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You are here: Home / Politics / Ruling on Rep. Perry’s Cell Phone

Ruling on Rep. Perry’s Cell Phone

by | 144 Comments

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I am pretty sure this is a big Joe Biden deal, but I really don’t completely understand the ruling and the implications of the ruling.

Can the BJ peeps who are attorneys weigh in?  (And everyone else, of course!)

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia

It sounds to me like it’s mostly good news for the DOJ and Jack Smith, but “it sounds like good news to me” gives me no confidence at all!

Hoping for more info!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  1. 1.

    Betty

    It just means, as I understand it, that the Court must separate out what is legitimate legislative communication from what may be connected to “campaigning” for Trump’s re-election

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty:

    This sounds right to me, both in terms of understanding the court’s ruling and that the court made the right call.  It’s a classic problem when the government seizes a bunch of stuff.  Some of it is responsive to the warrant and some isn’t.  This has always been a problem, but it’s much worse with things like phones, where there’s all kinds of information jumbled together and it’s not practical to sort through it during the seizure.

  3. 3.

    Suzanne

    I just saw that the Mittster is declining to run for re-election. What, another six years with those freaks didn’t sound like the best way to spend your retirement?!

  4. 4.

    narya

    @Betty: Agree. I think one proposal was two groups: everything to another legislator/member of Congress was a speech-and-debate-protected communication, everything else was okay. This option means that if Perry is doing something that is provably PLOTTING with members of Congress, they could fight to include it, I suppose. I don’t think Jack is waiting around for Perry’s phone, though.

  6. 6.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev: Agree.

    I think it’s interesting that the Mormon senators on the GOP side are having a hard time. Flake and Romney, both from prominent LDS families, both bailed. I can see why they find it difficult.

  9. 9.

    Burnspbesq

    I read it as mostly a win for Perry. The tell is the authorship by Rao, one of the worst Trump-nominated judges.

    On remand, the district court will have to do a document-by-document in camera review and write a voluminous opinion justifying its conclusions, which will necessarily give Perry a second bite of the apple. This will surely take a while. But Perry will eventually get his. The statute of limitations is his friend, but it’s not that into him.

  10. 10.

    frosty

    Put that sleazy bastard away! I’ve canvassed against him a couple of times with really good Democrats who anyone from any party could get behind. He wins every time, even in his new district. I want him gone. He’s an embarrassment to PA. And even to Pennsyltucky.

  12. 12.

    ArchTeryx

    @Suzanne: Mitt was a weird one. When he ran for President, he seemed to be the first candidate to just resort to lying about everything, even the most trivial matters – the dude couldn’t tell the truth about the color of the sky. That was the technique Trump honed to perfection. Mittens was an absolute choad who wouldn’t have known the truth if it skullf**ked him.

    And yet, when push came to shove, he was one of the only ones to stand up for democracy, probably because the Mormons would not do well AT ALL in a straight-up Christian theocracy. They don’t like heathens like the LDS.

    The replacement’s pretty much guaranteed to be worse, but probably not as bad as the Christian hacks from places like Texas.

  14. 14.

    jonas

    @NotMax: Who was the Never Trumper who tried to take on Lee last time as an independent? Maybe he’ll give it another shot now. He ran a good campaign as I recall, but of course much of Utah is deep in the throes of Trumpism, so it could just be so much pissing in the wind at this point.

  15. 15.

    piratedan

    @NotMax: I present to you….  Senator Lauren Boebert representing the great state of Utah,  figure if it worked for Tuberville, why not Lauren whose congressional district is Utah adjacent…. “close enough”.

  16. 16.

    tobie

    What an awful panel for anyone who believes in the rule of law. Henderson, Katsas and Rao are three of the most conservative judges on the DC court of appeals. Katsas and Rao were of course appointed by Trump. Henderson was appointed by G. H. W. Bush, but seems to have shifted further right since then. Recall that Henderson and Rao voted to let the DOJ dismiss all charges against Flynn. 

    This morning—in a stunning decision that broke from usual standards of judicial process and self-restraint—D.C. Circuit Judges Neomi Rao and Karen LeCraft Henderson granted Michael Flynn’s preemptive mandamus petition to shut down Judge Emmet Sullivan’s consideration of the government’s motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.  The court ordered Judge Sullivan “to grant the government’s Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss” the charge before the judge even considers the merits of that motion, apparently in order to prevent him from convening a hearing on it.  Judge Robert Wilkins dissented.

  18. 18.

    jonas

    @ArchTeryx:   When he ran for President, he seemed to be the first candidate to just resort to lying about everything, even the most trivial matters – the dude couldn’t tell the truth about the color of the sky if someone gave him a telescope. That was the technique Trump honed to perfection.

    In a sense, he was the first Republican to really lean into the new ethos in political reporting whereby reporters are constantly in a defensive crouch covering conservatives lest they be accused of “liberal bias.” What that meant, though, is that Romney quickly learned that he could just lie like a starched sheet and stenographers reporters have to just put it out there and then explain that “opinions differ” about lead’s toxicity or whatever rather than push back or call it a lie.

  20. 20.

    jonas

    @tobie: Rao is a real fucking piece of work. Up there with that Kazmaryk nutjob in Texas, easily the worst person on the federal bench.

  21. 21.

    Betty

    @frosty: I do think Rick Coplen, Adam’s friend, is running a much better campaign this time.  Well organized and doing professional fundraising. Between having a strong opponent and people seeing  more of his MAGA madness, I believe we may finally see Perry lose. If anyone is interested, you can donate to Rick Coplen on Act Blue.

  22. 22.

    Roberto el oso

    @jonas: The trajectory tracing the moral and mental disintegration of the GOP presidential candidates, from, say, Reagan on thru Trump, reminds me of that saying about how one goes about losing an immense amount of wealth …. “bit by bit and then all at once”.

  23. 23.

    ArchTeryx

    @Roger Moore: Oh, he did it out of pure self-preservation. He was, IIRC, a senior member of the LDS church. The laity might be all-in on Trumpism but a senior member would have a longer view. He’d know Trumpism would be nothing but bad news, in the long-term, for the Mormons, even if the idiots in the pews didn’t think the leopards would eat THEIR faces.

  24. 24.

    BlueGuitarist

    Scott Perry is beatable!

    Trump won that district, PA-10, by 4. Cook rates it likely Republican.

    Democratic challengers

    Rick Coplen – of whom Adam spoke highly – narrowly lost primary last time  to

    Shamaine Daniels, also running again, underfunded did about as the well-funded previous Dem.

    new candidate recently announced, Mike O’Brien.

    down ballot overlaps

    PA Senate 15, currently R but redistricted to Biden +15

    PA House 88 (trump by 1.5)

    We need 3 state senate seats. The other key ones are PAS-37 and 49.

    hold state house by only 1 seat.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    @ArchTeryx: Yeah, I feel weird about Mitt. (I should note that I grew up in a very LDS place and have many friends/acquaintances who are tangentially related to him. One close enough to be at my wedding.) I used to think he was just utter garbage. And my opinion of him hasn’t really…. improved? But I don’t feel that as strongly as I used to.

    The LDS tend to be conservative but the brashness the GOP has adopted in recent years is difficult for them to take, I think. And the anti-immigrant feeling is not a good fit for a group with a recent cultural memory of being othered. There’s always been a significant minority of them who are on the Dem side.

  26. 26.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Suzanne: ​ 

    Flake and Romney, both from prominent LDS families, both bailed. I can see why they find it difficult.

    Mormons know what Christian persecution feels like.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    @piratedan

    Utah elect a woman to the Senate? Maybe in another 100 years.
    //

    (They did have a female governor, but she succeeded to the post from lt. governor for a truncated term and was denied nomination by her party for a run on her own.)

  31. 31.

    MattF

    @ArchTeryx: There’s a Romney biography scheduled to come out next month. Said to have, um, negative comments about his Senate colleagues. Maybe just marketing, but maybe Romney learned a thing or two from recent events. We shall see.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @HumboldtBlue: I think it’s more a temperament thing. Mormons have this very strong cultural value of forced cheer, politeness, gentleness, extreme pleasantness. I think they find the general tenor of MAGA — the fighting, vulgarity, general trashiness, insults — utterly exhausting and not something they want to associate with.

    Lots of them will still vote for the evangelicals.

  34. 34.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Betty:

    interesting! can you say more about the campaign being better?

    Sorry i missed this before i posted my comment at 24

    (i’m slow….)

  39. 39.

    narya

    @WaterGirl: They don’t lump communications with the exec branch in with communications with legislative branch–they say that it’s case by case there, too, as it is with the legislative branch, with the Gravel test, which I’m not gonna look up. Basically, if someone can argue that communications are not related to either legislation or to duties for the legislative branch, the government can have ’em. But I am NAL!

  42. 42.

    tobie

    @WaterGirl: Other people are more qualified to answer the question about en banc.

    But in terms of expedience, it seems like it’s 6 of one, a half dozen of the other. You either appeal and face counter appeals and all this takes time.

    Or you accept the ruling and prepare for disputes about whether a message has a legitimate legislative purpose or not. I imagine that the categorization of every important message will be challenged. What a headache.

  43. 43.

    laura

    @Kelly: yep. I’ll look forward to Popehat’s serious trouble, because you know Josh will find any/every excuse to goad Popehat into saying taint team as many times as he can.

  45. 45.

    catclub

    @ArchTeryx:  The laity might be all-in on Trumpism but a senior member would have a longer view.

     

    This sounds just like the bankers explanation of buying Collateralized debt obligations. They knew they would end in tears, (i.e they had the longer view)  but since they were the only game in town  you had to dance while the music was playing.

  49. 49.

    Trivia Man

    My Mormon family flat out advocates to make the USA a Christian theocracy. I always rebut – once they finish with atheists like me you are 100% next on the list to purge. They refuse to acknowledge that.

    Who destroyed Mittens in the SC primary? Evangelicals.

    He had a few moments of hone, as did McCain, but overall a net negative and it’s not even close. They pretended to be what trump actually is … and they fell short.

  50. 50.

    Mai Naem mobile >

    @Suzanne: there’s a guy running in the Dem primary for AZ-1(Schweikert’s seat.) His name is Andrew Horne. He’s a dentist, grew up here  and his bio says he’s an Eagle Scout which to me is a pretty good sign that he’s LDS.  The primary has Andrei Cherny,Amit Shah(rumor that he’s a male Kyrsten Sinema), Marlene Galan Woods(the not Kari Lake  ex tv anchor) and Horne. I wonder how many people in the general would assume Horne is related to Tom Horne(he’s not) and vote for him even as a Dem.

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @MattF: there is a huge and jaw-dropping piece up in The Atlantic right now…Mitt just let everything fly to McKay Coppins.

    I’m reading it now and I think it will have an impact on the last 10-20% of the GOP who just can’t do it any more with trump.

    Sitting across from Romney at 76, one can’t help but become a little suspicious of his handsomeness. The jowl-free jawline. The all-seasons tan. The just-so gray at the temples of that thick black coif, which his barber once insisted he doesn’t dye. It all seems a little uncanny. Only after studying him closely do you notice the signs of age. He shuffles a little when he walks now, hunches a little when he sits. At various points in recent years, he’s gotten so thin that his staff has worried about him. Mostly, he looks tired.
     
    Romney’s isolation in Washington didn’t surprise me. In less than a decade, he’d gone from Republican standard-bearer and presidential nominee to party pariah thanks to a series of public clashes with Trump. What I didn’t quite expect was how candid he was ready to be. He instructed his scheduler to block off evenings for weekly interviews, and told me that no subject would be off-limits. He handed over hundreds of pages of his private journals and years’ worth of personal correspondence, including sensitive emails with some of the most powerful Republicans in the country. When he couldn’t find the key to an old filing cabinet that contained some of his personal papers, he took a crowbar to it and deposited stacks of campaign documents and legal pads in my lap. He’d kept all of this stuff, he explained, because he thought he might write a memoir one day, but he’d decided against it. “I can’t be objective about my own life,” he said.
     
    Some nights he vented; other nights he dished. He’s more puckish than his public persona suggests, attuned to the absurdist humor of political life and quick to share stories that others might consider indiscreet. I got the feeling he liked the company—our conversations sometimes stretched for hours.

    I had never encountered a politician so openly reckoning with what his pursuit of power had cost.
    “A very large portion of my party,” he told me one day, “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” He’d realized this only recently, he said. We were a few months removed from an attempted coup instigated by Republican leaders, and he was wrestling with some difficult questions. Was the authoritarian element of the GOP a product of President Trump, or had it always been there, just waiting to be activated by a sufficiently shameless demagogue? And what role had the members of the mainstream establishment—­people like him, the reasonable Republicans—played in allowing the rot on the right to fester?

  56. 56.

    Suzanne

    @Mai Naem mobile >: So I went to school with some of the Horne kids. Yes LDS.

    Marlene Galan Woods is the widow of Grant Woods, former AG. Grant went to my high school (years before me) and his family attended the same church I did (Presbyterian). Grant and Marlene used to show up on holidays. My impression was generically positive.

  58. 58.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jay:

    I read that earlier.

    In more good news for us — bad news for Fox:

    Fox News has jest been SLAPPED with a lawsuit by the state of Oregon, saying that its false claims about the 2020 election caused losses to the state’s employee retirement funds.

    Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed the lawsuit officially against Fox Corporation, after an investigation revealed that the company knew its employees were broadcasting false political claims about the election.

    This caused shareholders to “expose themselves and the company to liability and exposed their shareholders to significant risks,” the lawsuit reads.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    Perhaps Romney’s most surprising discovery upon entering the Senate was that his disgust with Trump was not unique among his Republican colleagues. “Almost without exception,” he told me, “they shared my view of the president.” In public, of course, they played their parts as Trump loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the president’s most indefensible behavior. But in private, they ridiculed his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive observations about his warped, toddler­like psyche. Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”
     
    This dissonance soon wore on Romney’s patience. Every time he publicly criticized Trump, it seemed, some Republican senator would smarmily sidle up to him in private and express solidarity. “I sure wish I could do what you do,” they’d say, or “Gosh, I wish I had the constituency you have,” and then they’d look at him expectantly, as if waiting for Romney to convey profound gratitude. This happened so often that he started keeping a tally; at one point, he told his staff that he’d had more than a dozen similar exchanges. He developed a go-to response for such occasions: “There are worse things than losing an election. Take it from somebody who knows.”

  61. 61.

    ArchTeryx

    @Trivia Man: They never believe the leopards are going to eat THEIR faces until a whole troop of them show up and start ripping them off. By then it’s far, far too late.

    See: Jewish supporters of the NSDAP party. How did that end for them?

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    One afternoon in March 2019, Trump paid a visit to the Senate Republicans’ weekly caucus lunch. He was in a buoyant mood—two days earlier, the Justice Department had announced that the much-anticipated report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller failed to establish collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. As Romney later wrote in his journal, the president was met with a standing ovation fit for a conquering hero, and then launched into some rambling remarks. He talked about the so-called Russia hoax and relitigated the recent midterm elections and swung wildly from one tangent to another. He declared, somewhat implausibly, that the GOP would soon become “the party of health care.” The senators were respectful and attentive.

     

    As soon as Trump left, Romney recalled, the Republican caucus burst into laughter.

  63. 63.

    cain

    @Trivia Man: I would actually say that the Mormon is higher because “they are doing it wrong” eg it is heretical vs atheists who don’t believe in anything – but you know there is always a chance they can be converted back to the “proper” faith.

  65. 65.

    CaseyL

    @Jeffro: I just read that, too. A stunning article, but it doesn’t correspond with the general mendacity of his 2012 Presidential campaign.

    “A very large portion of my party,” he told me one day, “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”

    Well, neither do their voters, so that’s not a problem for them.

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    McConnell, at least, understands what Dems could…and should…use their eventual majorities for:

     

    On December 11, 2019, McConnell summoned Romney to his office and pitched him on joining forces. He explained that several vulnerable members of their caucus were up for re­election, and that a prolonged, polarizing Senate trial would force them to take tough votes that risked alienating their constituents. Mc­Connell wanted Romney to vote to end the trial as soon as the opening arguments were completed. McConnell didn’t bother defending Trump’s actions. Instead, he argued that protecting the GOP’s Senate majority was a matter of vital national importance. He predicted that Trump would lose reelection, and painted an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if Democrats took control of Congress: They’d turn Puerto Rico and D.C. into states, engineering a permanent Senate majority; they’d ram through left-wing legislation such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

    The horror!

    Dems, take a lesson from ol’ Mitch: when you get power, USE IT.

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    [on January 6, 2021, as the assault on the Capitol was in full swing] something about the volatility of the moment caused Romney—­a walking amalgam of prep-school manners and Mormon niceness and the practiced cool of the private-equity set—to lose his grip, and he finally vented the raw anger he had been trying to contain. He turned to Josh Hawley, who was huddled with some of his right-wing colleagues, and started to yell. Later, Romney would struggle to recall the exact wording of his rebuke. Sometimes he’d remember shouting “You’re the reason this is happening!” Other times, it would be something more terse: “You did this.” At least one reporter in the chamber would recount seeing the senator throw up his hands in a fit of fury as he roared, “This is what you’ve gotten, guys!” Whatever the words, the sentiment was clear: This violence, this crisis, this assault on democracy—this is your fault

    The National Guard finally dispersed the crowd and secured the Capitol. As the Senate prepared to reconvene late that night, Romney took solace in assuming that his most extreme colleagues now realized what their ruse had wrought, and would abandon their plan to object to the electors. Romney had written a speech a few days earlier condemning their procedural farce, but now he was thinking of tossing it. Surely the point was moot.

    But to Romney’s astonishment, the architects of the plan still intended to move forward. When Hawley stood to deliver his speech, Romney was positioned just behind the Missourian’s right shoulder, allowing a C‑SPAN camera to capture his withering glare.

  71. 71.

    piratedan

    can’t link to it, but reading a tweet from Joan Walsh indicating that Angus King warned Romney about some chatter about MAGA wanting to burn down his house on the events of Jan 6th and asked him to take caution.  Romney then pinged McConnell to talk about it and McConnell never responded…..

  72. 72.

    tobie

    Hunter Biden’s new legal team is throwing some elbows. They’ve sued former Trump advisor Garrett Ziegler for hacking Hunter’s iPhone. Per emptywheel:

     

    Back in July, as part of an effort to understand whence the IRS obtained WhatsApp texts that weren’t on the “Hunter Biden” “laptop” made available by Rudy Giuliani, I noted that those WhatsApp texts appear to have come from an iPhone backed up to a different iCloud account than the one the laptop was synched to.

    On the laptop itself, the iPhone content was encrypted.

    That meant anyone without a warrant accessing that content was likely violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

  74. 74.

    catclub

    @BlueGuitarist: ​
      If all the GOP members who still believe in the constitution, rather than Trump and the GOP’s usual lust for power, left, they would have maybe 1% fewer voters.

    One is reminded of Adlai Stevenson’s response.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    as Romney surveyed the crop of Republicans running for Senate in 2022, it was clear that more Hawleys were on their way. Perhaps most disconcerting was J. D. Vance, the Republican candidate in Ohio. “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” Romney told me. They’d first met years earlier, after he read Vance’s best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Romney was so impressed with the book that he hosted the author at his annual Park City summit in 2018. Vance, who grew up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Appalachia and went on to graduate from Yale Law School, had seemed bright and thoughtful, with interesting ideas about how Republicans could court the white working class without indulging in toxic Trumpism. Then, in 2021, Vance decided he wanted to run for Senate, and re­invented his entire persona overnight. Suddenly, he was railing against the “childless left” and denouncing Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a “fake holiday” and accusing Joe Biden of manufacturing the opioid crisis “to punish people who didn’t vote for him.” The speed of the MAGA makeover was jarring.
     
    “I do wonder, how do you make that decision?” Romney mused to me as Vance was degrading himself on the campaign trail that summer. “How can you go over a line so stark as that—and for what?” Romney wished he could grab Vance by the shoulders and scream: This is not worth it! “It’s not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?”

  77. 77.

    cain

    @tobie: Watching some GOP politicians going to jail for crimes should be a fine counterpoint to whatever circus is happening in the House. Maybe these politicians will flip to save their own asses and point fingers at some of the folks in the House.

  78. 78.

    Trivia Man

    @cain: very similar to the homophobe Muslims loudly and actively joining to pile on trans and gay people. Not just “you will be next” but THEY ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO DESTROY YOU RIGHT NOW AT THE SAME TIME!

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    Throughout our two years of interviews, I heard Romney muse repeatedly about leaving the GOP. He’d stayed long after he stopped feeling at home there—long after his five sons had left—because he felt a quixotic duty to save it. This meld of moral responsibility and personal hubris is, in some ways, Romney’s defining trait. When he’s feeling sentimental, he attributes the impulse to the “Romney obligation,” and talks about the deep commitment to public service he inherited from his father. When he’s in a more introspective mood, he talks about the surge of adrenaline he feels when he’s rushing toward a crisis.
     
    But it was hard to dispute that the battle for the GOP’s soul had been lost. And Romney had his own soul to think about.

  82. 82.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Jeffro:

    Mitch McConnell is among the lowest forms of life on this planet.

    Romney sent McConnell this text:

    In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.

    Coppins concludes his retelling of the shocking moment in American political history with three words: “McConnell never responds.”

    h/t https://www.mediaite.com/politics/romney-sent-shocking-unanswered-text-warning-mitch-mcconnell-of-trump-fueled-violence-on-jan-6th-per-new-book-excerpt/

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    Romney, disappointing to the end, has a video statement up to Utahans explaining that he’s retiring ’cause he’s old but also LOTS of ‘both sides’ bullshit.

     

    He is not gonna be on the DNC stage next summer endorsing President Biden, so…Mitt…doing nothing of importance to end the insurrectionist threat to our country is going to be your final legacy there, buddy.

  86. 86.

    Jay

    @Gravenstone:

    Nope, he claimed to be fighting for Ukraine.

    That’s why the wingnut Reich is promoting his claims, to claim Ukraine is full of Nazi’s and is a hub for Nazi’s and the US must stop all aid to Nazi Ukraine.

    In reality, during the periods he claimed to be fighting for Ukraine, he was either in jail, in court or on supervised parole in Floriduh! and never left the State.

    Despite, time and time again, attacking the US with serial fabulists and conmen as supposed “whistleblowers”, getting exposed, the CT Reich and Wingnuttia never do even a basic vetting of their so called “sources”.

    And they won’t. The goal is to flood the zone with Bullshit and rage farm. And Apartheid Clyde is doing his best to assist.

  87. 87.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @ArchTeryx:

    When he ran for President, he seemed to be the first candidate to just resort to lying about everything

    That’s right.  Obama had trouble with him in that first debate because Romney just straight up lied about his own campaign’s positions.  Did a total black is white on all of them.  It was bizarre.

  88. 88.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Jeffro:

    Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”

    Obviously they should be urging everyone to vote for Biden!

     

    And while this isn’t important, yikes:

    [Romeny] showed me his freezer, which was full of salmon fillets that had been given to him by Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska. He didn’t especially like salmon but found that if he put it on a hamburger bun and smothered it in ketchup, it made for a serviceable meal.

  89. 89.

    KrackenJack

    @Jeffro:

    When he couldn’t find the key to an old filing cabinet that contained some of his personal papers, he took a crowbar to it and deposited stacks of campaign documents and legal pads in my lap.

    Truly a man with no more fucks to give!

  93. 93.

    Jeffro

    @hueyplong:

    @Jay:

    as long as we’re focused on the truly important matters here, people…

    …ketchup is good on salmon cakes.  Not filets, but yeah, on salmon cakes it’s pretty good!  =)

    NOW THEN

    How about ol’ Mitt noting that many GOP lawmakers are worried for their/their families’ personal safety if they oppose trump?  One would think that an enterprising young reporter could pick that up and run with it.  The comments “on background” alone would write the whole article!

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    @Jackie: he already has a video statement up to his constituents that ‘both sides’ so hard, you’d think Romney was reading straight from the Book of Broder

  95. 95.

    bbleh

    Re Senator Mittens, in today’s WaPo he’s quoted as saying ““We’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president, and Biden is unable to lead on important matters, and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.”

    If he’s STILL carrying the bothsides water, then I don’t care how much he “bares his soul” or whatever TF ever.  Rather than condemn Trump, straightforwardly, he has to throw a meaningless complaint at Biden too.  He’s a liar and he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Republican — champion of tax cuts, ally of capital, and two-faced complainer about the Awful Deficit and how benefits for Those People are going to destroy America.   Let him go back to VC-land and stop meeping ineffectively.

    @Jackie: I’ll put $100 on the “no” at 5-1 or better.

    And re the Perry ruling, it’s more sand in the gears, but I expect Jack “Sure That’s His Real Name” Smith — or at least his Taint Team hee hee hee — has a good idea of what they want to zero in on, so it ain’t like they’re gonna have to litigate the entire message history.  Just how crucial it is to his case I got no idea.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: Romney might wade into the primaries to criticize Trump. The problem is, Romney has little influence now.

    And who can he endorse? Romney would probably be fairly comfortable with Asa Hutchinson, but Hutchinson will be lucky to win 10 delegates.

    But since he’s on his way out, Romney might cross the aisle and vote with Senate Democratics on rare occasions.

  97. 97.

    narya

    @bbleh: I sometimes wonder if they’ve gotten the communications from the people on the other end of the calls, and they’re carrying this through in part to hide what they already have.

  98. 98.

    Alison Rose

    @bbleh:

    Re Senator Mittens, in today’s WaPo he’s quoted as saying ““We’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president, and Biden is unable to lead on important matters, and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.”

    I would love someone to ask him on live TV “Okay Senator, list for us the ‘important matters’ on which each man is ‘unwilling to lead’.” Because that is one massively unbalanced see-saw, let me tell you.

  99. 99.

    NotMax

    @Jay

    Salmon don’t come cheap. A freezerful could well exceed the threshold for reporting as a gift.

    There is an exception to Senate rules on accepting gifts from colleagues, but that is applicable only to gifts received on “traditional” occasions (birthdays, weddings and the like). I can’t readily see enough fillets to fill a freezer as qualifying for that exception.

  100. 100.

    Jay

    @Jeffro:

    A good salmon cake, made with good salmon, just needs maybe a squeeze of lemon.

    Now a patty or a salmon cake made from Chum salmon, often marketed as “Keta”, needs a lot of help, but then Chum Salmon should never be ground up and turned into a patty, it should be either alder smoked, or turned into into alder smoked Indian Candy.

    Now a Chum “Keta” filet or portion’s best friend was Red Robinson. 1/2 cup strong Soya sauce, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, table spoon of Montreal Steak Spice, table spoon of liquid smoke, ziplock bag, marinate for at least an hour. Can be kept in the fridge over night, or frozen if the salmon is fresh.

    BBQ on a hot grill, fry in a cast iron frypan, bake in a convection oven.

    The pan, grill or tray will be a mess. Pan is the worst, grill you can leave on high and burn the mess off, in the oven, put down some foil on the tray, toss the foil.

    In the rankings of salmon for flavor:

    #1 Sockeye

    #2 Spring

    #3 Coho

    #4 Atlantic

    #5 Pink

    #6 Chum

  101. 101.

    bbleh

    @narya: lol in my more optimistic moments I think the same or similar and that at this point Perry’s phone is gravy.

    Then again, who knows what other interesting threads they might find.

    And given Perry’s outburst concerning the Biden Impeachment Show, I kinda think he’s feeling a little heat.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    There’s a lot of good stuff in that Coppins piece. I might even buy the book.

    One thing I am unexpectedly enjoying is how much Mittens hates Josh Hawley. Me too, Mittens. Me too.

  104. 104.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:

    Romney might wade into the primaries to criticize Trump. The problem is, Romney has little influence now.

    And who’s he gonna endorse? Romney would probably be fairly comfortable with Asa Hutchinson, but Hutchinson will be lucky to win 10 delegates.

    Who cares what he does with the primaries?  Barring either a miracle or a disaster, 2024 is going to come down to Biden v. Trump.  ETA: And he’s said that’s what he expects.

    How can anyone knowledgeable about American politics not be on one side or the other?  How can someone who’s been paying attention, let alone deeply involved like he’s been, not choose??

    I’d almost have more respect for him if he sold his soul to Trump.

  105. 105.

    Elizabelle

    Gotta catch up on the thread, but it occurs that Mitt Romney is the MSM’s Great Daddy figure, and his retirement is going to have them discussing the fabled GOP party that is in their heads.  How its greatness exceeds this MAGAtified grievance and Trump party (and where did he come from?)

    Rather than take an honest look at the very excellent POTUS we have right now.  No, no, no, cannot do that.  They don’t even want to talk with his icky voters.  They don’t seem able to find them, and are not looking very hard either.

  107. 107.

    RaflW

    @Jeffro: What Mitt says about the GOP matters, to a few people. But he’s yet again just a p.o.s for sticking the age shiv into Biden today.

    F**k you, Mitt. You’re not running again because you know your state is more like Mike Lee than you’d ever wanted, and you can’t bear being whupped by a MAGA in ’24.

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    @Alison Rose:  That is crazy talk.

    Biden is more than able, and willing, and is pretty damn good at understanding what the actual problem is.

    TFG is unwilling, true, but he is blisteringly incompetent too.

    I think Mitt Romney is telling lies, and shame be upon him for that.  I wonder if he really thinks this, or he is just saying this crap so Republicans won’t hit him.

  110. 110.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    It can absolutely be true.

    Half of me wants to offer him three pounds of hamburger for every pound of salmon fillet.  He can pour all the ketchup he wants on the hamburgers.

  113. 113.

    Betty

    @BlueGuitarist: In the last election I donated to his campaign but never heard from him. This time i am getting regular updates about his policy positions and meetings he is holding around the district. He included a list of his “sponsors” that includes a few people  I know, including a long-time lobbyist at the state level for family planning groups. Big difference.

  114. 114.

    Mai Naem mobile >

    @Suzanne: Grant Woods was a never trumper and Marlene hasn’t been an AZ TV anchor in forever so I am not sure how that would work out in the general. I feel sorry for Cherny because he’s probably the most qualified but may get beat by Woods or Horne by people voting strategically.

  115. 115.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:He was the GOP’s quintessential liar until Trump came along.

    He’s up there, but Pence (especially his ‘debate’ with Tim Kaine in 2016) still sticks in my mind as the gold standard.

    Tim was like, “what. the actual. fuck.” every time Pence opened his mouth.

  117. 117.

    hueyplong

    @Suzanne: Boy, I’m never going near Mormon food after you established that ketchup on salmon is a mere warmup to infinitely worse horrors.

  118. 118.

    stinger

    @Jeffro: ​

    “what. the actual. fuck.” every time Pence opened his mouth.

    I watched Pence’s speech at the Repub National Convention, and that was my response, too. Every sentence a lie.​

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    @hueyplong: Funeral potatoes are good, in a weird way. Reminds me of midcentury-WASP-church-picnic food. Cream-of-whatever soup as an ingredient, baked in your Pyrex!

  120. 120.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:  But “genteel” and “traditional conservative.”  Hey, I heard that in the FTF NY Times.

    So the lies go down easier.

    I have mixed feelings about Romney, because I can see there is some humanity in there, along with the plutocrat values.

  121. 121.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    few Alaskan’s buy salmon. It’s a ritual, and act of “Statehood” to harvest your own. So, does that count as a “reportable gift”?

    My Dad bought salmon once in his life. When I was a tween, he bought a “presentation fish” for our Christmas dinner. These are large, 25lb and up, “Tyee” Spring Salmon. They are frozen rock hard with an ice coat, kept for years in a deep freeze, used for banquets, where guests would ooh and awe at the size of the fish, and are a pain to cook right. Get the heat and time wrong, raw on the inside, dry and over cooked on the inside.

    So we went downtown to the old Woodwards, Dad bought the salmon, stuck it in the tire well under the lid, pulled the old tick mattress over top, so Tar, our Lab couldn’t get at it, and we headed over to Harkley and Haywood’s Outdoor shop to buy some fishing gear.

    When we came back, we discovered that Tar had found the fish, ate about 15lbs of raw frozen salmon, and puked everywhere.

    The first time I ever bought a salmon, was in the late 80’s. I was heading out to fish for some Sockeye on the Fraser River. The Commercial Fishermen were on strike, as the Canneries and Processors, because of a glut that year, were only offering $1.25 a fish for Sockeye, so they were selling them for $5 a fish from the sides of the roads. So I bought 10 and ice, stuck them in the cooler, got a receipt, then went on to catch my limit of 2. We ate really well that fall, winter and spring.

    I have started fishing again, and we are going to have to buy a small freezer soon.

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @Mai Naem mobile >: I hope Democrats come up with a good candidate to take on Juan Ciscomani in the Arizona 6th CD. The 6th runs from the eastern edge of Tucson to the New Mexico line. It’s rated R+3, but Ciscomani is a freshman and his radical caucus’s work product will not reflect well on him. Plus,  Joe Biden and Ruben Gallego may have coattails in Arizona next year that a strong challenger may be able to ride.

  124. 124.

    JCNZ

    “When you’re surrounded by worms, it’s easy to confuse an exoskeleton for backbone.”

    Insert “like” emoji here!

  125. 125.

    smintheus

    @RaflW: Romney’s pretty damn old as well. He was draft age during the Vietnam War, which is what he spent 3 years in France dodging. That’s how he became a ‘respected’ senior statesman, how he’s able to complain about Trump but not apparently to do anything effective about his crimes.

  128. 128.

    RaflW

    @Jeffro: Good lord. Romney of 2021 has apparently no memory of the Mittens who ran for president while spouting all the ridiculous RW themes of 2012. How very corn-venient. Or, self serving.

  131. 131.

    Suzanne

    @sab: Go for it. There’s recipes all over the place. I will admit that I enjoyed them the handful of times that I tried them. Very potluck-friendly, of course.

  132. 132.

    RaflW

    @Elizabelle: “unable to lead on important matters” is Mitt-speak for Biden wanting to raise taxes and put some sort of climate change agenda forward.

    It’s so smarmy and gross and tone-deaf to the end of democracy, that I end up agreeing with @lowtechcyclist‘s “more respect for him if he sold his soul to Trump.”

  133. 133.

    MomSense

    @ArchTeryx:

    He also gave fucking Trump some credibility (not with jackals obviously) by doing fundraisers with him, not pushing back on his private investigators investigating Obama, and dog whistling to the birthers.

  135. 135.

    RaflW

    @smintheus: I’ll never forgive him for the bitter and disdainful way he’d say Europe while campaigning in 2012 (because every industrialized country but us has national healthcare).

    They guy lived it up with aplomb and delight all across that same Europe while raking in bucks as a Bain vulture capitalist. Not to mention his 3 year bike-ride/draft dodge over there.

    He’s just been a high class, well crafted sleaze his whole life.

  136. 136.

    smith

    @Baud: Rich people care about climate policy because any serious climate policy is unacceptably inconvenient for them and their piles of money.

  137. 137.

    RaflW

    @Baud: Who makes more billions in profits, and gives more to Republicans like Mitt? The ski industry, or oil & gas conglomerates?

    (Yeah, Mitt used to ski, and yeah, Park City contributes to the UT economy, but the ski industry lobby has, to my relatively careful watch, been pretty lousy at turning even one ski-state Republican into anything resembling pro-climate protection)

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    @Suzanne:

    Speaking of being friends with LDS folks, his parents were friends a looong time ago. Our kids played together so I knew him when he was a sullen teenager. He was a nice kid!

  140. 140.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Geminid:

    Kirsten Engel is running against Ciscomani again in AZ-6. Environmental lawyer and former state legislator, she got 49% of the vote last time while vastly outspent. (Unlike AZ-1 doesn’t seem like a contested primary.

    a super swing district up and down the ballot.

    Overlapping down ballot legislative district 17,  state senate and state house candidates also got 49% last time. Gaining a seat will tie the state house and state senate.

  141. 141.

    aaron

    as an attorney who doesnt know the lay of the law in this area: can’t they appoint a special master to do a privelege review, then issue a report that they can litigate.

  142. 142.

    piratedan

    @BlueGuitarist: IIRC Engel was really hurt by an old interview where some statements she had made, came back to be ad fodder by Ciscomani in the general.  Ciscomani portrayed himself as a non-threatening family values Conservative in the Doug Ducey school of politicking, which is you can be an asshole as much as you want as long as you’re quiet about it.

    As evidenced by the state GOP peers, he keeps a much lower profile and probably hoping to squeak by by not making himself look like a nail that needs to be hammered to the electorate.  He didn’t have a record before so it was a straight character battle match.  Now that Engel has his voting record to run against, she may have a much better chance imho.

  144. 144.

    Mai Naem mobile >

    @Geminid: I like Engel but I bet Ciscomani gets some Hispanic votes that normally would go to the Dems because he’s Hispanic. She’s probably headed for bigger things than a lowly congressional seat but Tucson mayor Regina Romero could probably beat Ciscomani. My phone just autocorrected Ciscomani to ‘Cisco man’ haha. Somebody could probably do some creative oppo ad with that.

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