Bottom line: Conversations w senior House GOP sources over the past 48 hours suggest the chances of @Liz_Cheney still being in leadership by the end of this month are dicey at best. This is not a Gaetz/Freedom Caucus coup; it goes much broader & deeper. https://t.co/U5MNSjupEG
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) May 1, 2021
You come at the Cheney, you best not miss. She may not stay ‘in the leadership’, for the moment — but I sure wouldn’t want to be the Repub she (and her old man) caught voting against her.
Bess Levin, at Vanity Fair — Mitch McConnell Trades Donald Trump in for a Younger, Skinnier Model:
… While declaring the ex-president a has-been who’ll never work in Washington again.
When we last checked in on the Mitch McConnell–Donald Trump rift, things had gotten increasingly ugly. After four years of a mutual understanding that working together was in the best interest of their individual quests to amass as much power as possible no matter the cost, the former president and former Senate majority leader had apparently decided that their alliance no longer served a purpose, and that the other one should go to hell. Following his decision to acquit Trump of inciting the January 6 mob, McConnell went on to tell reporters that there was “no question…that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” That elicited a response from Trump in which he dubbed McConnell “dour, sullen, and unsmiling” and lacking in “political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality,” adding, “He doesn’t have what it takes, never did, and never will.” (An earlier draft reportedly included an aside about the Kentucky lawmaker “having too many chins but not enough smart[s].”) And two months later, it does not appear that the duo have patched things up!
On Thursday morning, asked how he expects Republicans will do in the 2022 midterm elections, Trump told Maria Bartiromo that he thinks they’ll do well but that a leadership change is in order. “Mitch McConnell has not done a great job, I think they should change Mitch McConnell.”
That diss apparently didn’t sit well with McConnell, who did his own little interview later in the day, in which he told Fox News, of Trump’s comments: “We’re looking to the future, not the past. And if you want to see the future of the Republican Party, watch Tim Scott’s response to President [Joe] Biden last night. He’s the future. That’s where we’re headed. We’re not preoccupied with the past, but looking forward.”…
Today’s GOP: Terrible people, behaving badly.
https://t.co/5iAOblIu7N pic.twitter.com/bONJjqQq7P
— kilgore trout, toilet sword ninja (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 30, 2021
Redshift
I’m enjoying wingnuttia attempting sell Rudy’s claim that attorney-client privilege means lawyers always immune from search warrants. I wish I could believe that even their base wasn’t dumb enough to buy it, but sadly, I expect they are.
AxelFoley
First, let me claim the coveted second spot.
Second, I, too, am rooting for injuries to both sides.
opiejeanne
@Redshift: Yes, that line about attorney-client privilege made me wonder what he’s been smoking.
dopey-o
I don’t think Rudy understands that his (probably free) iCloud account is on Tim Apple’s servers. I’m sure Tim Apple knew, and smiled.
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
Glenn Kirschner explained on his YouTube channel that at the DoJ, a “filter team” goes through the fruits of any search like this and decides what is covered by attorney-client privilege; the prosecuting team never sees such material. Kirschner also mentioned that with his career background, Giuliani is supposed to know stuff like this.
Joey Maloney
@Amir Khalid: I saw someone else refer to it as a “taint team” and in the context of Giuliani I almost lost my lunch.
Amir Khalid
@Joey Maloney:
Kirschner says taint team is another name for a filter team; and yes, calling it a taint team in the context of Rudy G does sound icky.
Morzer
Time for me to go King Henry (8th!) and observe that Liz Cheney is still the loathsome little bigot she always was and hope that she manages to bigly inflict casualties before she’s dragged down by the rabble of fascist pedo-weasels she calls colleagues.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Attorney-client privileged doesn’t cover illegal acts.
of course he’s trying to play victim to grift suckers for his eventual legal defense fund. Additionally, he’s already trying to taint the jury pool in hopes of producing a hung juror. Next he’ll say the evidence was planted on him.
germy
waspuppet
I will never stop being baffled that anyone listens seriously when a game show host lectures people about having “what it takes.”
Geminid
Next year’s Wyoming Congressional primary should be good. Cheney will obviously go all out to defend that seat. She may benefit from multiple challengers, trying to elbow each other out of the trump lane.
Three other impeachers will run in the Midwest: Peter Meijer of Michigan, Adam Kinsinger of Illinois, and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio. Their primaries will be a good gauge of the direction Republican voters are going in that region. These are safe Republican seats.
Another impeacher, Tom Rice (R-SC), is probably a dead duck. The radicals are surging in the South Carolina Republican party, and crazed attorney Lin Wood actually may win the state party chairmanship. That race is being decided in county conventions that are relatively easy for fanatics to dominate. South Carolina has open primaries, though, so Tom Rice could get enough support from Democrats and independent voters to survive, especially if he has multiple challengers.
Last October, when I drove across Rice’s district, I saw his signs along the highway. They were simple: “Tom Rice” at the top, “Congress” at the bottom, and a palmetto tree in the middle. No party label. The district includes Myrtle Beach and Florence.
Geminid
@Geminid: Virginia’s Republican party has been in a low level civil war for a decade now. A Country Club/Chamber of Commerce establishment used to call the shots. That changed in 2014, when Eric Cantor (R-7th) was beaten in a primary by a tea party-type challenger. The year before, popular Lt. Governor Bill Bolling was locked out of the Governor nomination when the party chose a caucus and convention method to nominate statewide candidates. The odious Ken Cuccinelli won the nomination, and lost to Terry McAuliffe that November.
This year, the radical and establishment factions will try to unify behind whoever is selected in next Saturday’s “disassembled” convention, when pre-filed “delegates” will cast ballots at 37 locations. There were 57,000 people who pre-filed. They won’t all show up.
Meanwhile, a February Wason Center poll of registered Virginia voters showed that 37% of Virginia voters identified as Democrats, 33% identified as Independent, and only 25% identified as Republican. Compared to a November 2019 Wason Center poll, Democrats were up 3%, Independents were up 3%, and Republicans were down 6%. The radicals and the establishment Republicans are fighting for control of a shrinking party.
trnc
I’m hard pressed to think of what either of them could do about it.
ChiJD Doug
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: I dont think you are correct. If the privilege did not extend to criminal acts, then criminal defendants would not have the privilege. There are specific narrow exceptions, e.g., fraud, but those have to be demonstrated (with evidence) to the judge or magistrate.