T.W.I.S.™ Notes
It's the "put your life vests on" version of This Week in Subpoenas!
- Ready the charge
Here we (maybe) go: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg just gave a pretty strong signal that Donald Trump is about to get charged with a crime for the $130,000 hush money payment to then-porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. News broke Thursday evening that Bragg's team has invited Trump to testify in front of the New York grand jury investigating the payments. A move like that almost always signals the subject is about to get charged.
If it happens, it'll be a great, big, massive deal. But the case against Trump is not a lock. The book-cooking at the center of the likely case is a misdemeanor. Only if prosecutors can show that that misdemeanor was done in the furtherance of a second crime, like violating campaign finance laws, would a potential felony be in play. It's a legal double-flip with a landing that's hard to stick. Stay VERY tuned!
FWIW, former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks met with the prosecutors this week, though it's unclear if she answered questions. Michael Cohen, who made the payments and later got reimbursed by Trump, still hasn't testified in front of the grand jury.
Trump issued a meandering statement on Truth Social, casting himself as the victim of extortion and denying having an affair with Stormy Daniels.
- Pence-ile erasure
Former Veep Mike Pence consummated his steely-eyed adoration for the Constitution this week by striving not to answer questions under oath about the plan to subvert it. Pence's lawyers filed a motion in federal court seeking to block the grand jury subpoena seeking his testimony about (many, many) things he knows about Jan. 6 and the coup attempt.
Right on cue, Trump's lawyers also sought to block Pence's testimony with a claim of executive privilege. Both claims will have to be fought out in court, if they haven't already been disputed in secret proceedings. One sticky detail for Pence is that he's already written a book where he details a lot of stuff Trump did and said before and on Jan. 6. Would he say the same things under oath?
Esq-wire fraud
It's been a censorious week for lawyers who undermined democracy to help Donald Trump! First, Jenna Ellis, the Trump lawyer who filed lawsuits and blanketed the airwaves with false claims after the 2020 race, who authored memos pre-Jan. 6 advising Trumpworld how Mike Pence could help steal the election, (and weirdly thinks someone wants to take away her religion) admitted that her public statements alleging a stolen election were rife with "misrepresentations" that amounted to "misconduct." Ellis was censured by Colorado's chief disciplinary judge, who wrote that Ellis agreed her conduct "undermined the American public's confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public."
Ellis would like you to know that the problem here is with her critics, and that "knowingly engag(ing) in any [non- criminal] conduct that involves dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation" means she did absolutely nothing wrong!
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a prominent group of attorneys asked to disbar lawyer Stefan Passantino for undermining the interests of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson when he represented her in front of the January 6 committee. Lawyers Defending American Democracy filed a complaint with the D.C. Bar accusing Passantino of unethically representing Trump's interest when he urged Hutchinson to say she didn't recall certain facts or events. They say the former White House ethics lawyer suborned perjury while being paid by Trump's political organization.
Hutchinson's blockbuster testimony—on everything from Trump's alleged lunge at a Secret Service agent in an SUV to knowingly sending armed protesters to the Capitol on Jan. 6—only came after she fired Passantino and hired another attorney.
A test of Willis
Georgia Republicans appear to be giving themselves a backup plan should Fulton County DA Fani Willis prosecute Donald Trump. Legislators are putting the final touches on a plan giving a five-member board the power to investigate—and even remove—local prosecutors they deem to be underperforming. Willis is denouncing it as a "racist" power grab. VICE News' Greg Walters has the story.
Payback's a Finch
An Arizona judge sanctioned former state Rep. and conspiracist-in-a-hat Mark Finchem for abusing the court with a "groundless" lawsuit contesting his trouncing in the 2022 race for secretary of state. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Iyer Julian ordered Finchem and his attorney to pay $292 in court costs plus attorneys fees to be determined later this month.
Judge Julian said Finchem's December lawsuit asking to redo the election "was not made in good faith" and had no chance of overturning his 120,204 vote loss to current Sec. of State Adrian Fontes. Finchem fundraised off the news and accused the judge of "doing the bidding of Marxists."
Fatal ERIC message
More red states are leaving the non-profit and bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). That's the 30-state consortium that matches voter information and other data so states can keep their voter rolls clean. In January, I told you how Alabama's secretary of state abruptly removed his state from ERIC under false pretenses. Louisiana left, as well. Now Florida, West Virginia, and Missouri are pulling out, too. Yes, this literally makes voter rolls and registrations, the things Republicans claim to want to keep clean, harder to keep clean.
One issue Republicans cite is "eligible but unregistered" voters. ERIC rules require state authorities to contact those voters and see if they'd like to register, but Republicans are increasingly against that mandate.
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