Trump Legal: W and L

In Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics, we look at Trump's dishonesty and disregard for the rule of law.

 Our next book will look at the 2024 campaign and the impact of Trump's legal problems. New York courts have found that he is a rapist and a fraud.

Alan Feuer at NYT:

The Supreme Court that former President Donald J. Trump helped to shape tossed him a legal lifeline on Wednesday night, making a choice that substantially aided his efforts to delay his federal trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

By deciding to take up Mr. Trump’s claim that presidents enjoy almost total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office — a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and one that few experts think has any basis in the Constitution — the justices bought the former president at least several months before a trial on the election interference charges can start.

It is not out of the question that Mr. Trump could still face a jury in the case, in Federal District Court in Washington, before Election Day. At this point, the legal calendar suggests that if the justices issue a ruling by the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June and find that Mr. Trump is not immune from prosecution, the trial could still start by late September or October.

But with each delay, the odds increase that voters will not get a chance to hear the evidence that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the last election before they decide whether to back him in the current one.

Ben Protess and Kate Christobek at NYT:

Donald J. Trump on Wednesday lost his initial bid for a New York appeals court to pause the more than $450 million judgment he faces in a civil fraud case, a decision that could expose him to financial peril.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had asked the appeals court to allow him to post only a $100 million bond — a promise from an outside company that the judgment eventually will be paid — because securing one for the full amount was “impossible,” they said.

A single appellate court judge assigned to consider Mr. Trump’s request, Anil Singh, turned him down on Wednesday. Mr. Trump will try again next month with a panel of five appellate court judges, but for now, the former president is still on the hook to post a bond for the full amount of more than $450 million. And any company providing one would probably require him to pledge cash and other collateral that he does not yet have.

If Mr. Trump fails to secure the bond, the New York attorney general’s office, which brought the case accusing him of fraudulently inflating his net worth, can collect the $454 million from him. The attorney general, Letitia James, is expected to provide Mr. Trump a 30-day grace period, which will expire on March 25, at which point she could move swiftly to seize Mr. Trump’s bank accounts and perhaps take control of his New York properties.

Aaron Blake at WP:

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise added during a hearing Wednesday, “No one, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has 500 million laying around.” (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

But in the very same legal proceedings less than a year ago, Trump indicated he had something close to that amount of cash at his disposal.

In an April 2023 deposition, Trump volunteered that he had “substantially in excess of 400 million in cash.”

“Developers usually don’t have cash. They have assets, not cash,” Trump said. “We have, I believe, 400 plus and going up very substantially every month.”

Trump added later that, despite the legal fees he was facing, “I have over 400 — fairly substantially over $400 million in cash. That’s just cash. That’s just cash.”

It’s not clear that Trump’s legal team is saying that he doesn’t actually have the cash, as much as that producing a bond in the full amount is impractical.

It’s also possible that Trump’s cash flow has declined in the intervening months. But he claimed it was increasing significantly as of April 2023.

The Trump legal team’s claims are also at odds with what one of its own members said last week, after the judgment.

Appearing on Fox News, Trump lawyer Alina Habba noted that a bond including the full amount would have to be posted and added that “we will be prepared to do that.”

“Unfortunately, they picked the wrong guy to pick on, in my opinion, because he’s strong, he’s resilient, and he happens to have a lot of cash,” Habba added.

 

Michigan Primary

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended.  But primaries go on.

Nate Cohn at NYT:

In Tuesday night’s results in Michigan, around one in eight Democrats voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary — a protest of the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel and the war in Gaza.

In some predominantly Arab American precincts in Dearborn, around three in four Democrats cast a protest vote for uncommitted.

Having one in eight Democrats vote uncommitted in an uncontested primary is not wholly unusual. As recently as the last time a Democratic president sought re-election, in 2012, 11 percent of Michigan Democratic caucusgoers voted for “uncommitted” instead of for Barack Obama.

Having three in four Democratic primary voters in Arab American communities do it, on the other hand, is an eye-popping figure. It goes well beyond the norm, and it’s a powerful indication that the war in Gaza poses serious political risks to President Biden.

Cohn offers some important caveats:

Imagine, for a moment, that in the last election Mr. Biden had lost every single voter in Dearborn, Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights — the three Michigan townships where Arab Americans make up at least 30 percent of the population. He still would have won Michigan — and still would have won it by more than he did Wisconsin, Arizona or Georgia.

For that same reason, Mr. Biden’s deficit in the polling of Michigan can’t mostly be attributed to his weakness among Arab American and Muslim voters. Overall, Arab Americans make up 2 percent of the state’s population and probably an even smaller share of the electorate. There are non-Arab Muslim voters, of course, adding another percentage point or more. In the end, 3 percent of the electorate can only do so much.

Why sequencing of reported election results matter:

Early in the evening Uncommitted was getting ~15% of the vote

The final tally is ~13%

In 2012, Uncommitted was ~11% -- so we might attribute ~2% to a ceasefire protest vote

Yet an early narrative set in Biden is in trouble

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) February 28, 2024

South Carolina

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended.

Trump won South Carolina, defeating Haley in her home state by 60-39 percent, a narrower victory than polls had indicated. Aaron Blake at WP:

Given the GOP nominating contest appears to be all but over, the biggest question now might be what the results say about Trump’s general election prospects.

A few exit poll findings stand out.

One is that 31 percent of voters said Trump wouldn’t be fit to serve as president if he’s convicted of a crime. South Carolina becomes the third early state to show that at least 3 in 10 voters said a convicted Trump wouldn’t be fit. (We don’t have data for Nevada.)

Just because these voters say he wouldn’t be fit doesn’t mean they wouldn’t vote for him, but it would surely be a hurdle for at least some voters to get over. And 5 percent of voters voted for Trump but said he would be unfit if convicted.

Another exit poll finding is that a large chunk of Haley’s support was expressly anti-Trump. While about 20 percent of voters picked her and said it was mainly an affirmative vote for her, well more than 1 in 10 voted for her while saying the vote was mostly against her opponent (Trump).

The NORC analysis showed that 35 percent of voters said they would be dissatisfied with Trump as the nominee, and 21 percent said they wouldn’t vote for him in the general election.

At least 20 percent of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have now said they will not vote for Trump in November.

A major unknown from there is how many of these voters actually mean it — and would otherwise be in the GOP camp. South Carolina allows any voter to participate in the Republican primary. But just 4 percent of voters Saturday identified as Democrats.

Mike Allen at Axios:

Where he won: Two-thirds of Trump voters were white and didn't go to college.

 83% of "angry" voters backed Trump. (ABC)

Where he lost: 75% of Haley supporters correctly said Biden was legitimately elected president in 2020 (about 40% of them voted for Biden). (VoteCast)

A stunning 62% of Republican primary voters said Biden wasn't legitimately elected. (NBC)

Those who went to the polls reflected Trump's strengths:This was the oldest South Carolina GOP electorate this century. (Chuck Todd)

60% of primary voters were white evangelical or born-again Christians. (CNN)

Reality check: That group isn't remotely big enough to win a presidential election. He would need to attract voters who are more diverse, more educated and believe his first loss was legit. South Carolina exit polls show he didn't do that.

Third-Party Stumbles

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

 Larry Hogan gave up a brief No Labels flirtation to run for the Senate. It is dawning on people that a No Labels candidate would serve to elect Trump. At TNR, Greg Sargent reports:

Around six months ago, when speculation raged that Senator Joe Manchin might join a third-party presidential ticket on behalf of the centrist group No Labels, he privately consulted with Richard Gephardt, the former congressman who has taken up the cause of stopping No Labels in its tracks.

Gephardt showed Manchin private polling that he’d bankrolled himself, illustrating that such a bid could only help Donald Trump beat President Biden, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Gephardt reminded Manchin that even third-party bids that win real public support have routinely failed to garner many, or even any, Electoral College votes.

In short, Gephardt pointed out, a third-party bid could never succeed on its own; it would mostly take votes away from Biden. Manchin absorbed the argument, the person says, and then expressed an acute worry: Above all, Manchin said emphatically, he did not want to become the person who handed the presidency to Trump.

That argument finally seemed to prevail with Manchin last week, when he announced that he will not be part of any third-party ticket after all. Manchin declared that he didn’t want to be a “spoiler,” having apparently realized that by far the most likely consequence of such a bid would be a second term for Trump, as he began to fear six months ago.

RFK Jr. has staffed his campaign with people who lack relevant experience.  It is going poorly. Diana Falzone at Mediaite:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is in disarray amid an exodus of campaign workers who say disorganization, lavish spending, amateurish leadership, and a severe disconnect between the campaign and the candidate’s values have led the long-shot bid for the presidency astray.

Fourteen members of Kennedy24 have resigned since the start of the year, including 12 field staff and two main staff, according to multiple sources who spoke with Mediaite on the condition of anonymity. One source close to the campaign pinned the turmoil on two leaders: Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, campaign manager and Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, and Del Bigtree, an anti-vaccine activist who serves as the campaign’s communications director.

The source described Fox Kennedy and Bigtree as “self-serving” operatives who were “making decisions based on their own personal advancement opportunities, and not acting in the best interest of the candidate.”

 

South Carolina Snoozer: Pre-Mortems

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended.  The Haley campaign has already expired, and the South Carolina primary will merely be the death certificate.

 Natalie Allison at Politico:

For years after she left the governor’s office, Haley failed to nurture her own base of support with the party faithful.

“We didn’t abandon her,” said Allen Olson, formerly the head of the Columbia Tea Party, who was supportive of Haley as she entered the governor’s office. “She abandoned us.”

As Haley campaigns in her home state ahead of Saturday’s primary, she is encountering an electorate that is not only enamored with Trump but that she has done little to cultivate. More than a decade after she last won over conservative voters here, Haley had become a stranger at state and local party events, avoiding Silver Elephant Dinners, party conventions and grassroots gatherings as she embarked on national speaking circuits and book tours, stumped for Republican candidates around the country, appeared on national TV and flirted with the question of whether she would run for president.

...

Haley returned to South Carolina in 2019 after serving at the United Nations and living in New York City, putting down new roots in the coastal resort community of Kiawah Island. It was hours away from Lexington, the Republican-rich suburb of Columbia where she launched her political career as a state representative.

Far from the heart of conservative South Carolina, Kiawah Island is a golf and beach town, a destination for transplants and retirees and part of a county that President Joe Biden won in 2020. The Biden family has vacationed there at a donor friend’s mansion.

Haley has been making the electability argument.  Yes, the polls show that she would run better than Trump in November.  But most polls also show Trump winning. albeit by a slender margin.  The  "loser" label does not work with voters who think that he actually won in 2020, but was the victim of a rigged election.  

Lately she has been saying that Trump sides with foreign thugs.  That is closer to the mark, but most voters do not care about foreign policy.

She does not want to say the obvious:  that Trump incited a violent rebellion against the government he swore to uphold.

Jonathan Martin at Politico:

For all their enmity toward the other in the last few months, Ron DeSantis and Haley are strikingly similar in their failures. Both made scant effort to develop relationships, whether with the media or with fellow Republicans. Neither was widely accessible to the press until their fate was likely sealed and neither had much goodwill with other GOP lawmakers. So when Haley, as recently as this month, sought out endorsements from some of the most prominent figures in the party it was too late. Those horrified by Trump stayed quiet and everybody else in the party gave in and endorsed the frontrunner.

...

For all Haley’s talk about hard truths, a staple of her stump speech, the one she hasn’t come to terms with is that Trump represents the bright line of our times. It’s a which-side-are-you-on moment. And, as she made clear in her remarks, she doesn’t want to pick one.

Instead, she’s contorting herself, and blurring the history we’ve all lived through, to argue Trump has changed. It’s a way to rationalize her own capitulation to him in 2016 and accommodate a party rank-and-file that just maybe can be convinced that the person who called for a Muslim ban, mocked Mitt Romney for walking like a penguin and belittled John McCain’s war record and gold star families was a bigger person when he first ran for president.

I know why she’s doing it — she doesn’t want to be seen as Liz Cheney, as donning the blue jersey by saying Trump is unfit for office. Haley wants to retain her viability with Republicans, which is why she made clear again in that speech she’s no Never Trumper.

There are many others like Haley. There’s actually a word for them in the Trump era: homeless. Or to use a more modern phrase: the politically unhoused.

 

Sex, IVF, Republicans, Conservatives

  Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Abortion was a big issue in the 2022 midterm. It will probably be a big issue in 2024.

Alice Ollstein at Politico:

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling granting legal personhood to frozen embryos could set up a political and legal backlash against conservatives heading into the November election.

The decision not only threatens GOP efforts to court suburban women and other constituencies uneasy about abortion bans, but also complicates the party’s standing with millions of people who may oppose abortion but support — and in many cases use — in-vitro fertilization and other forms of fertility care. The ruling also demonstrates how the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has made previously theoretical policy and legal battles over the most intimate aspects of American life far more immediate and high-stakes.

GOP strategists warn that pursuing curbs on those treatments risks exacerbating the backlash that has cost Republicans several races since the fall of Roe. One in six Americans who struggle with infertility — millions of people each year — turn to IVF, according to the National Infertility Association.

“It certainly intersects, badly, with general election politics for Republicans,” said Stan Barnes, a political consultant and former Republican state senator in Arizona. “When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’”

Sarah Fortinsky at The Hill:

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley says she did not endorse the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that said frozen embryos and fertilized eggs should be treated as children under state law.

Instead, Haley told the hosts of CNN’s “King Charles,” that she agreed an embryo is an unborn baby.

“Well, first of all, I didn’t, I mean, this is again, I didn’t say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling. What the question that I was asked is, do I believe an embryo is a baby?” Haley said Wednesday evening. “I do think that if you look in the definition, an embryo is considered an unborn baby. And so, yes, I believe from my stance that that is.”

“The difference is — and this is what I say about abortion as well — we need to treat these issues with the utmost respect,” she added.

Her remarks come after she faced pushback to an earlier interview with NBC News, in which she said, “I mean, embryos, to me, are babies.”

 

Heritage Foundation is the lead organizer of Project 2025 (which I called Project 25, below). 2/ https://t.co/7G4FPNp1ix

— jennycohn@toad.social ✍🏻 📢 (@jennycohn1) February 18, 2024

Russian Disinformation and Hunter Biden

 Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  Its case against Hunter Biden appears to rest on Russian disinformation.

Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer at NYT:

A former F.B.I. informant accused of making false bribery claims about President Biden and his son Hunter — which were widely publicized by Republicans — claimed to have been fed information by Russian intelligence, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

In the memo, prosecutors portrayed the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, as a serial liar incapable of telling the truth about even the most basic details of his own life. But Mr. Smirnov told federal investigators that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.

Those disclosures, including Mr. Smirnov’s unverifiable claim that he met with Russian intelligence officials as recently as three months ago, made him a flight risk and endangered national security, Justice Department officials said. Mr. Smirnov had been held in custody in Las Vegas, where he has lived since 2022, since his arrest last week.

...

“The misinformation he is spreading is not confined” to his false claims about the Bidens, wrote prosecutors working for David C. Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges.

“He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November,” they added.

Politico Playbook:

Word of the Smirnov dossier, memorialized internally at the FBI as a four-page report, leaked out and it became the white whale of House and Senate Republicans looking to impeach Joe Biden. Sen. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa) and Rep. JAMES COMER (R-Ky.) finally got their hands on it last summer.

...

The House impeachment effort had already been losing steam. Comer, the Kentucky Republican leading the effort, said recently that a vote might not happen at all, given the House GOP’s tiny majority. And many Republicans suddenly seem more interested in talking about Joe Biden’s age rather than his son Hunter.

In Biden’s orbit, the potential Russian connection to the case is being greeted with outrage.

“Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here,” said a person close to Biden. “But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire GOP and their enablers in right wing media have become. …Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: An impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.”

Biden Bucks, Trump's Washing Machine

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Axios:

President Biden's re-election team now has $130 million in the bank, while the RNC has little cash and Donald Trump's team is spending tens of millions on legal bills.Why it matters: Despite Democratic angst over the president's poor polling, the Biden campaign announced this morning that it raised $42 million in January — adding to his vast fundraising advantage over Trump and the RNC, Axios' Hans Nichols and Alex Thompson write.

 By the numbers: The RNC started the year with over $8 million in cash on hand. Trump's campaign had $33 million on hand. Neither has released fundraising totals for January.Biden, the DNC and other affiliated committees raked in contributions at the same time his Republican rivals were attacking each other.

Trump's legal problems — which cost his political fundraising apparatus $50+ million last year — show no signs of going away.

Reality check: Incumbent presidents often have a financial advantage going into an election year.Trump and the RNC had more cash at this point in 2020 before Biden ultimately made up ground

Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast:

Last year, the former president’s legal expenses would have bankrupted Trump’s “Save America” leadership PAC—his de facto legal slush fund—had he not demanded a $60 million refund from a Trump-aligned super PAC. The super PAC bit the bullet, kicking back more than $42 million so far, with a $5 million hit every month until that obligation is repaid.

Libowitz explained that if Trump’s philosophy is applied to the RNC, it could have profound implications for what is typically a party-wide fundraising bonanza.

“It’s a giant operation that doesn’t spring up overnight. It requires planning and staff, and decisions on how money is going to which states through the national party,” Libowitz said. “Where this can go sideways is if there’s not a ton of committees joining then that affects the limits on how much people can raise, and you get this sort of federalist setup where everyone is doing their own thing.”

The RNC has revved up that “washing machine” even without Trump as the nominee. Last month, the RNC launched a generic presidential fundraising vehicle called “the Presidential Republican Nominee Fund 2024,” which then joined the generic “2024 RNC Joint Victory” armada of dozens of state party committees. But only 39 state groups have signed on so far, with each missing state party leaving money on the table.

Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of watchdog Documented, said Trump would almost certainly try to siphon more cash out of the system.

“We have every reason to expect that Trump will get the RNC to include Save America as part of a joint fundraising agreement,” Fischer said, noting that Save America initially had a joint agreement involving the RNC when it was launched after the 2020 election.

“Depending on the allocation formula between the committees, Trump’s legal expense slush fund will soak up contributions that would otherwise go to the Republican Party,” he said.

That allocation is exactly what Trump wants to control, Libowitz said, so he can ensure he gets priority treatment.

“But he’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, because this is donor money given to win an election, that he’s now claiming for his own personal purposes,” he said, noting that the potential combination of two enormous legal judgments against Trump in New York would only make Trump want more.

Some Republican insiders have expressed concerns about the Trump effect on fundraising. One veteran GOP strategist told The Daily Beast that the history of personal splurges itself might turn off donors, even if the RNC runs a tight ship.

“If people think their money is going to go to hair and makeup or legal bills, they’re far less likely to give anything at all—even if it’s really for voter contact,” this GOP strategist said. “So in a way, the stench of irresponsible spending is just as bad as actually spending it poorly.”

 

Believing Conspiracy Theories

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.

 At WP, Aaron Blake reports that a third of Republicans think that Taylor Swift is part of a deep state plot.

The poll is merely the latest to suggest that a significant segment of the Republican Party is inclined to believe baseless conspiracy theories about the deep state. For example:

• An August 2022 YouGov poll after the search of Mar-a-Lago showed 38 percent of Republicans believed the FBI planted evidence there. Just 23 percent disagreed with that proposition (another 39 percent were “not sure”).
• A YouGov poll the next month showed a majority of Republicans said it was at least “probably true” that the FBI planted classified documents.
• A Suffolk University poll shortly after Jan. 6, 2021, showed 58 percent of Donald Trump supporters said the Capitol riot was “mostly an Antifa-inspired attack that involved only a few Trump supporters.” There remains zero evidence for this.
• A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll showed 34 percent said it was at least “probably true” that the FBI organized and encouraged the attack on the Capitol. (About half that number believed there was “solid evidence” of this.)
• YouGov polling in December showed 42 percent of Republicans believe “many top Democrats” are caught up in child sex-trafficking rings, 35 percent believe mass shootings have been faked to promote gun control, and 28 percent believe the government used covid vaccines to implant microchips in people.
• The same poll showed fully 60 percent of Republicans believe there is “a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together.” (Democratic support for the proposition was about half — 28 percent.)
• And, of course, polls generally show around 6 in 10 or more Republicans continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, despite the complete lack of evidence more than three years later.

Haley Goes After Trump

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended, but Trump is still raging. Last weekend, he invited Putin to attack NATO and insulted Nikki Haley's deployed husband.

One week ago, Donald Trump encouraged Putin to invade NATO countries. Now, it’s been more than 24 hours since we learned of the death of Alexei Navalny, and Trump has yet to say his name. We cannot have a president who sides with murderous thugs who want to destroy America. pic.twitter.com/t2s4fXev1X

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 17, 2024

FLASHBACK: Trump has praised and defended Putin for years. pic.twitter.com/nHQ1gwoLK0

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 18, 2024

Trump reiterates the blacklisting threat:

 

Trump Must Pay $450m For His Fraud

In Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics, we look at Trump's dishonesty and disregard for the rule of law.

 Our next book will look at the 2024 campaign and the impact of Trump's legal problems. New York courts have found that he is a rapist and a fraud.

Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess at NYT:

A New York judge on Friday handed Donald J. Trump a crushing defeat in his civil fraud case, finding the former president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest that could wipe out his entire stockpile of cash.

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron caps a chaotic, yearslong case in which New York’s attorney general put Mr. Trump’s fantastical claims of wealth on trial. With no jury, the power was in Justice Engoron’s hands alone, and he came down hard: The judge delivered a sweeping array of punishments that threatens the former president’s business empire as he simultaneously contends with four criminal prosecutions and seeks to regain the White House.

Justice Engoron barred Mr. Trump for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including portions of his own Trump Organization. He also imposed a two-year ban on the former president’s adult sons and ordered that they pay more than $4 million each. One of them, Eric Trump, is the company’s de facto chief executive, and the ruling throws into doubt whether any member of the family can run the business in the near term.

The judge also ordered that they pay substantial interest, pushing the penalty for the former president to $450 million, according to the attorney general, Letitia James.

From the decision:

 "Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' posture that the evidence belies."

Again, the Akin Ploy in California

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) secured the nomination of a weak GOP opponent in 2012 by running "attack ads" that made him sound appealing to conservative GOP voters. 

She told the story here: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/todd-akin-missouri-claire-mccaskill-2012-121262/

Jim Newton at CalMatters:

If Steve Garvey didn’t exist, Adam Schiff would have to invent him – and, indeed, the congressman is busy doing just that. As Monday’s debate between the candidates for California’s open U.S. Senate seat made clear, Garvey is a precious asset for Schiff.

Not an easy asset, mind you. It’s painfully difficult to take Garvey seriously as a candidate for anything. He has no path to victory, no coherent set of ideas, and he doesn’t make a lot of sense. He gets lost in his own answers and projects a novel mixture of arrogance and nearly complete ignorance of any issue that calls for reasoning.

And yet, this political klutz is paving the way for Schiff to win the seat vacated by legendary Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s death last year. To do that, Schiff is running not just his own campaign but Garvey’s too.

The dynamics are a little convoluted, but here are the basics: Garvey, the onetime first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, has enough name recognition for Republicans to gravitate to him, but not enough smarts to pose any threat to Schiff.

Bad Times for Speaker Johnson

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  That is especially true in the House.

☀️ THE DISASTER THAT IS HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP

Just this week, @SpeakerJohnson has:

→ Seen Democrats win a special election in New York, narrowing the already minuscule GOP majority to two votes.

→ Lost a sixth rule vote on the House floor — a measure that would’ve…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 15, 2024

NY3 and PA: A Good Night for Democrats

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

The past year has been very good for Democrats.

In a special election last night, Tom Suozzi won NY3, the seat that George Santos had held.  Despite predictions of a "nailbiter," the result was a comfortable 54-46.

Hannah Knowles and Julie Zauzmer Weil at WP:

National issues dominated the campaign, making Tuesday’s vote this year’s first high-profile test of the parties’ messages on abortion, the economy and, above all, immigration. Suozzi represented the area for six years previously and campaigned as a moderate who wanted to work across the aisle. But with New York City struggling to absorb more than 100,000 migrants arriving from the southern border, much of the campaign centered on what polling suggests is Democrats’ toughest issue.

Democrat Jim Prokopiak was also projected to win a Tuesday special election for a state House seat in Pennsylvania, building his party’s narrow edge in a chamber that until recently was deadlocked 101-101. He beat Candace Cabanas after tying her to Trump and what he called “extremists” in the GOP, echoing national Democrats’ 2024 message.

In New York, Suozzi’s victory capped a long list of Democratic wins in recent special elections, which have showcased the party’s ability to turn out its base and tap into anger at GOP-backed abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Democrats spent millions of dollars attacking Pilip’s “pro-life” stance even though she said she would not support a national ban on abortion.

The victory also validated Suozzi’s decision to invest heavily in countering the GOP on immigration, suggesting that Democrats in tight races can benefit from talking tougher on the border and highlighting Republicans’ abrupt abandonment of a bipartisan deal on the matter negotiated in Congress. Biden, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and other Democrats have similarly sought to go on offense on immigration by criticizing the deal’s failure.

Trump, of course, dishonestly blamed the R candidate:

 

As expected, Trump blames everyone but himself for the election loss tonight. Trump claimed Mazi Pilip lost because “she didn't endorse me.”

This is a lie. Pilip said she voted for Trump in 2020 and endorsed him for the 2024 election. #NY03 pic.twitter.com/aiPuizqBuM

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 14, 2024

Haley Sharpens Attack on Trump

 Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended, but Trump is still raging. Over the weekend, he invited Putin to attack NATO and insulted Nikki Haley's deployed husband.

Nikki Haley on Trump's invitation to Putin to attack NATO countries:

"It made me sick to my stomach...He just put every military member at risk and every one of our allies at risk just by saying something at a rally." pic.twitter.com/x6rmDiQr3S

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) February 12, 2024

Nikki Haley: “Every bit of it is disgusting. To sit there and mock my husband for not being with me on the presidential trail because he is deployed and serving our country...The reality is, the closest [Trump] has come to harm’s way is a golf ball hitting him on a golf cart.” pic.twitter.com/Goca3yBJvB

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) February 12, 2024

RFK Ad

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 race has begun.

Erin Doherty at Axios:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized to his family Sunday night after a super PAC backing his presidential bid ran a Super Bowl ad that mirrored a 1960 presidential campaign ad for his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.

Why it matters: The ad was an extraordinarily expensive investment and generated online buzz for the long-shot presidential candidate who is seeking to boost his national name recognition.

The latest: "I'm so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain," Kennedy wrote on X Sunday evening.Kennedy said the ad — which remained pinned at the top of his X page Monday morning — was made without "any involvement or approval" from his campaign.

Between the lines: Many members of Kennedy's family have condemned his decision to run as an independent presidential candidate, fearing that he could siphon off votes from President Biden in the general election.Bobby Shriver, the son of the former president's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, said after the ad aired on Sunday that his mother "would be appalled by" the health care views of RFK Jr. "Respect for science, vaccines, & health care equity were in her DNA," Shriver posted on X.

 

Learn more: https://t.co/4YjLwreZN9 pic.twitter.com/JLEPW7H901

— American Values 2024 (@AmValues2024) February 12, 2024

Trump Invites Russian Attack, Disrepects Deployed Guardsman

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses foreign influence and Trump's attack on democracy.  Russia helped Trump through 2020.  As Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine, Trump lavished praise on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. 

Yesterday, he suggested that Russia should attack NATO allies.

Trump: One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, Well, sir, if we don't pay and were attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said.. No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. pic.twitter.com/2RPVDFZIXy

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 10, 2024

Major Michael Haley is deployed in Africa with the U.S. Army National Guard. Which Trump cannot comprehend, as the idea of volunteering to serve our country is so far from his experience or imagination. https://t.co/nTqZHqJKAm

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) February 10, 2024

Either Donald Trump is openly insulting military families, or he got confused again and doesn’t know my husband is deployed. Either way, he isn’t up to the task of leading the greatest fighting force in the world. pic.twitter.com/CQQ9pN9qYZ

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 11, 2024

The Biden Cocoon

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

Jonathan V. Last: "When people say Biden is “old” what they mean is “frail.” Trump is functionally the same age as a Biden, with a much worse BMI and cognitive functioning. But because Trump can yell at the moon like a mad dog, people see him as “vigorous” and age isn’t a problem.

Katie Rogers and Lisa Lerer at NYT:

Aides have President Biden take the shorter stairs to board Air Force One. When it comes to news conferences, they yell loudly — and quickly — to end the questions, sometimes stealing a classic awards show tactic and playing loud music to signal the conclusion of the event. And forget about regular interviews with major news publications, including a traditional presidential sit-down on Super Bowl Sunday.

Over the years, some of Mr. Biden’s key aides have gone from letting “Joe be Joe” to wrapping a presidential cocoon around him that is intended to shield him from verbal slips and physical stumbles.

All presidents are shielded by the strictures of the office, yet for Mr. Biden, who at 81 is the oldest person in history to hold the job, the decision is not only situational but strategic, according to several people who are familiar with the dynamic. The cloistered nature of his White House reflects a concern among some of his top aides that Mr. Biden, who has always been prone to gaffes, risks making a mistake.

"Elderly Man with a Poor Memory"

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

Shane Goldmacher, Reid J. Epstein and Katie Glueck at NYT:

When President Biden appeared at a last-minute news conference on Thursday night, he hoped to assure the country of his mental acuity hours after a special counsel’s report had devastatingly referred to him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Instead, a visibly angry Mr. Biden made the exact type of verbal flub that has kept Democrats so nervous for months, mistakenly referring to the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as the “president of Mexico” as he tried to address the latest developments in the war in Gaza.

The special counsel’s report and the president’s evening performance placed Mr. Biden’s advanced age, the singularly uncomfortable subject looming over his re-election bid, back at the center of America’s political conversation.

The 81-year-old president — already the oldest in the nation’s history — has for years fought the perception that he is a diminished figure. “My memory is fine,” he insisted on Thursday from the White House.

Third-Party Threat to Biden

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

Michael Scherer at WP:

The Democratic National Committee hired a new communications adviser last month to counter the third-party candidates, while outside groups working for Biden’s election have been having discussions about a new organization that could coordinate about the wide range of threats.

A recent five-way national poll by Quinnipiac University that named Biden, former president Donald Trump, attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scholar Cornel West and activist Jill Stein showed the combined third-party candidates drawing nearly 1 in 5 voters. A separate effort, by the bipartisan group No Labels, continues to move forward in its search for candidates that could challenge the major-party duopoly.

That polling, combined with increased activism on the left in reaction to Israel’s war in Gaza, has provided a boost to outsiders who are traveling the country in an uphill battle to gain ballot access. Kennedy is seeking to establish a new We the People party with candidates who can run downballot of him in some states, while West has launched a less-well-funded effort to create the Justice for All party, and Stein has sought to expand the reach of the Green Party.

All three candidates are expected to attend this month’s California convention of the Libertarian Party, which aims to have access to nearly all state ballots by November. Kennedy has not committed to pursuing the Libertarian ballot line, though he has been courting the group while independently seeking ballot access. Advisers say he will deliver a speech soon to address concerns both among leftist activists and libertarians that his approach to Israel is too hawkish.