Category Archives: Donald Trump

Billed by Axios as the book Donald Trump fears most, Maggie HabermansConfidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America debutedlastweek asNo. 1best-seller on Amazon and the New York Times. At 508 pages, its a challenge. But its worth the slog: the best book yet on the mystery man whostill remains, two years after being rejected for a second term, the most dominant force in American politics.

The most striking thing about the book is its title. Consider: For the New York Times, Haberman covered Donald Trump full-time for six years. During his four years in the White House, she averaged more than one Trump story a day. She was the Timess most-read reporter. Shes interviewed Trump dozens of times. Hescalled her a third-rate reporter,but he gave her three interviews for this book alonethefirst onerequestedby himbefore she even asked.

Haberman knows Trump better than any other reporter. Yet, after all that access and all that time, what words did she choose to describe Trump? TheConfidence Man,which is hardly a compliment.Merriam-Webster defines a confidence man as a person who tricks other people in order to get their money. And that, my friends, as Haberman skillfully and exhaustively relates, is Donald Trumpin a nutshell.

Habermansgreat insight, and her bookscentral premise,is that you cant understand Trump unless you track him from the beginning of his professional career, when he, somewhat reluctantly,joined his fathers real estate firm. (He originally wanted to become an actor.)Fromthat point on, she argues, hes frozen in time.Recounting countless episodes from his New York developer days, she concludes: He was interested primarily in money, dominance, power, bullying and himself. He treated rules and regulations as unnecessary obstacles rather than constraints on his behavior He sought anendless stream of praise His thirst for fame seemed to grow each time he tasted more of it.

Donald Trump the developer was Donald Trump the president. HisM.O. never changed.

Filing countless, worthless lawsuits? It didnt start in the White House, it started in Queens, when he sued every reporter, contractor ordeveloper who wouldnt accede to his demands. Notbecause he expected to winjust to intimidate them. Or, as he admitted after suing his biographer, Tim OBrien, just to make his life miserable.

Telling lies? It didnt start with the size of the crowd at his Inauguration. As a developer, he allegedlylied aboutmany things, according to Habermans and others reporting:his net worth, the value of properties, his ties to the mafia, his prowess with women.

Haberman opens her book with a string of lies an 18-year-old Donald Trump apparentlytoldabout the dedication of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, which he attended with this father.

Haberman reminds us that, essentially, Donald Trump believes in nothing but hisown greatness. Everything about him is transactional.He was a Republican before joining the Reform Party before becoming a Democrat before becominga Republican again. Hesupported abortion rightsbefore he was anti-abortion. He was for universal health care beforetrying to killObamaCare. According to Haberman, he wasnt even convincedabout building a wallasapolitical issueuntil he saw the enthusiastic responseitgenerated at campaign rallies.

Trumpisnot the first confidence man weve encountered. As chronicled by Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Thomas Mann and others, theyre a peculiarly American phenomenon. The only difference is, to our eternal regret, we elected this confidence manpresident of the United States.

Pressis host of TheBillPressPod. He is the author of From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.

Excerpt from:

Press: Donald Trump, Confidence Man, then and now - The Hill

No president has done more for Israel than I have, Donald Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US. Trump also claimed that he was so popular he could be elected prime minister of Israel and said, US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel Before it is too late!

Once pictures of Trumps post were shared on more popular social media platforms such as Twitter it went viral. His words were condemned by prominent American Jewish groups, including those that regularly assert that anti-Zionism (which Trump appeared to be at least gesturing at) and anti-Semitism are one and the same. Many of these establishment, mainstream Jewish organisations were criticised during Trumps presidency by those who felt that they supported his administration in an attempt to bolster their own ties with Israel and appear bipartisan rather than calling out anti-Semitism and defending human rights.

We dont need the former president, who curries favour with extremists and anti-Semites, to lecture us about the US-Israel relationship. It is not about a quid pro quo; it rests on shared values and security interests. This Jewsplaining is insulting and disgusting, tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish NGO dedicated to stopping defamation of the Jewish people and one of the groups that was criticised during Trumps presidency.

Support for the Jewish state never gives one license to lecture American Jews, nor does it ever give the right to draw baseless judgements about the ties between US Jews and Israel. And to be clear, those ties are strong and enduring, read a tweet from the American Jewish Committee, a prominent advocacy group that was similarly criticised.

Though Trumps post drew a lot of anger, it is hardly the first time hes said something like this. In an interview with the news website Axios last year he said roughly the same thing. People in this country that are Jewish no longer love Israel, he said. Ill tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country The Jewish people in the United States either dont like Israel or dont care about Israel When you look at the New York Times, the New York Times hates Israel, hates them, and theyre Jewish people that run the New York Times I mean the Sulzberger family.

Select and enter your email address Morning Call Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. The Crash A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. World Review The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. The New Statesman Daily The best of the New Statesman, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Green Times The New Statesmans weekly environment email on the politics, business and culture of the climate and nature crises - in your inbox every Thursday. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter from books and art to pop culture and memes sent every Friday. Weekly Highlights A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. Ideas and Letters A newsletter showcasing the finest writing from the ideas section and the NS archive, covering political ideas, philosophy, criticism and intellectual history - sent every Wednesday. Events and Offers Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates.

Your email address

He also made similar comments in 2019 while still in office. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, he said: In my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat, youre being very disloyal to Jewish people and youre being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that. The day before he had said: I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.

[Podcast: What does it mean to be a Bad Jew? With Emily Tamkin]

Most American Jews do indeed vote for Democrats and most are not voting based on a candidates given position on Israel. In fact a 2020 poll by the Ruderman Foundation found that only 4 per cent of American Jews believe that Israel is the most important issue. Most American Jews do indeed profess an attachment to Israel: six in ten say they are very or somewhat emotionally attached, though less than half have actually been there, according to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Centre. But according to the same study, younger American Jews both feel less attached to and are more critical of the country. These are facts of American life. It is not up to the former president or anyone else to say that that makes American Jews disloyal, or to demand our political support.

Another fact of American political life is that many Republican candidates traffic in anti-Semitic tropes and then defend themselves against charges of bigotry by touting their support for Israel. And another fact of American life is that Republicans often do this with cover from like-minded Jewish people: Trump is set to receive an honour from the right-wing Zionist Organization of America next month for such achievements as moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and cutting funding to Palestinians.

All of this is to say that one of our two major political parties regularly treats Israel and American Jews as though they should be interchangeable, and Trump regularly chastises us for the fact that we dont see things the same way. All of this is happening at a time when most American Jews feel that anti-Semitism on the rise. This is the state of American Jewish politics and Trump is but one of the loudest voices sharing the Republican Party line.

[See also: Everything you should know about the 2022 US midterm elections]

Link:

Donald Trump is hardly the only Republican chastising American Jews - The New Statesman

Donald Trump has once again suggested that Saturday Night Live will be canceled, days after it lampooned the January 6 committee's ninth and possible final hearing.

In a statement on Truth Social, the former president reverted back to his common tactic of attacking a TV show or news network he does not like by suggesting it is suffering from low ratings, as well as saying the long-running sketch show is no longer "funny or smart."

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARTING SHOT WITH H. ALAN SCOTTON APPLE PODCASTS OR SPOTIFY

The comments arrived after SNL parodied a number of moments from the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot's October 14 hearing, as well as mocked Trump himself.

"I once hosted Saturday Night Live, and the ratings were HUUUGE! Now, however, the ratings are lower than ever before, and the show will probably be put to rest,'" Trump said.

"It is just not, at these levels, sustainableA bad show that's not funny or smart. L.M. [producer Lorne Michaels] is angry and exhausted, the show even more so. It was once good, never great, but now, like the Late Night Losers who have lost their audience but have no idea why, it is over for SNLA great thing for America!"

Now in its 48th season and featuring a host of new cast members, SNL's ratings do appear to be falling, with the latest episode watched by a reported 3.7 million, down more than 1 million from the Season 47 premiere of 4.9 million viewers.

On Saturday, the NBC show's cold open spoofed the ninth January 6 hearing, including one section in which James Austin Johnson played the former president asking: "Is Mike Pence dead yet?" in a reference to how Trump allegedly turned his supporters against the former vice president for not stopping the certification of the 2020 election results.

Elsewhere, Chloe Fineman, who was playing Nancy Pelosi, is seen recreating the moment the House speaker is on the phone to Pence as the riot was unfolding. Next to her, Sarah Sherman, who was portraying Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, is also on the phone redirecting a DoorDash delivery, asking to change the drop off point from the Capitol due to some "unfortunate reason."

SNL also showed Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chairwoman played by Heidi Gardner, explaining how the Wyoming representative, who lost her GOP primary in August, has suffered greater damage to her political career than Trump in the wake of January 6.

"Whether you're a Republican who's not watching or a Democrat who's nodding so hard your head is falling off, one person is responsible for this insurrection: Donald Trump," she said. "And one person will suffer the consequences: Me."

In 2016, Trump also suggested that SNL should be canceled after they mocked him in the wake of the second presidential debate against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

"Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show," Trump tweeted. "Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!"

NBC has been contacted for comment.

See the original post here:

Donald Trump Says 'Saturday Night Live' Will Be Canceled After Jan 6 Sketch - Newsweek

Supreme Court lawyers often build their arguments around points to which they think the justices will be most receptive. If a lawyer thinks that the justices will be friendly to their caseif they represent, say, a religious person with a Free Exercise Clause claim or a state trying to carry out an executionthen they may be more inclined to swing for the fences. If, on the other hand, they think that the Supreme Court might be divided on the issue based on past rulings or on intuitive understandings of each justice, they might make a narrower argument that could appeal to more skeptical members of the court.

Trumps lawyers, for reasons known only to them, made claims that most of the justices could not stomach. One of them, Jay Sekulow, argued in Vance that any criminal process that touched the president was unconstitutional, a point that even the Justice Department arguing on behalf of the Trump administration did not make. That argument was resoundingly rejected by all nine justices, including the two justices who dissented from the courts decision in Vances favor on narrower grounds. Trump did score a partial victory in the Mazars case, where the justices laid out a balancing test for congressional subpoenas of a presidents personal information, but he only succeeded in running out the clock until his term ended.

On policy issues, the Supreme Court also rejected some of the Trump administrations major initiatives when the process that led to them was sloppy or deceptive. Some of these defeats were narrower than others. The court rejected the Trump administrations bid to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census only when Chief Justice John Roberts broke ranks with his fellow conservatives, citing evidence that the Justice Departments stated rationale for adding the question was a lie. Roberts also joined with the courts four liberals at the time to defeat Trumps bid to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because the administration had not properly followed the Administrative Procedures Act.

Read this article:

Donald Trump Keeps Getting Rejected by the Supreme Court - The New Republic

By Annie Grayer | CNN

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will issue a subpoena to former President Donald Trump shortly to seek his testimony under oath as well as documents.

Speaking at the Harvard Institute of Politics Tuesday, the committees vice chair did not commit to what the panel will do if Trump does not comply with the subpoena but said well take the steps we need to take.

There was no disagreement on the committee, the Wyoming Republican said, explaining how the panel came to the decision to subpoena Trump.

We all felt that our obligation is to seek his testimony, that the American people deserve to hear directly from him, that it has to be under oath, that he has to be held accountable. And so well be issuing the subpoena shortly both for his testimony under oath as well as for documents. And well take whatever next steps we have to take, you know, assuming that he will fulfill his legal obligation and honor the subpoena, but if that doesnt happen, then well take the steps we need to take after that, but I dont want to go too far down that path at this point.

Committee members unanimously voted to subpoena Trump last week in the panels final hearing before the midterm election, but the official subpoena has not been issued. The vote marked a significant escalation by the panel that will set up a showdown with the former President.

It is not expected that Trump will comply with the subpoena, but the action serves as a way for the committee to set down a marker and show that it wants information directly from Trump as it investigates the attack.

The subpoena will surely trigger a prolonged court battle over Trumps possible compliance, which could even outlast the committee itself. Republicans have pledged to shut down the panel if they win the House majority in the midterm elections next month.

Original post:

Cheney: Donald Trump subpoena will be issued shortly - OCRegister

Former President Donald Trump heads to South Texas ahead of Midterm Election

Diana Arevalo, the Travis County coordinated campaign manager and former state representative, and Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP, discuss Former President Donald Trump's recent trip to Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas - Just weeks before Election Day, Former President Donald Trump held a rally in south Texas to try and weaken the Democratic grip on the Texas border.

Diana Arevalo, the Travis County coordinated campaign manager and former state representative, and Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP, join FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren to discuss.

MIKE WARREN: Diana, starting with you. Can the Texas GOP actually flip the valley?

DIANA AREVALO: I think we're going to have to try pretty hard. I think they got really excited with a special election. And right now what you're seeing in the RGV is a strong grassroots organization. A lot of people are mobilizing and getting people organized and getting ready to go out and vote. We have block walkers, people, phone banking, doing all the hard work, putting the work in, day in, day out. I'm excited to see what happens with Michelle by the race, and I think there's a lot of people mobilizing their immediate communities, their families to turn out the vote.

MIKE WARREN: Matt Mackowiak, why is the national GOP so focused on South Texas especially, especially Congressional District 15?

MATT MACKOWIAK: Yeah. I mean, Diana has a tough job here trying to convince people who are watching that South Texas is not going to go red. It is going to go red. The triple C, the campaign committee at the national level has pulled out of the very race that she's talking about, and that's because Monica de la Cruz is going to win that congressional seat. I feel very, very, very confident of that. There are three seats down there. We have rising star Latina candidates in south Texas who are running Myra Flores, who won that special election. Cassie Garcia, who is running against Henry R in a district, goes from San Antonio down to Laredo, and then Monica de la Cruz, who I think again is highly likely to win. You know, what we didn't know is the over-performance among Hispanic voters for Republicans in south Texas in 2020. We didn't know if that was an aberration. When you look at the candidate recruitment, when you look at the primary turnout, which was up significantly on the Republican side, well, it was flat on the Democratic side. These things all show that this trend is growing. It's rising. And it is going to be one of the big storylines here three weeks from tonight.

MIKE WARREN: You know, Diana, more people in that part of the state are voting Republican. Why is that? What do you think the reasons are?

DIANA AREVALO: You know if you get lucky one time, I think you're getting on a high. First and foremost, I think Matt needs a map. Laredo is not part of the RGV. Henry Juarez district is not part of that. The bulk of it is not part of that immediate community. But let me tell you what's going on. I'm not going to subscribe to President Trump's machismo politics of allowing and telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies and what they can and cannot do. So right now, I'm unhappy to see so many Latinas organizing in the Democratic Party, whether it's Rochelle Garza for Texas attorney general, whether it's Michelle Valle or even all of our down ballot candidates. They're organizing and they're working hard. I'm not going to look at the national politics. I'm going to look at the communities and the people that are working and putting in the work every single day.

MIKE WARREN: Mama Kovacs Similar question. You know, what are the issues that could turn this area toward the Republicans? What are voters really concerned about?

MATT MACKOWIAK: Yeah. I don't know if Diana didn't hear my answer or what, but. But it's not one time we haven't gotten lucky. One time, a Donald Trump was able to flip Cameron County and Stark County. Stark County, Hillary won by 30 points four years before. So you could argue that's the first time. The second time is when we flipped the McAllen mayor's office to Republican seat for the first time, I think, in 50 years. The third time is when Mara Flores won that special elections. That's three occasions just in the last two years when Republicans have made significant inroads in, yes, south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Now to the question you asked. Immigration, the border, fentanyl, this is what's driving voters away from the radical Democratic Party toward the Republican Party. They believe laws need to be enforced. They believe that we need border security. They know that our communities are being overrun not just by fentanyl, but also by narco trafficking gangs, that human trafficking gangs. And so we are going to see significant, significant victories for Republicans in south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley in three weeks.

MIKE WARREN: All right. We're going to have to wrap it up for that. Matt, Diana, thank you both very much.

Read more:

Former President Donald Trump holds rally in South Texas ahead of Midterm Election - FOX 7 Austin

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

The final hearing of the House January 6 Committee made clear that a duly elected and sworn president of the United States tried to overthrow the constitutional order. When are we going to act on that knowledge?

But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

There are days when the presidency of Donald Trump seems like just another natural disaster that we can allow to recede into history after we count its victims and repair the damage. But earthquakes and volcanoes do not have will and cannot choose to return and destroy again. Trump, however, is like a hurricane pacing just offshore, waiting and plotting to flatten and flood our political system, perhaps for good.

And the hell of it is, we Americans know hes there. We know what hes done and what he can do (again). Yet millions of us would gladly welcome his landfall again. Millions more of us have thrown up our hands in exasperation as Trump and most of his regiment of Renfields have, for now, managed to escape any consequences for their actions.

Yesterday, in what was likely the final hearing of the January 6 committee, the nation was told, once more and without ambiguity, that Donald Trump, the commander in chief, actively sought to subvert our democratic order. My Atlantic colleague David Frum summed up the committees findingsand the nations reactionin one tweet: Decisive [and] irrefutable documentary evidence that the 45th president of the United States tried to overthrow the US Constitution by violence, no big deal, just another news day.

For years, I have been wondering when Americans would draw the line on Trump and his minions. We could rehearse the litany of Trumps awfulness: his vulgarity, his racism, his callous disregard for veterans, his pathetic submissiveness around Vladimir Putin. We could remind ourselves of the attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government that got him impeached (the first time).

None of it seems to matter, because for a large swath of the American public, nothing really matters. And here, I do not mean only the MAGA Republicans, loyalists who are already a lost cause. (Trump was tragically prescient when he said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would not abandon him.) Nor do I mean the people who have attached their parasitical careers to their Trumpian host.

No, I mean the ordinary Americans who shrug at a violent insurrection and the near-miss of a coup. As the historian Michael Beschloss said on MSNBC last night after the hearing, Trump probably wanted to declare martial law. He also pointed out that the insurrection was a close-run thing, noting that if Trump and those rioters had been a little bit faster, we might be living in a country of unbelievable darkness and cruelty.

But who cares? After all, inflation is too high, and gas is still too expensive, and thats a bigger problem than the overthrow of the government, isnt it?

The worst of the worst, however, are the people in public life who know better but who refuse to condemn the candidates flying Trumps banner. Ohio Senator Rob Portman, for example, supports J. D. Vance, a former Trump critic who now slathers himself in the stink of Trumpism like a teenage kid with his first bottle of cheap body spray. Portman is retiring and had nothing to losewell, nothing except his long-standing reputation as a decent manbut he declared his support anyway. Apparently, with a Senate seat in play, Portman thought it gauche to be too judgmental about Vance emulating Trump, the president who put his own vice president in mortal danger.

In a country that still had a functional moral compass, citizens would watch the January 6 hearings, band together regardless of party or region, and refuse to vote for anyone remotely associated with Donald Trump, whom the committee has proved, I think, to be an enemy of the Constitution of the United States. His party, as an institution, supports him virtually unconditionally, and several GOP candidates around the country have already vowed to join Trump in his continuing attack on our democracy. To vote for any of these people is to vote against our constitutional order.

Its that simple.

Many GOP supporters, particularly in the conservative-media ecosystem, would reject all of this as guilt by associationas if somehow, a candidate who embraces Trump may be excused for supporting lawlessness and sedition. This is how, for example, The Wall Street Journal justified endorsing Kari Lake in Arizona. Lake is one of the most extreme election deniers and Trump sycophants in the GOP, but the Journal thinks shed be great on the issue of school choice, as though the funding of education would be the big issue if Lake conspires with other Trump cultists across the United States to deliver the final blow to the notion of the peaceful and constitutional transfer of power.

In the confusion of the moment back in January 2021, it was easier to believe that perhaps the mob was spontaneous, that elected Republicans were sincere in reviling Trump for his part in creating it, and that the GOP might come to its senses, at least where Trump is concerned. Today, thanks to the January 6 committee and the evidence it has amassed, we know better. To vote for anyone still loyal to a party led by the narcissistic sociopath who put our elected officials and our political system itself in peril is to abandon any pretense of caring whether the United States remains a constitutional democracy. The question is whether enough of us will care, in little more than three weeks from now, to make a difference.

Related:

Pregnancy Is a War; Birth Is a Cease-Fire

By Katherine J. Wu

Evolutionarily speaking, every human is a bit of a preemie. The nine months most babies spend in the womb are enough for them to be born with open eyes, functional ears, and a few useful reflexesbut not the ability to stand, sprint, climb, or grasp onto their parents limbs. Compared with other primates, our offspring are wobbly and inept; theyd probably get their butts kicked by infant lemurs, gorillas, and even tiny tarsiers, which all come out more fully formed. Think of it this way: Researchers have estimated that, for a newborn human to be birthed with a brain as well developed as that of a newborn chimp, they would have to gestate for at least an extra seven monthsat which point they might run 27 inches from head to toe, and weigh a good 17 or 18 pounds, more than the heftiest bowling ball on the rack.

More From The Atlantic

Read. You can tear through any of these short novels in a weekend.

And if youre looking for some even shorter fiction, try Acting Class, a story by Nick Drnaso.

Watch. Decision to Leave, in theaters now, is this centurys first great erotic thriller.

Or stay home with one of these 25 horror movies for every kind of viewer (ranked by scariness).

And theres always the option to stream Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Disney+), one of the silliest movies Angela Lansbury ever appeared in.

Listen. The latest episode of our podcast How to Build a Happy Life explores the gap between what we crave and whats really good for us.

Play our daily crossword.

I still get a Sunday paper. I know I can read it in bits and pieces on the internet, but theres something about Sundays that just makes me want to spread newsprint all over the place. Maybe its nostalgia; as a child, of course, I snatched up the funnies, and I am one of the cranky older people who today laments the shrinkage in size and length of the comics (which I still read first even now). In college and graduate school, the Sunday paper came along to brunch, for a group of friends to share and discuss.

But I also come back to my phone or desktop for some weekend reads, and you should too, starting this Sunday, October 16, when we launch The Atlantics new culture-focused weekend edition of the Daily. Every Sunday, our writers will provide answers to interesting questions about many areas of culture. This week, the debut installment includes recommendations on what to read, watch, and listen to from the Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert, a 2022 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In response to What was the last thing that made you snort with laughter?, she answers, This is going to make me seem unbearably basic, but I believe it was a facial expression Kelly Bishop made on Gilmore Girls when Lorelai did something irritating.

Tom

Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.

Read the rest here:

Donald Trump Tried to Destroy the Constitution - The Atlantic

Highlights: Wisconsin Senate debate between Ron Johnson, Mandela Barnes

The second debate between Mandela Barnes and Ron Johnson was at Marquette University's Varsity Theater Thursday. Video courtesy of WTMJ TV.

Lou Saldivar, Wochit

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson's campaign has retained the Cross Plains-based lawfirm thatrepresented former President Donald Trump in the failed effort to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots in Wisconsin and reverse the results of the 2020 election.

The firm is headed byattorneyJames Troupis, who wasallegedly at the center of the plot to recognize so-called fake electors in what was the last-ditch pushby the former president and his allies to stymie President Joe Biden's election on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

The Johnson campaign made about $20,000 in payments to the Troupis firm since July.

NBC News was the first to report the payments.

A spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes criticized the payments on Monday. Barnes, a Democrat, is challenging Johnson, a second-term Republican, next month.

"Ron Johnson is hell-bent on holding onto power through any means possible so that he can continue delivering tax breaks to his wealthiest donors, follow through on his plan to put Social Security on the chopping block, and rip away womens reproductive rights," spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel said.

But Ben Voelkel, a top aide to Johnson, said there was nothing unusual about the payments.

"As anyone who works on campaigns in this state knows, close elections in Wisconsin are the rule, not the exception," Voelkel said. "It would be reckless to be unprepared for any possible circumstance and this campaign has been preparing for months for just that.

Troupis did not respond immediately to an email or call.

More: Wisconsin U.S. Senate election updates: Diane Hendricks gives $9.4 million to pro-Johnson Super PAC

More: The debates are done. Here's what to expect in the final weeks of the Mandela Barnes-Ron Johnson Wisconsin U.S. Senate race

According to filings, the first $13,287 to Troupis' firm was for "legal consulting" on July 15. Johnson's campaign then paid Troupis' office $7,000 on Aug. 18 for "recount: legal consulting."

Troupis once gave $1,000 to Johnson's campaign more than a decade ago.

Troupis, a former Dane County Circuit Judge, unsuccessfully sought to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots in 2020 when he was hired by Trump to oversee recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties following Trumps defeat in Wisconsin.

Since then, investigations by a U.S. House committee convened to probe the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol have revealed Troupis was at the center of a plot to put in place Republican electors in states Trump was trying to overturn election results and was the first in the state to receive a memo pushing the idea from Boston-area attorney Kenneth Chesebro.

Johnson also acknowledged this summer that on Jan. 6, 2021, hours before the attack, he coordinated with Troupis to get to then-Vice President Mike Pence a document Troupis described as regarding Wisconsin electors.

Earlier this month, Johnson downplayed his role in the incident.

"The entire episode lasted about an hour," Johnson said on Oct. 4 in Milwaukee. "I got a text from the president's lawyer (Troupis) who asked me if we could deliver something through the vice president and if I could I have a staff member handle it."

Johnson said he did not know what information was being handed over.

"I had no idea that there were even an alternate slate of electors," he said. "I had no knowledge of it, no involvement in it. And you can't even call it participation. I wrote a couple of texts. I was involved for a few seconds. There's nothing to this story."

As Trumps attorney during the 2020 recounts, Troupis and his brother ChrisTroupis, sought to throw out all in-person absentee ballots, all mailed-in absentee ballots if applications for them could not be tracked down, all absentee ballots submitted by those who claimed to be indefinitely confined, and all ballots where clerks filled in missing address information for witnesses to absentee ballots.

Federal Election Commission records show Troupis' firm was paid $471,994from Trump's campaign and the Make America Great Again PAC in late 2020 and early 2021 for the firm'swork on the recount.

The effort laid the groundwork for unsuccessful lawsuits Trump and his allies filed ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to overturn the results of Wisconsins election, and for successful litigation since. Clerks are no longer allowed to fill in missing witness address information on absentee ballot envelopes.

Over the years, Troupis has been a regular donor to Republican and conservativecandidates and causes in Wisconsin, having given nearly $30,000 to them over the past 30 years.

Johnson officials noted that all major campaigns hire law firms. They noted that Barnes' campaign has paid out$88,964to the Elias Law Group since December. Marc Elias, the head of the firm, has been involved in a number of recounts for Democratic campaigns over the years.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

Excerpt from:

Ron Johnson campaign hires Troupis law firm that represented Donald Trump in attempt to throw out 2020 ballots in Wisconsin - Milwaukee Journal...

Editor's note: This article is an excerpt adapted from the authors' new book, "Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump," (William Morrow, 2022).

***

As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol winds down its long-running investigation, pundits and historians are debating its legacyand whether the panels comprehensive findings and take-no-prisoners investigative approach will pave the way for holding former President Trump accountable.

The committees dedication to asserting Congresss authority has been impressively unrelenting: Investigators not only convinced witnesses from Trumps inner circle to come forward but also took those who ignored their subpoenas to courteven appealing to the Justice Department to arrest and charge those who would not comply with their summons.

But that track record has come in a uniquely favorable and lower-stakes environment: The president they are investigating is not in office anymore, and the one who replaced him is friendly to their cause. Such wins wont dictate what may happen when an out-of-control executive branch needs checking by Congressthe most critical situation of all.

Instead, the strength of Congresss oversight power in the face of an obstinate administration is atrophying, a trend exacerbated by the bungled impeachments of Donald Trump. And as we found through reporting our new book, Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congresss Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump, there is blame to be shared on both sides of the aisle.

The story of how Trump overcame two impeachments and safeguarded his ability to make another run at the White House is, at its core, a story of how Congress repeatedly missed opportunities to check him. Republicans capitulated to political pressures and failed to act on their private revulsion with the presidents conduct, emboldening Trump and fueling the cult of personality around him at junctures when he might otherwise have been restrained. Despite myriad opportunities to change course, they doubled and tripled down on their fealty to Trump, protecting him when they could have sidelined him, thereby inuring a shock-fatigued public to the outrageousness of his increasingly dangerous behavior.

According to conventional wisdom, that is the beginning and the end of the story: Democrats, the thinking goes, simply couldnt overcome the intransigence of Trumps congressional lackeys, who defended him despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. But while there is truth to that narrative, the reality of what occurred was far more complex. Trump escaped accountability not simply because his own party wouldnt stand up to him but also because the opposing party was afraid to flex the full force of its constitutional muscle to check him.

Republicans didnt just block and sabotage impeachmentDemocrats never went all-in. Instead, they prioritized what they perceived as political security over the long, time-consuming course of bringing a rogue president to justice, fumbling their best chance to turn the American public away from Trump for good and compromising impeachment in the process.

Our reportingbased on more than 250 interviews with lawmakers, staffers and others involved in every chapter and political corner of the impeachments sagaindicates that during both impeachments, Democratic leaders pulled punches and took procedural shortcuts rather than prioritizing the fact-finding that might have persuaded the public to turn away from the president, even if it failed to compel 67 senators to convict. Led by a cautious Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who harbored deep skepticism about impeachment from the start, Democrats pursued the first impeachment at a breakneck tempo, giving themselves an artificial deadline of Christmas, which forced them to cut corners. That meant eschewing court fights for firsthand witnesses such as former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who could have testified to allegations that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine for political favors, and which would have affirmed the authority of congressional subpoenas over the Trumps across-the-board stonewalling.

Democrats also threw out an impeachment tradition of giving the president unquestioned due process rights, over the protestations of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who argued to impeachment leader Adam Schiff that it would be unconstitutional to put preconditions on Trumps right to represent himself. In a further break from the Clinton and Nixon impeachments, Pelosi never reached out to Republican lawmakers to fashion the rules of the road for impeachment, as Democrats did while launching their probes of Richard Nixon and Bill Clintonand even told her team it wasnt worth trying to persuade Republican voters of Trumps guilt.

Indeed, our reporting shows that House GOP leaders exploited both issues to keep wavering members of their rank and file in line, as they knowingly compromised the interests of Congress as an institution in order to defend Trump. Our book recounts early episodes in which GOP leaders gave up on attempts to convince the White House to comply with the impeachment probe, despite their concerns that they were crippling their legislative branch authorityand giving future presidents a ready excuse to make further power grabs. Still, they never criticized Trumps stonewalling publicly. Our book also shows how GOP leaders twisted themselves into legal knots during the second impeachment to embrace a questionable procedural offramp, declaring that former presidents, even if impeached while in office, could not stand triala January exception that they did not fully believe in.

Our book demonstrates that, time and again, congressional leaders failed to learn from their mistakes, and repeatedly treated their oversight responsibilities and constitutionally derived power to impeach and convict as burdens too heavy to bear. Democrats, though vocally declaring throughout the first impeachment that trials without witnesses were anathema, worked to shut down Rep. Jamie Raskins attempt to summon Republican witnesses to testify during Trumps second trial. They later folded their cards on a related lawsuit that they themselves had argued would affirm the power of a congressional subpoena, putting party unity over congressional authority. After two years of battling for former White House Counsel Don McGahns testimony, House Democrats settled the case without a final verdict from the Supreme Court, caving to pressure from the Biden administration, which, fearing a GOP takeover in Congress, saw the case as too great a threat to executive authority and autonomy. The GOP, meanwhile, sought to stamp out and bury any visible vestiges of their personal revulsion at Trumps conduct, leaving GOP voters with the distinct impression that the former president had done nothing wrong.

The lawmakers who led the Trump impeachments have since rationalized these decisions as matters of political necessity. Democrats argue that the looming 2020 election forced them to work quickly through Trumps first impeachment and his trial, and that they could not allow Trumps second to overshadow the fledgling presidency of Joe Biden. For Republicans, meanwhile, Trump was simply too important a political galvanizing force to reject. But that doesnt ameliorate the long-term detrimental effect of the decisions they made to hustle through impeachment, leaving their most formidable tools of oversight rejected or untested.

The result was more than two acquittals of Trump, permitting him to contemplate another run for office. The failed efforts exposed the devastating limits of Congresss ability to check a president.

***

Impeachment, the only congressional oversight power explicitly referenced in the Constitution, is relatively undefined. Beyond a loose direction to use it as punishment for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, there is no explicit guidance on how it ought to be wielded, save for precedent. That makes the experience of the two failed impeachments significantly influential, as they constitute half of all the completed presidential impeachments in U.S. history, and half of those that have even been attempted in modern times.

Historians and political scientists will likely study the two failed impeachments of Trump for decades to come and try to take lessons from them for the future. But based on our reporting, this period in history fundamentally altered the process of impeachment. Impeachment now appears destined to be primarily a political weapon instead of a constitutional failsafe to bring a president abusing office to justice.

Most Democrats have defended their impeachment efforts as successful, blaming the GOP for Congresss ultimate failure to convict Trump and bar him from seeking future office. They argued that they did what they had to do, pointing to the fact that almost every Democrat in Congress agreedtwicethat Trump had to go, and that they secured the highest-ever number of votes to convict a president during his second trial. But party unanimity with occasional handfuls of crossover was not the standard to which impeachment was designed to appeal. The writers of the Constitution intended for impeachment to be a tool to remove a self-aggrandizing despot or would-be dictator from power.

To be sure, the Framers didnt make that an easy task. By setting a two-thirds requirement for conviction, they essentially dictated that any impeachable infraction would have to be egregious on its faceor exposed as such through scrupulous and persuasive investigation. The power of impeachment, properly wielded, was envisioned as a daunting check on the executive, but also as a heavy responsibility for the would-be congressional accuserswhich explains why, in the history of the country, it has been so seldom exploited.

But neither party was willing to assume that responsibility. Republicans made an early and fateful decision to help cripple Congresss impeachment power when they endorsed the Trump administrations stonewalling tacticsdespite recognizing the long-term dangers of doing so. Democrats also contributed to the long-term damage when they declined to fight back with every mechanism at their disposal, eschewing opportunities to enforce their impeachment subpoenas through the courtsdespite Nadler having said that doing so would, uniquely, unlock Congresss zenith power. Instead, they shied away from court fightsretreats that suggested they didnt believe in the strength of the congressional power they were wielding. When they encountered Republican resistance, they prioritized acting swiftly over fully, ignoring specific appeals for evidence if it proved too cumbersome to obtain.

Combined, these decisions created a new, unfortunate standard for impeachments that can easily be exploited in the future. There is now clear precedent for giving shortened shrift to the fact-finding process and for sidestepping key witnesses to an alleged constitutional crime. There is now clear precedent for presidents to stonewall and assume that impeachment subpoenas will not be enforced. There is arguably also clear precedent now for plowing ahead without buy-in from members of the presidents partya standard that Nixons and Clintons impeachments upheldand treating it as a box-checking exercise to please a political base. There is precedent for bypassing the custom of due process that says an accused president can cross-examine the witnesses against them before being impeached. And there is clear precedent for dismissing impeachments that come too close to the end of a presidency to do all the above.

House Democrats, to their credit, have endeavored to make some changes that will improve Congresss posture come the next impeachment. In fact, before the ink had even dried on the first set of articles against Trump, they had started drafting a set of post-Trump reforms inspired by the series of laws that Congress passed after Watergate. The list, spearheaded by Adam Schiff, included requirements that courts rule quickly on interbranch disputes regarding oversight matters, limiting exploitation of the slow-moving judicial brancha strategy that Trump had ably perfected. But while the package passed the House, it has stalled in the Senate, leaving the strategy of stonewalling ripe for future abuse.

Still, impeachment is at a critical crossroads. The lowered procedural and political threshold for indicting a president has dramatically increased the risk that the Constitutions ultimate check on a president will soon be reduced to nothing more than a political messaging tool. With fewer bars to clear, the once-extraordinary process is at risk of becoming an everyday vehicle to express the heights of partisan rage instead of a failsafe to protect the American democratic order.

And the transition is already underway. During Bidens first year in office, GOP lawmakers who had accused Democrats of pursuing half-baked vendettas filed a record-shattering six resolutions of impeachment against Bidenmore than Democrats had filed at the same point in Trumps presidency. Some cited the haphazard and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Others fixated on policy disputes, expressing animus against Biden for things like stopping construction on Trumps border wall or extending an eviction moratorium during the coronavirus pandemichardly the high crimes and misdemeanors standard articulated by the Founders. As Republicans eye a takeover of the House in 2023, there is every expectation that they will pursue some, if not all, of these avenues with the intention of giving Biden the black mark of impeachment, to level the playing field in what many anticipate could be a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. And there is every reason to believe they will exploit and even replicate the corner-cutting strategies Democrats standardized to legitimate more highly politicized impeachment cases against Biden.

That should serve as a reminder that there is a potentially worse consequence of the debasement of impeachment that shouldnt be overlooked: that a party with congressional supermajorities may one day oust a president based on no evidence at all. In other words, the most dangerous legacy of Trumps impeachments is not that impeachment will become a broken, partisan battle cry that never works againbut that someday in the future, and for the first time in American history, it just might succeed, for all the wrong reasons.

Link:

How Trump's Two Failed Impeachments Upended Checks and Balances - Lawfare

Following a number of delays, a New York District judge has ordered Donald Trump to sit for a disposition hearing for defamation lawsuit stemming from allegations he raped a woman in the 1990s.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that the former president must answer questions under oath in relation to the allegations made by magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll claims that Trump assaulted her at a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s, and later defamed her character while denying it.

Kaplan rejected Trump's legal team's attempts to have the deposition delayed and ordered the former president to appear for a deposition hearing on Sunday.

"The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff's attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong," Kaplan wrote.

The decision means that Trump must now answer questions over claims he defamed Carroll's character under three weeks before the midterm elections take place.

With the hearing taking so close to the midterms, where the GOP will be hoping to regain control of the Senate and the House, the deposition could be seen as a so-called "October surprise"a news event that has the potential to influence the results of an upcoming November election.

For months, there has been speculation that the October surprise that may drop prior to the Midterms could be Trump being indicted over any of investigations into him, or the House select committee looking into the January 6 attack releasing their report on the former president's actions surrounding the insurrection.

However, the January 6 panel, who present their ninth and possibly final live hearing on Thursday, have not confirmed when they will release their report. It was said that the committee may release a preliminary version in October, but this was before their ninth hearing was delayed from September 29 because of Hurricane Ian.

It is also unlikely that the Department of Justice will file any charges against Trump over January 6 or allegations he mishandled classified documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort to adhere to the 90-day rule.

This is an unofficial but highly followed protocol, meaning that prosecutors will avoid making any decisions that could affect how people vote so close to an upcoming election or elections to avoid accusations of meddling in the political process.

However, despite its proximity to the midterm elections, Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on US Politics, says that barring "something unforeseen," the odds of Trump's deposition having an impact on the outcome of midterm results are "essentially zero."

"The same is true of it affecting his own chances in 2024 if he decides to run for president. Trump has been marred by so many scandals, allegations and accusations of wrongdoing that this story, too, will get lost in the shuffle," Gift told Newsweek.

"Trump is known as the 'Teflon president' for a reason. The haze of scandals surrounding him at any one time is almost too much for voters to keep track of, and he effectively uses the sheer number of court cases he's implicated in as evidence that he's the victim of a political hit-job.

"For any other politician, this would be a major story. For Trump, it's just business as usual," Gift said.

Trump's lawyers have attempted to quash the suit by claiming the Republican was just doing his job as president by denying the rape allegations, including stating Carroll is "not my type" in 2019.

If authorities agree that Trump was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee by denying the claims, then the U.S. government would become the defendant in the case.

In a lengthy statement on his social-media channel Truth Social on Wednesday night, Trump described the suit as a "complete con job," while once again denying the rape claim because Carroll is "not my type."

"She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, 'swooned' her," Trump wrote.

"It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!

"She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, or what decade this so-called 'event' supposedly took place. The reason she doesn't know is because it never happened, and she doesn't want to get caught up with details or facts that can be proven wrong."

A spokesperson for Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, told the Associated Press she looked forward to "moving forward to trial with all dispatch."

On May 24, 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act, which allows alleged victims of rape to sue for damages without the statute of limitations blocking it.

A spokesperson for Kaplan's firm added that the latest comment from Trump "obviously does not merit a response."

Read more from the original source:

Donald Trump's Deposition is the October Surprise No One Was Expecting