<....Attorneys for the plaintiffs reject that assertion, arguing that by allowing the state to name new redistricting principles as they redraw would amount to giving “the state infinite bites at the apple.”

“Alabama would be permitted to simply designate new ‘significant’ communities of interest and anoint them post hoc, point to them as evidence of newfound compliance, and relitigate the merits again and again — all while refusing to remedy persistent vote dilution,” they write. “That approach would let Alabama run out the clock and render courts powerless.”

The three-judge panel that ordered the state to redraw the maps in the first place seems unlikely to buy this argument from Republicans. In an earlier order, the judges wrote that the court is “not at square one” and would not “relitigate” the likely violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The National Republican Redistricting Trust, the main redistricting arm of the GOP, argued in a briefing to the three-judge panel that the Supreme Court’s opinion has been publicly misconstrued, arguing that while the Supreme Court affirmed the finding that the old maps likely violated the Voting Rights Act, it did not order a remedy that would require the drawing of two majority-minority districts.

The Voting Rights Act “does not require proportionality, much less super-proportionality — which is exactly what two majority-minority districts here would entail,” a brief from the NRRT reads. “Any suggestion that the State is ‘defying’ the Supreme Court’s opinion in Allen by passing a law that follows traditional districting principles rather than racial proportionality makes no sense.”

Even as arguments are ongoing, the federal court rehearing the case has taken steps to prepare for someone other than the legislature to redraw the lines. The court appointed special master Richard Allen, an Alabama attorney, and cartographer David Ely, a California-based redistricting consultant, to redraw the lines should the court strike down the new map.

The fight has attracted national attention, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy previously telling POLITICO that he had been in contact with state lawmakers as the redraw process was going on. It is also the first of a handful of redistricting cases in the South that could create new Democratic-leaning seats across the region.

“This doesn’t just affect us, this case is precedent setting,” Alabama RNC member Paul Reynolds said at a recent party meeting, according to the Alabama Daily News. “Louisiana is right behind us, they’re facing the same problem we are. They’re next in line, and what is decided in our case is going to hit Louisiana right between the eyes.”>

<Former President Donald Trump's failed attempt to move Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's hush-money case to federal court may end up bolstering the prosecutor's case, according to The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery. Trump's move gave U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein a chance to "take the first swing," which he used to "make it clear that the case against Trump is far more serious than it otherwise seems," Pagliery wrote. Former New York prosecutor John Moscow told the outlet that Hellerstein's rejection of Trump's effort was effectively "a seal of approval on the indictment."

Bragg's case hinges heavily on federal issues — when Trump allegedly arranged for his former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, to send a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels he did so "in the service of sparing his presidential campaign from potentially calamitous embarrassment during a national, and thus federal, election." Trump's ostensible plan in pushing his case to federal court was to hope for a trial appeal, as any appeal would likely see the Supreme Court — and thereby the 6-to-3 conservative majority Trump helped to position there — take the reins.

Following a June hearing, Hellerstein wrote in a June 19 order affirming the strength of the DA's case. "Whatever the standard, and whether it is high or low, Trump fails to satisfy it," Hellerstein wrote. "Trump has not explained how hiring and making payments to a personal attorney to handle personal affairs carries out a constitutional duty. Reimbursing Cohen for advancing hush money to Stephanie Clifford cannot be considered the performance of a constitutional duty." The judge added: "Falsifying business records to hide such reimbursement, and to transform the reimbursement into a business expense for Trump and income to Cohen, likewise does not relate to a presidential duty. Trump is not immune from the People's prosecution in New York Supreme Court. Trump can be convicted of a felony even if he did not commit any crime beyond the falsification, so long as he intended to do so or to conceal such a crime.">

<Former Donald Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis is one of many attorneys who have been indicted due to their work on behalf of the twice-impeached former president, and on Tuesday morning she sought divine intervention to help her beat the rap.

Writing on Twitter, Ellis accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of "criminalizing the practice of law" after the prosecutor indicted Ellis for her alleged role in trying to keep Trump illegally in power after he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

However, Ellis suggested that God Himself could soon play a role in her vindication.

"I am resolved to trust the Lord and I will simply continue to honor, praise, and serve Him," she added. "I deeply appreciate all of my friends who have reached out offering encouragement and support."

Ellis, who was formally censured by a judge in Colorado earlier this year after she admitted to making multiple false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, was subsequently mocked by many of her Twitter followers for invoking God after being hit with criminal charges.

"I don’t know about you, but I plan to honor and to serve the Lord today by not engaging in any racketeering conspiracies," wrote attorney and longtime Trump critic George Conway in response.

"The Lord told you to disenfranchise millions of Black voters in Georgia?" replied former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin incredulously.

Democratic Colorado State Rep. Steven Woodrow, meanwhile, said that Ellis' tweet was emblematic of her "embarrassing" legal career, while also arguing that "Colorado needs to disbar her."

And one anonymous Twitter user shredded Ellis for using her Christian faith as a shield for allegedly committing crimes.

"I must have missed that passage in the Bible that read: 'Give me your forgers, your ballot machine hackers; defeated narcissistic presidential candidates subverting democracy; illicit attorneys yearning for imprisonment,'" they wrote.>

<College students and professors in Florida are suing education officials over a new law spurred by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' war on “woke," saying it violates their constitutional rights by censoring academic freedom.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court Monday by students and professors at New College, a progressive school with a prominent LGBTQ+ community that was taken over earlier this year by DeSantis and his allies, who claimed it was indoctrinating students with leftist ideology.

Florida now leads the United States “in efforts to censor academic freedom and instruction in its college classrooms,” according to the lawsuit, which is seeking a court order to block the law from being enforced.

The measure, passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature this year, outlaws spending on diversity programs, curbs professors’ tenure security and prohibits the teaching of “identity politics” in Florida public schools.

The new law also directs university leaders to monitor against programs that are based on theories “that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”

The suit alleges that the law is unconstitutional because it is overly broad and chills free speech. Specifically, it says the law jeopardizes courses at the honors college on gender studies, queer studies, race, sociology, feminist philosophy and other subjects that affect the school’s curriculum, textbooks, classroom teachings, research and students’ educational experiences.

“In dictating to faculty and students what ideas are true and false, Florida runs headlong into the Bill of Rights,” the complaint states.

The suit names as defendants Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz; the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state's universities; and the trustees at New College, which is located in Sarasota. The Associated Press sent an email seeking comment to the education commissioner's office and the Board of Governors' office.

When DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, and his allies took over the school earlier this year, they placed conservative trustees on its board and appointed an interim president who was a former Republican speaker of the Florida State House and DeSantis’ first commissioner of education.>

<After every new indictment, Donald Trump has boasted that his standing among Republicans only improves — and he has a point.

Nearly two-thirds of Republicans — 63% — now say they want the former president to run again, according to new polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That's up slightly from the 55% who said the same in April when Trump began facing a series of criminal charges. Seven in 10 Republicans now have a favorable opinion of Trump, an uptick from the 60% who said so two months ago.

But in a crucial warning sign for the former president and his supporters, Trump faces glaring vulnerabilities heading into a general election, with many Americans strongly dug in against him. While most Republicans — 74% — say they would support him in November 2024, 53% of Americans say they would definitely not support him if he is the nominee. Another 11% say they would probably not support him in November 2024.

The findings bolster the arguments of some of Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination who laud his tenure as president, but warn that he can't win in a general election when he must compete for votes beyond the GOP base. Trump lost the popular vote in the 2016 campaign, attaining the presidency only by winning a majority in the Electoral College. He lost to Democrat Joe Biden by an even larger 7 million-vote margin in 2020, a defeat he has falsely attributed to widespread voter fraud.

Some Republicans who are pushing the party to move past Trump argue his standing with the broader public has only deteriorated since the last presidential election, dragged down by his role in sparking the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and the constant turmoil that surrounds him, epitomized by his unprecedented legal woes.

“There is a meaningful number of voters who have voted for Trump twice and can't vote for him again after all of this,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who has been running focus groups with GOP voters.

A spokesman for Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the dynamics described in the poll, which was conducted before Trump was charged late Monday in Georgia in a sprawling 98-page indictment that accuses him and 18 others of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of that state's 2020 election. He now faces a whopping 91 total felony charges in cases brought in Georgia, New York, Washington, D.C., and Florida.

Adding to Trump's headwinds, the poll found that opposition to Biden's reelection is not as deeply entrenched. The 80-year-old president, who faces only nominal rivals in a Democratic primary, faces skepticism among voters, particularly over his age. But just 43% of Americans say they would definitely not support him in a general election, with another 11% saying they probably wouldn't.

Meanwhile, the charges in Georgia and Washington have turned Trump's attention back to his grievances about the last election — something aides and allies have spent months urging Trump to limit focusing on at his events.

Hours after the Georgia indictment was made public, he announced plans on his social media site to hold an event next Monday at his New Jersey golf club to unveil a new “report” that would offer “irrefutable” proof of election fraud.

Federal and state election officials and Trump's own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence that the election was tainted. The former president's allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed. And in Georgia, the state at the center of his latest indictment, three recounts were conducted after the election — each of which confirmed his loss to Biden.

While Trump's appeals resonate among GOP voters, they are less popular among the independents and swing voters he will need to win over in a general election and were blamed for some GOP losses in the 2022 midterm elections.

“Trump needs to embody the voters’ grievances and not his own grievances,” Longwell said. “Anytime he’s talking about 2020 he’s looking backward and the voters get more excited about looking forward.”

As Trump's legal woes intensify, other Republican presidential hopefuls have spent the past week courting voters at the Iowa State Fair, a rite of passage in a more traditional era of politics. While Republicans at the fair were largely supportive of Trump, there was some evidence of concern about the political impact of the indictments....>

<....Rich Stricklett, a Republican and Trump supporter from Bondurant, Iowa, echoed Trump's dismissal of the charges as a “witch hunt.”

“I do think it’s politically driven to knock out a candidate that’s a threat to the current president,” he said. “I think that’s what they’re trying to do is make sure that I don’t go out and vote for him because he’s got that hanging over his head.”

While Stricklett pointed to polls showing indictments appear to have helped Trump in the primary, he said he is worried about the potential impact.

“What I’m concerned about,” he said, “is that it’d be enough that he wouldn’t win.”

Mary Kinney, a Republican from Des Moines who caucused for Trump in 2016, was also critical of the charges.

“It seems like they are just throwing anything at the wall to see if it will stick because they are so afraid of him,” she said.

But as Kinney eyes the next election, she's planning to support South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott in the caucuses, arguing that it's time for the party to move forward with a next-generation candidate.

“I think people are just done with it,” she said. “It’s time to move on. I think people are trying to move forward from 2020.”

But others warn that it would be premature to assume Trump's legal woes will lead to his political downfall. Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary, said he was skeptical that the onetime president would face political consequences from the courtroom dramas.

“Anybody else, circumstances would be much different," he said. “But one of the key things that President Trump has done well on is kind of positioned this as, 'They're going after me because I dared to take on the machine, I dared to take on the swamp, I dared to take on the establishment.'”

Walker said he believes there are many voters — "not only in the primary, but a lot of swing voters ... who've been let down so many times” and “want someone who's not afraid of anyone. So in some ways, this makes the point that he just may be doing right for the average American because the left is out to get him.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally who blasted the charges as “disgusting," predicted they would “enrage the country” and help Trump, even in a general election.

“I think every American who cares about the rule of law should be enraged by what they saw," Gingrich said. “He'll be stronger and he'll win the general election.">

<In October 2019, then-Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey was one of just two members of his party to vote against launching an impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump.

"Without bipartisan support I believe this inquiry will further divide the country tearing it apart at the seams and will ultimately fail in the Senate," Van Drew said in a statement at the time.

House Democrats had decided to launch the inquiry after a whistleblower came forward alleging that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden. The House later voted to impeach Trump along partisan lines, and the effort did fail in the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans at the time.

Van Drew famously switched parties a few months later and has since become a stalwart Trump backer who votes in lockstep with House Republicans.

And now that he's a Republican, he's pushing for an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden — despite the fact that the inquiry is likely to also be a partisan affair, and the fact that the effort would almost certainly fail in the Senate, which is now controlled by Democrats.

"We have to be a little tough about this, we can't be weak-kneed as Republicans," Van Drew said on Fox Business recently.

Notably, Van Drew is calling for an inquiry in relation to Hunter Biden's business dealings — the same reason that Trump sought to pressure Zelenskyy to investigate him in 2019.

On a conference call with House Republicans on Monday, Van Drew again spoke up in favor of the effort, according to multiple reports.

"It is definitely time, as we come back in September, in my opinion, for an impeachment inquiry," said Van Drew on a conference call with House Republicans on Monday evening, according to Semafor.

Van Drew's office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the congressman's apparent change of heart on the divisiveness of partisan impeachment inquiries.>

<The doomsaying from some Republicans that the party can’t win if former President Donald Trump isn’t the nominee is both a terrible way to run a party and simply wrong.

Some GOP strategists are again warning that if Trump does not win the nomination, his most fervent supporters “will take their ball and go home,” putting the party in an unwinnable race in 2024. There is much ado made about Trump’s base and his “unique coalition,” so much so that these strategists apparently do not see a universe where any Republican other than Trump ever wins again.

The notion of Trump being some unique political force on the national stage has always been wildly overrated. He won in 2016 thanks to a unique combination of the national mood and the national rejection of Hillary Clinton. Of the six states that Trump flipped in 2016 compared to 2012, three of them (Iowa, Ohio, and Florida) are already predisposed to vote for Republicans or have grown more Republican over the past decade. Of the other three, Trump won Wisconsin with fewer votes than 2012 nominee Mitt Romney received when he lost the state.

Moreover, Trump’s “unique coalition” and fervent base have been useless to the GOP over the last three election cycles. That includes his 2020 defeat in which he lost the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and the formerly reliable Republican states of Arizona and Georgia. If such a mediocre political talent as Joe Biden can get enough turnout to become president (against Trump), why are we so convinced that only Trump can muster the turnout to win a presidential election?

In fact, we have seen this play out on a smaller scale in Georgia. Trump declared war against Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for not stealing the election on Trump’s behalf and recruited former Sen. David Perdue to primary Kemp. Kemp then beat Perdue by 52 percentage points in the primary. Whatever Trump-only Republicans took their ball home for the general election proved to be insignificant, because Kemp then won reelection by 7.5 points in a state that Trump lost.

The percentage of Trump-only GOP voters in the electorate is vastly overestimated. Many of Trump’s most devoted supporters will continue to vote for someone such as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) or whomever else the GOP nominates because most of them don’t want Biden (or Vice President Kamala Harris) to win. And even if a small amount of Trump’s biggest supporters stay home, a non-Trump nominee would put suburban voters back on the table for the GOP.

Believe it or not, the political landscape did not freeze in place in 2016. Things change. The idea that the GOP should let Trump hold it hostage because of some unique (and mythical) hold over GOP voters in a general election is absurd. If you truly think that the party can’t win without the guy who lost the last presidential election, then it would seem that your political analysis is broken.>

<Donald Trump was not at a loss for words Monday night after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the first Black woman to serve in the position, became the latest prosecutor to indict the former president.

"So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney," the former president posted Monday evening on his social media platform Truth Social.

Willis is spearheading the investigation that led to a Georgia grand jury indicting the 2024 presidential candidate and several of his allies on charges of conspiracy to try to overturn the election results in Georgia. She is the most recent example of a Black judge, district attorney or prosecutor bearing the brunt of Trump's verbal attacks that are often interlaced with racial undertones.

Trump has used words like "racist" and "criminal" to describe Black prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump and his family-run business for fraud last September, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to an adult film actress.

"He consistently refers to any prosecutor that is investigating him or bringing charges against him who happens to be Black, he refers to that person as racist," Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University, told USA TODAY.

A week before Donald Trump was struck with a fourth indictment − this time out of Georgia − the former president telegraphed a familiar offensive against the investigation’s lead prosecutor.

A 60-second spot by the Trump campaign called Willis the “newest lackey” for President Joe Biden and national Democrats. It also blames Willis for Atlanta’s crime rate, which is an attack often lobbed by Trump and his allies against prosecutors.

But the TV ad went further by asserting Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.”

It's a claim she has vehemently denied, and one that is easily debunked by fact-checkers. But it represents a troubling escalation, according to civil rights leaders, who point to a pattern of racially fueled attacks against Black officials in the U.S. legal justice system.

“Trump's pattern is to attack the prosecutors, particularly the prosecutors and judges of color,” Marc Morial, president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, told USA TODAY. “Trump's pattern is to attack Black women, especially.”

The same campaign ad also labeled prosecutors James, Bragg, Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith − who charged Trump in Washington D.C. in connection with an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election − a "Fraud Squad."

Trump has frequently referred to Willis and other Black prosecutors who've hounded him legally as racist.

James, the first black attorney general in New York, sued Trump and his family-run business for fraud last September, alleging that they overvalued property holdings in order to obtain favorable bank loans. When James first filed the suit, the former president said she is "racist" and called her "Peekaboo."

Cunningham said Trump's practice of calling black prosecutors "racist" is "one of the most despicable" and "just beyond the bounds."

"It's a completely indefensible thing for him to do and he's very consistent about it," he said.

Bragg, who serves as New York City borough's first Black district attorney, became the first prosecutor to criminally charge a former president. Trump pled not guilty to the 34 felony counts listed in the indictment.

Trump then attacked Bragg and his family during remarks to supporters at Mar-A-Lago hours after his New York arraignment. He later called Bragg a "criminal" and alleged the district attorney leaked grand jury information and should be prosecuted.

Trump has since targeted U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan who is overseeing the case charging Trump with seeking to steal the 2020 election. The former president called her "highly partisan."

Morial points out how the former president chastised Chutkan by saying the Jamaican-born federal judge who identifies as Black and Asian is “biased” and “unfair” without explanation.

"I think it's designed to try to appeal to his base, to discredit the integrity of these prosecutors and their competence and their ability," Morial said.

"To suggest, 'you see, they're Black, they're political, they're out to get me, I'm a white guy.' He's playing the victim. He plays it consistently. He plays it aggressively, and I think that most of Americans are not falling for that."....>

<.....The verbal attacks toward prosecutors of color have been mirrored by others in the Republican party.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running against Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell, a Black Democrat and elected prosecutor for Orange and Osceola counties. He contended that Worrell failed to pursue appropriate charges in serious cases.

"This is an outrage," Worrell posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. "I will not be bullied by DeSantis or used as a tool in his failing and disastrous presidential campaign."

Her suspension drew concern from the National District Attorneys Association. The organization wrote in a press release: "We firmly believe in the critical importance of preserving the independence and exercise of discretion of locally elected prosecutors."

Worrell was not the first state attorney removed by DeSantis − he previously pulled Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren from office last year over what was viewed as his progressive political stance.

Unlike other parts of the country, top Republicans in Georgia have publicly defied Trump and have taken stances opposing the former president's false claims the 2020 election was rigged.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a popular GOP incumbent who is mentioned as a possible White House hopeful, has publicly criticized Trump since winning reelection in 2022. He wrote on X Tuesday the 2020 election was not stolen.

"The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus," Kemp posted, replying to a Truth Social post from Trump claiming to have an "irrefutable report" on election fraud in Georgia that will be released next week.

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, has repeatedly defied Trump's claims that the last presidential contest was stolen. He resisted pressure from then-President Trump in January 2021 to "find" more votes and reverse Biden's victory in the state.

"The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don't," Raffensperger said in a statement Tuesday.

Cunningham told USA TODAY he wishes more Republicans − like Kemp or Raffensperger − would call Trump out specifically for his labeling of Black prosecutors as racist.

"It's striking in Georgia that he's gone after the top stakeholders who are Republicans and all of them won reelection handily," Cunningham said.

"I think Georgia keeps him awake at night because his tricks don't seem to work here," he added.>

<Freshman Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) has introduced articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden. The charges relate to his son, Hunter Biden, whose plea negotiations with newly appointed Special Counsel David Weiss are ongoing.

Unfortunately for Steube, there’s “not a whiff of evidence” against the president, as Washington Post analyst Philip Bump put it.

Trump-supportive Republicans in the House have admitted as much. On Aug. 9, Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) stated, “Well, we’ve never claimed that we have direct money going to the president, but many members of his family have received money from foreign governments.”

Similarly, on August 11, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) came up empty on CNN. Host Jake Tapper told Comer, “I don’t see any evidence of any crime…It seems like you’re trying just to go after President Biden.” Comer responded evasively by saying, in effect, that he might eventually come up with the evidence. He’s already run innumerable committee hearings to dig some up some dirt, but all his shovel comes up with is innuendo.

Comer and his right-wing allies are on fire, trying to signal smoke. It’s obvious why. They’re desperate to use mere allegations to counter real evidence against former President Donald Trump, who faces three — likely soon four — indictments.

But here’s what may not be as obvious — a collateral Trumpist benefit beyond the immediate partisan rubbing of sticks together to produce smoke. Republicans want to drain impeachment of meaning as a future tool of presidential accountability. The covert goal is to feed citizens’ cynicism about impeachment.

The hope is that voters will discount any future impeachment of Trump, should he be reelected with a Democratic-majority House that tries to stop his inevitable attempts to dismantle the Constitution. It was only eight months ago that Trump called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Steube’s effort is not likely to result in an actual impeachment. There are 18 Republican members of the House elected from districts that President Biden won. They’re not sold on impeachment, understanding their vulnerability in 2024 if they vote to impeach without the goods.

On July 25, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), plainly having counted the votes, walked back his earlier statements about an impeachment inquiry.

Even so, a steady drumbeat of misinformation, like that alleged in Steube’s proposed “articles,” gets heard, particularly on right-wing channels. Eventually, as we’ve seen with Trump’s lies about the election being stolen, constantly replayed misinformation takes its toll on the institutions of the republic.

Steube’s current proposal is a far cry from the impeachments of Donald Trump, where, in support of articles asserting abuse of his office, there was indisputable evidence.

It’s true that the framers of the Constitution worried that Congress might potentially abuse the impeachment power, dividing Americans along partisan lines “friendly or inimical to the accused,” as Alexander Hamilton wrote.

Ultimately, though, the Founders overcame that concern and followed James Madison’s counsel that the Impeachment Clause was “indispensable … for defending the Community [against] the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.” They understood that “impeachment was needed as a check against presidential abuse of power.”

An effort to impeach Biden without evidence endangers future Congresses’ ability to fulfill that need. The shameful effort to subvert the impeachment power is meant, at least in part, to weaken an “indispensable” tool against the future “perfidy of the chief Magistrate.”

Trumpist Republicans are hoping that in 2025, the name of America’s “chief Magistrate” is Donald Trump, and that no future Congress will have an effective check or balance against his power to do as he wishes.

By filing transparently partisan articles of impeachment without evidence, Steube and his comrades hope to lead more and more voters to say in the future, “They all do it.” It matters that each of us who can, along with political analysts, speak out against cynical politicians who want to infect the public with their cynicism.>

<Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., was one of the loudest voices spreading former President Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election. And yet he reportedly spent the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol trying to reach Trump to urge him to call off his supporters. That deeply ironic moment appears to have been an aberration. More than two years later, Gaetz is still in Congress — and still promoting the same incendiary rhetoric that suggests that voters aren’t the ones who should have the last say in who runs Washington.

Gaetz was standing alongside Trump at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday when, referring to himself and Trump, he said, “We know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.” At best, it’s a striking advocacy of the idea that “might means right” over support for debate and compromise. At worst, it’s an endorsement from a sitting congressman of the sort of political violence we saw two years ago.

We know Trump’s supporters believed in the necessity of force as they tore through the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 after Trump told them in his speech on the Ellipse: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Despite the horrible events that transpired afterward, here’s Gaetz saying essentially the same thing.

According to the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation and final report, Trump’s words, actions and inactions showed his support for the insurrection that took place in his name. His attempt to corruptly obstruct Congress’ counting of electoral votes, the main goal of the insurrectionists, is the basis for one of four counts special counsel Jack Smith has brought against him. It’s also the conclusion of a draft law review article, which I wrote about Monday, arguing that Trump is ineligible for office based on the 14th Amendment’s clause disqualifying officials who support insurrections from holding office.

Multiple people have emailed to ask why the same couldn’t be said of members of Congress like Gaetz who supported the insurrection, both before the attack and after, in the halls of the Capitol. The answer is “it can and should,” according to the article’s authors:

With the House’s power to judge the “qualifications” of its members, its members would be well within their power to find that multiple Republican members are disqualified for their support of the Jan. 6 insurrection, including Gaetz. I don’t have the space here to go in depth about why this process differs from recent incidents featuring Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who won out against a lawsuit aiming to block her from the 2022 ballot under the 14th Amendment, and George Santos of New York, whose lies had many arguing he shouldn’t be seated this year. But in brief, neither of them met the requirements for disqualification the amendment lays out the same way several of their colleagues would....>

<.....Meanwhile, I’ve previously argued that at least six of Trump’s congressional allies should be booted from the House for their support for his attempt to cling to power. It’s a different process, with a higher bar, but still well within the rights of the House to expel them, as the draft law review article’s authors also note.

The better question, then, is: “Why hasn’t the 14th Amendment been upheld by Congress?” The answer: House Republicans have chosen power over the Constitution. That primarily falls on the party’s leadership, especially Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. At the opening of the 118th Congress — the ideal time to challenge the seating of pro-insurrection members — McCarthy prioritized winning the gavel, which he couldn’t have won had he punished members whose votes he needed. Refusing to seat even four members would have been enough to prevent the GOP from having a majority at all.

Given his desire to be in power and his furious attempts to discredit the Jan. 6 committee’s findings, it makes sense that McCarthy would be silent about pro-insurrection House members. But any member of the House GOP could have raised a point of order in January, questioning the legitimacy of the pro-insurrectionists’ holding their seats. If the chair then put that question to the members-elect, there’s a nonzero chance it could have passed with Democratic support. That having been said, it’s disappointing that no Democrat attempted something similar. Even if it was in the end voted down, it would have showcased a respect for the Constitution’s anti-insurrection provision that would haunt the GOP for the rest of this Congress and beyond.

The best reason I can glean as to why that didn’t happen is also political: Why draw attention away from the farce that is the divided GOP by forcing it to stand united against what it could frame as an external power grab? That having been said, a Democratic member of the House could choose to spend the rest of this session raising a point of order whenever a colleague who has given aid and comfort to insurrectionists rises to speak.

Not raising the issue gives members like Gaetz the belief that their words won’t come back to haunt them. Thus, he brazenly stands next to the man who fired up a mob that tried to subvert the will of American voters and suggests that his supporters need to make a show of force.>

<Former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials and legal scholars are balking at Donald Trump’s free speech defense as the former president and his allies argue special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against the former president “is an attack on free speech and political advocacy,” the Guardian reports.

Trump’s attorney John Lauro made that claim during an Aug. 2 interview with CNN after prosecutors on Aug.1 unveiled a 45-page indictment in the DOJ investigation of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump, in that indictment, was charged with four felony counts, “ including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding,” Politico reports.

“After pleading not guilty, Trump used one of his Truth Social posts on 3 August to charge that ‘ the Radical Left wants to Criminalize Free Speech!’ and cited comments from Republican allies echoing his claims,” the Guardian reports.

That line of defense, according to the Guardian “is prompting ex-Department of Justice officials and scholars to criticize such claims as bogus and as threats to the rule of law.”

Per the Guardian:

… Former justice department officials, scholars and ex-Republican House members say Trump’s actions and schemes went far beyond free speech, and that Trump and his allies are weakening the justice system and could breed new conspiracy theories by making a first amendment defense. Critics say Trump allies embracing his free-speech claims seem to be trying to cover themselves with the party’s base and to rationalize sticking with Trump, despite the indictment’s sizable body of damning evidence revealing Trump’s active role in unprecedented and illegal ploys to overturn the 2020 result.

Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general, told the Guardian, “Trump is deliberately distorting the critical difference between just saying things and actively doing things that have criminal consequences.”

“Obviously, he didn’t just talk about the idea that he won the election,” Ayer said. “The indictment lists several areas of conduct where he conspired and acted repeatedly to alter the outcome of the legitimate voting process that occurred. For Trump or others to now be claiming there is no difference between the two is to once again undermine the very idea that our society is governed by rules that people are required to follow.”

Former federal prosecutors, according to the Guardian “say Trump is playing fast and loose with the facts, and mounting a dangerous defense.”

“The indictment highlights how Trump and his co-conspirators relied on speech not just to speak their truth or rally their adherents, but to push hard, behind the scenes, to pressure others into assisting the charged fraud,” former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman told the Guardian.

Richman said Trump’s defense “is more for the crowds than for the courtroom” as Trump supporters “find it politically useful to wave the First Amendment banner.”

“… The effect is simply to advance the theme of political victimhood, and undermine trust in the judicial process,” Richman said.

Harvard government professor Steven Levitsky echoed a similar sentiment, telling the Guardian, “Republicans don’t believe this stuff.”

“Nobody believes conspiracy to commit a crime is free speech,” Levitsky said. “It’s what they say because they can’t say they support Trump, despite the fact that he is a criminal and an authoritarian.”

Former Republican congressman Dave Trott told the Guardian that Trump’s distortion of the First Amendment is playing into the party’s anti-DOJ message.

“The GOP has historically been the law and order party, but I think their new strategy for retaking the House is to exacerbate the narrative that DOJ and the courts are biased and corrupt,” Trott said.>

<With China at risk of tipping into prolonged stagnation and a spiralling property crisis threatening financial stability, there is growing unease over why its leaders are not rushing to revive the world's second-largest economy.

Even in a country known for opaque and drawn-out decision making, investors, analysts and diplomats are pointing to signs that Beijing seems hesitant to deliver the bold policies needed to prop up an ailing post-COVID recovery.

This is not just an economic problem but a geopolitical one.

U.S. President Joe Biden - at loggerheads with China over hot-button issues like Taiwan, the democratic island Beijing claims as its own - last week called China a "ticking time bomb" due to its economic ills. "That's not good because when bad folks have problems, they do bad things," Biden said.

So why has China's response been so tepid?

The view of several China watchers is that President Xi Jinping's focus on national security is restricting and working counter to the economic effort, scaring off the money Beijing says it is seeking to attract.

"The core problem this year is that the leadership has given vague, high-level instructions for officials to balance economic development against national security," said Christopher Beddor, deputy director of China research at Gavekal Dragonomics.

"If officials are unsure what the leadership wants them to do, they're likely to put off any action until they receive more information. The result is policy paralysis, even if that comes at a substantial cost."

Others say the Communist Party's ingrained hesitancy towards measures that could shift power from the state to the private sector, and a government stacked with Xi's loyalists, may be stifling the policy debate and stymieing the response.

To be sure, change in China can take time, as demonstrated by its insistence on maintaining economically damaging COVID-19 restrictions through most of last year, even as the rest of the world opened up.

China has shown timely resolve in the past, responding comprehensively to stem growth worries during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and a capital outflow scare in 2015.

Major policy change is often also heavily choreographed, with a December economic meeting usually the venue to formulate such resolutions.

Economists say China needs measures to boost consumption and business confidence, such as tax cuts or government-funded consumption vouchers, but add that unlike previous slowdowns, there is no quick fix.

China has hit back at criticism of its response.

"A small number of Western politicians and media amplify and hype up the temporary problems existing in China's economic recovery," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told media on Wednesday.

"They will eventually be slapped in the face by reality," he said.

Wang's comments came after weak economic activity data on Tuesday fuelled concern that China is heading for a deeper, longer slowdown....>

<....'PERCEPTION GAP'

The government has also suspended publishing data on youth unemployment, which has hit record highs in what analysts say is partly a symptom of regulatory crackdowns on big employers in the technology, education, real estate and finance sectors.

Without giving details, the State Council on Thursday said it would "optimise" the environment for private firms and make greater effort to attract foreign investment. The private sector accounts for 60% of gross domestic product and 80% of urban employment, officials say.

But there is a growing disconnect between officials calling for investment and a sweeping national security crackdown that is denting business confidence, diplomats in China say.

One example was a recent anti-espionage law, accompanied by raids on some foreign consultancy firms, that sent waves of anxiety through the foreign business community.

The commerce ministry met foreign businesses in July to say the law provided assurances for firms operating in China and that it should not be of concern, according to a diplomat and another source briefed on the meeting. Both declined to be identified.

But the assurance only underlined a "significant perception gap" between the government and foreign businesses, the diplomat said. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"What people are really hearing is 'we're open for business, but only on our terms'," said Lee Smith, a trade attorney at Baker Donelson who previously worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce on trade policies affecting business with China.

There may be more deep-seated reasons leaders are not rushing with measures to bolster confidence in the private sector, said Xu Chenggang, a scholar at Stanford University's Center on China's Economy and Institutions.

"A perennial fear of the Chinese Communist Party is that it could be overthrown if capitalism and the private economy grow strong enough," said Xu.

Xu said such thinking had been conspicuous under Xi, who has snuffed out dissent during his decade in power and stacked his government with loyalists after securing a precedent-breaking third term last year.

A day after this week's dire data, the Party's official journal published a speech from Xi in which he warned against Western capitalist economic models. The speech, delivered in February, made no mention of structural imbalances or how to solve them.

"We may all have to live with a less vibrant economy for a long time," said Xu.>

<Nothing is being done to curb Donald Trump from encouraging violence in his name – so it's only going to get worse, an expert wrote Thursday,

Threats against judges and prosecutors are escalating, and members of the grand jury in Georgia have become targets of some Trump supporters with their names, photos and, in some cases, addresses posted online. Judge Tanya Chutkan, in particular, was targeted with racist threats to kill her if Trump is not elected in 2024.

Meanwhile, Republicans – whether they're Trump allies or not – aren't stepping in to lower the temperature.

Salon's Chauncey Devega emailed Dr. Justin Frank, who previously taught psychiatry at George Washington University and penned the book "Trump on the Couch."

According to Frank, Chutkan is the one that met Trump's threats head-on when he was arraigned in Washington.

"Medical care has three basic stages: prevention of illness, treatment of acute illness and treatment of chronic illness," he told Devega. "The threat to American democracy's health from Donald Trump is real; already we are dealing with chronic political illness that continues to proliferate untreated."

He called Chutkan "courageous" for "trying to prevent further damage" to the country from Trump and his "mob."

"Yet the remedy of surrounding courthouses with police protection is weak tea, as we've already seen when it comes to preventing the kind of violence Trump engineered on Jan. 6, 2021," he explained, highlighting the need for preventative measures.

"The disgraced former president continues to play both ends against the middle, trying to intimidate some while provoking others. He remains a dangerous, mutating virus that requires preventative measures," said Frank. "If only there were a vaccine for 'Virus 45' that spews threats that continue to poison our national sanity itself.

"He should be held in custody before trial, if at all possible. He has been granted bail his entire life. It doesn't work. As President George W. Bush once said, 'Containment doesn't hold water.' I'm inclined to agree; it certainly has no effect on Donald Trump."

Brynn Tannehill, who wrote "American Fascism: How the GOP Is Subverting Democracy," reinforced the concept that MAGA is becoming dangerously violent.

"Something in excess of three-quarters of all terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11 has come from right-wing sources, and only about 4 percent from the left," Tannehill told Devega. "My sources tell me that federal law enforcement is concerned about what will happen after Nov. 7, 2024, regardless of who wins, but much more so if Trump loses. This weekend we saw Matt Gaetz standing on a stage with Trump arguing that the only path to meaningful change is violence."

She went on to cite an incident last week in Utah in which a man posted on his social media that he was waiting for the FBI to visit with his gun. When he met them at the door with that gun, they shot him, according to reports.

"Trump himself will do anything to stay out of prison, which is looking more and more likely if he doesn't win in 2024," said Tannehill. "He will absolutely attempt to incite violence again if he thinks his next stop is prison. What's he got to lose at that point? If he doesn't stage a coup, he's in prison for the rest of his life. If his coup fails, he's in prison for the rest of his life. If it succeeds, he's safe as long as he hangs on.

"For Trump, there's literally no downside to encouraging violence if he loses, and his followers are getting the message, just like the guy in Utah."

For Trump, it's a no-win situation where the only option is to flee to Russia, or an outright war against the United States.>

<A hate speech watchdog group Republicans have accused of coordinating with the federal government to censor conservatives on social media says GOP lawmakers are mistaken.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) responded to an inquiry from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Thursday, writing in a letter that Republicans "may not have a clear understanding" of the group's mission or work.

Jordan previously sent a letter to CCDH accusing the organization of participating in a "censorship regime" facilitated by the Biden administration with cooperation from social media companies.

"Given the stated purpose of the letter and its requests for documents and information, we fear that the Committee may not have a clear understanding of CCDH’s mission or work," a lawyer representing CCDH wrote in response to the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

"Considering the seriousness of this allegation and the underlying concerns regarding online disinformation, we feel compelled to set the record straight."

On Aug. 3, Jordan demanded that CCDH turn over documents and communications between the organization and the executive branch and social media companies. Judiciary Republicans also requested information on any and all funds CCDH received from the federal government.

In its response, CCDH explained its status as a non-for-profit 501(c)(3) and non-governmental organization "that seeks to disrupt the architecture of online hate and misinformation." The letter reiterated CCDH's stated mission and highlighted its work with both Republican and Democratic administrations.

The group claimed it has an obligation "to remain nonpolitical and nonpartisan."

The letter also addressed lawmakers' questions over CCDH's funding.

"CCDH is funded entirely by private donors and has never received any grants, entered into any contracts, or received any donations from the United States Government," the letter emphasized.

CCDH's lawyers noted that Jordan's initial Aug. 3 letter was sent on the same day the Judiciary Committee released a press release that cited a lawsuit filed by X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, against the organization. Questioning the timing, the letter said CCDH "will not be dissuaded from pursuing its vital mission by litigation, governmental inquiry, or public pressure."

In the lawsuit filed earlier this month, X Corp. claimed CCDH published "misleading claims" and exaggerated the prevalence of harmful content on X to thwart investment from advertisers.

X Corp. said the "scare campaign" was accomplished by illegally scraping data and cherry-picking inflammatory posts to support the CCDH's thesis about hate speech on the platform.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed denied the allegations and stood by his group's claims that hate speech increased on X after Musk bought the platform.>

<It didn’t exactly come as a surprise when Sen. Tom Cotton rallied behind Donald Trump in the wake of the former president’s latest indictment. But what struck me as interesting was how the Arkansas Republican responded to this week’s developments in Fulton County.

Here was Cotton’s pitch yesterday during an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s program:

For now, let’s put aside some of the more obvious flaws in the far-right senator’s comments. We could dwell on some of the details — it wasn't "liberals in the media" sitting on the grand juries; there’s nothing to suggest the special counsel is a “rabid zealot”; the “woman in Atlanta” has a name — but we can revisit these concerns at another time.

What’s more, let’s also brush past the highly relevant detail that indicting Trump does not actually take him “out of contention” for elected office, making the senator’s entire argument rather odd.

Instead, what instead stood out as especially notable was Cotton’s belief that the former president’s detractors should try to stop him “at the ballot box,” as opposed to wanting to see him held accountable in the courts for alleged crimes.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said effectively the same thing on Fox News shortly before Trump’s latest indictment was unsealed. “The American people can decide whether they want him to be president or not,” the South Carolina Republican said. “This should be decided at the ballot box.”

Sen. Ted Cruz used slightly different phrasing, but the Republican pushed a very similar line during his own Fox News appearance this week. To hear the Texan tell it, Democrats only support Trump’s prosecution “because they’re afraid of the voters.”

This doesn’t have to be complicated. There are a handful of ways to hold Trump accountable for wrongdoing. He can be charged by prosecutors who’ve assembled evidence by way of a grand jury, but Republicans are against that. He can be punished by the Congress — impeachment, conviction, and being barred from office — but Republicans are against that, too.

Or Trump can be defeated by the electorate — which certainly has some appeal, though there’s one glaring problem: Americans already tried that.

As we discussed earlier in the week, it’s obviously true that in a democracy, differences are resolved at the ballot box. But — and this is the important part — when the American electorate went to ballot boxes and cast votes in 2020, Trump and his cohorts decided not to accept the results. In fact, according to evidence compiled by prosecutors across multiple jurisdictions, the outgoing president decided to try to overturn the election and put illegitimate power in the hands of the candidate who lost.

In other words, the United States tried to decide the former president’s fate at the ballot box, and Trump decided not to care. This isn’t some obscure, tangential point; it’s the foundation of the entire scandal.

Cotton and his cohorts have made the case that election results should reign supreme, but the accused felon — the one their [sic] so eager to defend — has made clear that he doesn’t respect or accept election results he doesn’t like.

Do these Republican senators not understand this, or are they simply pretending to be obtuse?>

<US District Judge Aileen Cannon has canceled tentative plans to hold a hearing on August 25 on a protective order for classified evidence in the Mar-a-Lago documents case against former President Donald Trump.

She said in an order Thursday that the proceeding will take place under seal at a different time “and place to discuss sensitive, security-related issues concerning classified discovery.”

Cannon gave the newest co-defendant in the case, Carlos De Oliveira, until August 22 to submit any briefing he wants to offer on the proposed protective order, which will set the rules for how classified evidence is handled in discovery.

Cannon’s move to announce the hearing will be a sealed one comes even as court submissions weighing in on the prosecutors’ request for the protective order – known as a Section 3 motion under the Classified Information Procedures Act – have been filed publicly. It was not clear from the judge’s latest order whether she intended to publicly announce at a later date when and where the sealed hearing would be.

Experts on CIPA law – which sets the timeline and protocols for resolving how classified evidence should be handled in a case – have told CNN that while many of the steps laid out by the law usually happen in secret, at least some proceedings, including those related to Section 3 can sometimes take place at least partially in public view.

So far, the proceedings in the classified documents case – which are largely playing out in Cannon’s courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida – have been less accessible than the approach taken in federal court in Washington, DC, where Trump was indicted for his 2020 alleged election subversion plots, and in the courthouses in Atlanta and New York City where Trump is also facing criminal charges.

Lawyers for Trump and special counsel Jack Smith’s office disagree over the prosecutors’ proposed rules for where Trump can discuss with his lawyers classified evidence handed over to the defense. Trump has asked to be allowed to reestablish a secure facility at his residence that he used while he was president to hold such discussions, while Smith’s team has argued that such an accommodation would be unprecedented and that his Florida residence dual purpose as a “social club” makes such a set-up especially unworkable.

Meanwhile, Trump’s co-defendant and aide Walt Nauta is pushing back against the Smith’s [sic] team proposed requirement that he seek permission from the court or government before reviewing certain classified evidence himself.

Trump, Nauta and de Oliveira have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include multiple alleged obstruction-related offenses, and for Trump, several counts of mishandling national defense information.>

Nauta is another p**** serving the wrong cause. Hope he gets hung out to dry, thus learning that his massa knows no loyalty to anyone save himself.

<Former Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman wants to separate his own legal case from Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other defendants whose cases are far 'weaker' than his own, he claims.

Eastman will not cooperate with prosecutors as they seek to convict him and 18 other defendants charged this week in a criminal conspiracy as part of Trump's election overturn effort, his team insists.

And he is eager to distance himself from the others in legal jeopardy as quickly as possible, believing he can be acquitted in a trial that would take just a few weeks.

'The people with stronger defenses don’t want to be tarred by the problems with the people with the weaker defenses,' Eastman's lawyer Harvey Silvergate told DailyMail.com.

'The former mayor of New York is in a very different position than John Eastman,' he added. 'It may be that the former mayor of New York and Trump and a couple others will be tried together,' he predicted.

The move is a key early sign of what could be a relentless rush for life preservers following a sprawling indictment that joins 19 defendants – and names a series of unindicted co-conspirators who may be cooperating with prosecutors.

Their fates are now joined amid a massive legal and logistical challenge from bringing a racketeering case against 19 defendants. All have been ordered to appear before August 25 to be arrested.

Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is already trying to have his case moved out of Georgia to federal court, when he can try to put up an immunity defense for conduct undertaken as a U.S. government official.

Silvergate has previously said Eastman plans to focus his defense on his role as a lawyer – providing advice and penning arguments on behalf of his client, Trump, who according to prosecutors was engaged in an all-out effort to remain in office despite losing to Joe Biden.

'Eastman is in a unique position because he is the only one who acted 100 per cent in his role as a lawyer for his client,' he said.

'He's going to plead not guilty. He's going to make no deals. We're going to trial,' he said. 'We hope we'll go to trial alone, because it makes more sense in the world.'

Giuliani also served as a Trump lawyer. He is the second person named after the ex-president in the sweeping indictment handed up Tuesday night.

He faces significant exposure in the Fulton County case. He is charged with 13 counts, among them false statement and solicitation of public officials amid the 'fake' electors scheme.

Giuliani himself testified before the grand jury, and is working to extricate himself from a legal morass that has him facing attorney fees that could stretch into 7-figures.

That alone makes him a potential target for cooperation, assuming prosecutors were open to a deal. He reportedly went to Mar-a-Lago recently seeking assistance with his legal bills from Trump.

Eastman himself is charged with racketeering, solicitation of violation of oath, conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public officer, and conspiracy to commit false statements.

He drafted a crucial memo that sketched out options for Trump, including having Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept electoral votes certified by states once a group of states Trump was contesting sent in 'alternate' electors.

The indictment says Eastman emailed Giuliani on December 2020 and forwarded a memo by lawyer John Chesebro titled: 'The Real Deadline for Settling a State's Electoral Votes.' It says he phoned Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers asking him to 'unlawfully' appoint electors.

It also states he urged Mike Pence's chief of staff to have the vice president refuse to accept votes, and that Trump and Eastman were on a Jan. 5 call to Pence in which they tried to persuade him to do the same. He also spoke at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.

Eastman is among several defendants who could try to make a First Amendment defense, while also using their role as counsel as a shield. Silvergate has called the charges an effort to 'criminalize' advocacy.

'I believe that if the Eastman trial is held separately it could be completed in less than two weeks,' Silvergate said. 'And he will be acquitted. Because it is very, very clear that he committed no crimes,' he added.

Even while he sorts his court battle in Georgia, Eastman is fighting to keep his law license in California, where members of a state bar want to sanction him immediately over his role in the January 6 unrest.

Silvergate called that 'right out of Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts: first the punishment, then the trial.' He wants the bar to await the outcome in Georgia.

<As of today, congressional Republicans have filed six separate impeachment resolutions targeting President Joe Biden. Of course, today isn’t over yet, and it’s possible we’ll soon see a seventh.

The half-dozen impeachment resolutions have quite a bit in common. They were all introduced by far-right House members. They all fail to point to any evidence of the Democrat actually doing anything wrong. And they’re all destined to eventually fail, since there’s no way 67 senators will convict the president and remove Biden from office in response to a scandal that doesn’t exist.

So why are so many GOP members bothering? As it turns out, Rep. Matt Gaetz participated in a Twitter Space earlier this week and the Florida Republican explained the entire strategy, out loud, with unexpected candor. As The New Republic summarized:

The congressman acknowledged that, realistically, those expecting to remove Biden from office through the impeachment process need to lower their expectations. “Let me break it to all of you: There’s no conviction and removal of Joe Biden coming on impeachment,” Gaetz conceded. “I know that. You know that. Anyone with rational thought knows that given Chuck Schumer’s control of the Senate. And frankly, the way that that Senate Republicans view Joe Biden and seem to work with him for their own selfish objectives.”

But if the goal isn’t to use impeachment for its stated purpose, why would Gaetz be such an enthusiastic proponent of pursuing it anyway?

“[T]he purpose of the impeachment to me is to use the Senate as the stage,” he explained. “But [senators are] not the jury. The jury is the American people. And if we had the Senate as the stage and the platform for James Comer to put on his evidence and advance this impeachment, it will not result in a conviction, but the true verdict can still be rendered by the American people.”

Oh. So as Gaetz sees it, whether the impeachment process works as designed is irrelevant. Rather, what GOP members of Congress should do, according to the Florida Republican, is use the process to sully Biden ahead of his re-election bid. The “trial” would effectively be an attack ad. The political theatrics wouldn’t be incidental; they’d be the sole purpose of the exercise.

For his part, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly raised the prospect of an impeachment inquiry, but Gaetz dismissed such talk.

“I think when we talk about it like, ‘Oh well, if we have an inquiry, then we can get more evidence!’ what you’re what you’re saying implicitly in that is that you don’t feel like you have sufficient evidence now,” the Floridian added. “It’s actually a degradation of your existing evidence to take that approach rather than proceeding I think, a more, more explicitly towards impeachment.”

As much as I appreciate Gaetz’s willingness to elucidate the partisan plan, there’s a nagging detail he apparently doesn’t yet appreciate: There is no incriminating evidence against Biden. House GOP leaders are "implicitly" saying they don't have "sufficient evidence now" because — wait for it — they don’t have sufficient evidence now.

To hear the congressman tell it, a Senate trial would be devastating for the White House because it would create a platform for Republicans to make their case against the president. The “existing evidence,” Gaetz claimed, is so brutal that there’s no point in even delaying the process to look for more substantiation.

And if the House GOP had come up with actual evidence of Biden’s misdeeds, this might be an effective plan. But, again, Gaetz’s strategy — impeach the president, tarnish him with a trial, inform the electorate before votes are cast — is predicated on the existence of proof that apparently doesn’t exist.

The congressman may have grand ambitions of weaponizing the impeachment process, but unless he and his Republican colleagues uncover actual wrongdoing, the entire strategy rests on a foundation of sand.

Nevertheless, it’ll be worth keeping this in mind when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill in a few weeks, and impeachment proponents swear up and down that there’s nothing “political” about their intentions.>

<If history is any guide, former President Donald Trump could be holding out for help from the Supreme Court − even if history also suggests he won't get it.

As Trump and his allies face a 41-count indictment in Georgia for their role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, there is a chance the former president will call on the high court to weigh in on a variety of questions in the sprawling case, experts said, as well as in the other criminal matters in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C.

Though the final outcome of those cases are unlikely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, the justices may be asked to decide whether two of the cases should be moved to federal court, whether Trump and other former federal officials are entitled to immunity, and even whether efforts to limit Trump's public remarks about his legal problems on the 2024 campaign trail are consistent with the First Amendment.

"SCOTUS ain't getting off easy here," predicted Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.

Delay: Here's how Donald Trump will try to push back his criminals trials

Those appeals would arrive at a time when the Supreme Court remains under scrutiny for decisions on abortion, affirmative action, LGBTQ+ rights and other questions that divide Americans. At the same time, the high court is keen to avoid the appearance of engaging in politics and has repeatedly shot down other appeals from Trump.

But whether those efforts are ultimately successful may be beside the point: The former president has a long history with long-shot appeals as part of a strategy of delay. Here is a look at some of the issues that could be appealed:

See you in federal court? Trump expected to seek federal review

The former president is widely expected to ask a federal court to take over the Georgia case, largely because many believe his lawyers could build a more conservative jury that way. President Joe Biden won Fulton County with 73% of the vote in 2020.

Trump made the same request in New York, where he faces a 34-count indictment from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. A U.S. district judge denied the request last month and the former president appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. That decision, whenever it lands, could be appealed to the Supreme Court.

A filing in federal court this week by Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, may serve as the template. Meadows was charged in the Fulton County case for his role in allegedly pressuring Georgia state officials with false claims of election fraud. Meadows is attempting to move his case to federal court − and have it dismissed.

Federal law allows U.S. officials to move their cases to federal court if they are fighting state charges over actions related to their work for the federal government. The theory dates back centuries and is intended to prevent states from trying to hamstring the federal government by arresting its employees. Trump might argue, for instance, that his effort to overturn the election was made as a president seeking to ensure the sanctity of the vote.

Meadows' filing cites those same grounds in asking a federal court in Georgia to take over his case.

Immunity: Trump could also ask courts to dismiss his case

Meadows raised a related claim in his filing this week that some experts say Trump is likely to attempt: asking a federal court to dismiss the case under the Constitution’s supremacy clause. The theory is that federal officials are immune from state prosecution when they are carrying out their official duties for the U.S. government.

In making such a claim, Trump could rely in part on an 1890 Supreme Court case involving a U.S. Marshal named David Neagle who was assigned to protect Justice Stephen Field while he was hearing cases in California. Neagle shot and killed a man who assaulted the justice over breakfast. California charged Neagle with murder.

But the Supreme Court ruled Neagle "cannot be guilty" of a state crime for an act he was authorized to carry out under federal law.

Trump, like Meadows, may try to convince a court that the actions he took in Georgia were done in his capacity as president. If a lower court rules on that argument, the losing side will likely ask a federal appeals court to review it. That appeals court decision ultimately could be appealed to the Supreme Court....>

<....Summary: Lying, pressuring Georgia officials: What does Trump indictment accuse his associates of doing?

"They're all going to raise it," said Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University. "Trump is going to argue that he and all his merry people were simply ensuring the integrity and fairness of federal elections, something they had an obligation to do, and therefore he has immunity."

Segall said the laws protecting federal officials from state prosecution serve an important purpose. Consider, for instance, federal officials working to desegregate the South during the civil rights era being thrown in jail by state officials opposed to those efforts. But Segall stressed that he doesn’t believe the facts of Trump's intervention will warrant immunity.

"He might win," Segall said, "but he definitely should lose."

Would the conservative Supreme Court back Trump?

As president, Trump placed three justices on the Supreme Court – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – giving it a six-member conservative majority. But in case after case since Trump left office, the court, despite its composition, hasn't had his back.

In November, the court declined Trump's request to block the release of his tax returns to a House committee seeking them. Weeks earlier, it denied his request to allow a special master to review documents seized last year at his Mar-a-Lago estate. It also denied his effort to stop lawmakers from receiving administration documents.

It even started when Trump was still president. In July 2020, the court ruled that Trump could not keep his tax returns and financial records away from New York prosecutors.

Perhaps most notably, the Supreme Court has already dipped a toe into the effort by Fulton County prosecutors. The justices last year denied Sen. Lindsey Graham's request to pause a subpoena from the grand jury. Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, argued that his phone calls to Georgia election officials were part of his official duties. Graham had raised a different constitutional defense based on the speech or debate clause, which admonishes that members of Congress "shall not be questioned in any other place" for official remarks.

The court handed down its decision in a brief, unsigned order with no noted dissents. Graham ultimately testified but was not named in the Fulton County indictment.

Political vs. legal strategy: Delay until Election Day

Though the former president and his allies didn’t win those disputes, Trump did manage to delay his losses – sometimes by months. And that stands to be a major part of any appeals strategy.

In the case of Trump's tax returns, for instance, Democrats on the House Committee on Ways and Means sued for the documents in federal court in 2019, when Trump was still president. By the time the case wended its way through the federal court system, he had been out of the White House for nearly two years. The Supreme Court denied Trump's emergency appeal in that case in 2022, and the committee made the documents public in late December.

The Fulton County grand jury had been seeking Graham's testimony as far back as July 2022. By the time the Supreme Court ruled against him, nearly five months had passed. Graham finally appeared a few days before Thanksgiving last year.

The former president, who is running for office again, has already called for all four criminal trials he is facing to be delayed until after the November 2024 election. Trump has long claimed that the criminal prosecutions are politically motivated to undermine his bid for the White House.

Besides the practical benefit of not having to juggle court appearances while running for president, Trump has managed to use his legal problems as a fundraising tool and a rallying cry for supporters.

The maneuvering shouldn't work in the end, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe and two other prominent lawyers wrote this week in The Atlantic. But, they said, it "will command our attention, and it will introduce a potential for delay.">