<Amid Texas' refusal to grant federal agents access to a 2.5 mile stretch on the southern border, the Republican Governors Association has backed this Lone Star rebellion against the Biden administration. And the vast majority of that committee's corporate donors, including some of the most recognizable brands in America, are standing by silently.

As part of an escalating campaign to repel migrants attempting to cross into the United States - including refugees who have a right under international law to seek asylum - the state of Texas has resorted to extreme, even barbaric tactics, including using razor wire and buoys booby-trapped with saw blades. Most recently, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) directed state authorities to block U.S. Border Patrol agents from accessing an area near where a woman and two children reportedly drowned in the Rio Grande. Texas has continued to block access to the area, even after a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing the Biden administration to remove the blockade. Some Republicans have rushed to back Abbott in the standoff - including 25 GOP governors, who signed onto a letter published by the Republican Governors Association. "We stand in solidarity with our fellow governor, Greg Abbott, and the state of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border," the RGA letter reads. It asserts states have a "right of self-defense," and maintains that the Biden administration has "attacked" Texas for seeking to "protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants."

It's a sobering document, coming from the closest thing to the mainstream of the GOP: the official party committee that works to elect Republican gubernatorial candidates. The RGA is heavily funded by major corporate brands, as well as wealthy individuals who have espoused pro-immigrant rhetoric. The Texas standoff with the federal government offers yet another marker of the asymmetric radicalization of the GOP in the age of Donald Trump - a development that has not affected business-as-usual corporate support for the Republican Party.

Rolling Stone contacted 77 large donors to the RGA that contributed amounts ranging from $100,000 to $3 million to the committee in the first half of 2023. They include Big Oil (Chevron, Marathon Petroleum); Big Tech (Amazon, Google); a big bank (Wells Fargo); Big Pharma (GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Genentech); and major health insurers (UnitedHealthcare, Aetna). Few of these firms responded at all. None of those that did respond expressed concern about the RGA's standoff with the federal government.

The largest donor, by far, to the Republican Governors Association in the first half of last year was Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, one of the world's biggest hedge funds. Griffin gave $3 million to the Republican Governors Association in the first half of last year, eclipsing the group's second-largest donor by a factor of three. Griffin has previously claimed to be "terrified" by anti-immigrant political rhetoric. "Our entire country is built on the work ethic of immigrants," he said at a conference in 2017.

But his views appear to have changed. Griffin did not respond to questions about whether he endorses the RGA's rhetoric, whether he agrees that the country needs to be "protected" from migrants seeking a better life in America, whether he endorsed the use of razor wire at the border, and if he will continue to donate to the RGA going forward. Instead, Griffin told Rolling Stone in a statement: "Americans are fed up with the chaos at our Southern border and the federal government's inept policies. Even President Biden realizes he has a real crisis on his hands. Rolling Stone is hypocritical in criticizing Governor Abbott for taking action when the federal government has clearly failed. Like most Americans, I believe our border should be safe and secure while preserving a path for people to legally immigrate to America to seek a better life."

Griffin, though, was alone in publicly defending Abbott's tactics. The vast majority of the RGA's major donors, including Molina Healthcare (the second-largest supporter of the RGA after Griffin), Walmart, Comcast, AT&T, and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. Ditto other large donors including AFLAC, DoorDash, Planet Fitness, Churchill Downs (which puts on the Kentucky Derby), and the Motion Picture Association of America.....>

<....Several of the companies that did respond, including American Electric Power, Genentech, and Tyler Technologies, characterized their gifts as routine bipartisan activity in service of advancing their corporate interests. A representative for CVS Health noted that the company "donated an equal amount to the Democratic Governors Association last year," adding that its political contributions "are by no means a blanket endorsement of an individual's or organization's position on every issue." Genentech highlighted its support of the governors associations for both major parties based on its advocacy for "increased investment in scientific innovation … and the protection of intellectual property rights." It emphasized that "our donations are not and should not be viewed as an endorsement of every policy" a recipient supports.

The RGA's reactionary approach at the border appears to conflict with the philosophies of other prominent donors, including Koch Industries, controlled by billionaire oil and gas titan Charles Koch. The Charles Koch Foundation, for example, declares that "immigration is good" and that "welcoming immigrants who are motivated to improve their lives and contribute to society will enrich America." The foundation supports initiatives "to open America to everyone who will make the country better off." Koch Industries donated $300,000 to the RGA in the first half of 2023.

The consultancy Deloitte gave $150,000 to the RGA. The firm is immigration friendly and even markets its services to "help clients develop successful strategies to address immigration challenges worldwide."

Liquor giant Diageo is an RGA donor, also giving $150,000; it celebrates its importation of tequilas from Mexico including Don Julio, Astral, and Casamigos. The Mexican spirit is a big driver of revenue, the company's "third largest category globally."

The RGA, by contrast, is upfront about its anti-immigrant priorities. In its "about us" section, the group describes its member governors as "at the front lines of protecting our border, because the Biden administration won't." These same governors who are, en masse, attempting to provoke a constitutional crisis also claim "they're actually solving problems instead of causing them."

The RGA did not respond to an inquiry from Rolling Stone. Of the nation's GOP governors, only Vermont's Phil Scott did not sign onto the RGA letter. Several GOP governors have pledged to go even further to back Abbott, including by sending National Guard troops to Texas....>

<....Republican governors are couching their border defiance as a supposedly sober, constitutional impasse over the rights of states versus those reserved for the federal government. The RGA letter asserts blandly that Texas is legally "justified" in its lawless approach because the Biden administration has "abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states."

But any cool constitutional consideration quickly falls away the further down this provocative action filters to the Republican rabble. The reaction of the MAGA masses makes clear that the RGA's corporate-sponsored message is, in fact, fanning flames of civil unrest.

TheDonald is a Reddit-like forum for rabid fans of Donald Trump, and it was infamously used to orchestrate the uprising of Jan. 6, 2021. At that site this week, four of the Top 10 posts (as upvoted by users) relate to the Texas border standoff. Many of the posters are spoiling for a fight - hyping the potential for "civil war" and expressing foul contempt for the conservative Supreme Court. Others have been sadistically advocating for even deadlier measures to deter asylum seekers at the border.

Many commenters at TheDonald blasted the Supreme Court. The court is hardly liberal, enjoying a right-wing supermajority. The ruling enabling the Biden administration to take down concertina wire at the border was supported by conservatives Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts and the court's liberals. (The pro-razor wire caucus was justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh) "F***'em!" wrote one commenter. "They nullified our constitution." Another user demanded: "All the States need to send Troops to TEXAS! The Supreme Court and the feds have declared war on the USA!"

Harkening back to deadly conflicts in American history, another user demanded red states join a "Compact Against D.C. Aggression," with a "signing ceremony at the Alamo." Another commenter suggested militia-style action against federal intervention: "Have some armed patriots go Bundy Ranch style on any Feds showing up to cut the wire." Several commenters directly called for armed conflict: "This f****** government is cancer and needs to be cut out and thrown away," wrote one. "I'm ready for civil war."

Many other commenters at TheDonald fantasized about making Abbott's border fortifications even more deadly. They wrote of electrifying the razor wire; making migrants brave minefields or packs of alligators; and even adding snipers' nests to, as one user put it, "finish off the ones who made it thru the moat and are crawling out of it with an appendage or 2 missing."

Underscoring that the cruelty is the point, still another user suggested that such deadly spectacle at the southern border should be leveraged for sport: "Put bleachers on the U.S. side," this user wrote, "and sell tickets and refreshments.">

<[Event "7th Monadnock Marathon"] [Site "Jaffrey NH"]
[Date "1984.10.27"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "5.5"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Johnson, Joel"]
[ECO "A40"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "7th Monadnock Marathon"] [Site "Jaffrey NH"]
[Date "1984.10.28"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "12.3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Carter, David"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "B09"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.0-0 e5 8.fxe5 dxe5 9.d5 Ne7 10.Qe1 Ne8 11.Be3 Nd6 12.Qh4 f6 13.Rad1 Bd7 14.g4 Qe8 15.Qg3 Nec8 16.Rd2 g5 17.b3 b5 18.h4 h6 19.Rh2 Nf7 20.Ne2 Ncd6 21.c4 c6 22.c5 Nb7 23.b4 a5 24.a3 axb4 25.axb4 Ra3 26.Ne1 Rb3 27.Bc2 Rxb4 28.Bd2 Rb2 29.Qa3 Rxc2 30.Nxc2 Bxg4 31.Ne3 Bxe2 32.Rxe2 gxh4 33.Nf5 Ng5 34.dxc6 Nd8 35.Bxg5 hxg5 36.c7 Ne6 37.Nd6 Qh5 37.Qa2 1-0>

<Inside the Trump war room: an occasional series:

LACIVITA: Give us a polling update.

POLLSTER: The attacks on women are…

DON JR: Working? They’re working, right?

POLLSTER: …combined with Dobbs have…

JARED: MBS has some ideas about dealing with women.

POLLSTER: …led to a massive gender gap.

IVANKA: For Daddy, right?

POLLSTER: No.

LACIVITA: Ideas, people!

BANNON: We could attack Taylor Swift.

POLLSTER: WHAT?

STONE: Call her a Deep State plant…

BANNON: …a Sharia Caliphate Marxist Antifa super soldier.

JONES: …she’s a octosexual clone from Epstein’s lab.

LACIVITA: Octo-what?

JONES: I’ve said too much.

IVANKA: Isn’t she…popular?

JARED: Silence, woman or I call the Ministry of Virtue.

BANNON: Mr. President, this is my best idea since January 6th.

<[Event "Thursday Night Swiss"] [Site "Burlington VT"]
[Date "1982.04.08"]
[EventDate "1982"]
[Round "2.1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Sinclair, Curtis"]
[Black "Carter, David"]
[ECO "C18"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<A bill under consideration in the House would, among other things, expand the child tax credit to the benefit of parents earning $40,000 a year or less.

In the 2022 General Social Survey, over two-thirds of people who fell into that category identified themselves as Republicans or independents. About a quarter of them lived in the census region including Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma — all red states.

But Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) isn’t sure about the legislation. After all, he said on Wednesday, “passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be reelected, and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts.”

Never mind that the mailing-out-checks thing is explicitly prohibited in the bill’s language. As for that explicit admission from Grassley that a (short-term!) benefit to low-income parents isn’t worth it if it might mean another four years of President Biden? That’s 15 years of Republican strategy, said out loud.

In 2012, with President Barack Obama’s reelection looming, Time magazine published an excerpt of a book by its reporter Michael Grunwald (who is now at Politico). It documented how Republican leaders in Congress moved quickly in the wake of the 2008 election to develop a strategy that would bring the party back to power, even if it meant not passing legislation that improved the lives of Americans.

Grunwald described a Republican retreat in early 2009.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) “began his presentation at a House Republican leadership retreat in Annapolis, Md., with an existential political question: ‘If the purpose of the majority is to govern … what is our purpose?’ The answer was not to promote Republican policies, or stop Democratic policies, or even make Democratic bills less offensive to Republicans. ‘The purpose of the minority is to become the majority,’ Sessions wrote. ‘That is the entire conference’s mission.’” Over on the Senate side, a familiar name — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — had a similar plan.

“‘We got shellacked, but don’t forget we still represent half the population,’ McConnell said. ‘Republicans need to stick together as a team.’ Or as Ohio senator George Voinovich summarized the strategy: ‘If Obama was for it, we had to be against it.’” Obama’s vice president, of course, was Joe Biden. Grunwald spoke with him for the book, too.

“Vice President Biden told me that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any bipartisan cooperation on major votes,” Grunwald reported. “‘I spoke to seven different Republican Senators who said, “Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,”’ he recalled. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance.”

Grunwald called this the “Party of No” approach. In 2016, after Donald Trump unexpectedly won the White House, Grunwald declared in a Politico piece that the Party of No had won. The obstructive strategy, he argued, “helped Republicans take back the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016.”

Grunwald makes the convincing argument that McConnell’s aggressive decision to block Obama from filling a vacant Supreme Court seat might have pulled enough Republicans to the polls that year to make the difference.

But the Party of No approach also overlapped with the party base’s increasing hostility to the establishment itself. Even in the run-up to the 2010 midterms, Republican leaders (including Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the future House speaker) were trying to take the anti-establishment energy embodied in the tea party and co-opt it toward the party’s familiar economic messaging.

This failed. The GOP was changing from a party that stood on the House floor and voted “no” on Obama policy proposals to a party that stood at Trump campaign rallies and screamed “no” at perceived changes in American culture. Trump won in part because McConnell cleared the path and because the party had helped hobble Obama’s policies but mostly because the Republican base was looking for an outsider eager to destroy the system entirely....>

<....Last week, reports emerged indicating that McConnell was endorsing a Grassley-like approach to immigration legislation: do nothing rather than help Biden in November — or, more specifically, rather than hurt Trump. McConnell later suggested that this wasn’t his intent, though we might justifiably be cautious about accepting that walk-back given his history. As The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted, though, others have been willing to build that electoral wall explicitly.

“I will not help the Democrats try to improve [Biden’s] dismal approval ratings,” Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.) said to CNN, referring to immigration legislation. “I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”

Well, theoretically because your party is making immigration a central issue during the election because of the immediate risks it purportedly poses to the country. But, as with Grassley, this is simply a recognition, however tacit, that a big chunk of the GOP base is either fine with being politically obstructive or willing to vote for Republicans anyway.

In October, CNN released polling that showed most Americans think both parties in Congress should work across the aisle to pass legislation. But there was an outlier: Among Republicans, views were much more split between seeking compromise or holding a hard line, even if it meant that nothing got done.

And that was about legislation. If the question were whether Republicans would rather pass legislation aiding American families — and theoretically Biden — or rejecting that legislation and maybe boosting Trump? It’s safe to assume the “work together” side probably wouldn’t gain much ground.

This is perhaps a natural evolution given our highly polarized, nationalized politics. It is the worldview articulated by Sessions: that having limited power doesn’t mean trying to make the majority’s bills less problematic but, instead, using that limited power to build more power in the future. It’s an approach that many Republicans have embraced — including members of the hard-right minority of the party that booted McCarthy from the speakership.

Grassley has been around a while, and his comments are easily dismissible as being focused solely on the issue of checks being sent (something Trump did amid the 2020 election campaign, of course). But it is nonetheless revealing. The private, devious Republican effort to block Obama-Biden before 2012 is now often an open, explicit effort to block Biden-Harris.>

<Former President Donald Trump has mastered the art of "inverted victimhood" to proclaim himself the martyr of his own criminal charges and other legal problems, wrote former White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal for The Guardian on Thursday.

"It is not enough for him to lash out," wrote Blumenthal. "Then, he declares himself to be the victim. Whatever it is, he is falsely accused. But his self-dramatization as the wounded sufferer is only half his story: he insists that whoever has accused him is in fact the offender. He emerges triumphant, the martyr, the truth-teller, courageously unmasking the real villain. J’accuse!"

This pattern has allowed him to claim that every investigation, indictment, and lawsuit against him is a "witch hunt," and that he is going through all of this on behalf of his own supporters.

"Trump’s pattern is textbook manipulation – literally," wrote Blumenthal. "It has a precise name given to it after decades of academic research. Jennifer Freyd, now professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon, developed the theory over her career studying sexual assault, trauma and institutional betrayal. She named the process by which the perpetrator seeks to avoid accountability Darvo – a strategy with the elements of denial, attack, and reversal of victim and offender."

"There’s a method to Trump’s madness. The madness is the method – and the method is the madness," he continued. "It’s more than his malignant narcissism. It’s more than his relentless lying. Conscious or unconscious, it is his invariable reflexive response to the danger of being held responsible for his misdeeds and crimes. Its roots lie in the model of his brutish father. Upon that foundation he added the vicious counsel of Roy Cohn to attack anyone suing him in order to raise the personal cost for his victims, drain them of resources and delay the courts."

This was on full display throughout the E. Jean Carroll trial, where he was accused of rape, and he flipped it around to claim his accuser was lying to sell books and he was being persecuted. In this case though, it didn't work for him — a jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages after a chaotic trial that saw his attorney Alina Habba constantly at Judge Lewis Kaplan's throat.

Ultimately, Blumenthal concluded, "Trump’s campaign themes largely consist of his defenses, which are adaptations of Darvo. He denies all the accusations. A majority of Republicans believe he is falsely charged. He attacks a host of enemies from E Jean Carroll to Jack Smith, from the judges to their clerks. He is the victim. They are the offenders. Darvo is his shield of innocence.">

<Despite all of his bravado and claims that his trials are solidifying support among conservatives for his presidential re-election bid, Donald Trump is reportedly raging that a conviction — particularly one involving his conduct around the Jan. 6 insurrection — will doom his chances of winning.

According to a report from Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei of Axios, Trump is convinced a guilty verdict in the case being heard by Judge Tanya Chutkan before the general election will end his political career as voters — particularly any independents who might be leaning towards him — will drop him like a hot rock.

More than in a trial like his civil financial fraud that was heard without a jury byJudge Arthur Engoron, Trump particularly worries about being found guilty by a jury.

According to the Axios report, Trump "in private, is bracing for the genuine possibility that he'll be the first convicted felon in U.S. history to represent a major party." The report adds, "Trump believes he'd likely be convicted if the Jan. 6 case comes to trial later this spring in Washington. If that's delayed, he could face a guilty verdict in the Manhattan hush-money case."

Noting that those two trials, one in Washington D.C. and the other in Manhattan, are expected to have juries hostile to the former president, the report adds the former president is expected to make a big fuss and "continue to groan, moan and bemoan — then hit the TV cameras parked outside."

As one insider admitted, "You can't be defensive or never talk about it, because that just makes you look guilty. Your only option is to play it up."

In private, Trump reportedly is having problems dealing with his onslaught of legal problems despite bragging about how they are helping him with fans, with a source telling Axios, "If he really thought it was a good thing, he wouldn't be so unhinged.">

<Former President Trump’s fundraising committees doled out cash to dozens of attorneys last year, a major expense for the Republican front-runner’s campaign as he stares down four criminal indictments and various civil lawsuits.

Trump’s groups spent roughly $50 million on legal consulting in 2023, including $30 million in the second half of the year, newly filed federal records show, reminiscent of how his campaign and legal woes are growing increasingly intertwined.

nied up millions to lawyers attempting to get his 91 criminal charges tossed, while other top-paid lawyers have appeared in cases like the sweeping civil fraud trial brought by New York’s attorney general.

Trump even expensed to his leadership PAC $7,500 he paid to a bail bondsman last summer after being indicted in Georgia. It remains unclear if Trump paid any of his lawyers’ additional funds out of his pocket.

Here’s a look at the law firms that took in the most money from Trump’s political committees last year.

Chris Kise: $8.97 million

Chris Kise, a Florida-based lawyer who was once the state’s solicitor general, was Trump’s top-paid lawyer of 2023, bringing in nearly $9 million to his eponymous office, Chris Kise & Associates, and the law firm Continental PLLC.

Kise has served as Trump’s lead lawyer in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against the former president, which accuses him of falsely altering the value of the Trump Organization’s business assets for tax and insurance benefits.

As the primary trial lawyer, Kise repeatedly hammered in Trump’s core defenses — that banks wanted to work with the Trump Organization, did due diligence with his statements of financial condition and found no fraud.

He also fought against a gag order imposed by the judge barring Trump and his counsel from making comments about the judge’s staff, launching a separate legal matter to resolve the conflict.

Kise also represents Trump in the federal criminal case over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, a matter that is going through federal court in Miami.

Clifford Robert: $5.29 million

Robert & Robert earned nearly $5.3 million for representing the Trumps and their business.

Clifford Robert, principal of the firm, represented Trump’s adult sons and other entities that are parties in the New York attorney general’s fraud case.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both executive vice presidents at the Trump Organization, were accused by the state of being complicit in allowing their father’s falsely altered financial statements to be sent to banks and insurers to secure loans and deals.

One of the trial’s stand-out moments came during Robert’s cross-examination of Michael Cohen, Trump’s ex-fixer and personal attorney. Cohen opened his testimony by telling the judge Trump directed him and another executive to “reverse engineer” Trump’s net worth to reach a number the former president liked.

But when questioned by Robert, Cohen backtracked.

“Mr. Trump never directed you to inflate the numbers in his personal statement. Yes or no?” Robert asked Cohen.

“Yes,” Cohen replied, later explaining his apparent contradiction by saying Trump’s attorneys were “cherry-picking” words in his testimony.

In addition to defending the Trump sons, Robert handled several appeals throughout the trial, including that of the gag order. He also represented the Trump Organization for at least part of Cohen’s case against Trump’s business over unpaid legal fees. They settled that case in July for an undisclosed amount.

Harmeet Dhillon: $4.61 million

In early 2023, California attorney Harmeet Dhillon unsuccessfully attempted to challenge Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel.

Dhillon’s firm in the months since has become one of the top-paid firms by Trump’s entities, including working for the former president as he defends against various efforts to take him off the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban. Dhillon’s firm is part of the legal team that will represent Trump at the Supreme Court next week for oral arguments about the former president’s ballot eligibility.

The firm also represented Trump in Stormy Daniels’s failed defamation suit against the former president, winning more than $600,000 in attorney fee awards as of April and has also worked for Trump in multiple other civil lawsuits.....>

<....Alina Habba: $4.03 million

Trump’s entities paid Habba Madaio & Associates more than $4 million in 2023, the records show.

Alina Habba, the firm’s managing partner, represents Trump in multiple of his cases and also serves as the former president’s legal spokesperson.

Along with fellow partner Michael Madaio, the firm represented Trump in his two civil trials brought by longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s.

Carroll won a $5 million verdict last spring over the alleged sexual assault itself and defamation, and on Friday, she won an additional whopping $83.3 million over additional defamation claims. Trump is appealing both verdicts and has said he is shopping around for new lawyers to handle the matters.

Habba is also an attorney in the New York civil fraud case.

Like the others, most of the funds disbursed to Habba’s firm came from Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC. But Habba’s firm also received about $265,000 from Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump.

John Lauro: $2.65 million

John Lauro, plus lawyers Greg Singer and Filzah Pavalon, received some $2.65 million for defending the former president against federal charges he sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump’s primary advocate in the Washington, D.C., courtroom, Lauro has already butted heads with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who on numerous occasions told him to “take the temperature down” during early courtroom arguments over the case.

Lauro has also championed Trump outside the courtroom in media interviews, though sometimes tapering the former president’s zealous social media promises.

After Trump said his counsel was “immediately asking for recusal” of Chutkan, Lauro appeared on a podcast to proclaim “we haven’t made a final decision on that issue at all.” Trump’s D.C. legal team eventually requested Chutkan’s recusal, which she denied.

Evan Corcoran: $2.63 million

Attorney Evan Corcoran played a central role as special counsel Jack Smith investigated the former president over his handling of classified documents after leaving office.

Corcoran was part of the team that responded to a subpoena for classified records at Mar-a-Lago last year, and he reportedly told authorities he was waved off of searching Trump’s office, where numerous classified records were eventually found when officials executed a search warrant.

Corcoran removed himself as Trump’s lawyer in the case after a judge pierced attorney-client privilege by determining that Trump may have misled Corcoran, enabling prosecutors to receive Corcoran’s notes from the time.

Corcoran’s firm, Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White, received $2.63 million from Save America last year, federal election records show. All of the payments were made in the first half of the year, before Trump was indicted in the case.

Todd Blanche: $2.33 million

Within months, white-collar attorney Todd Blanche became one of the top lawyers helping Trump defend against his historic criminal charges.

Just as Trump was hit with his first indictment, a hush money probe into payments made to Stormy Daniels, Blanche left his firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and began representing the former president alongside attorney Emil Bove.

Beyond the hush money case, the duo has since come to represent Trump in his federal 2020 election subversion indictment and his classified documents indictment.

Save America disbursed about $345,000 to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft before doling out more than $2.32 million to Blanche Law later in the year.

Joe Tacopina: $1.77 million

New York-based trial lawyer Joe Tacopina’s firm, Tacopina, Seigel & DeOreo, took in about $1.77 million last year as he also represented Trump in the hush money indictment and one of the cases brought by Carroll, the advice columnist.

A former Brooklyn prosecutor, Tacopina has a reputation for cultivating high-profile clients and added the former president to a list that includes Michael Jackson and Alex Rodriguez. Just after the new year, however, Tacopina withdrew from Trump’s legal team without explanation.

Steve Sadow: $1.52 million

Hours before he surrendered to authorities in Georgia upon being indicted in that election interference case, Trump shook up his legal team in the case and hired Atlanta-based defense attorney Steve Sadow to replace another attorney.

Sadow, known for wearing his signature alligator boots to court, previously represented high-profile clients like radio host Howard Stern and former NFL player Ray Lewis.

Trump’s Save America made $500,000 payments to Sadow for each of the first three months he was on the team, the records show. Save America later disbursed an additional $16,456 just before Christmas.>

<[Event "October Swiss"]
[Site "Burlington VT"]
[Date "1979.10.06"]
[EventDate "1979"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "McGrath, William"]
[Black "Agnew, Gerald"]
[ECO "B25"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Ohio's high court has given Republican Attorney General Dave Yost until Monday to respond to the legal claims of a coalition of civil rights organizations that is challenging his rejection of a package of voter protections they are working to place on November's ballot.

The Ohio Supreme Court set the deadline Friday.

At issue is a Jan. 25 finding by Yost that the proposed constitutional amendment's title — “Ohio Voters Bill of Rights” — was “highly misleading and misrepresentative” of the measure’s contents. He issued the decision even while acknowledging that his office had previously certified identical language. It certified a Nursing Facility Patients’ Bill of Rights in 2021 and another Ohio Voters Bill of Rights in 2014.

It was his second time declining to certify the group's petition summary.

The coalition behind the amendment — which includes the NAACP's Ohio chapter, A. Philip Randolph Institute and Ohio Organizing Collaborative — filed suit Thursday.

Their complaint asks justices to direct Yost to certify their petition and send it along to the state Ballot Board, on the grounds that he had no reviewing authority over its title, let alone the power to reject it based on that.

In his rejection letter, Yost cited “recent authority from the Ohio Supreme Court” giving him the ability to review petition headings, as well as text summaries. He pointed to the high court's decision in a legal dispute last year over the title that appeared on petitions for a local drag ban.

The push for election law changes follows Ohio’s enactment last year of a host of election law changes, including tougher photo ID requirements and shortened windows after Election Day for returning and curing ballots.

The Ohio Voters Bill of Rights would enshrine in the state constitution the right for all Ohioans to vote safely and securely and require automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and expanded early voting options and locations.>

<I don’t have hard evidence, but I keep thinking Donald Trump must be a mole, that he must be an undercover agent working for the other side. I don’t mean Putin and the Kremlin. I mean Biden and the Democrats.

This uneasy suspicion about our former president has become a reoccurring thing with me. In this space in 2022 I wrote about how Donald Trump was the best friend the Democrats ever had, no matter what nasty things they say about him in public.

At the time, I wrote: “I wondered whose side he was on when during his chaotic presidency he managed to rile up enough voters and get them so fed up with his combative style that they turned on him and turned the House, the Senate and the White House over to the Democrats.”

And now, here we go again. Donald Trump is back at it, doing things no candidate would do if he really wants to win a general election.

Take his victory speech in New Hampshire. He won by 11 points. But instead of being happy about it, instead of trying to unify the party and win over undecided voters, he threatened to exile anyone who wouldn’t kiss his ring.

“I said I can go up and I can say to everybody, ‘Oh, thank you for the victory. It’s wonderful,’” Trump told his supporters. “Or I can go up and say, ‘Who the hell was the impostor that went up on the stage before and, like, claimed a victory?’ She [Nikki Haley] did very poorly, actually.”

And then, sounding a little like Richard Nixon when the walls started closing in, he added, “I don’t get too angry. I get even.”

In Iowa, he had said, “We’re going to make this country so successful again, I’m not going to have time for retribution.” Really? Then what does “I get even” mean?

And why go after Nikki Haley if she did “very poorly, actually”? Why not ignore her and move on? Why needlessly alienate her voters? Trump explained his thinking. With a straight face, he said, “I felt I should do this because I find in life you can’t let people get away with bull****. You can’t. You just can’t do that.”

This is rich, funny actually — the part about how “in life you can’t let people get away with bull****.” Getting away with bull**** — or at least trying to — is what Donald Trump has been doing ever since he rode down that escalator in Trump Tower (and actually, long before that). But that’s a subject for another time.

And then, at the victory speech, he said, “And when I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy, come up, I said, ‘What’s she doing? We won.”

Mistake, Donald. Big mistake. You don’t make fun of the way women dress. They take it personally. No one likes being humiliated, especially by a famous guy on national TV. When a woman I know (my wife) heard him take that shot at Nikki Haley’s dress, this usually calm, easygoing, under-control woman let loose with a four-letter expletive aimed right at Donald Trump’s image on television — followed by the word “you.” I’m guessing she wasn’t the only woman offended by Trump’s cheap shot at Haley’s dress.

And on his social media site, Trump announced that, “Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley is very bad for the Republican Party and, indeed, our country.” Birdbrain? Not the best way to convince women, especially college-educated suburban women, that they should vote for you. And without them, the road to the White House is filled with potholes.

Then he added, “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them.”

This raises a question: Is he trying to lose — or what? I mean, throwing a temper tantrum isn’t the best way to win over Republicans who still aren’t sure which way they’ll go in November. Joe Biden needs all the help he can get if he’s got a shot at winning this time around — and Donald Trump is providing more help than a Republican should.

Just between us, do I really think Trump is a mole? Do I really believe he’s a secret agent intentionally trying to help Joe Biden win in November? Let’s put it this way: Even if he isn’t actually working for the Biden campaign, he’s doing a pretty good job pretending he is.

I think they call that a distinction without a difference.>

<Last year, 10 Republican state senators in Oregon walked out of the Legislature for six weeks to obstruct Democratic bills promoting reproductive rights, transgender equality, and gun safety. The GOP senators’ boycott paralyzed the chamber, stalling hundreds of bills by preventing lawmakers from conducting any work. Their hardball tactic succeeded in the short term, forcing Democrats to water down their signature measures. On Thursday, however, it backfired badly: The Oregon Supreme Court unanimously prohibited all 10 senators from running for reelection, enforcing a constitutional provision designed to punish this kind of petulant legislative obstruction.

Thursday’s decision marks a major defeat for the hardball tactics that Oregon Republicans have deployed to prevent Democrats from governing the state. Under the Oregon Constitution, each chamber of the Legislature may only conduct business if two-thirds of its members are present. Republicans, who’ve long held a minority of seats, have recently exploited this rule to bring the statehouse to a standstill. In 2019, they walked out to block a school funding bill, and used the resulting leverage to kill Democratic bills on gun safety and vaccine exemptions. The next year, they walked out to kill a Democratic climate change–related bill, forestalling the passage of more than 100 other measures. And in 2021, they walked out to protest COVID-19 restrictions and redistricting plans. Each time, Republicans lacked the votes to defeat progressive proposals outright, so they shut down all legislative business instead—holding the statehouse hostage in retaliation against the Democrats whom voters elected to run the government.

To end this chicanery, Oregon voters overwhelmingly supported a constitutional amendment that would penalize any lawmaker who walked out. Under the new measure, a senator or representative who misses more than 10 floor sessions without an excuse may not run for reelection. Or, at least, that is how both sides of the initiative described it, and how it was framed for voters in official ballot materials.

But after its enactment, Republican senators contested this (heretofore uncontroversial) reading. The amendment, they noted, bars absentee legislators from running “for the term following the election after the member’s current term is completed.” But while elections take place in November, the legislative term does not end until the following January. Republicans thus argued that “the election” after the “current term” means the election that’s four years after the next election. In Oregon, senators hold four-year terms. So according to the GOP’s gloss on the amendment, a senator elected in 2020 who walked out in 2023 is not disqualified from the next election (in 2024) but rather the election after that one (in 2028).

In reliance on this reading of the text, Republican senators staged an ambitious walkout last year, fleeing the chamber for six weeks. This tactic ultimately secured concessions from Democrats that limited minors’ access to abortion, thwarted new protections for transgender health care, and stripped away a ban on the sale of assault weapons to people under 21. Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade announced in August that the 10 participants in this walkout were ineligible for reelection. Five of them sued, insisting that their interpretation of the constitutional amendment protected their right to run in 2024, and did not render them ineligible until 2028.

The Oregon Supreme Court acknowledged that the amendment’s language was poorly drafted, but sided with the secretary of state’s interpretation. Given this muddled text, the court looked to the history of the ballot measure to determine how voters understood it. And literally all the evidence points in one direction. The caption printed on every ballot said absentee legislators would be “disqualified from holding next term of office.” A statement on the ballot explaining the result of a “yes” vote said the disqualification would apply to the “term following current term of office.” The official voters’ pamphlet provided by the state said the same thing, and added an “explanatory statement” stating that the disqualification would bar “the legislator from holding office after the legislator’s current term ends.”...>