The Jan. 6 Case Against Donald Trump Is Part Of America’s Founding Story

INSIDE: Elon Musk ... Liz Cheney ... Eric Adams

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A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

The Story Of What Happened On Jan. 6 Is Ours To Own

In what is likely the last big Jan. 6 development before the election, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the unsealing Wednesday of the 165-page filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith that presents his best case for why presidential immunity doesn’t shield Donald Trump from criminal prosecution for subverting the 2020 election.

The case laid out by Smith broadly follows the already-familiar contours of the conspiracy to overturn the results of an election Trump lost. It’s a narrative we know because we saw most of it with our own eyes. What we couldn’t see directly was pieced together by the House Jan. 6 committee and journalists working tirelessly to document the conspiracy’s many disparate elements and to identify the vast cast of characters that ended the United States’ streak of peaceful transitions of power.

There remains great civic value in repeating that story for ourselves and for future generations so that it becomes woven into our collective memory like the Boston Tea Party or the firing on Fort Sumter or the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Jan. 6 debacle is a part of the nation’s founding story, even though it comes nearly 250 years later, because the same principles that animated its creation were under sustained attack, the same threats that the constitutional system was specifically designed to protect against were on full display, and the reactionary forces of chaos and destruction that always linger just over the horizon advanced to within minutes and feet of prevailing over democracy and the rule of law.

Smith and investigators have amassed an overwhelming body of evidence of Trump’s culpability. The challenge for prosecutors in light of the Supreme Court’s ahistorical decision on presidential immunity is to demonstrate that Trump fomented, led and engaged in the conspiracy in his capacity as a private citizen running for the presidency, not in his capacity as sitting president. Alternatively, Smith also argues that in some instances where Trump’s conduct was as president, the rebuttable presumption of immunity can be overcome. But the delicate dance of overcoming the Supreme Court’s heavy thumb on the scale of justice, isn’t the core value of Smith’s work. The real value of the fact-based narrative presented by Smith is the story it gives all of us to remember and repeat.

As I read through Smith’s filing, I shared Rick Hasen’s “red-hot anger and wistfulness” that the Supreme Court has hamstrung the timely prosecution of Trump and that this case may never go to trial if Trump wins in November. Coupled with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the slam-dunk indictment of Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, we have edged to the precipice of irretrievably undermining the rule of law by creating a presidency beyond the law, at least when the White House is held by Republicans and given unlimited rein by this corrupt Supreme Court.

In the face of such extreme threats to democracy, it can seem quaint, trivial, or even pointless to continue to document the transgressions being committed against the will of the American people, which is fundamentally what Jan. 6 was all about. But the careful, meticulous, and relentless collecting of evidence, recording of facts, and repeating of the stories we tell ourselves about what happened and who was responsible powerfully cement in our national consciousness the story of who we are, where we came from, and what we must overcome to get where we want to be as a democratic, pluralistic country.

A Point Of Pride

I want to acknowledge briefly the work of the TPM team for its early, consistent, and ongoing coverage of the 2020 election subversion conspiracy because it in so many ways presaged the case Special Counsel Jack Smith laid out in full yesterday.

We have done too many stories to note them all here, and I will inevitably overlook some of the work of our team, so apologies to them for that, but here is a sampling of a handful of some of our most significant stories:

January 25, 2021: The Capitol Mob Was Only The Finale Of Trump’s Conspiracy To Overturn The Election

July 5, 2022: How The Fake Electors Scheme Could Give The DOJ A Way Into Trumpworld

August 4, 2022: Why The Fake Electors Are About A Lot More Than Fake Electors

December 12, 2022: The Meadows Texts: A Plot To Overturn An American Election

February 10, 2023: How The Fake Electors Scheme Explains Everything About Trump’s Attempt To Steal The 2020 Election

February 12, 2024: The Chesebro Docs: How a Coterie of Attorneys Designed the Plan For Trump To Stay In Power

Infographic Of The Day

NYT: How Donald Trump could use the Justice Department to target his perceived political adversaries

Important

TPM’s Nicole Lafond: DHS Warns Every Level Of Election Admin Could Be Targeted By Domestic Extremists Next Month

Exclusive

WSJ: Elon Musk Gave Tens of Millions to Republican Causes Far Earlier Than Previously Known

2024 Ephemera

• Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) will make a campaign appearance with Kamala Harris on Thursday in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party.

• Donald Trump, 78, has still not released his medical records.

• The cash-starved National Republican Senatorial Committee is making a last-minute shift in its TV ad strategy.

CA Alleges Catholic Hospital Illegally Denied Abortion Care

The state of California is suing Providence St. Joseph Hospital of Eureka for allegedly breaking the law by refusing emergency abortion case to a woman carrying twins when her water broke at 15 weeks.

California Bans Legacy Admissions

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed into law a new ban on legacy admissions at private colleges and universities that is scheduled to go into effect in the fall of 2025.

NYC Mayor Adams Could Face Additional Criminal Charges

During a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors indicated that more charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams are possible and that new charges against additional defendants are likely.

Hurricane Helene Update

OLD FORT, NORTH CAROLINA – SEPTEMBER 30: Storm damaged cars sit along Mill Creek in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on September 30, 2024 in Old Fort, North Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

• Hurricane Helene’s death toll rose to 180, making it the third deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. and its territories in the last 50 years.

• After visiting the Carolinas on Wednesday, President Biden will be surveying storm damage in Florida and Georgia on Thursday.

• The hidden toll of hurricanes: “An analysis of more than 500 tropical cyclones that have hit the United States since 1930 found that the average hurricane leads to as many as 11,000 excess deaths — a figure hundreds of times higher than official mortality estimates.”

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