April Showers 🌻 🌻 🌻

Ship of Fools: About the only thing we know about the Trump indictment is that the Former Guy is facing somewhere around 30 charges and even that detail is based on leaks to media outlets.  Neither we, nor any of the politicians rushing to his defense, those prematurely celebrating his downfall, nor even Trump yet know for sure if the indictment is only for “mere” misdemeanors or, more likely, if one or more felonies are also involved.  We don’t know if all the misdemeanors relate solely to the financial records that Trump had falsified to cover up his “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels or whether some concern the National Enquirer’s “catch and kill” arrangement with his other paramour of record, playmate Karen McDougal. As to the felony charges, assuming there are any, a misdemeanor charge can get upgraded to a felony if the crime in question is used to cover up another crime like a campaign finance violation which is what’s expected here but can also involve some of Trump’s other favorite activities like obstruction or witness tampering.  The bottom line, we know little now but will know far more on Tuesday afternoon after Trump is arraigned and even then, we might not know everything because a superseding indictment could result in the addition of more crimes, because given Trump’s predilections who’s to say that he won’t or hasn’t already committed more indictable crimes.  Naturally, Trump is up to his usual shtick, in addition to attacking the Soros, corrupt, socialist prosecutor Alvin Bragg, and stoking violence, he's also going after Judge Juan Merchan, who sentenced Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and is overseeing Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.  The Mango Maniac posted on Truth Social that the “Judge ‘assigned to my Witch Hunt Case, a “Case’ that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME.”  For the record Bragg has indicted and obtained convictions for many cases involving the falsifying of business documents, but Trump does have a point about other presidents not being indicted for similar crimes, but then again though many of our former presidents weren’t innocents, they also didn’t commit a crime or more a day and as to Judge Merchan, it’s not his fault that Trump and his friends keep him so busy.  Most of the focus has been on the Manhattan indictment but Bragg isn’t the only one progressing. According to the Washington Post, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is developing quite an obstruction case against Trump related to his efforts to keep some of the documents he took with him to Mar a Lago out of the hands out of the Feds. Smith’s team has evidence, videos and interviews with Trump staff and lawyers, that document how Trump personally went through boxes of documents that he had his underlings claim had either never made their way to Mar a Lago or had already been returned to the National Archives, picking out those papers and letters that he wanted to keep, legalities be damned.      

Media Matters: To the extent you have some free time on Tuesday, check out the scene down by the courts or in front of Trump Tower. If you missed the “jump the shark” free press that CBS’s 60 Minutes granted Margie Q last night, the interview where she labeled all Democrats as pedophiles, you might get a chance to see her in person because Marge plans to show up with her besties to protest Trump’s arraignment.  What could go wrong with that?  Marge’s interview wasn’t the only one making news, Manhattan’s former DA, Cy Vance explained, or tried to explain, that the reason that Trump wasn’t indicted for the “hush money” offense during his regime was because he’d been asked to stand-down so as not to interfere with the Department of Justice which was then being run by Attorney General Bill Barr, the AG who whitewashed the Muller Report and went after only Michael Cohen. Trump, who of course is rising in the polls because 75% of Republicans say they don’t care if he’s indicted, has been raising money off of the Bragg indictment.  He also plans to deliver an address to the nation from Mar a Lago on Tuesday night after his plane lands back in West Palm Beach because of course he will.  It’s not clear which media outlets will cover his speech live but some will because ratings.  One of those who probably will air at least parts of Trump’s speech is Fox whose Dominion lawsuit problem seems to be getting worse by the day.  On Friday, Eric Davis, the Delaware judge overseeing the Dominion case ruled that it could go forward, saying that the evidence developed “was strong enough to conclude that Fox hosts and guests had repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a fictitious plot to steal the election.” Borrowing Trump’s CAPS trick, he went on to write that it is “CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements related to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” Judge Davis added that the case would proceed to trial “for the jury to weigh whether Fox spread those false claims while knowing they were untrue and to determine any damages.” That’s bigly bad for Fox because a lot of Fox anchors, managers and even Rupert Murdoch are on record saying that they knew the accusations weren’t true but pushed them anyway because 💰 💵. The trial is expected to start on April 17 unless Fox sees the light, freaks out and pays up before then.

People and Politics: Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is out of the hospital, giving interviews and, hopefully, no longer depressed.  Kentucky Senator/Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the few prominent Republicans to have stayed silent about Trump’s indictment will be back after the Easter/Passover break and Diane Feinstein is still MIA.  Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson who has been saying for some time that Trump should withdraw from the race,  is running for president.  The 72-year-old Hutchinson comes from the shrinking to almost non-existent “normy” wing of the Republican Party.  His positions are Liz Cheney conservative, he’s just not into insurrections and porn star payments. Odds are that he like New Jersey’s Chris Christie, who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters but has now ramped up his Trump criticism in anticipation of what may also be a run, is not going to be the next president. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin who hasn’t confirmed he’s running for reelection is also teasing a presidential run, maybe as part of Andrew Yang’s no names/know nothing party. It’s fair to predict that Manchin is not going to be our next president either, though he could be a spoiler. These days by appearing more center right than center left Manchin appears to be doing what he needs to do to beat back his likely Republican Senate opponent, current West Virginia Governor Jim Justice who was once a Democrat before he became a Republican.            

Bluebird Update:  Elon Musk continues to do weird things at Twitter.  Over the weekend after The New York Times said that they wouldn’t pay-up to retain their identify confirming blue checkmarks, he lashed out by stripping away all of the paper’s legacy ones.  That means that the next time that Trump whisperer Maggie Haberman posts one of her inside scoops we won’t know if it’s really by her or from one of the many who have probably already hi-jacked her name.  The Chief Twit’s blue checkmark antics might sound petulant and childish because they are but that’s only part of the problem.  They diminish rather than enhance revenues because advertisers don’t want to be on a platform which pushes fake news and harbors haters.  And, more importantly, though most people don’t use Twitter they do hear its amplified messages so a false narrative pushing bluebird is bad for all of us.