Six Months

Today marks six months of Civil Discourse. On June 6, after months of careful planning for the contribution I wanted to try and make in the public square, I hit the send button on the first edition of this newsletter. I felt pretty sure my best friends would subscribe. What I wasn’t expecting, was the tens of thousands of you would sign up for the newsletter and then engage on our forums, in email, in chat and on social media.

Thank you for being here and for being engaged. I’m grateful, and perhaps even more importantly, I’m encouraged. Ahead of the midterms when things looked a bit bleak, I found hope here. I loved the stories people told about working in the polls, writing postcards to voters (I joined in, and it was such a good experience!), and making sure friends and neighbors were registered and had a plan to vote. In short, we’re democracy in action around here, the silver lining to the Trump administration, and I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for being here with me.

That’s really all I had planned for tonight, but it turned out be a crazy news day, so I’ll flag a few issues and we can take them up later in the week.

A jury in Manhattan gave us something important to celebrate. Accountability has finally come for Trump, or at least to his business, the Trump Organization, in the form of a jury verdict convicting the Organization on multiple counts related to fraud in a criminal case. When a corporation is convicted, no one goes to jail and the fine here is relatively modest. But the bubble of invincibility that has always seemed to protect Trump’s criminality burst today. He’s now a mere mortal, like anyone else in the legal system, and especially so after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals went out of its way to tell him that truth last week.

It’s hard to underestimate the impact of the zeitgeist. I remember thinking early in the Trump administration, as really bad things like the Muslim ban and the family separation policy came to light, that it would be too much for Trump supporters and they’d walk away from the monster they’d created. I was so very wrong. But now, albeit way too late, we’re finally seeing small signs that the fever dream that kept people at Trump’s side may be breaking. Who knows why they stayed there through Trump’s mismanagement, outright abuse, corruption, and insurrection, but small shifts matter. You have to start somewhere.

Of course, we’re not out of the woods, but I think this conviction will have an impact. It will be there as the rest of his legal woes progress, a reminder that he can be held accountable. You may recall that it was Alvin Bragg, responsible for the Trump organization’s conviction today, who as the newly elected Manhattan District Attorney, pumped the brakes on prosecuting Trump in the case. We never learned the precise details, but it seemed that Bragg wasn’t convinced there was sufficient evidence to tie Trump to the fraud beyond a reasonable doubt, although he left open the possibility of a reassessment.

An acquittal in the Trump Organization prosecution would have made that reassessment improbable. Prosecutors pointed the finger at Trump in closing argument, saying that he knew what was going on. It would have been tough to rejuvenate a case against Trump if they’d lost. Prosecutors were allowed to make the argument that Trump knew about the fraud because defense lawyers “opened the door” to it. They argued that Trump didn’t know what his CFO, Allen Weisselberg was up to, in essence claiming Weisselberg was stealing from the company, not with the company, as prosecutors alleged. That defense never made a lot of sense: Trump’s business benefited significantly from the fraud, paying Weisselberg less than if he’d simply asked for a raise because Trump didn’t have to pay taxes on the under-the-table benefits. Weisselberg pled guilty, and the jury’s verdict against the Organization wasn’t a stretch, given solid evidence, but after so many years of earning the nickname Teflon Don, no one saw it as a sure thing.

Ahead of the verdict, Bragg leaked news that he’d hired his old colleague from the New York Attorney General’s office, Matthew Colangelo, who masterminded the case that led to the shut down of Trump’s charitable organization. Colangelo spent the last two years at DOJ as the deputy for the Associate Attorney General, the number three official at DOJ, overseeing matters including complex tax, antitrust, environmental, and civil rights criminal prosecutions. If Bragg has changed his mind about prosecuting Trump, or if he simply intends to reinvigorate that investigation to leave no stone unturned, he’s brought on the right person to oversee it. It’s encouraging.

In other news today, the new special counsel, Jack Smith, jumped straight into the January 6 side of his investigation, and sent subpoenas to states that were in the thick of the fake-elector push, asking key officials for materials that included anything related to communication with the Trump campaign. The January 6 committee geared up to make criminal referrals to DOJ as it winds down its work. And Mike Flynn lost his fight to avoid testifying before the Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury investigation into election interference.

The legal system is in high gear.

And of course, the Georgia election. I’m determined to get the views of our elected officials on Trump’s explicit, written repudiation of allegiance to the rule of law and our Constitution. (For the record, not a single one of mine in Alabama has responded to requests so far.) It’s reprehensible. Anyone who can’t bring themselves to take the easy, obvious step of condemning Trump is unfit to serve. But with a 51-49 majority in the Senate, Democrats have work to do. The even split on committees that existed in the 50-50 Senate of the last two years made it difficult to carry some work out of committee. Even with Republicans back in control of the House, it will be up to the Senators to make good use of this slim majority and do everything possible to right the ship as we head into 2024. Thank goodness Senator Warnock will return to Washington.

That’s more than I intended to say tonight, but it really has been a day! Thank you for being here for the first six months of Civil Discourse. I hope you’ll stick around.

We’re in this together,

Joyce