Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

A different kind of soother for a Friday afternoon

This is what we call a happy thought in these troubled times:

Whenever I look at the latest polls and start to freak out about Donald Trump winning the presidency again, I calm myself by remembering that the guy is very likely going to be an at-least-once convicted felon by next November. While that won’t bother his fans, I still think it will bother enough swing voters that he will lose, and maybe spectacularly.

That scenario got a little more likely Thursday when the California judge overseeing a misconduct trial against Trump attorney and coup-plotter John Eastman made a “preliminary finding” of culpability on Eastman’s part for his attempts to halt the certification of the 2020 election results.

What’s the upshot? No, Eastman isn’t guilty of anything just yet. But he is now closer to being disbarred, and that could make it more likely that he flips. MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance wrote on X: “If John Eastman loses his license in the bar proceeding, it incentiv[iz]es him (or would incentivize a rationale person) to plead & cooperate in the criminal case to avoid prison (since he’s already lost his license).”

Eastman is one of the 19 defendants in the Fulton County, Georgia, RICO case against Trump and others for conspiring to steal the election. Four named defendants in that case have already pleaded out and agreed to provide testimony against other defendants: lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Kenneth Chesebro and bail bondsman Scott Hall.

And don’t forget former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who got an immunity deal from special counsel Jack Smith in Smith’s January 6–related case against Trump. It was revealed just last week that Meadows has testified under oath in that case three times since agreeing to the deal. It was this news that led Chris Christie to go on Morning Joe and crow: “This is deadly. It’s done. [Trump]’s going to be convicted. It’s over.”

On top of all this, of course, was the main Trump family drama of the week, the testimony by his sons in the New York attorney general’s case against the Trump Organization. Don Jr. in his testimony tried to pin any misstatements about Trump family property values on Mazars, the accounting firm the Trumps used; Eric basically denied that he worked on financial statements. Ivanka Trump is set to testify next week, after a judge late Thursday denied her motion that requiring her to testify during a school week would place an “undue hardship” on her (these people are so shameless). The case could cost the family $250 million.

But the real cases are likely to cost Donald Trump a lot more: the White House. His future. His freedom.

I’m telling you, this is all going to catch up with Trump at the worst (or, depending on your point of view, the best) possible time. Yes, Judge Aileen Cannon down in Florida did Trump a favor this week by suggesting she might postpone next May’s trial date in the Trump case she’s hearing, the one about the classified documents. She might move it to after the election.

A bummer, and she’s a hack, as she’s already proven to us. But fine. The other cases will proceed. And high-profile people who had direct contact with Trump have flipped and will testify against him. Christie, whatever else we think of him, is a former federal prosecutor, so when he says what he said about Meadows, he’s speaking from experience.

We’re entering what’s going to be a maddening and horrifying time. In all likelihood, none of these other Republican candidates is going to make a charge at Trump. They’re just too afraid of him. Nikki Haley criticized him obliquely a few days ago, but no one (save Christie) is going to tell the truth about him because they know what will happen to them: They’ll sink like stones. So they’re in an impossible position—of their own making, by the way, because every one of them cheered Trump’s rise—whereby if they don’t go after the front-runner, he’ll be untouched and stay 25 points ahead of the field, and if they do, it will hurt them, and Trump’s lead will likely only grow.

So we’re in for 10 weeks—until the January 15 Iowa caucuses—of poll after poll showing Trump ahead and probably gaining. No piece of bad news will matter. He’ll roll in Iowa. Next will come New Hampshire. No date has yet been set for that primary, but it’s expected to be sometime in January. In New Hampshire, Trump is if anything further ahead than he is in Iowa. Then there’s not another GOP primary until South Carolina on February 24 (there will be Nevada and Virgin Islands caucuses on February 8). In other words, if Trump wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, the race is basically over, and there will be a full month of headlines calling Trump victorious and unstoppable.

Actually—not all headlines. In fact, on the very day, January 16, that we’ll wake up to headlines blaring, “Trump Sails to Victory in Iowa,” we will also be greeted by this headline: “E. Jean Carroll Damages Trial Against Trump Starts Today.” Remember that New York Judge Lewis Kaplan has already said that Trump raped Carroll in the normally understood sense of the term. So readers, and voters, are going to be reminded of that. Then the January 6 trial, the one in which Meadows flipped, starts the day before Super Tuesday. And so on.

Trump is a cornered animal. As the walls close in, he is going to go insane. Nothing in his pampered life has prepared him for the reckoning that’s coming his way. He’s gotten out of everything, from the Vietnam draft to all the bankruptcies, to the impeachments, when he obviously committed high crimes and misdemeanors. His skating days are over.

I pray for that every night.

DeSantis: I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people have been focusing on things like footwear. I’ll tell you this. If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate. I’ll wear a boot on my head. pic.twitter.com/CF11I4JtOT

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 3, 2023

I’ll be so glad when I don’t have to see or read about this guy anymore:

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Thursday contributed to the seemingly never-ending discourse about whether or not he wears lifts in his boots by outlining a bizarre scenario in which he would wear a boot on his head at next week’s GOP primary debate.

During an interview on Newsmax, the Florida governor—who has denied wearing any sort of height-boosting footwear—first responded to the chatter by saying that “this is no time for foot fetishes” because “we’ve got serious problems as a country.”

He went on to mention how Donald Trump has weighed in on the topic. On Tuesday, the former president’s campaign declared “#BOOTGATE” to be the “KISS OF DEATH” for DeSantis.

“I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people have been focusing on things like footwear,” DeSantis said. “I’ll tell you this: If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head.”

This is a perfect illustration of why he has done so badly. First, he’s re-running his Florida comrade Marco Rubio’s strategy in 2016 which flopped badly. Calling out Trump’s manhood just isn’t effective among Republicans because they don’t like seeing Dear Leader insulted. That’s his job. Also, why in the hell would he voluntarily bring this thing up again? It’s reaching Dukakis-in-a-tank levels of humiliation. And yet,  “DeSantis’ campaign was apparently so thrilled with his jab at the Republican front runner that it sent out a press release shortly afterward with that quote in the subject line.”

He’s just not good at this.

Trump opens up his rally in Houston, TX, with the national anthem sung by J6 insurrectionists:

“I call them the J6 hostages. Not prisoners, I call them the hostages…When that came out it went to the number one song. It was beating everybody. It beat Taylor Swift.” pic.twitter.com/NP60KT15OL

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

It did not beat Taylor Swift.

I have been documenting Donald Trump’s plans for his restoration ever since he was exiled to his Palm Beach Elba on January 20, 2021. It was clear from that moment on that he was plotting his comeback and the people around him weren’t just licking their wounds and preparing to move on, they were readying plans to ensure that the second term permanently solidified their power. They’ve been hard at work ever since.

They had begun the project the previous fall, with a plan called “Schedule F” which was implemented just 13 days before the election. The presidential edict called for the stripping of all the executive branch departments, from the FBI, the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and, of course, the usual suspects, the EPA and the IRS. Biden reversed this upon taking office and the congress passed some roadblocks to using it in the future but nobody believes they will be effective if Trump, or frankly, any Republican, once again assumes the presidency. (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has endorsed this concept promising to “slit the throats” of government bureaucrats if he were to take office.)

Trump has been giving speeches on the subject although they don’t get much coverage in the mainstream media. In the summer of 2022, before the had announced his run he addressed his own vanity “think tank,” the America First Policy Institute:

“We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy or, at a minimum, just want to keep their jobs. They want to hold onto their jobs. Congress should pass historic reforms empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent or unnecessary for the job can be told—did you ever hear this—‘You’re fired, get out, you’re fired.’ [You] have to do it. Deep state. Washington will be an entirely different place.”

Needless to say, Trump’s notion of who is corrupt, incompetent or necessary is purely dictated by their loyalty to him personally.

There is also Trump’s Agenda 47, a laundry list of extremist right wing “policies” described by Salon’s Chauncy DeVega,this way:

Agenda 47 would consist of an end to birthright citizenship, further criminalizing transgender people and the LGBTQI community more broadly, expanding the thought crime and other censorship laws to end the teaching of “critical race theory” and to defeat “Woke” and “Black Lives Matter”, attacking academic freedom and replacing it with “patriot education”, implementing a national stop and frisk law, pardoning the Jan. 6 terrorists, putting homeless people in camps or some other designated area under threat of arrest, building high tech “freedom cities”, ending the professional civil service and replacing it with right-wing political appointees and other such partisan agents, gutting the Department of Justice and other parts of the government that opposed Trump’s attacks on democracy and the rule of law, executing drug dealers, starting a trade war with China, and making “peace” with Vladimir Putin by withdrawing support for the Ukrainian people and their freedom struggle. In many ways, Agenda 47 is a continuation of the fascist and other authoritarian policies Trump put in place during his first regime but now made even more extreme and cruel.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? And let’s not forget Project 2025, a very special plan by the Heritage Foundation to be ready on Day One with a full roster of MAGA replacements for all those Deep State bureaucrats Trump and his minions will be firing. Peter Dans, the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project said, “we need to flood the zone with conservatives. This is a clarion call to come to Washington. People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’”

The Heritage Foundation has experience with this sort of thing. They were tasked with staffing the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, another daft Republican experiment to rebuild a fantasy government based entirely on their conservative ideology. You may remember how that turned out:

Andrew Burns, 23, a Red Cross volunteer who had taught English in rural China, felt going to Iraq would help him pursue a career in humanitarian aid. Todd Baldwin, 28, a legislative aide for Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), thought the opportunity was too good to pass up. John Hanley, 24, a Web site editor, wanted to break into the world of international relations. Anita Greco, 25, a former teacher, and Casey Wasson, 23, a recent college graduate in government, just needed jobs.

For months they wondered what they had in common, how their names had come to the attention of the Pentagon, until one day they figured it out: They had all posted their resumes at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank.

They didn’t have any experience doing things like building a stock market from scratch or running Massive infrastructure reconstruction projects in a country that had been razed by “shock and awe.” But the Heritage Foundation did make sure they were all staunchly pro-life so there was that.

The CPA was an utter disaster, of course. And I think we can be sure that the same level of expertise will be tapped for the US Government if Schedule F, Agenda 47 and Project 2025 Are implemented.

This week the NY Times reported on yet another project in the works, this one spearheaded by the odious Stephen Miller and Trump’s former body man turned hatchet man, John John McEntee. Under the auspices of yet another Trump affiliated institution, the “MAGA ACLU” called American First Legal these two have been tasked with finding legal advisers for a new Trump administration who will not be unduly constrained by musty old traditions like “the rule of law” or “the Constitution.” Think John Eastman or Jeffrey Clark, although those two will likely no longer have law licenses by that time and may even be in jail. (It’s unclear if that would be an impediment to serving in a new Trump administration.)

What’s most interesting about this new project is that they have decided that they no longer want the input or participation from the Federalist Society which is now considered a bunch of RINOs who can’t be trusted:

“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell T. Vought, a former senior Trump administration official who runs a think tank with close ties to the former president. He argued that many elite conservative lawyers had proved to be too timid when, in his view, the survival of the nation is at stake.

Such comments may surprise those who view the Federalist Society as hard-line conservatives. But the move away from the group reflects the continuing evolution of the Republican Party in the Trump era and an effort among those now in his inner circle to prepare to take control of the government in a way unseen in modern presidential history.

The purges have begun, I guess. It was only a matter of time.

All of these various agendas and projects are designed for one purpose only, to “deconstruct the administrative state” as former Trump adviser and podcaster Steve Bannon has called for. And considering the Republican party track record, not to mention Donald Trump’s, the prospects of it being successful are very dim. They aren’t competent at much of anything when it comes to governing anymore but they are very good at tearing things down and causing chaos, destabilizing everything they touch.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s been a worse time in our history for such a stress test on the US government and our democracy. It’s important to make sure they don’t get the chance to transform any of these plans into action.

Salon

Be as excited about expanding freedom

Anand Giridharadas presents a video conversation about what inpired “The Persuaders” at The Ink :

A year from now, America will face a defining choice between authoritarianism and freedom, hatred and love, exclusion and inclusion, and, as of now, it’s a dead heat.

It shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to be.

Early in the conversation, Giridharadas says:

In a moment in American life in which the contest is not small government versus big government, blue versus red, left versus right, high taxes versus low taxes, in which the contest is really pro-democracy versus anti-democracy, some of us versus all of us … it was a dead heat. And sometimes we do well in the dead heat. And that means 49-46. A couple states more than that, and sometimes we lose the dead heat. But as a writer, as opposed to being a campaigner who has to eke out these narrow victories, I have the luxury of stepping back a little bit and saying, hold on.

We are going to the American people in this era and saying, “Here is fascism, and here is freedom.” And before you get to gerrymandering, just polling, just asking people what they want, it’s 50-50 … ish.

I’m not saying all the rigging stuff is not happening, and it magnifies the problem, but I think I started from the premise of we’re being a little bit easy on ourselves when we blame the rigging. The honest truth is we are presenting the American people in this era with a referendum on fascism and freedom, and the jury is really, really out. And a lot of people are really excited about the fascism option.

The left needs to build what it has failed to so far: a “galvanizing, inviting, seductive movement…. I think we need to throw a more fun party.” Right now, the dytopian, dehumanizing, Bizarro America movement the right leans into “reads as the more fun time.” At the same time, the left’s movement (what there is), is “the most inclusive platform, perhaps in any country in the history of the world,” yet reads as “tedious, moralistic, scoldy, wonky … we are playing the fiddle of wonkery while democracy burns.”

A recent arrival from Florida here organizes a monthly Democratic Happy Hour unconnected with the local Democratic Party. What’s great about it is that there is no program, no speakers (outside of election season), no volunteer signup sheets, no trainings. Just drinks and political conversation with like-minded people at some local brew pub. Low barrier to entry. No asks. Great for noobs and new arrivals.

I much prefer it to the more serious “Drinks with Dems” affairs in town. Why? Ladder of engagement-wise, it’s less programatic and more fun. Those who want to get their hands dirty with campaigns will get there on their schedule. Too often activists organize their events to attract other activists rather than to cultivate new ones by making friends first. On making our movement a fun time, Giridharadas is spot on.

But it’s a start

Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko pointed to this introductory ad from a candidate running for Congress in Arkansas. Yeah, on first glance this ad from retired colonel Marcus Jones is good. Then again (from 2022):

During the 2010 senatorial primary in North Carolina, Democrat Cal Cunningham said to my face that the DSCC told him his Bronze Star would trump anything the right wing could throw at him. My first thought was, “And you believed them?” My second was, “Does John Kerry ring a bell?”

At the Democratic State Executive Committee meeting in Durham Saturday, one delegate rolled her eyes at Senate candidate Cheri Beasley’s TV ads as the bland products of talentless consultants. “She’s going to lose.”

Former N.C. Chief Justice Beasley did in 2020 and 2022. Cunningham famously lost a second bid for Senate in 2020.

Another retired colonel ran for Congress here in WNC and lost to Madison Cawthorn. Having a military background may get you a foot in the door with swing voters but won’t prevent them from slamming it on your foot.

Post by @adamparkhomenko

View on Threads

Good luck, colonel. Hope all that experience translates and that you climb the learning curve quickly. Running for office requires a different skill set.

Pelosi brings the hammer down on No Labels

I noted in an earlier post the new Q Poll which included RFK Jr and Cornel West in the presidential survey. It’s not at all decisive and I have a feeling those numbers will not hold once the campaign begins in earnest anyway. But No Labels is also a threat if they succeed in carrying out their plan to get on the ballot in the battleground states. They cannot win but they seem determined to do it anyway.

The worst case scenario is that there will be a tie in the electoral college, which is very possible with their ballot strategy, throwing the decision to the House. I think we know how that’s going to pan out.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t mince words on this subject:

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on Thursday became one of the highest-profile elected Democrats to go public with her concerns about the centrist group No Labels’ third-party presidential bid.

“No Labels is perilous to our democracy,” she told reporters. “I hesitate to say No Labels because they do have labels. They’re called no taxes for the rich. No child tax credit for children. They’re called let’s undo the Affordable Care Act.”

Pelosi delivered her remarks at a breakfast event organized by the Democratic-centrist group Third Way, which has taken on the role of one of No Labels’ chief antagonists this cycle.

Pelosi said she has ignored No Labels, even when she was a target of the group as speaker of the House, but 2024’s election is a different case.

“When they jeopardize the reelection of Joe Biden as president of the United States, I can no longer remain silent on that,” she said.

No Labels national co-chair, former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.), said in a statement it was “disheartening to see Nancy Pelosi literally make things up about No Labels to score political points. She ascribes positions to No Labels that they never took.”

[…]

The nonprofit is seeking access to the ballot across the country with the idea of putting together a unity ticket that would be led by one Republican and one Democrat. The group, which is currently formulated as a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, has not yet announced who would lead such a ticket.

The latest memo from No Labels states that there’s an unprecedented appetite for a third-party or independent candidate this election cycle, partly because President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the likely candidates for both major parties, have low favorability ratings.

Pelosi disputed the premise of the group’s bid and said that once Biden is more frequently on the campaign trail voters will return to the fold.

Third Way President Jonathan Cowan added that early interest in third-party candidates is a way for people to express their discontent. But he said he suspected interest in No Labels and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent, would drop in popularity as next year’s general election campaign gets underway.

At the heart of Third Way and Pelosi’s concern about No Labels is that a moderately successful third-party candidate could win enough electoral college votes so that neither major party nominee wins the majority required to secure the presidency. Under this scenario, the outcome of the presidential election would be determined by congressional delegations voting for the president, of which Republicans control more than Democrats.

It is unlikely for a third-party candidate to win electoral college votes, but they fear if the election is forced onto the congressional delegations, No Labels could hand the White House to the Republican candidate.

There is no reason for No Labels to do this except to somehow enrich those who are involved in it. People like Larry Hogan know very well that they have no chance to win the election. They have made it clear that while they don’t much care for Donald Trump, their real issue is with Biden for passing big legislation they don’t approve of. It’s not a secret.

Those of you who’ve been around a while know this is a Joe Lieberman special. I don’t think any more needs to be said.

Oof — this Morning Joe supercut of Trump foreign policy comments from just the last few weeks pic.twitter.com/B6QrJJiRgw

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2023

Just thought I’d drop this in as a reminder. In case we’ve started to forget.

His first hire says it all:

When an ABC News reporter last week tried to ask Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), the soon-to-be Speaker of the House, about his key role in Donald Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, the message relayed by House Republicans was, essentially, “Shut up.”

While the new House leader continues to sidestep questions about his election denialism, his latest hire shows that trying to overturn the next presidential election may still very well be at the top of the House GOP’s agenda.

It was reported on Tuesday that Johnson had tapped Raj Shah to be his office’s chief spokesperson and oversee his communications operation. In this position, he will not only serve as Johnson’s top mouthpiece but also, according to Politico, “help run messaging for House Republicans.”

Representatives for Johnson and Shah did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shah, a veteran GOP operative who served in the Trump White House, also happened to spend four years as Fox’s “brand protection” expert before leaving in disgrace this past June after the right-wing network settled Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit for a massive $787.5 million.

Shah’s role at Fox News’ parent company, in fact, was a key component of Dominion’s case, which alleged that the conservative cable giant knowingly peddled false conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in order to boost sagging ratings following the 2020 election.

The network, after making a controversially early but inevitably accurate call for Joe Biden in Arizona on Election Night, watched its viewership crumble as disgruntled MAGA viewers fled for far-right rivals Newsmax and One America News, who were more than willing to parrot Trump’s baseless claims of a “rigged” election.

Shah, whose job as senior vice president was to protect Fox’s brand, spent the weeks after the election warning top executives that the network’s core audience was increasingly incensed with Fox News for supposedly abandoning Trump. And while texts and emails from that time, which were obtained and publicly released by Dominion during its case against Fox, suggest he didn’t buy into Team Trump’s wild conspiracies about hacked voting machines flipping millions of votes to Biden, he also didn’t want the channel’s reporters and anchors to contradict those claims on the air.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election loss, Shah scrambled to find conservative pundits who would come to the network’s defense amid the right-wing backlash against Fox. With none of the “biggest folks” biting, Shah told the network’s PR team that he could potentially get some “Tier 2 folks” to write a column defending Fox News. Unfortunately, even most of those writers refused the assignment.

At the same time, Shah—who also acted as a bridge between Trumpworld and Fox—was desperately trying to get the network to at least issue a public apology for its Arizona call, citing anger from Trump supporters.

“Want to ask, even though it seems impossible, but is the idea of some sort of public mea culpa for the AZ call completely and totally out of the realm?” Shah wrote the network’s top flack Irena Briganti on Nov. 10. “Or some programming that’s focused on hearing our viewers grievances about how we’ve handled the election?”

While that request was ultimately denied on the grounds that it would cause additional turmoil between the channel’s “hard news” and opinion sides, Shah continued to express concern about Fox’s tumbling ratings. In his view, one of the main issues wasn’t just that the network’s Decision Desk had called the election against Trump, it was that Fox’s on-air reporters were also undermining Trump’s fraudulent election narrative.

Noting that “more of our viewers have an unfavorable opinion rather than favorable opinion of Fox,” he discussed the “threats” to Fox News’ reputation among the MAGA base. For instance, he highlighted the criticism anchor Neil Cavuto was facing for cutting away from then-Trump spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany for spreading election lies.

“Both Donald Trump and Newsmax have taken active roles in promoting attacks on Fox News. Positive impressions of Fox News among our viewers dropped precipitously after Election Day to the lowest levels we’ve ever seen,” Shah wrote in an email to Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, and then-Fox Chief Legal Officer Viet Dinh.

Following an unhinged Nov. 19 press conference that featured then-Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani making outrageous claims about widespread election fraud, which the network carried on-air in its entirety, Fox News correspondent Kristin Fisher swooped in with a comprehensive fact-check. Shah, meanwhile, was extremely displeased.

“This is the kinda shit that will kill us,” Shah texted a colleague. “What a fucking mess. We cover it wall to wall and then we burn that down with all the skepticism.”

Yet, while seemingly urging higher-ups to “respect the audience” and cater to their election denialism, Shah privately admitted in messages to colleagues and friends that Trump’s “stolen” election claims were largely nonsense. In fact, after then-Fox News star Tucker Carlson publicly challenged Powell to provide proof to back her claims, Shah said that the belief that there was “vote rigging to the tune of millions” was “so fucking insane.”

Shah, who had a close working relationship with Carlson, also advised Carlson on how to handle any backlash from Powell and Trump’s team, telling him to be “deferential.” Meanwhile, he was also working behind the scenes to get Trump to distance himself from Powell.

“After criticism from social media for Tucker’s segment questioning Attorney Sidney Powell’s outlandish voter fraud claims, our consultants and I coordinated an effort to generate Trump administration pushback against her claims,” he wrote top execs, adding: “We encouraged several sources within the administration to tell reporters that Powell offered no evidence for her claims and didn’t speak for the president.”

The effort apparently worked. On Nov. 22, the Trump campaign announced that Powell was “practicing law on her own” and was “not a member” of the outgoing president’s legal team. Yet, even though Powell was officially distanced from Trump, she continued to appear on Fox News airwaves for weeks.

In the end, while helping to whitewash Trump’s election lies, Shah still let friends know that he didn’t believe that the election was rigged.

“It’s really disheartening,” Shah wrote to a former White House colleague days before the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. “The only clear cut evidence for voter fraud is the failed attempts from Trump.”

Now Shah will serve as the top spokesperson of a suddenly prominent Republican lawmaker who will almost certainly insert himself into the 2024 presidential election, especially since Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee.

While Johnson rose from relative obscurity to the speakership last month, he did play a significant role in Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss to Biden.

Shortly after Biden was projected as the winner of the election, Johnson aligned himself with Trump’s refusal to accept the results. “President Trump called me last night and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted,” he tweeted at the time. “Fair elections are worth fighting for!”

Johnson also helped fuel the conspiracy theories about “rigged” voting machines—the same baseless claims that ended up costing Fox News nearly a billion dollars.

In a Nov. 17, 2020 radio interview, he said there was “a lot of merit” to the Dominion claims, adding that “when the president says the election was ‘rigged’ that is what he was talking about; the fix was in.” He also peddled debunked conspiracies about Dominion being owned by deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

In that same interview, Johnson backed Trump’s assertions about Georgia’s vote for Biden being fraudulent, claiming “it really is rigged” and “was set up for the Biden team to win.” Trump and 18 others have since been indicted over their attempts to overturn Georgia’s election results, with some already pleading guilty.

Johnson’s support of Trump went further than tweets and radio interviews, though. He quietly worked behind the scenes to recruit House Republicans to join an amicus brief in support of a Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to block four Biden states from voting in the Electoral College. In the end, the majority of the GOP caucus signed the brief. The lawsuit would soon be tossed out by the court.

Eventually, Johnson joined most of the House GOP in voting against certifying Biden’s electoral victory on the same day a mob of angry MAGA supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to keep Trump in power.

Regardless of where Shah personally stands on election denialism, Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz argues, he’s shown a willingness to sell whatever it is the conservative base desires.

“But Shah’s private concerns did not prevent him from encouraging propaganda,” Gertz wrote on Wednesday. “And in his new role, backing a speaker who was neck-deep in Trump’s election subversion plot, he’ll assuredly do the same if Trump takes another pass at trying to overturn an election.”

As you can see, Shah is one of the worst MAGA wingnuts out there. He’s slick and he’s experienced. But he is extreme. It say everything about Mike Johnson that he hired him.

He doesn’t have a bank account? What?

This is odd:

Newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) does not have a bank account.

At least, that’s what Johnson reports on years of personal financial disclosures, which date back to 2016 and reveal a financial life that, in the context of his role as a congressman and now speaker, appears extraordinarily precarious.

Over the course of seven years, Johnson has never reported a checking or savings account in his name, nor in the name of his wife or any of his children, disclosures show. In fact, he doesn’t appear to have money stashed in any investments, with his latest filing—covering 2022—showing no assets whatsoever.

Of course, it’s unlikely Johnson doesn’t actually have a bank account. What’s more likely is Johnson lives paycheck to paycheck—so much so that he doesn’t have enough money in his bank account to trigger the checking account disclosure rules for members of Congress.

House Ethics Committee filing guidelines state that members must disclose bank accounts they have at every financial institution, as long as the account holds at least $1,000 and the combined value of all accounts—including those belonging to their spouse and dependent children—exceeds $5,000.

The rules cover all “interest-bearing, cash-deposit accounts at banks, credit unions, and savings and loan associations,” including checking, savings, and money market accounts, along with certificates of deposit and individual retirement funds, or IRAs. (Johnson reported receiving a $10,485.53 distribution from a New York Life IRA in 2017, his first year in office, possibly from a retirement account he had listed the previous year.)

It’s certainly not uncommon for Americans to have less than $5,000 in their bank account. Most Americans—57 percent—couldn’t handle an unexpected $1,000 expense, according to a report earlier this year. And the median amount that Americans keep in their bank account is $5,300. But Johnson’s household income puts him in the top 12 percent of earners in the United States. And it’s extraordinarily rare for members of Congress to not list a qualifying bank account—let alone zero assets whatsoever.

The Daily Beast reached out to Johnson’s office for comment but did not receive a reply.

Brett Kappel, a government ethics expert at Harmon Curran, told The Daily Beast it would be “very unusual for a Member not to have to disclose at least one bank account.”

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, offered a more blunt assessment, saying that if Johnson truly doesn’t have any assets, it “raises questions about his personal financial wellbeing.”

“It’s strange to see Speaker Johnson disclose no assets,” Libowitz told The Daily Beast. “He made over $200,000 last year, and his wife took home salary from two employers as well, so why isn’t there a bank account or any form of savings listed?”

Johnson has also carried debts over for several years, which Libowitz said would sharpen the question.

“He owes hundreds of thousands of dollars between a mortgage, personal loan, and home equity line of credit, so where did that money go?” Libowitz said. “If he truly has no bank account and no assets, it raises questions about his personal financial wellbeing.”

He must have a bank account. He couldn’t get loans and mortgages without it. Obviously, he just hasn’t bothered to disclose his financial status as required by law. For all we know, he’s not just a Christian nationalist but a sovereign citizen who doesn’t think he has to abide by the laws of an illegitimate government. He’s that extreme.