The House GOP as an ongoing criminal conspiracy.

December 6, 2023

          At a time of multiple global crises, the House GOP will vote next week to open a sham “impeachment inquiry” of President Biden. When every moment of legislative floor time is literally a matter of life and death, the House GOP will squander its quickly evaporating legislative calendar to provide political cover for an aspiring dictator. The House GOP will fold a constitutional process—impeachment—into an ongoing criminal conspiracy to help an indicted felon evade responsibility for his crimes.

          Under Mike Johnson’s stunt Speakership, the members of the House GOP are acting as constitutional vandals defacing the charter of our nation with partisan graffiti, overwriting the signatures of the Framers—including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. “Mike Johnson was here, LOL!” will forever mar the face of the Constitution as the House GOP invokes impeachment in aid of insurrection.

          And as Speaker Johnson was whipping the vote on the impeachment inquiry, he announced that GOP staffers will delay releasing 44,000 hours of video footage of the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Why? Because GOP staffers want to “blur” the faces of insurrectionists to prevent members of the public from identifying those who assaulted the Capitol. See The Hill, GOP blurring faces in Jan. 6 security tapes, says Speaker Johnson.

          Johnson said,

We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.

          Johnson appears to be unclear on the central concept of criminal justice—holding criminals accountable by “charging them” with crimes, which is known as “justice,” not “retaliation.” In doing its best to defeat the identification of January 6 insurrectionists, the House GOP is confirming its status as an ongoing criminal conspiracy to frustrate the administration of justice.

          But even those disgraceful acts are rivaled by the GOP’s inability and unwillingness to pass legislation necessary to fund the government, protect national security, and provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel. Mike Johnson has said that immigration reform in the US is “the price” of passing an aid bill for Ukraine (per Punch Bowl News, behind a paywall). See also The Hill, House Democrats reject GOP’s immigration limits in Ukraine aid bill.

          Per The Hill,

The Democrats—including well-placed members of the Hispanic and Progressive caucuses—argue that America’s border policies have no bearing on U.S. efforts to help a democratic ally repel Russian forces, and any drastic changes to U.S. policy toward migrants would dissolve their support for the broader aid package.

          Meanwhile, Mike Johnson’s position is that the House has already passed an aid bill for Israel—the one that calls for billions in cuts from the IRS budget that would increase the federal budget deficit by $12 billion over the next ten years.

          In short, the House is busy serving as an “accessory after the fact” to help Trump and other insurrectionists to evade accountability for their crimes as they fail to perform their most basic constitutional function—passing a budget.

The Washington Post corrects course.

          The Washington Post published an op-ed by Greg Sargent that continued the Post’s step back from the precipice of fatalism. See Greg Sargent op-ed in WaPo, Enough with all the fatalism about a Trump dictatorship. (Accessible to all.) In many ways, Sargent’s op-ed is a rebuttal to the op-ed by Robert Kagan published by the Post a week ago.

          Sargent writes,

Prominent columnists have demonstrated in great detail how [Trump] might succeed [in establishing a dictatorship].

But certain versions of this argument have grown seriously problematic. It’s sometimes said that our institutions and civic culture have withered so much that resistance to Trumpian tyranny would be incapacitated, rendering its onset all but inevitable.

Such a reading of the moment risks leading us astray.

          Sargent then reminds us that we have successfully resisted Trump and MAGA extremism in all its manifestations for six years:

 It remains underappreciated, but our national response to the antidemocratic menace of the Trump years has in some respects been surprisingly good — not just electorally but also institutionally. Trump’s gaming of the judicial system to overturn his 2020 loss hit a wall in the courts. By a wide bipartisan margin, Congress passed reforms to Trump-proof the system by which we count electoral votes.

          Finally, Sargent notes the danger in converting “alarm” into predictions that “resistance is futile.” He writes,

The impulse to sound alarms — to break voters out of their “it can’t happen here” doldrums — is understandable. But it’s also possible to take this too far, and here it’s worth registering an irony: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar of strongman rule, has noted that a time-tested tactic of authoritarian leaders is to disarm the electorate by suggesting their glorious triumph is inevitable.

          There is a fine line between sounding the alarm and conditioning people to accept impending catastrophe as the steady state. Robert Kagan crossed the line. Greg Sargent got it right. And the Washington Post editorial board may be learning from its mistakes—with the help of its eloquent and motivated readers.

The “perception gap” regarding the economy.

          Jonathan V. Last of the The Bulwark has written an essay about the “truly excellent” state of the US economy—and the “perception gap” about that economy in the view of the American people. See Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark, Joe’s Truly Excellent Economy.

          As Last notes, the US economy is really, truly “excellent” (as explained in my link to Simon Rosenberg’s essay yesterday). But, as Last notes, “something weird” is going on. There is a mismatch between the economy’s performance and the American public’s perception of the economy. As explained by Last, the media has been playing a leading role in trash-talking a good economy.

          Last writes:

This media narrative is probably a contributing factor to the mismatch between people’s feelings and reality—just as partisanship is a contributing factor. But they have media and partisanship in Europe, too and when the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch looked at the gap between economic reality and consumer sentiment in the U.S. and Europe he found that only America has it.

And it gets weirder: The gap between reality and perception in the U.S. isn’t just real, it’s enormous—even though, compared to Germany, France, and the U.K., the American economy is in much better shape!

          In short, the US economy is in a lot better shape than in Europe, but Americans feel a lot worse about their economy—for no good reason.

          The point is that talking up the good news about the economy is important. The facts are on our side—and we should use them to our full advantage. Simon Rosenberg is “on message” every day about the economy, so be sure to follow and share his comments. As Jonathan Last concludes,

[P]eople aren’t delusional. They’re just slow to integrate evidence into their mental models. But because they’re rational actors, they will eventually understand that the economy is good and they are doing okay.

Jack Smith files motion to allow evidence of Trump's knowledge that he lost the election.

          Jack Smith filed a “notice” in the DC election interference case today. The “notice” identifies evidence that Jack Smith intends to introduce on a number of subjects and is designed to streamline trial by allowing Judge Chutkan to rule now on the admissibility of such evidence. The notice also provides Trump with the opportunity to rebut the evidence that Jack Smith seeks to introduce. Talking Points Memo explains the notice filed by Jack Smith, here: Prosecutors Accuse Trump of Wide-Ranging Efforts Pre And Post-2020 To ‘Encourage’ Violence and Lies.

          The notice filed by Jack Smith is here: Government’s Notice Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(B).

          The evidence that Jack Smith seeks to introduce falls into the following categories:

• historical evidence of the defendant’s consistent plan of baselessly claiming election fraud;

• historical evidence of the defendant’s common plan to refuse to commit to a peaceful transition of power;

• evidence of the defendant and co-conspirators’ knowledge of the unfavorable election results and motive and intent to subvert them;

• evidence that defendants suppressed proof that their fraud claims were false and retaliated against officials who undermined their criminal plans;

• evidence of the defendant’s public attacks on individuals, encouragement of violence, and knowledge of the foreseeable consequence; and

• post-conspiracy evidence of the defendant’s steadfast support and endorsement of rioters.

So, what’s the takeaway? Jack Smith is serious about proving that Trump sought to overturn the election by means of an unlawful conspiracy.

Concluding Thoughts.

          Greg Sargent’s concluding lines in his essay linked above provide the best conclusion possible this newsletter:

No more indulging in paralyzing fatalistic nightmares. We need a spirit of guarded and vigilant confidence—one that is fully aware of what’s at stake while drawing inspiration from the cognizance that this country has thwarted Trump in the past—and will likely do so again.

          What he said.

          Talk to you tomorrow!