<<saffuna: Trump better learn quickly, or someone he listens to should tell him firmly, that he can't be mixing business with governing. And has to do everything to avoid having his policies affected by his personal finances....>

Trump must, moreover, be seen to be doing so, insofar as possible.

As other sitting Chief Executives of both parties have discovered, the Washington bureaucracy is a formidable animal and possesses considerable influence, which cannot be dispensed with by waving an imaginary wand to dispel its powers.

<....(Trump) appears not to understand this. He has his daughter, who will be partly responsible for running the business while he is president, sit in on Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Abe. That cannot happen.>

<Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for convicted drug dealers to be executed dating back to at least 2018, when he was still in the White House. But on Tuesday, Trump failed to grasp the real-world implications of his proposal during an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier.

"As an example, a woman who you know very well was in jail. She had twenty-four more years to serve. She served for twenty-two years," Trump reminisced.

"Alice Johnson. She was in the Super Bowl," Baier noted of the woman whom Trump pardoned in 2020.

"She had twenty — high quality. Oh yeah. I said, 'How many years?' And she was on a telephone call and they were involved in selling marijuana, mostly marijuana. And she got like fifty years in jail," said Trump.

"But she'd be killed under your plan," Baier pointed out.

Trump was stumped.

"Huh?" a befuddled Trump asked.

"A drug dealer?" emphasized Baier, trying to stir Trump's memory.

Trump meandered through a response.

"No, no, no. Under my, oh, under that. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it would depend on the severity. It would depend on the severity," Trump stated.

"She's technically a former drug dealer. She the, she had a multi-million dollar cocaine ring," Baier recalled.

"Any drug dealer — look," an agitated Trump replied.

"So even Alice Johnson in that ad?" Baier pressed.

"She can't do it, okay?" crowed Trump, who then declared, "By the way, if that was there, no, she wouldn't be killed. It would start as of now. So you wouldn't go to the past? No.">

<During the second part of Bret Baier‘s Fox News interview, Donald Trump praised his own response to Covid-19 under the guise of humility, saying, “There are people that say I saved 100 million lives — I don’t even talk about it.”

Trump backed into the claim by telling a story about “a Democrat friend who is very smart.”

“He said, ‘I don’t understand one thing about you. I watch your rallies, they’re incredible. You talk about defeating ISIS, you talk about taxes, you talk about regulation, you talk about everything. You never said — I’ve never heard you talk about the incredible job did you with the vaccines.’ Because, as you know, I got them done in nine months and it was suppose to take anywhere from five to 12 years.

I broke their ass, ok? And do you know who doesn’t like me too much? The FDA because they were very bureaucratic and I got it done. And he said, ‘You may have saved in the world, throughout the world, a hundred million people and you never talk about it.’ I said, I really don’t want to talk about it because, as a Republican it’s not a great thing to talk about because, for some reason, it’s just not.”

Baier pushed back on Trump and asked, “For some reason?”

“Yeah, for some reason,” Trump shot back. “Because, people love the vaccines, and people hate the vaccines. But, conservatives aren’t — and I understand both sides of it, by the way. I understand both sides very well. What I didn’t do is the mandates — the mandates and the vaccines don’t go.”

After discussing presidential primary rival Gov. Ron DeSantis loving “radical masker” Anthony Fauci, Trump returned to the issue of politics.

“So, the mandates are horrible. And I was always against the mandates. But really on the vaccines, I let the governors make their decisions. But you have a lot of people that love the vaccines. I mean, you do. They happen to be more Democrat than they are Republican.”>

<The Michigan GOP chair who believes Beyoncé is spreading paganism and that demonic possession is "real" has stepped into yet another controversy.

Speaking at a party function, Michigan GOP Chairwoman Kristina Karamo mocked criticism of a tweet she wrote in which she used the Holocaust to promote the Second Amendment, according to a recording obtained by the Daily Beast. The tweet repeated a common right-wing theory that the genocide was possible because gun control had left its victims unarmed.

It showed a picture of wedding rings that had been left behind by murdered Jews. "Before they collected all these wedding rings... they collected all the guns," a message next to the image reads.

The tweet was roundly criticized, with the Michigan GOP being asked to take it down.

But, in remarks to the Lincoln Day dinner, Karamo said the fuss over it was “hilarious, completely hilarious.”

“They’re still going on and on about that,” she said. “‘Are you going to apologize?’ I’m like really, are you guys still going on about this? I get this mail and it’s about how I’m encouraging white supremacy and xenophobia all this… I just laugh so hard.”

“Us being armed is not about stopping a burglar,” she added. “It’s not about hunting. It’s about stopping a tyrannical government. And if you know a thing or two about history, we know that governments have a tendency to be very abusive to the citizenry.”

Karamo's fringe beliefs were largely blamed for a failed run for Secretary of State in 2022, but she went on to be tapped as state party chair. The state is a crucial 2024 battleground for the presidency, and also has an open-seat U.S. Senate contest that could help decide the majority.

But the prominence of MAGA figures and conspiracists in the state party has left many party insiders worried.

“It’s dangerous and it’s concerning, because there’s been some very famous violent actions and threats of violence from some of these militia extremist groups, but we’re seeing not just dotted lines or offshoots, but direct connections between those same groups and the Michigan Republican Party,” former Michigan GOP chair Jeff Timmer told the Beast.

“It’s not just lone wolf action,” Timer said of extremism in Michigan. “It’s becoming part and parcel of what it means to be in the party.”>

<House Republicans erupted into infighting on Wednesday as leadership and members across the conference pushed back on a burst of impeachment votes being forced by right-wing lawmakers.

Why it matters: It's an escalation of an increasingly acrimonious internal GOP dynamic as members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus try to seize control of the party's agenda.

"I think they've kind of gone rogue," said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), an ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Driving the news: McCarthy, in a closed-door conference meeting on Wednesday, argued against Rep. Lauren Boebert's (R-Colo.) resolution to impeach Biden, according to multiple sources in the meeting.

The speaker said investigations into the Biden administration need to play out, and such resolutions have to run through the normal committee process, before any such vote takes place.

Even some members aligned with the Freedom Caucus were receptive to that case. "I like the committee system," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told, saying that an effort like Boebert's to circumvent it "frustrates me."

The intrigue: Boebert was not at the conference meeting despite McCarthy inviting her to speak, according to multiple sources.

The backdrop: Boebert's measure, which targets Biden's handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, isn't the only one being forced to a vote this week.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's (R-Fla.) resolution censuring Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is set to be voted on again on Wednesday after failing last week – although it appears to have the necessary GOP votes this time.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has introduced impeachment resolutions against five Biden officials, told Axios: "Impeachment has to be done ... I do not have an exact timeline, but I'm converting them to privileged resolutions."

What they're saying: Several Republicans told Axios they don't plan to vote for Boebert's resolution, placing it in serious jeopardy. "I don't intend to," said Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), another McCarthy ally.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said he is "probably not" voting for what he called a "premature" impeachment, adding, "I may vote to impeach the president, but we need to go through a process."

"This motion is not going to pass. It's probably going to have quite a bit of opposition from both parties," Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) told Axios.

"Impeachment [is] one of the awesome power of the Congress. It's not something you should flippantly exercise in two days," said Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a McCarthy lieutenant, arguing it "actually undermines" future efforts.

Zoom in: Some swing-district members said in the conference meeting that Boebert's vote puts them in a tough political position, Biden-district Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told Axios: "It's not right. It's people thinking of themselves."

"They are just using [these motions] for raising campaign cash," one House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, vented.

Duarte, another Biden-district member, told Axios he is "frustrated" with Boebert for bringing it up.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) predicted its impacts will be felt "more so, probably, in primaries," with moderates who vote against the resolution risking a challenge from the right.

The other side: "People are fed up with the weaponized government ... so, in my opinion, and the opinion of the base, we have all the evidence we need," Greene said.

"Everybody's got a different opinion," said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). "There's a question of timing, but there always is. You debate the issue, you discuss them ... if we get 218, that kind of rules."

What's next: The vote on Boebert's resolution is expected as soon as this week, with Democrats planning to introduce a motion to "table," or kill, the measure.>

<Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) took on former special counsel John Durham at a hearing on his investigation into the FBI's probe of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Throughout a House Oversight hearing on Wednesday, Durham rarely went against Republican claims that there was no "collusion" between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.

"So let's break this down," Schiff said before asking Durham if he remembered relevant portions of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

"Mr. Durham, you're aware of Donald Trump's public statements along the lines of, hey, Russia, if you're listening, hack Hillary's emails, you'll be richly rewarded by the press," the lawmaker reminded the witness.

"I'm aware of that," Durham admitted.

"You're aware that Mueller found that hours after he made that plea for Russian help, the Russians, in fact, tried to hack one of the email servers affiliated with the Clinton campaign or family?" Schiff pressed.

"If that happened, I'm not aware of that," the former special counsel replied.

"You're not aware of that in the Mueller report?" Schiff gasped. "When you say you're not aware of evidence of collusion in the Mueller report, it's because apparently haven't read the Mueller report very well."

"I'm not aware of that fact," Durham repeated.

After a barrage of questions recalling how Russia worked to benefit the Trump campaign, Schiff concluded by offering a new definition of collusion.

"They don't want to call collusion," Schiff said of Republicans. "Maybe there's a better name for it. Maybe they would prefer we just call it good old-fashioned GOP cheating with the enemy. Maybe that would be a little bit more accurate description."

"Because this is what happened, but they seem allergic to calling it for what it is," he asserted.>

<Between special counsel Jack Smith's 37-count federal prosecution and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr.'s 34-count case in New York State, former President Donald Trump is facing a total of 71 felony counts. And Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential results are the focus of criminal investigations by Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Fulton County DA Fani Willis for the State of Georgia, although he hasn't been indicted in either of those cases.

Trump's Republican defenders have been attacking Smith, Bragg and Willis as politically motivated, insisting that they have a vendetta against Trump. As they see it, Trump is being persecuted at both the federal level and the state level.

But in an op-ed published by The Guardian on June 21, historian Andrew Gawthorpe expresses a totally different viewpoint. Gawthorpe, who teaches U.S. history at Leiden University in The Netherlands, argues that the DOJ and the FBI have gone easy on Trump.

"In short, the right wants us to believe that (President Joe) Biden and his administration will stop at nothing to put Trump in jail as quickly as possible," Gawthorpe writes. "In fact, the exact opposite is true. Worried about just this type of accusation, the Justice Department under Merrick Garland and the FBI have approached their investigations of Trump much too cautiously."

The historian continues, "Far from being persecuted because of who he is, Trump's status as a former president and as the unofficial leader of the Republican Party have led to him being handled with vastly more deference than anyone else would be. The result has been a series of delays and missteps which may allow Trump to escape accountability once again."

Gawthorpe notes that the federal government "first recovered classified material from Mar-a-Lago in early 2022," but he is just now facing an indictment.

"Trump has likewise been slow to face consequences in the federal investigation into his actions leading up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol," the historian adds. "According to a new report by the Washington Post, the Justice Department and FBI delayed launching a probe into Trump's push to overturn the 2020 election for 15 months, again because of fears that they would be criticized for partisanship. The agencies instead pursued cases against rank-and-file insurrectionists, ignoring the existence of evidence implicating Trump and his inner circle until media and political pressure forced them to begin taking it seriously. These delays matter because they make it possible — even likely — that Trump will never truly face accountability for his actions.>

Come and get it, lurker!

<Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton, the wife of Attorney General Ken Paxton, is barred from voting in the impeachment trial that could lead to her husband's permanent removal from office, the Republican-controlled Senate decided Wednesday.

The rule settles a question that has loomed over the Texas Capitol since Ken Paxton last month became just the third sitting official to be impeached in Texas' nearly 200-year history.

Angela Paxton, a Republican, has previously not said whether she would recuse herself from voting in the trial where her husband of more than 30 years will face charges that include abuse of power and accepting bribes.

The trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 5.

Under the rules, Angela Paxton is required to attend the proceedings but is prohibited from participating in any way, including closed session or deliberations. The rules do not explicitly mention Angela Paxton but say a spouse is “considered to have a conflict” under the Texas Constitution.

Angela Paxton has not publicly commented on the accusations against her husband, who is also under FBI investigation and has attacked the impeachment as an attempt to disenfranchise Texas voters who elected him to a third term last year.

Paxton, who in 2020 sought to baselessly overturn President Joe Biden’s victory, is suspended from office pending the outcome of the Senate trial.

He has kept a low profile since being impeached in May by the state House and has broadly denied the accusations laid out in 20 impeachment articles. Many of the charges surround Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, a Paxton donor who was indicted in a Texas federal court this month on charges of making false statements to banks.

In Texas, the leader of the senate is the lieutenant governor, making the job one of the most powerful in any U.S. statehouse. Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has declined to comment on the impeachment charges but has pledged fair and transparent proceedings.

Under the rules, senators are prohibited from publicly speaking about the case.

But Patrick, who will serve as the trial’s presiding officer, carries into the proceedings financial entanglements with the accused. Ken Paxton has yet to repay a $125,000 campaign loan that Patrick gave him in 2018, when Paxton’s reelection appeared vulnerable after being indicted three years earlier on securities fraud charges. Paxton has pleaded not guilty and the case has yet go [sic] to trial.

Patrick said the outstanding debt wouldn’t influence his judgement.

“I have loaned money and given money to a lot of different candidates,” he has said.

The impeachment charges also allude to a senator, Republican Bryan Hughes. Paxton is accused of using him to request a legal opinion that would protect Paul from losing properties in foreclosure. Another impeachment concerns Paxton’s extramarital affair with a woman who was employed by Paul and has also worked for Republican Sen. Donna Campbell.>

<There’s no shortage of House Republicans who want to impeach President Joe Biden. The Democrat’s GOP critics don’t have legitimate grounds to go after the incumbent president, but they do have all kinds of resolutions accusing Biden of high crimes.

There’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene [sic] impeachment resolution, which has four co-sponsors; Rep. Bill Posey’s impeachment resolution, which has one co-sponsor; Rep. Andrew Ogles’ impeachment resolution, which has three co-sponsors; and Rep. Lauren Boebert’s impeachment resolution, which also has three co-sponsors.

It’s that fourth one that’s proven to be especially notable. NBC News reported:

The final tally was 219 to 208, and while a handful of members didn’t participate in the vote, literally zero House Republicans opposed the resolution.

For the right-wing Colorado congresswoman, this was probably the best possible outcome, though it wasn’t the vote she was looking for.

The House Republicans’ original plan was to let the many impeachment resolutions targeting Biden to simply sit in committee, indefinitely, waiting for GOP leaders to decide whether to bother taking any of them seriously. In all likelihood, those waiting for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to initiate official impeachment proceedings against the president were likely going to wait quite a while.

And for Boebert, that wasn’t good enough: The Coloradan decided to push her impeachment measure as a privileged resolution, which would’ve forced the House to hold a vote on it this week.

Republican leaders were not pleased, not because they harbor some sympathies for the Democratic White House, but because they recognized the dangers in such a vote: Measures that unite your opponents and divide your allies are best avoided. In this case, Republicans in competitive districts had no interest in voting to impeach Biden for no reason, but they also didn’t want to defy the GOP’s broader partisan agenda.

It was a lose-lose proposition — which House Democrats were only too happy to watch unfold — that was all but certain to fail, further complicating matters for party leaders. (It’s easy to imagine the conservative media chyrons about the Republican-led House rejecting Biden’s impeachment, “refusing to hold him accountable,” leading to cries of betrayal from the party’s base.)

It was against this backdrop that Boebert backed down last night and struck a deal with McCarthy: Instead of a vote on impeaching Biden, she’d change her resolution to send the question of impeachment to the House Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees, which is where her measure was likely headed anyway.

And that’s what cleared the House today.

For Boebert, it’s tempting to see this as a partial victory, but given the circumstances, it’s probably better to characterize it as a partial loss: Yes, her resolution was approved on the floor, but only after she (a) abandoned the point of her own plan; (b) exasperated her own party’s leaders; and (c) successfully divided her own party’s conference.

The Colorado Republican wasn’t well positioned on Capitol Hill before this week, and given today’s developments, she’s in slightly worse shape now.>

<Former President Donald Trump was triggered enough to "blow a gasket" after receiving the first batch of evidence being used against him in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said.

According to a court filing on Wednesday, Special Counsel Jack Smith has begun providing Trump's legal team with evidence used in the Department of Justice's investigation into the former president's handling of classified documents since leaving the White House. Trump is facing 37 federal felony counts.

The discovery order filed by the DOJ lists several pieces of evidence, including audio recordings or written statements of interviews that Trump "conducted with non-government entities" at his "consent" that have been obtained by Smith's office. The Justice Department also mentions an audio recording made in July 2021 at Trump's Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey that was previewed in the indictment.

Other pieces of evidence listed in the discovery include "grand jury testimony of witnesses who will testify for the government at the trial of this case." Federal prosecutors did not provide specific names of the witnesses in Trump's indictment but often described the unnamed sources as "Trump Employee 1" or "Trump Attorney 1." A reference to a Trump family member is also included in the indictment.

According to Kirschner, providing a preview of the witnesses who testified against him "made Donald Trump blow a gasket" after reviewing the discovery order.

"That's right, friends," Kirschner said during Thursday's episode of his Justice Matters podcast. "Donald Trump now has the grand jury transcript so he can see for the first time who testified against him and what they told the grand jury about his criminal activity. So, it just got real for Donald Trump."

Kirschner went on to infer that the witnesses in question likely told Trump "everything he wanted to hear" while working closely to the former president but did not say the same "when they were hauled before the grand jury."

"They swore to tell the truth and if they lied in there, they could be charged with perjury," he noted.

"So, who were all the people that Jack Smith compelled to testify in the grand jury about Donald Trump's crimes?" Kirschner added. "Most of them were allies."

According to the former prosecutor, receiving a preview of the evidence being used against him caused Trump to "blow a gasket" on social media, as Kirschner highlighted a Truth Social post from the former president published Thursday morning.

"CONGRESS, PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE POLITICAL WITCH HUNTS AGAINST ME CURRENTLY BEING BROUGHT BY THE CORRUPT DOJ AND FBI, WHO ARE TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL," Trump wrote in all caps. "THIS CONTINUING SAGA IS RETRIBUTION AGAINST ME FOR WINNING AND, EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY TO THEM, ELECTION INTERFERENCE REGARDING THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION."

Newsweek has previously reached out to Trump's campaign for comment on the DOJ's discovery order.

"Seems pretty confident," Kirschner quipped after reading the post aloud on his podcast. "Not a care in the world."

Trump has relied on Truth Social since being banned on nearly all mainstream social-media platforms following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The former president has repeatedly used the conservative platform to attack his political opponents and insist that the investigations against him are part of a "witch hunt.">

<Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas led a 6-3 majority Thursday in ruling that a man’s legal innocence is not a basis for allowing him to petition for habeas corpus relief.

The legal community reacted to the ruling in Jones v. Hendrix with disdain, with some calling the ruling “an outright tragedy.”

Attorney Matthew Segal tweeted a summary of the ruling’s effect: “To be clear: this opinion means that when *the courts* misinterpret a statute and cause someone to be wrongly convicted or sentenced, that person is out of luck when the courts later realize their mistake.”

The underlying facts involve interplay among multiple federal statutes and a Supreme Court ruling that created new rules for interpretation.

Marcus DeAngelo Jones was convicted in 2000 of possessing a firearm as a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). After Jones was convicted, he appealed and lost several times. An unrelated ruling by the Supreme Court in 2019 in Rehaif v. United States, however, changed the interpretation of § 922(g)(1) such that Jones would no longer be guilty under the law.

Jones challenged his conviction with a claim of “legal innocence” — a defense based on an erroneous interpretation of a criminal law — as opposed to “factual innocence,” or a defense based on an error in determining what a defendant did.

Legal innocence claims are relatively rare. Indeed, during oral arguments in the case, when Justice Samuel Alito raised concerns about inmates of all manner revisiting their convictions with legal innocence claims under § 922(g)(1), Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin told Alito that Jones’ case would constitute “probably a category of one.”

Jones’ legal innocence claim led to a seemingly illogical outcome related to timing. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected Jones’ habeas corpus petition on the basis that Jones should have raised his claim at an earlier proceeding. However, at the time of the earlier proceeding, the Supreme Court had not yet ruled in the 2019 case. As a result, Jones would not yet have had a valid claim of legal innocence at the phase the 8th Circuit demanded.

On appeal to the justices, Jones argued that even if the federal habeas corpus statute doesn’t allow him to bring a legal innocence claim, a different federal post-conviction relief statute creates a kind of safety valve which does. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson explained in her dissent: “Where a federal prisoner could have brought a particular habeas claim prior to 1948, but could not bring such a claim in a §2255 petition after that date, the saving clause kicks in to permit that individual to resort to habeas to raise that claim.”

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, however, disagreed, and sided with the 8th Circuit’s decision to reject Jones’ petition. Justice Thomas chose to lay any resulting injustice squarely at the feet of Congress.

“Here, as is often is the case, the best interpretation is the straightforward one,” Thomas began, as he explained that neither federal statute provides a viable avenue for Jones’ claim.

“Congress has chosen finality over error correction in [Jones’] case,” summarized Thomas with respect to the claim of legal innocence.

Thomas also made short work of any suggestion that Jones’ incarceration raises constitutional issues. The justice dismissed Jones’ “scattershot” arguments that contend the case “raises serious constitutional questions” out of hand.

The beleaguered justice ended with a refusal to view the result in Jones’ case as something that Congress ought to have prevented, remarking that “there is nothing fundamentally surprising about Congress declining to make such errors remediable in a second or successive collateral attack.”

In a brief joint dissenting opinion, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote that the “disturbing results” caused by the Court’s ruling should have been prevented by a proper use of §2255, the statute Jones had argued was a “safety valve.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, however, railed against the majority’s ruling in a detailed — and sometimes sarcastic — 40-page dissent.

Jackson denounced Thomas’ erroneous interpretation of §2255 as “stingy” and said the majority decision amounts to “forever slamming the courtroom doors to a possibly innocent person.”

Jackson wrote:

I am also deeply troubled by the constitutional implications of the nothing-to-see-here approach that the majority takes with respect to the incarceration of potential legal innocents. See Part III, infra. Apparently, legally innocent or not, Jones must just carry on in prison regardless, since (as the majority reads §2255) no path exists for him to ask a federal judge to consider his innocence assertion....>

<....Jackson also rubbished Thomas’ suggestion that Congress tacitly intended to deny relief in cases like Jones’:

To put it bluntly: Congress knows how to speak clearly when it wants to disrupt the continuity of claims that are available to prisoners before and after it enacts legislation that addresses postconviction review procedures. And rather than providing any such clear statement as to how an intervening claim of statutory innocence should be treated vis-à-vis §2255(h)’s second or successive bar, Congress was conspicuously silent.

Jackson also threw several of Thomas’ chosen words right back at him. Despite Thomas’ many references to the majority’s “textual” approach to statutory interpretation, Jackson said:

First and foremost, it is entirely atextual. The majority cites exactly zero dictionary definitions of the terms “inadequate” or “ineffective.”

Responding to Thomas’ evaluation of Jones’ arguments as “scattershot,” Jackson said that is actually the majority that is relying on a “scattershot of lower court cases.”

Jackson also delivered a sardonic take on Thomas’ contention that the statute’s lack of reference to legal innocence claims indicates that Congress did not intend to allow petitions based on those claims.

“[S]poiler alert: they were inadvertently omitted,” wrote Jackson.

Jackson ended her opinion by calling out Thomas for “downplay[ing] the stakes in this case.”

“Not once does its opinion make direct mention of the fact that the claim the majority says §2255(h) silently precludes is one that implicates core values because it involves legal innocence,” Jackson wrote, before reminding the majority that “statutory claims that suggest a person’s innocence are different in kind from more run-of-the-mill statutory claims.”

Jackson also took aim directly at Thomas for reaching far into the past to find support for his tenets of statutory interpretation:

Looking back to the time of the founding to determine whether the clear-statement rule applies to our interpretation of a statute passed in 1996 also makes no sense.

Similarly, Jackson said that portions of Thomas’ analysis “rests on nothing—and certainly nothing that actually derives from Congress’ intent.”

Taking issue with Thomas’ claim that the Court was merely carrying out the will of Congress, Jackson returned the volley to the majority — again throwing Thomas’ word back at him.

So, the majority’s “straightforward” determination that this statute does preclude a prisoner in Jones’ position from filing a successive petition to assert a legal innocence claim… appears to stem from the Court’s own views concerning finality, not the will of Congress.

Jackson also levied a scathing charge against the current Court, saying that it is responsible for a “systematic neutering” of safeguards of the criminal justice system. Per the dissent:

Ultimately, of course, this all begs the question of how (and whether) Congress will respond to the Court’s systematic neutering of the balanced postconviction processes that the Legislature has established.

Jackson ended by calling Congress to task:

It seems to me that today’s opinion — which unjustifiably closes off all avenues for certain defendants to secure meaningful consideration of their innocence claims — creates an opening for Congress to step in and fix this problem.>

<The Justice Department turned over all of the evidence that it has collected against former President Donald Trump regarding his refusal to turn over government documents he took upon leaving the White House. Today is the day that former U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner predicts Trump will want to start tampering with evidence.

Speaking on MSNBC's "Deadline White House" on Thursday, the panel cracked jokes about the all-caps rants that have surfaced on Trump's social media site.

Kirschner told Nicolle Wallace that there are some risks to giving the information to Trump, and it's one of the reasons that there was a protective order put in place. That doesn't mean that Trump won't try to fumble his way through witness tampering.

"You know, it's a small consolation if Donald Trump were to tamper with a witness to the detriment of the case and of the witness, yeah, it might be great; the judge might be able to hold him accountable, hold him in contempt, fine him, and possibly even incarcerate him, but the damage has been done," said Kirschner. "At this point you can only confine a man for but one life, and look at all the charges that are pending against Donald Trump. But, you know, if Donald Trump was ever inspired to tamper with witnesses, Nicolle, I have a feeling that will be at its zenith when he reads those grand jury transcripts."

He noted that there are people who are inclined to say one thing when they're in front of Trump and something else when they're in front of a grand jury and under oath.

"And these, we believe, are Donald Trump's own attorneys; they are close associates, heck, they may be cabinet members and family members," said Kirschner. "So, I think this will be a real eye-opening moment for Donald Trump when he starts poring through these grand jury transcripts and he sees what all of these people have testified about regarding his misconduct."

Wallace said that the only real comparison that Americans have to something like this with Trump is when former White House counsel Don McGahn spoke to special counsel Robert Mueller. He was fired after Trump realized just how long McGahn spent with Mueller's team. This might be a different matter.

New York Times reporter Katie Benner said that she'll be looking into who some of the witnesses were that aren't already known. She also said that McGahn was someone she thought of as well when she saw just how many witnesses the special counsel spoke to.

"There's going to be things Donald Trump and his team sees that are evidence that the special counsel has gathered that has really nothing to do with whether or not people have betrayed him on purpose but simply because of the team around him, the people around him, and Donald Trump himself, were really not careful when they spoke about these documents, when they moved these documents around, when they took pictures of them and texted them to one another," Benner said.

She explained that she thinks it will ultimately be the part that truly hurts Trump the most.

"There was so much documentation and so much talk about these documents among so many people," she concluded. "It was just not a well-kept secret he had them. It's incredible this special counsel's office was able to seek out all this information.">

<Donald Trump has targeted his former attorney Michael Cohen witha $500 million lawsuit alleging "multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract by virtue of Defendant’s past service as Plaintiff’s employee and attorney."

Cohen's first move in April was a motion to dismiss Trump's case. Trump responded with opposition to that, and Cohen's latest document is a blistering takedown of every minute accusation in Trump's lawsuit. It not only mocks the suit as something that isn't even based on the reality of law, but also destroys the unprofessional carelessness with which Trump's lawyers penned the filing.

"Plaintiff Donald J. Trump's sprawling and baseless Complaint appears to have two aims: retaliating against and intimidating Mr. Cohen, and distracting from Mr. Trump's mounting and serious criminal exposure," the filing begins.

Trump was indicted in Florida earlier this month and arraigned a week later on a slew of federal crimes for the alleged theft of documents from the White House and obstruction in trying to get them back. There is also a state suit from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and possible "criminal exposure" in Georgia coming at the end of the summer.

The response walks through Trump's failure on standing, the fact that his complaints are far outside of the statute of limitations (one year, in NY, or two years at most in Florida), and "based on misconstructions of the relevant facts and law."

"Trump fails to show any standing to enforce the Confidentiality Agreement and conspicuously stops short of asserting that he is a party to or even a third-party beneficiary of the agreement," it continues.

Another comment in the Cohen motion notes that Trump cites "Florida" when it comes to the allegations of Cohen breaching his "fiduciary duty." Trump claims he suffered an "injury" as a result of Cohen, but not that the injury happened in Florida. It's likely because any work Cohen did for the Trump Org. was in New York before Trump left the White House and moved to Florida.

The filing comments that Trump appears to go back and forth, sometimes using Florida law and sometimes New York law. It is all in an effort to apply whichever laws are the most beneficial to his case, according to Cohen.

"Mr. Trump does not address this argument in his Opposition, nor does he attempt to explain why, having invoked protections of New York law and claimed that Mr. Cohen's fiduciary obligations flown therefrom, New York law should not apply to his claims," the filing says.

Trump filed the suit in Florida, despite Cohen never working for him while Trump considered his residence to be Mar-a-Lago. That returns to Cohen's statute of limitations argument. They say that for the suit to be considered under Florida law, Trump would have had to file the suit at a time before he was even an actual Florida resident.

One of Trump's requests in his response to Cohen's motion to dismiss was that he needed to amend his claim to provide additional information. Cohen's motion mocks the request as pointless, because the whole lawsuit purportedly isn't based in fact to begin with.

"Mr. Trump requests that he be granted leave to amend the Complaint 'to provide further particularized allegations of fact supportive of [his] claims or standing.' His request should be denied. Mr. Trump's claims are deficient as a foundational level they are untimely, impermissibly duplicative of each other, and he lacks standing to assert them. They cannot be cured by additional allegations, so amendment would be futile."

Side-stepping legalese, Cohen's motion ultimately says that Trump's allegations "rely on selective quotation of pertinent documents, omission of critical information, and obfuscation of inconvenient facts." One of those key documents that Trump refers to is the agreement between him and Cohen. It isn't attached to Trump's filing as an exhibit as proof.>

<Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., unveiled joint resolutions Thursday to expunge former President Donald Trump's 2019 and 2021 impeachments.

Stefanik's measure pertains to Trump's 2021 impeachment on charges of inciting an insurrection, asserting that the facts the articles were based on did not meet the burden of proving that the former president committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, or participate in "insurrection of rebellion against the United States."

Greene's resolution addresses Trump's 2019 impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for withholding aid to Ukraine in order to pressure the nation into launching investigations into then-presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the election. The document argues that the former president was wrongfully accused of misconduct and that the circumstances on which the impeachment was based did not prove he committed "high crimes and Misdemeanors."

"You've been nothing but a little b***h to me," MTG says to Boebert during a House floor squabble

The conservative congresswomen defended their legislation in a joint press statement Thursday.

"The American people know Democrats weaponized the power of impeachment against President Donald Trump to advance their own extreme political agenda," Stefanik said in a press release. "From the beginning of this sham process, I stood up against Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff's blatant attempt to shred the Constitution as House Democrats ignored the Constitution and failed to follow the legislative process.

"President Donald Trump was rightfully acquitted, and it is past time to expunge Democrats' sham smear against not only President Trump's name, but against millions of patriots across the country," she added.

"The first impeachment of President Trump was a politically motivated sham. The Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, weaponized a perfect phone call with Ukraine to interfere with the 2020 election. Meanwhile, the FBI had credible evidence of Joe and Hunter Biden's corrupt dealings, confirming their involvement in a foreign bribery pay-to-play scheme and receipt of over $5 million each. All of this information was revealed to Congress by the FD-1023 form from the FBI's most credible informant. The form vindicates President Trump and exposes the crimes of the Biden family," Greene said in a statement....>

<..."It's clear that President Trump's impeachment was a nothing [sic] more than a witch hunt that needs to be expunged from our history," she said. "I'm proud to work with Chairwoman Elise Stefanik on our joint resolutions to correct the record and clear President Trump's good name."

Stefanik's office also added in a press release that if the resolutions were passed, it would be "as if such Articles of Impeachment had never passed the full House of Representatives."

According to Axios, the measures would be mostly symbolic because expungement processes normally pertain to lower-profile criminal cases that can easily disappear from the public record; Trump's impeachments, in contrast, were widely publicized.

Though it's unclear whether either resolution will solicit a vote, Stefanik, who chairs the House Republican Conference, has greater influence than others to ensure it happens.

The measures also come amid moves by right-wing House Republicans to impeach President Joe Biden and five of his officials and investigate the Biden family's alleged financial schemes much to the chagrin of their more moderate colleagues.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican lawmaker, slammed Greene and Stefanik's actions on Friday's edition of "Morning Joe," deriding the efforts as "so stupid" and "shameless."

"Gesture, gesture, gesture. All they do are gestures," Scarborough complained.

"It's totally unclear if such resolutions are even legally possible. House practices offer no guidance," co-host Mika Brzezinski said.

"I'm sorry, this is too stupid. I don't even want to read this story," Scarborough said, before repeating that the situation is "too stupid."

Brzezinski agreed, adding that we "already knew about Marjorie Taylor Greene — she came baked into the cake — but what the heck?"

"Well, just shameless. But that's okay. That's okay. This is so stupid," Scarborough responded.

"I mean, why would you do this? It makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense legislatively," he added. "But if their only focus is raising money for themselves, which they can do, the more the more freakish ideas they have, the more freaks out there send them $25, then this actually makes perfect sense for them, just not for the rest of the party.">

<A top Republican election official in Arizona filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against Kari Lake, who falsely claims she lost the 2022 race for governor because of fraud.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said he's faced “violent vitriol and other dire consequences” because of lies spread by Lake, including death threats and the loss of friendships.

“Rather than accept political defeat, rather than get a new job, she has sought to undermine confidence in our elections and has mobilized millions of her followers against me,” Richer wrote in an op-ed in The Arizona Republic.

Lake is a former Phoenix television news anchor who quickly built an enthusiastic political following as a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. She went on to narrowly lose her own race for Arizona governor last year along with a lawsuit challenging the results.

Despite her losses in court, she continues to claim that Richer and other Maricopa County officials interfered in the election to prevent her from winning.

A spokesperson for Lake did not immediately respond to a request for comment. She is openly considering a run for U.S. Senate and is a leading contender to be Trump's running mate in his 2024 presidential campaign.

The suit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, names Lake, her campaign and her political fundraising group as defendants. In addition to unspecified monetary damages, Richer is seeking a court order declaring Lake's statements false and requiring her to delete them from social media.

U.S. Supreme Court precedent sets a high bar for defamation cases brought by public officials like Richer. But Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox News Channel over false claims about its vote-counting equipment resulted in damaging disclosures of internal Fox messages and a $787.5 million settlement.

Richer's lawyers wrote in their complaint that Lake has the right to criticize Richer but not to spread lies that bring him harm.

The suit takes issue with two claims in particular — that Richer intentionally had 19-inch ballot images printed on 20-inch paper, causing counting problems, and that he injected 300,000 bogus ballots. It details nearly three dozen times she made the claims publicly on social media or at rallies and news conferences.

The suit says Richer has faced death threats, including one that was prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, and has spent thousands of dollars on home security. He said he and his wife have altered their routines and law enforcement has stepped up patrols around their home and workplaces.

“She has gone far outside of the bounds of protected free speech as guaranteed under the First Amendment and the Arizona Constitution,” Richer wrote in The Republic.>

<Republican hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus reportedly don't think Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is enough of a right-wing ideologue for their standards.

Politico reports that two Freedom Caucus members recently pushed for the group to start purging members who are inactive or who are too cozy with Republican leadership -- and that includes Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has been accused by some on the right of cozying up to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) at the expense of her right-wing purity.

Although House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) denied that Greene had become a target for a purge, the publication also writes that "the fact that he had to illustrates how the group continues to struggle with its identity since former President Donald Trump left office, not to mention the acrimony caused in the lead-up to the handshake deals McCarthy made to win conservative votes during January’s grueling speakership battle."

Sources also tell Politico that some Freedom Caucus members no longer speak as freely as they used to during meetings for fears that other members will snitch on them to McCarthy, who has been feuding with the group ever since he cut a bipartisan deal with President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling.>

<Yesterday, Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis' campaign told Disney-owned ABC News that it would announce new policy proposals next week. Today, a super PAC aligned with DeSantis attacked a Florida journalist for posting a photo from a Disney cruise.

"We get it, you're bought and paid for by the groomers and Trump," Never Back Down tweeted at FloridaPolitics.com publisher Peter Schorsch, who had posted a photo from a Disney cruise he was on with his family.

"Just want to share the door decor from our @DisneyCruise we are embarking on this weekend. It celebrates the 25th anniversary of the cruise line. We booked this cruise to celebrate that anniversary AND to spite @RonDeSantis's lunacy with his war on @Disney," he wrote.

Schorsch responded by quote-tweeting the PAC. "I get that we're in a Trumpian political environment, but don't let it just go by that this is a 9-figure funded presidential campaign super PAC trolling me for taking my family on a Disney cruise," he wrote. He also tagged Taryn Fenske, a former communications director for DeSantis, and said she was having "too much fun" during her first week at Never Back Down.

When reached by Insider, Schorsch initially quoted Anchorman's Ron Burgundy. "But seriously, given the libelous tone of the super PAC's argument, I am exploring my legal options," he said. "Lord kows, Jeff Roe has the money."

Roe, a veteran Republican strategist, is a top adviser for Never Back Down.

Matt Wolking, a communications director for Never Back Down, said in a statement to Insider that "everyone knows Peter is a pay to play swamp creature who is paid by individuals and corporations to attack DeSantis."

A former political operative and a registered Republican who is perhaps best known for breaking the news of the raid at Mar-a-Lago, Schorsch started FloridaPolitics.com in 2013. The site has since become "a must-follow source for Florida political obsessives," as the Washington Post put it, though Schorsch's tenure as a publisher has not been without controversy.

DeSantis' feud with Disney dates back to 2021 and has only escalated since, with the governor making it a key part not just of his successful 2022 gubernatorial campaign but also a key selling point of his national brand. Disney, for their part, recently outmaneuvered him to maintain its control of a key district in Florida.

Nevertheless, DeSantis' positioning of himself as someone willing to wage battles against large corporations over ginned-up cultural issues shows no sign of slowing down soon.

"We oppose the sexualization of children. We will do battle with anybody who seeks to rob our children of their innocence," he said at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event Friday. "And on those principles, there will be no compromise — we will fight the woke corporations."

Never Back Down will be a hugely consequential organization in the GOP primaries. Representatives from the group told the New York Times last month that it plans to have a $200 million operating budget to support DeSantis' campaign for president, and expects to have some 2,600 field organizers by the fall.

"No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it," Chris Jankowski, the group's chief executive, told the Times. "This has just never even been dreamed up."

In February, Trump reshared a 20-year-old photo of DeSantis that shows him with students at a high school where he taught before attending Harvard Law. The person who initially posted the photo shared by Trump accused DeSantis of using alcohol for "grooming" high school girls. The New York Times reported last year that the photo was taken after the 2001-2002 academic year that DeSantis spent teaching at the Darlington School in Georgia.>

Hope Schorsch breaks the buggers.

<Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a key architect of a symbolic resolution to "expunge" the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump, was ripped to shreds by columnist Charles P. Pierce for Esquire on Friday.

"Stefanik is a nuisance on her way to becoming a general blight, but this move is further evidence that a substantial portion of the Republican caucus in the House has fashioned itself into a mechanism to launder the former president's crimes in advance of his 2024 presidential campaign, and that this effort has many elements," wrote Pierce.

Among the other prongs of the GOP's operation, Pierce noted, are an impeachment resolution against President Joe Biden by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) that Republicans just voted to refer to committee and that led to a House floor fight between Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) over her competing resolution, and threats by some GOP lawmakers to try to defund the FBI in retaliation for the indictment against the former president.

"Why they can't just leave this absurd work to the campaign and to the brigade of sycophants in the press is not for small minds to ponder," wrote Pierce. "Clogging up the legislative process with clumsy performance art ought to be an offense severely punishable at election time."

He added, "And I ought to be able to fly."

Trump's first impeachment concerned his plot to withhold congressional defense funding for Ukraine to force that country's president to announce an "investigation" into Joe Biden's family; the second was for giving encouragement to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. This resolution would not actually eliminate the impeachments from the House record, something for which there is no mechanism.>

<Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has personal ties to a leader of the legal clinic under the Notre Dame initiative that funded Justice Samuel Alito's July 2022 speaking trip to Rome, CNN reports.

Just months after she was sworn in at the Supreme Court in 2020, Barrett, who had left her judgeship and job as a Notre Dame law professor, sold her private home in South Bend, Indiana, to a recently hired Notre Dame professor who was assuming a leadership role at the Religious Liberty Initiative, according to records discovered by the left-leaning non-profit watchdog group Accountable.US.

The initiative's legal clinic has curried favor with the Supreme Court since its founding in 2020 and filed at least nine "friend-of-the-court" amicus briefs in religious liberty cases before the Court. Alito joined the majority in deciding in favor of the initiative's conservative positions in several of those cases, including the one that reversed Roe v. Wade, and others on issues of school prayer and COVID-19 restrictions on churches.

"Beyond parody": Experts pound Alito for pre-buttal op-ed defending luxury trip with GOP billionaire

Neither Barrett's real estate transaction nor Alito's trip to Italy to deliver a keynote at a gala violated the court's ethics rules, several experts told CNN.

"It raises a question – not so much of corruption as such, but of whether disclosures, our current system of disclosures, is adequate to the task," Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis Law School who specializes in government ethics, told the outlet.

Barrett sold the home to Brendan Wilson, then a Washington D.C.-based lawyer, for $905,000, a transaction that she was not required to disclose on her annual financial forms. Federal regulations exclude sales of the "personal residence of the filer and the filer's spouse" from financial matters judges are mandated to disclose.

However, some experts told CNN that Wilson's role at the Religious Liberty Initiative and the work of its legal clinic provide another reason why some rules at the Supreme Court should be adapted to increase transparency for the public, giving it a better understanding of the ties between the justices and legal advocates in the high court.

"The court, frankly, it faces a kind of legitimacy crisis because of the really dire weaknesses of its ethics," Clark said. "It has the opportunity to address that legitimacy crisis by, you know, stepping up its ethics game – imposing on itself and then abiding by additional disclosure operations."

Stephanie Barclay, the Religious Liberty Initiative's director, emphasized to CNN that Wilson "really could not be further removed from Supreme Court litigation" and explained that many people involved with the group contribute to the briefs they submit to the Supreme Court....>

<....Wilson's biography on the initiative's page says his role covers "the transactional component of the Religious Liberty Clinic," and a recent job posting from the group specified that the transactional component includes legal advising for religiously affiliated organizations.

Wilson did not respond to CNN's interview requests, nor did Barrett respond to the network's request for comment.

Barrett's real estate transaction makes her the third member of the Supreme Court to have made money from property sales with powerful conservative figures or people connected to legal advocacy groups writing the Court.

Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a vacation home to the CEO of a major law firm who has argued before the court and did not disclose the buyer's name. Justice Clarence Thomas also came under fire earlier this year when ProPublica revealed a 2014 real estate deal he made with GOP megadonor and billionaire Harlan Crow and failed to disclose. The outlet also revealed that Crow had financed decades of lavish travel and gifts for Thomas and paid the tuition of Thomas' grandnephew for two years in the 2000s.

Neil Gorsuch caught selling property to head of law firm "involved in at least 22" SCOTUS cases

Indiana University law professor and legal ethics expert Charles Geyh told CNN that despite Barrett's transaction falling within Supreme Court regulations, it only further complicates the perception of the court in the public eye.

"It is addressed by the court being much more vigilant in guarding against perception problems created by (the justices') financial wheelings and dealings and going the extra mile to make sure that they not only are clean, but look clean," he said.

The controversies and increased public scrutiny of the court have also sparked calls for a defined code of ethics to be imposed and enforced on the justices.

"The endless drip of shady and corrupt Supreme Court dealings just further underscores the need for reform." Accountable.US President Kyle Herrig said in a statement. "Every federal judge is bound to an ethics code requiring them to avoid behavior that so much as looks improper, except for Supreme Court justices. Chief Justice (John) Roberts has the power to change that, but so far he hasn't shown the courage. If he fails to do his job, Congress must do theirs.">

<Fox & Friends Saturday co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy repeatedly accused the United States of possibly orchestrating the unfolding coup in Russia.

On Friday into Saturday morning, chaos erupted in Russia as the Wagner paramilitary group headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin began to stage what is being called an armed insurrection at this point, claiming control of two Russian cities and calling into question Vladimir Putin’s control of regular Russian military forces. The Wagner forces are heading toward Moscow.

On this week’s edition of Fox & Friends Saturday, co-hosts Pete Hegseth, Rachel Campos-Duffy, and Will Cain interfiewed author Rebeka Koffler, and later K.T. McFarland, about the unfolding situation. Both guests agreed with Campos-Duffy’s speculation that the U.S. could be behind the coup attempt:

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: Rebekah, what do you know about him? And we know he’s a mercenary, so he’s willing to take money from anybody. Is there any possibility at all that the United States has anything to do with this?

REBEKAH KOFFLER: That’s a very interesting question, Rachel. You’re turning into an intelligence officer, actually, in terms of their mindset. You know, it’s exactly my second thought after the thought that I just expressed that this potentially was a staged operation and in reality, there’s no fallout between Prigozhin and Putin. My second thought was that it’s possibly we, the United States and possibly may have made a deal with Prigozhin, Prigozhin. Remember, he is a businessman.

KT MCFARLAND: This often the devil you know is bad as he is is better than the devil you don’t know. And if there’s a civil war, if there are nuclear weapons flying around, who knows where this could lead?

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: You know, back in the Iraq and Afghanistan war, I was one of those people that just sort of believed everything that came out of my government. And now I don’t believe, I don’t believe a lot of it. And I’m always questioning things. And I asked our last guest on this topic, Rebekah Koffler, if she thought it was possible that we could be behind this attempted coup with the Wagner group. And she said it’s definitely one of the possibilities or NATO.

KT MCFARLAND: You know, I think she’s right that the United States government, whether it’s been actively or behind the scenes, been very involved in Ukraine and Russia for a long time.>

<U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert is being criticized for her hot take on the Russian drama.

Boebert actually took the position on Saturday that these types of international conflicts, like the one between Vladimir Putin and a paramilitary group, didn't exist under former president Donald Trump.

"I still remember when President Trump was the leader of the free world and you didn’t have wild conflicts all over the world going on constantly," Boebert tweeted Saturday.

She then added: "How I miss those days! It’s time to bring leadership back!"

Boebert was excessively mocked in the comments on her own Twitter post.

"It’s hard to believe she’s a congresswoman," one verified Twitter user wrote in response to the unsubstantiated tweet.

Another wrote, "I remember when we had presidents that didn’t have multiple felony charges pending and didn’t call everyone a loser that he disagreed with. Ahh the good ol days."

Even Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu stepped up to take a shot at Boebert's message, choosing to retweet her post without additional commentary.

"I am retweeting without comment this statement about what is happening to Putin by a Republican Member of Congress," the congressman wrote in a tweet of his own on Saturday.>