Daily Archives: April 29, 2024

The initial six days of Donald J. Trumps criminal trial, the first for an American president, were a high-intensity spectacle.

A jury was seated, opening statements made and the first witness began testifying.

Mr. Trump, who faces up to four years behind bars if convicted, is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records for the way in which he accounted for a repayment to his former personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen.

Mr. Cohen had channeled money to a porn star who was shopping her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. Prosecutors say the payment was meant to cover up a scandal that could have derailed Mr. Trumps 2016 presidential campaign.

All trials have set structures and formal, legal rhythms. There are meticulous exchanges and minute observations of procedure. But already, this one has also had plenty of high-stakes moments befitting the unprecedented nature of the case that is being tried.

Here are five of the most memorable things that have been said in court so far:

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, at 4:34 p.m. on Thursday signaled that the trial would soon begin in earnest.

The process of choosing a jury was intense and arduous. Many prospective jurors excused themselves before they could even be asked a standardized set of 42 questions, citing an inability to be unbiased toward such a polarizing defendant.

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Five Moments That Have Defined Donald Trump's Trial So Far - The New York Times

In none of Donald Trumps criminal trials do the politics rank as close in importance to the legal issues as they do in Manhattan. The charges in the hush-money-election-interference case are objectively less serious than those in the former presidents other cases, and Americans harbor significantly more uncertainty about them.

That creates a situation in which the perception of the trial looms especially large.

And weve now got one of our first good looks at how the trial might be playing politically. A CNN poll suggests that Americans remain skeptical of the process and the trials importance. But it also suggests that Trumps claims of victimization are still far from prevailing and that perhaps his own conduct is to blame.

The top-line findings from the poll:

Its worth taking these findings piece by piece.

The first isnt terribly surprising, as it lines up with previous polling. Americans are skeptical that Trump broke the law here in a way they simply arent with his major controversies. They also view this case as involving significantly lower stakes for their November votes.

The most relevant and interesting findings are the other three noted above.

As to the majority not being confident the verdict will be fair, its worth asking why that is. Yes, even many Democrats are skeptical of the case; just 64 percent of them say they think Trump is guilty. And perhaps this reflects some concern that Manhattans very blue-leaning population will be biased against a former president from the red side.

But it would also seem possible that its partly about people worrying about Trump getting away with it. Trump has proved slippery when it comes to efforts to hold him accountable in the past, after all, and all it takes is one juror to hold out. (Many have noted that a juror has described getting their news from Trumps Truth Social social media platform.)

Indeed, the poll shows nearly half of Democrats arent confident in the jurys verdict. Given that nearly two-thirds of them believe hes guilty and that another recent poll showed just 4 in 10 Democrats think Trump will be convicted, it would seem likely many of them are worried about a lack of accountability.

This could also simply reflect Americans increasingly generalized lack of faith in our legal institutions. An AP-NORC poll last week, for instance, showed low levels of faith not just in the jurors, but also in the judges hearing the cases against Trump and in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Which brings us to the more-Trump-focused findings. Some on the right have pointed to the mere 13 percent who say Trump is being treated like other defendants as if it bolsters Trumps claims of persecution; Breitbart gamely claimed that the poll appears to confirm Trumps argument that efforts to bankrupt and throw him in jail are politically motivated[.]

But it shows no such thing; half of those who think hes not being treated like other defendants say hes actually being treated more leniently (another possible nod to that generalized lack of faith in legal institutions). Fewer than 3 in 10 independents and moderates buy that Trump has been treated more harshly.

This poll is merely the latest to suggest Trumps claims to persecution havent really penetrated beyond his devoted base. What does appear to be penetrating, though and might well undermine Trumps claims to persecution is the perception that Trump isnt conducting himself properly. While many are reserving judgment, the 17-point margin by which Americans say Trumps behavior is mostly inappropriate rather than appropriate would suggest hes not proving a terribly sympathetic defendant.

Strikingly, even the percentage of Republicans who vouch for the appropriateness of Trumps conduct is shy of a majority 48 percent and independents say its been inappropriate rather than appropriate by a 2-to-1 margin.

If that perception continues, its going to be much tougher for Trump to argue that things like gag orders and decisions that go against him are truly unfair and symptomatic of a weaponized justice system. And if he cant drive that messaging home, the eventual verdict becomes more problematic for him.

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How Trumps trial is playing, politically - The Washington Post

U.S. allies had a collective freakout earlier this year when aid to Ukraine was stalled in Congress and former president Donald Trump threatened to let Russia do whatever the hell they want to NATO members that did not pay enough for their own defense. A European diplomat told me in March, It is scary and should be scary. After all, Europe had not faced the prospect of defending itself without significant help from the United States since 1945.

The passage of the $61 billion Ukraine aid bill in both the House and Senate by large margins should serve to soothe frayed nerves among U.S. allies and not only in Europe. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan have also made clear that they are very concerned about the precedent that would be set if Russia were allowed to get away with unprovoked aggression. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergisspoke for many relieved allies when he wrote on X after the House vote: Historic decisions change history. Good to have you back, America.

But is America back for good or only for now? There is no way to answer that question with any degree of confidence. And that, in turn, should give U.S. allies pause about whether they can still count on the United States.

While overwhelming majorities of both houses wound up backing aid to Ukraine, narrow majorities of Republicans opposed the bill in the House and in the first Senate vote in February. (A clear majority of the Senate Republicans approved the House bill last week when its passage was a foregone conclusion.)

Things might have worked out differently if House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had not discovered his inner Arthur Vandenberg, channeling the Michigan Republican senator who turned from prewar isolationist into a leading supporter of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and NATO in the late 1940s. Imagine if hard-right Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who voted against Ukraine aid, were speaker; he might have prevented the bill from getting a floor vote, and Ukraine might have lost the war this year. Even in the Senate, there is cause for concern: Many of the GOP supporters of Ukraine aid are in the old guard led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), while younger, Trumpier Republicans such as J.D. Vance (Ohio) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) oppose it.

Agonizing as it was to get Ukraine aid through Congress, the $61 billion is likely to run out by the end of the year. That means another bill will be necessary in early 2025. If Trump wins in November, it is extremely unlikely that he will support such legislation. He keeps saying he would end the war in 24 hours, which is widely assumed to imply that he will cut off Ukraine to force it to accept a lopsided deal that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has no intention of honoring. The U.S. presidential election could determine Ukraines fate and Trump could easily win that election. Even if he doesnt, aid to Ukraine will still be in jeopardy if Republicans control either house of Congress.

U.S. allies from Asia to Europe are talking about how to Trump-proof their alliances, but that will be very hard to do, given the carte blanche that U.S. presidents receive in foreign affairs. Congress did pass legislation to make it difficult for a president to pull out of NATO without congressional authorization, but Trump wouldnt have to formally leave the alliance to destroy it, as he could simply announce that he wont defend deadbeat allies. That is, in fact, what Trumps former national security adviser, John Bolton, predicts would happen if the disgraced former president returns to office.

For decades, while there were sharp disagreements over specific foreign interventions such as the Vietnam and Iraq wars, there was an underlying, bipartisan consensus in U.S. politics that internationalism was in Americas interest. Between 1942 and 2016, right-wing isolationists had been almost entirely sidelined in U.S. politics, notwithstanding a brief outbreak of Come home, America isolationism on the left in the 1970s.

That has now changed, with Trump showing that it is hardly harmful and may, in fact, be helpful for a leading Republican politician to rail against U.S. allies and U.S. commitments overseas. Trump has single-handedly revived the phrase America First, which had been in well-deserved obloquy since Dec. 7, 1941. There are, alas, plenty of ambitious opportunists, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who are all too willing to abandon whatever Reaganite foreign policy principles they might once have possessed to pursue the political rewards of neo-isolationist positions like opposing aid to Ukraine.

So U.S. allies will have to make contingency plans on the assumption that America may no longer be there for them in the future. Indeed, that is already occurring: Canada and the European members of NATO raised their defense spending by 11 percent in 2023, and Japan is raising its defense spending by 16.5 percent this year. But this may be only the start of a long-term shift away from the United States, with countries from Germany to South Korea debating whether they can still count on the U.S. nuclear umbrella or whether they need to acquire their own nukes.

While its not necessary for U.S. allies to go nuclear quite yet, it is vitally important that they do more to strengthen their multilateral defense ties to be less dependent on the whims of Washington. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, that means continuing to enhance their nascent military and intelligence ties in the face of growing threats from China and North Korea. In the case of Europe, that means not only continuing to raise defense spending the target should be the Cold War standard of 3 to 5 percent of GDP, not the current goal of 2 percent but also deepening cooperation on both defense production and military operations.

The European Union took an important step forward in March by unveiling its first defense industrial strategy, but much more needs to be done. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted in 2022, European armed forces suffer major redundancies, with 29 different types of destroyers, 17 types of main battle tanks, and 20 types of fighter planes, as compared to four, one, and six, respectively, for the United States. European countries have always been too jealous of their own sovereignty to do more to pool their defense resources, but now facing what one former European diplomat described to me as the twin threats of Putin and Trump its time to prioritize survival over national sovereignty. As French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday: There is a risk our Europe could die. We are not equipped to face the risks.

U.S. allies from Europe and Asia will be making a major mistake if they take the passage of the Ukraine aid bill as a signal that they dont need to pursue greater strategic autonomy. They would be well advised to act as though the United States were, in fact, turning its back on the world because there is a very real risk that could still happen.

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Opinion | The Ukraine aid vote helps, but U.S. allies complacency would be unwise - The Washington Post

Abaca Press/Sipa USA via AP

Once again,theres not much love lost between Bill Barr and the man he accused of betraying the Oval Office, Donald Trump. When the former attorney general confirmed this week that he would support the Republican presidential ticket in November, his former boss took the opportunity to mock Barr as slow-moving and lazy.

Thats classic Trump, Barr chuckled on Friday when CNNs Kaitlan Collins asked about the insults. Whats the question?

He went on to express frustration that voters are faced with a rematch between Joe Biden and Trump. But given that choice, Barr explained that he would happily vote for Trump, who, he revealed in the same interview, routinely broached the idea of executing his rivals.

But hes mocking you, Collins pressed.

So? Its not about me.

The endorsement aligns with much of what Barr has already told us despite the occasional condemnation. As he said during a 2022 book tour, I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Partyits inconceivable to me that I wouldnt vote for the Republican nominee. Those remarks are almost exactly what he told CNN to claim that the progressive movement and the Biden administration were the biggest threats facing the United States today.

For Barr, these remarks fit the story he keeps telling. That above all, hes just a principled, just-doing-my-job law enforcement official stuck with tough choices. That, of course, couldnt be further from the truth.

Originally posted here:

Bill Barr Is Happy to Debase Himself for Donald Trump Again Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Listening to Thursday’s oral arguments in the Donald Trump immunity case was positively surreal.  

As is often the case in Supreme Court arguments, while the justices piled one hypothetical on top of another, the real-world stakes in the case were barely mentioned. And while the questions asked at oral argument are not always a reliable predictor of how the court will ultimately come out in any case, Thursday was not a good day for American democracy.  

As it has done in other cases, the court’s conservative majority seemed ready to jettison its own originalist interpretive method and to ignore the grave threat that former President Trump’s election denialism — and efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power — posed to our constitutional republic. They displayed a level of hypocrisy, cynicism and bad faith that matched Trump’s own, and seemed to lust for the kind of strong executive that has become a familiar part of the agenda of Trump and his MAGA allies. 

One can only hope that the justices will come to their senses when they get around to deciding the case, and will reject Trump’s plea to take the unprecedented step of establishing presidential immunity. 

To get a taste of the hypocrisy displayed during the oral argument, let’s start with originalism. 

Given the originalist commitments of the court’s conservative majority, you would have thought that the oral argument would have been consumed by an exploration of constitutional history. Yet they said almost nothing about it. 

Justice Clarence Thomas opened the door for such an exploration when he asked the first question. Thomas asked John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer, to identify the place in the Constitution from which presidential immunity from criminal prosecution could be derived. Sauer responded that “The source of the immunity is principally rooted in the Executive Vesting Clause of Article II, Section 1.” 

“(T)he Executive Vesting Clause,” Sauer continued, “does not include only executive powers laid out explicitly therein but encompasses all the powers that were originally understood to be included therein. And Marbury against Madison itself provides strong evidence of this kind of immunity, a broad principle of immunity that protects the president’s official acts from scrutiny.” 

He invoked “(T)he wisdom of the Framers. What they viewed as the risk that needed to be guarded against was not the fact — the notion that the president might escape, you know, criminal prosecution for something, you know, sort of very, very unlikely in these unlikely scenarios. They viewed much more likely and much more destructive to the Republic the risk of factional strife discussed by George Washington.” 

However, it didn’t take long for Justice Elena Kagan to blow Sauer’s originalist gambit out of the water. Kagan noted that “The Framers did not put an immunity clause into the Constitution. They knew how to. There were immunity clauses in some state constitutions. They knew how to give legislative immunity. They didn’t provide immunity to the president.” 

“And, you know,” she explained, “not so surprising, they were reacting against a monarch who claimed to be above the law. Wasn’t the whole point that the president was not a monarch and the president was not supposed to be above the law?” 

In response, Sauer first repeated what he said to Thomas. “I would say two things in response to that. Immunity — they did put an immunity clause in in a sense. They put in the Executive Vesting Clause, which was originally understood to — to adopt a broad immunity principle that’s set forth in the very broad language of Marbury against Madison.” 

Then Sauer added, “(T)hey did discuss and consider what would be the checks on the presidency. And they did not say, oh, we need to have criminal prosecution. Right there at the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin says, we don’t have that. That’s not an option. Everybody cried out against that as unconstitutional.“  

But Kagan had done the job of exposing the fallacy of appeals to original intent to justify immunizing presidents for crimes they commit while in office. After that, the court’s most fervent originalists had little to say about, or interest in, the question of what those who drafted Article II intended by way of presidential immunity.  

In addition to their abandonment of originalism, several of the court’s conservative Justices seemed almost desperate to avoid talking about what Trump actually is alleged to have done after the 2020 election, preferring instead to trot out more hypotheticals and focus on general principles. 

In response to a point made by Michael Dreeben, who argued the case for the Special Counsel, about the role of the Justice Department in defining the “core powers of the presidency,” Justice Neil Gorsuch observed, “I’m not concerned about this case so much as future ones. … And, again, I’m not concerned about this case, but I am concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives.” 

But, in this moment, Gorsuch revealed his embrace of Trump’s substantive position: that the real problem was not what the former president did after the 2020 election, but what was being done to him by his “political opponents.” Gorsuch might as well have said that he wants to make sure that future presidential administrations don’t do to former presidents what Trump alleges the Biden administration is doing to him. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh followed Gorsuch’s lead. He too said, “I’m not focused on the here and now of this case. I’m very concerned about the future. “  

Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, Kavanaugh denounced the Supreme Court’s?1988 decision in Morrison v. Olson, which upheld the constitutionality of the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. As law professor Steve Vladek notes, “Morrison has long been a lightning rod for conservatives, who have rallied around Justice Antonin Scalia’s fiery and pellucid … solo dissent. And Kavanaugh has repeatedly criticized the decision in his judicial writings.” 

Joining Gorsuch in echoing Trump, Kavanaugh directed his questions to the possibility that presidential prosecutions will “cycle back” and be used against future presidents. 

Justice Samuel Alito also announced, “I’m not focused on the here and now of this case. I’m very concerned about the future.” Alito conceded that the present case “is immensely important,” but quickly aligned himself with his fellow futurists, saying “whatever we decide is going to apply to all future presidents.” 

Alito went out of his way to remind Dreeben of his view that the country could not count on the integrity and professionalism of the Justice Department or of attorneys general to ensure that presidents are not subject to partisan witch hunts after they leave office. “So as for attorneys general,” Alito said, “there have been two who were convicted of criminal offenses while in office. There were others, a Mitchell Palmer is one that comes to mind, who is wildly regarded as having abused the power of his office.” 

As The Atlantic’s David Graham explained, “Justice Samuel Alito fretted that if former presidents do not enjoy immunity, they could face the danger of prosecution by their successors, which would pose a challenge to the stability of the republic. In short, Alito was arguing that if Trump is prosecuted for a direct assault on American democracy, it might result in indirect damage to American democracy later on.” 

Evoking “Alice in Wonderland,” Graham labelled this a “moment in which the hearing went through the looking glass.” 

As last week’s parade of hypotheticals illustrated, if the court grants presidents immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit while in office, all of those who value American democracy will, as Graham suggests, find themselves in a world that those who wrote the Constitution could never have imagined.  

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College.  

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Hey, SCOTUS your hypocrisy is showing - The Hill

Thursdays argument in Trump v. United States was a disaster for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and for anyone who believes that the president of the United States should be subject to prosecution if they commit a crime.

At least five of the Courts Republicans seemed eager to, at the very least, permit Trump to delay his federal criminal trial for attempting to steal the 2020 election until after this Novembers election. And the one GOP appointee who seemed to hedge the most, Chief Justice John Roberts, also seemed to think that Trump enjoys at least some immunity from criminal prosecution.

Much of the Courts Republican majority, moreover, seemed eager not simply to delay Trumps trial until after the election, but to give him extraordinarily broad immunity from criminal prosecution should he be elected once again. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for example, argued that when a president exercises his official powers, he cannot be charged under any federal criminal statute at all, unless that statute contains explicit language saying that it applies to the president.

As Michael Dreeben, the lawyer arguing on behalf of Smiths prosecution team, told the Court, only two federal laws meet this standard. So Kavanaughs rule would amount to near complete immunity for anything a president did while exercising their executive authority.

Justice Samuel Alito, meanwhile, played his traditional role as the Courts most dyspeptic advocate for whatever position the Republican Party prefers. At one point, Alito even argued that permitting Trump to be prosecuted for attempting to overthrow the 2020 presidential election would lead us into a cycle that destabilizes ... our democracy, because future presidents who lose elections would mimic Trumps criminal behavior in order to remain in office and avoid being prosecuted by their successor.

In fairness, not all of the justices, or even all of the Republican justices, engaged in such dizzying feats of reverse logic. Roberts did express some concern that Trump lawyer John Sauers arguments could prevent the president from being prosecuted if he took a bribe.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, meanwhile, pointed to the fact that Sauer drew a distinction between prosecuting a president for official behavior (which Sauer said is not allowed), and prosecuting a president for his private conduct (which Sauer conceded is permitted). Barrett also argued that many of the charges against Trump, such as his work with private lawyers and political consultants to overthrow the 2020 election, qualify as private conduct and thus could still be prosecuted.

Still, many of the Republican justices, including Barrett, indicated that the case would have to be returned to the trial court to determine which of the allegations against Trump qualify as official and which qualify as private. Barrett also indicated that Trump could then appeal the trial courts ruling, meaning that his actual criminal trial would be delayed for many more months as that issue makes its way through the appeals courts.

In that world, the likelihood that Trump will be tried, and a verdict reached, before the November election is approximately zero percent.

The Courts decision in the Trump case, in other words, is likely to raise the stakes of this already impossibly high-stakes election considerably. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned, the risk inherent in giving presidents immunity from the criminal law is that someone like Trump would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon.

Its unclear if the Court is going to go so far as to definitively rule that the president of the United States is allowed to do crimes. But they appear likely to make it impossible for the criminal justice system to actually do anything about Trumps attempt to overthrow the election at least before Trump could be elected president again.

Under current law, all government officials enjoy some immunity from civil lawsuits. The president, meanwhile, is on a short list of government officials, alongside judges and prosecutors, who enjoy particularly robust immunity from such suits. But the law has never been understood to immunize any government official from criminal prosecution.

Moreover, while no president has been prosecuted prior to Trump, judges and prosecutors (who enjoy the same level of immunity from civil suits as the president) are routinely prosecuted for taking bribes or for otherwise violating the criminal law during their official conduct in office.

For this reason, Ive argued that his immunity case was primarily about delaying Trumps trial until after the election. The arguments for presidential immunity from the criminal law are so weak and their implications are so shocking Trumps lawyer told a lower court that unless Trump had first been successfully impeached, he could not be prosecuted even if he ordered the military to assassinate one of his political rivals that it seemed unimaginable that even this Supreme Court would buy Trumps immunity arguments.

After Thursday morning, however, a decision that merely delays Trumps criminal trial until after the election is probably the best possible outcome Smith could hope for. There appears to be a very real chance that five justices will rule that the president of the United States may use his official powers in order to commit very serious crimes.

Even the best case scenario for Smith, moreover, is still an enormous victory for Donald Trump. If Trump prevails in the 2024 election, he can order the Justice Department to drop the charges against him or even potentially pardon himself. And, regardless of what happens in November, the American people will go to the polls without the clarity of a criminal trial which determines whether or not Trump is guilty of attempting to drive a knife into US democracy.

Trumps core argument is that the president is immune from prosecution for official acts taken while he was in office. All six of the Courts Republicans showed at least some sympathy for this argument, though some displayed more sympathy than others.

It appears likely that at least four justices Justices Clarence Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch will give Trump the immunity he seeks (or apply a rule like Kavanaughs requirement that criminal statutes dont apply to the president unless they explicitly say so, which would have virtually the same effect). At one point, Thomas even suggested that the Justice Departments decision to appoint Smith to investigate Trump was unconstitutional.

Roberts and Barrett, meanwhile, were a little more enigmatic. But both, at the very least, floated sending this case back down to the lower court for more delay.

Chief Justice Roberts, for what its worth, did express some concern that the line between an official action and a private one is difficult to draw. Early in the oral argument, he asked Sauer about a president who appoints someone as an ambassador because that appointee gave the president a bribe.

While making the appointment is an official act, taking a bribe is not. Roberts worried that prosecutors would be unable to secure a bribery conviction if they were forbidden from telling the jury about the official act taken by the president in order to secure that bribe.

Barrett, meanwhile, spent a considerable amount of time walking Sauer through the actual allegations in the indictment against Trump. And she even got him to admit that some of the charges, such as consulting with private lawyers and a private political consultant on how to certify fake electors, amount to private conduct that could be prosecuted.

Later in the argument, however, Barrett seemed to lay out how the process of determining which parts of the indictment can survive should play out. Under her suggested framework, the trial court would have to go through the indictment and sort the official from the private. The trial would then be put on hold while Trump appeals whatever the trial court says to higher courts in a process that is likely to take months or even longer to sort out.

By the time that was all done, the November election would be long past, and Trump could very well be back in office and emboldened to commit more crimes in the very way that Justice Jackson warned about.

Indeed, the striking thing about Thursdays argument is that most of the Republican justices appeared so overwhelmed by concern that a future president might be hampered by fears of being prosecuted once they leave office, that they completely ignored the risk that an un-prosecutable president might behave like a tyrant. Gorsuch even warned that presidents might try to pardon themselves on the way out the door to avoid such prosecutions.

Under the legal rule that Gorsuch and many of his colleagues are considering, however, such a pardon would be unnecessary because the president would be almost entirely above the law including, potentially, a president like Trump, who has already shown his eagerness to destroy constitutional governance for his own personal gain.

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The Supreme Court is likely to place Donald Trump above the law in its immunity case - Vox.com

"The Wuhan Cover-Up" blares the subject line of a recent presidential campaign email. Inside, it's all impenetrable conspiracy theory language that reads more like a QAnon post than a normal political fundraiser:

Why wasnt Dr. Anthony Fauci charged with a crime, when he lied under oath about his relationships with Peter Daszak and Ralph Baric in order to cover-up Wuhan Coronavirus research?Apparently, lying under oath is only a crime when it contradicts established narratives.

Zombie COVID-19 conspiracy theories? False and defamatory accusations? QAnon-style rhetoric designed to overwhelm and bamboozle the reader? These abusive tactics are all the red flags of MAGA communication. To be certain, fundraising emails across the partisan spectrum can be alarmist and hyperbolic, but accusing innocent people of crimes and spreading lies about deadly diseases are lines most candidates don't cross. The exception, of course, is Donald Trump and his imitators, like Arizona's Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake. But outside of the MAGA universe, such tactics are frowned upon for two reasons. One, it's downright evil. Two, it wouldn't work on voters who are outside of the MAGA bubble, as normal people tend to be turned off by slander and overt disinformation.

But curiously this email did not come from Trump or Lake or any other figures associated with the ethics-free world of MAGA campaigning. It came, readers may not be surprised to learn, from the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate. The conventional wisdom in Washington has long been that Kennedy is running a spoiler campaign against President Joe Biden, trying to siphon off enough Democratic votes that Donald Trump wins the election. After all, Kennedy used to be a Democrat and his name is so famous his family had to hold a presser disavowing his candidacy.

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This email, however, seems squarely aimed at would-be Trump voters, the only people so soaked in pandemic paranoia and conspiracy theories that any of this would even make sense to them. It's a weird choice for someone trying to undermine Biden's chances! It makes sense, however, if we assume that Kennedy's main priority with his fake run for president is not to spoil the race, but to draw attention and recruit new marks for his longstanding anti-vaccination grift. If you're looking for gullible people who will give you money to lie to them, you will be far more successful appealing to Trump voters than Biden voters.

Kennedy can be this liberal-triggering agent they can use to taunt people they hate, which has long mattered more to MAGA than policy concerns.

For months, polls have shown that Kennedy is taking away more voters from Biden than Trump, based mostly on Democrats who are dissatisfied with Biden and who knew little about Kennedy besides his name. That's shifted recently. A new NBC News poll shows Biden is two points behind Trump in a two-way race, but two points ahead of Trump if Kennedy is an option. In a Marist poll, Biden's three-point lead widens to five points if Kennedy is on the ballot. It appears the more voters learn about Kennedy that he's anti-vaccine, a conspiracy theorist, and an all-around weirdo the more Democrats are turned off and the more MAGA voters are intrigued.

Hoping he would be a spoiler to benefit Trump, wealthy Republicans have been donating heavily to Kennedy, making them his main source of funding. It's not unreasonable to believe, therefore, that he's in this race to hurt Biden. But the likelier possibility is that Kennedy is in this as an old-fashioned grift, and cares less about the outcome of the race than in getting attention and making money.

Some crucial context is that Kennedy is the head of an anti-vaccine group that notoriously peddled medical disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic to great profit. As the Washington Post reported, Kennedy's group "received $23.5 million in contributions, grants and other revenue in 2022 alone eight times what it collected the yearbefore the pandemic began." Kennedy's salary from running the organization doubled due to this windfall, from $255,000 before the pandemic to over half a million in 2022. With the pandemic functionally over, so are the vast majority of vaccine mandates. That is bad news for anti-vaccination organizations, who depended on the hysteria over mandatory vaccines to raise money.

It's not a leap, therefore, to see that Kennedy is likely running for president to find a new source of suckers who will give him money. (And attention, which also seems a big motivating factor.) The first set of rubes were those rich GOP donors. But those people are fairweather funders, who will abandon him the moment he's no longer useful. The real money, in the longer term, is in becoming a cult-like leader for QAnon adhernts and other credulous people who may not be rich but are numerous. By targeting MAGA in his search for dummies, Kennedy is simply following that adage: Go hunting where the ducks are.

The QAnon angle is one that is often overlooked when discussing Kennedy, but shouldn't be. One of the most popular QAnon prophecies is that Kennedy's deceased first cousin, John F. Kennedy Jr., is secretly alive and will make his triumphant return to the public eye in 2024 when he is announced as Trump's running mate. It's likely not a coincidence, then, that earlier this month, Kennedy tweeted, "President Trump calls me an ultra-left radical. Im soooo liberal that his emissaries asked me to be his VP. I respectfully declined the offer."

For many QAnon believers, it's not much of a leap to get them to wonder if the Kennedy of their prophecy is actually RFK, and not his dead cousin. If so, they are going to be angry with Trump for screwing up the plan.

Kennedy was responding to Trump claiming that he's a "leftist radical," which shows Trump is worried about his own people abandoning him for Kennedy. Reporting from Politico confirms that it's not just Trump, either, but the larger GOP that is starting to fret. Kennedy is starting to pull small-dollar donors away from Trump. In turn, Trump's campaign and allies are starting to badmouth Kennedy more.

To be certain, the Biden campaign still has much to worry about when it comes to Kennedy. Low-information Democratic voters who just see the name and throw their vote away are a very real threat. But Sarah Longwell, the never-Trump data specialist who publishes The Bulwark, argued on a recent podcast that there's "a real opportunity" for the Biden campaign to push some Trump voters towards Kennedy. She notes that, in her focus groups, what Trump voters say they like about Kennedy is that "he is defying his family."

"What do Republicans like more than anything else?" she said. "Somebody of the libs who's hitting the libs." She reminded listeners that Trump used to be coded this way, as a former Democrat who has turned on his party. Now Kennedy can be this liberal-triggering agent they can use to taunt people they hate, which has long mattered more to MAGA than policy concerns. Already, Kennedy has higher favorability ratings with Republican voters than Democrats.

There are signs that the Biden campaign is aware of this and is trying to find ways to sell Kennedy to MAGA voters. The Kennedy family press conference, for instance. Most media took it at face value, as the Kennedys trying to discourage Democratic voters from backing their black sheep of a relative. But there may have been another, more important audience: MAGA voters. The message to those voters is that the best way to make the Kennedys cry, perhaps even better than voting for Trump, is to vote for RFK Jr. Similarly, billboards that put Kennedy in a MAGA hat and call him a "spoiler for Trump" aren't just about making Democrats dislike Kennedy. They will also make Trump voters more interested in switching to Kennedy.

None of this is an argument for complacency. Kennedy is still a major threat to Biden, due to those low-information voters who may not know he's an anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist. This race promises to be chaotic as it is, and introducing third-party spoilers makes it all the more unpredictable. Kennedy, whose main goals are money and attention, might discover he can start getting more wealthy Republican donors if he shifts tactics again. All sorts of terrible things could happen.

For now, the state of play appears to be this: Kennedy's main goal appears to be pulling in marks for his anti-vaccination grift. That means he's got a lot more reason to make a play for MAGA voters than Biden voters. Especially if Trump continues down his path of total self-absorption, Kennedy has a real opportunity to chip off some of his voters by speaking to their esoteric concerns about vaccine mind control and other imaginary threats. The polls suggest this is already happening, and there could be many more chances down the line for MAGA voters to consider giving Kennedy a chance.

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RFK is openly gunning for Trump voters now and Republicans are starting to worry - Salon