Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: "Manhattan prosecutors and former President Trump are sparring over the scope of the gag order imposed on the former president in his hush money criminal case less than three weeks out from the start of trial. The former president has continued to direct his rage at Judge Juan Merchan's daughter in social media posts after Merchan this week refused to delay Trump's trial and approved prosecutors' request to gag him. In separate letters made public on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's (D) office and Trump's lawyers argued over whether the gag order's language reaches the families of both the district attorney and the judge."
Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Lawyers for ... Donald J. Trump and eight of his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case asked an appeals court on Friday to take up their challenge of a judge's ruling that allowed the prosecutor Fani T. Willis to stay on the case. With their application to appeal, the defendants are once again pressing their argument that Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, created an untenable conflict of interest by having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case."
Federal Judge Rebukes Trump. Shania Shelton & Rashard Rose of CNN: "A sitting federal judge on Thursday harshly criticized Donald Trump's attacks on the judge overseeing the former president's criminal case tied to alleged hush money payments, telling CNN that such statements threaten the viability of the American legal system. US District Judge Reggie Walton spoke with CNN's Kaitlan Collins ... in the wake of Trump's attacks on Judge Juan Merchan, which helped prompt the New York judge to issue a gag order on the former president earlier this week. It is unusual for federal judges to speak publicly, especially about specific political or legal situations. 'It's very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge, and it's particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat, especially if they're directed at one's family,' said Walton, who has also faced threats, as has his daughter." MB: Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush appointed Judge Walton. ~~~
~~~ Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Walton's remarks came as several federal judges in Washington appointed by Republican presidents have spoken with increasing urgency about Trump's disregard for historical facts and alarmed at his increasingly graphic and at times violent description of defendants prosecuted in the Jan. 6 riot as 'political prisoners' and 'hostages' who did nothing wrong."
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Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: "The federal government updated how it classifies people by race and ethnicity for the first time in over a quarter-century, aiming to better capture an increasingly diverse country and give policymakers a fuller view of the Americans their work impacts. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget announced Thursday it would combine questions about race and ethnicity on federal forms and encourage people to select multiple options if applicable. The government also will add 'Middle Eastern or North African' (MENA) as a new category for the combined question, which will include seven total choices." Politico's report is here. MB: Surely Trump would fire the deep-state bureaucrats who came up with this revised classification system and reduce the number of classifications to two: White and Whatever.
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Republican impeachment managers informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a letter Thursday that they will send two impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10.... The move will force the Senate to take up the matter, at least formally, and then Schumer will have to decide whether to hold a full trial on the Senate floor, vote to dismiss the charges immediately or to refer it to a special evidentiary committee.... 'If he cares about the Constitution and ending the devastation caused by Biden's border catastrophe, Sen. Schumer will quickly schedule a full public trial and hear the arguments put forth by our impeachment managers,' Johnson said in a statement...."
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel of the Washington Post: "Eleven Republican-led states sued on Thursday to overturn President Biden's new student loan repayment plan, arguing the program is a scheme to provide widespread debt relief that the Supreme Court struck down last year. The federal lawsuit, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, largely mirrors the claims in the case that brought down Biden's plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans last year. The states allege the president has again overstepped his authority.... [BUT] Whereas the Biden administration's failed plan used a 9/11-era law to justify providing $430 billion in debt relief during the pandemic, the new Save plan was created using authority from the Higher Education Act that spawned income-driven repayment plans in 1993.... Kobach, like many conservatives, argues broad debt relief is patently unfair to American taxpayers who did not go to college or saved to pay for school because it 'forces them to pay for the student loans for those who ran up exorbitant student debt.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is another instance of stupid. The country's greatest asset is a force of well-educated working people. They pay taxes and provide jobs (often for the less-educated) & services. And they "ran up exorbitant student debt" because states no longer provide the free or nearly-free college tuition they did back in the day. Reducing a burden that the states themselves imposed on these breadwinners is a net-plus for the states.
Presidential Race
Donald Trump, as far as we can tell, has just been trying to win a third championship at his own golf course. My question to you, sir. Can voters trust a presidential candidate who has not won a single Trump International Golf Club trophy? At long last. Sir, have you no chip-shot? -- Stephen Colbert, to Joe Biden at the New York City fundraiser
I told him once before when he came into the Oval before he got sworn in. I said, "I'll give you three strokes if you carry your own bag." -- President Biden, in response ~~~
Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: "The epicenter of the presidential campaign shifted to New York on Thursday, as the incumbent president and three of his predecessors descended on the area for dueling events that illustrated the kinds of political clashes that could come to define the general election. For Democrats, it was a high-profile, celebrity-studded fund-raiser for President Biden in Manhattan. On Long Island..., Donald J. Trump attended a wake for a New York City officer who was killed during a traffic stop on Monday.... Mr. Biden, along with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, appeared before 5,000 donors at a Radio City Music Hall event that campaign aides said raised $25 million. The eye-popping number set a record for a single political event, according to the aides, and offered a star-studded show of Democratic unity.... The three Democratic presidents spent much of their time in New York City wrapped in the glitz of their celebrity supporters. Tieless and in matching white shirts, they sat for an interview on a celebrity podcast, were roasted by the comedian Mindy Kaling and interviewed by Stephen Colbert.... Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton made the case for re-electing Mr. Biden, praising his work expanding health care coverage, creating jobs, capping insulin prices and navigating the competing demands of the war in Gaza."
Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "When ... Donald Trump visited the wake of fallen New York police officer Jonathan Diller Thursday, he played up his credentials of being the candidate that stands up for law and order. But that smacks of 'cynical hypocrisy,' wrote Michael Daly in a scathing column for The Daily Beast. As he stood with mourners, Daly could hear the 'Justice for All' anthem playing in his head, a tribute to the jailed January 6 defendants that Trump calls patriots -- and that's a big problem[.]... '... An analysis by Just Security found that 17 of the 20 Jan. 6 prisoners in the facility around the time of the recording had been arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers.... Trump was apparently counting on everybody forgetting the 140 officers the DOJ says were assaulted at the Capitol by people he calls "patriots" and "hostages,"' wrote Daly."
Robert Kagan of the Washington Post: "Clearly, people have not been taking Donald Trump's resurrection of America First seriously. It's time they did. The original America First Committee was founded in September 1940 [at the start of World War II].... The leading Republican of his day, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, ridiculed those who expressed fears of advancing fascism.... American entry into World War II was the victory of a liberal worldview over an anti-interventionism rooted in a conservative anti-liberalism.... Cutting off Ukraine seems like small beer by comparison [to the European war], but behind it lies the same 'America First' thinking. For Donald Trump and his followers, pulling the plug on Ukraine is part of a larger aim to end America's broader commitment to European peace and security.... Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has called for the immediate reduction of U.S. force levels in Europe and the abrogation of America's common-defense Article 5 commitments.... Trump's Republican Party wants to take the United States back to the triad of interwar conservatism: high tariffs, anti-immigrant xenophobia, isolationism."
More about the Orange Jesus Bible. A.J. Willingham of CNN: "'Happy Holy Week!' Trump announced on social media Tuesday.... 'As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible.'... Responses to Trump's social media announcement called the endorsement 'sacrilege,' 'heresy' and 'borderline offensive' and cite lessons directly from the Bible that suggest taking advantage of people's faith for money should be condemned. 'It is a bankrupt Christianity that sees a demagogue co-opting our faith and even our holy scriptures for the sake of his own pursuit of power and praise him for it rather than insist that we refuse to allow our sacred faith and scriptures to become a mouthpiece for an empire,' said Rev. Benjamin Cremer on X." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Of course, co-opting Christianity to promote himself is Trump's reason for hawking a $60 Bible. It's a dictator thing. ~~~
~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump could be making a big mistake hawking the 'God Bless the USA' Bible to his MAGA supporters. Some of them might actually read it.... They need only read as far as Exodus 20, in which Moses comes down from the mountain and pronounces the Ten Commandments. 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' is an injunction Trump has bragged about habitually violating, as heard on the 'Access Hollywood' tape. In that same recording, he also boasted about violating another commandment -- "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" -- by saying he 'did try and f---' a married woman. 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor' is yet another commandment Trump routinely ignores. Of the tens of thousands of documented lies he has told, many have been falsehoods about his real or perceived enemies.... The New Testament tells us that we all are sinners -- and that we all can be saved.... That is the theological basis on which Trump's unlikeliest loyal followers -- evangelical Christians and their pastors -- justify looking past the way Trump scoffs at so many of the Bible's instructions." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The fact is that first-century Jews were not looking for a pacifist leader. Rather, most envisioned their messiah as a God-anointed hero who would lead a great uprising to banish Israel's conquerors from the land. Of course Trump would not do that, either, as Robert Kagan illuminates. Trump finds his enemies within: small-"d" democrats, non-whites, journalists, judges, anyone who isn't "loyal" to him. ~~~
Kate Brumback of the AP: "The charges against Donald Trump in the Georgia election interference case seek to criminalize political speech and advocacy conduct that the First Amendment protects, a lawyer for the former president said Thursday as he argued that the indictment should be dismissed. The hearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee was on a filing from Trump and on two pretrial motions by co-defendant David Shafer and centered on technical legal arguments. It marked something of a return to normalcy after the case was rocked by allegations that District Attorney Fani Willis improperly benefited from her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor hired for the case. 'There is nothing alleged factually against President Trump that is not political speech,' Trump's lead lawyer, Steve Sadow, told the judge. Sadow said a sitting president expressing concerns about an election is 'the height of political speech' and that is protected even if what was said ended up being false." ~~~
~~~ CNN liveblogged a court hearing yesterday on Trump's effort to dismiss the Georgia election interference case. "In a hearing underway now, a judge is considering whether the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump should be dismissed on First Amendment grounds. Trump's lead attorney in the case is arguing in court that the indictment should be thrown out because the former president's political speech is protected. Trump is not attending the hearing." Both CNN & MSNBC currently (10:15 am ET) are airing the hearing live. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: As far as I can figure out the Trumpy argument, it goes like this: you and I and anybody can organize, manage & direct any sort of criminal plot -- be it a terrorist attack or murder or a bank heist -- and be adjudged completely innocent because we were just exercising our First Amendment free-speech rights. Update: Well, maybe our criminal plot has to be political in nature, so planning a bank robbery might not be legal (unless we did it to, say, give the proceeds to a Biden PAC).
Betsy Swan of Politico: "Arizona Republicans who falsely posed as electors for Donald Trump in 2020 have appeared before a grand jury in recent days and invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as state prosecutors near a decision on potential criminal charges against those who helped Trump try to overturn his loss in the state. The prosecutors' decision to require these people to appear in person is the latest escalation of the long-running probe by the state's attorney general, Kris Mayes, into election interference by Trump allies. The tactic is also highly unusual and risks biasing the grand jury against key targets of the probe, according to independent legal experts who have worked as both prosecutors and defense lawyers.... The Justice Department's manual for federal prosecutors says that when subpoenaed targets and their lawyers say they plan to plead the Fifth, those targets should ordinarily be excused from grand jury testimony."
Ken Sweet & Larry Neumeister of the AP: "Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unraveled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency. Bankman-Fried, 32, was convicted in November of fraud and conspiracy -- a dramatic fall from a crest of success that included a Super Bowl advertisement and celebrity endorsements from stars like quarterback Tom Brady, basketball star Stephen Curry and comedian Larry David. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan imposed the sentence in the same Manhattan courtroom where, four months ago, Bankman-Fried testified that his intention had been to revolutionize the emerging cryptocurrency market with his innovative and altruistic ideas, not to steal." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times report is here.
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Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "A Georgia Republican official who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was 'stolen' was found to have voted illegally nine times, a judge ruled this week. Brian Pritchard, first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, as well as investigative costs, and be publicly reprimanded. Pritchard had been sentenced in 1996 in Pennsylvania to three years' probation for felony check forgery charges. His probation was revoked three times -- once in 1999, after he moved to Georgia, and again in 2002 and 2004. In 2004, a judge imposed a new seven-year probationary sentence on Pritchard, thus making him ineligible to vote until at least 2011 in Georgia, where state law prohibits felons from voting. Despite that, court documents showed that Pritchard signed voter registration forms in 2008 in which he affirmed that he was 'not serving a sentence for having been convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude.' He then cast ballots in four Georgia primary and general elections in 2008, as well as five special, primary and general elections in 2010.... Pritchard is a conservative talk show host and the owner of fetchyournews.com, which he has described as a conservative political news site." (Also linked yesterday.) An NBC News story is here.
South Carolina, et al. Justice Deferred. Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: "In a scenario that has played out in three states in recent years, a federal court ruled Thursday that time had run out to draw a new congressional district in South Carolina and that the state would have to proceed this fall with an existing election map the court had previously deemed illegal. The ruling echoes redistricting cases in other Southern states where courts found that congressional maps violated the voting rights of Black voters and other people of color but allowed them to be used anyway, at least temporarily. In recent years, that happened in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. In the latest instance, a panel of three judges decided to let South Carolina use a new map drawn by the Republican-led legislature because the Supreme Court had not yet decided an appeal that will ultimately determine how the district should be drawn. Voting rights advocates decried the ruling, saying it is unjust to hold even one election in districts that are unconstitutional." P.S. Thanks, Supremes!
Texas. Orlando Mayorquín of the New York Times:"In a case that has prompted outrage from voting-rights activists for years, a Texas appeals court reversed itself on Thursday and acquitted a woman who had been sentenced to five years in prison for illegally casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. The decision came two years after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, ruled that the lower appeals court, the Second Court of Criminal Appeals, had misconstrued the illegal voting statute under which Crystal Mason was found guilty in 2018. Ms. Mason, 49, of Fort Worth, had been charged with illegally voting in the 2016 general election by casting a provisional ballot while she was a felon on probation. That ballot was never officially counted, and Ms. Mason insisted that she did not know she was ineligible to vote and had acted on the advice of a poll worker who said she could cast the ballot." The Guardian's story is here.
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Russia. Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "Since his arrest [a year ago, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan] Gershkovich, 32, has been held in the notorious high-security Lefortovo prison in Moscow, the same facility holding the people accused in the deadly attack at a concert venue in the city this month. The Journal and the U.S. government have vehemently denied that Mr. Gershkovich is a spy, saying he was an accredited journalist doing his job. On Tuesday, Mr. Gershkovich's detention was extended for yet another three months. A trial date has not been set.... Roger Carstens, the Biden administration's special envoy for hostage affairs, said the U.S. government had 'intensive efforts' underway to secure Mr. Gershkovich's release, as well as the release of another detained American, Paul Whelan, a Marine veteran who is also accused of espionage. 'Journalism is not a crime,' Mr. Carstens said in a statement."
News Ledes
The Washington Post's live updates of developments following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore are here: "A crane described by officials as the largest on the Eastern Seaboard is expected to arrive in Baltimore on Friday, as efforts get underway to clean up the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed earlier this week after it was struck by a cargo ship. Officials have emphasized that reopening the Port of Baltimore, where vessel traffic is suspended indefinitely, is their top priority and that teams are needed to finish assessments to determine where to cut the bridge into pieces before they could start extracting it.... Federal transportation officials have approved $60 million in emergency funding for recovery and cleanup efforts. More federal funds will follow, but longer-term funding from Congress could take months. The steps necessary to reopen the Port of Baltimore involve clearing debris from the channel, then moving the cargo vessel that struck the Key Bridge and eventually removing the rest of the bridge debris from the waterway."
New York Times: "Louis Gossett Jr., who took home an Academy Award for 'An Officer and a Gentleman' and an Emmy for 'Roots,' both times playing a mature man who guides a younger one taking on a new role -- but in drastically different circumstances -- died early Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87."
CNBC: "Inflation rose in line with expectations in February, likely keeping the Federal Reserve on hold before it can start considering interest rate cuts, according to a measure the central bank considers its more important barometer. The personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy increased 2.8% on a 12-month basis and was up 0.3% from a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Both numbers matched the Dow Jones estimates.... Along with the inflation increase, consumer spending shot up 0.8% on the month, well ahead of the 0.5% estimate, possibly indicating additional inflation pressures. Personal income increased 0.3%, slightly softer than the 0.4% estimate."
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