Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Subpoena Battles
Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Subpoena Battles
Plus, The Women Fighting Back Against Putin’s Attack on Ukrainian Culture
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PHILIP ALLEN LACOVARA AND DENNIS AFTERGUT: Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Subpoena Battles.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is reportedly in closed-door courtroom warfare of an unprecedented size and scope against Donald Trump’s praetorian guard. According to CNN, Smith has at least eight ongoing secret battles before Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court and the judges of the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. Those battles are with witnesses whom Smith is trying to bring before his grand juries investigating Trump’s January 6th and Mar-a-Lago misconduct. And at least two more skirmishes—with former Vice President Mike Pence and former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows—are sure to come before the judge, if they’re not already there.
Team Trump’s resistance to legal process is unquestionably driven by a desperate desire for self-preservation. But it must also be understood in the context of the last six years.
The text messages in the Dominion case show that Fox was intentionally pushing lies about 2020 — lies that led to violence. And Trump is one step away from wearing a T-shirt that says “Yes, I COUP’D!” David Frum joins Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod.
Bill Kristol joins the group to consider Haley’s possible hidden strengths. Also, Biden, the GOP, and the war in Ukraine.
Eliot and Eric host Henri Barkey, the Bernard and Betha Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and adjunct fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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CAROLYN STEWART: The Women Fighting Back Against Putin’s Attack on Ukrainian Culture.
American efforts to help Ukraine have largely focused on military and financial support, and understandably so. But as Western news outlets have largely kept their focus on military matters, Vladimir Putin has also pursued an insidious strategy off the battlefield: attacking Ukraine’s cultural identity.
Heartrending destruction has been visited upon Ukraine’s museums, places of worship, memorials, and historical buildings over the last year. UNESCO has verified 240 cultural sites as having been destroyed or damaged by Russian attacks since the invasion began. (The Ukrainian government puts the tally at more than double that.) The government also reports that nearly 40 Ukrainian museums have been looted by Russian soldiers, with tens of thousands of artifacts now lost and still others burned, shattered, or torn apart. This cultural destruction is sometimes accompanied by terrible loss of life. When Russian precision airstrikes struck the dome of a theatrical stage in Mariupol, it reduced the building to rubble and killed an estimated 600 civilians who had sought shelter in the theater. One survivor said that because no one dug out the bodies of the victims, the theater became “one big mass grave.”
SONNY BUNCH: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Review.
A portion of Film Twitter was atwitter the other day because a brave individual logged on to inform all the haters that superhero movies are Good, Actually. Indeed, beyond being Good, Actually, the “superhero movie” is so good that it isn’t even definable. It transcends mere genre. The superhero movie is cinema itself, a restatement of archetypal notions of good and evil.
In this telling, the superhero movie isn’t a cinematic boot stamping on the human face, forever: It is the human face, in all its complexity, in all its glory.
Perhaps. But would it be too much to ask the superhero movie to make it look as though its heroes are actually, you know, walking in a real place and throwing real punches and stomping on real human faces?
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Congrats to Ted! We’re excited, though definitely sad, that Ted Johnson has been given a column at The Washington Post! We’ll of course be linking to him all the time, and hopefully can twist his arm to come back and join us for TNB.
Oodles of bad news for Ogles! Arguably, the details about Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Mayerhofer came first, but didn’t get the explosive coverage that George Santos did. A third Republican fabulist has emerged: Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee.
Ogles took over after Jim Cooper, an original Blue Dog Dem, opted to retire after the GOP shredded his district to elect somebody precisely like Andy Ogles. And Nashville’s Channel 5 is all over it. How do you beat this headline: “Businessman, economist, cop, international sex crimes expert? The stories of Congressman Andy Ogles”?
Dana Milbank… Got himself a gun and is now a self-described eco-vigilante. Here’s why.
Did we shoot down a PICO balloon? It appears so.
This again? The RNC is bringing back the loyalty pledge. Why not make it more fun this go around and make candidates sign it at their favorite diner live on Fox & Friends?
The D.C. etiquette guide. Of course if NYC does something, Washington has to, too.
Meanwhile, in the Free State of Florida… A fight broke out at a HS playoff soccer match when anti-semitic insults were allegedly uttered. How will Ron DeSantis handle this? Will he?
World War T… At LawDork—a worthwhile read!— Chris Geidner documents the many, many states introducing or passing bills and laws concerning transgender youth.
Redefining coal country… How the Mountain State is changing as coal use wanes.
Is the GOP ditching Trump for Nikki? Jordan Klepper seeks to find out.
What Nikki Haley could do… Steward Beckham on how Haley could contribute to a better GOP, but there’s this pesky timeline issue…
The 16 hour flight to nowhere… How a fire at JFK resulted in a New Zealand flight turning around and flying all the way back.
Think visiting every MLB stadium is ambitious? Try seeing every D1 basketball team play in person.
Friday wrist candy… The Bodega Casio GShock 40th Anniversary collaboration.
That’s it for me. Tech support questions? Email members@thebulwark.com. Questions for me? Respond to this message.
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