  Friday, October 20, 2023

TODD ZWILLICH

Deputy DC Bureau Chief, VICE News

Washington, D.C. Bureau
@toddzwillich

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) makes his way to a candidate forum with House Republicans to hear from members running for U.S. Speaker of House on October 10, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Right in the fealties

It won't surprise you that in addition to receiving legislative and political bullying tactics usually reserved for Democrats, several GOP members who defied Donald Trump and didn't vote Jim Jordan for Speaker also reported death threats.

Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a district Joe Biden won, clearly has had enough of the menacing texts and voicemails MAGA supporters sent to his wife. Several other Republicans were likewise fed up with bullying tactics meant to make them fall in line.

There are a lot of factions saying "no" to Jordan in the House GOP. A key one consists of fellow Republicans angry at how MAGA members engineered McCarthy's ouster, refused to back Rep. Steve Scalise after he won a conference vote last week, only to have Jordan greenlight an intimidation campaign against them while he lacks the votes.

In other words, a bunch of Republicans are refusing to be MAGA'd.

For all the dysfunction, self-loathing, and clownism of Jordan's flailing Speaker of the House bid, is it also the beginning of GOP deMAGAfication? My friend Brian Beutler over at "Off Message" (you should subscribe) thinks there's reason for cautious optimism that conservative Republicans' refusal to buckle to Jordan's Trumpist-fueled, MAGA media-backed tactics is the first sign of a self-purge in the party.

After all, conservative Republican Ken Buck, who reps a district where Trump is very popular, made his opposition all about Jordan and his role at the center of Trump's coup plot (pgs 114-117). Buck is very clearly casting the specter of a Jordan speakership in existential, democratic terms for the GOP.

"I don't want someone who was involved in the activities of January 6… There's no way we win the majority if the message we send to the American people is we believe the election was stolen, and we believe that January 6 was a tour of the Capitol," Buck said in between the first and second times he voted against Jordan for speaker. (By the way, just this morning Jordan affirmed for anyone interested that he still thinks the 2020 election was stolen.)

It's too early to tell if Brian's right, that the same Republicans who rejected Jordan won't turn around and back him later, or back someone else who, like Kevin McCarthy, spends all their time enabling Trump and helping him undermine accountability. One thing that helps is that neither Jordan, Scalise, nor anyone else can claim their losses were somehow rigged. They can't straight up lie about the results.

Trump can, and probably will, lie about this failure to influence his party. At least through omission. He likely won't spend much time discussing the fact that he's repeatedly pushed House GOPs on Jordan and repeatedly lost.

Whether this humiliating turn makes a small but critical number of fed up Republicans begin the process of purging their party of authoritarian Trumpism remains to be seen.

Don't forget to sign your friends up for Breaking the Vote!

BREAKING THE VOTE LAW

What Sidney harbors

One thing that's suffered from Jim Jordan's wavering speaker bid is his campaign to interfere in the prosecution of Donald Trump and 17 remaining co-conspirators in Fulton County. And the very first criminal trial of the top level of Trump's attempted coup begins… right now!

Jury selection begins today for indicted Trump lawyer and fake-elector director Ken Chesebro. Sidney Powell was supposed to be tried alongside Chesebro, but she won't be there. Nearly three years after the infamous Powell-Rudy hair dye press conference, after all the rejected lawsuits, sanctions from irate judges, humiliating interviews and defamation cases…

Powell pleaded guilty yesterday, avoiding both a trial and potential jail time. She copped to six counts of tampering with computer equipment, voting machines and voter data… all misdemeanors. She'll spend six years on probation, pay some fines, and say "sorry" to the people of Georgia.

But most important to this stay-out-of-jail deal is that now Powell, one of the most prolific liars of the post-election MAGA mess, has to tell the truth. She has to testify fully and truthfully wherever else in the Georgia case she's called. That's bad news for other co-defendants who were part of the Coffee County computer caper end of the alleged conspiracy. But it's also bad news for alleged co-conspirator Donald Trump.

Powell was a key Trump insider, especially in December, 2020, when Trump and his lieutenants were feverishly debating plans to overturn the election and stay in power. Fulton County DA Fani Willis could use her testimony to vividly establish key parts of the conspiracy with Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and many, many others for the jury.

"It sure is helpful to have someone aligned with the defendant come in and say 'yeah that's exactly how it happened,'" former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade told me. Having a witness who can narrate the illegal conspiracy to overturn the election "is essential to proving the whole scheme and the intent," she said.

But this agreement doesn't apply to the federal coup case, where Powell is an unindicted co-conspirator (Co-conspirator 3, to be precise). Powell attended the infamous December 18, 2020 Oval Office meeting where she and others urged Trump to use the military to seize voting machines, to declare martial law, and to appoint her a special prosecutor in charge of finding election fraud.

Anything she says under oath in Georgia will be of immense interest to Jack Smith in Washington. If no plea deal with Smith materializes, you might also see Powell plead the 5th to avoid incriminating herself in the D.C. case.

McQuade told me there's a chance, even if it's not likely, that Powell has already negotiated or is in the process of negotiating a plea deal with Smith. Or, she could be waiting to see if he actually intends to charge her in the case. "Once she's gone down this road there's no value in fighting the charges in another forum," she said.

First in plight

… which brings us to Ken Chesebro, charged with seven counts on the "fake electors" end of the Georgia plot.

Opening statements in the Cheese's speedy trial will come after a jury is seated, likely within the next week or two. And this is Georgia, so everything will be televised or livestream-able… just like Powell's surprise plea proceeding was!

Ken (and Sid, for that matter) tried hard not to be here. Just this week Judge Scott McAfee denied their motions to dismiss the trial. Then on Wednesday, McAfee slapped down Chesebro's attempt to exclude some of his memos and emails from the trial on the grounds that they were protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge effectively said "nope, privilege doesn't apply when the documents contain evidence of a probable crime between you and your client." Welp!

And as Chesebro goes to trial in Georgia, there's new evidence from Wisconsin showing that he knew lawsuits meant to overturn Biden's 2020 win had almost no chance in court. But they were great politics for Donald Trump.

Michael Cohen listens to closing statements during a House Oversight Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Silence is orange

Now that Judge Tanya Chutkan has issued her partial gag order barring Donald Trump from attacking prosecutors, witnesses, or the court in the federal coup case, a whole bunch of new questions pop up. Mainly, what will happen if when Trump violates the order? How far can he or his proxies go in daring the judge to block him from sullying the proceedings or poisoning the jury pool? How many times can he call Jack Smith and others "thugs" before Trump's followers get the message and try to harm someone?

"'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest' comes to mind," Chutkan told Trump's lawyer, invoking Henry II. If you need a refresher, Henry never outright told his knights to murder the meddlesome Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170. But after he dropped that ageless line, a bunch of them just kinda went and did it.

Back to this week, Trump's surrogates took up the mantle of attacking the Special Counsel as soon as Chutkan issued her order, so he can rely on an army of propagandists to do some of the work the judge would prefer he not do. And, on cue, Trump lied repeatedly about the order's requirements as soon as it was released.

Appraise for the wicked

Former fixer and Stormy-payer-offer Michael Cohen was supposed to testify in Trump's NY fraud trial this week, but got sick (with a doctor's note) and didn't show. They're expecting him next week.

But there were still some spectacular highlights. My favorite moment of the week came from none other than Allen Weisselberg, the recently-jailed former Trump Org. CFO. Prosecutors produced the separation agreement between the Trump Org. and Weisselberg, who famously refused to cooperate in the company's criminal tax trial last year.

Louis M. Solomon, who heads the NY AG's real estate finance division, questioned why Weisselberg has not been forthcoming about Trump's valuation practices. He pointed out that the $2 million Trump agreed to pay Weisselberg matched almost exactly the $2 million Weisselberg paid in back taxes and fines when he refused to flip on Trump and was convicted of tax violations last year.

"Is it just a coincidence?" asked Solomon.

"Coincidence," Weisselberg answered.

Just one of the Kise

Meanwhile, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump attorney Chris Kise to apologize to a court clerk and an AG office attorney—both women—after he was rude and dismissive to them during a sidebar.

Screen savior

Of course, Trump's federal coup trial should be televised for all the obvious disinformation-fighting, democracy-boosting reasons. Sadly, federal courts are closed to cameras, so as the rules stand now, we won't be watching the trial live.

Unless! NBCUniversal News Group filed a 42-page brief asking the court to allow TV coverage of the trial because of its extraordinary importance to the country. "If ever a trial were to be televised, this one should be, for the benefit of American democracy," they argue.

The court could opt for live pool coverage the networks can share. Or, at a minimum, allow video recording that can be released after some appropriate time lag, the brief states. The DOJ opposes the request.

Skulldoug-ery

The man who launched an online campaign to trick Hillary Clinton supporters into not voting in 2016 was sentenced to seven months in prison this week. Douglass Mackey used his powerful online personna "Ricky Vaughn" to circulate fake ads urging Black and Latino voters to vote by text message. MIT identified him as one of the online influencers with the most clout on election issues during that race.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was very upset that Mackey is being held accountable for "posting memes."

I SAID WHAT I SAID

"I ache for him."

— President Joe Biden, asked about the struggles of Jim Jordan.

ON OUR RADAR

Janet and the giant impeach — Wisconsin Republicans appear to be backing off of their plans to impeach a liberal newly-elected Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz before the court hears a case on the state's most-gerrymandered-in-the-nation electoral maps. Now a former Chief justice is trying to quash a subpoena to appear in a civil case seeking sunlight on a panel of former justices who advised GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on impeachment.

"I'm toast" — North Carolina Republicans released two proposed congressional maps that they'll use to gerrymander as many as four House seats out of the evenly-divided state. The GOP-controlled legislature gets to pick between the two maps. One would make three current Dem-represented districts impossible for the party to hold, the other would split two Black-represented districts and dilute their voters.

As I've said for months, this is the culmination of years of effort by the NC GOP to make sure the party can never lose power, no matter what voters think. Groups are already threatening to sue, especially if they think the new map violates the Voting Rights Act.

NC Dem Rep. Jeff Jackson has been warning his constituents for months that this was coming, and that Republicans would likely draw him out of his district. Now he says, "if either of these maps become final, it means I'm toast in Congress."