Nevada Supreme Court Revives Fake Electors Case
A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.
Not dead yet
The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously reinstated criminal charges against six people allegedly involved in President Trump’s 2020 fake voter scheme. The case was previously dismissed on the grounds that it was filed in the wrong county.
The six defendants — including state GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, Vice Chairman Jim Hindle and Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid — all received a preemptive pardon from President Trump a week ago. None of them have been charged federally.
Decision on Halligan by Thanksgiving
I was in court yesterday for the joint hearing in the James Comey and Letitia James cases regarding the challenge to the nomination of Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan as acting U.S. attorney. U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie gave no indication that Halligan was legally appointed, but she did not indicate which course she was leaning toward. You can read my full report here.
Trump’s DOJ struggles to defend Maureen Comey lawsuit
After Maureen Comey, the respected federal prosecutor who was fired because she was the daughter of Trump’s nemesis James Comey, was sued for wrongful termination, the Justice Department struggled to find lawyers to fight the case.
Maureen Comey’s headquarters – the Southern District of New York – recused itself and several other components of the DOJ declined to defend the lawsuit.
After The New York Times first reported the internal dynamic yesterday, the Justice Department informed the judge overseeing the case that “the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York has agreed to accept reassignment of this case.” That would be John Sarcone III, one of Trump’s most toady acting U.S. attorneys, who has already been rejected by district judges but is sitting indefinitely with a new title.
Punishment: Eric Swalwell edition
Bill Pulte does it again.
The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has criminally referred Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) for false claims of mortgage fraud.
Swalwell played a significant role in both of Trump’s impeachments, making him a prime target of the president’s retaliatory campaign. Swalwell joins New York Attorney General Letitia James (Democrat), Sen. Adam Schiff (Democrat-CA), and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, becoming the fourth Democrat to face a criminal referral from eager-to-please Pulte.
In a major cover-up, internal government watchdogs were fired en masse in recent weeks after investigating whether Pulte improperly accessed the personal mortgage records of prominent Democrats.
Swalwell has long expected to face revenge-motivated lawsuits from Trump’s DOJ.
More problems in Pulte World
Top Fannie Mae officials were ousted after raising the alarm that a Bill Pulte confidant had provided confidential Fannie Mae mortgage pricing data to a major competitor, the AP reports.
FBI Chaos Agent
Garrett Graff on “the slow public undoing of Kash Patel’s tenure as FBI director”:
Nothing in Kash Patel’s background indicated that he would be a good FBI director. He was a rogue conspirator, without any significant executive or leadership experience, who knew little about the office or its traditions, and had never served a day in the military or worked as an FBI agent or as an intelligence or law enforcement officer. Unlike all modern FBI directors before him, he had never held a Senate-confirmed position before.
Trump’s first nominee for attorney general
NYT: “Despite all the public fury [Matt] Gaetz — who has always maintained he broke no laws, even though the House Ethics Committee found he violated Florida’s rape laws — little attention has been paid to the girl’s story, how she was exploited and how she coped with what happened to her and the political scandal that followed.
Trump DOJ Moves to Block California State Redistricting
Trump’s DOJ is seeking to intervene in an ongoing lawsuit challenging California’s new congressional district map and block its use in the midterms. In a bitter historical irony, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division — with a long history of protecting minority voters from discrimination — claims that California’s map is “unlawful racial gerrymandering” because it favors Latino voters.
While it doesn’t explicitly say it’s fighting discrimination against white voters, Trump’s DOJ says the new map “was adopted for the purpose of denying or restricting the right to vote on the basis of race or color, in violation of Section 2 of the VRA.” Using Section 2 to thwart minority representation upends the Voting Rights Act.
Venezuela Watch
- The 20th illegal US strike against suspected drug trafficking boats on the high seas has killed 4 people in the Caribbean.
- Trump’s secret DOJ OLC memo blessing illegal airstrikes that killed 80 people is based in part on a series of false White House premises that the cartels are terrorist organizations engaged in armed conflict with the United States, the New York Times reports.
- The family of a Colombian fisherman killed in September during a US strike in the Caribbean is demanding justice.
Only the best people
Racist comments during a panel discussion derailed the nomination of White House staffer Paul Ingrassia, 30, to head the Office of Special Counsel, but he is now failing to become deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration.
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