Crooked Media - What A Day: Calm before the Stormy

As we near the end of this week of will-Trump-finally-go-to-jail limbo, one question remains: What the hell?
 

• Manhattan prosecutors said today that Trump misled people to expect he would be arrested this week, which is what prompted congressional Republicans to attempt to interfere with their investigation of his well-established hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. On Saturday, Trump announced that he believed he would be “arrested” this week, which prompted the most unhinged Republicans on the House Oversight Committee to write a letter to Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg demanding that he testify before Congress about what the House GOP wants everyone to believe is a “politicized” investigation.  
   

• Bragg shot back forcefully Thursday, with a letter signed by his office’s general counsel Leslie Dubeck calling the House GOP request “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution.” It should also be noted, as we reported yesterday, that Trump used his “poor me I might be going to jail for doing crimes” grift to raise $1.5 million from his supporters in three days. 
   

• Dubeck aptly noted that the letter from the House GOP loonies “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged [GOP leadership] to intervene.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also called on his committee chairmen to harass Bragg, which, if you ask us, doesn’t seem like typical Speaker of the House business. 

Did we get trolled, once again, by America’s Troll-in-Chief? 
 

• It kind of looks that way. The man is a subject of at least four different criminal investigations in three different jurisdictions (federally, by DOJ, and locally, by the Fulton County, GA, and Manhattan district attorneys) and yet he still was able to command everyone’s attention and get everyone focused on the least-serious crimes he may be tried for  because he knows how to work the media and the media is all too ready to let him. 
   

• But not everyone is willing to let Trump be the ringmaster of his own circus. Lewis Kaplan, the federal judge presiding over the defamation case brought by former New York City columnist E. Jean Caroll against Trump, has decided to use an anonymous jury, specifically because of Trump’s history of attacking “courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters.” The trial is scheduled to begin on April 25, and Trump continues to deny the charges against him, as he denies everything else related to reality. 
   

The unpleasant truth about Trump (is there any other kind?) is that if he is indicted, even if he is convicted (!), he can still run for president. In a normal political party, it would be more difficult for an indicted candidate or convicted criminal to win votes, but we know the GOP is pretty okay with that sort of thing. 

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With perhaps the notable exception of New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, most people admit that the United States’s invasion of Iraq stemmed from a mishmash of lies, intelligence failures, intelligence manipulations, and one of the greatest, deadliest errors of judgment in modern history. Two decades later, the disastrous Iraq War continues to cast a long shadow over America’s spy agencies. Iraq spurred a major reorganization of the intelligence community, which demoted CIA from its oversight role over the other agencies, and the implementation of reforms that would allow analysts to more critically evaluate sources and better assess possible bias in conclusions. The hollow echoes of “weapons of mass destruction” still ring in the ears of millions of Americans, and the U.S. intelligence community still has not fully recovered from the deserved demolition of its credibility. Russia’s war in Ukraine has provided the IC an opportunity to rehabilitate its shattered reputation by correctly anticipating the invasion and supplying good information to Kyiv throughout the conflict, but it also incorrectly assessed that Ukraine’s forces would fall within weeks.

The father of one of the teenage victims of the Parkland shooting was arrested today during a hearing on gun regulations for yelling at a Republican congressman who was saying typical Republican congressman shit about guns. 

South Carolina’s Republican comptroller general (the state’s top accountant) will resign next month after making a $3.5 billion error in the year-end financial report he oversaw. 

The Bank of England announced today that it will hike interest rates an additional one-quarter of a percentage point. 

Twitter announced that on April 1, it will terminate its “legacy verified” program that allowed long-verified accounts to maintain their verified status without paying for the new subscription service. Organizations will have to pay $1,000 to maintain account verification. It’s like no one has any goddamn respect for April Fools’ Day anymore. 

The CEO of TikTok was grilled in a congressional hearing Thursday by lawmakers of both parties, who believe the app is a surveillance and propaganda tool of the Chinese Communist Party and also addictive and damaging to children’s developing brains.

All schools in New York’s Hilton Central School District were evacuated Wednesday after receiving a bomb threat related to books depicting LGBT+ characters and information in the school library. Thanks again, Republicans!

The Nebraska state Legislature voted Thursday to advance a hotly contested bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors in the state, in defiance of Democratic Sens. Megan Hunt and Machaela Cavanaugh who have promised to filibuster every bill for the rest of the 90-day legislative session 

The Biden Administration will invite around 120 countries to join next week’s Summit for Democracy, but Turkey and Hungary will not be on the list. 

In one of the largest randomized studies of American transgender adults ever conducted, the majority of trans adults reported that transitioning made them more satisfied with their lives.

Kyiv’s top commander of ground forces said Thursday that Ukraine will launch a long-awaited counteroffensive “very soon” after four months on the defensive. Ukrainian forces and its cities and towns have absorbed Russia’s brutal winter attacks, and now reports indicate that Russian mercenaries “are losing considerable strength and are running out of steam,” as they have not yet taken the crucial city of Bakhmut. Reuters journalists stationed in the areas surrounding the city reported seeing evidence consistent with the claim that the Russian offensive is running out of gas. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy toured the front lines throughout this week, visiting troops near Bakhmut on Wednesday and those in the Kherson region in the south on Thursday.

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Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign staff will be unionized!

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced legislation today that would block bank executives from failed banks like Silicon Valley Banks from serving on regional Federal Reserve boards that regulate the banking industry. 

The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule that would require sellers to make it easier for consumers to cancel their enrollment in subscription services or anything that requires recurring payments.