Imagine that: Sixty percent of Americans approve of the indictment of former President Donald Trump, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS following the news that a New York grand jury voted to charge him in connection with hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. About three-quarters of Americans say politics played at least some role in the decision to indict Trump, including 52% who said it played a major role. Independents largely line up in support of the indictment – 62% approve of it and 38% disapprove. Democrats are near universal in their support for the indictment (94% approve, including 71% who strongly approve of the indictment), with Republicans less unified in opposition (79% disapprove, with 54% strongly disapproving). While views on the indictment are split along party lines, the poll finds that majorities across major demographic divides all approve of the decision to indict the former president.
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Obviously, he did look inside the boxes. This is the story that just broke: In the classified documents case, federal investigators have gathered new and significant evidence that after the subpoena was delivered, Trump looked through the contents of some of the boxes of documents in his home, apparently out of a desire to keep certain things in his possession, the people familiar with the investigationsaid. Investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence, that boxes including classified material were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served, and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes, these people said. While Trump’s team returned some documents with classified markings in response to the subpoena, a later FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over.
Wanting to “watch the world burn” is a type Speaking of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), I won’t this morning. Much. At The Garden of Forking Paths, however, Brian Klass offers study results that might address her type. Movie buffs know Alfred Pennyworth’s speech from The Dark Knight in which he offers Bruce Wayne an explanation of The Joker’s motivations: Some men just want to watch the world burn. Researchers find it is a type, actually. Alfred was right: The researchers—Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen from Aarhus University in Denmark, and Kevin Arceneaux from Sciences Po in Paris—focus on a specific behavior to create a typology of “Need for Chaos” individuals. Specifically, they focus on those who share “hostile political rumors,” which they note, “portray politicians and political groups negatively and possess low evidential value.” In plain speak, they like spreading malicious political lies. Jacob Wohl, for example.
I have waited for anger to subside before writing about Humza Yousaf as First Minister. The obvious unfairness of the election created a lot of anger. The SNP party machine did everything to get Humza elected, with the now huge payroll vote swinging into action from the start with coordinated endorsements and messages. Central party […]
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I don’t know if this will mean that we have stepped back from the abyss, but it’s at least a tiny positive sign: For the better part of a decade, Donald J. Trump and his allies at Fox News have beguiled some Americans and enraged others as they spun up an alternative world where elections turned on fraud, one political party oppressed another, and one man stood against his detractors to carry his version of truth to an adoring electorate. Then this week, on two consecutive days, the former president and the highest-rated cable news channel were delivered a dose of reality by the American legal system. On Thursday, Mr. Trump became the first former president in history to be indicted on criminal charges, after a Manhattan grand jury’s examination of hush money paid to a pornographic film actress in the final days of the 2016 election. The next day, a judge in Delaware Superior Court concluded that Fox hosts and guests had repeatedly made false claims about voting machines and their supposed role in a fictitious plot to steal the 2020 election, and that Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network should go to trial.
I’m losing my mind with all the handwringing from the Trumpers over the horrors of indicting their Dear Leader. Puh-leeze. A persistent idea undergirds reactions by Donald Trump and the GOP to Trump’s indictment. Sometimes it’s explicitly stated, and sometimes it’s more implicit: Indicting a former president and a candidate in the next election is beyond the pale. It’s even election “interference” or the stuff of banana republics. Trump ceded the moral high ground on this idea long ago. He has advocated for the prosecutions of each of the last four Democratic presidential nominees — every single one since 2004. In two cases, he did it during the campaign, even suggesting they should be ineligible to run. And that’s to say nothing of the many other political opponents he has suggested should be prosecuted. He even, in some cases, actually agitated for that outcome when he held sway over the Justice Department. The “lock her up” chant leveled at Hillary Clinton is the most well-known entry in this long succession.
The GOP view of mass shootings:
Immediately following the news of the grand jury vote, Donald Trump Jr. posted a video response in which he claimed that the mere act of his father being held to the letter of the law was exponentially worse than anything some of history’s worst dictators ever did. “Let’s be clear, folks,” Trump’s namesake told his viewers. “This is like Communist-level shit. This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot—it would make them blush. It’s so flagrant, it’s so crazed.
The lawyers: DONALD TRUMP HASN’T surrendered to authorities yet. But his lawyers are already fighting — with themselves. Days after the former president’s indictment at the hands of Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, some of Trump’s lawyers are taking aim at Joe Tacopina, his co-lead defense attorney in the Bragg case. A source familiar with the matter and another person close to Trump tell Rolling Stone that a number of Trump’s other current lawyers have privately described Tacopina as “dumb” and a “loudmouth.” Tacopina is no stranger to made-for-tabloid drama: He has a lengthy track record of repping high-profile clients, such as Meek Mill and baseball legend Alex Rodriguez, as well as securing hard-to-land wins. But he’s also had some equally high-profile flameouts, including an acrimonious parting with his ex-client, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik. In recent days, as a Trump attorney, Tacopina has also become a more and more familiar face on cable television — and not always to the ex-president’s benefit.