In the year 2021, it’s basically a full-time job keeping up with the many lawsuits, civil inquiries, and criminal probes against Donald Trump, which, if you can believe it, surpass the number of times a human woman has agreed to marry him. On the lawsuit front, as of March, the ex-president was facing more than two dozen, which normal people who haven’t spent their entire lives suing or being sued thousands of times consider a lot. When it comes to civil cases, the New York attorney general is currently looking into whether the Trump Organization manipulated the value of its assets for loans and tax breaks, and recently won a major victory in court. Then of course there are the criminal investigations, which are probably at the top of Trump’s mind considering they could result in his going to prison. Obviously, there’s the one being led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which has already produced numerous charges against Trump’s business and longtime CFO, with more indictments expected. On top of that, he’s also under criminal investigation by the D.C. attorney general for inciting the attack on the Capitol, while in Fulton County, Georgia, the D.A.’s office is looking at his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. And according to legal experts, the latter situation may end very badly for him!

In a new 109-page report, D.C. think tank the Brookings Institution analyzed publicly available evidence concerning Trump’s and his allies’ efforts to pressure Georgia officials to “change the lawful outcome of the election,” concluding that the 45th president could be charged with multiple crimes. Obviously, one of the least helpful things Trump has going for him is his infamous phone call to Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on January 3, during which Trump told the guy to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state. “There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said numerous times throughout the call, though of course he did. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

The report also notes that Trump both publicly pressured and personally contacted a number of Republican officials in the state, including Attorney General Chris Carr and Governor Brian Kemp, to get their help in declaring him the victor. (The men did not go along with the plot, which might explain why Trump pretended to endorse Stacey Abrams for Georgia governor over the weekend.) The report, penned by Norman Eisen, Joshua Matz, Donald Ayer, Gwen Keyes Fleming, Colby Galliher, Jason Harrow, and Raymond P. Tolentino, notes that the then president called Carr and Kemp in December to beg them to go along with “his increasingly desperate plans to decertify his loss.” The authors warn that criminal liability could extend to Trump allies as well, including Rudy Giuliani.

Among the charges Trump himself could be hit with, the authors believe, are “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations,” in addition to violations of more than a dozen other Georgia state statutes. “We conclude that Trump’s post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes,” the report states.

Referencing the fact that Trump would likely claim that everything he did was just part of his job as president, the report declares: “Stated simply, soliciting and then threatening senior state officials to alter the outcome of a presidential election does not fall within any reasoned conception of the scope of presidential power.” 

A spokesman for Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that the investigation is “active and ongoing” but declined to reveal any details. Prosecutors have reportedly appeared before a grand jury seeking subpoenas for witnesses and documents; hired the state’s top experts on racketeering and conspiracy laws; interviewed at least four of Raffensperger’s closest advisers; and started coordinating with the congresspeople probing the events surrounding January 6.

Trump’s advisers have reacted to the Georgia probe exactly how one would expect if one paid attention for the last five years. “This is simply the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it,” Jason Miller said in a statement following the launch of the investigation in the spring.

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Nothing to see here, just the governor of South Dakota seemingly abusing her position of power to get her daughter a real estate license

Given that she refuses to do anything about COVID-19, Kristi Noem has lots of time on her hands for such pursuits. Per the Associated Press:

Just days after a South Dakota agency moved to deny her daughter’s application to become a certified real estate appraiser, Governor Kristi Noem summoned to her office the state employee who ran the agency, the woman’s direct supervisor, and the state labor secretary. Noem’s daughter attended too. Kassidy Peters, then 26, ultimately obtained the certification in November 2020, four months after the meeting at her mother’s office. A week after that, the labor secretary called the agency head, Sherry Bren, to demand her retirement, according to an age discrimination complaint Bren filed against the department. Bren, 70, ultimately left her job this past March after the state paid her $200,000 to withdraw the complaint.

According to the AP, Peters applied to become a certified residential appraiser, which would result in a substantial increase in earnings, in September 2019; in late July 2020, the program that Bren directed moved to deny the license, which reportedly occurs when “an applicant’s work samples don’t meet minimum compliance with national standards.” On July 26, Bren received a text telling her to be at the governor’s office the following morning to discuss “appraiser certification procedures.”

Besides Noem and Peters, Bren said the meeting included Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman; Bren’s supervisor; the governor’s general counsel; and, participating by phone, the governor’s chief of staff and a lawyer from the state’s Department of Labor and Regulation.

Bren alleged in her complaint that one day before Peters received her certification, Hultman called her to discuss “concerns about the Appraiser Certification Program,” and demanded her retirement several days later, citing an alleged “inability to change gears.”

Though it’s not entirely clear what occurred during the July 2020 meeting, ethics experts (and anyone who has any sense) say it’s obvious this was a conflict of interest, as Noem should have recused herself from talks concerning an agency at which her daughter was applying for certification and clearly not allowed her daughter to sit in on a meeting with said agency. Noem declined an interview request from the AP, while her office declined to answer a list of detailed questions regarding the meeting. In a statement that has basically become boilerplate language for conservatives accused of wrongdoing, a spokesperson for Noem told the AP, “The Associated Press is disparaging the governor’s daughter in order to attack the governor politically—no wonder Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low.” On Twitter, Noem wrote: “Listen I get it. I signed up for this job. But now the media is trying to destroy my children. This story is just another example of the double standard that exists with the media... going after conservatives and their kids while ignoring Liberals #AskTheBigGuy.” Which is rich considering this October 2020 tweet:

You’ll never believe it, but it turns out Lauren Boebert doesn‘t know how COVID, vaccines, or Tylenol work

Republicans’ new 1/6 defense: It never happened

Sure, it unfolded on live TV, but whom are you going to believe, the GOP or your lying eyes?

Elsewhere!

Senate Republicans block bill that would fund government, stave off U.S. default (The Washington Post)

Biden receives booster shot on camera to promote coronavirus vaccine (The Washington Post)

New U.S. travel rules close door on those fully vaccinated with Russia’s Sputnik V (The Washington Post)

Some COVID-19 Patients Want Ivermectin So Badly They’re Taking Hospitals to Court (FiveThirtyEight)

Workers are putting on pants to return to the office only to be on Zoom all day (The Washington Post)

Harvard MBA Students Move Online as Breakthrough Cases Climb (Bloomberg)

Two Fed officials to retire amid controversy over ethics and stock trading (The Washington Post)

Crypto-investing hamster beats performance of Warren Buffett (NYP)

Rome overrun by trash-loving wild boars (NYP)

France’s Macron pelted with an egg (The Washington Post)

— An Exeter Teacher Was Punished for Sexual Misconduct. The Student Says It Never Happened
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— Florida Governor Celebrates Ban on School Mask Mandates as More Kids Die From COVID
— Billionaire Leon Black Allegedly Raped a Woman in Epstein’s New York Mansion
— Trump Is Reportedly “Laying the Groundwork” for a 2024 Run
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— Biden’s COVID Vaccination Strategy Triggers Full-Scale Republican Meltdown
— The Right’s War on COVID Vaccine Mandates Is About to Get Scary
— From the Archive: Martin Shkreli’s Poison Pill
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