Wisconsin GOP Assembly leader backs off threat to impeach Supreme Court judge over redistricting

Posted on by Charles Jay

Almost immediately after Janet Protasiewicz was elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court last April, flipping it to a liberal majority, Republican leaders threatened to impeach her if she didn’t recuse herself from a case challenging the state’s heavily gerrymandered electoral maps. This was because after being seated on the court in August, Protasiewicz refused to recuse herself from the Democratic-backed lawsuit seeking to throw out Republican-drawn electoral maps, drawing even more impeachment threats from Republicans.

Protasiewicz’s victory had resulted in a 4-3 liberal majority on the court, ending a 15-year period in which conservative justices held control. But now faced with intense backlash, Robin Vos, the Republican leader of Wisconsin’s Assembly who threatened possible impeachment of Protasiewicz in August, has pivoted and now says that such a move is “super unlikely,” The Associated Press reported.

RELATED STORY: Former Wisconsin GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel is running for the state Supreme Court

The AP wrote:

When asked in an interview Wednesday if he would move to impeach Protasiewicz if she orders new maps to be drawn, Vos said, “I think it’s very unlikely.”

“It’s one of the tools that we have in our toolbox that we could use at any time,” Vos said of impeachment. “Is it going to be used? I think it’s super unlikely.”

However, Vos refused to rule it out.

“We don’t know what could happen, right?” he said. “There could be a scandal where something occurs. I don’t know.”

Wisconsin’s Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler posted this reaction on X, formerly known as Twitter:

The Wisconsin GOP has made official what’s long been clear: they’ve pulled back the impeachment threat. Why did this happen? Because you rose up in outrage and made clear that such an abuse of the constitution would be politically catastrophic—for them. https://t.co/f20bV6dd9c

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) December 21, 2023

In September, Wikler announced that the state Democratic Party was launching a $4 million effort to to pressure Republicans to back down from impeaching Protasiewicz. At the time he said the Republicans were “holding a political nuclear football” and engaging in “political extortion.”

According to Associated Press analysis, Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most gerrymandered in the U.S., with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote in statewide elections. Joe Biden flipped Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election, defeating Donald Trump by a narrow margin of 49.6% to 48.9%, a difference of 20,000 votes. In April 2023, with abortion rights a key issue, Protasiewicz defeated Republican Dan Kelly by 55.5% to 45.5%, a margin of nearly 200,000 votes.

Yet, as the AP pointed out, the legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities. Republicans now control the Assembly by a 64-35 margin, and hold a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate. Last year, the GOP approved maps that were similar to the existing ones.

In October, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear the legal challenge to the Republican-drawn maps. Election lawyer Marc Elias’ group, Democracy Docket, wrote on its website:

The petitioners in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission allege that the Wisconsin state Assembly and Senate maps are extreme partisan gerrymanders that unduly favor Republicans in violation of the state constitution.

The petition notes that for the past two decades, Wisconsin’s legislative plans have been among the most gerrymandered in the country: “In 2012, Republicans won 48.6% of the statewide vote, which yielded a remarkable 60 assembly seats. … When Democrats received roughly the same vote share, they carried 36 assembly seats. … From the 2012 through the 2020 elections, Republicans never fell below 60 seats—winning up to 64, or nearly two-thirds of the seats. In 2018, Republicans won 63 seats with just 44.8% of the vote.”  

Last month, the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the redistricting lawsuit and is expected to issue its decision by early 2024. The plaintiffs are asking that all 132 state lawmakers be required to stand for election in 2024 under newly redrawn maps. Under current law, all Wisconsin Assembly members and about half the state Senate are up for election next year.

The wheels came off the Republicans’ threat to impeach Protasiewicz in October. That’s when two of three former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justices asked by Vos to investigate the possibility of impeachment told the Assembly leader it was not warranted. Former Justice David Prosser wrote to Vos:

“To sum up my views, there should be no effort to impeach Justice Protasiewicz on anything we know now. Impeachment is so serious, severe, and rare that it should not be considered unless the subject has committed a crime, or the subject has committed indisputable ‘corrupt conduct’ while ‘in office.’”

Article VII of the Wisconsin Constitution reserves impeachment for “corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors.”

The Republicans’ threats to Protasiewicz were based on political statements that she made while campaigning for the seat in which she referred to the legislative maps as “rigged.” Republicans claimed that this constituted a predetermination of how she would rule on a case challenging the maps. In early October, Protasiewicz rejected calls from Republican justices to recuse herself from redistricting cases. The AP reported:

Protasiewicz said that while stating her opinion about the maps during the campaign, she never made a promise or pledge about how she would rule on the cases.

“I will set aside my opinions and decide cases based on the law,” she wrote. “There will surely be many cases in which I reach results that I personally dislike. That is what it means to be a judge.”

Democracy Docket also said that Republican lawmakers also took issue with the financial contributions made by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to her campaign. However, Jay Heck, director of the nonpartisan group Common Cause of Wisconsin called the Republicans’ “selected outrage” hypocritical because all but one of the seven sitting justices had accepted contributions from a political party.

The prospect of actually removing Protasiewicz from the court also became a less attractive option. That’s because if she were impeached by the Assembly and convicted by the Senate, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would now get to name her replacement rather than have to call a special election, which would have been required if she had been removed prior to Dec. 1, the AP reported.

And it’s good news for abortion rights activists that Protasiewicz remains in place to keep the liberal 4-3 majority intact. On Tuesday, a Republican district attorney appealed a court ruling that determined that an 1849 Wisconsin law does not ban abortions, the AP reported. That decision cleared the way for abortions to resume in the state. The appeal filed by Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski is likely to ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court. And Protasiewicz is a supporter of abortion rights.

RELATED STORY: Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing arguments on redistricting that could result in new maps for 2024

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Wisconsin GOP Assembly leader backs off threat to impeach Supreme Court judge over redistricting

Posted on by Charles Jay

Almost immediately after Janet Protasiewicz was elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court last April, flipping it to a liberal majority, Republican leaders threatened to impeach her if she didn’t recuse herself from a case challenging the state’s heavily gerrymandered electoral maps. This was because after being seated on the court in August, Protasiewicz refused to recuse herself from the Democratic-backed lawsuit seeking to throw out Republican-drawn electoral maps, drawing even more impeachment threats from Republicans.

Protasiewicz’s victory had resulted in a 4-3 liberal majority on the court, ending a 15-year period in which conservative justices held control. But now faced with intense backlash, Robin Vos, the Republican leader of Wisconsin’s Assembly who threatened possible impeachment of Protasiewicz in August, has pivoted and now says that such a move is “super unlikely,” The Associated Press reported.

RELATED STORY: Former Wisconsin GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel is running for the state Supreme Court

The AP wrote:

When asked in an interview Wednesday if he would move to impeach Protasiewicz if she orders new maps to be drawn, Vos said, “I think it’s very unlikely.”

“It’s one of the tools that we have in our toolbox that we could use at any time,” Vos said of impeachment. “Is it going to be used? I think it’s super unlikely.”

However, Vos refused to rule it out.

“We don’t know what could happen, right?” he said. “There could be a scandal where something occurs. I don’t know.”

Wisconsin’s Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler posted this reaction on X, formerly known as Twitter:

The Wisconsin GOP has made official what’s long been clear: they’ve pulled back the impeachment threat. Why did this happen? Because you rose up in outrage and made clear that such an abuse of the constitution would be politically catastrophic—for them. https://t.co/f20bV6dd9c

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) December 21, 2023

In September, Wikler announced that the state Democratic Party was launching a $4 million effort to to pressure Republicans to back down from impeaching Protasiewicz. At the time he said the Republicans were “holding a political nuclear football” and engaging in “political extortion.”

According to Associated Press analysis, Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most gerrymandered in the U.S., with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote in statewide elections. Joe Biden flipped Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election, defeating Donald Trump by a narrow margin of 49.6% to 48.9%, a difference of 20,000 votes. In April 2023, with abortion rights a key issue, Protasiewicz defeated Republican Dan Kelly by 55.5% to 45.5%, a margin of nearly 200,000 votes.

Yet, as the AP pointed out, the legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities. Republicans now control the Assembly by a 64-35 margin, and hold a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate. Last year, the GOP approved maps that were similar to the existing ones.

In October, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear the legal challenge to the Republican-drawn maps. Election lawyer Marc Elias’ group, Democracy Docket, wrote on its website:

The petitioners in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission allege that the Wisconsin state Assembly and Senate maps are extreme partisan gerrymanders that unduly favor Republicans in violation of the state constitution.

The petition notes that for the past two decades, Wisconsin’s legislative plans have been among the most gerrymandered in the country: “In 2012, Republicans won 48.6% of the statewide vote, which yielded a remarkable 60 assembly seats. … When Democrats received roughly the same vote share, they carried 36 assembly seats. … From the 2012 through the 2020 elections, Republicans never fell below 60 seats—winning up to 64, or nearly two-thirds of the seats. In 2018, Republicans won 63 seats with just 44.8% of the vote.”  

Last month, the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the redistricting lawsuit and is expected to issue its decision by early 2024. The plaintiffs are asking that all 132 state lawmakers be required to stand for election in 2024 under newly redrawn maps. Under current law, all Wisconsin Assembly members and about half the state Senate are up for election next year.

The wheels came off the Republicans’ threat to impeach Protasiewicz in October. That’s when two of three former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justices asked by Vos to investigate the possibility of impeachment told the Assembly leader it was not warranted. Former Justice David Prosser wrote to Vos:

“To sum up my views, there should be no effort to impeach Justice Protasiewicz on anything we know now. Impeachment is so serious, severe, and rare that it should not be considered unless the subject has committed a crime, or the subject has committed indisputable ‘corrupt conduct’ while ‘in office.’”

Article VII of the Wisconsin Constitution reserves impeachment for “corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors.”

The Republicans’ threats to Protasiewicz were based on political statements that she made while campaigning for the seat in which she referred to the legislative maps as “rigged.” Republicans claimed that this constituted a predetermination of how she would rule on a case challenging the maps. In early October, Protasiewicz rejected calls from Republican justices to recuse herself from redistricting cases. The AP reported:

Protasiewicz said that while stating her opinion about the maps during the campaign, she never made a promise or pledge about how she would rule on the cases.

“I will set aside my opinions and decide cases based on the law,” she wrote. “There will surely be many cases in which I reach results that I personally dislike. That is what it means to be a judge.”

Democracy Docket also said that Republican lawmakers also took issue with the financial contributions made by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to her campaign. However, Jay Heck, director of the nonpartisan group Common Cause of Wisconsin called the Republicans’ “selected outrage” hypocritical because all but one of the seven sitting justices had accepted contributions from a political party.

The prospect of actually removing Protasiewicz from the court also became a less attractive option. That’s because if she were impeached by the Assembly and convicted by the Senate, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would now get to name her replacement rather than have to call a special election, which would have been required if she had been removed prior to Dec. 1, the AP reported.

And it’s good news for abortion rights activists that Protasiewicz remains in place to keep the liberal 4-3 majority intact. On Tuesday, a Republican district attorney appealed a court ruling that determined that an 1849 Wisconsin law does not ban abortions, the AP reported. That decision cleared the way for abortions to resume in the state. The appeal filed by Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski is likely to ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court. And Protasiewicz is a supporter of abortion rights.

RELATED STORY: Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing arguments on redistricting that could result in new maps for 2024

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Ex-prosecutor on Hunter Biden case says GOP falsehoods have led to threats

Posted on by Charles Jay

Lesley Wolf worked in relative obscurity for nearly 16 years as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, but now the former federal prosecutor says she’s been threatened and harassed after Republicans falsely accused her of going easy on Hunter Biden.

In her prepared opening statement, released to the media, for a closed-door deposition demanded by House Republicans as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Wolf said:

“My desire to serve my community and my country, such a great source of pride, has recently come at significant cost. As a private person, the once routine and mundane details of my life have become the subject of public interest in an invasive and disturbing manner. Far worse, I have been threatened and harassed, causing me to fear for my own and my family’s safety.”

Her deposition on Thursday came a day after the House, on a party-line vote, formalized the Republican majority’s impeachment inquiry even though they haven’t found any evidence that the president benefited from his family’s foreign business dealings or accepted bribes.

Wolf joins the growing list of prosecutors, judges, obscure government officials, election workers, and others who have been targeted and harassed after incurring the wrath of former President Donald Trump and his minions—for merely doing their jobs.

On Friday, a federal jury in Washington awarded $148 million in damages to two former election workers in Georgia—Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss—for the harm caused to them by defamatory statements made against them by disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani following the 2020 election. 

Wolf’s problems arose simply because she happened to work for Delaware U.S. District Attorney David C. Weiss, a Donald Trump appointee, who first began investigating Hunter Biden’s financial dealings in late 2018. President Biden retained Weiss in his post so that he could continue the investigation of his son.

Wolf was part of the team that initially worked out a plea deal with Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges this summer. Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time. He also agreed to terms to avoid prosecution on a felony charge alleging that he falsely asserted that he was sober when he bought a handgun in 2018.

But the plea deal collapsed due to differences over the scope of immunity that Hunter Biden would have received from future investigations. In August, Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to special counsel status in the investigation. In September, Weiss’ office indicted Hunter Biden on three felony counts for allegedly illegally purchasing the handgun.

Then, earlier this month, Weiss obtained an indictment from a federal grand jury in California, charging Hunter Biden with nine tax-related criminal charges, including three felony counts. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said his client would not have been indicted if his surname were not Biden.

Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. And there was nothing in either indictment related to his father.

The president’s son declined to appear for a closed-door deposition in the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday, holding a press conference outside the Capitol at which he said he would only testify in public—so Republicans couldn’t selectively leak excerpts from his testimony. House Republicans have threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee—who himself refused a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 select committee—and other MAGA Republicans still feel that the DOJ has gone easy on Hunter Biden.

HuffPost:

Whistleblowers from the IRS’ criminal division claimed in congressional testimony this year that Wolf blocked them from pursuing certain search warrants and generally disagreed with their plans to be more aggressive in investigating the Biden family.

“She limited what they could do in their investigation,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of the leaders of the impeachment effort, said on Fox News in June, shortly before requesting a transcribed interview with Wolf and other officials. Jordan subsequently sent Wolf a subpoena.

On Thursday, Wolf joined the ranks of other Justice Department officials who’ve said that politics had nothing to do with their decisions in the Hunter Biden case.

After the hearing, Jordan complained to reporters that Wolf had refused to answer most of the questions she was asked during the deposition., NBC News reported.

But in her prepared opening statement, Wolf broadly defended her work and said she was bound by DOJ policies not to discuss an ongoing investigation.

“At all times while serving as an AUSA, I acted consistently with the Justice Manual, DOJ policy directives, and my statutory/legal and ethical obligations. I followed the facts where they led, and made decisions in the best interests of the investigation. This includes, but is by no means limited to, policies and rules governing politically sensitive investigations, election year sensitivities, attorney search warrants, search warrant filter requirements, and professional conduct rules barring contact with represented parties.”

Wolf also revealed that she had recently left her post as a federal prosecutor, but said her decision “was long pre-dated and was unconnected to the baseless allegations against me.” She said she “agreed to stay with the office months longer than planned because of my belief that my family and I were safer when I remained an AUSA.”

Fox News did not mention this in its online story, nor did that story mention the threats Wolf said she has received as a result of the allegations against her. Instead, its story was headlined: “Jordan says former prosecutor who allegedly scuttled Hunter investigation 'refused' to answer questions.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat, attended the deposition and said that Republicans kept asking Wolf about the Hunter Biden case during the four-hour-plus deposition. Huffpost reported:

“They kept showing her documents and things that they knew that she couldn’t comment on, asking her questions about the ongoing investigation, even though they knew she couldn’t comment on it,” Ivey said in an interview with the outlet.

Ivey does not believe that Republicans deliberately incited harassment against Wolf, but he said it was “irresponsible” for lawmakers to be putting people’s names out in the public to the extent that they have.

“They know at this point that when they put people’s names out there and connect them in these types of investigations, and make suggestions about them being involved in cover-ups and things like that, they know that this is going to be a consequence of that,” Ivey said.

RELATED STORY: Right-wing terrorism fueled by Trump doesn't only focus on Democrats

Weiss voluntarily agreed to respond to the subpoena. She concluded her opening statement by observing all too accurately:

“I have no doubt that after today the threats and harassment and my own fear stemming from them will heighten exponentially. This not only scares me, but as someone who loves this country, it also breaks my heart.  We are living in a day and age where politics and winning seem to be paramount and the truth has become collateral damage.”

Trump lashes out at Laurene Powell Jobs over Atlantic piece calling him ‘fascistic,’ anti-Christian

Posted on by Charles Jay

Former President Donald Trump attacked The Atlantic and its publisher and majority owner, Laurene Powell Jobs, a billionaire philanthropist who is the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. On Saturday, Trump posted a diatribe on his money-losing Truth Social platform.

He did not specify which article in the magazine upset him so much. But last Wednesday, Peter Wehner, who served in the administrations of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. and Jr., wrote an op-ed for The Atlantic titled: “Have You Listened Lately to What Trump Is Saying?”

In the piece, Wehner described Trump’s rhetoric at recent campaign rallies as “clearly fascistic” and anti-Christian. Wehner, a Christian conservative, concluded that by supporting Trump, “far too many Christians in America are not only betraying their humanity; they are betraying the Lord they claim to love and serve.”

RELATED STORY: Donald Trump goes on odd rant about how he's not suffering cognitive decline

Trump posted this on his Truth Social platform:

It’s so good to see how badly the THIRD RATE MAGAZINE, The Atlantic, is doing. 

It’s failing at a level seldom seen before, even in the Publishing Business. False and Fake stories do it every time! They’ve got a rich person funding the ridiculous losses, but at some point, rich people get smart also. Steve Jobs would not be proud of his wife, Laurene, and the way she is spending his money. The Radical Left is destroying America!”

It’s not the first time that Trump has gone after Powell Jobs. In September 2020, Trump got angry after The Atlantic published a story by its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg that cited four anonymous sources as saying Trump called Americans who fought and died in World War I “losers” and “suckers.” 

In October 2023, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, a former Marine Corps general whose son was killed by a landmine in Afghanistan, went on the record with CNN to confirm details of Goldberg’s story. But back in September 2020, Trump posted this on what was then known as Twitter:

Steve Jobs would not be happy that his wife is wasting money he left her on a failing Radical Left Magazine that is run by a con man (Goldberg) and spews FAKE NEWS & HATE. Call her, write her, let her know how you feel!!! https://t.co/wwuoP85bQE

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2020

Trump’s tweet was responding to a post by Charlie Kirk, who has become a millionaire heading the conservative pro-Trump youth group, Turning Point. 

While Powell Jobs has not responded directly to Trump, she has put her money where her mouth is by donating generously—to the tune of more than $900,000—to Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Powell Jobs founded the Emerson Collective after she inherited billions of dollars of stock in Apple and Disney after her husband died of pancreatic cancer in 2011. In 2023, Forbes ranked her as the eighth richest woman in the U.S. with a fortune estimated at $13.4 billion.

The Emerson Collective is a social change organization dealing with such issues as education, immigration reform, the environment, health care, and media. In 2017, it purchased a majority stake in The Atlantic, which was founded in 1857 by prominent abolitionists, including writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But Wehner is no liberal. He is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative Christian who served as a speechwriter and senior adviser to President George W. Bush. But he became one of the first senior Republicans to see the dangers posed by a Trump presidency and wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in January 2016 titled: “Why I Will Never Vote for Donald Trump.” He said he would vote for “a responsible third-party alternative.”

And Wehner has only grown more alarmed about Trump’s threat to American democracy, which he expressed in last week’s op-ed. Wehner began by relating how political leaders of the Hutu ethnic group cultivated hatred toward the minority Tutsis in Rwanda by singling them out in rhetoric “as less than human,” eventually leading to the 1994 genocide in which an estimated 1 million people were killed, mostly Tutsis. He noted that one influential Hutu political leader referred to the Tutsi as “vermin.”

And Wehner said that he thought about the events leading to the Rwandan genocide when he heard Trump refer to his enemies as “vermin” in a Veterans Day speech. Trump said in Claremont, New Hampshire:

“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country—that lie and steal and cheat on elections. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

Wehner wrote:

Trump’s rhetoric is a permission slip for his supporters to dehumanize others just as he does. He portrays others as existential threats, determined to destroy everything MAGA world loves about America. Trump is doing two things at once: pushing the narrative that his enemies must be defeated while dissolving the natural inhibitions most human beings have against hating and harming others. It signals to his supporters that any means to vanquish the other side is legitimate; the normal constraints that govern human interactions no longer apply. …

That is the wickedly shrewd rhetorical and psychological game that Trump is playing, and he plays it very well. Alone among American politicians, he has an intuitive sense of how to inflame detestations and resentments within his supporters while also deepening their loyalty to him, even their reverence for him.

After citing Trump’s numerous anti-democracy excesses, Wehner called out those in the Republican Party who, though they know better, have accommodated themselves to “a profoundly damaged human being, emotionally and psychologically.”

And he also expressed alarm about the continuing overwhelming support among white evangelical Protestants, one of the GOP’s most loyal constituencies, for Trump and MAGA world. He noted that in one survey, nearly one-third of white evangelicals expressed support for the statement, “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

Wehner wrote:

It is a rather remarkable indictment of those who claim to be followers of Jesus that they would continue to show fealty to a man whose cruel ethic has always been antithetical to Jesus’s and becomes more so every day. Many of the same people who celebrate Christianity’s contributions to civilization—championing the belief that every human being has inherent rights and dignity, celebrating the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan, and pointing to a “transcendent order of justice and hope that stands above politics,” in the words of my late friend Michael Gerson—continue to stand foursquare behind a man who uses words that echo Mein Kampf.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Taking a stand for conscience, even long after one should have, is always the right thing to do.

in his op-ed, Wehner also mentioned how Trump once described the press as “truly the enemy of the people.” And he recalled that Trump once demanded that the parent company of MSNBC and NBC be investigated for “treason” over what he described as “one-side[d] and vicious coverage.” Trump’s Truth Social post on Saturday lashing out at The Atlantic and its publisher, Powell Jobs, by name has to be seen in that context. 

On Monday morning, Wehner appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” After host Joe Scarborough sharply criticized Trump’s threatening rhetoric as “evil,” Wehner piled on about the disgraced former president who remains the GOP presidential front-runner despite two impeachments and four criminal indictments. 

"There is a long history of this dehumanization, these passions consuming people, including people of faith. That's why I think there has to be such a pushback from others, to try, in a sense, to shake them and say, 'Do you know what you're doing? Do you know what you're a part of? You've jettisoned everything you claim to most cherish in your life to make inner peace with this man who is a sociopath, an unfiltered sociopath.'

"And he is undisguised … in who he is and what he wants to do. That not only pushes them away, but it brings them toward him. It is just a sickening episode in the history of American politics and the history of American Christianity."

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Hypocritical Republicans follow the new script in the wake of Trump’s latest indictment

Posted on by Charles Jay
When it comes to Republican lawmakers, hypocrisy knows no bounds, especially when it comes to Donald Trump. With rare exception, they either loudly support the MAGA cult, or are afraid to challenge it—so much so that the GOP should probably be renamed POT (Party of Trump), as in “the GOP has gone to POT.”
In the wake of Trump’s fourth criminal indictment—brought Monday by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, charging Trump and 18 associates with racketeering in a plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election—elected Republicans have predictably jumped to Trump’s defense. The Georgia indictment follows the federal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith on Aug. 1, charging Trump with conspiring to subvert American democracy by scheming to reverse Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
Incredibly, the latest talking point for Trump defenders is that if Democrats want to ensure Trump, the current GOP frontrunner, isn’t elected president in 2024, they should let it happen at the ballot box rather than in the courthouse.
This script ignores entirely that so many of Trump’s legal issues stem from the fact that he wouldn't concede that the previous presidential election had been decided at the ballot box.

Nearly three years after Americans voted him out of the White House, Trump continues to push the Big Lie. He’s even hosting a press conference Monday, promising a “complete EXONERATION” that will prove his tired claims of fraud. Trump has also backed election deniers in races for key state offices (fortunately, most have lost) that could help undermine voters in 2024. Americans have no guarantee that he wouldn’t push the replay button on the well-documented “fake electors” scheme of 2020 in the face of another loss to Joe Biden in 2024.

Nevertheless, in a Wednesday appearance on The Hugh Hewitt Show, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas embraced the script.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): “It would be much better from [the liberals’] point of view…if they try to stop [Trump]...at the ballot box…as opposed to having rabid zealots like Jack Smith or partisans like Alvin Bragg and the woman in Atlanta…try to take him out of contention.” pic.twitter.com/FChgth20Oz

— The Recount (@therecount) August 16, 2023

Transcript:

“I understand that the Democrats and liberals in the media can’t stand Donald Trump and they’ll  do anything to stop him. But it would be much better from their point of view and the point of view of the country if they try to stop him on the campaign trail and at the ballot box. And let the American people make these choices as opposed to having rabid zealots like Jack Smith or partisans like Alvin Bragg and the woman in Atlanta make these decisions for them — to try to take Donald Trump out of contention.”

Notice how Cotton dismisses and disrespects DA Willis, not even referring to her by her name or title. 

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But Cotton was not sharing an original thought. His comments echo those made by other GOP lawmakers who have rushed to use similar talking points to defend the indefensible Donald Trump, without even considering the details of the indictments against him.

As South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News on Tuesday:

“The American people can decide whether they want him to be president or not. This should be decided at the ballot box and not in a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail. They are weaponizing the law in this country. They are trying to take Donald Trump down and this is setting a bad precedent.

Are we going to let county prosecutors start prosecuting the … former president of the United States? You open up Pandora’s box to the presidency. This whole exercise of allowing a county prosecutor to go after a former president of the United States will do a lot of damage to the presidency itself over time. To my Democratic friends, be careful what you wish for.”

RELATED STORY: Lindsey Graham makes the most moronic Trump defense yet and gets slammed

It’s possible Graham’s position as a U.S. senator saved him from being among the many co-conspirators indicted by Willis. Fulton County’s Trump investigation did look into a November 2020 phone call that Graham made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where Graham attempted to cast doubt on the state’s signature-matching law for mail-in ballots.

But back to the script. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had this to say in a social media post on Xwitter:

“The indictments of Donald Trump are all about how Democrats don’t value democracy & the democratic process. Dems fear that if the voters can decide fairly in 2024 they will reject Joe Biden’s disastrous record.”

Sure, Rafael.

Cruz even went so far as to play reporter from outside the Fulton County courthouse Monday night (and promote his podcast) on Fox News’ “Hannity” show. Cruz chased soundbites with a stick mic as he waited for indictments against Trump and his co-conspirators to be handed down.  

Ted Cruz reacts to the Georgia grand jury indictments: "I'm pissed...We've never once indicted a former president...This is disgraceful...It is an abuse of power by angry Democrats who've decided the rule of law doesn't matter anymore." pic.twitter.com/ZdD0XuWjUK

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) August 15, 2023

Cruz, of course, led the Senate effort to reject electoral votes for Biden from Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021.

Meanwhile, HuffPost reports that Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead manager in the House’s second impeachment trial of Trump, ridiculed the notion that the justice system should step aside while Trump seeks a second term in 2024.

Raskin told HuffPost:

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could never prosecute anyone for trying to overthrow an election that they lost, because then they can keep trying to overthrow elections? Didn’t Ted Cruz go to Harvard Law School? Gee, you would have thought he would have had a little more faith in the American justice system than that.”

Raskin noted that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution bars from office anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. Even some conservative legal scholars have concluded that the language disqualifies Trump from holding office, though their scholarship has obviously had no effect on Trump’s 2024 campaign.

RELATED STORY: Conservatives want to bar Trump from ballot under the 14th Amendment? Get in line

Let’s check in with Republican congressional leadership!

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California again reverted to his cherished talking point about the “weaponization of government” against Trump, overlooking the fact that weaponizing the government is exactly what Trump did with Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department during his administration—and Cotton hinted to Hewitt that Democrats could expect as much from Republicans in the future. 

McCarthy was up late Monday night, and took to Xwitter when the Fulton County indictments dropped. “Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election,” McCarthy wrote. “Now a radical DA in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career.”

Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election. Now a radical DA in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career. Americans…

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) August 15, 2023

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, has put his head in his tortoise shell.

Roll Call reported Tuesday that McConnell has remained quiet regarding Willis’s indictment; Spectrum News in Kentucky noted the same on Wednesday.

Recall what McConnell said when he decided to vote to acquit Trump after his second impeachment trial in February 2021.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen,”  McConnell said. “He didn’t get away with anything. Yet.”

"We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation," he continued. "And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, issued a joint statement Monday evening.

“As a nation built on the rule of law, we urge Mr. Trump, his supporters and his critics to allow the legal process to proceed without outside interference,” they said.

HuffPost offered this reaction from Democratic Rep. Nikema Williams, whose district includes most of Atlanta.

“We fully intend to beat the former president at the ballot box but this is about accountability, giving the people who show up to vote confidence that their will be counted,” Williams said Tuesday on a press call organized by the nonprofit Public Citizen.

The last word goes to Willis, who rejected claims by Trump and other Republicans that her prosecution was politically motivated.

"I make decisions in this office based on the facts and the laws," Willis said. "The law is completely nonpartisan. That's how decisions are made in every case."

Trump lashes out at Mitt Romney for proposing plan to stop him from winning GOP nomination

Posted on (Updated by Charles Jay

Donald Trump went on yet another rant, this time against Sen. Mitt Romney on his Truth Social platform after the Utah senator wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal on Monday, proposing a plan to stop Trump from winning the GOP presidential nomination. Analysts said the plan was unlikely to succeed.

Late Tuesday night, Trump lashed out at both Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who in May declared that the GOP should come up with another candidate because Trump was simply unelectable. Trump then asked his followers to weigh in and spent hours reposting derogatory comments, in particular about Romney, The Independent reported.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

”Who is a worse Senator, John ‘The Stiff’ Cornyn of Texas, or Mitt ‘The Loser’ Romney of Massachusetts (Utah?)? They are both weak, ineffective, and very bad for the Republican Party, and our Nation. With even modestly skilled opposition, they’’ll lose their next-Election.  Who could even forget Mitt proudly marching, with full mask, down a once proud Washington, D.C. street with BLM and Rioters? Likewise there’s Cornyn, always quick to surrender to the Dems, giving them anything they want?” 

There’s something funny about Donald Trump calling Mitt Romney “The Loser”… pic.twitter.com/Nsg0E5JiKN

— Benjamin Rothove (@BenjaminRothove) July 26, 2023

In June 2020, Romney tweeted a picture showing him wearing a face mask as he marched in a protest in Washington, D.C., after the police killing of George Floyd.

Black Lives Matter. pic.twitter.com/JpXUFlxH2J

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) June 7, 2020

Romney, a Mormon, became a full-time Utah resident after he lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama. He was elected to the Senate in 2018. He was the only Republican senator to vote twice to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trials.  

The twice-impeached, twice-indicted (and counting) former president was enraged after Romney published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday headlined: “Donors, Don’t Fund a Trump Plurality.”

Romney wrote:

“Despite Donald Trump’s apparent inevitability, a baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president. That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up. For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers—large and small—are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed. That decision day should be no later than, say, Feb. 26, the Monday following the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”

Romney noted that if candidates stay in the race for a long time, they will split the non-Trump vote and hand the nomination to Trump. That’s because unlike Democratic presidential primaries, a plurality is all that’s needed for GOP winner-take-all primaries. Romney concluded by writing:

“Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation. Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb. 26, they should start doing just that.”

Well, good luck with that plan, Mitt. It’s simply too little, too late.

It didn’t take long for The Washington Post’s Philip Bump to write an analysis on Tuesday titled, “The fatal flaws in Mitt Romney’s plans to stop Trump.” Bump said there were three big problems with Romney’s latest plan to stop Trump. First, Bump said that Romney was wrong about how things worked in 2015-2016. Even though Trump was only getting about one-third of the support in pre-primary polls, it didn’t mean that two-thirds of Republicans opposed him. As the primaries proceeded and candidates dropped out, Trump kept picking up some of the support those candidates had enjoyed, until his nomination was secured.

Second, Bump pointed out that it’s unlikely that the Republicans could replay the scenario that occurred with the Democrats in 2020 when Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democratic candidates dropped out of the race to back Biden after the South Carolina primary. Bump noted that “the Democratic nominating process is more equitable for candidates than the Republican one” and that “the GOP process disproportionately rewards whoever is leading in the polls.” He said that waiting to see which Republican emerges as the most viable non-Trump candidate means letting Trump build up an early lead in delegates.

The third problem with Romney’s proposal, according to Bump, is that Trump “is much better positioned now than he was in 2015 or 2016.” National polling averages show Trump has consistently been at or over 50% since the beginning of the year. And as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign has cratered, Trump is near 50% as the first choice of Republican voters in the early states of Iowa and Nebraska. Bump concluded:

These numbers can shift, but they already undermine Romney’s argument. The idea that there is a plurality of Republicans who oppose Trump might have been true in 2016, but there’s no evidence of that now. Consolidating around one candidate seems, at least at this point, like it would not have much effect on Trump’s march to the nomination.

Matthew Dowd, who served as President George W. Bush’s chief strategist in the 2004 presidential campaign, in an interview Tuesday on MSNBC pointed out another flaw in Romney’s proposal—his emphasis on the influence of megadonors.

"It (the GOP nominating process) is controlled by small donors, and Donald Trump has shown that his ability to raise money, $30, $40, $50 at a time, and he can outraise anybody else," said Dowd. “Mitt Romney wants to signal to megadonors what to do in this process. They really don't control the process. The students are in charge of campus today, and the deans have left town. And that's what Mitt Romney doesn't seem to understand about the Republican Party."

Dowd, who is now a Democrat, did have a suggestion as to what Romney could do if he wanted to make a real difference.

"If Mitt Romney really wanted to have an effect, Mitt Romney could stand up and say, me, and Sen. [Lisa] Murkowski (R-AK) and maybe one or two others, if Donald Trump is the nominee, we're going to become independents and caucus with the Democrats in the Senate in order to hold the MAGA side of the party accountable.

"That would send more shock waves through the system and maybe get people to actually do something about Donald Trump.”

YouTube Video

In another Truth Social post, Trump managed to put the shiv into the GOP presidential primary opponent who has been most outspoken in criticizing the former president. He accused former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie of costing Romney the 2012 presidential race by embracing President Barack Obama on the Jersey Shore after Superstorm Sandy struck in October 2012. Trump wrote:

Christie was so star struck with Barack Hussein Obuma (sic), that Romney, who is a terrible politician and horrible representative of the Republican Party, never had a chance of winning the Presidency. Christie sold Romney out, making one of the worst Convention Speeches in History—Virtually not even mentioning Romney by name. Romney sat watching, in a trance—He couldn’t believe it!

Christie helped Trump prepare for the 2020 presidential debates with Joe Biden, only to become very ill with COVID-19 shortly afterward. Trump was carrying the virus during the Sept. 29 debate and was diagnosed with COVID-19 a few days later. Christie’s relationship with Trump further deteriorated after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has also blamed Christie for recommending the appointment of Christopher Wray to be the FBI director. Trump and his allies have castigated Wray and the FBI for their role in the investigation into his handling of classified documents, including the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate, that resulted in a multi-count indictment.

As for Romney, there are already signs that he is going to face a MAGA challenger should he decide to seek reelection to the Senate in 2024. In May, the mayor of Riverton, Utah, Trent Staggs, announced his candidacy for Romney’s seat, according to the AP.

“The only thing I’ve seen him fight for are the Establishment, ‘wokeness,’ open borders, impeaching President Trump and putting us even deeper into debt,” Staggs said in his announcement video that highlights Romney’s votes to impeach Trump, according to the AP.

The AP reported that other Republicans, including former U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz and state Attorney General Sean Reyes, were considering challenging Romney from the right. Romney retains widespread popularity in Utah because his family ranks among the most prominent members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many Mormons have had reservations about Trump’s moral character.

But let’s not forget that Romney sought and accepted Trump’s endorsement in 2012.

Reminder that Romney gladly accepted Trump's endorsement in February 2012, when Trump's political claim to fame was pushing racist conspiracy theories about Obama https://t.co/NKBbPCFkbC pic.twitter.com/brcVo0htjH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2022

Now Romney is clearly on Trump’s enemies list.

And look at who else has joined Trump in criticizing Romney: U.S. Rep. George Santos, who called the Utah senator “the biggest clown we’ve seen in government.” Certainly takes one to know one.

George Santos on Mitt Romney: “He’s a clown. He’s the biggest clown we’ve seen in government.” Coming from a notorious fraudster and a pathological liar, that’s a real compliment for Senator Romney. pic.twitter.com/clJW2v2Qox

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 19, 2023

Democrat Adam Frisch raises $2.6 million in 2nd quarter for 2024 rematch against Lauren Boebert

Posted on by Charles Jay

Democratic challenger Adam Frisch has raised more than $2.6 million in the second quarter for his rematch against MAGA Republican extremist Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Frisch almost pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the 2022 midterms when he lost to Boebert by a mere 546 votes in what surprisingly turned out to be the closest House race in the country. 

Frisch’s campaign, in a statement released Thursday, described the second-quarter fund-raising haul of more than $2.6 million as “shattering the record for the largest quarterly fundraising for a U.S. House challenger in the year before an election, excluding special elections and self-funded campaigns.”

The campaign said the average donation was just over $32 coming from over 81,000 individual donations from all 27 counties in the district and all 50 states. He is not accepting donations from corporate PACs.

RELATED STORY: After voting against infrastructure, Lauren Boebert dimly wonders why we don't spend more on it

In the statement, Frisch, a businessman and former Aspen city council member, thanked everyone who had donated to his campaign “to give the people of Southern and Western Colorado a representative who will take the job seriously and work across the aisle to find solutions to the problems facing the district.”

“Boebert continues to vote against the interests of her constituents while devoting her time to ‘angertainment’ antics that do nothing to help CO-3," Frisch said. "We can do better than Boebert, and thanks to our generous supporters, we will defeat her in 2024.”

Honored and humbled. Thank you to everyone of you who has donated, RT'ed, messaged, and joined this growing coalition. We are just getting started! pic.twitter.com/HxdsZVQ6c6

— Adam Frisch for CD-3 (@AdamForColorado) July 6, 2023

So far this year, Frisch has raised $4.4 million which is nearly two-thirds of the $6.7 million he raised for the 2022 campaign, much of which came in during the final weeks of the campaign after polls showed the race to be competitive.

In the first quarter of 2023, Frisch’s campaign brought in nearly $1.75 million compared to just over $763,000 for Boebert. Boebert has not yet reported her second-quarter fund-raising totals.  She raised $7.85 million for the 2022 campaign.

Frisch filed his paperwork for a 2024 rematch with Boebert on Feb. 14.

“People want the circus to stop. They want someone to focus on the district, not on themselves,” Frisch said. He added that the issues in CD3, such as water, mental health, agriculture, and the importance of domestic energy, are not “red and blue."https://t.co/5ghBlqTIwu

— Adam Frisch for CD-3 (@AdamForColorado) February 16, 2023

Boebert is considered the most vulnerable of the big-name MAGA Republican extremists in the House, most of whom represent deep-red congressional districts. Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District is rated as +9 GOP.

By contrast, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene won reelection by a 66% to 34% margin over Democrat Marcus Flowers in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District even though part of Democratic-leaning Cobb County was added to her district as a result of gerrymandering to give Republicans a bigger advantage in neighboring districts. Flowers raised more than $15.6 million in a totally noncompetitive race.

In 2022, both national parties mostly ignored Colorado's Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District, which was considered solidly Republican by nearly all election forecasters.

In April, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee listed Boebert as among the Republican incumbents it considers most vulnerable. House Republicans have also put Boebert on their list of most vulnerable incumbents.

At the time, DCCC spokesperson Tommy Garcia told the website Colorado Politics in an email:

“Lauren Boebert is more obsessed with catching headlines and being the token MAGA extremist than actually working for everyday Coloradans. Between her dangerous conspiracies and outright racist bigotry, CO-03 voters can see that Lauren Boebert is an unserious member of Congress, unwilling to go to bat for them on issues facing Colorado. Her time in Congress is ticking down.”

A poll released in April by a Democratic firm showed that Boebert and Frisch were in a dead heat in the 3rd Congressional District, Colorado Politics reported.

The Global Strategy Group's Mountaineer poll, conducted March 29-April 2 in partnership with liberal advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado, found Boebert and Frisch tied at 45% each among likely voters, with the remaining 10% split between voters who are undecided and those who say they plan to vote for someone else. Cook Political has shifted the district to Leans Republican from Safe Republican.

Despite her razor-thin victory margin, Boebert has done little to tone down her extremism in the new Congress. Boebert was among about 20 extreme right-wing House Republicans who opposed Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid until the very end. She also pushed for the House to vote on a resolution to impeach President Joe Biden—a move that McCarthy dismissed as “premature.”

Frisch still has his work cut out for him. This time he doesn’t have the advantage of surprise, and turnout will be greater in a presidential election year. As a national figure, Boebert can raise lots of funds from MAGA Republicans across the country.

The last Democrat to represent Colorado’s largely rural 3rd Congressional District was three-term Rep. John Salazar, who lost his bid for reelection in 2010.

RELATED STORIES: 

Watch this amazing breakdown of Republican antics on the House floor

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Republican disarray is somehow, miraculously, getting worse

House GOP conducts discredited Biden-Burisma probe that Zelenskyy wouldn’t do as ‘favor’ for Trump

Posted on by Charles Jay

Remember that “perfect” phone call in July 2019 that led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment? That’s the call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s newly elected president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to do “a favor” for him—namely to speak with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and announce an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, related to the Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma.

The call came just a week after the White House had ordered the State Department and Pentagon to withhold nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine that had already been authorized. Despite the pressure, Zelenskyy didn’t announce any such investigation, which might have derailed Biden’s presidential campaign.

But now Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is doing the very favor for Trump that Zelenskyy wouldn’t do. And it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for the embattled former president, who is facing a federal indictment for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. 

RELATED STORY: Trump plays victim and savior

Comer had threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for failure to turn over an FBI document created in June 2020 that contained unsubstantiated allegations from a confidential source in Ukraine about Joe and Hunter Biden. Comer said a “whistleblower” had informed lawmakers about the FBI document.

The Washington Post wrote: “It is not hard to figure out why this is unfolding the way it is unfolding. There’s an enormous appetite on the right at the moment for evidence that the FBI and Justice Department are deploying a double standard or that Biden deserves to face criminal charges just as much as former president Donald Trump.”

The allegations that Comer wants to investigate relate to the Bidens and Burisma. And this latest political stunt by Comer could backfire like others.

It’s possible that the committee is simply regurgitating Russian disinformation. The U.S. intelligence community, in an unclassified report released in March 2021 said that “Ukraine-linked individuals with ties to Russian intelligence engaged in activities targeting the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” including “alleging corrupt ties between President Biden, his family, and other U.S. officials and Ukraine.”

“a bunch of malarkey”

Wray had cited the need to protect confidential sources in refusing to turn over the document. But the FBI director eventually relented and allowed all the members of the Oversight Committee to view the redacted document, known as an FD-1023 form, usually a report about information relating to alleged crimes provided to the FBI by an informant.   

Wray insisted that the committee members view the document in a secure room known as a SCIF, for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, on Capitol Hill. The viewing occurred on Thursday, just hours before Trump broke the news about his indictment.

It’s unknown why the FBI insisted that committee members view the document in a SCIF. But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wasted no time in rushing out of the room to take notes and reveal the contents of the document to reporters.

RELATED STORY: You have to see Marjorie Taylor Greene's plan to 'take down the Deep State'

Greene and fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida both said Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly told an FBI source that he had paid $5 million apiece to Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Biden in an attempt to avoid a corruption investigation, the New York Post reported.

“It was all a bribe to get (former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor) Shokin fired,” Greene said in a video that she posted on Twitter. She concluded by saying: “We are going to continue following this investigation; we are going to continue to look into every single thing that we can uncover.”

President Biden dismissed the bribery allegations as a “bunch of malarkey.”

The claim that Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin because he was investigating Burisma has been totally debunked. The evidence shows Biden was carrying out U.S. policy when he went to Kyiv and warned then-president Petro Poroshenko that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees until Shokin was removed as prosecutor general. The International Monetary Fund also threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine because Shokin wasn’t pursuing corruption cases.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, an independent agency, has said Burisma was not even under investigation when Biden was pushing for Shokin’s removal. But the facts haven’t stopped Republicans from claiming that the FBI form proves that the Bidens took millions in bribes. 

The day after Trump’s indictment, the Murdoch-owned New York Post had a front-page cover with photos of both Biden and Trump with the headline “Hail to the Thiefs” and subheadlines “Trump indicted for taking classified documents” and “Ukraine bizman: ‘I bribed Biden for $10M.”

Trump complained that his federal indictment came on the same day that House Republicans gained access to the FBI document, so the bribery allegations got less attention in the news media.

"It's no coincidence they indicted me the very same day it was revealed that the FBI had explosive evidence that Joe Biden took a $5 billion illegal bribe from Ukraine," Trump said Saturday from the North Carolina Republican Party Convention.

questioning credibility

But as independent journalist Ed Krassenstein pointed out in a tweet, there are many reasons to question the credibility of the information provided to the FBI in the FD-1023 form that has so excited the MAGAverse.

Breaking: The Bribery allegations that Comer, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Republicans have been touting are concerning Burisma. While Republicans are making the claim that the allegations “100%” prove that Biden committed bribery, let’s take a step back and evaluate where the… pic.twitter.com/pLuWAj5vSq

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) June 8, 2023

Moreover, The Washington Post reported that the FBI and Justice Department under then-Attorney General William Barr had reviewed the allegations from the confidential informant and “determined there were no grounds for further investigative steps.”

The Post wrote:

The allegation contained in the document was reviewed by the FBI at the time and was found to not be supported by facts, and the investigation was subsequently dropped with the Trump Justice Department’s sign-off, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

Barr said the information in the June 2020 FBI form was passed along to U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, who began an investigation into Hunter Biden’s overseas business ties and consulting work in 2018. That would mean Weiss, a holdover from the Trump administration, has been in possession of the information for three years, but has not acted on it.

The Washington Post reported that Weiss is nearing a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden for relatively minor tax- and gun-related violations. The newspaper reported last year that federal agents had concluded that they had enough evidence to charge Biden with failing to report all of his income on tax filings and lying on a form for a gun purchase by denying that he had substance abuse problems.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, wrote in a statement that “much of the information provided by the source (in the June 2020 form) was information Mr. Giuliani had already provided the FBI.” Raskin added:

“We now know what I had long suspected: that Chairman Comer’s subpoena is about recycling stale and debunked Burisma conspiracy theories long peddled by Rudy Giuliani and a Russian agent, sanctioned by former President Trump’s own Treasury Department, as part of the effort to smear President Biden and help Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign.”

That Russian agent Raskin is apparently referring to is Andriy Derkach, a former member of Ukraine’s parliament who represented various pro-Russian parties. Among them was the Party of Regions headed by ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, which paid millions of dollars to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to work as a consultant.

Here’s how The Washington Post described Derkach’s background:

Derkach, a former member of Ukraine’s Russia-leaning Party of Regions, was educated at the Higher School of the KGB in Moscow before entering business and politics in independent Ukraine after the Soviet Union’s collapse. His father was a longtime KGB officer who later ran independent Ukraine’s intelligence service in the late 1990s and early 2000s before losing his position amid a scandal over Ukrainian authorities’ involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a prominent journalist.

Derkach was mentioned by name by the National Intelligence Council, consisting of the CIA, NSA, and five other U.S. intelligence agencies, in its March 2021 assessment of “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections.” The report read:

“We assess that President Putin and other senior Russian officials were aware of and probably directed Russia’s influence operations against the 2020 US Presidential election. For example, we assess that Putin had purview over the activities of Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator who played a prominent role in Russia’s election influence activities. Derkach has ties to Russian officials as well as Russia’s intelligence services.”

It added:

A network of Ukraine-linked individuals—including Russian influence agent Konstantin Kilimnik—who were also connected to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) took steps throughout the election cycle to damage US ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump’s prospects for reelection.  

[…]

Derkach, Kilimnik, and their associates sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences. These Russian proxies met with and provided materials to Trump administration-linked US persons to advocate for formal investigations; hired a US firm to petition US officials; and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials. They also made contact with established US media figures and helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020.  

That U.S. television network was One America News Network. Media Matters for America said the right-wing cable station has a “notable history of acting as a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda,” including spoon-feeding its viewers Kremlin-backed propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

giuliani and derkach

In early December 2019, as the House was moving to impeach Trump, Giuliani traveled to Kyiv with an OAN crew to work on the documentary aired in January 2020. That’s when he met Derkach for the first time, TIME magazine reported. Derkach’s press office released this photo of his meeting with Giuliani, which was posted on his Facebook page that was later banned.

"In this handout photo provided by Adriii Derkach's press office, Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for U.S President Donald Trump, left, meets in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 5, 2019 with Derkach, who was later named an "active Russian agent" by the U.S. government." https://t.co/4nQpDNkbsR

— Markus T (@dforthandbview) October 16, 2020

Derkach had caught Giuliani’s attention when he held a November 2019 press conference in Kyiv to push his conspiracy theory of “DemoCorruption,” which holds “that Biden sits atop a vast system of graft that permeates the Democratic Party and colludes with George Soros and other Western billionaires,” TIME said.

Derkach had also been pushing the Kremlin-backed theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that had interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign on behalf of Clinton. When Time reporter Simon Shuster visited Derkach in his Kyiv office in 2021, he said Derkach handed him a folder labeled “Reports About Record-Setting Bribe,” which included press clippings, printouts from Twitter, and a letter that Derkach sent to U.S. Senate members accusing Biden and his family of corruption.

“Giuliani is a very capable lawyer. I appreciated his meticulousness,” Derkach told Shuster. “When we spoke, it was very useful for me. He records everything. He writes everything down in his notebook. He never relaxes.”

(That’s the same capable, meticulous lawyer who, in July 2020, was duped by Borat—a character played by actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen—in a compromising scene filmed in a New York hotel room.)

After the OAN documentary aired, Giuliani invited Derkach to New York for further talks in February 2020. Derkach appeared on Giuliani’s podcast.

YouTube Video

In the months leading up to the November presidential election, Derkach continued his efforts to spread disinformation about Biden to Giuliani as well as Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. 

the search for something incriminating

Derkach also released a series of audio tapes of 2016 conversations between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in which the U.S. vice president linked financial assistance to firing prosecutor Shokin. Derkach claimed he got the tapes from “investigative journalists.” 

There was nothing really incriminating or embarrassing in the heavily edited tapes, TIME reported. But during the first presidential debate in September 2020, Trump repeatedly brought up the tapes, accusing Biden of threatening Ukraine with withholding a billion dollars if Shokin wasn’t removed.

In September 2020, Derkach held a news conference in Kyiv in which he claimed that Burisma’s owner Zlochevsky had laundered money through off-shore banks to pay millions of dollars to a company co-owned by Hunter Biden, Ukraine’s Unian news agency reported.

Hunter Biden did serve on Burisma’s board of directors from 2014 to 2019, and was paid about $600,000 a year, according to the New York Times. His business partner Devon Archer also served on Burisma’s board. Burisma paid them several million dollars for consulting services through their investment firm Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, Reuters reported. 

In September 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Derkach “for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election.”

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a press release: ”Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.”

Last December, the Department of Justice indicted Derkach for a scheme to violate the sanctions by allegedly engaging in bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering. Prosecutors said Derkach allegedly concealed his involvement in the purchase and maintenance of two condominiums in Beverly Hills, California. “While participating in a scripted Russian disinformation campaign seeking to undermine U.S. institutions, Derkach simultaneously conspired to fraudulently benefit from a Western lifestyle for himself and his family in the United States,” said Michael J. Driscoll, head of the FBI’s New York office.

But Derkach stands accused of even worse offenses in Ukraine amounting to treason. In January, Zelenskyy announced that Derkach and three other pro-Russian lawmakers had been stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship for choosing “to serve not the people of Ukraine, but the murderers who came to Ukraine.”

In March, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, a British think tank, issued a detailed report on Russia’s “unconventional operations” during the war in Ukraine in which Derkach figured prominently.

Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) made public information in June 2022 that Derkach had been under the control of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, since 2016, and had been receiving installments of U.S. $3 million to $4 million a month, according to the RUSI report.

“Derkach is alleged to have been tasked with establishing a network of private security firms which would assist in maintaining control in a number of towns by pathfinding and assisting Russian forces upon their arrival,” the report said.

More ominously, the report said Ukraine's intelligence agencies believe that "the main direction of Derkach's pro-Russian activities" in the years before 2022 was to influence Ukraine's nuclear energy industry "in the interests of Russia." Russia had plans to seize Ukraine’s nuclear power plants as part of the invasion, and to that end, “the Russian special services recruited employees of nuclear facilities, including from units responsible for the physical security of the facilities." 

Ukraine has issued a warrant for the arrest of Rudy’s one-time pal. 

Maybe Republicans on the House Oversight Committee should think twice before doing Trump a favor by accepting at face value unsubstantiated bribery allegations regarding Joe Biden and his family, especially if they might be recycling and spreading Russian disinformation. But they won’t.

RELATED STORY: How did Fox News cover Trump's indictment?

Trump lawyer may be edging closer to disqualification from hush-money case for conflict of interest

Posted on by Charles Jay

Attorney Joe Tacopina may be edging closer to getting disqualified from representing Donald Trump in the case about the former president’s alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The basis for removing Tacopina from Trump’s defense team is an apparent conflict of interest. It stems from the fact that Daniels consulted with Tacopina in 2018 about representing her in a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement she had signed days before the 2016 presidential election not to talk about an “intimate relationship” she had with Trump in 2006-2007.  The Wall Street Journal had already broken the story about the hush money payment in January 2018. 

On Tuesday, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin reported that the judge presiding over Trump's criminal case had ordered Tacopina to turn over his communications with Daniels and disclose what information from Daniels he has shared with Trump.

RELATED STORY: The judge went too easy on Trump's lawyer in E. Jean Carroll case

NEW: The judge presiding over Trump's criminal case has ordered Joe Tacopina to turn over his communications with Stormy Daniels & disclose what information from Daniels he has shared with Trump. https://t.co/ji7ZRZIEIt

— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) May 2, 2023

Rubin cited a story on the law360.com website that said Judge Juan Merchan will scrutinize the material handed over by Tacopina to determine whether Trump’s criminal defense attorney “is conflicted out” of the case. Here is a copy of the April 28 order issued by Merchan to Tacopina:

NEW: Judge will examine if Joe Tacopina, Donald Trump's criminal defense attorney, is conflicted out of the @ManhattanDA's hush-money case, ordering the attorney to turn over records related to his past interactions with Stormy Daniels. @Law360 pic.twitter.com/Xa7WaKVdBJ

— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) May 1, 2023

Merchan was responding to a request made in mid-April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that the judge order Tacopina to open up his law firm’s files on Daniels for the court’s scrutiny.

On March 22, about a week before Trump’s indictment was announced, Daniels’ lawyer Clark Brewster turned over to Bragg’s office records of communications between the adult film star and Tacopina. Brewster said he believed the communications show a disclosure of confidential  information from Daniels. Brewster raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest on Tacopina’s part in a letter a day before Trump’s April 4 arraignment.

In his order, Merchan gave Tacopina until May 15 to provide the requested records. He said any in-person inquiry, if necessary, would be delayed until the completion of the civil trial in federal court in which writer E. Jean Carroll is seeking damages from Trump for defamation and rape. Tacopina is defending Trump in that case.  

Back in 2018, Tacopina avoided a question from CNN host Don Lemon by suggesting that he may have attorney-client obligations with Daniels, according to the Law & Crime website. Tacopina said: “I can’t really talk about my impressions or any conversations we had because there is an attorney-client privilege that attaches even to a consultation.”

But at Trump’s April 4 arraignment, Tacopina backtracked and told Merchan: “We refused the case. I did not offer her representation. Didn’t speak to her. Didn’t meet with her. And it is as simple as that.”

However, Law & Crime noted that prosecutors in Bragg’s office cited Daniels’ book “Full Disclosure,” in which she described her brief interactions with Tacopina—before she decided to retain attorney Michael Avenatti—in an unflattering light. Avenatti is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for defrauding Daniels and other clients.

“She writes that before retaining Mr. Avenatti, she spoke with a ‘very high-powered lawyer’ who seemed to take her call just for the curiosity factor, dragged it out for a couple of weeks and didn’t seem to share her passion, so she ended it,” prosecutors summarized. “She wrote that she was ‘anxious that this guy now knew my story and my strategy for confronting (Michael) Cohen and Trump.'”

And what’s even more remarkable is that as a legal commentator for CNN back in 2018, Tacopina speculated that Trump had an affair with Daniels, and that he would have advised Trump to admit to the affair and move on. He also said the hush money payoff could put Trump in legal jeopardy because it could be looked on as an in-kind campaign contribution at the time of the election.

Tacopina also said Trump deserved to be impeached. He told WABC radio in February 2021 that Trump incited his supporters—whom he called “a bunch of idiots” and “lunatics”—to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “I don’t think he did anything criminal,” Tacopina said on WABC in February 2021 when discussing the Capitol assault. “Did I think he did something impeachable? Yes, I do.”

YouTube Video

But now, acting as Trump’s defense attorney, Tacopina is singing a different tune. He called the payment to Daniels “plain extortion” on her part, dismissed potential campaign finance violations, and repeated Trump’s denials that he ever had the affair.

“This was a plain extortion. And I don’t know, since when we’ve decided to start prosecuting extortion victims. He’s denied, vehemently denied, this affair,” Tacopina said on “Good Morning America.”.“But he had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was gonna be publicly embarrassing to him, regardless of the campaign. And the campaign finance laws are very, very clear, George, that you cannot have something that’s even primarily related to the campaign to be considered campaign finance law.”

YouTube Video

Actually, all things considered, it might not be the worst thing for Trump if Tacopina gets disqualified from his legal team for the hush money criminal case. Just look at the bad reviews Tacopina has received defending Trump in the defamation and civil rape trial brought against the former president by E. Jean Carroll. 

Here’s what Salon wrote after Tacopina’s cross-examination of Carroll:

The common wisdom in the post-#MeToo era is that bullying an alleged rape victim is a bad look. So many legal experts were surprised when Donald Trump's defense attorney Joe Tacopino tore in E. Jean Carroll on the witness stand Thursday, during a defamation and rape civil trial of the former reality TV host-turned-fascist coup leader. There wasn't a misogynist rape myth that Tacopino left untouched. His browbeating got so bad that Judge Lewis Kaplan was forced to repeatedly interrupt and reprimand Tacopino.

"Tacopina was derisive, derogatory and dismissive," former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner wrote at the Daily Beast.

"Not exactly the impression Team Trump wanted the jury to be left with on the way home," defense attorney Robert Katzberg wrote at Slate.  

Tacopino fell "into this other trap," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said on MSNBC on Saturday, "of putting the jury on her side and willing to listen to her testimony."

RELATED STORY: Trump's lawyer in defamation case leans on Samuel Alito's tired, misogynistic playbook

McConnell holds joint infrastructure event with Biden in Kentucky, infuriating MAGA Republicans

Posted on (Updated by Charles Jay

So where was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday when the House GOP clown caucus failed once again to get its act together to elect a speaker? In a move sure to infuriate Republican extremists, McConnell made a rare joint appearance with President Joe Biden in Covington, Kentucky, to tout a major project funded by the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021.

The event offered a sharp contrast to the chaos engulfing the House with the new narrow GOP majority unable to elect a speaker on its second day in control.

Biden began his remarks by thanking McConnell for providing the votes needed to get the infrastructure bill passed according to a transcript of the speeches.

"I wanted to start off the New Year at this historic project with the bi-partisan agreement because I believe it sends an important message to the entire country," Biden said. "We can work together. We can get things done. We can move the nation forward. If we drop our egos and focus on what is needed for the country."

In his remarks, McConnell said, “Even while we have big differences on other things ..  this bridge, I think, symbolizes coming together ... If you look at the political alignment of everyone involved, it’s the government is working together to solve a major problem at a time when the country needs to see examples like this, of coming together and getting an outcome … I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”

McConnell had fully expected to take over as Senate majority leader on Tuesday when the new Congress convened. But instead, Democrats ended up increasing their Senate majority by one seat in the midterms.

Unlike his spineless House counterpart Kevin McCarthy, McConnell may realize it's beneficial for party leaders to stand up to rather than appease extremist MAGA Republicans. He has blamed Trump for putting up poor quality candidates like Herschel Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania who lost potentially winnable races that left him as minority leader.

RELATED STORY: McConnell launches mad hunt for whoever whiffed Trump's impeachment then backed his loser candidates

He doesn’t want that to happen again in 2024 when the Senate map favors Republicans. Democrats must defend three seats in states won by Trump—in Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Montana (Jon Tester), and West Virginia (Joe Manchin) as well as in purple states, including Arizona (Kyrsten Sinema, now an independent).

Additionally, Trump has insulted McConnell in posts on his Truth Social platform as an “Old Crow” RINO (Republican In Name Only) and leveled ethnic slurs at his wife, Trump’s former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. And Trump lashed out at McConnell and Chao again on Tuesday on his Truth Social platform in the wake of McCarthy’s failure to win the speakership. Trump is backing McCarthy’s bid for speaker.

“There is so much unnecessary turmoil in the Republican Party,” Trump said, adding that the disorder is due in large part to “Old Broken Crow” McConnell, his wife Chao “who is a sellout to China,” and their “RINO” allies. They “make it difficult for everyone else by constantly capitulating to Hopeless Joe Biden and the Democrats.” 

Of course, McConnell is responsible for much of what ails the nation, including packing the judiciary with Federalist Society conservatives, including three hard-line Supreme Court justices. But McConnell has begun to take a stand against MAGA Republican extremists, even if his actions are too little, too late after he failed to vote against Trump in the 2021 Senate impeachment trial. McConnell incurred the wrath of Trump when he got 18 other Senate Republicans to join him in supporting the infrastructure bill in 2021. In the House, McCarthy opposed the bill, while only 13 Republicans supported it.

RELATED STORY: There are no ‘good’ Republicans, and the sooner that is universally acknowledged the better

He further infuriated MAGA Republicans when he helped the Senate pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in December, including $45 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, to fund the government in fiscal year 2023.

RELATED STORY: Santos scandal just the beginning of bind that promises to haunt Republicans straight into 2024

On Wednesday, Biden and McConnell appeared together to tout the $1.63 billion in federal grants that Kentucky and Ohio will receive to help repair the overloaded Brent Spence Bridge and build a new span adjacent to it. The bridge over the Ohio River connects Cincinnati and Covington, and is a heavily used freight route connecting the Midwest and the South.

Other speakers at the event included two Republicans, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and former Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, as well as two Democrats, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is up for reelection in 2023, and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and J.D. Vance of Ohio did not attend the event.

Biden has accomplished much more than expected with Democrats narrowly in control of Congress during his first two years in office. But after the November midterms, Republicans gained a narrow House majority and plan to try to stall Biden’s agenda and launch investigations into his family and Cabinet members.

Conservative commentators were irate about the joint appearance. Mark Levin called McConnell a “total fraud” on Twitter. Laura Ingraham tweeted, “Behold the uniparty!”

On Tuesday, McConnell broke the record for longest-serving Senate party leader whether in the majority or the minority, Politico reported. The record had been held by Democratic Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana, who served as majority leader for 16 years.

In his floor remarks to open the new Congress, McConnell actually paid tribute to Mansfield: “Mansfield was a canny strategist who knew how to rally his conference. He knew when to go to battle, and when to coordinate with his counterpart Everett Dirksen,” McConnell said. “In short, he knew how to work the Senate.”

In November, McConnell beat back a leadership challenge. Ten senators voted for Sen. Rick Scott of Florida instead of McConnell. 

Vice President Kamala Harris and other senior Biden administration officials will be blanketing the country this week to promote the president’s economic plan. On Wednesday, Harris will be in Chicago and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will visit New London, Connecticut. On Thursday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will join White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu in San Francisco, California.

Those visits are related to the following infrastructure projects funded under the 2021 bill: four moveable bridges crossing the Calumet River in Chicago; the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in New London, Connecticut; and the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Here is a video of Biden’s visit to Covington, including the speeches by Biden, McConnell and others. McConnell’s speech begins at the 29-minute mark and Biden’s at the 35-minute mark.

YouTube Video

(Updates throughout with details from the event in Covington, Kentucky.)