided they were against impeaching Donald Trump for withholding military aid to Ukraine to extort personal political favors from Zelenskyy. Quite a few of them decided they were against aid for Ukraine if it involved also funding the rest of the U.S. government. And they’re getting plenty of space in Politico to explain why the first was merited without being challenged on their reasoning or asked about the second.

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