Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

It’s early, but it’s worth thinking about this anyway. I assume you’ve already read or heard about the NY Times poll this week which has everyone scared to death that Donald Trump will win again in 2024. (I would just say that people need to remember that almost every re-elected incumbent was very unpopular at this stage of the campaign. It’s the normal dynamic.) This discussion with the pollster Nate Cohn is instructive about the possible advantages for Biden and also the possible roadblocks, one of which is terrifying to me:

Michael Barbaro: … [G]iven that at this moment he’s tied with Trump at 43 percent of the electorate that was polled here, that leaves us with about 14% of the general election voters who seem up for grabs. So what can you tell us about that group of people? 

Nate Cohn: Well, the main thing that characterizes this group is that they don’t like either of these candidates, but to be honest they’re not a bad group for Democrats on paper, and they’re not a bad group for Joe Biden. 

On paper, this is a group that’s disproportionately young. It’s disproportionately black and Latino. It’s disproportionately Democratic. And maybe most importantly, it disproportionately supported Joe Biden in the last presidential election. 

Now, the fact that they supported Biden last time doesn’t mean they’ll support him again, but it suggests that the Democrats and Joe Biden specifically ought to have an easier time than Donald Trump making gains on this other 14% of the electorate. 

Michael Barbaro: Hmm, so this could ultimately be a decisive group of voters in a general election match up between Trump. 

Nate Cohn: It most certainly could be, but they’re not undecided in the sense that they don’t know who these people are and have to make up their minds. Again, these are people who are sort of recoiling at the thought of having to choose between these two and maybe not even getting to the point where they can tell us the decision that not only they made last time, but that they make again. And you know, there’s also risk, of course that they really don’t vote or vote for someone else in a third party candidate as an expression of that dissatisfaction. 

Michael Barbaro: Right. So a general election featuring these two candidates could very much be about not just who earns the affections of this 14% of voters who would break a tie, but who this 14% dislikes the least? 

Nate Cohn: Yes, and right now, if the election is about who they dislike the least, it’s really good for Joe Biden. I mean, this is a group that’s very hostile towards Donald Trump, even if it doesn’t love Joe Biden by any stretch? 

Now I do want to caution a little bit on how much upside there is for Joe Biden here. If we take these voters and we assume that they’ll vote in 2024, the same way that they voted in 2020, Joe Biden’s lead only grows to two points. So it’s not like there’s some landslide around the corner once these 14% of voters make up their minds. 

Michael Barbaro: Right. That makes me want to touch on something you just mentioned which is the possibility of the third party candidate. When you take math like a 2% lead or a tie, a decision by a third party to enter this race whether it’s the Green Party or no labels, which is thinking of putting up a candidate in this general election, that could prove extremely important with math this tight. 

Nate Cohn: Yeah, it’s not hard to imagine how a minor party candidate or a series of minor party candidates could attract considerable support. You know back in 2016, the minor party candidates got something like 6% of the vote. Now, the voters are not as negative on Biden or Trump as they were on Clinton and Trump back in 2016, but there shades of 2016 here where the voters near the center of the electorate, really don’t like either of these people, which was not true in 2020 when most voters did have a favorable view of Joe Biden. 

Michael Barbaro: So, I mean, how are you thinking about the rest of this campaign given the snapshot of the race that we have just taken with these polls this many months before people start voting? 

Nate Cohn: To me, the biggest take away is that it means that all of the events of the last few years : the Stop the Steal movement, the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, all these criminal indictments, have not disqualified Donald Trump, at least not when he’s facing a Joe Biden with a 39% approval rating. And this race is competitive and at least right now the Democrats have work cut out ahead of them and the events of the last three years haven’t brought this race to an early end as some might have thought.

What do I find terrifying in that? Cornell West running on the Green Party ticket. I worry that idealistic young people and fed up Black people will decide to make a protest vote. On the other hand, Donald Trump is so odious that it’s still pretty unlikely. But there is a danger…

And there is this:

An analysis from FiveThirtyEight found that in 38 special elections held so far this year, Democrats have outperformed the partisan lean — or the relative liberal or conservative history — of the areas where the races were held by an average of 10%, both romping in parts of the country that typically support the party while cutting down on GOP margins in red cities and counties, too.

For instance, the Democratic candidate in a Wisconsin State Assembly special election last month lost by just 7 points in an area where Republicans have a 22-point edge and where Trump beat Biden by almost 17 points in 2020.

In a New Hampshire special election in May for a state House seat, the Democrat won by 43 points, far beyond the party’s estimated 23-point edge in the district.MORE: Where abortion stands in each state a year since the overturning of Roe v. Wade

The data from FiveThirtyEight does not include regularly scheduled off-year elections, including the Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year in which the liberal candidate, now-Justice Janet Protasiewicz, won by 11 points — in a state famous for its wafer-thin election margins.

“I think when you when you look at things like this, one special election doesn’t mean much on its own. But when you start to see real consistency, it can certainly become predictive of the next election cycle,” said Ben Nuckels, a Wisconsin Democratic strategist who consulted on Protasiewicz’s campaign.

For comparison, according to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats outperformed the weighted partisan lean by about 4% in special elections held between the 2018 midterms and the 2020 elections, when Biden won the White House by 4.5% but Democrats underperformed in House races.

Conversations with eight Democratic and Republican operatives in swing states show some repeated explanations for this success: the public’s general support for abortion access after the Supreme Court reversed the national guarantee for the procedure last year along with angst and anger over Trump’s comeback bid, given how divisive he remains — two factors which might even overcompensate for Biden’s sagging approval ratings.

“Republicans have not had a good election night since before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And, honestly, it seems like post-Roe Republicans couldn’t find their groove even if a DJ played their favorite song on repeat,” Nuckels said. “So I think Democrats are in a very good position here going forward.”

Dems need to keep their heads down and do the work. There is more going on in this political culture than Biden’s age.

This is ridiculous:

M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who accompanied former President Donald J. Trump to court this week for his arraignment on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election, has given crucial evidence in Mr. Trump’s other federal case — the one accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents.

Another lawyer close to Mr. Trump, Boris Epshteyn, sat for an interview with prosecutors this spring and could be one of the former president’s co-conspirators in the election tampering case.

And Mr. Epshteyn’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, is defending Mr. Trump against both the documents and election case indictments.

The legal team that Mr. Trump has assembled to represent him in the twin prosecutions by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is marked by a tangled web of potential conflicts and overlapping interests — so much so that Mr. Smith’s office has started asking questions.

While it is not uncommon for lawyers in complex matters — like large mob cases or financial inquiries — to wear many hats or to play competing roles, the Gordian knot of intertwined imperatives in the Trump investigations is particularly intricate and insular.

Some of the lawyers involved in the cases are representing both charged defendants and uncharged witnesses. At least one could eventually become a defendant, and another could end up as a witness in one case and Mr. Trump’s defender in a different one.

All of that sits atop another thorny fact: Many of the lawyers are being paid by Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, which has itself been under government scrutiny for months. Some of the witnesses those lawyers represent work for the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s company, but their legal defense has not been arranged by the company, but rather by Mr. Trump’s own legal team, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

I have to assume that these are true believers. It’s one thing for defense lawyers to represent terrible clients. It’s part of the gig. But to put yourself in this position with blatant conflicts of interest, is something else. They must really love the guy.

I wish I understood that. But I don’t think I ever will.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,”

This is the Trump agenda. Nothing else really matters. And there are many, many Republican voters who are all in with him on this:

DONALD TRUMP IS a long, long way from winning the GOP primary, let alone retaking the White House. But he always has revenge on his mind, and his allies are preparing to use a future administration to not only undo all of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work — but to take vengeance on Smith, and on virtually everyone else, who dared investigate Trump during his time out of power.

Rosters full of MAGAfied lawyers are being assembled. Plans are being laid for an entire new office of the Justice Department dedicated to “election integrity.” An assembly line is being prepared of revenge-focused “special counsels” and “special prosecutors.” Gameplans for making Smith’s life hell, starting in Jan. 2025, have already been discussed with Trump himself. And a fresh wave of pardons is under consideration for Trump associates, election deniers, and — the former president boasts — for Jan. 6 rioters.

The preparations have been underway since at least last year, with Trump being briefed on the designs by an array of attorneys, political and policy advisers, former administration officials, and other allies. The aim is to build a government-in-waiting with the hard-right infrastructure needed to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of Trump’s agenda, according to five sources familiar with these matters and another two people briefed on them.

Trump’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

One idea that has caught thrice-indicted former president’s attention in recent months is the creation of the so-called “Office of Election Integrity,” which would be a new unit inside the Justice Department. It would be tasked not only with relitigating Trump’s lies about his 2020 election loss, but also with aggressively pursuing baseless allegations of election “fraud” (including in Democratic strongholds) in ways that Trumpist partisans believe the department has only flirted with in the past. 

This idea was recently pitched to Trump by a longtime Republican activist and an attorney who’s known the ex-president for years, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. (Republican officials have also begun voicing their own support for state-level offices of election integrity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the proposal a reality in his state. Officials in Tennessee, Missouri, and Wisconsin have proposed the offices, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, proposed a similarly named office.)

And when it comes to Special Counsel Smith’s office — which just handed Trump his third indictment, this one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election — the former president and his fellow travelers already know what they want: They want the FBI and DOJ to name names.

This year, close advisers to Trump have begun the process of assembling lists of the names of federal personnel who have investigated the former president and his circle for years, and are attempting to unmask the identities of all the DOJ attorneys and others connected to Smith’s office. The obvious purpose of this, according to one source close to Trump, is to “show them the door on Day 1 [if Trump’s reelected]” — and so “we know who should receive a subpoena” in the future.

Such subpoenas would of course be instrumental in Trumpland’s vows to its voters that, should he return to power, Trump and his new attorney general will launch a raft of their own retaliatory “special counsel” and “special prosecutor” probes to investigate-the-investigator, and to go after their key enemies. As it were, Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official and a central figure in Trump’s efforts to subvert the legitimate 2020 presidential election results, has been on Trump’s informal shortlist for plum assignments, including even attorney general, in a potential second administration.

Sources familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Trump and his close ideological allies — working at an assortment of MAGA-prone think tanks, advocacy organizations, and legal groups — are formulating plans for a wide slate of “special prosecutors.” In this vision, such prosecutors would go after the usual targets: Smith, Smith’s team, President Joe Biden, Biden’s family, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray. But they’d also go after smaller targets, from members of the Biden 2020 campaign to more obscure government offices.

“There are almost too many targets to keep track of,” says one Trump adviser familiar with the discussions. Trump and members of his inner orbit have already outlined possible legal strategies, examining specific federal statutes they could wield in a Republican-controlled Justice Department to go after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who delivered Trump’s first indictment of this year.

The FBI’s investigation of over a thousand rioters who breached and trashed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — officially the largest criminal investigation in Justice Department history —  is another area where Trump has stated he would like to reverse course. “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” Trump told host Kaitlan Collins during a CNN town hall in May.

When the broader topic of possible second-term pardons has come up behind closed doors, Trump has at times said that such pardons should be signed at the start of the term, not saved for the later on, according to those who’ve heard him discuss it since last year. Aside from the rioters themselves, Trump has also privately floated issuing a wave of pardons to higher-ranking figures who were scrutinized in Special Counsel Smith’s two main investigations. 

“This would be like hitting the delete-key on all of DOJ’s work on these investigations,” a person intimately familiar with the conversations told Rolling Stone in March. In the past several months, when confidants have quipped to Trump that he may have to “pardon yourself,” should he return to the Oval Office, the ex-president has sometimes simply smirked and replied that they’ll have to wait and see.

Another major focus of some of these counter-probes would be “grand jury violations,” says one person familiar with the matter. The counter-probe of those alleged “violations” is the surest sign yet that in a second Trump administration, the Justice Department would seek to investigate the special counsel’s use of grand juries in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases. (Indeed, Trump has already vowed to sic a special counsel on President Biden if he beats him in 2024.)

Some of these “special prosecutors” wouldn’t even be based out of the Justice Department, as special counsels typically are. In some of these private Trumpworld legal plans, some of the “special counsels” would be based out of places like the White House. This idea is nearly identical to the controversial position that Trumpist lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell tried to convince then-President Trump to give her in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Some lawyers and operatives close to Trump have pitched themselves for these kinds of roles, telling either Trump or some of his closest advisers that they’d be more than happy to take the gig in Trump’s possible return to power in 2025.

And along with having dreams of sweeping retribution and purges, the upper ranks of Trumpworld have spent years putting together projects to vet and prepare a new generation of appointments — for “special prosecutor” posts, as well as much else — and administrative talent.

In this informal vetting for Justice Department candidates, former senior Trump aides and well-connected activists have sought lawyers with a track record of loathing DOJ, particularly what they deem its supposedly “liberal,” “left-wing,” or “Marxist” elements. Between these different Trump allies, different private spreadsheets have been created in recent years, some laying out dozens of possible contenders, while some include upwards of a hundred names, sources with direct knowledge of the situation say. Former top Trump White House policy adviser Stephen Miller and other key Trump diehards have contributed names to several of these lists. 

Rolling Stone has reviewed one of these internal spreadsheets that has circulated among Trump lieutenants, and the roster is heavy on individuals connected to America First Legal, the Center for Renewing America, and other Trump-backing entities.

Prominent allies of the former president are open about plans to tie the Justice Department more tightly to the White House.

“I recall talking to a senior official in the Trump administration, who said after all of [these investigations] are over, we’ve got to think of a way to bring the Justice Department back into the government,” says Tom Fitton, president of the conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch and a close ally of the former president.

The Justice Department has typically enjoyed a degree of insulation from White House control, a norm aimed at avoiding the politicization of prosecution. But Fitton argues that the department should be more “responsive” to a president’s priorities, a belief that Trump and various influential conservatives embrace enthusiastically. “Is the Justice Department going to operate as an entity outside the White House as opposed to an entity that’s controlled by the president, as the Constitution requires?” he says.

Putting it another way: “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Russ Vought, a former top Trump official who heads the Center for Renewing America, told The New York Times in a story published last month.

“I think there’s an argument that what the Justice Department’s doing to Trump now is criminal,” Fitton tells Rolling Stone, suggesting — of course — that a future administration should launch an investigation into Special Counsel Smith’s work.

Fitton also says the department should revisit Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the FBI probe of the Trump campaign in 2016. Durham, he argues, was a “failure” and acted only as “a glorified inspector general.”

Once, Special Counsel Durham was supposed to be Trumpworld’s savior, someone who Trump, his allies on Capitol Hill, and large swaths of conservative media were counting on to expose and imprison “Deep State” foes. But when the Durham probe ended earlier this year with lackluster results for a vengeance-hungry GOP, he became much less a hero and more a cautionary tale to the right.

As one conservative lawyer who has discussed “special prosecutor” ideas with Trump in recent months tells Rolling Stone, the guiding principle of this project is simple: “No more John Durham’s — never again.” 

It’s becoming conventional wisdom that Democrats and independents hate Joe Biden so much that they might not bother to vote next year. Do they hate him so much that this would be preferable?

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NC state Rep. Lindsey Prather (D), a former educator, caught my attention this morning with this post from Houston. If you did not know the name Lauren Ashley before. Remember it now.

“This woman needs to run for office. I’ll donate to her campaign and get my friends to do the same,” responded substacker Charlotte Clymer.

"Because when you leave, it's gonna be us picking up the pieces" 👏👏👏 https://t.co/pTz9AnybEh

— Lindsey Prather (@PratherForNC) August 5, 2023

That’s Mike Miles whom Ashley is castigating. He is the recently state-appointed Houston schools supertintendent. Because as in many other GOP-controlled states, democracy is optional in Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) of frozen constituents, no water breaks for construction workers, and dead bodies in floating razor wire barriers fame took over the Houston Independent School System (HISD) in March:

After a prolonged legal battle and weeks of speculation, the Texas Education Agency on Wednesday confirmed it’s removing Houston Independent School District’s democratically elected school board and superintendent, effectively putting the state in charge of its largest school district.

Houston ISD, with 276 schools and an enrollment of nearly 200,000 students, will now be the largest district the agency has taken over since 2000, when it first intervened in a struggling school district.

Superintendent Millard House II and the current school board will finish out the school year, but the TEA will replace them after June 1 with “a board of managers.”

The state-appointed managers, Houston Public media reported, “will hold immense power. They can control the budget, school closures, collaborations with charter networks, policies around curriculum and library books, as well as hiring or firing the superintendent, among other important decisions.”

This week, they appear ready to hand state-appointed superintendent Miles even more power:

The Houston ISD Board of Managers (BOM) appears ready to grant Superintendent Mike Miles the ability to spend up to $2 million at a time without board approval, the power to change magnet programs and the authority to seek a waiver from the Texas Education Agency allowing the district to hire non-certified educators.

That is what prompted Ashley’s comments. She might as well have been addressing the Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Division.

Have a nice Saturday. I have to back and watch that again.

Trump plays ‘chicken’ with the court

U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya might as well have warned a toddler in a highchair not to throw his spoon onto the floor … again.

During Donald Trump’s first court appearance Thursday on Jan. 6 conspiracy charges, Upadhyaya issued a stern (and unusual) warning to the accused before releasing him on bond:

“It is a crime to try to influence a juror or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice. Do you understand these warnings and consequences, sir?”

Trump replied in the affirmative, just as he had before the world on Jan. 20, 2017, when he swore to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” We know how that worked out.

Violation of those conditions could lead to Trump’s being held until trial and could add to his sentence if convicted, Upadhyaya warned.

The question now is, how many chances will Trump get?

Strike One!

That didn’t take long.

Upadhyaya issued that unusual warning because she knew who was standing before her. But by Friday afternoon , Trump was playing chicken with her warnings. (See his alt-Twitter/X post above.)

The special counsel just alerted the court to Trump's threat-tweet in a motion asking the court for a protective order so it can begin providing discovery. There would be serious consequences for Trump if he violates the order. If he keeps it up, he's got to end up in jail. pic.twitter.com/2e9FlrZEog

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) August 5, 2023

By late Friday, the Department of Justice responded (and probably already had this motion for a protective order in draft). They know who they are dealing with, too (The Hill):

The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after he released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to issue a protective order in the case a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order — which is different from a so-called “gag order” — would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Such protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

“A certain way of speaking”

But Trump is nothing if not wily. He quickly responded with a claim that his threat was not directed at jurors or prosecutors.

What, me threaten jurors or prosecutors? Not at all! No, he was exercising his free speech rights to threaten RINOs and the Koch Brothers and “Club for No Growth.”

As Marcy Wheeler observes as well, Trump is trying to reinforce the political defense already circulating among his defenders. He had a First Amendment right to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election.

Wheeler writes:

As I’m writing this I keep thinking about the line from the indictment describing that Trump tweeted his implicit threat against Mike Pence during the riot at a moment his advisors left him alone in his Dining Room: “after advisors had left the Defendant alone in his dining room, the Defendant issued a Tweet intended to further delay and obstruct the certification.”

“The president has a certain way of speaking,” former chief of staff Mark Meadows told Michael Wolff, author of several books on Trump’s presidency. “And what he means — well, the sum can be greater or less than the whole.”

Trump operates “much like a mobster,” former Trump attorney Michael Cohen testified to Congress under oath. “He doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders,” Cohen said. “He speaks in a code, and I understand the code because I’ve been around him for a decade.”

Code should be in quotes. Trump’s “certain way of speaking” is fooling no one except the rubes who lined up to be fooled since the inveterate huckster descended his golden escalator in 2015. That includes preachers and public officials from his party across the country.

How many more strikes before a judge locks up Trump until trial?

UPDATE: I’m appending Glenn Kirschner’s useful explanation of where Trump stands right now.

Just 24 hours after being told by the judge not to threaten witnesses, Trump appears to violate the judge's order. What now? Let's talk about the wonderful world of Show Cause Orders. Because #JusticeMatters https://t.co/JDSrzMhWah

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) August 5, 2023

Asian elephant twins Yaad and Tukada were recently spotted beating the heat at Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York. Born to parents Mali and Doc on October 24, 2022, the twins are coming up on their 1^st birthday milestone!

The babies’ first bubble bath:

More!

DeSantis: "If they're trying to smuggle in product that's going to kill Americans, that's going to be the last thing they ever do, because those cartel members are gonna end up stone cold dead" pic.twitter.com/K4VNWbfQdE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 4, 2023

I guess he still thinks he can out-Trump Trump:

What in the hell is this outfit, by the way? Is he trying to channel Glenn Youngkin in his clothes and Trump in his blood thirsty language? And why does he have his name plastered all over his shirts, vests and jackets? His wife does too. Are they afraid people won’t recognize them?

If this is the re-tool it’s hard to see that it will work. Nobody does “blood-thirsty sociopath” like Donald Trump. The cult loves this stuff but they want it delivered with the glamour of the billionaire TV Star not some short guy in a vest with his name on it.

This should be standard in any Trump indictment. He constantly obtructs justice:

Lawyers who practice frequently in Washington, D.C., including MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirschner, say that most of the conditions of release imposed on Trump by the magistrate judge were standard, including the requirement that he not commit a crime while free.

However, they say that Judge Moxila Upadhyaya did issue a warning to Trump that is not commonly given to defendants at arraignments: “Finally, sir, I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror, or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”

Andrew Weissman had a similar impression:

[T]he standard condition that a judge usually emphasizes to a defendant is that they have to show up at each court appearance. That is the most important thing. That is what bail is for — so that you’ll show up in court. 

But I heard that the standard condition and most important thing today is “do not commit a crime’’ followed up by “do not tamper with a juror.” My first reaction was, I was a prosecutor for 21 years and I was a defense lawyer for five years, and I’ve never heard that.

Trump has no compunction about threatening witnesses, prosecutors and judges, he does it openly all the time. Everyone one America knows this. This warning from the judge won’t stop him. Their whole legal theory is based upon the idea that threatening witnesses and ordering crimes to be committed by others is protected speech. Mob Bosses must be very interested in how this comes out.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6: "Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear." https://t.co/TA2NRhoiNr pic.twitter.com/YS2BIqjz5Q

— The Hill (@thehill) August 3, 2023

I am unwilling to forgive Mike Pence for his four years of servility to a sociopath and his dereliction in failing to tell the public that Trump was planning a coup as he was doing it. But I guess we do have to acknowledge that he seems to have finally realized that there is no constituency for him anywhere and that he might as well be instrumental in ensuring that Trump doesn’t have the chance to do it again.

Josh Marshall writes:

Trump’s coup indictment and his own conspicuous role in the indictment narrative and chain of evidence seem finally to have convinced Pence that this is a divide he simply cannot straddle. You’re either on Team Coup or you’re not.

Some quotes from the 48 hours after the indictment was handed down.

Pence: “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisors . . . asked me . . . essentially to overturn the election. And to keep faith with the oath that I made to the American people and to Almighty God, I rejected that out of hand. And I did my duty that day.”

Pence: “Let’s be clear on this point. It wasn’t that they asked for a pause. The president specifically asked me and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes which would have resulted in the issue of being turned over to the House of Representatives.”

Pence: ““President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution… I really do believe that anyone who puts themself over the Constitution should never be president of the US.”

I think there are a few other quotes out there. But you get the gist from these. They are of course self-congratulatory. He chose the constitution. He did his duty. He fulfilled his oath to God and the American people. He’s running for office. That’s natural. And he’s also not wrong.

One of the revelations in the Jan 6th indictment, not entirely surprising but still notable, is that Pence and Pence’s testimony are central to the case. He kept contemporaneous notes of key events in those crucial days. Again, not surprising but very significant as evidence at trial. And from the moment this became clear Pence seemed to realize there was no straddling this fateful divide. You’re on Team Coup or you’re not. And being revealed as inevitably on the ‘not’ side, he might as well lean into it. And he is.

Pence remains a fascinating, almost novelistic figure in this drama, almost a reductio ad absurdum, a mathematical representation of how to do the right thing with the least physically measurable quanta of dignity possible. In the two and a half years since, a hero’s role in the drama has always been there for the taking. But he’s never taken it. Indeed, he compromised it so thoroughly in real time it’s hard to say how much that role even existed. At Trump’s demand he also made pressure calls to state officials. But they seem to have been, at least in his telling, low energy and perfunctory. “I did check in with,” he told Face the Nation early last month, “not only Gov. Ducey, but other governors and states that were going through the legal process of reviewing their election results, but there was no pressure involved.” He went along with or made no clear efforts to derail the unfolding coup attempt. Indeed, he even publicly pined and anguished over whether there might yet be some way, consistent with law and constitution, he could give Trump what he wanted. Yet he finally decided, seemingly with critical guidance from retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, that he could not. It’s almost as if Pence found himself cornered, in spite of himself, with no options left other than to do the right thing.

And yet if Pence had gone along with Trump’s demands there’s little question his action would have kicked off a constitutional crisis without precedent in American history. Law, constitution, history and experience all make it crystal clear that Pence had no right or ability to do what Trump demanded. But Trump and Co weren’t so much looking for an action as a pretext. Sure he had no power to do it. But if he did, who was going to back stop that constitutional and legal reality? The White House was in the defeated but still empowered President’s hands. The Congress was controlled by his party. The Supreme Court – yes, let’s be real here – was too. Critically, the House of Representatives, which actually chooses a President in a disputed election, had Republicans lining up to violate their oaths and provide a papery wrapper of legitimacy to Trump’s coup.

Pence had no power to do it. But who was going to stop him? He also didn’t need power. Trump had the power. He and the rest of Team Coup just needed a pretext.

For reasons beyond the scope of this post I believe Joe Biden in all likelihood still would have been sworn in as President on January 20th, 2021. But the path to getting there would have been more chaotic, more damaging and quite possibly more violent. And there’s no guarantee it would have happened at all. That treacherous enemy of the Republic, Jeff Clark, had a ready solution for anyone who didn’t like it: invoke the Insurrection Act, which is to say use the American military to enforce order against, murder any Americans who were unwilling to let the Republic be overthrown.

Since that day Pence has been in a sort of long twilight struggle to evade credit for that critical moment. But it’s un-straddle-able divide. You’re either on Team Coup or you’re not.

He’s not .Finally. But he sure as hell took a long time to realize that refusing to give Trump what he wanted was the single best moment of his ignominious career.

Semafor reported on a new ad campaign to promote support for Ukraine among Republicans. It’s needed:

A poll by CNN released on Friday found support for more Ukraine funding hitting new lows, with 55% of respondents opposed to new aid. 71% of Republicans say the U.S. has done enough to assist Ukraine already, underscoring the challenge the group faces.

I can’t tell you how mind-boggling this is considering the Republican Party I’ve grown up with. It’s very strange. The only thing that makes sense is that Russia is white, Christian and authoritarian so they consider it an ally.

Fighter jets, truck drivers, American flags, a narrator with a twang, and a country-rock soundtrack: That’s how a new group lobbying Congress to pass more aid for Ukraine plans to woo their constituents.

The spot for the organization, Freedom at Home and Abroad, will air on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday” this weekend, according to executive director Michael Franklin, who said the organization is spending $400,000 on media in August. Details of the campaign were shared ahead of time with Semafor.

The group’s target is pretty clear: blue collar, Republican-leaning voters, who polls show are divided over whether to provide Ukraine with further aid. The aesthetics are right out of a Ford F-150 commercial.

“Tell Congress: we’re not weak or scared,” the voiceover says. “We stand for American values. And when we stand up to bullies, we show that America is strong enough to take on anyone. We stand with Ukraine.”

The ad also tries to play on negative views in the U.S. toward the Chinese government: one clip features Russian President Vladimir Putin shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

This fits with arguments I’ve often heard around Capitol Hill: Republicans supportive of Ukraine frequently say that a victory by Putin in Ukraine would embolden Xi to try to invade Taiwan.

Before launching the campaign, Freedom at Home and Abroad conducted focus groups with Republican-leaning voters in Phoenix and Atlanta to understand attitudes on sending aid to Ukraine.

According to a summary of the results viewed by Semafor, the Republican participants worried that a Russian success in its invasion of Ukraine could fuel Chinese aggression while depleting U.S. military supplies. Some participants complained about the cost of sending more assistance to Ukraine, but understood there would be a “political price” if the U.S. were to abandon support, the document said.

China is authoritarian too but it isn’t white and Christian and that’s what really matters so it figures that the only way to move Republicans to support Ukraine is to frame it as necessary to stop Chinese aggression. Sadly, it’s probably the only way to do it.