Vacation

All I ever wanted...

Yes, I had planned on vacationing and sending you lovely, relaxing photos this week (and there are a few at the bottom) but there is A LOT going on right now! Another January 6 Committee hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, July 12 at 10am ET. I’ll be commenting on MSNBC ahead/during/after). A flurry of subpoenas were issued by Fulton County, Georgia, DA Fani Willis who continues to investigate Trump & co. for election interference (Lindsey Graham says he’ll fight his; others subpoenaed include Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Jenna Ellis). There’s more:

• Rolling Stone has a report that the head of a conservative religious group claims they prayed with Supreme Court justices, at the Court, while the group had amicus (friend of the court) briefs pending. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion actually cited the group’s amicus brief, so it’s hard to avoid the conflict of interest, if the report is true. The Court declined to comment on the situation, apparently content to let the public’s opinion of it deteriorate further. Read More.

• The New York Times reported that, improbable as it seems, both former-FBI director James Comey, who Trump fired (“Oh Lordy, I hope there are tapes”) and his deputy Andy McCabe, (who Trump stooge Jeff Sessions fired after his insistence on maintaining an independent FBI ran him afoul of Trump) were both selected for a special, high level (read deeply invasive, time consuming, and expensive to deal with) tax audit that only a very few tax filers undergo. And all while the IRS was under the leadership of Trump administration officials. The IRS did 5,000 of these audits in 2017 — there were 153 million filed tax returns. Seems sketchy. (“‘Lightning strikes, and that’s unusual, and that’s what it’s like being picked for one of these audits,’ said John A. Koskinen, the I.R.S. commissioner from 2013 to 2017. ‘The question is: Does lightning then strike again in the same area? Does it happen? Some people may see that in their lives, but most will not — so you don’t need to be an anti-Trumper to look at this and think it’s suspicious.’”) The Treasury Department’s Inspector General has been asked to investigate.

• Trump’s White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone, is finally testifying in front of the January 6 committee. It sounds like Cipollone will try to limit it to Trump’s efforts to install Jeffrey Clark as the head of DOJ (when acting AG Jeff Rosen wouldn’t play pool over advancing the big lie). But that doesn’t mean committee staff won’t badger him with questions about everything else. Cipollone sits in the seat John Dean occupied during Watergate. We’ll find out what Cipollone is made of and whether he has any shame. Word is this interview will be videotaped, which means we may see cuts of it in future hearings.

• President Biden is expected to (and may have already by the time you read this) sign an executive order that formalizes the commitment made by Attorney General Garland after Dobbs, to protect access to abortion, as much as possible. The Court’s ruling, as you’ll recall, leaves the question of whether abortion should be legal, and if so, under what conditions, to each state’s legislature. The federal government’s ability to act is limited by the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which prohibits many types of federal spending on abortion. The Order will likely be challenged in court on this and other grounds. But the federal government can help in at least three important areas:

  • Protecting the right to travel from a state that limits abortion to one that makes it available. This is particularly important as some conservative state legislatures are making noise about criminalizing travel.

  • Protecting the ability to share information about abortion access, including out of state options. Speech of this type is clearly protected by the 1st Amendment against any state’s efforts to prohibit it, and federal involvement is appropriate here.

  • Protecting access to medication abortion.

  • Read the press release on the order here. It looks like a comprehensive effort to engage federal resources and public/private partnerships in an aggressive way. We’ll know more when we see the actual details, but this is a positive and much needed step.

• And finally, this epic exchange, involving two of my favorite people, followed the conviction of Eric Holder, Jr. in the death of Nipsey Hussle.

Hussle’s murderer was not, obviously, the former Attorney General.

Equally obviously, it’s a very important time for people who are deeply concerned about the future of our country to stay engaged. We’re all Trump & Covid weary, and we all need a good vacation (and I hope that you, like me, will get one), but there is serious work ahead of us.

Before I close, a few pictures from Portugal, which we are loving.

Could it be a Russian Oligarch’s yacht? As we drove up the coast past the westernmost point in Europe, this caught my eye

Please leave your comments and thoughts for me to read on the flights back home! I’ve got a short explainer in conspiracy law coming up early next week—I have a feeling it may come in handy soon.

We’re in this together,

Joyce