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Trump Legal News: Out on Bail

Vivek Ramaswamy is fairly young, and he sometimes raps during his campaign stops, so he might well have heard the song by Tupac Shakur. Or, at very least, he's surely heard SOME song by Shakur. As to the rest of the GOP field, we doubt it.

It's been another couple of busy days on the Donald Trump legal front and so, once again, we offer a rundown of the biggest stories:

  1. Making Bail: More than half of the people indicted last week by Fulton County DA Fani Willis have now had their bail set. They are:

    • Trump ($200,000)
    • Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis ($100,000)
    • Trump lawyer John Eastman ($100,000)
    • Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro ($100,000)
    • Fake elector and former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer ($75,000)
    • Pastor and (alleged) poll-worker-intimidator Stephen Lee ($75,000)
    • Former Coffee County GOP chair Cathy Latham ($75,000)
    • Trump campaign adviser and fake elector Michael Roman ($50,000)
    • Trump lawyer Robert Cheeley ($50,000)
    • Trump lawyer Robert Smith III ($50,000)
    • Fake elector and Georgia state senator Shawn Still ($10,000)
    • Alleged Coffee County schemer Scott Hall ($10,000)

    Bail is a function of the seriousness of the charges, the person's ability to pay, and the chances the person might make a run for it. So, Trump's highest-so-far bail could mean he's accused of the worst things, or he's the most well off, or that he's the biggest flight risk. Maybe it's all of the above; keep reading for more on the latter point.

  2. Book 'em, Danno: Several of these folks, including Lee, Still, and Eastman, have also surrendered and been booked. Eastman, in a sign of how badly he's screwed himself, had to ask for a pause in his California disbarment proceedings so that he could travel to Georgia to surrender himself.

  3. How the Mighty Have Fallen: Rudy Giuliani has not yet made bail and, in fact, is not yet in a position to surrender himself because he cannot find local counsel in Georgia. As it turns out, lawyers are not eager to take on a client who is radioactive, will probably lose, and can't afford to pay. Where's Matlock when you need him?

  4. Just Doing My Job: Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Asst. AG Jeffrey Clark are both planning to argue that their actions related to 1/6 were undertaken in their official capacity as Trump White House employees. On this basis, they assert they should therefore be tried in federal court and that they should not have to surrender in Georgia at all. Both men have applied for emergency injunctions along these lines. Trump also plans to make this argument, as does Shafer, but they both already arranged to surrender in Georgia. Meadows and Clark are not likely to get their trials moved to federal court, since it is as plain as day that they're just doing that to get a more favorable judge and more friendly jury pool. And they are very, very unlikely to be allowed to skip out on Georgia entirely. If that was at all plausible, wouldn't Trump be trying it as well?

  5. Let the Finger-Pointing Begin, Part I: Speaking of Meadows, he's tried to paint himself as an uneasy witness to everything that took place on 1/6, and a person who never would think of trying to overturn a legal election result. Former Mike Pence chief of staff Marc Short, who was also something of a Trump White House insider, appeared on CNN yesterday to say that Meadows' head-in-the-sand routine is nonsense, and that the former chief of staff was a "ringleader of much of the events that happened around January 6th."

  6. Let the Finger-Pointing Begin, Part II: We have written, many times, that it is highly unlikely that all the people who have dirt on Trump will remain loyal to him. And guess what? The cracks in the armor are already showing themselves. In the Florida documents case, Mar-a-Lago IT director Yuscil Taveras has terminated the counsel Trump was providing for him, switched to a federal public defender, and changed his testimony to implicate the former president in obstruction of justice. Taveras has not been indicted, but there was much hinting from the feds that if he stuck with his story, he'd be at risk of getting popped for perjury.

  7. Let the Finger-Pointing Begin, Part III: Similarly, in the Georgia case, Shafer made a filing yesterday that said that the fake electors scheme was definitely not his idea, and that he and the others "acted at the direction of the incumbent President and other federal officials." It is clearly time for Trump's (alleged) co-conspirators to start throwing people under the bus while the throwin's still good.

  8. Leaving on a Jet Plane: We often get, and sometimes answer, questions about Trump fleeing the long arm of the law and heading to a country without an extradition treaty. Monday evening, he sent out a "Truth" along those very lines:
    The failed District Attorney of Fulton County (Atlanta), Fani Willis, insisted on a $200,000 Bond from me. I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a "flight" risk—I'd fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir, never to be seen or heard from again. Would I be able to take my very "understated" airplane with the gold TRUMP affixed for all to see. Probably not, I'd be much better off flying commercial—I'm sure nobody would recognize me!
    Trump does not really have a sense of humor, as that term is usually understood. That leaves us with two possibilities: (1) He's looking for ways to poke Willis in the eye without running the risk of his bail being revoked, or (2) He's trial-ballooning the idea of making a run for it. We still doubt he would actually try it, or that he could get away from the Secret Service if he did make an attempt. Nonetheless, when he starts "joking" about the possibility, he potentially takes a very big step toward making it a reality.

  9. In the Year 2525, Part I: Last Friday, we wrote that Team Trump made a tactical blunder in proposing a 2026 start date for his Washington trial, since that's not a serious attempt to find a middle ground with Special Counsel Jack Smith's proposal of January 2, 2024. Frederick Baron and Dennis Aftergut, writing for The Bulwark, agree with us and add an additional key detail. In arguing for the lengthy postponement, Trump's legal team observed that they have so many documents to go through that reviewing them by the January trial date would be like reading "the entirety of Tolstoy's War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day." As Baron and Aftergut observe, there are companies that specialize in going through this kind of voluminous information and boiling it down in an efficient, accessible and searchable manner. Chutkan knows this full well, having overseen cases that involve even more lengthy paper trails than the one Team Trump has to deal with. And so, not only was 2026 an unserious offer, but the rather flippant "Tolstoy" argument effectively boils down to: "We think you fell off the turnip truck yesterday, and so we're going to try to put one over on you using a sorta clever, but ultimately dishonest, analogy." Not a great look for the defense.

  10. In the Year 2525, Part II: Also last Friday, we had songs in all the headlines. The broad similarity, which was more than good enough to earn full credit, was that all of those songs were released in 1969. Here are the first 10 readers to get that:

    1. P.C. in Cleveland, OH
    2. R.C. in Eagleville, PA
    3. J.H. in Lake Forest, CA
    4. D.W.S. in Puyallup, WA
    5. S.N. in San Francisco, CA
    6. A.M. in Rochester, MN
    7. K.S. in Bradford, RI
    8. R.M. in Norwich, CT
    9. M.A. in Park Ridge, IL
    10. D.S. in Layton, UT

    The more specific answer is that all of those songs were on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles for the year 1969. The reason there were 101 songs that have this commonality is that there was a tie for 100th place that year, between "Sweet Cream Ladies" by The Box Tops and "Let Me" by Paul Revere & the Raiders. Here are the first 10 readers to get the more specific answer:

    1. K.G.W. in Lafayette, IN
    2. B.M. in Chico, CA
    3. A.A. in Branchport, NY
    4. C.J. in Branford, CT
    5. S.S. in Lucerne, Switzerland
    6. G.K. in Blue Island, IL
    7. J.B. in Waukee, IA
    8. K.C. in Hindhead, England, UK
    9. J.D. in Greensboro, NC
    10. P.M. in Palm Springs, CA

    We'll also share the response from reader J.N. in Las Vegas, NV: "Your little song game had me Going in Circles until I was quite Dizzy. Of course once I figured it out it left me Laughing. And given the usual tone of the daily news cycle, that's really saying Something."

That's it for the Trump legal stuff for today. And now, the happy news: The lead item tomorrow won't be Trump's legal problems, because of the debate. Well, unless Trump cops a plea, and agrees to a prison sentence and permanent disqualification from running for office. But we looked into the crystal ball, and we don't see that happening. (Z)

Eight Is Enough?

The first formal event of the 2024 presidential campaign cycle (not counting arraignments) will take place this evening in Milwaukee. Eight people who have roughly as much chance of being president as we do will take the stage and beat the tar out of each other, while largely ignoring the expected-to-be-absent frontrunner, Donald Trump.

The eight folks who will be in attendance, in order of polling results (which will dictate placement on stage) are: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Chris Christie, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and Asa Hutchinson. There are four additional folks who claim to be presidential candidates, but who failed to achieve one or both of the necessary hallmarks for qualifying. They are Will Hurd, Mayor Francis Suarez (R-Miami), Larry Elder and Perry Johnson. If they wish to attend the debate, they will have to buy a ticket.

The moderators will be Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier. Apparently, to be suited for this job, you had to be a Fox host with an alliterative name (though one is left to wonder why Greg Gutfeld did not make the cut). Even with only eight people on stage, MacCallum and Baier will have their work cut out for them. If we assume that the moderators spend, say, 20 minutes on niceties and on question-asking, that leaves roughly 12 minutes per candidate. Many of these candidates are pushy and/or loudmouthed, and they're all desperately trying to make their marks. Calming down a feces-throwing battle at the Milwaukee County Zoo's gorilla enclosure would be an easier task than reining in these eight. Not that the two events wouldn't have significant similarities, mind you.

Speaking of Fox (and of the RNC, for that matter), they are not making it all that easy to watch the debate. It will be on Fox's cable channel, of course, as well as on Fox Business. You can also stream it at this link on foxnews.com. If you don't like those options, your only alternative is... Rumble, which will be streaming it on their app, and on their website at this link. Rumble is basically the right-wing version of YouTube. It would seem that the latter is too woke for the tastes of RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel (really).

Not to be too cliché, but here are half a dozen storylines worth watching for:

  1. The 800-pound [MAMMAL OF YOUR CHOICE]: Trump is counterprogramming the debate with a pre-recorded interview he did with former Fox entertainer Tucker Carlson. Since the former president has sat for a thousand softball interviews, we doubt it will attract many viewers, especially since it's going to be on the platform formerly known as Twitter. The main effect of Trump's non-attendance is that some millions of people who would have watched the debate will find something else to do with their time.

    While doing an interview with Carlson is hardly the height of creativity, someone on Team Trump did come up with a little clever trolling, however. Yesterday, Trump's PAC launched vpdebate2024.com, where you can vote for your favorite VP candidate, read a positive quote about Trump uttered by that person, and then see a list of reasons the person is a big loser.

  2. Ron DeScriptus?: As we, and everyone else, wrote last week, DeSantis' script and battle plan for the debate leaked due to foolish behavior by the super PAC that supports him (but that he is definitely not coordinating with). If he follows the script, nonetheless, it will be obvious, and will look phony. If he changes the script, it will be obvious, and will presumably be sub-optimal, strategically. What will he do?

  3. Viveksection: Assuming the Florida governor sticks with his battle plan, his primary on-stage target will be Vivek Ramaswamy, who is currently nipping at DeSantis' heels in the polls. It would seem that the same plan is in effect in the opposite direction; yesterday, Ramaswamy said the whole purpose of his campaign is to sabotage DeSantis (which, in politician-speak, translates as "Pleeeeeeeaaaaase pick me for VP, Dear Leader Trump"). Will Ramaswamy and DeSantis succeed in taking each other apart?

  4. Testosteronium: There will be one woman candidate up on stage. Haley didn't get to where she is without being able to handle a little male aggression, but there's a difference between that and dealing with somewhere between two and seven shouting politicians, several who are just real, alpha-male jerks. If she's treated shabbily tonight, she could get a boost, while an opponent who is overly aggressive could take a hit.

  5. Fox's Thumbs: Will Fox pull some strings to advance its own objectives, candidate-wise? Rupert Murdoch & Co. don't seem to have a preferred non-Trump alternative anymore, but you never know for sure. Alternatively, the Fox leadership might prefer to give very little oxygen to the Hutchinsons and Burgums, in hopes of narrowing down the field as quickly as is possible.

  6. The Kiddies' Table: In 2016, the candidates who didn't make the main stage at least got to participate in the kiddies' debate earlier in the day. This time, they don't even get that. We probably won't know by the end of the night tonight, but surely some of the folks left on the outside will soon throw in the towel. Suarez, in fact, specifically promised that if he did not make the cut, that would be it for him. We'll see if he follows through with that. By contrast, whatever Elder is trying to do, he's not going to give up without plenty of kicking and screaming. He claims that if the RNC accepted polls from Rasmussen, he would have made the stage, and so he's going to file a lawsuit. Good luck with that, Larry.

We are doing our best to treat the debate seriously, but let's be frank, the whole thing is absurd. It's odd that the frontrunner isn't bothering to show up. It's positively nutty that, barring the unexpected, his opponents aren't going to seize the opportunity to take him down a few pegs. On top of this, with everyone sticking to pre-scripted talking points, it's also likely going to be a little boring. In recognition of both of these things, we now present to you "What Would Donald Do?" bingo. All you have to do is watch for the obvious GOP talking points:

CARD 1

25 squares, each with a GOP cliche


CARD 2

25 squares, each with a GOP cliche


CARD 3

25 squares, each with a GOP cliche


CARD 4

25 squares, each with a GOP cliche

If you want to play against friends and family at home, here is a PDF where you can print all 4 cards. Alternatively, you can vote here on which of the four cards you think will bingo first, along with how long you think the debate will be in minutes. We'll run down the results tomorrow; note that we're going to count reasonably equivalent terms as being the same (so, for example, "Sleepy Joe" counts for "Joe Biden.")

In any event, the fun, such as it is, starts at 9:00 p.m. ET. (Z)

Republican Logos: An Assessment

We've been holding onto this for a few weeks, and today's a good day to move forward with it, especially since some of these folks presumably won't be candidates for much longer. Jonathan Last, over at the Bulwark, is passionate not only about politics but also about graphic design. So, he ranked and assessed all the Republican presidential candidates—not on their platforms, but on how effective their logos are. Here are his comments, followed by ours:

Burgum Logo                 Last: #1 Doug Burgum. The candidate may not be great, but his logo is the winner. It is upwards to the right, always a good direction. Red, white, and blue and a nice 3-D effect. It jumps off the page. Very well done.

Us: We agree with Last that this is the pick of the litter.
Trump Logo                 Last: #2 Donald Trump. Last has absolutely no interest whatsoever in Trump the candidate, but Trump the logo shines. Unlike the candidate, it is strong and bold and exudes power.

Us: Clearly, the Trump logo connects with people. We don't entirely get the five stars, however. Is Trump granting himself the rank of General of the Armies? Why not seven stars, so he even outranks George Washington? Alternatively, maybe the auto insurer The General is sponsoring the Trump campaign. Their mascot has also granted himself five-star rank.
Pence Logo                 Last: #3 Mike Pence. Did Karen Pence knit this one herself? It has a feel similar to Reagan/Bush '84. The whimsical leg of the letter "k" is a nice touch as well as the letters touching, except for the "n".

Us: Last rated this one too highly, in our view. The kerning (spacing between letters) is so tight as to be distracting. It's like the third "e" didn't quite fit, so the graphic designer had to squeeze everything to get it in.
Ramaswamy Logo                 Last: #4 Vivek Ramaswamy. The stylized "V" in the middle is nice, but the rest, not so much. The weak curvy serifs on "For president" don't rock at all.

Us: Last is not a historian, and so presumably didn't recognize that Ramaswamy is referencing the stylized Vs used as shorthand for "victory" in many World War I and II recruitment posters. We think that's tacky, and we also, in contrast to Last, think it is ugly.
Christie Logo                 Last: #5 Chris Christie. This one is different. It has a slogan on it and says what his campaign is about. He will tell the truth. Will that get him to 1.1% though? But why is "MATTERS" in red? Is that the key word here? Why not "TRUTH"? Isn't that what matters?

Us: Last is right that "Truth" should be in red, not "Matters." Maybe Christie's team was worried that would seem to be an inadvertent endorsement of Truth Social? Also, why is there so much space between the "S" and the "T" in Christie? It doesn't look like "Christie" it looks like "Chris Tie," like he's selling a line of signature neckwear.
DeSantis Logo                 Last: #6 Ron DeSantis. What's the bit here? He put his name in a college block font and bowed it out a bit to give it some movement. And that flag with three stars and three red stripes? What's that supposed to prove? That most of the country doesn't count? It is untethered to the logo or the brand.

Us: If Rocky Balboa was running for president, this is the font he would use. And indeed, that flag is a disaster.
Haley Logo                 Last: #7 Nikki Haley. By putting "NIKKI" in blue and "HALEY" in red, the eye flows left to right. The font is weird though. Look at that "A." It looks like it came from Battlestar Galactica.

Us: Last doesn't name any fonts; we're not sure if he can't identify them on sight, or if he just thinks that's obnoxious. All we can say is that it's rather apropos that a robotic candidate like Haley is using the font Roboto, albeit with that customized "A." That font was bestowed upon the world by Google/Alphabet, so keep that in mind if Haley rails tonight about biased left-wing social media companies.
Scott Logo                 Last: #8. Tim Scott. Even with Larry Ellison's billions Scott couldn't get someone to design a decent logo for him. The designer should be murdered. It makes your eyes bleed. The bright color here is with "TIM," not "SCOTT." Completely backwards. What's the stupid rectangle for? Why doesn't the middle part of the "M" go to the baseline? What's the point of that? And what does "FAITH IN AMERICA" have to do with Scott? All in all, a huge loser.

Us: Short first names are tough, which is why Ron DeSantis didn't include his (also see below). And obviously, Scott's designer did not solve this problem. If we were advising the Senator, we'd tell him to ignore his generic last name, and build his logo and his campaign around "Tim." Hey, it worked for Ike.
Hutchinson Logo                 Last: #9 Asa Hutchinson. Dear God. What has he done? The logo is a wreck. "Asa" is in a complicated font and the way the "A" interacts with the"s" is dreadful. What's the exclamation point for? To remind people of Jeb!? Is that his role model? The slope of the blue parallelogram is the wrong way. It should be uplifting, not downlifting. And only four stars? Was it otherwise OK but room service took too long? And why in heaven's name is "for" in italics. Is that special? Nothing makes any sense. Is ChatGPT getting into the logo business but it isn't debugged yet? Hutch deserves better.

Us: Last hits on all the things we would have hit on. Hutchinson only promoted himself to full general; a real president isn't satisfied with such a piddling rank. "Asa" is a palindrome; that presents opportunities that were not explored.
Hurd Logo                 Last: Will Hurd. Not ranked; Last didn't include this one.

Us: We get it, he's a Republican, and red is the color of that party, so the "R" had to be red. And he's from Texas, so he had to get a Lone Star in there. But trying to do all those things at once makes the "R" too much. Also, the star looks off-center (even if it isn't).
Suarez Logo                 Last: Francis Suarez. Not ranked; Last didn't include this one.

Us: You can tell Suarez is not ready for the big time. There's the silly, meaningless slogan, but that's a messaging issue. From a graphic design perspective, the giveaway is that blue-red gradient line that forms a box around his name. When bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc. are mass produced, they don't use CMYK, as is done with newspapers, magazines, books, etc. They use spot colors (e.g., a red plate, a blue plate, a black plate, etc.). That kind of gradient is really hard to achieve in that manner, and if the plates don't line up perfectly (and they often don't), the gradient looks awful.
Johnson Logo                 Last: Perry Johnson. Not ranked; Last didn't include this one.

Us: We're not so sure what the slash is about. Johnson sometimes talks about "slashing" the national debt; if that's what he's going for, wow, that's a stretch. And because of the slash, and the way it leads the eye around, we keep reading that top line as "Presidente 2024," like he's running for office in Central America.
Elder Logo                 Last: Larry Elder. Not ranked; Last didn't include this one.

Us: We think this one is actually top three among all the logos on the page. That said, while Elder was going for a shooting star, we see a falling star. Make a wish.

Graphic design is hard. But still, it's not out of bounds to note that if a candidate can't get this important part of their campaign right, it's not a great sign. (V & Z)

"Hopalong, Trump," Says Cassidy

Ok, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) didn't say it quite like that, but his meaning was the same. Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, the Senator shared his views that Trump can't win the 2024 election, that the former president is likely headed to prison, that the classified documents case in particular is "almost a slam dunk," and that he might not be eligible to run for president anyhow, in view of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Cassidy is plenty conservative, but he's also not especially Trumpy, having been one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict in Trump's second impeachment trial. The Senator is also fairly close with his colleague to the north, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Cassidy could be freelancing, but he could also be working with McConnell and other traditional Republicans to slowly undermine Trump. It is not likely to work, but you don't know if you don't try, and if there are one or more criminal convictions by mid-2024, stranger things have happened.

Meanwhile, some of the Republican presidential candidates are starting to embrace the Fourteenth Amendment argument. Asa Hutchinson was also on CNN on Sunday, and he also alluded to Trump's potential ineligibility. "I'm not even sure he's qualified to be the next president of the United States," said the former Arkansas governor. "I'm referring to the Fourteenth Amendment. A number of legal scholars said that he is disqualified because of his actions on January 6."

Even if Trump is able to delay his trials, we think that the Fourteenth Amendment issue is a real problem for him. The question cannot really be tested in court until there is an actual ballot to fight over. But once there is, there are going to be lawsuits, if Trump's name appears, or if it doesn't. And to have legal scholars, U.S. senators and Republican presidential candidates talking about the Fourteenth Amendment now will serve to get the idea out there and to normalize it. This does not mean that Trump actually will be disqualified. And even if he is, the base will be howling mad, of course. But if non-fanatical Republicans and independents have been primed to accept that there's a valid legal argument here, that could go far in preventing anti-Democratic backlash at the ballot box. (Z)

Boebert Is in Real Danger of Losing Her Seat

Of the members of Congress who might be described as "show horses" (as opposed to work horses), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is almost certainly the most vulnerable. Her district, CO-03, is R+6, which means that the generic Republican has a roughly 52%-48% built-in advantage. That Republican doesn't have to alienate too many moderate voters to fritter that advantage away. And that appears to be happening here.

Recall that Boebert's race, in 2022, was the closest in the country, and was not resolved for several weeks after Election Day, with the Representative ultimately winning by a mere 546 votes out of 327,132 cast (0.16% of the total). Recall also that her opponent, Adam Frisch, is back for another run at the job, and this time is well known and well funded. Finally, recall that Boebert has been particularly unpleasant this term, with her fight with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her undermining of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), not to mention a likely central role in any government shutdowns that might happen later this year.

Anyhow, Frisch knows full well that he needs to take the lion's share of independent voters in order to unseat Boebert, and so he's been focusing on those folks. And, according to a new poll from Keating Research, it's working. He's leading by 17 points among independent voters (and, incidentally, 32 points among Latinos). Consequently, he holds a 2-point lead in the head-to-head matchup against Boebert, 50% to 48%. This despite the fact that among the same respondents, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden 49% to 44%.

It's a long time to Election Day, and 2 points is within the margin of error, of course. But, as noted, Boebert could well do even more damage to herself this fall, during the fight over the budget. She's falling far behind in fundraising, and could well end up with a primary challenger. For Frisch, by contrast, the path is clear, the money is plentiful, and he's not likely to alienate voters with high-profile shenanigans. So, his chances are looking pretty good. (Z)


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