Bad karma for Mike Johnson!

April 17, 2024

On Tuesday, House Republicans threatened to remove Speaker Mike Johnson and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from their positions as constitutional officers. Both men are being threatened with removal for doing their jobs. However, as Mike Johnson leads the effort to oust Alejandro Mayorkas, it is Johnson who is at risk of being removed while Mayorkas remains secure in his post. A karmic twist!

While Mayorkas says he is maintaining focus on his duties, Johnson called a press conference to declare, “I will not resign”—always a bad omen.

Johnson said,

I am not resigning. And it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs. It is not helpful to the cause, it is not helpful to the country, it does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda, which is in the best interest of the American people here — a secure border, sound governance – and it’s not helpful to the unity that we have in the body.

Johnson’s defense is hypocritical. He is not “trying to do [my] job [to] secure a border.” Instead, he authorized the House to send to the Senate sham articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas for implementing the Biden administration's border policies.

The Senate will not convict Mayorkas, but delivery of the articles of impeachment triggers a complicated process that requires the Senate to begin trial proceedings on Wednesday, April 17. The Senate is required to conduct trial six days a week until a verdict is reached. See Congressional Research Service, The Impeachment Process in the Senate (fas.org). (The Senate can vary the strict trial rules by majority vote, so it is possible that the Senate may be able to attend to other business before turning to the impeachment.)

The articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas will fail. Acquittal of Mayorkas requires only 41 votes—a threshold that Democrats can easily meet.

The news is not so good for Mike Johnson. As noted yesterday, his effort to present a hodge-podge of funding bills for consideration by the House has increased the likelihood that he will be challenged.

On Wednesday, GOP Rep. Tom Massie tweeted

I just told Mike Johnson in conference that I’m cosponsoring the Motion to Vacate that was introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

He should pre-announce his resignation (as Boehner did), so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker.

Johnson will likely need Democratic votes to survive a motion to vacate the chair—which he may get because Democrats want to pass the aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Even if Democrats support Johnson and the aid bills pass in the House, the Senate will need to consider the series of bills that overlap with a single bill passed by the Senate more than a month ago. Although the Senate would normally move expeditiously on the aid bills, it is required to hold a trial on the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas . . . .

Congress may yet work its way out of the mess created by House Republicans. But the delay could amount to weeks or months. In the meantime, Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion is running low on arms and ammunition—an outcome that plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin.

We must break free of the Republican Party's debilitating dysfunction. The party exists in name only. It has devolved into a launching pad for political terror raids on Congress, state legislatures, and the courts. The sooner we can facilitate its unwinding, the better. A good start would be to retake the House and increase the Democratic margin in the Senate.

---

The Supreme Court

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard argument on the constitutionality of a statute that makes it a crime to interfere in an official proceeding. That statute was used in the prosecution of hundreds of January 6 insurrectionists and serves as the basis for two of four counts in Trump's trial for election interference pending before Judge Chutkan.

The question before the Court was whether the statute in question was too vague to cover the act of using violence to interrupt the count of electoral ballots by Congress.

The statute prohibits the destruction of documents to interfere with an official proceeding but includes the words “or otherwise” in describing the prohibited conduct. The statute reads, in part,

Whoever corruptly . . . alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object . . .  with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or . . . otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding . . . .

According to the DOJ and special counsel Jack Smith, the phrase “or otherwise” includes a violent assault on Congress. The January 6 defendants contend that the phrase “or otherwise” is limited by the reference to the destruction of documents.

Many media outlets and respected commentators believe that the Court’s reactionary majority will rule that the statute is too vague to reach the actions of the January 6 defendants. See, e.g., Reuters, US Supreme Court leans toward Jan. 6 rioter in obstruction case, with Trump implications | Reuters.

While it is true that the Court expressed skepticism about the prosecution’s broad interpretation of the statute, the justices were equally skeptical of the defendant’s claim that the phrase “or otherwise” is limited to the destruction of documents.

Based on the justices' questioning, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal expressed the view on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show on Tuesday evening that the outcome of the appeal was too close to call. Given recent rulings involving statutory interpretation by the Court, the justices should interpret the phrase “or otherwise” to include a violent assault on the official body conducting the official proceeding.

However, even if the Supreme Court rules that the statute is limited to the destruction or alteration of documents, that ruling should not lead to the dismissal of the two counts against Donald Trump.

Why?

Because the charges against Trump involve the creation of false documents as part of the fake electors’ scheme to interfere with Congress’s count of the electoral ballots.

So, it is too early to give up hope that the January 6 defendants and Donald Trump will be convicted for interfering with an official proceeding. Stay tuned!

---

Jennifer Rubin calls out press for obsessing on polls

I spend a fair amount of time urging readers not to obsess over polling. Polling conducted by media outlets (and related reporting on those polls) has become a profitable sideline for failing news outlets. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post addressed the irresponsible phenomenon in her Tuesday column, Opinion | The worst mainstream media habit: Distorting polls for clicks.

The above article is accessible to all. But in case you don’t read it, here are a few excerpts:

For starters, constant polling hype frames the election as a horse race, devoid of moral or policy outcomes. Premature polling distracts us from what is critical and central — four-times indicted former president Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on democracy.

At its worst, coverage of polling misleads voters. Consider the opening of a recent New York Times article. “President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country” writes Shane Goldmacher.

This is false. The previous poll was well within the margin of error; the poll Goldmacher is hawking is within the margin of error. There has been no statistical change.

Read Jennifer Rubin’s article if you have anxiety about polls. They have been weaponized, cheapened, commoditized, and mass-produced to tell the American public what to believe . . . rather than reporting on what the American public actually believes.

Why does the media engage in such amoral and deceptive practices? To reinforce their editorial bias and increase sales. You are the target and the product of manipulative polls—but only if you consent. Don’t give the media your consent to be manipulated. Ignore the polls.

---

Trump's trial in New York

Judge Merchan is pushing on the jury selection process—with some success! Seven jurors have been selected and are no longer subject to challenge. Five more jurors must be selected to complete the twelve-person jury. Six alternate jurors will also be selected. Judge Merchan expects jury selection to be completed by Friday and opening statements to begin on Monday.

Judge Merchan warned Trump against intimidating jurors after he “muttered” something only a few feet from a juror Trump was seeking to excuse from the jury. See Business Insider, Judge Scolds Trump, Suggests He Tried to Intimidate Prospective Juror.

For the second day, Trump appeared to fall asleep at the defense table during jury selection. The courtroom artist depicted Trump at counsel table with eyes closed. See the second sketch in this article: Day 2 of Trump New York hush money trial (cnn.com).

While Trump's inability to stay awake has prompted widespread ridicule, a serious point is embedded in Trump’s struggle to remain awake. Trump manufactured an issue about President Biden’s vitality with the “Sleepy Joe” slur—and the media dutifully amplified Trump's unfair characterization of Biden. The fact that Trump is unable to remain awake during his criminal trial should flip that characterization on its head.

Trump will be at the counsel table for another four to six weeks and will have plenty of opportunities to make things worse for himself, both by falling asleep and acting out like a petulant child. Both behaviors will be damaging to Trump and will reduce some of the media’s unfair criticism of Joe Biden. Good!

---

Opportunity for reader engagement

For those readers in New York, please check out this “in person” event in Manhattan:

Please join us in lower Manhattan on Wed, April 24th at 6pm Eastern to support HER BOLD MOVE, an organization of creatives that supports Democratic women running for office up and down ballot across the country. Her Bold Move provides pro bono ads, communications training, fundraising support, and more to ensure that Democratic female candidates have everything they need to win.

Jordan Zaslow, founder of Her Bold Move, and Clair Atkins, co-founder of CHECK MY ADS, will explain how we can defund online disinformation and hate that frequently targets female candidates.

Her Bold Move is the only national organization whose 2024 strategy is to prioritize women candidates running for office in states with abortion bans. Those states also have the fewest number of women in their state legislatures (12%-15%!) while also having the fewest resources coming in from Democratic institutions. Incredibly, the percentage of women running for office is decreasing! Help us reverse this trend!

Her Bold Move has a 91% success rate supporting Run For Something's female candidates! If you'd like to donate to Her Bold Move click here, and to donate to Check My Ads click here. If you'd like to attend the meeting in NYC on April 24, click here. Thank you!

---

Concluding Thoughts

It is worth pausing today to reflect on how far we have come in six months. At the end of last year, the media was in the grips of the “Biden is too old and frail” fever. President Biden’s commanding performance at the State of the Union went some distance in dispelling those concerns. Meanwhile, Trump's campaign speeches have become increasingly incoherent and menacing.

Now, Trump's simultaneous inability to restrain his misconduct and stay awake during a proceeding that could send him to prison for years is becoming the story. Such stories are like self-sustaining nuclear fission—the more he acts out, the more the media obsesses about his outbreaks. The more he sleeps, the more the media scrutinizes every flutter of his eyelids.

I am not saying we should gloat. I am saying that six months in a presidential campaign is a long time. In the last six months, the “fundamentals” have shifted in Biden’s favor. Biden has seized the momentum just as Trump finds himself stuck in a criminal trial arising from a one-night stand with an adult film actress.

The remaining six months provide enough time for Biden to take the lead in every swing state and consolidate his lead in dozens more. The last six months have taught us that such progress is possible. Today, more than ever, we have every reason to be hopeful but no reason to be complacent.

Stay the course and stay strong!