The Week Ahead
It’s another one of those nights where we run long; my apologies for doing that on a Sunday night. But much of the news, if not outright good, is encouraging. We are winning. And it’s because we’re committed to staying informed, working together as Americans, and becoming the guardrails for this administration that the Republican Party has refused to provide. Let’s keep going.
The Kennedy Center
The Board Trump installed to run the Kennedy Center is warning it could close as early as this week. According to The Washington Post, Trump’s officials said the center is facing “certain financial collapse” within weeks. They also “insist” that adding President Donald Trump’s name may be the only way to avoid bankruptcy. The bankruptcy game is something the president is familiar with. He has bankrupted the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, casinos, the Plaza Hotel, and some resorts.
In their September 26, 2016, debate, Hillary Clinton told Trump: “You’ve taken business bankruptcies six times.” He responded, “On occasion – four times – we used certain laws that are there.” Clinton was correct, according to The Washington Post’s Fact Check. It was six. Suffice it to say, Trump is familiar with bankruptcy and the threat of bankruptcy as a tactic for private business dealings.
The Kennedy Center operates as a public-private partnership with a budget in excess of $220 million. The Center navigated the financial difficulties of the COVID pandemic. Despite Trump’s claim that it had been mismanaged for a long time, The Washington Post reported that it was only after Trump tried to attach his name to the memorial to President Kennedy that ticket sales and fundraising nosedived. Jonathan Edwards at The Post reported that according to documents he had reviewed, Trump administration officials “knew both were cratering even as they publicly portrayed Trump’s takeover as a financial rescue.”
It’s another incredible part of our country’s culture that Donald Trump is well on the way to destroying, simply to satisfy his own ego.
An Important New Lawsuit: Protecting the Polls
“In the final months of the Civil War, Congress, in order to preserve free and fair elections in the dearly defended union, enacted a law prohibiting federal officials, on penalty of fine and imprisonment, from ordering or placing ‘any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States,’” the lawsuit begins. “Congress was concerned about executive overreach, and the risk that the federal executive would use armed force to interfere in state and federal elections.”
The plaintiffs are League of United Latin American Citizens (“LULAC”), Common Cause, UnidosUS, and Denver, Colorado. The are suing DHS and ICE, and their respective heads.
What triggered the lawsuit now? The plaintiffs explain that it follows from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s comments earlier this month, which “confirmed and clarified the administration’s policy of authorizing armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to go to polling places—not to repel armed enemies of the United States, but to conduct civil immigration and customs enforcement operations, including serving warrants and detaining individuals suspected of being unlawfully present in the United States.” That polling place policy runs afoul of the law, which we’ve discussed here at length.
It’s an important lawsuit. Discovery, should, as they say, be lit if it gets into Trump administration policies, communications, and perhaps depositions of the principals. But civil lawsuits take time, and that may not happen before the election. However, there are two things this lawsuit does that could prove essential.
First, the plaintiffs are asking courts to take measures to prevent the administration from sending ICE to polling places before it happens. If they succeed, that’s an outstanding result. Even if they don’t—if, say, the matter reaches the Supreme Court, and the Court concludes it’s not yet ripe—the courts would be on notice for Election Day. And the courts will have a number of tools at hand for protecting elections, including injunctions where the administration’s conduct merits them, but also measures like holding polling places open beyond scheduled hours to permit people to vote if there is interference on election day. The work to protect our elections is ongoing.
Second, it’s okay to be angry about this, but don’t buy the myth that Trump will succeed. The lawsuit reaffirms that the only reason Trump is going after our votes is because he understands precisely how powerful we are. It’s up to each of us to have a plan to vote no matter what and fulfill his worst nightmares. Don’t get distracted. Your vote is what matters here. Use it.
Kash Patel on the Hill
On Tuesday, Patel is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing. Chuck Grassley, the Committee Chair, issued a statement announcing his intent to “hold a series of hearings examining the constitutional and legal implications of the weaponized election case against President Donald Trump, which began at the Biden Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and was expanded by Jack Smith to target hundreds of Republicans, including members of Congress.”
The FBI’s internal code name for the investigation was Arctic Frost. It resulted in indictments issued by grand juries of election interference related conduct. Republican members of Congress have been carrying Trump’s water on this in an effort to delegitimize both the legal and political consequences of Trump’s effort to interfere with the outcome of the 2020 election.
Democrats on the Committee may have a different vein of questions for Patel.
And it’s fascinating that this is happening just days after Joe DiGenova walked off the job. DiGenova, a Trump loyalist and former U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, had been brought in from the outside to run the sprawling investigation, based in the Southern District of Florida, that is a reported effort to charge federal officials—names ranging from Barack Obama, to former CIA Director John Brennan, to Jack Smith have been mentioned in the press—who were involved in the investigations into Donald Trump’s criminal conduct.
Trump was charged by grand juries. So far, none of his political targets have been successfully prosecuted. And read on for the latest development.
The Not-So “Grand Conspiracy” Case
That takes us to Trump’s biggest efforts to have his political opponents prosecuted, the “Grand Conspiracy” case. We’ve been discussing that investigation ever since Trump’s DOJ shoehorned what would be, if there were any legitimate crimes to investigate, a case in the District of Columbia. I suspect you all know why they chose the Southern District of Florida for this grand jury.
Late last week, ABC’s Katherine Faulders tweeted that Joe DiGenova, “a Trump loyalist who had been tapped to oversee a sprawling and controversial DOJ conspiracy investigation targeting political foes of President Donald Trump abruptly resigned Thursday, per sources.” There’s only one reason a true believer like Joe DiGenova walks away from the case of a lifetime, and that’s because the case he’d hoped to prosecute isn’t there and he’s being pressured to do it anyhow.
Josh Christenson at the New York Post tweeted he’d spoken with DiGenova, who told him, “If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem.” Later in the day, he told the AP that those comments were taken out of context and that there is “plenty of evidence … it just takes time to get there.” Then, the key part that undercut his effort to walk back his earlier comments: “some people want to get there a little faster than others — and you can’t do that.”
“It was an honor and privilege to serve the president and the department,” Mr. DiGenova told CNN and CBS during phone interviews on Thursday. But apparently, not enough to convince him to stick around for what’s coming.
Preparing for the Election
We end on a sobering note tonight. Retired Judge Michael Luttig has a new piece titled January 3, 2027 — The Final Battle for America’s Democracy. It’s a provocative but important read about a theoretical effort by Republicans to refuse to seat duly elected Democrats if they regain control in Congress after the midterm elections. As we approach this election, it’s important for the country, as well as its pro-democracy lawyers, to contemplate and be prepared for all possible scenarios as Donald Trump tries to hold onto power. Being well informed is our best defense.
If you’ve spent much time here at Civil Discourse, you understand that it’s inevitable that an increasingly desperate Donald Trump will likely try to do everything he can to prevent a devastating loss at the polls in November. But there are plenty of reasons he’s unlikely to get very far, including highly prepared lawyers and civil rights activists who have been anticipating and preparing for months now. And of course, us, the voters. We understand that no matter what obstacles this administration mounts, our job is to vote in massive numbers so we can begin to revitalize our democracy. The Constitution undeniably says we get to choose our representatives.
Wendy Weiser at the Brennan Center told me, “They may try this,” referring to an effort to refuse to seat duly elected officials when the next term of Congress starts, “but they won’t get away with it: This would be so transparently a coup that the American people would not stand for it. It would be so transparently illegal too. It is hard to imagine enough members of Congress willing to pursue such an obviously illegitimate course.” There are still some bright lines in the law, and after January 6, this is one of them. Remember, the courts held after the insurrection.
This Thursday is Constitution Day, the annual observance of the signing of the Constitution. We’ll have some special guests later this week and discuss this more. But I’m interested in knowing what’s keeping you up at night and what questions you have, so I can make sure we focus on them.
We’re in this together,
Joyce