Month: July 2023

He promises to “expunge” Trump’s impeachments

The impeachments happened whether Trump’s bootlickers pretend to “expunge” them or not. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from demanding that Kevin McCarthy demonstrates how servile he is anyway:

After House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested on national television last month that Donald Trump may not be the GOP’s best presidential nominee in 2024, the former president was furious — and wanted the California Republican to rectify the slight immediately.

“He needs to endorse me — today!” Trump fumed to his staff on his way to a campaign event in New Hampshire, according to people familiar with what happened. McCarthy, after all, had indicated to Trump’s team that he would do so eventually. Why not clean up the mess and announce his support now?

But the House GOP leader — who has felt compelled to stay neutral during the primary so as to not box in his own members — wasn’t ready to do that. To calm Trump, McCarthy made him a promise, according to a source close to Trump and familiar with the conversation: The House would vote to expunge the two impeachments against the former president. And — as McCarthy would communicate through aides later that same day — they would do so before August recess.

That vow — made reflexively to save his own skin — may have bought McCarthy some time, staving off a public war with the man who almost single-handedly rehabilitated his entire career and ensured he won the gavel in January. But it has also put McCarthy in a bind — and Trump world plans to hold him to his promise.

Several moderate House Republicans are loath to revisit Trump’s impeachments — especially the charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (In fact, though only 10 of their GOP colleagues voted with Democrats to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 attack, several more wanted to but were too worried about threats to their offices and families to take the plunge.)

But should McCarthy follow through, those members won’t have a choice. Given the speaker’s tenuous position with Trump allies in the House and the threat of his ouster looming over every move, McCarthy has no real option but to bow to the former president’s whims — even if it means putting vulnerable frontliners in a precarious political position.

The speaker has denied that he made such a promise to Trump at all, according to one Hill aide. From McCarthy’s point of view, he merely indicated that he would discuss the matter with his members — putting him and Trump on a collision course.

McCarthy’s own leadership team is divided on the matter.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who many believe is angling to be Trump’s running mate should he win the nomination, has pushed for an expungement vote. In late June, she teamed up with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on a resolution that would’ve cleared Trump of the impeachment charges.

But in a recent leadership meeting, moderate Republicans pushed back on the idea, arguing that any expungement vote would be poisonous to the reelections of members in Biden-won districts — particularly given that polling suggests most Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions on Jan. 6.

It’s also unclear whether an expungement vote even has enough support to pass the House, given the GOP’s slim five-seat majority. Two sitting Republicans — Reps. David Valadao (R-Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) — voted to impeach Trump, and are unlikely to support expungement.

Then, beyond the skittish moderates who’d prefer not to take the vote, there’s the clutch of constitutionally minded conservatives — who, we are told, have privately voiced skepticism that the House has the constitutional authority to erase a president’s impeachments.

Some senior Republicans — even those who back Trump — worry that an expungement vote would expose divisions in their ranks and only embarrass Trump if the effort comes up for a vote and loses.

“I’m for Trump,” one senior GOP member tells Playbook. “The problem is: If you have an expungement, and it goes to the floor and fails — which it probably will — then the media will treat it like it’s a third impeachment, and it will show disunity among Republican ranks. It’s a huge strategic risk.”

For now, some in McCarthy’s leadership team are under the impression that a vote won’t happen, with one person calling it “too divisive.” And though McCarthy has publicly backed the push, senior Republicans speculate that his words were merely an attempt to curry favor with the former president.

“I think it’s more of a messaging thing to please Trump,” one senior GOP aide said.

Supporters of expungement argue that despite members’ private reservations about the vote, they will fall in line if McCarthy puts the resolution on the floor. It’s not a far-out theory: most congressional Republicans will go to great lengths to avoid anything that can be seen as a public rebuke of Trump.

Regardless of its likelihood of passage, Trump world plans to hold McCarthy to account on his promise. While the former president knows he is unable to stop the myriad indictments expected to come his way, he believes the House has the power to erase the stain of impeachment from his name.

That vote, in fact, could become even more important to him given that special counsel Jack Smith appears ready to criminally charge Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

We’re told that Trump brings up the matter in every call he has with McCarthy, prodding the speaker about when he will bring expungement to the floor. McCarthy, however, has already pushed back the timeline. Perhaps realizing how tough such a vote will be, he recently told Trump’s team that the House will vote by the end of September.

But even that timeframe doesn’t look easy: Lawmakers are in session just 12 days that month, and will be working overtime to try to clear a host of controversial spending bills that will surely split the party.

Meanwhile, in Trump’s inner circle, frustration with McCarthy is boiling. The former president and his team think the speaker should have endorsed him months ago, and are befuddled that he has not. Most recently, McCarthy told the Trump team that he can’t back Trump, because he wants to look neutral while the House clears his name on impeachment.

But Trump’s team will only buy that excuse for so long. And if McCarthy doesn’t hold the vote soon, they warn, there will be consequences.

I think McCarthy needs to call for that vote. It will either lose because the GOP moderates refuse to go along in which case Trump gets furious and there is hell to pay or it passes and every Democratic challenger in those swing districts use that vote to illustrate how Trump owns them. It’s a good plan. Go for it.

Think back 10 years and imagine what you would have thought if you saw this conversation on CNN:

Advisors to former President Donald Trump have told him the only way he can avoid facing jail time is to win the 2024 presidential election, according to sources who’ve spoken to New York TimesNYT -2% reporter Maggie Haberman. “His advisors, in private conversations, have been pretty blunt,” Haberman said Wednesday on CNN This Morning. “They see it as he has to win the election and that is how he guarantees that he does not face jail time.”

“The fact that they are looking to an election to the highest office in the land as some kind of insurance policy or an out for him really affects or colors the entire presidential race,” Haberman said.

Good lord. And his followers call themselves patriots.

Trauma, bleeding, trickery and abandonment

Unintended consequences ain’t necessarily unforseen consequences. Just yesterday, a friend mentioned fallout from a GOP effort in North Carolina to change how school board members are elected. The change would in theory make it easier to elect Republicans either by making the elections partisan or (in my county) by redrawing school district lines. Try explaining the latter to kids who suddenly find themselves assigned to different schools. Partisan-inspired chaos ensues.

Fallout from the Dobbs decision was not unforseen either. GOP-led states are rushing to ban abortion. Women’s lives are put at risk. In Texas, for example (The New Republic):

Women who suffered medical complications after being denied abortions in Texas are now having to relive the trauma of their injuries and dead babies as they plead their case against the state. Welcome to the Republican Party’s America.

On Wednesday, women who are part of a 15-person (both patients and doctors) lawsuit against the state of Texas, returned back to court to challenge the state’s extreme abortion ban.

Texas implemented a near-total abortion ban in September 2021, even before Roe v. Wade was overturned by a Supreme Court now found to have nearly half its jurists embroiled in scandal and corruption. The ban prohibits anyone from getting an abortion unless their life is at risk—no exceptions for a fetus developing an anomaly that would prevent it from surviving past birth. Doctors face life in prison and fines of up to $10,000 if they are found supporting an abortion procedure.

The women challenging the ban were essentially forced to relive their trauma, and at one point, the court was forced to take a break after a plaintiff began vomiting on the witness stand while recounting her own experience.

Samantha Casiano vomited while retelling the story of how she was denied access to an abortion after her baby was diagnosed with anencephaly, a birth defect in which a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull. Casiano said she had to watch her baby die after giving birth.

Yes, there was more.

One of the lead plaintiffs, Amanda Zurawski, testified that she was initially excited to become pregnant. But her water broke prematurely at about 18 weeks, meaning the fetus wouldn’t survive—and her life was at risk if she couldn’t get an abortion. Under the repressive new laws, a Texas hospital refused to help her until she became much sicker. Thanks to the Republican-made delay, Zurawski developed sepsis. People who suffer from septic shock have a mortality rate of up to 40 percent, and even after recovering, sepsis still carries a fatal risk.

In other words, Republicans are directly responsible for Zurawski’s life being on the line even today.

This is your country on patriarchal GOP tribalism.

This week’s installment of Rachel Maddow’s Déjà News recounts the grinning cruelty of southern conservatives using nonwhite people as pawns in a political stunt. It involved using buses to internally deport them to northern cities where they’d be abandoned, penniless, propertyless, and without support. No, not now. Not Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas. This happened in the 1960s to Black victims. Today it’s happening with immigrants.

There are photos.

Efforts to target minority voters as early as June 2020

“Jack Smith is going to accuse Donald Trump of voting fraud,” Marcy Wheeler wrote Wednesday.

The Department of Justice investigation into Donald Trump’s election-related crimes churns slowly. But it does churn. Trump has been named as a target of the investigation into election interference in 2020. Not by Russians as in 2016, but by Americans. Lots of them (Washington Post):

Trump disclosed on Tuesday he had been named as a target in special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of election interference. Hours later, the attorney general of Michigan announced she had issued forgery charges against 16 Trump supporters who had posed as the state’s presidential electors. A county prosecutor in Georgia is preparing to present a sweeping case to a grand jury, with indictments possible within weeks. And the attorney general of Arizona in recent months has ramped up a probe into attempts to undermine the 2020 results in that state.

The proliferation of charges and expected charges marks the most extensive effort yet to hold accountable those who attempted to help Trump remain in office after he lost the election. And because they come as the former president makes vindication a central pillar of his 2024 campaign, experts say they will mark an extraordinary test of the nation’s criminal justice system and political institutions.

One aspect of the investigation that even Wheeler missed earlier, she admits, was mentioned in Trump’s target letter: 18 USC 241, Conspiracy against Rights. Penalties for conspiring deprive Americans of their Constitutional rights include fines or imprisonment of “not more than ten years, or both” in cases not involving death, “kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.” The statute dates from the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, the New York Times explains:

Congress enacted that statute after the Civil War to provide a tool for federal agents to go after Southern whites, including Ku Klux Klan members, who engaged in terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved African Americans from voting. But in the modern era, it has been used more broadly, including in cases of voting fraud conspiracies.

This morning Wheeler admits that this civil rights charge was in view the entire time but the press missed it. She did too. Trump and his allies attempted to “discount the votes of 81 million Biden voters,” and that effort began well in advance of January 6.

Smith has issued subpoenas to multiple local election officials “in the predominantly minority counties that Democrats need to win swing states, going back to June 2020, well before the election itself. By December 2022, DOJ was taking overt steps in an investigation that even before the election Trump had plans targeting minority cities,” Wheeler explains this morning:

And there may have been a still earlier sign of this prong of the investigation, from the NYT itself. Alan Feuer (with Mike Schmidt) reported in November that prosecutors were investigating Stone’s rent-a-mob tactics, going back to 2018 but really going back to the Brooks Brothers riot in 2000, the same fucking MO Stone has adopted for decades, using threats of violence to make it harder to count brown people’s votes.

Evidence from the Proud Boys trial indicates that the group was “standing by” to deploy to state capitols and voting centers to intimidate vote counters on Trump’s behalf immediately after the election went Joe Biden’s way. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, found guilty of seditious conspiracy in May, wrote in a Nov. 8, 2020 text that his instructions were coming from “the campaign.”

This investigation has been happening. It’s just that reporters — myself included — didn’t report it as such.

It’s not just the epic mob Trump mobilized on January 6, an attempt to use violence to prevent the votes of 81 million Biden voters to be counted. It was an effort that went back before that, to use threats of violence to make it harder for election workers like Ruby Freeman to count the vote in big cities populated by minorities.

One reason TV lawyers didn’t see this is they have always treated Trump’s suspected crimes as a white collar affair, plotting in the Willard, but not tasing Michael Fanone at the Capitol.

But it is also about race and visibility.

January 6 was spectacular, there for the whole world to see.

But those earlier mobs — at the TCF center in Detroit, the State Farm arena in Atlanta, Phoenix, Milwauke — those earlier mobs were also efforts to make sure certain votes weren’t counted, or if they were, were only counted after poorly paid election workers risked threats of violence to count them, after people like Ruby Freeman were targeted by Trump’s team to have their lives ruined.

And we, the press collectively, didn’t treat those efforts to disqualify votes as the same kind of crime, as part of the same conspiracy, as Trump’s more spectacular efforts on January 6.

Trump specifically targeted counties based on the race of the voters he saw there, Wheeler adds:

Everyone in MI knows — and I’m sure Trump knows — he lost MI because he lost Kent County, which as more young people move into Grand Rapids has been getting more democratic in recent years. That Trump targeted Detroit and not Kent (or Oakland, which has also been trending increasingly Democratic) is a testament that this was about race.

If Smith can prove it — and it appears he hopes to — the white mans’ party that has organized itself for decades around allegations of widespread fraud by black and brown voters will see its top leader(s) charged with doing exactly what they claim their opponents do.

How novel.

FWIW

Quinnipiac '24 GOP poll:

Trump 54%
DeSantis 25%
Haley 4%
Pence 4%
Christie 3%
Scott 3%
Ramaswamy 2%
Hurd/Suarez/Burgum/Hutchinson/Elder 0%

—
Dems

Biden 71%
Kennedy 14%
Williamson 7%

—
General Election

Biden 49%
Trump 44%https://t.co/DQqLOF6hnc

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) July 19, 2023

Not bad. It’s too close for comfort but we have a long way to go. We just have to keep our heads down and plow ahead.

I will never understand this:

BIDEN

Americans give President Biden a negative 38 – 54 percent job approval rating, compared to a negative 41 – 54 percent job approval rating in June.

Registered voters give him a negative 40 – 53 percent job approval rating compared to a negative 42 – 54 percent job approval rating in June.

Americans were asked about President Biden’s handling of…

the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 43 percent approve, while 48 percent disapprove;

foreign policy: 39 percent approve, while 53 percent disapprove;

the economy: 37 percent approve, while 58 percent disapprove.

I guess a lot of people just hate the guy no matter what he does. But they’ll vote for him anyway? What?

It’s kind of depressing because it shows that a whole lot of Democrats are completely clueless about what’s actually happening and are as deluded as the cultists. Hooray for tribalism, I guess…

He’s not good at this

Now excuse me while I try to destroy the Orlando economy because Mickey Mouse disagreed with me once. https://t.co/EqkXvuWwXA

— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 18, 2023

Jonathan Chait points out that he just refuses answer questions and he does it so obviously that even gullible GOP voters can see it:

Florida governor Ron DeSantis abandoned his policy of only speaking to Republican Party–aligned media by giving an interview to CNN’s Jake Tapper. Unfortunately, taking questions is just one part of doing an interview. The other part is answering them. DeSantis conspicuously refused to answer any of the most newsworthy questions posed to him.

Tapper asked DeSantis if he would sign a national six-week abortion ban like the one he signed in Florida: “Yes or no, will you support that?” DeSantis did not say yes or no:

So I’ve said I’m pro-life, I will be a pro-life president, um, and we will support pro-life policies. Um, at the same time, I look at what’s going on in the Congress, and I don’t see them making very much headway. I think the danger from Congress is, if we lose the election, they’re gonna try to nationalize abortion up until the moment of birth.

Tapper asked if he would stop arming Ukraine or stop giving it financial support. DeSantis did not answer that, either. Instead, he framed the question as being about sending American troops there. “A vital national interest means we would send troops to Ukraine.”

He eventually said, “I am not gonna diminish our stocks, and not send to Taiwan, and not gonna make us less capable to exigencies. And you have to care more about your own border than you do about foreign borders.” That sounds like a promise not to continue arming Ukraine, since any weapons sent to Ukraine would by definition come at the expense of domestic weapons stocks. But his answer was evasive rather than straightforward.

Tapper asked if he would push Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make territorial concessions to end the war, and DeSantis said only that “the goal is gonna be a sustainable peace that does not reward aggression.”

DeSantis’s most overt dodge came when Tapper asked if he thought Jack Smith should indict Donald Trump if he finds evidence of criminality. DeSantis just refused to say:

Tapper: “If Jack Smith has evidence of criminality, should Donald Trump be held accountable?”

DeSantis: “So here’s the problem: this country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences. I think that’s wrong. Alvin Bragg stretched the statute in Manhattan to be able to try to target Donald Trump. Most people, even people on the left, acknowledge if that wasn’t Trump, that case would not have likely been brought against the normal civilian. And so you have a situation where the Department of Justice/FBI have been weaponized against people they don’t like. And the number one example that happened to be against Donald Trump with the Russia collusion. That was not a legitimate investigation. That was being done to try to drive Trump out of office. And so what I’ve said, as President, my job is to restore a single standard of justice, to end weaponization of these agencies. We’re going to have a new FBI director on Day One. We’re going to have big changes at the Department of Justice. Americans across the political spectrum need to have confidence that what is going on is based on the rule of law, not based on what political tribe you’re in.”

Tapper followed up by noting Smith has prosecuted Democrats, too. “Are you saying that if he finds evidence of criminality,” he repeated, “he should not charge Donald Trump anyway?” DeSantis dodged again:

“What I’m saying is that, if you’re going after somebody on the other side of the political spectrum, if you’re stretching statutes to try to criminalize maybe political disagreements, that is wrong. Now, look, this is all speculation. But I think we’ve gone down the road in this country of trying to criminalize politics rather than say, okay, if you don’t like somebody then defeat them in the election rather than use the justice system.

On all three questions, DeSantis chose to answer a different and much easier question than the one he was asked. Rather than say if he would sign a national abortion ban, he said he opposed a national law to protect abortion through birth. Rather than say whether he would send military and economic aid to Ukraine, he said he wouldn’t send troops there (which the Biden administration is also not doing).

And when asked if Smith should prosecute Trump if he has evidence of criminality, DeSantis talked about Alvin Bragg and insinuated Smith is charging Trump because he’s a Republican without directly saying either that Trump is innocent or that he should be immune from prosecution.

Trump is very good at refusing to answer questions. His technique is to ramble incoherently through so many different subject areas that the audience and the interviewer forget what he was asked. DeSantis is cursed with having a normal, functioning brain, so his refusals to answer are painfully conspicuous.

Tapper didn’t really press him either which is, sadly, par for the course. I suppose he wanted to make sure DeSantis would come back but really, is it worth it?

These lies and non-answers will satisfy no one, especially those who follow politics — on either side. He has spent the last two years being the most hardcore, far-right, asshole culture warrior and he goes on CNN for the first time and tries to wriggle his way out of it with a bunch of evasive gobbldygook? Good luck with that.

lmao this is amazing pic.twitter.com/zVjoA7Wppm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 19, 2023

This is a perfect example of how the little cogs in his mind creak to life to cover for the fact that he knows fuck-all about what she’s talking about. Think about all the times he’s said exactly that, “we’re working on that”, “we have a plan” “It’s so ridiculous”, “It’ll be easy.” He’s said that about everything from health care to nuclear weapons to COVID 19. He’s very stupid but his ego demands that he pretend he knows everything.

We’ve all met people like this in our lives. What continues to astonish me is that at least some of his followers must be able to see that he’s completely clueless but they cheer anyway. I guess they just admire liars.

Used car salesmen must see them coming a mile away…

Good news about the electorate

Pollsters Celinda Lake and Mac Heller discuss the changing age demographics of American voters:

It’s easy to envision the 2024 presidential election becoming the third straight contest in which a veteran Democrat goes up against Donald Trump. Once again, the Democrat wins the popular vote but swing states are tighter. Could go either way — and has, right?

But things are very different this time, and here’s why: The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.

Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.

Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.

And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.

Similarly, though not as drastic, we have seen a 7 percent increase in voter registration among under-30 voters since Gen Z joined the electorate. In midterm elections, under-30s have seen a 20 percent increase in their share of the electorate, on average, since Trump and Gen Z entered the game.

Yet Trump is not the deciding factor for these voters. When pollsters ask why, Gen Z voters say their motivation is not a party or candidate. It is, instead, strong passion on one or more issues — a much more policy-driven approach than the more partisan voting behavior of their elders.

That policy-first approach, combined with the issues they care most about, have led young people in recent years to vote more frequently for Democrats and progressive policies than prior generations did when of similar age — as recent elections in Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin have shown.

In last August’s Kansas abortion referendum, for example, women under 30 turned out at a rate of 41 percent and helped win the contest. A similar Michigan abortion referendum brought youth midterm turnout to 49 percent — and 69 percent of voters younger than 30 voted to put abortion rights protections in the state constitution compared to just 52 percent of voters 30 and older. Michigan voters elected Democratic majorities in both state houses for the first time in years, and reelected their Democratic governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

While American voters historically have tended somewhat to become more conservative as they age, no one should expect these voting patterns to change drastically. About 48 percent of Gen Z voters identify as a person of color, while the boomers they’re replacing in the electorate are 72 percent White. Gen Z voters are on track to be the most educated group in our history, and the majority of college graduates are now female. Because voting participation correlates positively with education, expect women to speak with a bigger voice in our coming elections. Gen Z voters are much more likely to cite gender fluidity as a value, and they list racism among their greatest concerns. Further, they are the least religious generation in our history. No wonder there’s discussion in some parts of the GOP about raising the voting age to 25, and among some Democrats about lowering it to 16!

There are lessons — and warnings — here for both parties. For Republicans, the message is obvious: Listen to the voices of this soon-to-be-dominant group of voters as you formulate your policies on climate, abortion, guns, health care, inclusion and everything else. Unlike some older voters, they are listening to what you say — and to how you say it. Change your language and style from the unmitigated male id of “Never Back Down” and “Where Woke Goes to Die” to words of community, stewardship, sharing and collaboration. That’s the new patriotism, and young voters believe that approach will solve problems more effectively than what they’ve seen over the past two decades.

There are stark messages for Democrats too. Meet young voters where they are: on social media, not cable news. Make your messages short, funny and somehow sarcastic yet authentic and earnest at the same time. Your focus should be issues first, issues second, candidates third and party identity never.

A final word of warning: Both parties should worry about young voters embracing third-party candidates. Past elections show that Gen Z voters shop for candidates longer and respond favorably to new faces and issue-oriented candidates. They like combining their activism with their voting and don’t feel bound by party loyalty. And they can’t remember Ross Perot, Ralph Nader — or even Jill Stein.

We suspect both campaigns know most or all of what we have written here. Habit may prevent them from acting on it, but they have these numbers. In one of life’s great ironies, the group that doesn’t know it is young voters. They think of themselves as ignored, powerless and marginalized in favor of big money and shouting boomers. But over the next year, they’ll figure it out. Gen Z will tire of waiting for Washington to unite to solve problems, will grab the national microphone and will decide the 2024 presidential race.

Issues should be front and center under the banner of freedom — abortion, guns, gender and sexual identity, democracy, climate change. I don’t think this is that hard to do. And the Biden administration, to its credit, has not triangulated against the young people who care about these things, as Democrats we wont to do in the past, and instead has included them in the coalition as equal partners.

I hope they come out in big numbers and give the Democrats a little breathing room this time. And I really hope they don’t fall for the siren’s call of third party candidates. I understand where that comes from in a young idealist’s worldview. But we can’t afford a spoiler this time.

I confess that I hadn’t thought of it this way but I think it’s absolutely right:

A reckoning for the failed coup

Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social feed was active with ragging of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and re-posts of his fandom’s superhero memes on Monday which seemed to be just another day in the Trump 2024 presidential campaign. You would never have known that the night before he had been presented with a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith until Tuesday when he posted a rambling, incoherent official two page “statement” announcing it to the world.

“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter … stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and an Indictment” the statement began after which it immediately devolved into whining and crying over his alleged persecution at the hands of well… everyone. He lamented, “it is a very sad and dark period for our nation.”

It is a sad and dark period for our nation that an accused criminal ex-president is the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination. In fact, it’s tragic.

Late last night several news outlets reported that the target letter specified three crimes they are contemplating charging Trump with. According to ABC, it mentions “three federal statutes: conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under color of law, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant.” Contrary to much speculation the letter apparently did not mention sedition or insurrection.

Despite the fact that the letter refers to a conspiracy charge, no other targets have come forward to say they have been similarly informed. Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani would be a likely choice but he spent many hours with the Special Counsel during two “proffer” sessions and claims that he is neither a cooperator nor a target. His spokesman told ABC,

Any speculation that Mayor Rudy Giuliani ‘flipped’ against President Donald Trump is as false as previous lies that America’s Mayor was somehow a Russian Agent. In order to ‘flip’ on President Trump — as so many in the anti-Trump media are fantasizing over — Mayor Giuliani would’ve had to commit perjury because all the information he has regarding this case points to President Trump’s innocence.”

We’ll have to see how that shakes out because it could mean almost anything. It’s entirely possible that Giuliani remains more assured of his lawyerly prowess than he should be and those sessions actually implicated Trump — and himself. As for the other potential conspirators like John Eastman and Sidney Powell, who knows? All we are sure of at this point is that Donald Trump is very likely on the cusp of another federal indictment and this one is the big enchilada.

CNN reports that Trump has been on the horn to his allies on Capitol Hill twisting their arms to use their power to defend him. McCarthy stepped up to the microphone immediately and said, “Well, I guess under a Biden administration, Biden America, you’d expect this. If you noticed recently, President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for reelection.” (Recall that McCarthy took to the floor of congress after January 6th and said the attack on the capitol was “was undemocratic, un-American, and criminal,” and that “the president bears responsibility.” )

Trump also had a long conversation with House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik brain storming talking points for the caucus to circulate in his defense. This was apparently what they came up with:

WITCH HUNT!#StandWithTrump pic.twitter.com/Eixv5ar8C6

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) July 18, 2023

Stefanik didn’t stop there, however, she also brought in yet another conspiracy theory which was echoed by other members and on Fox News. She tweeted:

It is no coincidence — on the same week that IRS whistleblowers are testifying about illegal corruption protecting the Biden crime family, Biden’s DOJ targets President Trump with yet another corrupt Witch Hunt.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was typically restrained in her recitation of the talking points, calling the target letter “bullshit” and saying that “the only way that the Democrats have to beat President Trump is to arrest him, smear him, charge him with ridiculous charges, all in a cover-up of Joe Biden’s crimes, Hunter Biden’s crimes.” She later tweeted out this charming comment:

Jack Smith is a lousy attorney.

His career is filled with mistrials, overturned cases, and judicial rebukes.

He only targets Republicans because he’s a weak little bitch for the Democrats.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 18, 2023

Why do I have the feeling she’s also been on the phone with Donald Trump?

On the campaign trail, Trump’s rivals were predictably wishy washy. The NY Times reported that former S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley didn’t address the merits of the issue and instead complained that it was a distraction from important issues and said “we don’t need all this drama.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went with the talking points that it is “an attempt to criminalize politics and to try to criminalize differences” but tepidly pointed out that Trump could have come out more forcefully on January 6th. Vivek Ramaswamy said, “it is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its chief political rivals” while Sen. Tim Scott, (R-S.C.), who has been accusing the Democrats of weaponizing the DOJ in his speeches, boldly pointed out that “it’s part of the distractions that are always going to be surrounding the former president…”

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was the only one who actually addressed the big picture:

While Donald Trump would like the American people to believe that he is the victim in this situation, the truth is that the real victims of January 6th were our democracy, our rule of law, and those Capitol Police officers..”

The overriding theme among Trump’s defenders is this notion of a “weaponized” DOJ. Someone should remind them of the 27 different people that Trump said he wanted thrown in jail, from Hillary Clinton and James Comey to Marco Rubio to Tim Kaine to Robert Mueller to Presidents Biden, Clinton and Obama. He wanted to sic the IRS on his political enemies and there’s good reason to suspect he succeeded.

The reason Trump is being indicted for all these crimes is not because the “deep state” is out to get him but because he imperiously insists he is above the law and continually breaks it. He always has. When it came to taxes and various kinds of fraud he was able to worm his way out of any legal consequences because he was just another rich, white guy with friends in high places. When he became president his extreme narcissism and grandiosity took over completely and he stopped even pretending to believe that he had any limits. He used to say it all the time:

He was protected from legal liability while he was president and since he refuses to acknowledge that he lost his re-election bid, he seems to think it should still apply to him now as he runs for president again. It does not.

Nobody’s “weaponizing” the Justice Department against this poor innocent MAGA martyr. There is a mountain of evidence that he broke the law in half a dozen different ways and he is long overdue for a reckoning. It looks as though it’s finally here.

Salon