A lawyer advising on political law, FARA, congressional investigations & white collar defense. Zionist. Guitar dilettante. Tweets reflect personal views only.
It is possible that today was the lowest point in the history of the Republican Party. So far. The Judiciary, on the other hand (Trump appointees included) is standing firm for the rule of law.
It would not be surprising if the military’s entirely appropriate Covid vaccination mandate is turning into an effective proxy for identifying insubordinate or extremist elements, who might otherwise be hard to identify.
We are fortunate to have William Burns as CIA Director and Avril Haines as DNI right now. CIA undoubtedly is very busy in ways that will not be apparent for some time. I thank them for their service.
A shameful, dishonorable act. Lawless. Antithetical to the founding values of the Republican Party and our Republic. It won’t change the election outcome, but it will be remembered as a craven retreat from the rule of law.
🚨🚨BREAKING: This evening, the county board of canvassers in Wayne County, MI refused to certify the election results. If the state board follows suit, the Republican state legislator will select the electors. Huge win for
@realDonaldTrump
I assume, by the way, that everyone agrees using private rights of action with bounties to enforce restrictions on the right to bear arms would be unconscionable and unconstitutional, right?
To those who love liberty and believe in the rule of law (that is, true conservatives), the reports of paramilitary federal agents seizing citizens on the streets of Portland, apparently without legal authority to do so, should be a firebell in the night.
When it comes to criminality and an attempt to overthrow the US Government, no, as RNC Chair your job is not to “take one for the team.” The job is to be an American patriot. What an absolutely outrageous statement. What a disgrace.
Ronna on why she is saying now for the first time that she disagrees with Trump on pardoning J6ers: “When you’re the RNC Chair, you kind of take one for the whole team, right? Now I get to be a little bit more myself.”
This is laughable, frivolous stuff. There is no serious lawyering going on here. No remotely colorable evidence of fraud. Pay attention to the difference between the outlandish claims made by lawyers in the media versus what they say and submit in court, subject to sanctions.
Another: A GOP poll watcher complained that poll workers were wearing Black Lives Matter gear. She thought one of them — a “man of intimidating size” — had followed her too closely.
We need more details about exactly what transpired that delayed the deployment of reinforcements to the Capitol. Who requested support from whom and when? How long did it take to issue orders? What role did DoD personnel play? What contingency plans were in place beforehand?
Trump did not immediately deploy the National Guard yesterday, as he claims in his video. He initially resisted it, according to several people, as CNN, NYT and others reported.
Probably not quite a “true threat” under 18 USC 875(c) and applicable case law, but he knows exactly what he’s doing, and his recklessness knows no bounds. Despicable.
Watching CNN at the moment, where talking heads seem to think Trump has to prove he signed a form to declassify documents. Missing the point, which is that no reasonable prosecutor would charge a former president when the case turns on fine points of declassification authority.
What this country desperately needs is politicians who do not fear losing office when they stand on principle and do the right thing. It is the thing that distinguishes patriots from demagogues.
So now we have seen the limit of Trump’s theory that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue without losing the support of his MAGA-heads. It all depends on what kind of shot.
Newly-discovered asteroid A10sHcN approached Earth yesterday, passing only a few hundred miles above the South Pacific Ocean. This encounter shortened its orbit, ensuring that this Earth-crosser will make more frequent close approaches.
I too am surprised this was not a requirement for air travel a long time ago. We already subject travelers to all manner of inspections and security protocols. This would be another safety requirement. This also would have been an effective way to encourage vaccination.
Sorry, but vaccine mandate for domestic travel should have been considered & adopted 6 months ago. It should happen now. Everyone would win: travelers would have the right to be safe while those who refuse to get vaccinated would retain right not to board.
“Pedo grifters.” From a member of the Republican leadership. Echoing Q-Anon tropes. And passing this off as “conservative.” We are through the looking glass.
The White House, House Dems, & usual pedo grifters are so out of touch with the American people that rather than present ANY PLAN or urgency to address the nationwide baby formula crisis, they double down on sending pallets of formula to the southern border. Joe Biden has NO PLAN
Appalling. Another reason why practically anyone would be better to have in the White House than this guy. Telling a NATO ally that we would not live up to our obligations under Article V of the NATO treaty is an impeachable offense. Whatever it is, it’s not “conservative.”
Trump says tonight that he was “amazed it didn’t get out” that he told the president of a NATO country in a closed door meeting that he would refuse to honor the treaty and defend other NATO countries if they were attacked by Russia, unless they spent more on defense.
An unveiled woman in Iran stands defiantly at anti-government rally. We must keep the international eyes focused. There have been brutal crackdowns in recent past by state. We cannot let that happen again. RT using
#Iranprotests
A little late, don’t you think? It’s honestly baffling how none of Trump’s senior appointees had the backbone to resign and speak the truth during his presidency.
A new quote from Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper:
“Trump is an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service.”
🐾I’m so excited that the Senate passed the American Rescue Plan my dad
@POTUS
worked so hard on, that I didn’t have the patience to let the hoomans take the leash off, I started my zoomies with the leash pawttached! The South Lawn is our dog pawrk now. This is a happy day!
So the guy who stood by, essentially enjoying the show, while the US Capitol was sacked would do less damage to the country as President than Biden? Trump and Barr deserve each other. Two flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
If candidates could challenge pre-existing procedures after the election, for the first time, it would allow gaming of the system, in which candidates would sue only when they lose. That’s not how it works.
#ELB
: New Trump Pennsylvania Lawsuit Attacks, Among Other Things, Different Procedures for Mail-In and In Person Voting, Something Quite Evident Before The Election and About Which The Campaign Could Have Sued
Captain Kirk is truly headed to space...at 90. William Shatner is set to board Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket next month, according to TMZ, becoming the oldest man to ever fly into space.
When asked if former President Trump would put the country at risk if he becomes the 2024 GOP nominee, former Attorney General Bill Barr says Trump "will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country's interests."
Kind of cracks me up that Trump’s team recommended for special master a judge who approved one of the Carter Page FISA warrant applications. A highly respected judge. But not one you’d expect Trump to choose. I’m sure DJT deliberated long and hard on it. Not.
May I nominate him for the Presidential Medal of Freedom? A genuine American hero. Not many of us could muster this level of bravery at any age, much less in high school.
I agree with this. I also think Nikki Haley would easily beat Biden in the general election were she the GOP nominee. Trump would very likely lose to Biden again.
Liz Cheney: “There are some conservatives who are trying to make this claim that somehow Biden is a bigger risk than Trump. My view is, I disagree with a lot of Joe Biden's policies. We can survive bad policies. We can not survive torching the Constitution.”
Accusing the Jews of genocide, of all things, when neither Israel nor Jews are committing anything remotely like a genocide, is outrageous, and intentionally so. It is meant to delegitimize the Holocaust, corrupt its meaning in history, and humiliate Jews. It’s antisemitic.
Name the Republican Members of Congress who forcefully spoke out against Trump while they were still in office and still intended to run for re-election, but before he lost the election. It’s a painfully short list.
As footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is displayed in the background, former President Donald Trump stands while a song, “Justice for All,” is played during a campaign rally at Waco Regional Airport, Saturday, March 25, 2023, in Waco, Texas.
While it’s unlikely, it seems to me Cannon’s latest order is sufficiently bonkers that Jack Smith might at least entertain the thought of a mandamus motion. I doubt he’ll do it. But he’s got to be thinking about it.
Yulia Navalnaya, Aleksei’s wife, just eviscerating Putin on social media. Calling him out for claiming to be a Christian when he defies all Christian values. Doubtful many Russians will see this right now. But she’s shaming him for withholding the body.
On reflection, I’m incredulous that the basis for raiding President Trump’s residence could have been records related violations. Would that be worth the risks? I can’t see it. There might be something else. There almost has to be, for this to make any sense. Time will tell.
I thought it was shameful to work for the Trump campaign in 2016. I thought it was even more shameful to work for the Trump campaign in 2020. But working for him in 2024, after the attack on the Capitol by his barbarian hordes? I’m not even sure what to call that.
Trump’s 2024 campaign will not have a traditional campaign manager — but will be led by a trio of seasoned Republican veterans: Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, and Brian Jack.
@dawsey1
,
@michaelscherer
and I w the latest inside Trumpworld—>
I sense the first fractures among the Trump faithful since early 2016. In recent days, I’ve heard former Trump sycophants criticizing him openly when in conservative company. It’s notable that they feel able to do so. And that they feel the need to do so.
Without cuts in entitlement spending, eventually this leads to a devaluation of the dollar. Either gradually or, catastrophically, in a sudden plunge. And a collapsing dollar would take the global economy with it. Entitlement reform is the nation’s primary unfinished business.
The U.S. Treasury Department says that the national debt has increased by $2 trillion ($2,000,000,000,000) since President Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017. That's with Republicans in control of the House and Senate. The national debt is now almost $22 trillion.
Today's 68-page ruling from the DC Court of Appeals rejecting Trump's claim of executive privilege should be read in its entirety.
It's about more than Trump's claim of privilege -- it's a clarion call for investigating what happened on Jan 6
Per Axios: The day a door plug flew off an Alaska Airlines plane — 120 Americans died in motor vehicle crashes. Roughly 136 died from opioids. Perhaps 150 died as hospital inpatients due to preventable medical errors. About 230 died of COVID. Zero died in aircraft accidents.
The decline and fall of the Heritage Foundation is a thing to behold. Once a great intellectual center of the conservative movement. Now reduced to featuring Tucker Carlson, who barely even believes his own monetized demagoguery.
Amazing
@TuckerCarlson
address to
@Heritage
- he is 100% right and it’s time to face facts: we are living through a modern replay of the sacking of Rome. What will YOU do?
Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on American intelligence agencies and their motives has likely had broader consequences within our military and intelligence organizations than meet the eye. How many low level employees have been radicalized against their own government?
Of all the cases people speculate about, this is the one I’d be worried about if I were Trump’s lawyer (thankfully I’m not). Ironically so, since the resignation of some of the lead prosecutors left the impression this case was dead. It doesn’t seem so dead. “I’m not dead yet….”
If you are wondering why the hysteria about Israel’s counterattack seems to be peaking right now, it’s because Hamas sympathizers know that the IDF is closing in on Hamas’s command bunker at Shifa Hospital.
Sick, sick, sick. That Republicans in South Carolina seem inclined to vote for this failed human over their immeasurably superior former governor is beyond me.
Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar.
That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime.
And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more.
Ask yourself who is the real enemy?
A young low level national guardsmen?
Or the
About the only good thing you can say about our politics over the last five years is that it has caused many politicians to show their true nature. It’s like the Christopher Walken handshake in Dead Zone.
Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) on
@FaceTheNation
says this about House Jan 6 Cmte:
“This commission is a partisan scam. They're going after- they're- the purpose of that commission is to try to embarrass and smear and and harass as many Republicans as they can get their hands on”
This is so, so true. Thank God
@SpeakerJohnson
went forward anyway. Even though Trump cost us good new measures to improve border security because of his petty personal ambition and jealousy.
Dear Normal Republicans,
We could have had today’s package along with a tough border bill. But Trump blew that up. So we ended up with today’s package and nothing on the border. That’s due to Trump. Vote Republican for Congress if you choose. But don’t vote for Trump.
Bill K
What I loved about conservatives when I was a kid was that they were rational, analytical, and not driven merely by emotion and sentiment, the way the Left often is. It’s hard to think of Republican or conservative leaders today who fit that description.
Lincoln’s concerns that secessionists would try to block the certification of the electoral college vote in 1861, prior to the inauguration. Fascinating, including his view that the counting was not constitutionally required for him to take office.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are making the most of the US abstention in the Security Council. They probably have not had a morale boost like this in many weeks.
Our first hint that the Russians might not be as competent an adversary as we suspected occurred when Mathias Rust casually landed his plane in Red Square, entirely escaping notice by Russian air defenses.
The release of a draft Supreme Court opinion, before the Court has made a final decision and issued its ruling, is a stupendous body blow to the rule of law. If a lawyer did this, they should never again be allowed to practice law.
The Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and obtained by POLITICO.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito writes.
We know that Trump is self-destructive. And we know that the Republican Party is ill. Still, the country really needed a conservative candidate for President—a conservative option. It has none. My hope is that normalcy returns for 2028, with at least one sane conservative on the
State Department Spokesman Matt Miller displaying his usual sangfroid in the face of lunatic pro-Hamas protesters at his house. He tells them to take a message back to their masters (though he puts it more diplomatically than that).
BREAKING: State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller's home was surrounded by protesters this morning. As Miller leaves for work, he turns to the protesters and says, "I hope you'll tell Hamas to accept the ceasefire."
This is how a professional military responds when it makes a mistake. It accepts responsibility, investigates the causes, adjust its practices, and potentially disciplines anyone who made a reckless error. Hamas doesn’t do that. In fact, Hamas ALWAYS targets civilians.
“I want to be very clear—the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification—at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Watch the full statement by IDF Chief of the
The NATO treaty does not require payment or any specified level of defense funding. Trump clearly wants to violate the treaty by abandoning our Allies even though they defended us after 9/11. He is not just a bad human being (we all know that); his policy is a path to ruin.
Just appalling. They have no shame. Nor respect for other religions. Hamas and its fellow travelers are a menace not just to Israel but to the civilized world.
Very good to see. In a deeply Trumpy state, this took some backbone to say. To those who are saying he didn’t go far enough, please. We need more of this.
AR Gov.
@AsaHutchinson
on Jan. 6: "We have to define it the right way – it was an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power [...] and President Trump did have some responsibility."
Actually, the truth is exactly the opposite of this. The leadership and national party committees have grown weaker, and individual Members stronger, in both parties. Internet-based small donor fundraising and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law have a lot to do with that.
For decades, both political parties have grown stronger and individual Members of Congress have gotten weaker. Party bosses use their power to get Members to fall in line so the party and their lobbyist donors win. The American people and our democracy lose.
I’ll be holding a convention of the last remaining conservatives: those who believe in free markets, free trade, smaller government, federalism, the rule of law, sound money, civic virtue, and traditional values. We’ll meet in a Starbucks. I’ll pick up the tab. Should be cheap.
@BillAckman
@ShelleyGldschmt
@KamalaHarris
@POTUS
Bill, there appear to be a number of news reports discrediting the report on which Vance bases this claim. Have you reviewed and considered those other news stories questioning the veracity of this Vance claim?
What is the point of this malicious article in National Review? It’s mean-spirited. It’s irrelevant to policy or political philosophy. And it shamefully compares the loss of his dog to the loss of the President’s son. National Review needs to rethink its editorial standards.
In both the ‘91 and ‘93 coups in Russia, the latter of which I observed live, it was deployment of key armored and special forces units that made the critical difference to save the regime. Many of those forces are deployed in Ukraine. All eyes on where they go and what they do.
Congratulations, again, to President-elect Biden. I know I will disagree with a great many of his policy decisions. But at least the Republic will be safe. What we need now is a vibrant, healthy, normal, reasonably sane, conservative opposition party.
Because one officer was preventing a mob from breaching the inner sanctum of our democracy, threatening the lives of Members of Congress he was sworn to defend. The other officer shot a fleeing suspect. Not hard to distinguish. Turley’s article is tendentious legal gobbledygook.
This second scenario is legally insane. If that were the case, then just grant Trump’s motion to dismiss on PRA grounds so DOJ bring it to the 11th circuit for a quick reversal.
And no, this is not something a lawyer normally does or should do. Though assuming the facts recorded are accurate, there’s no rule that prevents it. Making a vivid recording that could be played before a grand jury in full living color, so to speak, seems a bit out there.
Evan Corcoran recorded recollections of his legal work for Trump — covering the DOJ subpoena for classified records and the search at Mar-a-Lago for their return to the National Archives.
That recording is now in the hands of the special counsel.
I can barely watch this and can’t listen. But if this were the United States and these were our young women, we would have long ago occupied every inch of Gaza in 3 dimensions above and below grounds. Just for starters.
These are the horrifying moments inside the Nahal Oz base before terrorists pulled out five bloodied women and took them hostage.
Young women are seen huddling by a wall, calling their families, and praying that someone will come save them. Most were murdered by the terrorists
This is so tragic. The University’s inability or unwillingness to protect the statue of its namesake and the father of our country is quite the metaphor for what’s happened to higher education institutions generally.