Skip to main content
Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — January 18, 2024

By January 18, 2024No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Updates in the classified documents case against Trump: Trump’s legal team alleges political bias, amid criticism of Judge Cannon’s conduct

  • NBC: Trump lawyers preview arguments of ‘political bias’ in classified documents case: “Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday night previewed their defense arguments in the case over the former president’s handling of classified documents, saying they plan to rebut prosecutors’ accusations that sensitive government documents were stored at insecure locations on his Mar-a-Lago estate. In a motion filed Tuesday, Trump lawyers signaled they will argue that prosecutors carried out a ‘politically motivated and biased’ investigation into his handling of classified documents, with the intent to damage the former president’s 2024 campaign.”
  • Slate: Judge Aileen Cannon Is Quietly Sabotaging the Trump Classified Documents Case: “On Friday, District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a new order in the Donald Trump classified documents case adding to the mountain of evidence that she is firmly in the former president’s pocket. Trump appointed Cannon in 2020 and the Senate confirmed her appointment in the days after he lost the 2020 election. It’s deeply offensive to the rule of law for judges to bend the law to benefit those who put them on the bench. Sadly, Cannon does just that.”
  • Salon: “Completely out of bounds” Trump filing would delay docs case. Expert says expect a “harsh” response: “Former President Donald Trump’s legal team in a series of new filings on Tuesday signaled that they plan to argue that the intelligence community and the investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago was ‘politically motivated and biased.’ The lawyers in a filing to Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon accused special counsel Jack Smith of withholding records from Trump and flouting ‘basic discovery obligations.’”

Trump in court for Carroll defamation trial

  • NBC: Agitated Trump says ‘I would love it’ after judge threatens to boot him from E. Jean Carroll defamation trial: The judge presiding over E. Jean Carroll’s damages trial in New York federal court warned former President Donald Trump on Wednesday that he might bar him from the courtroom for grousing loudly and animatedly to his lawyer during Carroll’s testimony about how he repeatedly defamed her. ‘Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited, and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive’ and ‘if he disregards court orders,’ U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told Trump and his attorney after the jury had left the courtroom.”
  • Axios: Trump arrives at court for E. Jean Carroll defamation case after Iowa victory: “Fresh off his decisive win in the Iowa caucuses, former President Trump was in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday for the start of a civil trial over a defamation lawsuit filed by author E. Jean Carroll. Trump’s attendance at the hearing was voluntary. He has already been found liable for defamatory remarks he made against Carroll when he denied her rape accusations in 2019, so the jury will determine how much he owes Carroll in damages.”
  • CNBC: Judge snaps at Trump lawyer during E. Jean Carroll defamation trial: ‘I said sit down!’: “A New York federal judge snapped at a lawyer for Donald Trump on Wednesday after she again asked for a delay in his sex assault defamation trial so that the former president could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral. ‘I said sit down!’ Judge Lewis Kaplan told Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba. Habba replied, ‘I don’t like to be spoken [to] like that … I will not speak to you like that.’ Kaplan shot back, ‘It is denied. Sit down.’ The judge several times has rejected Habba’s request for a delay in the civil trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan so that Trump can attend the funeral of Melania Trump’s mother, Amalija Knavs, in Florida on Thursday without missing attending the trial that day.”
  • NBC: E. Jean Carroll testifies at damages trial with Donald Trump in attendance: “E. Jean Carroll took the witness stand Wednesday in her damages trial in New York federal court against Donald Trump, with the writer testifying in front of the former president, who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. ‘I am here because Donald Trump assaulted me, and when I wrote about it he lied and he shattered my reputation,’ Carroll, 80, told the jury.”

Court denies Twitter’s appeal to notify Trump of Jan. 6 search warrant

  • Washington Post: Court rejects Twitter’s claim of right to alert Trump to Jan. 6 search: “A federal appeals court has rejected Twitter’s claim that Donald Trump should have been alerted to the existence of a search warrant for his data by prosecutors investigating interference in the 2020 election, leaving in place a $350,000 fine imposed on the social media company for not complying on time. Twitter, now known as X, can still take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case split the D.C. Circuit along partisan lines, with four Republican appointees saying Trump should have been able to argue some of the information from X be withheld from the government.”
  • Politico: Appeals court won’t revisit Twitter’s fight against Trump probe warrant: “Judicial disregard of executive privilege undermines the Presidency, not just the former President being investigated in this case,” the judges wrote in an opinion authored by Trump appointee Neomi Rao. All four Republican-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals extolled the virtues and importance of the president’s right to confidential communications and advice, even though they concluded that the underlying dispute over Smith’s access to Trump’s private Twitter messages was moot.”

In The States

LOUISIANA: Proposed Louisiana congressional map advances out of committee; lawmakers have until Jan. 30 to enact a new map

  • Louisiana Illuminator: Map with 2nd Black Louisiana Supreme Court district clears House committee: “A committee of state lawmakers advanced a bill Tuesday that would redraw the Louisiana Supreme Court districts and add a second majority-Black seat to the map. House Bill 8, sponsored by state Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, was approved in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee without objection as part of the Louisiana Legislature’s special redistricting session. The bill maintains seven Louisiana Supreme Court districts but apportions each with an equal population of roughly 665,000 people. Districts 2 and 7 would have Black voting-age populations of about 55% and 53%, respectively. District 2 would form a ‘L’ shape stretching from the northeast corner of the state, south along the Mississippi River before turning east to East Baton Rouge Parish.”
  • Associated Press: Proposed Louisiana congressional map, with the second majority-Black district, advances: “A proposed Louisiana congressional map with a second majority-Black district, which could deliver another U.S. House seat to Democrats, received bipartisan support and advanced through a legislative committee Tuesday. During the second day of Louisiana’s special redistricting session, lawmakers took their first in-depth look at proposed congressional boundaries, backed by newly inaugurated GOP Gov. Jeff Landry. Under the proposal, the district currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Garret Graves would become a majority-Black district. GOP state Rep. Glen Womack, who filed the legislation, said that race was not the ‘predominate factor’ in deciding where the new boundaries would lie, but rather ‘politics drove this map’ — ensuring that the seats of Louisiana’s leadership in Congress, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, would likely be reelected.”

MINNESOTA: Minnesota Supreme Court to decide the fate of new voting rights restoration law

  • MPR News: Minnesota Supreme Court grants quick review of voting rights law case: “The Minnesota Supreme Court has granted a quicker appeal of a case involving a voting rights restoration law. In an order issued Tuesday by Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, the court said it would decide the fate of the law. It permits people with felony convictions to vote as long as they’re not behind bars. Justices scheduled oral arguments for April 1. A conservative group known as the Minnesota Voters Alliance sued over the law’s 2023 enactment, saying the Legislature overstepped its authority. Late last year, a judge ruled against the challenge that could affect eligibility for tens of thousands of voters. The alliance asked to skip straight to the Supreme Court, bypassing the Court of Appeals.”

MICHIGAN: Redistricting Commission begins remapping new Michigan House districts

  • Detroit News: Michigan redistricting panel considers ripple effect of changing invalid House districts: “As the Michigan redistricting commission met Tuesday, the issue hovering over the first day of efforts to redraw seven Michigan House seats ruled invalid by federal courts was the question of just how far the redraw would reverberate into the surrounding region. While seven of the state House districts were ruled invalid, three federal judges said earlier this month they anticipate that drawing new boundaries for those districts will result in changes to adjacent districts where ‘reasonably necessary.’ The commissioners differed on what was considered reasonable and appeared to settle on the idea of creating a few map options with some tailored as narrowly as possible to limit changes to adjacent districts and others reaching out into several Metro Detroit districts.”

What Experts Are Saying

Michael Podhorzer for Substack: “The answer comes down to one basic truth: For the last 15 years or so, most of us have been living in one of two alternate realities. On one, MAGA fabulists insist that Democrats pose an existential threat to ‘real Americans’; on the other, ‘serious people’ routinely discredit those who warn that MAGA is an existential threat to democracy, dismissing them as partisan alarmists. The MAGA fabulists (i.e. Republican officials and GOP-friendly media) insist that ‘democracy’ cannot be restored until Trump and Republicans return to power to make America great again. The serious people (i.e. various pundits, journalists, Democratic strategists, and nonprofit leaders) insist that democracy and the rule of law remain strong – even as MAGA Republicans and their Supreme Court allies continually change those laws to make democracy less and less likely.”

Bruce Springsteen on Facebook: “There’s the beautiful quote by Dr. King that says the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice…I’ve lived long enough to see that in action and to put some faith in it…I’ve also lived long enough to know that arc doesn’t bend on its own. It needs all of us leaning on it, nudging it in the right direction day after day.”

Andrew Weissmann, regarding the E, Jean Carroll case, on X (Twitter): “Trump’s repeated claims of being a multi-billionaire will make any claim of poverty to the E Jean Carroll jury weighing damages against him a very tough hill to climb, and make a large jury award against him that much more likely and well-founded legally and factually.”

Joyce Vance for Substack: “There is precedent for concern [that] something like that might happen based on the way Trump launched into his comments during the closing arguments at the civil fraud trial last week while ignoring the judge’s question as to whether he would follow the rules the Judge had set out if he was permitted to speak. There, the Judge was the finder of fact, and he can set aside Trump’s nonsense when it comes time to make his decision. But here, there is a jury of lay people in the box. The Judge will have to take any violations Trump commits very seriously because even with an explanation from the Judge, it could be impossible for some or all of the jurors to set aside any stray comments or even inappropriate gestures Trump makes in front of them, preventing Carroll from receiving a fair trial. Both Carroll and the Judge want to see this case proceed to a verdict, while Trump is probably just as happy with a mistrial. So, the onus will be on the Judge and the plaintiff’s lawyers to keep the case on track.”

Rachel Selzer, on the 5th Circuit Court and Democracy, for Democracy Docket: “Although the 5th Circuit has received notoriety for being the most conservative federal appeals court in the country, its sweeping and destructive democracy-related decisions suggest that it has become more of a right-wing activist court. As Rakim Brooks, president of Alliance for Justice, explained to Democracy Docket, ‘the Fifth Circuit is demolishing the rule of law as we know it…From reproductive rights to gun safety to democracy itself, [t]hese judges are trying to force an extreme agenda not only on the states they serve but on all of us.’ With nearly 75% of the 5th Circuit’s 26-judge bench occupied by Republican-appointed judges — six of whom are Trump appointees — right-wing litigants are continually experimenting, and often prevailing, in the 5th Circuit’s laboratory of anti-democratic jurisprudence.”

Headline

Extremism

MSNBC: Election workers ‘scared to death’ about working elections in 2024

Forbes: Here’s How AI And Tech Giants Say They’ll Moderate Content In 2024—The World’s Biggest Election Year

Trump investigations and cases

Politico: Trump signals intent to block testimony in Jeff Clark disciplinary proceedings

Newsweek: Full List of Donald Trump Lawyers Who Have Left Since 2020 Election Loss

Politico: The ‘Sleeping Giant’ Case that Could Upend Jack Smith’s Prosecution of Trump

January 6 and the 2020 Elections

Mother Jones: From Hairstylist to Jan. 6 Influencer: Meet the Man Helping the GOP Whitewash the Insurrection

New York Times: Goldman Files Censure Against Stefanik for Calling Jan. 6 Defendants ‘Hostages’

Reuters: Trump’s labeling of Jan. 6 suspects as hostages is offensive -White House

Opinion

Newsweek: Danielle Reiff: Nonviolence Is the Only Answer to a Potentially Violent U.S. Election

New York Times: Thomas Edsall: The Deification of Donald Trump Poses Some Interesting Questions

The Hill: Svante Myrick: Clarence Thomas cannot be allowed to decide if Trump is above the law

In the States

The Center Square: Reaction rolls in for Wisconsin’s proposed new legislative maps

Associated Press: A federal judge declines to block Georgia’s shortened 4-week runoff election period