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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Arraignment Day [1]

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Date: 2023-06-13  

We begin today with a reminder from Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will not be presiding over the arraignment and bond hearing of Number 45 being held Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET, though she remains the lead judge in the case.

Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman — not U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was randomly assigned Trump’s case — will be handling the former president’s arraignment and bond matters. Cannon, who had been widely reported to be handling those duties, will still remain on the historic case as the lead judge. Goodman is a well-regarded veteran magistrate who once worked as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and later obtained his law degree and practiced civil litigation, including as a partner with the Greenberg Traurig law firm in Miami. Goodman is known not only for his legal wisdom but also for his wry humor in the courtroom.

The editorial board of the Miami Herald is waiting with anticipation and trepidation ahead of what will happen in Miami on Tuesday.

Miami is on edge, understandably. Amid escalating threats online and defiance from Trump and his allies, Trump once again has egged on his supporters, posting on a social media account overnight: “See you in Miami on Tuesday.” There are plans for increased federal and local security for protests, including one outside the federal courthouse downtown on Tuesday. That rally might include the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group that has plagued the city for years. Will Miami become a shameful spectacle of violence and disorder, with Trump protesters allowed to create chaos downtown? Or will it be a moment when the city demonstrates its maturity and shows that, yes, it can handle such an extraordinary event? Much depends on the tone set by city leaders. Mayor Francis Suarez hosted a news conference Monday, reassuring citizens of Miami and across the country that security will be tight. He said the city has experience in handling large protests, citing the ones after the death of George Floyd. He wisely avoided questions about his rumored entry into the 2024 GOP presidential primary, which he’s supposed to announce Thursday.

Tess Owen of VICE reports that Proud Boys chapters around the country seem more concerned with protesting Pride celebrations than Number 45’s legal troubles.

Public-facing Telegram channels belonging to various Proud Boy chapters barely engaged with—or ignored—Friday’s news of the 37-count federal indictment accusing Trump of hoarding classified documents containing nuclear secrets in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom (among other locations). Over the weekend, the “Vice City” Proud Boy chapter in Miami reposted a flier advertising a protest outside the courthouse Tuesday. But by Monday they were back to targeting Pride Month. Cape Fear Proud Boys, in North Carolina, which has been one of the country’s most active chapters in recent years, were too busy posting updates about their protest outside a drag show in Winston-Salem over the weekend to even acknowledge the latest indictment against Trump. Proud Boys’ Tulsa chapter only paused their steady stream of anti-Pride memes to acknowledge the death of unabomber (sic) Ted Kazynski (sic), writing “rest in peace king.”...Overall, reports that Bud Light—which has been a major flashpoint for the far-right since partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney—is co-sponsoring a family-friendly Pride event in Flagstaff, Arizona, is currently attracting more ire from the Proud Boys than the DOJ filing charges against Trump.

Ankush Khardori of POLITICO gives an overview of the intersection of law and politics as it pertains to Number 45’s recent federal indictment.

… Trump’s federal prosecution is inextricably intertwined with the national political process, and the text of the indictment makes clear that the special counsel and his team are acutely aware of the public significance of their work. That is no doubt why they chose to use what prosecutors call a “speaking indictment” — one that contains far more detail than is strictly necessary as a legal matter and that appears designed to send a message to the American public about the seriousness of Trump’s alleged conduct. During his brief public appearance on Friday afternoon, Smith said as much when he encouraged “everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.” There is no way to fully separate the politics from the law as the case moves forward. Trump’s best and simplest defense is to continue running for reelection and to win. Even setting a trial date — a relatively straightforward matter in the typical criminal case — will be complicated by the political calendar as long as Trump remains in the race. There is one more way that this prosecution is unlike any other, and this is that as a former president and current presidential candidate, Trump has a truly unique ability to affect the proceeding through his public comments (provided that the presiding judge or his lawyers do not prevail upon him to stop talking about the case, which seems unlikely). There is virtually no way to insulate a jury from those statements, and all Trump has to do is persuade one person who ends up on the jury that the case is illegitimate and that person can then hang the jury — which would result in a mistrial and a major political mess for the Justice Department.

Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley of Rolling Stone write about in-fighting on Trump’s legal team.

Recently, Trump has vented to several close associates about why “loyal” attorneys have been hard to find on this, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. The former president has blamed some of the tumult among his higher-profile lawyers on clashing egos and certain individuals competing for limelight and power. But the internal conflict plaguing the legal team is a hallmark of the former president’s leadership, as Trump has continually fostered rivalries and hostility within his own teams. But familiar though it may be, the inner turmoil is unlikely to be very helpful to the former president as he faces a federal indictment his own former attorney general referred to as “very, very damning.”

Cameron Joseph of Bolts Magazine writes about yet another victory for voting rights in Alabama … for now.

Republicans had been barreling ahead with legislation that would make it a felony in most cases to aid another person in requesting, filling out or returning voting ballots. The bill had sailed through one chamber of the Alabama legislature, and was widely expected to pass the other. But when the Alabama senate convened for its final day of the 2023 legislative session lastTuesday, the controversial bill was not among those included for floor debate. That news was a welcome surprise to the bill’s opponents, a coalition of voting rights, civil rights and disability rights groups that expected it would pass. And it came in the same week as another unexpected victory for the state’s voting rights community, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Alabama’s aggressively gerrymandered congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act. “We’re absolutely thrilled over here,” said ACLU of Alabama Policy & Advocacy Director Dillon Nettles. Voting rights advocates were able to breathe a sigh of relief at these two victories for now, but that doesn’t mean that the fight is over: these groups are already bracing for Republicans to revisit the absentee ballot bill in next year’s legislative session.

Richard Forbes of Inside Climate News reports about the young people of Montana who are suing the state in order to ensure the Montana Constitution’s guarantee of “a clean and healthful environment.”

The first of the lawsuits brought by young people in the United States to go to court, their lawsuit hinges on Montana’s Constitution, which guarantees its citizens the right to a clean and healthful environment. Rikki and the other plaintiffs claim that Montana’s state energy policy (which was recently repealed, likely due to the lawsuit) and the state’s methods of environmental review are unconstitutional. The state, they claim, by prioritizing the extraction and use of fossil fuels despite the warnings of decades of science, is breaking its own laws. And to many observers, the Montana legislature’s actions in the lead-up to the trial show that the state is taking the plaintiffs’ suit seriously. Over the last decade, youth-led legal actions relating to climate change have been filed in every American state. While Juliana v. U.S. is the best known, Held v. Montana, named after Rikki, was the first allowed to go to trial when its proceedings began this week.

Chrissy Stroop of Religion Dispatches looks at data indicating that, increasingly, progressives and even young people have been affected by far right-wing anti-trans rhetoric.

It’s long been clear that the widespread use of false, inflammatory, and dehumanizing anti-trans rhetoric by right-wing activists and politicians generates a feedback loop that enables the proliferation and escalation of anti-trans legislation. And we’re now learning that the deluge of disinformation and hateful propaganda is also having a negative impact on trans acceptance in the general public—even among progressive demographics. That, at least, is my grim takeaway from PRRI’s new report, “The Politics of Gender, Pronouns, and Public Education.” The overall positions of various demographics are mostly what you would expect them to be. The report singles out White evangelical Protestants multiple times as, unsurprisingly, America’s most singularly anti-trans demo. In 2021, for example, 86% of White evangelicals said there are only two genders, with that number rising to 92% in 2023. The report also states, “Among White Christian groups, White evangelical Protestants (82%) and Latter-day Saints (72%) are much more likely than White Catholics (51%) and White mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (50%) to strongly feel there are only two genders.” None of this is particularly surprising, but what I do find both surprising and troubling is the direction of the trend among more progressive demographics regarding Americans’ understanding of gender. Take Democrats, for example. In 2021, 38% of Democrats maintained there are only two genders; two years later, that figure has gone up to 44%.

Sean Collins and Izzie Ramirez write for Vox (in partnership with Capital B News) about University of Chicago studies that show that being Black in America means that other people will waste your time.

Finally today, Paolo Gerbaudo of The Guardian writes about the many ways in which former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who died Monday at the age of 86, was the OG for a slew of right-wing populist politicians.

Berlusconi has died at 86 – he had been in hospital in Milan, undergoing treatment for a lung infection. Yet look around, and you can see his legacy everywhere. In fact, the years that followed Berlusconi’s exit from office vindicated his political style, which combined extreme personality politics, a skilful use of visual media and an unashamed demagogy – all to tap into voters’ disillusionment and cynicism about the status quo. It is hard to think of another politician more prefigurative of politics to come. Many rightwing populist politicians who were dominant in the 2010s have been compared to Berlusconi, the first among them former US president Donald Trump. Like Trump and well before him, Berlusconi insisted on the fact that he was not a career politician but rather a successful “self-made entrepreneur”, who had decided to enter politics to save his country from leftism. Like Trump, Berlusconi owed his success to his extraordinary use of TV, which, in his case, was made easier by the fact that he owned most of the country’s private TV channels. And finally, very much like Trump, Berlusconi took the political scene by storm by ignoring all the norms of institutional courtesy and politeness, preposterously presenting himself as a victim of judges and electoral authorities, while never shying away from the most vulgar and sensationalist tactics to capture public attention – including his famous penchant for sexual jokes. [...] A key element of his success, which has been mimicked by rightwing populists worldwide, was his ability to transform accusations against him into fuel for his survival. Berlusconi’s career was famously dotted with prosecutions for mafia-related, corruption and tax-evasion crimes. In response, he adopted a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, he vigorously insisted that he was innocent, the victim of communist judges – the most persecuted person in human history. On the other hand, for the benefit of his more disingenuous supporters, especially those from a business class often engaging in illegal or borderline practices, he often winked at the fact that his behaviour was not all that pristine, but whose is?

Have the best possible day, everyone!

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