How Donald Trump Is A Menace To The Rule Of Law Right Now
INSIDE: Hunter Biden ... Mitch McConnell ... Ron DeSantis
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
It’s Already Happening
The risk of Donald Trump being elected President again and abusing the powers of the office to exact revenge and secure retribution against his perceived enemies is already having profound effects on the rule of law.
Yesterday’s highly unusual collapse of the Hunter Biden plea agreement was directly related to the menace Trump poses if he retakes the office he was already twice impeached for abusing.
What stands out most about the awkward and bizarre proceedings in Delaware yesterday is that Hunter Biden’s legal team and federal prosecutors were trying to arrive at a workaround that would prevent him from being targeted by a future Trump White House.
At issue initially was how far-reaching is the immunity Hunter Biden would receive under the deal. Prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s team disagreed about what they had originally negotiated. Plea hearings are usually routine, and it is not common at all for defendants and prosecutors to arrive in court with this kind of misunderstanding not already resolved. That was odd enough.
But in reviewing the reports on the hearing and the transcript it’s clear that what ultimately held things up was the judge’s concerns about the framework of the agreement that was clearly designed to provide Hunter Biden with some protection from a future Trump presidency and a subsequent DOJ run amok. (For a deeper summary, I’d recommend Joyce Vance.)
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika was rightly concerned that the proposed workaround would insert the judicial branch into what is exclusively executive branch territory. That was especially ironic since she had just shot down an attempt by the legislative branch – in the form of the House GOP – to weigh in on the plea agreement.
Noreika, a Trump appointee (but it should be said she conduced the plea hearing carefully, professionally and without any hint of partisanship), declined to ratify the plea agreement and ordered the parties to submit written briefs.
Trump has already injected a curdling effect on the rule of law into the minds of anyone – investigators, partisan foes, public targets of his enmity – likely to be on the receiving end of his abuses of power. But now we see his influence manifesting in ways that are forcing prosecutors and judges to deal with it.
That Trump can have this kind of corrosive effect while out of office is a harbinger of what Trump II would look like.
Indictment Watch
NBC: Trump teams prepare for possible Thursday grand jury vote
Liz Dye: Trump’s aggressive legal strategies keep backfiring spectacularly
If you’re getting impatient and need an indictment fix: “A key suspect in an alleged plot to illegally access Michigan voting machines following the 2020 presidential election says she has been indicted in the long-running probe and expects to be arraigned next week.”
Chris Krebs Interviewed By Jack Smith’s Team
The election security official who defended the integrity of the 2020 election and was shortly thereafter fired by then-President Donald Trump confirms he has spoken with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team investigating Jan. 6.
Their Silence Speaks Volumes
AJC: Republicans behind Giuliani’s Georgia hearings mum on his false statements
Hard To Watch
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s apparent medical episode during a Hill press conference Wednesday revealed a man far more feeble and halting than before his fall, brain injury, and long hospitalization earlier this year:
McConnell had another fall earlier this month while disembarking from an airplane at Reagan National Airport, NBC News is reporting.
GOP Feuding I
Florida’s lone black congressman, the reliably conservative Byron Donalds, was put on full blast by Team DeSantis after he questioned the state’s new African American history curriculum, saying “the attempt to feature the personal benefits of slavery is wrong & needs to be adjusted.” Donalds has endorsed Trump in 2024.
GOP Feuding II
A local GOP official in North Carolina has been accused of assault by a fellow Republican Amy Churchill, a school board member who was censured last month by the county GOP. The alleged incident happened Monday at a meeting of the Buncombe County GOP:
[Buncombe County GOP Chairman Doug] Brown initially told Churchill he was “glad to see you here,” she told Asheville Watchdog in an exclusive interview, and then questioned why she was at the GOP meeting, her first since being censured — a formal expression of the party’s severe disapproval of her actions.
Brown then became “very agitated,” Churchill said, and slammed the door on her when she entered a hallway.
In a complaint she filed with Asheville Police, Churchill wrote, “(I) stated that his behavior was rude, (Brown) stated that he had had enough of me and placed hands forcefully on (my) upper arms, shoulder area and proceeded to forcefully shove (me) multiple times without removing hands and moved (me) backwards.” She said she had to “apply pressure” to her back right heel to keep from falling.
Ya Don’t Say?
WaPo: Trump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue.
2024 Ephemera
Oh, FFS:
‘If This Is True’
The oleaginous Ted Cruz bookends his remarks with “if this is true” – which apparently is enough to just make up whatever you want and insert it between the disclaimers:
Good Read
ProPublica: How The Ultrawealthy Use Private Foundations To Bank Millions In Tax Deductions While Giving The Public Little In Return
Sinéad O’Connor, 1966-2023
Thanks for reading today’s Morning Memo. If you haven’t yet, I hope you will become a TPM member! You can find the TPM members’ commenting section here.
I think Congress needs to impose mandatory retirement on itself. It looks like Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein have cognitive issues that affect their ability to do their jobs. It was actually sad to watch the clip of McConnell, whose staff claimed he "suffered a dizzy spell." Before he suffered the concussion last year, he took 6 weeks off for a broken shoulder which was attributed to another fall. Either he's not being properly evaluated, or he's ignoring medical advice.