Morning Digest: Pro-impeachment House Republicans all lead their challengers in recent fundraising

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, 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

● Fundraising: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present our comprehensive roundups of fundraising data for the first three months of 2022 for both the House and the Senate. Our data includes the numbers for every incumbent (excluding those who've said they're not seeking re-election) and notable announced candidates.

Six of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump last year are running for re-election, and while they all have serious opposition, our fundraising charts show that they each ended March with a clear financial edge over their intra-party foes. The most prominent member of this group is Rep. Liz Cheney, who faces Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman and a few minor contenders in the August primary to serve as the sole representative for dark-red Wyoming.

Hageman hauled in $1.31 million, which even a few years ago would have been an unthinkably massive quarter for a House candidate, and had $1.06 million on hand. Cheney, though, lapped her by raising $2.94 million, and she finished with $6.77 million in the bank.

Over in South Carolina's 7th District in the Myrtle Beach area, meanwhile, Rep. Tom Rice outraised Trump's pick, state Rep. Russell Fry, $342,000 to $267,000, and the incumbent enjoyed a $2 million to $448,000 cash-on-hand advantage. The only other Republican who brought in a notable amount for the June primary was Horry County School Board chair Ken Richardson, who raised $112,000, self-funded another $500,000, and had $274,000 left. A runoff would take place if no one earns a majority of the vote.

We turn next to Michigan's 3rd in the Grand Rapids area, where Trump's forces have consolidated behind conservative commentator John Gibbs' bid to deny renomination to freshman Rep. Peter Meijer in August. The incumbent, though, outpaced Gibbs $544,000 to $123,000 for the quarter, and he ended March with a gigantic $1.51 million to $82,000 cash-on-hand lead. The winner will need to quickly focus on attorney Hillary Scholten in a seat that redistricting transformed from a 51-47 Trump constituency to one Joe Biden would have carried 53-45: Scholten, who was the 2020 Democratic nominee, took in $483,000, and she had $470,000 available.

The three remaining contests are taking place in states that use the top-two primary system rather than party primaries. In California's 22nd District in the Central Valley, Republican Rep. David Valadao raised $405,000 for the quarter and has $1.64 million to defend himself in a southern Central Valley seat that Biden would have won 55-42.

Valadao's best-funded intra-party foe is former Fresno City Councilman Chris Mathys, who brought in a mere $18,000 but had $310,000 on hand thanks to previous self-funding. The other Republican in the race is King County School Board Member Adam Medeiros, but he had just $36,000 in the bank. (Trump has yet to make an endorsement here.) The one Democrat on the ballot is Assemblyman Rudy Salas, who raised $252,000 and had $309,000 on hand.

Next up is southern Washington's 3rd District, where incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler took in $602,000 and finished with just over $2 million. The GOP's supreme master is supporting Joe Kent, an Army veteran who has defended Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but that endorsement hasn't deterred his fellow Republicans, evangelical author Heidi St. John and state Rep. Vicki Kraft. Kent outraised St. John $441,000 to $219,000 and finished March with a $1.07 million to $283,000 cash-on-hand lead; Kraft, though, had only $4,000 to spend. No Democrats have raised much, but Team Blue could still secure a general election spot in a seat Trump won 51-46.

The last member of this sextet is Rep. Dan Newhouse, who raised $218,000 and had $928,000 on hand in the neighboring 4th. Trump's pick is 2020 gubernatorial nominee Loren Culp, a far-right ex-cop who took in just $46,000 and had $24,000 in the bank. The GOP field also includes businessman Jerrod Sessler, who raised only $9,000 but finished last month with $147,000 in the bank, and state Rep. Brad Klippert, who had all of $5,000 available. The most notable Democrat in this 57-40 Trump eastern Washington seat is businessman Doug White, who took in $124,000 and had $147,000 on hand.

There's far more to see nationwide, and you'll want to bookmark both our House and Senate charts.

THE DOWNBALLOT

● Yes, it's a tough-looking midterm, but Democrats can still go on offense! The Downballot takes a deep dive into 10 House districts across the country where Republicans are vulnerable for a variety of reasons, whether due to redistricting, retirements, long-term demographic trends, or plain old GOP infighting. Our tour runs from the eastern tip of Long Island in New York all the way to sunny Southern California, with many stops in between.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also investigate Ron DeSantis' turbocharged gerrymander aimed at undermining Black representation; discuss two more Republican Senate primaries where Trump endorsements have made a mess of things; call out a Democrat for running an offensive ad that risks contributing to anti-Asian hatred; and take stock of upcoming elections in France and Australia. You can listen to The Downballot on all major podcast platforms, and you'll find a transcript right here by noon Eastern Time.

Redistricting

● FL Redistricting: Florida's Republican-run state Senate, which previously said it would outsource its own authority over redistricting to Gov. Ron DeSantis, did just that on Wednesday when it approved DeSantis' new congressional map on a party-line vote. The map, an extreme gerrymander that would undermine Black representation, now goes to the state House.

Senate

● AL-Sen: Former Business Council of Alabama leader Katie Britt is running a new ad ahead of the May 24 Republican primary where Britt says she learned to respect the Second Amendment growing up in Alabama. The commercial shows her at a shooting range shooting clay pigeon targets with a shotgun every time she mentions one of Joe Biden's supposed policies on topics such as taxes, inflation, immigration, and abortion.

● GA-Sen: Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock's latest ad features the senator telling how he isn't a magician who can fix Washington overnight but instead has focused on providing more jobs, fixing infrastructure, and expanding healthcare.

● NC-Sen: The Club for Growth is spending $1.5 million on a new ad where far-right Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson talks to the camera trying to portray former GOP Gov. Pat McCrory as a liberal, arguing he "put liberals in charge of state textbooks" and "backed liberal Democrat judges," after which Robinson says Rep. Ted Budd is the true conservative in the race. In an interview with WRAL, McCrory defended himself by arguing that state law required that he appoint members to the textbook commission recommended by the state education superintendent, who at the time was Democrat June St. Clair Atkinson.

● OH-Sen: Far-right billionaire Peter Thiel has upped his support for Protect Ohio Values PAC, which is backing venture capitalist J.D. Vance in the May 3 Republican primary, adding $3.5 million on top of the $10 million donation he made last year.

Meanwhile, the Club for Growth began airing an ad against 2018 candidate Mike Gibbons last Friday, the same day Donald Trump endorsed Vance. The Club's spot intersperses clips of Gibbons and Joe Biden speaking about taxes to portray Gibbons as supportive of tax increases on the middle class.

State Sen. Matt Dolan also has a new ad where he touts his record of "cutting taxes, protecting Ohio jobs, securing the border, and funding the police" and contrasts it with the childish name calling by his primary opponents.

● PA-Sen: Penn Progress, the James Carville-backed super PAC that is supporting Rep. Conor Lamb in the May 17 Democratic primary, is airing yet another ad that tries to paint Lt. Gov. John Fetterman as too extreme to win the general election by tarring him as a socialist. The PAC continues on this line of attack even though their first ad using that label was pulled off the air after it relied on an erroneous and since-corrected news report to falsely claim Fetterman is a "self-described socialist."

Touting Lamb's record as a former prosecutor and Marine who won three tough elections and fought Republicans to protect Social Security, the spot points out by contrast how Fetterman once sought an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America and that he's been called a "silver spoon socialist." However, the narrator elides the fact that Fetterman didn't get that endorsement in part because he told DSA he doesn't identify as a socialist, and they downplay how the silver spoon quote comes from a former state Republican Party chairman.

Governors

● IL-Gov: People Who Play by the Rules PAC, which is funded by billionaire megadonor Richard Uihlein, has a new GOP primary ad that goes after Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin over his past statements from 2021 supporting Black Lives Matter, making the baseless claim that BLM "destroyed cities" and arguing that Irvin supports a movement that stands for looting and defunding the police. Irvin has been trying to distance himself from those past statements, running an ad earlier this year where he calls himself a former "tough-on-crime prosecutor" and says, "All lives matter. It isn't about color."

● LA-Gov: Republican state Sen. Sharon Hewitt has confirmed her interest in potentially running for governor next year, though she says a decision is likely months away.

● NE-Gov: Businessman Charles Herbster has launched his first ad in the May 10 GOP primary since several women accused him of sexual misconduct last week, and it's a minute-long spot where Herbster doesn't acknowledge the scandal but says "the establishment" is lying about him just like they supposedly did with Trump.

In response to ads that have alleged he really lives out of state and paid his taxes late, Herbster argues he's a bona fide Nebraskan whose business successes don't stop at the state line. He claims early in his career that he once faced the tough choice of paying his employees or his taxes and chose the former but that he later paid "every penny" he owed in taxes and fees after turning his business around.

Another Republican, University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen, began airing a positive spot last week where he's surrounded by his young grandchildren who ask him policy questions on issues such as taxes, "amnesty," and inflation, with Pillen responding each time with a pig-related phrase such as "hogwash" or "when pigs fly."

● OH-Gov: Former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley has debuted the first negative ad in the May 3 Democratic primary, comparing the performance of Cincinnati during his recent tenure with Dayton under former Mayor Nan Whaley, his primary rival. Cranley's spot points to Cincinnati's population growth (which was a rate of 4% between the 2010 and 2020 censuses) in contrast to Dayton's decline (-3%) as evidence of his successful economic leadership and supposed mismanagement by Whaley. He argues he is the best Democrat to take on GOP Gov. Mike DeWine in the fall.

● RI-Gov: Businesswoman Ashley Kalus is spending $109,000 to launch a minute-long ad that introduces herself to voters ahead of the Republican primary in September. The spot focuses on inflation, and Kalus speaks to the camera while rattling off a list of priorities such as making Rhode Island more affordable, protecting parental involvement in education, and fighting drug addiction and crime.

House

● CA-41: The Democratic-aligned Welcome PAC is publicizing a poll from Tulchin Research taken in late February and early March that shows Democrat and former federal prosecutor Will Rollins holding a 42-41 lead over longtime Republican Rep. Ken Calvert in a suburban Riverside County district that Trump would have carried just 50-49. This is the first poll we've seen from anyone here.

Rollins has been endorsed by neighboring Democratic Rep. Mark Takano and former Sen. Barbara Boxer, and he raised $466,000 in the first quarter and started April with $618,000 in the bank. Another Democrat competing in the June top-two primary, engineer Shrina Kurani, raised $141,000, self-funded $9,000, and had $208,000 in the bank. Calvert faces only minor intra-party opposition, and he brought in $587,000 last quarter and finished with $1.4 million on-hand.

● OH-11: Former state Sen. Nina Turner, who lost last year's special election Democratic primary to now-Rep. Shontel Brown, is out with a negative ad for next month's primary that argues the incumbent has a record of lining her own pockets while failing to do anything for voters.

Starting off by remarking upon how recent inflation has hit working families hard, Turner's spot claims that Brown "opposed Biden's plan" for a "living wage" and voted to raise her own pay by $7,000. The latter claim could lead viewers to believe the pay raise vote happened during Brown’s tenure in Congress while inflation ate up Ohioans' paychecks, even though the ad cites a 2016 vote from when she was on the Cuyahoga County Council.

Turner's spot then revives an unsubstantiated allegation she made during last summer's special election that Brown faced an ethics investigation after she "voted for millions in corrupt contracts." However, as we noted at the time, Turner's accusation that Brown was referred to the Ohio Ethics Commission relies on a story co-authored by left-wing essayist Walker Bragman, who notoriously wrote a 2016 piece headlined, "A liberal case for Donald Trump." But Bragman's own story acknowledged at the very end that the commission refused to "confirm or deny" any such investigation existed, and there was no reliable reporting as to whether it did.

● PA-12: Former Pennsylvania Securities Commission head Steve Irwin's new Democratic primary ad shows him playing an accordion while the narrator contends that some in Congress merely "want to make noise" while others "want to work in harmony." They praise Irvin as someone who will protect voting rights, invest in vocational job training, and put Biden's infrastructure law to work "repairing our unsafe bridges."

● TN-05: The Tennessee GOP's executive committee voted Tuesday evening to keep three candidates off the August primary ballot for not meeting the party's definition of a "bona fide" Republican: former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, who is Trump’s endorsed candidate; businessman Baxter Lee; and music video producer Robby Starbuck. Ortagus responded, “Our team is evaluating the options before us,” while Starbuck declared, “The fight has only just begun.” Lee’s team, meanwhile, defended their man as a Republican “through and through,” but it didn’t say whether he’d be challenging his dismissal.

So what's the rumpus? The state GOP's bylaws state that, in order to be a so-called "bona fide" party member, a candidate must have voted in at least three of the last four statewide primaries or been "actively involved" in state or county Republican activities; Democrats have a similar requirement, except candidates only need to have participated in three of the last five nomination contests. Ortagus only moved to Tennessee last year from D.C., so she hasn't been there nearly long enough to meet this criteria, while Starbuck is in the same boat, since he relocated to the state just three years ago. Lee is more established, but his campaign says he was bounced because he hadn’t voted in a sufficient number of recent primaries even though he’d taken part in 10 of the last 12.

Party leaders can still vote to classify a candidate as "bona fide" if someone vouches for them or if a contender appeals the initial rejection. That’s just what the trio hoped would happen after they were initially kept off the ballot earlier this month, but the GOP’s executive committee didn’t go along: According to state party chair Scott Golden, 13 members of the 17-person body voted to keep Ortagus and Starbuck off, while 11 were against Lee. When the New York Times asked Golden if the decision was final, he said it was “possible the members could change their minds” before the deadline for a reversal passes Thursday at noon local time.

Ortagus infuriated powerful local Republicans when she entered the race for this newly gerrymandered seat in January, so much so that state Sen. Frank Niceley sponsored a bill that would impose a requirement that House candidates need to have voted in the previous three statewide general elections to be eligible to run. (The legislation, which appears to be unconstitutional, will not go into effect until next cycle because Gov. Bill Lee only allowed it to become law after the April 7 filing deadline.)

But Niceley took the dispute in a much uglier direction when he recently told NBC, “I don’t think Trump cares one way or the other” about Ortagus' candidacy. “I think Jared Kushner—he’s Jewish, she’s Jewish—I think Jared will be upset. Ivanka will be upset. I don’t think Trump cares.”

Ortagus, who is Jewish, fired back Tuesday night with a tweet saying that Niceley “should be ashamed of his repeated anti-Semitic rhetoric.” Niceley, who backs former state House Speaker Beth Harwell, was not ashamed, responding, “Attempting to construe my off-hand comments about the Trump family as antisemitism is unfair and inaccurate.” Last week, Nicely made headlines for a speech he gave on the Senate floor in which he said that Adolf Hitler should serve as an inspiration for homeless people.

Mayors

● Washington, D.C. Mayor: Mayor Muriel Bowser has earned an endorsement from SEIU 32BJ, which represents property service workers, as well as UNITE HERE Locals 23 and 25, for the June Democratic primary.

Prosecutors

● Maricopa County, AZ Prosecutor: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday voted to name prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, who is one of the three Republicans competing in this year's special election to succeed Alistair Adel, as interim county prosecutor, and she was sworn in later that day.

The other two Republicans competing in the August primary, Anni Foster and Gina Godbehere, had sought the appointment as well, and they reacted to the unfavorable Board decision in very different ways. Foster, who is Gov. Doug Ducey's general counsel, tweeted that she "will make an announcement about my future plans in the coming days," while Godbehere declared she was leaving behind her post as prosecutor for the City of Goodyear "to pursue my candidacy." Whoever ultimately wins the GOP nod will take on Democrat Julie Gunnigle, who narrowly lost to Adel in 2020, for the final two years of the term.

Obituaries

● Former Rep. Brad Ashford, whose 2014 win gave Democrats their only victory in a Nebraska House race since the 1994 GOP wave, died Tuesday at the age of 72 two months after he announced that he had brain cancer. Ashford previously served as a Democrat, Republican, and independent during his two stints in the state's unicameral legislature, though as we discuss in our obituary, he was never fully at home in either party during his long career in local and national politics.

Ashford underwent his fourth and final party switch when he challenged Republican Rep. Lee Terry in 2014 in the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District. The newly-reminted Democrat had a very tough task ahead of him especially as the political climate worsened for Team Blue, but Terry, who had declared during the 2013 government shutdown that he would keep taking his salary because "I've got a nice house and a kid in college," proved to be an especially weak incumbent.

This contest attracted over $1 million from outside groups on each side, and Republicans sought to protect their endangered incumbent by portraying Ashford as weak on crime. The GOP ran ad after ad charging that Ashford supported a law that would allow a Black inmate named Nikko Jenkins to get out of jail early for murder, messaging that Democrats compared with George H.W. Bush's still-infamous Willie Horton ads. Jenkins, though, gave Terry the most unwanted endorsement imaginable, when he used a hearing to proclaim, "Hey you guys, vote for Lee Terry! Best Republican ever!"

Ashford, who campaigned as a centrist, ultimately unseated Terry 49-46, which gave Democrats a rare pickup on an overall awful night, but his attempts to win another term failed. You can find far more on the many twists and turns of Ashford's long career in politics in our obituary.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams Democrats, Media After Lawsuit to Block Her Re-election is Allowed to Proceed

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Rusty Weiss

Marjorie Taylor Greene fired back at Democrats and the media following news that a lawsuit seeking to block her from running for re-election is being allowed to proceed.

The lawsuit alleging that she is unfit for office due to her supposed support for Capitol rioters was allowed to go forward by Judge Amy Totenberg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

You may recall media outrage over a Trump-appointed judge dropping the mask mandate earlier this week? There is little mention that Totenberg is an appointee of Barack Obama.

Pray for @RepMTG!!!https://t.co/v7aFOGD9wR

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) April 19, 2022

Lawsuit Against Marjorie Taylor Greene Allowed to Proceed

The case, filed by a group of voters, claims Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) violated a provision of the U.S. Constitution passed after the U.S. Civil War known as the “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause.”

The clause, under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, is a rarely cited Civil War-era provision that bars people from holding office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Obviously, this clause was meant to punish Confederate soldiers, officers, and politicians who engaged in war.

BREAKING: Marjorie Taylor Greene must testify Friday under oath about her role in January 6, before an administrative law judge in Atlanta, as part of voters’ lawsuit to disqualify her from office under the 14th Amendment.

— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) April 19, 2022

Totenberg, in allowing the case to proceed, argued Greene had failed “to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits” of her legal claims and “failed to meet the burden of persuasion.”

Greene sought a temporary injunction in the case, arguing it was unlikely to be resolved before Georgia’s primary elections on May 24.

A federal judge in Georgia has allowed a lawsuit against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that seeks to disqualify her from reelection over her alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, @sahilkapur reports.https://t.co/helZDW9TOZ

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 20, 2022

Greene Upset That Media Will Distort Hearings

A similar legal challenge was filed against Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) with the North Carolina State Board of Elections, but a federal judge blocked that effort noting that allowing such frivolous lawsuits to continue would open up similar retaliatory efforts by political opponents.

“The federal court is tasked with protecting the soapbox, the ballot box, and the jury box,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II said. “And when these fail, people proceed to the ammunition box.”

Greene has said she “never encouraged political violence and never will,” but will now be forced to testify in the case. And the media, she fears, will have a field day.

Marge getting scared for court Friday: “They’re going to allow the press in the courtroom. They’re going to allow the whole thing to be videoed live. They’re going to be able to clip out any little piece they want of the horrible things .. they’re going to say about me.” pic.twitter.com/PJq4QpBh6u

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 19, 2022

“It’s absurd what they are claiming and lying about,” said Greene in an interview with former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis.

“They’re going to allow the press in the courtroom,” she worried. “They’re going to allow the whole thing to be videoed live out to go anywhere in the world that they want to.”

“And you know what that’s going to look like — the Democrats and the nasty mainstream media … they’re going to be able to twist and turn, and clip out any little piece they want of the horrible things that these funded attorneys are going to try to say about me,” Greene continued.

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin objected to Florida’s electoral votes in 2017. pic.twitter.com/FsLvJLvA8v

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) January 13, 2021

Remember – Democrats objected to the election results in 2016 officially and during the proceedings certifying electoral votes 11 times:

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) objected based on “the confirmed and illegal activities engaged by the government of Russia.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued Florida’s electoral votes “violated Florida’s prohibition against dual officeholders.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) objected to Georgia’s vote certificate.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) objected due to “the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) suggested the election saw “massive voter suppression.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) objected on violations of the Voting Rights Act.
Jackson Lee tried to support Grijalva’s objection.
Jackson Lee again chimed in objecting to South Carolina’s electoral votes.
Barbara Lee again tried to raise an objection before having her microphone cut off.
Jackson Lee once again tried to make an objection on the grounds of Russian interference in the election.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) begged a Senator to join her own objection after the final state’s votes had been read.

And don’t for a minute let them cast doubt that their undermining of the election results in 2016 did not lead to violence in Washington, D.C.

The extremists who attacked the US capital in January 2017 to stop inauguration of Trump carried large banners of #Antifa before destroying property & starting fires. The violence was cheered on by the left & police were condemned for making arrests. pic.twitter.com/51b8WFlpvr

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) January 6, 2022

They may not have swarmed the Capitol complex, but there was violence in the streets and Democrat lawmakers were most assuredly trying to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election, just as Republicans are accused of doing on January 6.

If Totenberg can allow the case to proceed against Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican voters can surely launch at least seven of their own lawsuits against the aforementioned list of Democrats.

The post Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams Democrats, Media After Lawsuit to Block Her Re-election is Allowed to Proceed appeared first on The Political Insider.

Prepare to be ‘mesmerized’: An interview with Jan. 6 probe investigator Jamie Raskin

Posted on April 20, 2022 (Updated April 21, 2022) by Brandi Buchman

I last interviewed Rep. Jamie Raskin in October 2020, before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Our conversation was about the guardrails that the Constitution has in place to stop a tyrant from taking power.

There was no mystery about then-President Donald Trump’s position in public. He had spent months vowing fraud would be overwhelming in the impending election. When he took the stage for the very first night of presidential debates with now President Joe Biden, Trump told the world he would not accept any outcome he believed was rigged.

In the days since then, the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol was formed and it has unearthed staggering evidence that Donald Trump, the nation’s 45th president, not only incited a mob to a bloody insurrection but perpetrated a fraud on the American public so that he could pull off a coup that would install him into the White House against the will of millions of voters and the Electoral College.

Recently, I interviewed Rep. Raskin again. He now serves as a member of the Jan. 6 committee, a role that was arguably an unmatched fit not just because of his experience as a constitutional and legal scholar, but because of his direct experience with Trump. Raskin was the lead impeachment manager when Trump was impeached—for the second time.

Telling the story of Jan. 6 is a formidable task and the passing months have revealed increasingly critical nuances and contours emerging from that day’s chaos.

There is evidence of a crime. A federal judge has agreed with the select committee on that count and over the course of a contentious battle for key documents, a judge determined that, at the very least, the “illegality of the plan” orchestrated by Trump and his attorney John Eastman—the architect of a strategy pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to certify bunk electors—was “obvious.”

Trump and his attorneys stoked claims of bogus election fraud for months and with Eastman, Trump engaged in a “coup in search of legal theory,” Judge David Carter wrote just a month ago.

Judge David Carter Ruling_Trump Eastman by Daily Kos on Scribd

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And yet there is still so much more to come.

There are questions that must be aired out about this attempted coup and its abettors.

When the committee finally resumes its public hearings, which it says will be in May, Rep. Raskin told Daily Kos they will be hearings unlike anything Americans have seen come out of Congress.

“We believe every American has the right to observe and participate in this. I believe based on what I have seen over the last several months, these hearings will be not just important but mesmerizing to the public,” Raskin said. “Everybody needs to be equipped with the means of intellectual self defense against the authoritarian and fascistic policies that have been unleashed in this country.”

So far, the probe has released limited information about its findings and it has navigated the course of its investigation with deft yet disciplined transparency, despite regular attacks and goading from those perched atop some of the highest branches of power in Congress like House Minority Leader and Trump ally Kevin McCarthy.

Listen Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain what how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

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The panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans has largely established its intent and findings on the public record through its court filings and subpoenas and from House meetings on Capitol Hill, where they have forwarded criminal contempt of Congress referrals for members of the Trump White House who have obstructed their investigation.

Those referrals for officials like former chief of staff Mark Meadows, ex-adviser Steve Bannon, and others now live with the Department of Justice, a body ensconced in an entirely separate yet similarly painstaking investigation of the Capitol attack, its catalysts, and alleged conspirators.

“The events of Jan. 6 were breathtaking,” Raskin said by phone, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before considering the scope of what lies ahead.

A daunting amount of information will be parsed, prioritized, and presented from the 800-plus interviews the panel has conducted and the thousands of pages of records it has secured from a wide array of players spanning the Trump White House to the Trump reelection campaign to extremist right-wing activists and others.

That doesn’t even mention everything that was also sourced from the National Archives following Biden’s waiver of executive privilege over presidential records Trump sought to hide.

That bid by Trump, taken all the way to the Supreme Court, ultimately failed to keep documents like White House call logs hidden and more of Trump’s presidential records continue to flood the committee now.

But until the hearings play out, the public is left to grapple with important information in bits and pieces as investigators occasionally and, likely strategically, highlight portions of their findings at a schedule of their choosing.

Speculation swirls around the committee’s work on a fact-based narrative it is crafting for hearings and that is to be expected.

There are inherent difficulties in this unprecedented undertaking.

“Well, people still have not yet fully understood the distinction between the violent insurrection and the attempted coup. Even with the insurrection, even within the insurrectionary violence, a lot of people think that this was just a rowdy demonstration that got out of hand,” Raskin told Daily Kos.

And of course, Trump. Raskin added, is “out there telling people his mob greeted officers with hugs and kisses.”

“So there’s a lot of confusion about what took place. And I think people will come to understand that this was a premeditated and coordinated violent attack on Congress and the vice president in order to thwart the counting of electoral votes,” Raskin said.

“But the insurrection is only comprehensible when you understand that it was unleashed as a way to assist this political coup, this inside political coup. Donald Trump and his entourage had been looking for ways to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results for months,” Raskin said.

What the public hearings will do is tell the story of “every step in that process,” he explained.

“And it is a harrowing and gripping and utterly sobering story rooted in the events of the day and the weeks before it,” he added.

Millions of Americans have seen footage of rioters beating police, scaling the walls of the nation’s Capitol building, and doing so in everything from homemade to high-grade tactical gear and with makeshift or professional-grade weapons in tow.

Millions of Americans have heard the calls of people shouting for the execution of Pence or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the melee erupted. Many people saw the gallows erected by Trump’s supporters on the Capitol lawn.

But a disconnect seems to persist somehow around how severe and significant Jan. 6 was and remains.

The Pew Research Center, for example, noted this February that more than a year after the attack, fewer Americans believed Trump was responsible for the events of Jan. 6. It was a nearly 10% drop from the year before.

The study found too that people are still largely divided a year later on whether the Jan. 6 probe is even given the “right amount” of attention.

“The difficult thing is that people have a very hard time assimilating something so extreme taking place right at the heart of the Capitol. We saw a violent mob led by insurrectionary violent extremists set upon federal officers and injure and wound and hospitalize more than 150 of them,” Raskin said.

It was the first time in American history that a violent insurrection interfered with the peaceful transfer of power and counting of electoral votes.

“It nearly toppled our system of government,” Raskin added.

The idea of a coup is “radically unfamiliar” to the bulk of the American population, he noted.

“We’re just not—we just don’t have a lot of experience with coups in our own society. We think of a coup as something that takes place against a president. Well, this was a coup that was orchestrated by the president against the vice president and against the Congress,” Raskin said. “It’s what political scientists call a self-coup, not the military trying to overthrow a president but a president trying to defeat and vanquish the constitutional process in order to perpetuate his stay in office and power. Donald Trump was trying to seize the presidency for four more years.”

When Judge Carter issued his ruling about Trump and Eastman on March 28, it was a deeply important finding but it did not shift or change the committee’s trajectory, he said.

It only “solidified” the path they were on.

“It was a powerful warning to the American people about what took place,” he said.

If they missed that warning bell, however, the committee will keep ringing it.

The committee will produce its final report after the hearings are over. Raskin told Daily Kos he hopes it will be a “multimedia report” that will be both easily accessible and digestible.

It will be composed of the committee’s findings as well as recommendations for legislation that would strengthen many of the weak points in the democratic system that the Trump White House undermined or exploited.

“There’s no reason this report has to be a 500-page document written by a computer somewhere. We can write the report in such a way that it really does wake the country up to the nature of the threats that we’ve just dodged and the threats that remain,” Raskin said.

To wit, when the committee holds its public hearings, the Justice Department's prosecution of those who stormed the Capitol will keep rolling.

At the top of April, the DOJ announced it had arrested nearly 800 defendants and charged over 250 people so far with serious crimes including assaulting police and using a deadly weapon to injure an officer.

More than 248 people have entered guilty pleas, copping to misdemeanors and felony charges alike.

The most serious charges— like seditious conspiracy—have been leveled at some of the president’s most ardent supporters, namely the ringleaders and members of domestic extremist networks like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Trump told the latter group in September 2020 to “stand back and stand by” when asked on a presidential debate stage if he would condemn white supremacy and militia groups.

“Who would you like me to condemn? The Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s gotta do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem,” Trump said.

The dog-whistle was well received by Proud Boys and their leader Henry Tarrio.

“Standing by,” Tarrio responded on Parler. “So proud of my guys right now.”

Others, like Proud Boy Joe Biggs, took it as a direct cue to attack those opposed to Trump.

“Trump basically said to go fuck them up!” Biggs wrote.

The Proud Boys are ecstatic tonight about getting mentioned in the debate tonight. "Trump basically said to go fuck them up! this makes me so happy," writes one prominent Proud Boy. pic.twitter.com/hYA7yQVAOn
— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) September 30, 2020

Tarrio was indicted on March 8 for conspiracy to obstruct congressional proceedings on Jan. 6 as well as several other charges. Biggs—and many other Proud Boys—were indicted alongside him and separately.

Oath Keeper leader Elmer Rhodes's seditious conspiracy trial is currently slated for September. One of the key members in the group charged alongside Rhodes, Alabama Oath Keeper chapter leader Joshua James, has already flipped.

James admitted he was dispatched to the Capitol on Jan. 6 by Rhodes as part of an organized conspiracy to stop proceedings. James told prosecutors he was prepared to use force to keep Trump in power.

While the committee’s work and the DOJ’s work operate on entirely different tracks and timetables, Raskin said when the committee makes its case to the public, the panel won’t shy away from presenting any of the relevant details shaken loose by the DOJ.

“To the extent there are factual findings related to these cases, yes, we will be able to use those,” he said.

Juries will decide the fates of those charged with seditious conspiracy. The Justice Department will decide the fate of those the committee has referred for criminal contempt of Congress.

These are the facts.

For those cynical or skeptical about what the committee’s hearings will achieve or accomplish, Raskin offered a message for those feeling faint of heart.

Before speaking, the congressman paused for just a moment.

“Look,” he said, “For the greater part—for the duration of the human species—people have lived under tyrants and dictators and bullies and kings like Vladimir Putin and all of his sycophants around the world. Democracy, democratic self-governance is still a very fragile experiment. And democracy thrives on truth. The people need to be armed with the power that truth will give us.”

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who endured racial slurs and assault for hours while defending the Capitol to the brink of exhaustion told Daily Kos in a recent interview when it comes to Jan. 6: “The truth is the truth.”

If people will believe the truth when they hear it, well, he knows it is not for him to decide.

But he did have one question.

“How the hell is anyone against finding out the full truth?” Dunn said.

After Getting Trump Endorsement, Message Surfaces Showing J.D. Vance In 2016 Worrying Trump Was ‘America’s Hitler’

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Rusty Weiss

After scoring an endorsement earlier this week from the former president, a text message has surfaced showing Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance worrying in 2016 that Trump was either “a cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.”

The news demonstrates just how important it is to vet people for their endorsement and how Donald Trump seemingly hasn’t learned that lesson.

“In the Great State of Ohio, the candidate most qualified and ready to win in November is J.D. Vance,” Trump said in a statement released Friday. “We cannot play games. It is all about winning!”

He also acknowledges that Vance has made some disparaging comments about him in the past.

“Like some others, J.D. Vance may have said some not-so-great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades,” Trump beamed.

Trump: ‘J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades.’ Endorses Vance in Ohio Senate race. pic.twitter.com/yo3QFYtETz

— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 15, 2022

J.D. Vance Worried Trump Was ‘America’s Hitler’

We’re all for people finally seeing the light on President Trump’s potential and desire to make America great again, but certain comments seem a bit too far gone.

GOP officials in Ohio urged Trump not to back Vance or any candidate in the Senate race.

“We know there are many qualified candidates in this race who have stood up for the ‘America First’ agenda over the years and have carried the Trump mantle over the years, again with the notable exception of JD Vance,” party leaders said in a letter to Trump.

Vance, a current populist firebrand and author of the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” threatened to back Hillary Clinton in 2016 and called Trump “another opioid.”

“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance he told Fox News last year. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”

JD Vance deleted his tweet about voting for Evan McMullin.

It was here: https://t.co/4k1Xk8AMgv

But still can be viewed on the WebArchive.https://t.co/uLcCLkbur3 pic.twitter.com/LNofBemmsL

— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) July 1, 2021

Trump’s Endorsements Gone Wrong

How wrong was Vance ‘about the guy’? Try, unhinged liberal lunatic-level wrong.

Georgia Representative Josh McLaurin, a Democrat who claims to have been Vance’s roommate at Yale University, shared a 2016 text message contending to be from the Ohio Senate candidate.

In the message, Vance laments the fact that Trump had become the face of the Republican party.

“We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working-class black people in the process) or a demagogue would,” he allegedly wrote. “We are now at the point.”

The message continued: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a****** like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?”

The screenshot below is @JDVance1’s unfiltered explanation from 2016 of the breakdown in Republican politics that he now personally is trying to exploit.

The “America’s Hitler” bit is at the end.

The public deserves to know the magnitude of this guy’s bad faith. pic.twitter.com/79Z0qSWFWF

— Josh McLaurin (@JoshforGeorgia) April 18, 2022

No Denial

Vance’s campaign didn’t deny the message came from him.

“It’s laughable that the media treats JD not liking Trump 6 years ago as some sort of breaking news, when they’ve already covered it to death since this race began,” his campaign manager told Newsweek.

Vance’s campaign manager added that Trump obviously views him as “a genuine convert.”

Last week, The Political Insider reported that Trump had endorsed Mehmet Oz – better known as Dr. Oz – in the Pennsylvania GOP primary for the U.S. Senate.

This, despite a history of decidedly non-conservative viewpoints on abortion, fracking, and gun control.

NEW PROOF RINO Mehmet Oz is pro-abortion.

“I’m not socially conservative,” Oz said. “We should not be creating obstacles during the difficult time that women have when trying to terminate a pregnancy.”

Abortion to birth. That’s the Hollywood/Oz position https://t.co/AU4ov4lcAr

— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) March 31, 2022

Trump Supports Hageman

Trump has also thrown his support in Wyoming to Harriet Hageman, the attorney running against Liz Cheney in an upcoming primary.

Hageman vociferously supported Cheney during her 2016 congressional campaign, and strongly opposed President Trump at the time.

In fact, she tried to stop Trump from getting the Republican nomination in 2016, and called him “racist and xenophobic.”

Turns out the Republican handpicked by Trump to take down Liz Cheney was a vocal opponent of Trump in 2016.

Harriet Hageman was involved in trying to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee at the convention and decried him as “racist and xenophobic.” https://t.co/SCZqXmFfXD

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 28, 2021

Backing Winners

Each time he makes one of these questionable endorsements, Trump indicates it’s all about backing a winner.

“This is all about winning elections in order to stop the Radical Left maniacs from destroying our country,” Trump said in his endorsement of Oz.

We’re skeptical he wouldn’t start looking for someone better if somebody like Mitt Romney was the best chance of stopping a Democrat in his Senate race.

Maybe we’re wrong. He did, after all, endorse Romney in 2018. Romney has done nothing but stab him in the back since, voting to convict Trump in his impeachment trial over the former President’s alleged role in the Capitol riot.

Will these other candidates do the same – bend the knee for an endorsement only to drive a knife in the back of conservatives when the fate of the country is on the line?

The post After Getting Trump Endorsement, Message Surfaces Showing J.D. Vance In 2016 Worrying Trump Was ‘America’s Hitler’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Trump’s ‘parade of supplicants’ advised to woo the ocher ape with big fonts and color photos

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

I’m trying to think of anything more undignified than sucking up to colossal loser Donald Trump after everything that’s happened in the past few years—telling him he won elections he lost, groveling for his endorsement, buying overpriced tchotchkes at his cult compound/golf resort, and pretending you’re not staring directly into the sallow, rheumy eyes of primordial evil.

I wouldn’t hire Trump to manage a Chuck E. Cheese, unless I actually wanted to open a strip club with an animatronic jug band and didn’t know who to bribe or murder to make that happen. And yet, according to a profoundly pathetic Sunday New York Times story, Republicans as a whole still can’t get enough of his unique blend of feral charisma and sultry lunch meat sweats.

The story is long, sad, and eye-gougingly horrific, but we pretty much already knew the broad strokes of everything that’s in there. Republicans are cashing in their souls for endorsements, and Trump is devouring those souls like so many saucy McNuggets. Pretty standard fare for the sell-out-democracy party.

That said, one portion of the story did grab my eye, because there’s such a huge disconnect between what these GOP hopefuls—almost all of whom went to college—are likely thinking in the parts of their brains they’ve decided to keep alive and what they’re actually doing these days to curry Trump’s favor.

Mr. Trump enjoys flattery and is not above rewarding sycophants. But insiders say bringing compelling visual material matters, too. Big fonts are crucial. With photos and graphics. In color.

“He’s not a real big digital guy, so we had printouts,” said Joe Kent, who has since won Mr. Trump’s backing for his effort to unseat Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, one of the 10 Republican impeachment votes.

...

When he likes what he sees, Mr. Trump will mail words of encouragement, scrawled on news clippings with a Sharpie. “You are doing great!” he wrote in January to Mr. Kent. “You are doing great!” he wrote last October to Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Good God, is being in Congress really worth this degradation? Is being in the GOP worth it? If I had to choose between behaving this way to stay politically relevant or chaining a pair of slumbering antelopes to my vintage Sam and Frodo nipple rings, it would probably come down to a coin flip.

The Times charitably refers to the GOPsters visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago as a “parade of supplicants”—possibly because “caravan of ass-kissers” was deemed too déclassé for the paper of record. But Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio sums up these ingratiation celebrations pretty well.

“What was The Apprentice but a sad scramble of people behaving like crabs in a bucket to be lifted out by him?” said D’Antonio. “How are these people anything other than contestants vying for his approval?”

That’s a good analogy, but like most analogies, it’s a bit imprecise. Crabs in a bucket have far more dignity. If the GOP ever reaches crabs-in-a-bucket levels of seriousness again, maybe we can talk. But for now, they’re still beholden to the worst sentient being on this or any planet. And, well, the vast majority of them seem just fine with it.

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.

Florida man revels in vexing his GOP colleagues. His name isn’t Donald Trump

Posted on April 18, 2022 by Kerry Eleveld

Leadership abhors a vacuum and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is Exhibit A. First, McConnell had the chance to finish off Donald Trump’s political future during his second impeachment but failed to seal the deal.

Next, McConnell had a chance to give Americans a Republican vision they could vote for in November, but he demurred—choosing instead to offer nothing for which Republicans could be held to account as a cynical campaign strategy.

Now, McConnell’s getting burned on both fronts—by Scott and Trump alike. Trump is getting his jollies by carpet bombing the 2022 landscape with endorsements at will. At the same time, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who's running the Senate GOP's bid to retake the upper chamber, has pounced on McConnell's unsteady grip on the caucus.

After Scott dropped his disastrous 11-point plan to "Rescue America" last month on "an unsuspecting party,” he relished the upheaval he created, according to a delightful Washington Post account.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos' The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

Embedded Content

Scott used a Wall Street Journal op-ed to malign his critics as "careerists in Washington" and jeered, "Bring it on." He also restructured the National Republican Senatorial Committee's fundraising efforts to line his own campaign coffers and then punched back at his detractors.

“We don’t spend much time worrying about criticisms from anonymous Republican consultants who lost the Senate last cycle and who have gotten rich off maintaining the status quo,” Chris Hartline, NRSC communications director and Scott campaign spokesperson, told the Post.

But the pugnacity of Scott and his allies doesn't reverse the fact that he's adding significant deadweight to GOP efforts in November.

For one, he sucking up a lot of money for himself. Donors at some of his events (including in Florida) have been asked to divide their first $10,800 between Scott's campaign account and his own leadership PAC before gifting more to the NRSC account.

The Senate GOP committee is pretty flush at $33 million—$13 million more than at the same point in 2020 and more than twice as much in 2018.

But Scott isn't up for reelection and, as one GOP strategist noted, “He is doing it in a state where there is an incumbent senator who is in-cycle." That would be Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

But that's just one example plaguing what colleagues joke has become the "National Rick Scott Committee." Another change includes Scott whittling down the cut for candidates who let the NRSC fundraise off their images in digital ads. Candidates used to split the haul 50-50 with the committee along with getting donors' names but, under Scott, they get just 10% of donations plus donor names.

Overall, the takeaway among many of the colleagues Scott is supposed to be helping is that "Rick Scott seems to care a lot more about his political future than the Senate incumbents he is supposed to be working for,” according to one anonymous source.

But one group that is extremely pleased with Scott's efforts is Senate Democrats.

“We’ve got three words for him: Keep it up,” said David Bergstein, the communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has been readily highlighting Scott's plan to raise taxes on more than 100 million American households as well as sunset Medicare and Social Security.

"No NRSC chair has done more for Senate Democrats than Rick Scott,” Bergstein added.

Someone else who applauds Scott's self-serving actions is a fellow Florida man who loves anyone and anything that becomes a thorn in McConnell's side.

“I don’t agree with everything in the plan, but Rick is a good man,” Donald Trump said.

Trump’s statement, however, surely says more about his hatred for McConnell than it does Scott's stewardship of the NRSC.

“I’d take Romney over McConnell,” Trump recently said of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who became the lone GOP senator to vote in favor of Trump's first impeachment. “I think he’d do a better job, and I think Romney is a lowlife.”

For his part, McConnell would be in a much better position to put Scott's GOP agenda to rest if he would bother to pound out a plan of his own. But the fact is, Scott dared to tell Americans what Republicans stand for and McConnell hasn't. And there's really no telling who will be running the Senate GOP caucus if Trump runs again in 2024 and wins.

McConnell can thank himself for that too.

Trump Sends Easter Message Of ‘Peace And Prosperity’ – Slams Democrats Trying To ‘Destroy Our Country’

Posted on April 18, 2022 by Rusty Weiss

Former President Donald Trump issued multiple Easter messages on Sunday, starting innocently enough with a positive message of “peace and prosperity” before moving on to skewer Democrats.

At 9:45 on Easter Sunday, a statement from Trump sent out by the ’45 Office’ was released.

“Happy Easter to all,” the message read. “May there be great peace and prosperity throughout the World!”

Simple. Disciplined. In line with the spirit of the holiday.

But it didn’t take long for Trump to pivot to the feisty fighter we all know and appreciate.

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

“Happy Easter to all. May there be great peace and prosperity throughout the World!” pic.twitter.com/Z2FAQc2Xd0

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) April 17, 2022

Trump’s Brutal Easter Message For Democrats

To be perfectly honest, Trump’s initial message stood out for its simplicity and unwillingness to veer off on a tangent.

And this must have bothered the former President, because less than one hour later another Easter message was released, this time from the ‘Save America PAC’ account.

“Happy Easter to all including the Radical Left Maniacs who are doing everything possible to destroy our Country,” he said. “May they not succeed, but let them, nevertheless, be happy, healthy, wealthy, and well!”

TRUMP’S WISHES: A Happy Easter to all, even the “radical left maniacs.” https://t.co/isafC9eccv pic.twitter.com/Dtr6IvbKSK

— Newsmax (@newsmax) April 17, 2022

Just an incredible display of brilliance, to be honest.

Though, one has to note that the only way to get to the “peace and prosperity” in Trump’s first Easter message is to make sure Democrats never again succeed in electing a man hell-bent on trying to “destroy our country” like President Biden.

Trump Sends Another Brutal Message

Less than 40 minutes after sending that gem, Donald Trump sent another message targeting a particular Democrat – New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“Happy Easter to failed gubernatorial candidate and racist Attorney General Letitia James,” he wrote.

“May she remain healthy despite the fact that she will continue to drive business out of New York while at the same time keeping crime, death, and destruction in New York!”

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

“Happy Easter to failed gubernatorial candidate and racist Attorney General Letitia James. May she remain healthy despite the fact that she will continue to drive business out of New York while at the same time keeping crime, death, and… pic.twitter.com/X22xhcDdEX

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) April 17, 2022

He could have just bought her a ham or some Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Instead, Trump is offering James some tough love this Easter season.

Breaking NBC: NY AG Letitia James is seeking to hold Trump in civil contempt over his efforts to stonewall her civil tax fraud investigation.

James’s office says Trump failed to comply with an order to turn over subpoenaed documents and asks the judge to fine him $10,000 a day.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 7, 2022

James and the Manhattan district attorney’s office have been investigating whether Trump lowered property values on his tax forms but raised them in paperwork for lenders.

She has tried to have the former President and his adult children sit for depositions and requested that a judge hold Trump in contempt and fine him $10,000/day for not turning over documents.

Trump has responded to the inquiry by filing a federal lawsuit asking for an injunction against the probe.

The post Trump Sends Easter Message Of ‘Peace And Prosperity’ – Slams Democrats Trying To ‘Destroy Our Country’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

McConnell-tied super PAC makes early $141M play for the Senate

Posted on April 18, 2022 by By Burgess Everett

A Mitch McConnell-aligned super PAC is booking $141 million in fall advertisements to help turn the Senate red, a staggering sum that sets the stage for a vicious battle over the chamber’s control.

The GOP-controlled Senate Leadership Fund is reserving eight-figure ad flights starting in September to protect Republican seats in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as to take Democratic-held seats in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, the group told POLITICO. SLF also laid down millions in Alaska to protect incumbent Lisa Murkowski from a Donald Trump-inspired primary challenge.

Those GOP plans follow the Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC’s moves to set aside $106 million in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania, with most of those ads beginning in August.

Taken together, the two primary outside groups in Senate races have slotted nearly a quarter-billion dollars for the fall, with much more spending to follow those initial commitments. With Republicans currently favored to take the House, the 50-50 Senate is shaping up to be this fall’s marquee electoral contest. And it comes with huge stakes: The ability to control the Senate floor and confirm President Joe Biden’s nominees.

“This is such a strong year that we need to invest as broadly and deeply as we can,” Steven Law, the Senate Leadership Fund's president, said in an interview. “In the Senate, majority control is everything. It determines what happens on the floor and what doesn't happen. It will have an impact on future Supreme Court nominations. I mean, there's so much at stake.”

Notably, neither super PAC is putting money yet in New Hampshire, where Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan is running for reelection. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu took a pass on challenging Hassan, and both parties will be watching the September GOP primary closely to see who emerges.

Some Republicans are feeling less and less sure about how competitive they will be in the Granite State, but Law said he feels “very confident that we will end up playing in New Hampshire.” In the interim, Republicans and Democrats alike are concentrating elsewhere.

The McConnell-connected Senate Leadership Fund will drop a whopping $37 million in Georgia this fall, $27 million in North Carolina, $24 million in Pennsylvania, $15 million each in Nevada and Wisconsin, $14 million in Arizona and $7.4 million in Alaska. The Schumer-connected Senate Majority PAC reserved $26 million in Pennsylvania, $22 million in Arizona, $21 million in Nevada, $12 million in Wisconsin and nearly $25 million in Georgia.

Both sums amount to the biggest early investments by the two groups since they were created.

“Both parties recognize the core 2022 Senate map as competitive races in several ‘built to be close’ presidential battleground states. The GOP carries the burden of bad candidates and a badly damaged brand,” said JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC. “SMP’s intent is obvious: Hold the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.”

Republicans are feeling extraordinarily positive about netting at least one seat and winning Senate control in November, given Biden’s low approval ratings and polls starting to show significant opportunities to oust Democratic incumbents.

But beating incumbents is always hard, and Democratic senators are generally raising eye-popping sums like Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s $13.6 million in the first quarter of this year. With Democratic candidates often outraising the GOP, Law said he expected many Republican candidates to be outspent this fall, requiring a brawny intervention from his PAC to “try to level that playing field.”

Law, a former McConnell chief of staff, also cautioned his party against feeling too confident.

“The only thing that ever concerns me when you're in an environment that's this good, and there's so much talk about the red wave, is that complacency sets in,” Law said.

Not one of the Democratic-held Senate seats "is a layup" for the GOP, Law added. "And, you know, in several of these races … the Democratic incumbent is smart and well funded, and has a pathway to hold under their seat.”

At the moment, the Senate map looks tight. Democrats are defending four incumbents in closely contested states: Hassan, Warnock, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona. Five GOP incumbents are retiring, but among those states just North Carolina and Pennsylvania appear promising pickups for Democrats so far. And Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is the GOP’s lone vulnerable incumbent right now.

If things go Republicans’ way, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) could be beatable in November, and Law didn't rule out spending in Washington state, where Tiffany Smiley is challenging a heavily favored Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). On the other hand, a Democratic recovery at the polls could make that party more bullish about North Carolina or make Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) reelection race tougher.

Officials for both groups said their initial plans are subject to change and constantly evolving. Key political groups often change strategies down the line as some races grow more competitive and others fall off the battleground map. By reserving fall airtime in the spring, the groups can lock in lower prices than they would pay later in the year, especially in media markets like Nevada that have competitive races for governor and Congress.

The GOP's Senate Leadership Fund reserved in just six states to start the 2020 battle for Senate control while the Democrats' Senate Majority PAC reserved in five; both groups doubled their footprint as races evolved. As things stand now, the battleground list is smaller in 2022 than it was in 2020.

Ultimately, Democrats captured Senate control in January 2021 in twin runoffs in Georgia, demonstrating just how important every single Senate race is. In the 2020 cycle, the GOP super PAC spent $476 million and the Democratic one spent $372 million. Total spending during this year's midterm is unlikely to rival 2020's in the end, especially since the Georgia runoffs and the presidential race increased costs for Senate campaigns.

This time around, neither of the official party committees have laid down their fall reservations yet, moves that will offer more of a clue of how each party sees the battle for Senate control. Plus there are unresolved primaries to come.

And among those primaries, Republicans have more contested battles than Democrats — sparking some fear in the GOP that bad candidates could blow winnable races. For the time being, though, Law doesn’t necessarily see the need to get involved.

“The only place where there's a candidate who could possibly lose a perfectly winnable race would be Eric Greitens, in Missouri. And now it seems less likely that he'll be the nominee,” Law said. “We don't seek out opportunities to be involved in primaries.”

Another exception? Alaska, where Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka is challenging Murkowski under the state's new open primary and ranked-choice voting system. McConnell has made clear that Senate Republicans stand fully behind Murkowski, who sparked Trump's ire by voting to convict him in an impeachment trial.

Steven Shepard contributed to this report.

Far-right Marine Le Pen pledges submission to Moscow, reminding us what Trump 2.0 would look like

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Dartagnan

In the span of a few weeks, the tilt of the geopolitical world has shifted so quickly that perhaps Americans just haven’t had enough time to digest how fortunate they are Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. Doubtlessly the Ukrainians are aware, and those living in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are as well because their very lives would have been entirely forfeit or at grave risk right now. But given the soothing comfort of its giant pick-up trucks, guns, and doorbell cameras, it might be asking too much of American culture to pause and consider the alternative reality we could all be living in.

Still, many—both in this country and elsewhere—would gleefully embrace that reality with open arms. Even as Vladimir Putin’s appalling army systematically rapes, tortures, and beheads helpless civilians in its murderous invasion of Ukraine, the Russian dictator has found a fawning ally in the French far-right, with the re-emergence of Marine Le Pen. Last week, Ms. Le Pen drew 23% of the vote in France’s splintered election, forcing a runoff on April 24 between herself and French President Emanuel Macron, who garnered approximately 28%.

On Wednesday, Le Pen—apparently unperturbed by what is now aptly characterized as a genocidal campaign by Russia to eradicate the Ukrainian population—pledged to effectively abandon the 70-year-old NATO alliance in order to ratify Putin’s brutality, should the French people vote her into the presidency.

PARIS — Rejecting a “herd-like conformity” with the Biden administration, Marine Le Pen, the French far-right candidate for the presidency, said Wednesday that France would quit NATO’s integrated military command if she were elected and would seek for the alliance “a strategic rapprochement” with Russia.

As reported by Roger Cohen for the Washington Post, Le Pen’s rationale for accommodating Putin’s aims echo the same sentiments espoused by Donald Trump, who, according to former aides, was also intent on appeasing Putin by withdrawing the U.S. from the NATO alliance had he managed to be re-elected. This brand of Putin-envy appears to be particularly common among more autocratic, fascist-leaning politicians who have traditionally applauded the Russian despot as exemplifying what they call “strength” and resolve. In reality, they admire and envy the lack of any real constraints on his power, which they all shamelessly covet. We now see the end product of that lack of constraints playing out in Ukraine.

As Cohen observes, Le Pen’s agenda, to the extent she has one, mirrors Trump’s in all its essentials.

Dismissing multilateralism, blasting Germany, criticizing the European Union, relegating climate issues to a low priority, attacking “globalists” and maintaining a near silence on Russia’s brutal assault in Ukraine, Ms. Le Pen gave a taste of a worldview that was at once reminiscent of the Trump presidency and appeared to directly threaten NATO’s attempts to arm Ukraine and defeat Russia.

The similarities between Le Pen and Trump were evident in the first days of the latter’s administration. As James Traub observed in a column written for Foreign Policy, Le Pen’s xenophobic brand of so-called “populism” (by now simply a more pleasant word for “fascism”) and the race-baiting lies she espoused to support it were simply more glib and soothing in their delivery than Trump’s general penchant for crudeness and bombast:

Le Pen repeated Donald Trump’s canard that Barack Obama had “banned” immigrants from Iraq; denied, despite vast evidence to the contrary, that her supporters routinely fire off racist and homophobic tweets; and claimed, wrongly, that immigrants can automatically gain French citizenship through marriage. And then there were the Trumpian delusions: that a policy of “economic patriotism” penalizing French companies that move abroad would not raise the cost of French products but rather would foster a “virtuous circle” boosting growth and employment.

As Traub points out, Le Pen’s calculated delivery of her trademark nationalism and bigotry largely stems from her need to distance herself in the French public’s eyes from her ultra-radical and unabashedly antisemitic father, Jean Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front party she now leads. Still, Le Pen and Trump appear to be cut from basically the same cloth, even where Le Pen will, as Traub puts it, “demonize Muslims with a gracious smile instead of a vicious Twitter tirade.” Both are adept at cynically manipulating their public through fear of the “other.” Both display an instinctive aversion to the very idea of cooperation between nations, which they perceive only as a means to undercut their own aspirations for control and power.

Both are also intolerant of any dissent. Just as Trump encourages his rabid base to attack journalists and protesters at his rallies, Le Pen exhibits a similar hostility against perceived political enemies:

🇫🇷France🇫🇷 A protester holding a picture of Le Pen and Putin shaking hands was tackled and dragged outside by security mens during a press conference in Paris.#MarineLePen #FrenchElection #EmmanuelMacron #Paris pic.twitter.com/M5IlF9rB8r
— Zaid Ahmd  (@realzaidzayn) April 14, 2022

Le Pen is currently expected to lose the run-off election, mainly because the majority of those who originally voted for the far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon will be unable (at least in theory) to stomach a Le Pen victory. And even if she wins, the NATO alliance will most likely remain standing, albeit with France as a thoroughly diminished and unreliable presence.

But suppose the 2020 U.S. election—which Trump may have lost simply because of his dismal handling of the COVID-19 pandemic—had gone the other way. What would have been left of American strategic power and influence in this world would have withered and died on the vine in brutally short order, probably from the moment Putin sent troops into Ukraine. It’s impossible to know how much resolve to assist Ukraine would have existed among the remainder of NATO, but without a credible leader, it’s difficult to imagine how that response would have been effective. The world has never seen a nuclear-armed pathology like Putin invade a peaceful neighboring country for wholly irrational reasons, wielding his nuclear capability as a threat against any country that dares to oppose him, and even worse, vowing to continue his efforts until he is stopped. History suggests that such countries will not stop until they encounter an immutable opposing force.

And Trump would not have delivered that force. A mercurial buffoon with no grasp of (or interest in) foreign policy or even a basic understanding of what NATO stands for—and against—might have been cajoled into reluctant action by an exasperated military. But the sheer weakness of that position would have been evident to anyone paying attention. And Putin, for all his now glaringly apparent flaws, pays attention.

Law professor Alan Rozenshtein, writing for Lawfare, described the “nightmarish” scenario that this country would have faced if Trump were still in office:

From this perspective, it is sobering, if not downright terrifying, to think of how Trump would have handled this current crisis, had he won in 2020. Consider first the question of loyalty. Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he responded to the Ukrainian president’s request for more Javelin anti-tank missiles (which have proved vital for the Ukrainian defense) by asking for Ukrainian help in digging up dirt on his main political rival, betrays a disloyalty to the national interest whose geopolitical implications are now all too clear.

Nor is it clear that Trump would even feel that it was his responsibility to rally the world to confront Russia, as the Biden administration has skillfully done. After all, Trump’s response to criticisms of his administration’s early missteps in handling the coronavirus pandemic was to say “I don’t take responsibility at all.” Why expect that he would feel different about a war half a world away, or that he wouldn’t simply have delegated weighty foreign policy decisions to informal advisors, thereby maintaining distance and plausible deniability, as when Rudolph Giuliani effectively ran the White House’s Ukraine policy. Even worse, given Trump’s personal affinity for Vladimir Putin, which he reiterated even as Russian forces entered Ukraine, is the very real possibility that Trump would have supported Russia’s invasion.

The world we all still live in—the world of liberal democracies with a legitimate transfer of power untainted by autocratic, fascistic propaganda, coercion, and repression—is now sitting atop a knife-edge, susceptible to one misguided election by an apathetic, self-absorbed and frankly historically ignorant electorate. Racist demagogues like Le Pen and Trump are perfectly willing to push us off into the abyss simply to realize their dreams of power—the rest of the world be damned. They are both aided by a radicalized base that sees no problem with simply watching the world burn if only to validate its own delusional, stoked-up grievances.

In 2020 we dodged a bullet. But that gun is still pointed at us. If Democrats can’t wake Americans up to that reality, no one else is going to.

Editor’s Note: This story’s lead image has been changed.

Seeking: GOP dealmakers who won’t ‘burn the House down’. Apply to: Kevin McCarthy.

Posted on April 15, 2022 by By Sarah Ferris and Olivia Beavers

When Rep. Fred Upton announced his retirement from Congress, colleagues in both parties lined up to lament. The one who misses him the most, in the end, may be Kevin McCarthy.

The Michigan Republican's departure after 18 terms is the latest in a series of blows to the House's small but mighty group of GOP dealmakers, a loose bloc of lawmakers who — despite a party shifting rightward — still favor compromise over obstinacy. They will prove critical to Republican leaders’ ability to run the chamber next year should they win back the House as expected, regardless of the margin of that victory.

Those Republicans are the ones most certain to deliver needed votes to a future GOP speaker on everything from funding the government to working with President Joe Biden on their own legislative agenda. But as the numbers of GOP dealmakers dwindle ahead of next year, some in that group are openly speculating how they’ll find members to replace the losses of Reps. John Katko (R-N.Y.), Kevin Brady (R-Texas), Upton and others from McCarthy’s prospective governing coalition.

“We can't have this mindset of ‘burn the House down,’” said Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, another Republican with a bipartisan streak who plans to stick around next year. “We got to be a governing party when we're in the majority, so we need people like Upton and folks like that. So other people have to step up.”

The jolt from Upton’s retirement is less about protecting his seat, as it will likely stay in GOP hands, and more about the question before the House minority leader: What will the exodus of his centrists, as well as other senior Republicans who don’t see negotiation as a dirty word, mean for him next year? Republicans say McCarthy, the minority leader and undisputed frontrunner for speaker if the House flips, has begun conversations with his leadership team and other lawmakers about how to wrangle the conference on a smattering of issues after the chamber flips.

“We're gonna be in a majority, so it's not gonna be just about saying no to things anymore,” said Katko, who added that believes other members will fill the void as he and other practiced legislators depart. “We got to be able to bend a bit, and I think Kevin's talking about that already.”

Still, the Republican leadership team will be dealing with a conference that’s clearly gotten more populist and, well, Trumpian over the four years since the party last controlled the House.

One example of how much the House GOP has changed: Out of 133 members who voted to raise the debt limit the last time their party held the majority, only 33 are seeking reelection this fall. And not all of them are guaranteed to be in Congress come January; two of those deal-making Republicans, Reps. David McKinley of West Virginia and Rodney Davis of Illinois, are facing tough member-on-member primary battles.

And for McKinley, at least, it’s becoming a test of GOP voters’ appetite for bipartisanship for when the party does seize power, likely in January. In all, at least six of the 13 Republicans who voted for last year's cross-aisle infrastructure bill won’t be returning next Congress, including long-serving Rep. Don Young of Alaska, who died last month. Several more face difficult reelection bids thanks to their states' once-a-decade redistricting process.

It's far from clear who will replace those Republicans and what brand of politics the new members will bring — a stark reminder of how much the current primary season will shape the direction of the House GOP conference for the next two years.

In Texas' primaries, for example, GOP leaders avoided multiple scenarios in which an ultraconservative Republican could have won. Morgan Luttrell, backed by McCarthy, won the primary for Brady's seat after a showdown between House Republican leaders and their most headline-grabbing Trump acolytes. Reps. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) endorsed Chris Collins, who ultimately lost the race to Luttrell.

Another leadership favorite, Wesley Hunt, won out in the state’s new Houston area-seat, where he easily defeated GOP activist Mark Ramsey. And in North Texas, a third closely watched primary rapidly shifted from a battle over ousting Rep. Van Taylor to a push to replace him after the GOP incumbent resigned amid a sex scandal. Former Collin County Judge Keith Self ultimately prevailed over businesswoman Suzanne Harp, whose son is a top aide to Cawthorn.

While Texas was a bright spot for McCarthy, he won't be able to sidestep new MAGA members in his ranks next year from other states. Part of the reason for that is redistricting — members' willingness to strike deals often comes from the purple nature of their districts as much as their personal politics, and those districts are shrinking this year as map-drawing state Republicans have tried to narrow the playing field.

Losing members like Katko, Brady, Young, Upton and Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) does more than rob McCarthy of possible avenues for bipartisanship; it also deprives the conference of institutional knowledge after a stretch of turbulence marked by two impeachments, a global pandemic and an attack on the Capitol. Together, the five members named above brought roughly 150 years of experience serving in the House.

“I think there's always a strong benefit to having people who can reach back and say, ‘You know what, I remember when this happened 20 years ago,’” said first-term Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), pointing to Katko's and Upton's "wisdom and sage experience."

But he added that as much as his departing colleagues will be missed, the ebb and flow of retirements and new additions helps prevent the body from becoming stagnant.

Meijer noted that his freshman class, which was sworn in amid the height of the pandemic and just days ahead of the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, doesn’t know what “regular order looks like” — and that much of the House has changed significantly since there was regular order.

McCarthy has promised to try to reverse some institutional changes House Democrats made should he take power, including ending proxy voting and removing metal detectors installed outside the chamber after the attack on the Capitol.

"We have changed more of the history in Congress than at any time of any Congress under one party and one rule,” McCarthy said in November, hitting Democrats.

But that doesn’t mean the speaker-in-waiting isn't prepared to use the tools that current Speaker Nancy Pelosi has employed against some of his more troublesome conservatives; he's already vowed to boot several Democrats from their committees.

Despite all the change the House has seen since 2018, and an ideological band of Congress stretched ever tighter by bitter partisan polarization, some Republicans on their way out remain optimistic that the institution will snap back rather than bust apart.

“I just hope and pray that people come along and pick up the mantle of what we've done,” Katko said.