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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — November 16, 2023

By November 16, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Prosecutors seek reinstatement of Trump gag order, citing history of inflammatory social media posts

  • Axios: Jack Smith urges reinstatement of Trump gag order in 2020 election case: “Federal prosecutors argued in a Tuesday filing that former President Trump’s ‘long history’ of inflammatory speech justifies the restoration of a narrow gag order in the federal 2020 election interference case. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team wrote that Trump ‘has persistently used social media to make prejudicial comments about the case and its participants.’ They argue that there has been a ‘pattern, stretching back years, in which people publicly targeted by the defendant are, as a result of the targeting, subject to harassment, threats, and intimidation.’ The court filing references a number of Trump’s posts on social media that prosecutors argue reinforce the need for the gag order. Smith’s office also said that Trump ‘has taken advantage of administrative stays to engage in targeting of witnesses, as well as prosecutors and their families.’”
  • New York Times: Federal Prosecutors Make Their Case for Gag Order on Trump: “Prosecutors asked a federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday to give its approval to a gag order imposed on former President Donald J. Trump in his federal election interference case, saying that Mr. Trump’s ‘long history’ of targeting his adversaries on social media has often led to dangers in the real world. The gag order on Mr. Trump was suspended this month by the appeals court as it considers whether the trial judge in the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, was justified in imposing it in the first place. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments about the order next week.”
  • CNN: Federal prosecutors want Trump gag order upheld, pointing to attacks on special counsel’s family: “The Justice Department on Tuesday urged a Washington, DC, appeals court to uphold the gag order against Donald Trump in his federal election subversion criminal case, saying the former president’s recent attacks on special counsel Jack Smith’s family underscore why restrictions on Trump’s speech are necessary. ‘There has never been a criminal case in which a court has granted a defendant an unfettered right to try his case in the media, malign the prosecutor and his family, and … target specific witnesses with attacks on their character and credibility,’ Smith’s team told the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing.”
  • Newsweek: Jack Smith Cites Medieval Murder as He Seeks Donald Trump Gag Order: “Federal prosecutors have asked an appeal court to impose a gag order on Donald Trump after he attacked special counsel Jack Smith and his family in a speech last week. In their filing, prosecutors cited Henry II’s reputed words before four of his knights killed Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas à Becket. ‘Repeated attacks are often understood as a signal to act—just as King Henry II’s remark, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ resulted in Thomas à Becket’s murder,’ the filing submitted by Smith and five of his Justice Department attorneys explains. Henry II was reputed to have made the remark from his castle in Normandy in 1170, leading four of his knights to travel to England and kill Thomas à Becket. By making the historical parallel, prosecutors want to show the alleged danger of Trump’s criticism of special counsel Jack Smith, at Trump campaign rallies, even if, like Henry II, the former president doesn’t directly call for violence.”

Supreme Court releases new ethics code, skeptical experts have called it “toothless”

  • New York Times: Supreme Court’s New Ethics Code Is Toothless, Experts Say: “The new Supreme Court ethics code released on Monday looks good on paper, experts in legal ethics said. But only on paper. Its lack of an enforcement mechanism means that it will operate on the honor system, with individual justices deciding for themselves whether their conduct complies with the code. That makes it a parchment promise, some experts said, without transparent procedures for assessing whether it has been violated or consequences when it has. ‘The primary problem is how to give these rules teeth, especially in light of the fact that there have been repeated violations of these very rules,’ said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia.”
  • Roll Call: Supreme Court ethics code doesn’t satisfy Democratic appetite for legislation: “The Supreme Court’s announcement of its first code of conduct Monday did little to damper the Democratic drive to pass legislation to bind the justices with a set of tighter ethics rules. Democrats and some outside advocates have spent months backing legislation to impose recusal standards, an ethics complaint review process, and more changes to the court — none of which was included in the court’s 14-page code. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the main Senate backer of Supreme Court ethics legislation, called the code a chink in their armor of indifference’ but said it had no teeth because it lacks enforcement provisions and only says justices ‘should’ act a certain way.”
  • Washington Post: The Supreme Court’s path to issuing an ethics code and the fine print: “Before welcoming four Supreme Court justices to its glittery national convention gala in Washington, D.C., last week, the conservative legal incubator the Federalist Society held a panel discussion about whether the justices should adopt a code of ethics. The answer from conservatives on the panel was a resounding, ‘No.’ Any such code would just be ‘weaponized’ against the justices on the right, said Jay Mitchell, an associate justice on the Alabama Supreme Court who has sent three clerks to work for Justice Clarence Thomas. But the justices at the gala headlined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett were already negotiating with their colleagues a ‘code of conduct’ specific to members of the Supreme Court.

Continued turmoil for Rep. George Santos as he faces criminal charges, House Ethics probe

  • Washington Post: Aide to Rep. George Santos pleads guilty to defrauding donors: “An aide to Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge of fraud in connection with a scheme that included impersonating the then-chief of staff for former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to attract donors to Santos’s campaign for Congress. Samuel Miele entered his plea in federal court in Long Island to fraud related to illegal collection of a donation to Santos’s 2022 campaign in August 2021. In that instance, he collected money for Santos, then a candidate, by claiming he was seeking the contribution on the McCarthy aide’s behalf, according to a federal indictment. As part of the plea, Miele has agreed to pay about $650,000 in restitution and forfeiture.”
  • Axios: George Santos’ colleagues sharpen knives for House Ethics report: “Lawmakers in both parties may introduce measures to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress if an Ethics Committee report that’s expected this week finds evidence of wrongdoing, Axios has learned. Santos’ detractors hope the report will solidify the support necessary to make him the first House member expelled in over two decades. A resolution to expel Santos would require a two-thirds majority to pass, meaning roughly 75 Republicans would have to vote for it, assuming uniform Democratic support. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) told Axios he plans to see what ‘the reaction is from the conference and the whole House,’ but added ‘the whole point of having Ethics investigate this was to get to a point where other members felt comfortable in their decision.’”

In The States

NORTH CAROLINA: Federal court hears challenge to North Carolina’s felony disenfranchisement liability law

  • WRAL: Challenge to NC felon voting rules, argued in federal court Tuesday, could affect 2024 elections: “North Carolina voting rights advocates were in federal court Tuesday, trying to block a law related to felons’ voting rights ahead of the 2024 elections. They want to make it so that people who illegally register to vote while on probation or parole for a felony can only be charged if they know what they are doing is wrong. They’re not trying to get the entire felon voting ban thrown out; they just want more leeway for people who register to vote when they shouldn’t have — a felony on its own. Someone shouldn’t face yet more charges and further loss of voting rights simply because they tried to participate in the democratic process, especially due to large racial disparities in who gets convicted of felonies in North Carolina’s justice system, the advocates say. Tuesday’s court hearing came as North Carolina’s rules for felon voting disenfranchisement have changed numerous times in recent years.”
  • Duke Chronicle: Gov. Roy Cooper sues NC General Assembly over new state elections laws: “Legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly recently overturned Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto on new election regulations. Cooper has since sued the Republican heads of the legislative body in response, setting up a battle with results that will likely affect the 2024 presidential elections. The bill in contention, State Bill 749, removes the governor’s ability to appoint the state Board of Elections, transferring that power to the legislative office. The former system allows for five electoral board members, with three members traditionally coming from the governor’s party. The new system changes this, allowing legislative leaders from each party in the House and Senate to choose two representatives for an increased total of eight members of the Board.”

NEW YORK: Redistricting trial begins in the New York Supreme Court that could determine whether the state’s congressional maps must be redrawn for 2024

  • Associated Press: New York’s high court to hear redistricting case, as Democrats angle to retake US House: “New York’s highest court will hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that could reshape congressional districts in the state, which is expected to be a key battleground next year in the fight for control of the U.S. House. The Court of Appeals is holding the hearing in Buffalo as Democrats seek to scrap the state’s district lines after losing congressional seats last year in a series of upsets that helped Republicans win a narrow majority. Democrats want to redraw districts in a way that will give the party an edge in 2024. Republicans are trying to keep the map in place. The lawsuit follows a bungled redistricting effort by Democrats for the 2022 elections.”
  • Albany Times Union: Recusal of top judge casts cloud over redistricting case: “When she was interviewed for the post of associate judge on the state Court of Appeals, Caitlin J. Halligan was peppered with questions about her decades of legal work on a range of special interests. State senators were concerned whether the vast network of connections Halligan had made during her career as a high-powered private-practice attorney, as the state’s solicitor general and more recently advising Gov. Kathy Hochul on a legal matter concerning the court itself could hinder her ability to decide cases — especially as a potential swing vote on the seven-judge panel. ‘Do you think, if confirmed, there’s going to be a problem involving conflicts of interest?,’ state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, D-Queens, said in the April hearing of the chamber’s Judiciary Committee.”

NEBRASKA: Voters in states such as Nebraska rely on ballot initiatives to overcome supermajorities in the state legislature

  • Washington Post: A boom of ballot initiatives is reshaping this state’s democracy: “This is what the future of American democracy looked like for Sierra Edmisten one evening this fall: a block of modest, single-story homes; the lights from the Crete High School football stadium glowing in the mist; families gathering for dinner after a day in the meatpacking plants. Edmisten was collecting signatures for a cause associated with liberals in a red part of one of the country’s reddest states. The ballot initiative she was seeking to put before voters would if passed, require Nebraska employers to guarantee their workers at least five days of paid sick leave each year. A push to enact a similar law had failed twice in the Nebraska legislature and repeatedly since 2016 in the U.S. Congress, despite polls suggesting widespread popularity. To Edmisten, those defeats reflected a sickness afflicting the country’s representative democracy.”

What Experts Are Saying

Michael Podhorzer on the Ezra Klein Show: “There’s just the collapse in confidence in American institutions generally. And that has been happening for the last 20 years, at least. Whoever is president is actually the head of one of those institutions that people have lost faith in, which is why for three quarters of the time for Bush, Obama, Trump, and, Biden their approval ratings have been underwater, except during the 9/11 bump and in the first couple of months after they get elected. That is just the permanent state of presidential approval in the 21st century. And so we’re not seeing a different thing, really.”

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton for Democracy Docket, on voter disenfranchisement in North Carolina: “The fear is that the disenfranchisement S.B. 747 subjects certain North Carolinians to is not happenstance, but by design. It is not surprising that it is poor and working people who get caught in ‘details’ like this…Having a steady address is increasingly a luxury in a housing market and economy that favors the wealthy; working families are often evicted, have month-to-month leases, live in motels and frequently live doubled up. No one should be disenfranchised because of their living situation, just as no one should be disenfranchised because of a mail error — especially if it’s by no fault of their own.”

Amanda Marcotte for Salon: “So this ridiculous ‘code of ethics’ serves to expose how much the justices don’t understand — refuse to understand, really — why it is that most Americans hate them so much. It’s not just the payola, but what it represents: an imperious court stacked with far-right justices who have become petty tyrants. Men (and one woman) who not only believe they are above basic rules, but that the rest of us should be forced into servitude to a fundamentalist Christian belief system. If it were just the bribe-taking, most people wouldn’t care so much. But it’s that the money serves the larger goal of stripping basic rights away from most Americans.”

Harry Litman on X (Twitter), on Trump’s request for a citizen’s arrest of Judge Engoron: “Sometimes he says incendiary things that his followers act on, as in ‘will be wild.’ This is an actual incitement to break the law and it greatly endangers the judge and AG.”

New York State Senator Mike Gianaris on X (Twitter), on Trump’s request for a citizen’s arrest of Judge Engoron: “Citizen’s Arrest is bonkers to begin with, and it shouldn’t be used by aspirational despots to go after perceived enemies. We must get rid of it once and for all.”

Headlines

Extremism

Reuters: U.S. political violence driven by new breed of ‘grab-bag’ extremists

Salon: Building the mandate for MAGA: Why Trump is choosing a harm offensive over a charm offensive

Trump investigations

11 Alive: Fulton County DA expects trial for Georgia Trump RICO case be underway over Election Day

Salon: Trump aide Dan Scavino may face “superseding indictment” after Jenna Ellis spills the beans

January 6 and the 2020 Elections

Washington Post: Producer sues Fox News, claims he was fired for challenging Jan. 6 coverage

CBS Colorado: 2 more Colorado men arrested for conduct during a breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

Newsweek: Conversation With an ‘Insurrectionist’: He Took Nancy Pelosi’s Lectern

Opinion

New York Times: Jesse Wegman: We Waited 200 Years for This Supreme Court Ethics Code?

USA Today: Laurie Roberts: “QAnon Shaman” wants to run for Congress? The Jan. 6 felon can’t even vote in Arizona

Washington Post: Greg Sargent — Trump’s plan for giant detention camps points to a brutal reality

The Atlantic: Lora Kelley — What the Supreme Court’s New Ethics Code Lacks

New York Times: Jamelle Bouie — Trump Wants Us to Know He Will Stop at Nothing

Washington Post: Ruth Marcus — The Supreme Court’s ethics code amounts to ‘You’re not the boss of me’

In the States

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Voting rights groups call for investigation of Election Day problems in Northampton County

The ‘Gander: Whitmer signs bills to expand voting rights in Michigan

Jurist: Federal appeals court agrees to rehear Texas gerrymandering case