Month: June 2023

Right?

If you think this isn’t an assault on democracy and our system of government you would be wrong:

Florida GOP governor Ron DeSantis has plans to tear down and rebuild the Department of Justice and the FBI, even removing large parts of them and relocating FBI headquarters out of Washington D.C.

DeSantis has stated he will replace much of the personnel at the DOJ and its subsidiaries, and implement a “disciplined” and “relentless” strategy so the Justice Department resembles what the “Founding Fathers envisioned.” . . .

“We’ve seen throughout this country that the DOJ and the FBI are controlled by one faction of our society,” DeSantis said, noting that the federal agencies were “going after pro-life activists,” investigating parents at school board meetings “who are concerned about things like critical race theory and forcing kids to wear masks,” and “colluding with tech companies to censor information such as what they did with the 2020 election.”

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Chip Roy (R-TX), both staunch conservatives, have discussed with DeSantis changes that need to be made, along with former assistant attorney general Steven Bradbury and Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution. Bradbury has urged DeSantis to use his prospective executive power to implement changes without waiting for Congress. He asserted that DeSantis could “relocate the FBI headquarters” himself and then consolidate the FBI’s general counsel, public affairs, and government relations offices with the DOJ, so the FBI’s capacity to interfere political affairs would be limited while it would “beef up and emphasize the field offices.”

“If you’re performing poorly, you should be fired,” DeSantis said, limning his perspective that it didn’t matter what the level of the position was when firing someone. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a bureaucrat, or if you’re a political appointee.” He stated he would fire any DOJ employee working on a grand jury investigation leaking information to the press. “If they’re leaking,” DeSantis said, “we’re going to fire people.”

DeSantis has said he would fire FBI director Christopher Wray if elected. He also said he would direct the DOJ to target and hold “accountable” progressive prosecutors around the country who “are not prosecuting cases against violent criminals.” He has not been reticent to implement a high-level firing; last year he sent law enforcement officials to remove woke State Attorney Andrew Warren of the 13th Judicial Circuit, who was backed by Democrat mega donor George Soros, from office. . .

DeSantis would revoke the security clearances of some former intelligence officials, mentioning the scores of former senior intelligence officials who signed a public letter saying the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. He called the letter “a lie.”

Those are fascist tactics. And it is arguably worse than what Trump would do. With the latter, it’s all about himself. DeSantis wants real power to implement an agenda. And it is not a democratic one.

It is unlikely this guy will be the presidential nominee in 2024. But you never know. Trump is the front runner and if he doesn’t drop dead on the golf course or literally find himself in jail before next spring he’s probably going to win. If he doesn’t, DeSantis is probably the fall-back simply because he’s the kind of asshole they love and he’s being very careful to stay on the cult’s good side. And because Trump is considered the shoo-in for the nomination, a Desantis loss probably won’t hinder him from running again in 2028. He’s unlikely to end up like Scott Walker who famously flamed out in 2016.

From Ed Whelen on twitter:

In today’s WSJ, Judicial Watch’s Michael Bekesha claims that Presidential Records Act gives an outgoing president complete authority to “decide what records to return and what records to keep at the end of his presidency.” Bizarro World account of PRA. 

Opinion | Trump’s Boxes and Clinton’s Sock DrawerA president chooses what records to return or keep and the National Archives can’t do anything about it.

Bekesha makes wild wrong turn in his very first sentence. Indictment is *not* predicated in any way on PRA. As Andrew McCarthy  explains here classified docs Trump retained were *agency records* outside scope of PRA.

Frivolous Trump Argument No. 1: Classified Intelligence Reports Compiled by Government Agencies Are ‘Personal Records’ under the Presidential Records Act | National ReviewAgency intelligence records are not even presidential records under the PRA, much less a president’s personal records.

@mentionsPRA’s definition of “presidential records” excludes “agency records” from their scope. That of course doesn’t make them “personal records.” It instead means that PRA doesn’t govern them at all.

Insofar as classified materials that Trump retained fall under PRA, they are obviously not “personal records.” Nothing in PRA remotely suggests that former president may take and retain classified materials. PRA sharply limits possessory rights of former presidents.  

Let’s get into weeds of 2012 district-court ruling in Judicial Watch v. NARA.NARA agreed with former president Clinton that audiotaped interviews were his personal records. JW claimed that admin-law principles required NARA to take control of tapes. 

District court ruled in JW v. NARA that JW’s admin-law claim “is not redressable.” Ruling concerns limits of *judicial review under PRA*, not limits of current president’s power over classified materials retained by former president. 

It’s 1 thing for court to rule it doesn’t have authority to order NARA, against its judgment, to take control of docs taken by former president. It would be quite another to maintain that PRA prevents current president from recovering classified docs from former president. 

As court in JW v. NARA recognized, PRA assumes that a president will comply with PRA “in good faith” and thus limits “scope of judicial review.” But that in no way implies any limits on current president’s authority to act against bad-faith noncompliance by former president. 

District court in JW v. NARA notes that binding D.C. Circuit precedent in Armstrong II “differentiat[ed] between agency records and Presidential records.” That’s the key distinction that Bekesha op-ed utterly ignores. Here’s what Armstrong II says.

Lest there be any confusion on the point: Classified materials fall within scope of “agency records” under FOIA, but are exempt from disclosure obligation under 552(b)(1).  

As Andy McCarthy aptly sums it up, there is no reason to read PRA to bar prosecution of former president for mishandling national-defense info after his time as president.

Under Bekesha’s misreading of Presidential Records Act, current president has no means (other than begging) of getting former president to return wrongly retained national-security docs, no matter how sensitive. Very odd to torture PRA and 2012 ruling to reach such a result. 

Classified materials that Trump took with him were either “presidential records” or “agency records.” They weren’t “personal records,” and there is zero evidence that he ever tried to *categorize* them as such. (No, taking them doesn’t qualify.) In any event. any limitation on a *court’s* ability to review a president’s decisions in admin-law challenge under PRA can’t possibly prevent a sitting president from exercising his authority to recover classified materials. 

“A law that governs the archiving of presidential records prevents the sitting president from retrieving classified materials and prosecuting their wrongful retention” is not an argument I ever expected to hear. 

They will say anything and it’s got a ton of traction on the right wing media. It doesn’t matter whether it makes any sense. Their God says it so it’s true. And the WSJ editorial page is ready to offer up whatever drivel it takes to help legitimize this garbage.

It’s a shame that we can’t even have audio recordings of the legal proceedings against Donald Trump since the events are of great political and historical importance but it does not appear that is going to be. So it will be up to media in the courtrooms to tell us what happened.

I heard lots of bits and pieces yesterday but didn’t really have a sense of how it actually unfolded. This from Anna Bower at Lawfare is most straightforward narration of the arraignment yesterday that I’ve come across. (She waited in line for 27 hours to get in!)

When I finally enter courtroom 13-3, 27 hours later, Trump is already seated at a table on the right-hand side of the room. Overhead, a warm white light appears to shine directly on the former president, casting his orange-blonde hair in a golden hue. He is, both literally and metaphorically, in the limelight. Yet it strikes me that Trump—the man who positioned bigness as a central issue of American politics (“hugely,” “bigly,” “little Marco”)—looks unmistakably small. 

The courtroom is large, almost cavernous, adorned with slabs of creamy marble and caramel wood. Across the room, the judge’s bench towers over the rest of us. 

Trump, for his part, sits hunched between his attorneys, his trademark grandiosity exchanged for something like solemnity or melancholy.

A murmur travels down the row in which I am seated as members of the media spot the man who has played a role in bringing the famously braggadocious former president to this courtroom: Special Counsel Jack Smith. He is perched in the front row of the gallery on the left side of the room, behind the table where his colleagues from the Justice Department are seated for the arraignment. Sporting a characteristically steely expression, Smith appears to be pointedly staring at Trump as we await the judge’s entrance.

At approximately 2:55 p.m., Judge Jonathan Goodman sweeps into the room as a court officer shouts, “All rise!” Goodman, a magistrate judge, will handle today’s arraignment, though Judge Aileen Cannon—who last year made a name for herself by ruling with flamboyant error in favor of the former president who appointed her to the bench—will preside over the case.

“Please be seated, make yourselves comfortable,” Judge Goodman begins. He then proceeds to introduce the case that brings us all to the Miami federal courthouse—or, rather, that brought us here 27 hours ago: The United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta. 

The parties, for their parts, introduce themselves. On Smith’s side of the courtroom, for the Justice Department, it’s David Harbach of the special counsel’s office. He is joined by his colleagues in the National Security Division, Jay Bratt and Julie Edelstein. For Trump, it’s Chris Kise, the former Florida solicitor general to whom Trump reportedly shelled out $3 million to hire last year, and Todd Blanche, a white collar defense attorney who is also on the former president’s criminal defense team in the case brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. For Waltine Nauta, Trump’s “body man” turned co-defendant, it’s D.C.-based attorney Stanley Woodward, who recently made headlines after he reportedly alleged prosecutorial misconduct on the part of Bratt.

With introductions done, the judge is ready to arraign the former president of the United States on 37 felony counts related to unlawful retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice.

Trump’s counsel enters a plea on his behalf: “Your honor, we most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Blanche declares.

Judge Goodman proceeds to move through the customary steps of a federal arraignment proceeding. He first announces that he will be issuing a “Brady order”—basically, a court order requiring the government to provide Trump and Nauta with exculpatory evidence under the Supreme Court’s decision in Brady v. Maryland.

Then Judge Goodman turns to whether Trump will be released or held in custodial detention pending trial—the latter of which would be a near-certain outcome if this were any other defendant.

But Trump is not any other defendant, and the Justice Department has apparently recommended several extraordinarily lenient conditions of pretrial release. Judge Goodman notes that a bond recommendation from the government was attached to the summons Trump received on the day of his indictment on June 8, 2023. The government’s recommendation, he says, is that Trump should be released on a “personal surety bond with no financial conditions.” In other words: The Justice Department wants Trump released without requiring the payment of bail.

What’s more, Goodman continues, the government recommends only two of the five standard conditions of release that typically apply to defendants awaiting trial: First, that Trump will not commit any new state, federal, or local criminal offenses and, second, that Trump will appear in court as may be required. While most defendants in Trump’s position would be slapped with restrictions that, for example, prohibit travel outside of Florida without permission from the court, the Justice Department has declined to pursue such restrictions. The government does not, Goodman notes, view either Trump or Nauta as a flight risk or a danger to the community. For that reason, the government has similarly declined to pursue any special conditions of release for Nauta. 

Goodman addresses Blanche: I assume, he says, that the former president does not have “any problem” with the condition that he must refrain from violating any federal, state, or local law while on release? 

“I assure you he does not,” Blanche replies.

Then Goodman announces that he has “some questions” about the Justice Department’s recommendations. “Is the prosecution asking former President Trump to surrender his passport?” he queries. Harbach, speaking on behalf of the Justice Department, confirms that the government is not asking Trump to surrender his passport or any restrictions related to international travel. Further, Harbach continues, the prosecution is not seeking a restriction requiring Trump to avoid contact with his co-defendant, witnesses, or victims. 

Now Goodman is ready to make a ruling. As to Trump’s release, he agrees with the government’s recommendation: “I’m going to authorize a personal surety bond with no financial component,” he announces. 

But Goodman isn’t willing to be as lenient as the government is with respect to the special conditions of that release. “Despite the parties recommendations,” he says, “I’m going to impose special conditions.” Specifically, Goodman wants Trump to avoid contact with witnesses and victims in the case except through counsel. He asks the government to submit a list of witnesses and victims so that Trump would know whom to avoid by way of abiding by the restriction.

Continuing to enumerate the special conditions of Trump’s release, Goodman further says that Trump should avoid talking to Nauta about the case. He emphasizes that he customarily would require no contact whatsoever between co-defendants. But here he recognizes that Nauta works for Trump, and it would thus be “impossible” for the usual condition to apply in this case. For that reason, Goodman says the restriction will only apply to Trump and Nauta’s communications about the case itself.

Here Blanche interjects: “Your honor,” he asks, “may I be heard on the special conditions?” 

After receiving permission to continue, Blanche says that the “problem” with the conditions enumerated by the judge is that many of the likely witnesses in the case are part of Trump’s protective detail or long-time employees. “For him not to be allowed to have contact with them would in our view be inappropriate,” he stresses. To emphasize this point, he notes that the same challenges that exist in restricting Trump’s communications with Nauta similarly apply to Trump’s communications with his security detail and employees. “As one example,” he continues, a “key witness” is the President’s lawyer. For those reasons, Blanche urges the court to reconsider its restriction on communications with witnesses. 

Then Harbach, rising at the judge’s request for a response, offers the government’s view. Noting that the government is “cognizant” of the issues raised by Blanche, Harbach suggests that the prosecution come up with a non-exhaustive, narrowed list of witnesses that could “accommodate”  Blanche’s concerns. After producing the list, he advises, the government could confer with Trump’s legal team to work through any practical difficulties. Further, he says, the government would suggest that—as with Nauta—the restriction could be limited to communications with these witnesses about the case. 

Responding to these representations, Judge Goodman momentarily toys with the idea of requiring the government to make up a two-category list of witnesses: a category of witnesses with whom there should be no contact at all, and a category of witnesses with whom there should be no contact about the case. For example, he says, members of Trump’s protective detail would fall within the second category. 

Blanche, however, remains unsatisfied with this proposed arrangement. He suggests that it would be “unfair” to people who rely on Trump for their livelihoods if the government were to place them on the “no contact” list. Moreover, he says, these restrictions on communications with witnesses are not necessary because “all of these witnesses” have their own counsel, which Blanche seems to consider sufficient to guard against any improper communications with Trump. 

Harbach, whom I suspect is keen to let the court impose this restriction now that it has been proffered by someone other than him, jumps in. He wants to “reiterate,” he says, that the magistrate’s special conditions are “workable.” 

Judge Goodman agrees. Discarding the idea of the two-tiered list of no-contact witnesses that he had considered moments ago, he decides on a simpler course of action: The government should produce of list of witnesses, but the “no contact” restriction will be limited to no communications “about the facts of the case other than through counsel.” 

“So that will be a special condition,” he declares with an air of finality. 

Now, after just over 30 minutes—and 27 hours of waiting in line—the Trump portion of this typically brief proceeding is almost done. Chris Kise, finally with something to do, rises from his seat next to Trump to retrieve the form that lists Trump’s conditions of release. The court falls silent as Trump and his attorneys review the document, Blanche speaking in Trump’s ear in hushed tones as he rifles through the papers. 

“Anything further?” Judge Goodman asks after Trump’s counsel returns the form to the clerk. 

“Nothing, your honor,” Blanche replies.

“Let’s turn now to Waltine Nauta,” Judge Goodman announces. 

Now, on behalf of Nauta, Woodward rises to inform the judge that he cannot enter an appearance in the Southern District of Florida without sponsorship from local counsel. For that reason, he asks the magistrate to delay Nauta’s arraignment–though he suggests that Judge Goodman proceed with the portion of the proceeding related to the question of Nauta’s release. The special counsel’s office, for its part, notes that it does not oppose Woodward’s request.

Granting Woodward’s request, Judge Goodman orders Nauta’s arraignment continued until June 27, 2023 at 9:45 a.m. He notes that the hearing will be before another magistrate judge, Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres. And, acknowledging that Nauta lives out of state, he advises Woodward that Nauta does not have to appear in person if he signs a form entering his plea for submission at arraignment. However, he says, Woodward and local counsel filing a pro hac vice motion would have to appear in-person at the Miami courthouse. 

Moving on to the conditions of Nauta’s release, Judge Goodman notes that the government’s position with respect to Nauta’s release and recommended conditions are exactly the same as what the government recommended as to Trump. With that in mind, Judge Goodman quickly surmises that the same conditions that bind Trump should apply to Nauta.

Then, as with Trump, the court offers Nauta’s counsel a form to sign to memorialize the conditions of release. The court again falls quiet for several minutes as Woodward confers with his client. Then the marshal takes the form, returning it to Judge Goodman on the bench. As he does so, Blanche leans over toward Trump, cupping his hand to Trump’s ear as he whispers something inaudible. 

“Anything further?” Judge Goodman asks. The parties respond in the negative. 

“We’ll be adjourned,” Judge Goodman responds. “Take care.” 

Then we all rise, and Judge Goodman swoops from the room. 

Trump, rising slowly to his feet, briefly looks back toward the members of the public and media assembled behind him. Across the room, Smith keeps his eyes trained on Trump. 

They exit through separate doors.

Easy peasy. Trump gets very special treatment even as he whines like little baby about how unfair it all is.

You have to like the fact that jack Smith showed up and stared at Trump the whole time. I guess he’s not amused by Trump’s insults and threats against him and his family.

Now, at least, we know how the whole thing went down. Not that exciting but there’s a picture in our minds of the proceeding. Thanks.

And the establishment is full MAGA

Happy Birthday Donald Trump. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. A mere lad of seventy-seven, you have a very exciting year ahead of you, running for president for the third time while facing multiple felony charges in both New York and Miami (and very likely Washington DC and Atlanta too!) And you will be the center of attention once again, just the way you like it.

Yesterday, Donald Trump was arraigned on 37 federal felony charges for his decision to abscond with extremely sensitive classified documents, store them haphazardly in his wide-open beach club and then refuse to give them back to the government when asked politely to do so. Unless the special counsel’s office has found some evidence that will explain this bizarre behavior we will probably be left arguing about his motives forever. Was it a psychological need to hoard them or simply a product of his extreme mental disorganization? Did he see a monetary value in them or perhaps he had it in mind to use them as leverage for his political future, as he did when he extorted the Ukrainian president to to help him sabotage Joe Biden’s campaign? We may never know why he did it, but the government doesn’t need to prove that. It’s enough that he committed a very serious national security breach and then refused to cooperate when they offered for over a year to let it slide.

There was some nervousness as to whether his calls to the MAGA faithful to protest would result in big crowds descending on the Miami courthouse and causing a confrontation along the lines of January 6th. A motley crowd of fringe weirdos marched around dressed in costume and carrying huge Trump flags but it was very tame. The Proud Boys didn’t even turn up and they’re headquartered in Miami.

As my colleague Amanda Marcotte pointed out,{NEED LINK HERE] this is likely because there really isn’t any logical demand as there was with the “stop the steal” rally. What are they going to do, chant “Hang Jack Smith?” Moreover, Trump followers don’t protest, they gather in large numbers to see their Dear Leader speak and he clearly had no intention of holding a press conference on the courthouse steps as another defendant might do. He rolled in with a large convoy and then sneaked out the back in his SUV, a vague apparition behind the darkened windows, just two blurry disembodied hands making the thumbs up sign.

And anyway, as Marcotte points out, while nobody seems to be eager to violently storm another government building at the moment, MAGA is operating on a number of different fronts these days. The Republicans in congress have jumped into the protest breach with threats of hearings and work stoppages and blocking of nominations as a way of showing their support for Trump. Activists are writing hysterical social media posts and the right wing media is fulfilling its duty to the movement as well:

A real Fox News chyron at the end of its 8 p.m. hour. pic.twitter.com/7fUT1Nj62D

— The Recount (@therecount) June 14, 2023

As you can see, Joe Biden is the “dictator” while Donald Trump on the right appeared before an adoring crowd at his Bedminster golf club to confess to more crimes and whine incessantly about the unfairness of it all. NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman was at the event and she reported:

[B]y 2021, as investigations began into his efforts to thwart the transfer of power, he had come to see another campaign as a shield against prosecutions. But that grandeur — and legal insulation — had vanished on Tuesday. Instead, Mr. Trump’s team tried to create the sense of a man still in power. In Bedminster, he spoke with the white columns of the main house of his New Jersey golf club behind him. The indictment became another backdrop for the ongoing Trump Show.

So far the GOP presidential candidates are unable to quit Trump’s Grand Pageant either despite the fact that their rival has now been indicted on very serious charges of endangering national security. Even those voters who really want a different candidate than Trump have to see that for the pathetic weakness it is. Talk about throwing one right over the plate.

With the exception of former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie not one of them has offered a full-throated condemnation of Trump’s behavior. Most of them can’t even bring themselves to say “everyone is innocent until proven guilty and I will await the verdict of the jury.” They’re all rushing to defend him with shallow “whataboutism” and attacks on the “deep state” and alleged unequal justice that somehow is supposed to give Trump a get-out-of-jail free card.

A CBS News poll taken after the indictment found that 76% of likely Republican primary voters believe the charges are political. Only 12% believe the documents were a national security risk. 80% said that a conviction wouldn’t preclude him from being president! A Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday found that Trump got a bump, from 55% to 59% in the wake of the indictment. 538s polling average showed a similar uptick.

We all knew that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters but it’s still a little jarring to realize that the Republican party is so thoroughly Trumpified that they don’t even care if he is found to have stashed nuclear secrets next to the toilet.

It is a truism that elected Republican officials are terrified of that Trump base and that’s why they cannot bring themselves to defy him, no matter what he does whether it’s bragging about assaulting women, coddling dictators or inciting insurrections. Now he’s charged with serious violations of national security laws and they are once again falling in line behind him. But maybe that conventional wisdom is backwards now. Trump is actually in a weakened state but these GOP leaders have absorbed the self-serving Trump crusade against the “deep state” that they have convinced themselves that it’s true and/or beneficial for them to claim that Democrats have done the same and got away with it.

Here is supposedly serious national security expert Senator Tom Cotton:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) defends Trump over his indictment, arguing the documents taken to Mar-a-Lago were “of historical value”:

“What Hillary Clinton did was much worse than what Donald Trump is alleged to have done.” pic.twitter.com/8FIrpgeT6C

— The Recount (@therecount) June 13, 2023

Some, like Intelligence Committee member and former Trump critic Marco Rubio wring their hands over how terribly divisive it is and warn that Democrats have opened Pandoras box by, I guess, failing to fire the whole Justice Department for bringing charges against Trump:

"The next Republican president is going to be under tremendous pressure to bring charges and indict Joe Biden, his family, his crackhead son, whoever," said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). https://t.co/jxP7CavNKF

— The Hill (@thehill) June 13, 2023

This is yet another sign of the ideological bankruptcy of the Republican party as it goes into the 8th year of Trump dominance. It’s not that Trump’s crazy base is ungovernable and they have no choice but to go along if they want to keep their seats. The establishment has taken back the wheel and they are now driving the MAGA bus. They don’t have to do this. They want to.

One for the ages here pic.twitter.com/Wm417srIND

— jordan (@JordanUhl) June 14, 2023

Judge Michael Luttig:

There is not an Attorney General of either party who would not have brought today’s charges against the former president. 

He has dared, taunted, provoked, and goaded DOJ to prosecute him from the moment it was learned that he had taken these national security documents. 

On any given day for the past 18 months — doubtless up to and including the day before the indictment was returned — the former president could have avoided and prevented this prosecution. He would never have been indicted for taking these documents. 

But for whatever reason, he decided that he would rather be indicted and prosecuted. 

After a year and a half, he finally succeeded in forcing Jack Smith’s appropriately reluctant hand, having left the Department no choice but to bring these charges lest the former president make a mockery of the Constitution and the Rule of Law. 

I’m actually pretty sure that ship sailed when they had to issue a warrant to get the rest of the documents. After all, they didn’t charge him for any of the documents he returned, even under a subpoena. Until that warrant was issued they would have let it all go, as galling as that would have been. But he has never once in his life admitted that he did something wrong and he couldn’t do it here. He assumed that he could finesse his way through it — and he still does. And who knows? Maybe he can.

Just another word for nothing left to know

MSNBC hosts often contrast the fact-based reality here on “Earth One” with the Bizarro World inhabited by the denizens of the Trump personality cult, a parallel universe of “alternative facts.”

Dante Atkins this morning reminds Twitter that conservative reactionaries’ efforts to “control the narrative,” as it were, are about more than political spin. They are about more than creating a world where facts don’t matter. They are about imposing a reality where all knowledge is proscribed, by them, where freedom to know and do things is eliminated, where freedom means its opposite.

When they rail against “grooming,” Atkins suggests, what they really object to “is existing in public, because merely existing in public imparts knowledge that they do not want you to have.”

Right now, conservatives are hell-bent on accomplishing two things: they want to deny you the knowledge that there are any other ways to live beyond the ones they demand; and they want to forbid the knowledge of the atrocities committed by their ideological forebears.

— 🕷Dante Atkins🕷 (@DanteAtkins) June 14, 2023

when Republicans talk about "grooming" what they really mean is existing in public, because merely existing in public imparts knowledge that they do not want you to have.

— 🕷Dante Atkins🕷 (@DanteAtkins) June 14, 2023

This is the impulse behind the religious right’s home-school movement. Should parents have the right to educate their own children? Should they have the freedom to raise their children in the “hermetically sealed” equivalent of “a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall’s porch“? Sure. So long as it does not amount to child abuse.

So long as they do not insist on abusing the rest of us in the polity, on restricting not just what everyone else’s kids can learn in public schools, but confining what the rest of us understand as shared reality, and calling that freedom.

Did the GOP lose its moral compass or ever have one?

Thomas Friedman ponders how this country got to where it finds itself by posing several “what ifs”:

What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?

What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”

What if the influential evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, after Trump was caught on tape explaining that as a TV star he felt entitled to “grab” women in the most intimate places — or after Trump was found liable by a Manhattan jury of having done pretty much just that to E. Jean Carroll — declared that he would lead a campaign to ensure that anyone but Trump was elected in 2024 because Trump was a moral deviant whom Jeffress would not let babysit his two daughters, let alone the country?

It’s rare for me to waste time with a Friedman column, but then the day of Donald Trump’s indictment on 37 federal felony charges was a rare day.

How Friedman chose those three as people whose alternate moral choices might have taken the world down a branching timeline instead of this one is unknown. McConnell has zero moral authority. Melania Trump is a sphinx. Jeffress is yet another “court evangelical” whose brand of Christianity mistakes wealth for God’s endorsement. None of the three make any difference.

Watching the House and Senate Republicans whatabout 37 federal felony charges and the MAGA faithful wave their Trump and anti-Semitic banners as fiercely as ever confirmed what reporter Betsy Woodruff Swan said of Trump supporters on Tuesday: “The goalposts are on roller skates.”

Perhaps we mistake whose America we really live in. Trump’s America-first movement is the triumph of Roy Cohnism.

Marie Brenner wrote in 2017 (Vanity Fair):

For author Sam Roberts, the essence of Cohn’s influence on Trump was the triad: “Roy was a master of situational immorality . . . . He worked with a three-dimensional strategy, which was: 1. Never settle, never surrender. 2. Counter-attack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deeply into the muck you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.” As columnist Liz Smith once observed, “Donald lost his moral compass when he made an alliance with Roy Cohn.”

Smith assumes Trump ever had one. Trump’s psychologist niece Mary might dispute that.

Media Matters’ Kat Abughazaleh caught “token liberal” Jessica Tarlov’s attempt to pentrate the smoky cloud of bullshit Trump supporters have spewed to distract from the charges Trump faces. Her “The Five” co-pundits would not stand for it.

Fox News' token liberal Jessica Tarlov tried to bring level-headed analysis about Trump's arraignment to the table.

Her fellow co-hosts were not having it: pic.twitter.com/R48ffRGXWu

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) June 13, 2023

Always declare victory, never admit mistakes, always counterpunch, etc. Getting what you want is the highest morality. Might makes right.

We are in a dark place, a place of peril. On this Friedman and I agree:

So [Trump] keeps pushing and pushing our system to its breaking point — where rules are for suckers, norms are for fools, basic truths are malleable and men and women of high character are banished.

This is exactly what would-be dictators try to do: Flood the zone with lies so the people trust only them and the truth is only what they say it is.

It is impossible to exaggerate what a dangerous moment this is for our country.

But not a moment without hope. The majority of Americans still recoil at Trumpism. Now, if they will only get off their asses to stop it. Leaving the job to the courts is not enough.

These cases are not the same

If anyone things that Trump is being treated less fairly than Pence and Biden they need to realize that Trump is not being prosecuted for any of the highly sensitive documents he gave back to the government, first on his own and then in response to the subpeona. He is only being charged for the documents they found later when they issued a warrant.

Biden and Pence have given back all the documents, no subpoena and no warrant necessary. If they were indicted for retaining those documents they would be being held to a higher standard than Trump.

Read this piece by Eric Levitz which shows that the DOJ has actually given Trump an easier time than anyone else who did what he did. He runs down all the reasons the Clinton, Biden and Pence cases and makes the same point I made above. He then cites a particular case of an average citizen:

[I]t is helpful to contrast the DOJ’s treatment of Trump with its handling of Asia Janay Lavarello, a former civilian employee of the Defense Department.

In 2020, Lavarello was on assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, where she had been researching a classified thesis. Her work drew on other scholarly research that was also classified. She had been conducting the research in a secure information facility at the embassy until COVID-19 shut it down. Shortly thereafter, she brought three classified theses back to her hotel room. That night, she held a dinner party at which a guest discovered the classified documents and confronted her about them. She returned the documents to a safe at the embassy two days later but failed to return them to the secure information facility specifically. For this, the DOJ charged Lavarello with unauthorized retention of classified documents and sought to put her in prison. Ultimately, they reached a plea bargain that put her behind bars for three months.

Compare this to the conduct for which the DOJ did not charge Trump: Upon leaving office, the ex-president brought more than 300 highly classified documents to his private residences, including top-secret materials detailing atomic secrets and national security vulnerabilities; he retained these documents for about a year despite government requests for him to return them. His own public statements indicate that his retention of those documents was willful, and he repeatedly expressed a sense of entitlement to their possession, saying that, as president, he had the power to declassify those materials “even by thinking about it.”

Nevertheless, as late as January 2022, the Justice Department was still giving Trump the opportunity to avoid charges by returning the documents he had taken. The indictment released last week makes this point clear.

In January of last year, Trump returned 197 classified documents to the federal government. Despite his willfully retaining those documents for months, the federal indictment released last week does not charge Trump in connection with any of them — which is to say, the DOJ gave Trump a pass on 197 potential counts of willful retention of national defense information. Instead, it charged him with only 31 counts, each corresponding with a highly classified document that Trump knowingly withheld from the government in January 2022 and the FBI later obtained.

To review: Lavarello removed three classified dissertations from a secure information facility amid a pandemic that prevented her from accessing that facility. She kept the documents in her hotel room and did not deliberately show them to anyone. She then voluntarily returned them to a locked safe at the embassy within a matter of days. The DOJ chose to charge her and seek a prison sentence.

Trump, meanwhile, removed 197 highly classified defense documents from the White House. There is reason to believe he might have shared some of those documents with private citizens since he has been caught on tape sharing other highly classified documents in his possession with friends. He refused initial requests to return the documents, and he retained them for about a year. The DOJ chose not to prosecute him for doing so since he did eventually return them.

There is no substantive reason why Lavarello’s removal of three classified dissertations from an embassy for a few days deserves to be punished more harshly than Trump’s retention of 197 highly classified documents for months. It is clear, therefore, that the Justice Department prosecuted the ex-president much less aggressively than it would an ordinary citizen under the same circumstances. To the extent that political considerations influenced the DOJ’s handling of the case, they led the department to extend Trump extraordinary opportunities to extricate himself from legal peril so as to avoid the politically inflammatory spectacle of his prosecution.

Yes Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned today. But if you were to watch right wing media you’d think it was Joe Biden who was facing a criminal trial. Don’t kid yourself. That story is happening right alongside Trump’s impending trial.

Philip Bump takes you through it just so you know what they’re braying about if you happen to hear it:

The news release went out on May 3 from the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee.

“Information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national,” it alleged, quoting committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

A letter from Comer and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to the FBI, seeking the release of documentation of a June 2020 interview, wasn’t similarly hedged. The document, it claimed, “describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”

Over the next month, Republicans pressed the FBI to release the form publicly. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in contempt. Grassley and he appeared on Fox News and other right-wing media over and over to use this pressure campaign to re-elevate the allegation they’d featured at the outset. Eventually, the FBI made the document available for members of Congress to view, redacting information about the confidential source who had been interviewed.

But despite incremental new revelations about the form and about the push for the form to be released, nothing about the situation has changed from that first news release. Republicans are hyping a secondhand allegation from a single source — an allegation that was in the hands of Attorney General William P. Barr’s Justice Department in mid-2020 without leading to criminal charges or, it seems, any specific investigation.

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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. That provides the space that Comer and Grassley are filling, running far ahead of their extremely limited evidence.

According to reports from legislators who’ve seen the interview document — including Comer and Grassley, who say they’ve seen an unredacted version of it — the allegation is that an executive with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma offered bribes of $5 million to both Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Burisma, you’ll recall, was at the center of Trump’s first impeachment. Trump wanted Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe Biden (who he correctly expected to be his 2020 opponent), claiming that Biden tried to block a corruption investigation into the company to benefit his son. This was debunked at that point, with Biden’s calls for the ouster of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin being rooted in Shokin’s not aggressively prosecuting corruption. There’s no evidence that Shokin was investigating Burisma, and there was an international consensus that he needed to go.

Both because Trump was facing impeachment and because his team believed that Biden was vulnerable on the issue, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani continued to seek derogatory information about Biden in Ukraine. This was worrisome to federal law enforcement, which warned the Trump White House that Giuliani might be a vector for Russian misinformation. (One of his sources was later added to a sanctions list during the Trump administration for being linked to Russian intelligence.) At the beginning of 2020, Barr established a process for vetting information about Ukraine, clearly in part because of concern that Giuliani’s information would trigger wild goose chases. The U.S. attorney responsible for vetting the information, Scott Brady, met with Giuliani soon after.

Reporting suggests that the bribery allegation was brought to the FBI’s attention by Giuliani. In an interview on Fox News this week, Barr claimed that the allegation came not from Giuliani but from the FBI itself, but that may be a semantic distinction between how it got to the FBI and how it got to Brady.

Regardless, the bureau spoke with a confidential source in June 2020 about the allegation, generating the FD-1023 document Comer and Grassley are seeking. That source, whose identity the bureau is eager to protect, is someone who had been paid by the bureau for information in the past and is considered credible — though that of course doesn’t extend to the Burisma executive with whom the source spoke. It’s the executive who alleged the bribery, money purportedly offered in part to halt the investigation of Burisma by Shokin.

An investigation, remember, that doesn’t appear to have existed.

There are other problems with the story, too. The House Oversight Committee has been breathlessly dissecting Hunter Biden’s finances in an effort to build out a story about the corruption of “the Biden family.” (There’s no evidence of payments to Joe Biden, hence the blurred allegation against the family broadly.) The committee has detailed how payments from Chinese actors, for example, appear to have been divvied up between people linked to Hunter Biden or his uncle.

Yet there is apparently no evidence of a $5 million payment to Hunter Biden. That Comer has spent the month fighting with the FBI about releasing an unredacted version of the interview form instead of, say, finding the $5 million in the voluminous financial documents his committee possesses is telling.

So is the fact that no charges for bribery were brought against Joe or Hunter Biden. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Oversight Committee Democrats said that the bureau, in showing the document to members of Congress, “informed the Committee, in no uncertain terms, that this assessment was closed in August 2020 after it failed to identify sufficient evidence to justify further investigation.”

On Fox News, Barr claimed that there was no further investigation by Brady because that wasn’t Brady’s mandate. He and committee Republicans have suggested that the interview became part of the ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden in Delaware, though there’s no evidence that Biden is under investigation for being party to any sort of bribe.

On Monday, Grassley attempted to inject a new wrinkle into the discussion.

“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses fifteen audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” he said from the floor of the Senate. “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden.”

“What, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?” he added.

It’s really important to remember that, while this is new information — purportedly redacted from the version of the document shown to Congress — it is not new evidence. This is the same alleged executive talking to the same FBI source in the same document. In other words, the claim that these recordings exist comes from the same person who alleges that the bribe was paid. It is of no more credibility than the original claim.

It also fairly obviously undercuts Grassley’s point. If there were recordings, that would seem to suggest that the FBI would have even more grounds to move forward with a probe — without appearing to have done so. Grassley is arguing that, given the breadth of allegations from the executive, it’s bizarre that the FBI didn’t investigate. The more obvious conclusion is that the claims were not the smoking gun Grassley is presenting.

Even Comer pumped the brakes on it. He was asked, during an interview on Newsmax, if the recordings were “legit.” He confirmed that the recordings were mentioned in the 1023 — but “we don’t know if they’re legit or not” and that they were simply claimed to exist by the executive with whom the FBI source spoke.

Grassley did something similar when a Fox News host asked him whether the document was “damning” for President Biden.

“There’s accusations in it, but that’s — it’s not for me to make a judgment about whether these accusations are accurate or not,” he said. “It’s … my job to make sure the FBI is doing their job.”

As journalist Marcy Wheeler notes, Comer and Grassley appear to be engaged in precisely what Republicans have long alleged about the dossier of reports compiled about Trump by former intelligence officer Christopher Steele: elevating questionable allegations from foreign sources that are transmitted by a paid FBI informant. But the target of these allegations is Biden, so they’re presented with a default credulousness.

It is unquestionably possible that some element of the allegation is true. We know that Hunter Biden was paid by Burisma to sit on its board — almost certainly because of his last name — and it’s not hard to imagine that he was involved in some even sketchier transactions. It is also possible that the then-vice president was also involved, though the allegation as it is currently understood doesn’t make much sense.

But it is also the case that Comer, Grassley and their allies are more interested in elevating the allegation than evaluating it. Since that news release at the beginning of May and its initial claim that Biden was bribed, the allegation has not gotten more credible. It was likely tied back to Giuliani? The FBI had it and didn’t pursue a probe? Despite there being “tape recordings”? And Oversight never got wind of the alleged $5 million payment?

Republicans have an easy response to this: The FBI is corrupt and anti-Trump. But that’s just begging the question.

Update: Two members of Congress who have seen the 1023 told the New York Post that the executive at issue was Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky. In 2020, former Giuliani aide Lev Parnas — then himself under indictment on federal charges — told Politico that Giuliani had met privately with Zlochevsky in mid-2019, in the middle of Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden.

“Asked to detail any contacts he had with Joe Biden from 2013-2019, and whether Hunter ever facilitated any meetings,” Politico’s Natasha Bertrand wrote, “Zlochevsky replied: ‘No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement.’ “

Giuliani, Parnas said, was furious at that answer.

The right, and that includes the House DOJ and Senators like Chuck Grassley, are pimping this ludicrous non-scandal. It’s done to appease the cult so they can believe that Biden will soon be in the docks himself. But it’s nuts. I only share this with you so that in casesomeone confronts you with it you’ll understand their hysterical babble.

Charlie Kirk: "I'm going through my refrigerator and I'm starting to ask the question: Was this ketchup bottle woke? Is this mustard? I mean, literally." pic.twitter.com/ncSHJR12v3

— Media Matters (@mmfa) June 13, 2023

I just thought you should know that the cult has other important business to attend to.