A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the release.
After the sluggish holidays, 2024 kicked off Tuesday with an explosion of activity on several fronts that was very dear to the heart of Morning Memo. Let’s cut to the chase.
Last night, Donald Trump presented to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Washington Circuit his final written argument in favor of granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution of criminals.
A thread of research and quick reaction:
Before turning to the immunity case, I would like to draw attention to a friend of the court brief in this case, which is attracting a great deal of attention. Filed through top lawyers representing the nonprofit watchdog American Oversight, it argues that the appeals court has no jurisdiction because Trump’s loss over the immunity argument in the district court is not appealable.
I won’t go into the reasons given for this argument, but it’s a credible argument and not one put forward through special counsel Jack Smith. Smith admitted that Trump’s immunity argument can be appealed now, before the trial begins.
The U. S. surveillance argument is potentially vital because it could simply circumvent Trump’s delaying tactic of looking good now, then asking the entire appeals court to hear the case, and then taking it to the Supreme Court. If this new argument were to prevail, Trump can still appeal any losses, but he can speed things up if the higher courts don’t have jurisdiction right now.
I draw your attention to this point because of two notable developments: (i) Trump addressed the US surveillance argument from the beginning in his reaction last night; and (ii) the D. C. Circuit. appeared to accept the US surveillance argument when he issued an order asking the parties to be prepared to address at oral argument the “discreet issues” raised in the Friend of the Court’s briefs.
Donald Trump challenged Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ decision that she was ineligible to vote in the GOP under the Constitution’s disqualification clause, and sued her in state court.
Yesterday, I briefly addressed considerations about invoking the disqualification clause to remove Trump from the ballot. Historian Timothy Snyder (whose Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin I belatedly reviewed over the holidays) has a very thoughtful article on this factor that I highly recommend:
In this essay, I address the unconstitutional narrative that appears in the media: that the Constitution will be replaced through the fears of other people who appear on television. . .
By advising the Court to keep Trump on the ballot, political commentators are raising their own concerns about the resentment of others above the Constitution. But the very explanation for why we have a Constitution is to deal with worry and resentment. The concern and resentment of others is towards a rebellious regime.
That excerpt barely does Snyder justice. Go read the whole thing.
Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is now asking the entire 11th Circuit to rehear his appeal against his lost efforts to send Georgia’s RICO case back to federal court. Also noteworthy: Meadows has added former Attorney General Paul Clement. to his legal team, a sign that he will most likely appeal to the Supreme Court.
Daily Beast:
Former President Donald Trump will suffer any repercussions for the way he appears to have used federal criminal guards to intimidate his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, by jailing and silencing him in 2020 ahead of his revealing memoir about the billionaire’s mob behavior.
I’m not saying that all of those things are similar, but I’m also not saying that they aren’t.
The nation’s highest conservative appeals court has ruled that the federal law requiring emergency rooms to perform life-saving abortions will have to give way to the contrary Texas state law, building some other abortion ruling for the Supreme Court:
David Roberts crystalizes a fundamental power imbalance in American political discourse in this thread (it’s really not about Harvard or Claudine Gay):
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A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Register for the. . .
A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Register for the. . .
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the…
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the…