Crooked Media - What A Day: Conspirator the merrier

Yesterday was a big day, huh? How’s everyone doing? Are we taking a lot of deep breaths, I hope? Staying hydrated?
 

• You’d think the third indictment of disgraced former president Donald Trump wouldn’t hit as hard—but it really does! Former Vice President Mike Pence made a big show of fighting the Justice Department in court in order to try to avoid testifying against Trump during special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation. But Tuesday’s 45-page indictment uncovered that Pence played a huge role in shaping the charges against his former boss for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. 
   

• Ole’ Pency took contemporaneous notes of his conversations with Trump in the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection, as the former president pressured him to comply with his scheme to remain in power illegitimately. During one such conversation, Trump allegedly called Pence “too honest” for rejecting  false claims that he had the power to reject or invent electors and hand the presidency to the loser. Pence is really leaning into the whole “I chose the Constitution over selfish interests,” narrative to serve his flailing 2024 campaign, and while, yes, it’s “good” that he chose to not break the law, he hasn’t exactly covered himself in honor these last two-and-a-half years. Pence refused to cooperate with the House January 6 investigation, has repeatedly questioned DOJ motivation for investigating the coup plot, and as recently as last month said he did not believe Trump had broken the law in connection with January 6.
   

• Special Counsel Jack Smith charged the former president with a crime stemming from a Reconstruction-era statute enacted as a means to prosecute White people in the South after the Civil War. Southern Whites, including Ku Klux Klan members, used terrorism to prevent former slaves from voting, so Section 241 of Title 18 of the United States Code states that it is a crime for anyone to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person,” in the “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” The law has been used in modern practice in cases of voter fraud conspiracies, if that rings any bells.

How about those co-conspirators? 
 

• Although the co-conspirators were not named in the indictment, reporters and legal analysts have deduced who they are based on publicly available information. Rudy Giuliani is likely “co-conspirator 1” — described as the attorney who was “willing to spread knowingly false claims” and “pursue strategies” to overturn the election results when Trump’s own campaign staff wouldn't. “Co-conspirator 1” is reported to have told an Arizona lawmaker “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories,” when pushing for proof of election fraud in the Silver State. Giuliani was a central player in Trump’s efforts to cling to power. On January 6, Giuliani told thousands of insurrectionists on the National Mall that “trial by combat” was necessary to restore Trump to power. 
   

• “Co-conspirator 2” is conservative lawyer John Eastman, Trump’s unhinged pal who concocted the discredited legal theory that Pence had the authority to overturn the certified Electoral College results. Eastman is the founding director of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (okay man, cool it) and a former Supreme Court clerk for Harlan Crow Patron Clarence Thomas. Skipping ahead, “co-conspirator 3” is Jeffrey Clark, who tried to get himself installed as acting attorney general for the express purpose of publicly declaring the election to be fraudulent. When warned that his coup scheme would lead to riots in the street, Clark chillingly responded, “that's why there's an Insurrection Act.” (The plan was to sic the military on voters after stealing the election from them.)  

Rounding out the cast of assumed co-conspirators are other familiar names like Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro. The identity of “co-conspirator 6,” is the most unclear, though the best evidence points to Boris Epshteyn. That’s fine and all (it means all six co-conspirators were lawyers) but we were hoping it had been Ginni Thomas, for jail purposes. See you back here Thursday for the real fun!

Ariana Grande took it a little too literally when she said “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.” On this week’s Keep It episode, Ira, Louis, and guest host Joel Kim Booster dig deep into Ariana Grande’s divorce and other celeb breakups, legacy reality shows, Katy Perry’s career, and so much more. Plus, they’ll be joined by disney stars Aly & AJ to discuss their tour and finding life in their old music. Listen to this jam packed episode of Keep It, new episodes every Wednesday on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 1951, Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge. She died of cervical cancer at the age of 31 in the “colored ward” of the hospital and was buried in an unmarked grave. The tissue taken from her became the sample for the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishes, which went on to enable countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping, and even the COVID-19 vaccine. Her cells, unlike most cell samples, survived and thrived in laboratories, becoming known as the first “immortalized human cell lines” because scientists could cultivate them indefinitely. 

Research labs and biotech companies, particularly Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., raked in billions of dollars from the fruits of what came to be known as the “HeLa cell line.” In 2021, Lacks’ descendants filed a lawsuit alleging that they had never been compensated despite the enormous impact of Henrietta’s cells and their incomprehensible monetary value. On Tuesday, more than 70 years after Henrietta’s cells were taken, Lacks’ family and Thermo Fisher Scientific reached a financial settlement. Johns Hopkins Medicine released a statement saying that its medical system, “has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line.” As of 2013, Henrietta’s relatives reached an agreement with the National Institutes of Health that gave them some control over how the DNA code from the HeLa cells is used.

Robert Bowers, the gunman who stormed Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 and killed 11 worshipers in the worst act of antisemitic terrorism in American history, was sentenced to death by a Pennsylvania jury on Wednesday. 

Fitch’s decision to downgrade the United States’s credit rating had to do with fiscal concerns, political polarization, and a deterioration in domestic governance, according to a senior director at Fitch Ratings, who cited the January 6 insurrection. Thanks, Trump. 

One of the largest single donors to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is Republican mega-donor Timothy Mellon. Always the ones you most suspect.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will speak at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, on the 60th anniversary of the White supremacist bombing that killed four Black girls there in 1963.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—“half prime minister, half sex symbol,” as Crooked Editor-in-Chief Brian Beutler put it—announced that he and his wife have separated after 18 years of marriage.

The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that the United States has suspended its security cooperation with military forces in Niger after the African nation’s military attempted to oust its elected president. Man, coups are really going around these days! Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters that partnered activities such as U.S. training of Nigerien soldiers has been suspended “in light of the situation.” A second defense official said that the suspension began shortly after Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum was detained by his own presidential guard. Yeah, that’ll do it! The Biden administration has been hesitant to label the events in Niger a coup, a distinction that under U.S. law could require the swift end of both security and economic assistance to the country. This is particularly dicey because of Niger’s key role as a Western ally in counterterrorism operations. For now, State Department and Pentagon officials appear to be treading lightly, both hoping they can reinstate the democratically elected Bazoum, and simultaneously trying to avert a misstep that could worsen the situation. The United States? Interfering and making an issue in a foreign country worse? No way! Never heard of it!

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Once near extinction with only about 200 animals in the wild, Brazil’s golden lion tamarin monkeys have rebounded to about 4,800, more than at any time since efforts to save the species began half a century ago.
 

A lawsuit was filed on Wednesday asking Wisconsin’s newly liberal State Supreme Court to throw out the Republican-drawn gerrymandered maps. 

A volunteer for the Houston-based organization Food Not Bombs was found not guilty after the city began issuing citations against the group for the first time earlier this year for feeding the homeless population outside of a downtown library, which Food Not Bombs has been doing for two decades.