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Disgraced former President Donald Trump was, shall we say, really on one this weekend.
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One of Donald Trump’s many lawyers, John Lauro, appeared on five (!) television networks on Sunday morning arguing that his client’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and install himself for a second term were merely “aspirational.” An ironclad legal strategy if we’ve ever heard one! For his part, Trump spent the weekend screaming into the ether on Truth Social saying that his legal team was going to seek the recusal of the federal judge overseeing that case, Tanya Chutkan.
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In his campaign for hearts and minds, Lauro tried to contradict evidence that Trump urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes for President Joe Biden in favor of false electors pledged to Trump. On CNN’s State of the Union, Lauro said “What President Trump didn’t do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything…He asked him in an aspirational way.” Good luck with that! Lauro then parroted the same defense on NBC’s Meet the Press when discussing the former president’s infamous call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump pressured him to “find 11,780 votes,” and suggested that Raffensperger could face criminal charges if he did not comply.
- Trump and his legal counsel are throwing several strategies at the wall in an attempt to get his trial moved out of Judge Chutkan’s courtroom. His lawyer has argued that the liberal (read: non-white) Washington, DC, jury pool will guarantee a partial jury (as opposed to the “impartial” jury of MAGA-hat wearing Trump supporters he wants) and that Washington residents will be too emotional about the events of January 6 since it happened in their backyard. Wow. Weak! Nearly every federal judge on the bench in Washington has already rejected versions of these arguments in hundreds of criminal cases resulting from the January 6 insurrection.
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As is true of basically anything related to Trump’s criminality, there’s more where that came from.
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On Friday, DOJ prosecutors Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office asked Judge Chutkan for a “protective order” governing the disclosure of discovery materials to Trump’s lawyers. This is a fairly routine request, but prosecutors made an addition to the motion directing the court’s attention to the rather unambiguous post Trump published on Truth Social that day, declaring “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” The prosecutors did not ask the judge to issue a gag order against Trump, but did use the motion to suggest there should be clear rules established to prevent him from posting evidence gathered through the discovery phase online, something he would most certainly do based on his extremely well-documented habit of publicly attacking anyone and everyone involved in criminal cases against him.
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Attorney and “co-conspirator 2” John Eastman—the man who personally designed Trump’s failed coup—is also engaged in some classic scumbag legal maneuvering. In an August 4 filing, Eastman’s lawyer asked a California judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings, arguing that his likely forthcoming indictment may prompt him to assert his Fifth Amendment rights during the hearing to decide whether he will be stripped of his license to practice law. The California State Bar Association’s disciplinary authorities have charged Eastman with multiple violations of ethics and professional statutes (as well as, you know, the law) stemming from his criminal actions following the 2020 election.
It’s clear that the federal government’s criminal case against Trump is going to be messy, not least because the former president is a petulant child who kicks and screams at even the slightest challenge. But he’s kicking and screaming particularly hard right now, because he knows what’s coming.
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Los Angeles! Cancel your Thursday night plans and thank us later. The Lovett or Leave It Errors Tour is back at the Dynasty Typewriter this Thursday at 7:30pm. It’s an incredible lineup, with guests Maria Bamford, Bridger Winegar, and Ian Harvie. Tell your Hinge date you have to work late and head to crooked.com/events to get your tickets now!
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Late Friday, a Texas judge issued a temporary exemption to the state’s hyper-strict abortion laws, allowing women and doctors to terminate life-threatening and non-viable pregnancies without legal liability. State District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum wrote that the Texas attorney general cannot prosecute doctors who use their “good faith judgment” to terminate a complicated pregnancy. According to her outline, such conditions include septic pregnancy, a fatal fetal abnormality or condition, or when a pregnancy requires regular, invasive treatment. Mangrum wrote that the Texas ban is unconstitutional, and that enforcement of it exceeded the legitimate powers of Texas officials. The judge’s determination came after the court heard testimony from three women who described how delayed medical care impacted their pregnancies. But reproductive rights advocates could not celebrate for long. Just hours after Mangrum’s decision, First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster (R-TX) said that his office had appealed the decision blocking the injunction, and called it “an activist Austin judge’s attempt to override Texas abortion laws.”
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Ohio will hold a special election on Tuesday to decide whether to raise the threshold for amendments to the state constitution from a simple majority vote (the way it has been for more than a century) to 60 percent of the vote. The Buckeye State’s GOP-controlled legislature called for this rule change ahead of a referendum to protect abortion rights in November, naturally.
Bribe-taker-in-Chief, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas acquired a $267,230 R.V. in 1999, but according to the title history, he didn’t buy it himself, another member of his harem of wealthy friends Anthony Welters did. When questioned by the New York Times, Welters called it a “loan” which he said was “satisfied” nine years later, but answered no further questions about his arrangement with Thomas. Did our guy Clarence disclose this financial dealing, as he is required to do? You’ll no doubt be shocked to learn that he didn’t.
A group of North Korean hackers clandestinely breached computer networks at a major Russian missile developer for at least five months last year, according to a new security analysis.
The majority of Americans (57 percent) disapprove of President Biden’s handling of climate change, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. The same survey finds that few Americans know much about the Inflation Reduction Act. This is, of course, the first time in history that Americans have failed to keep abreast of significant changes to federal policy.
Meanwhile, The Heritage Foundation released a sweeping conservative strategy dubbed “Project 2025” detailing a roadmap for the first 180 days of a future GOP presidency, which would include (can you believe it?) deregulation of greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, oil and gas wells, and power plants, dismantling all of the White House’s clean-energy programs, and increasing the production of fossil fuels. We can see the “Lighting the Planet On Fire 2024” campaign stickers now.
A Minneapolis judge has sentenced Tou Thao to four years and nine months in state prison. Thao is a former Minneapolos police officer who held back bystanders trying to intervene as other officers restrained George Floyd in 2020, leading to his death.
After nearly a century in business and three years after receiving a $700 million federal pandemic bailout, freight-trucking company Yellow has declared bankruptcy. When the company folds, 30,000 people will lose their jobs and the nation’s supply chains will be adversely affected.
Oscar-winning director William Friedkin, best known for The French Connection and The Exorcist died on Monday at 87. Make sure to get possessed by a demon and projectile vomit on a priest in his honor.
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The Environmental Protection Agency, which is tasked with conducting safety reviews before allowing new chemical products to be released onto the market, determined that a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic was so hazardous that everyone exposed to it continually over a lifetime would eventually develop cancer, a virtually unprecedented threat level. It poses a risk of lung cancer six-times greater than a lifetime of smoking. Inexplicably, the EPA still approved the chemical, and did not offer risk-mitigation guidelines as is required with a substance that poses unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.
These and other new plastic-based fuels manufactured by (who else) Chevron were approved under an EPA program initially touted as a “climate-friendly” way to promote alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. ProPublica obtained the EPA risk assessment through a Freedom of Information Act request, and as a result, six environmental organizations are challenging the agency’s characterizations of cancer risks, accusing it of failing to protect the general population from the toxic fuels, and urging the agency to withdraw the consent order approving them. “Hey, could you not let absolutely everyone get cancer so Chevron can make even more blood money profits?” sounds pretty reasonable if you ask me.
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