Democrat Politics

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, is having a very difficult time figuring out just what it is she stands for, depending upon who she’s talking to. That’s leading her to swing wildly from the far-right fringes steeped in conspiracy theories to trying to put on a “moderate” face to consolidate support.

Abortion is the most obvious example of Lake’s confusion, where she’s flip-flopped between absolute bans,  allowing each individual state to decide, and having compassion for all women’s choices. 

Now she’s landed right back on the far edge of the fringes, telling an audience at an Idaho Republican gathering (yes, Idaho, and yes, she’s running in Arizona) that it’s “unfortunate” that the 1864 Arizona law banning abortion—which she called “out of line” a few weeks ago—isn’t being enforced. 

“[U]nfortunately, the people running our state have said we’re not going to enforce it,” Lake told the right-wing Idaho Dispatch. “We don’t have that law, as much as many of us wish we did.” 

As protests related to the Israel-Hamas war erupt at college campuses nationwide, it’s worth looking at the recently released Harvard Youth poll to take the temperature of what’s important to young voters.

Among Democrats age 18-29, women’s reproductive rights topped the list, with young Democratic voters prioritizing it over other issues 68% of the time. Gun violence was a close second at 67%, and health care came in third at 63%. 

That means many of the issues young Democrats prioritize are also issues that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are running on nationally. That is particularly true of abortion rights, which continue to permeate the national conversation. 

Cartoon by Clay Jones.

New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with “egregious” improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.

“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the court’s 4-3 decision said. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”

The state Court of Appeals ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. His accusers could again be forced to retell their stories on the witness stand.

The court’s majority said “it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them.”

In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote.

On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments concerning Donald Trump’s claim that a president has “complete immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts taking place during his term in office. If Trump is successful in his appeal, it could reduce the charges he is facing in three criminal trials, as well as profoundly alter the balance of power in the government.

In December, the idea that presidents hold absolute immunity from prosecution was firmly rejected by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s Washington, D.C., trial for election interference. 

Special prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to take up the issue of immunity immediately after Chutkin’s ruling because it was clear that Trump would appeal and that such an appeal could add months to the trial calendar. However, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case at that time.

Trump did appeal Chutkan’s decision, but that appeal was rejected by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in February. The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case, a decision that surprised many court observers, delaying the D.C. trial by several months. 

During arguments before the appeals court in January, Trump attorney John Sauer argued that immunity is complete that a president could order the assassination of a political rival without facing charges unless first impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. It’s not clear what scenarios the Supreme Court will contemplate on Thursday, but it would seem likely this argument will once again be discussed.

Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to make the final decision in this case. Oral arguments are set to begin at 10 AM ET, and an audio stream is being made available through C-SPAN.

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The third day of testimony in Donald Trump’s criminal trial for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records begins Thursday morning. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker is expected to resume the stand, and based on where his testimony left off on Tuesday, prosecutors are likely to move directly into aspects of the incident that led to Trump’s indictment. 

Jurors have already heard how Trump, Pecker, and attorney Michael Cohen set up a “catch-and-kill” scheme to buy stories that threatened Trump’s 2016 campaign for the White House. Pecker’s testimony made clear that the scheme was not meant to protect Trump from personal scandal, but to prevent the public from hearing stories that might affect the outcome of the election. The scheme was outlined in a Trump Tower meeting that included not just Cohen, but Trump’s campaign press secretary, Hope Hicks. Pecker even noted that he would have published one of the stories directed at Trump, but would have held it until after the election.

On Thursday, it’s expected that Pecker will be questioned about the events surrounding Trump’s encounter with adult film actress Stormy Daniels, how the National Enquirer purchased Daniels’ story, and how Daniels was persuaded to sign a non-disclosure document that kept her from revealing her relationship with Trump before the election.

Pecker will also be able to answer some of the questions at the heart of the trial, such as how Trump handled paying back the funds that were used to quiet Daniels. So far, the prosecution has been very effective in making the case that this isn’t about a personal scandal or about hush money. This is about a conspiracy to affect the results of the 2016 election by illegally covering up information from the public.

The Supreme Court has scheduled a special session to hear arguments over whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

The case, to be argued Thursday, stems from Trump’s attempts to have charges against him dismissed. Lower courts have found he cannot claim for actions that, prosecutors say, illegally sought to interfere with the election results.

The Republican ex-president has been charged in federal court in Washington with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, one of four criminal cases he is facing. A trial has begun in New York over hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an alleged sexual encounter.

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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● AZ Ballot, AZ Supreme Court: Progressive activists in Arizona have launched a two-pronged effort to unseat a pair of conservative Supreme Court justices and preserve voters’ right to do so.

Progress Arizona is targeting Kathryn King and Clint Bolick, two appointees of former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey who voted earlier this month to ban nearly all abortions in the state by ruling that an 1864 law prohibits the procedure. Both justices face retention elections in November, where voters will be presented with a “yes/no” question asking whether each jurist should be permitted to serve another term.

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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

We begin today with Yvette Wingett Sanchez of The Washington Post writing about the indictment of Republican “fake electors” in Arizona and Trump 2020 campaign officials that participated in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Arizona.

Those indicted include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman. They are accused of allegedly aiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election. Also charged are the Republicans who signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020, that falsely purported Trump was the rightful winner, including former state party chair Kelli Ward, state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, and Tyler Bowyer, a GOP national committeeman and chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the pro-Trump conservative group Turning Point USA.

Trump was not charged, but he is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The indictments cap a year-long investigation by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) into how the elector strategy played out in Arizona, which Biden won by 10,457 votes. Arizona is the fourth state after Michigan, Georgia and Nevada to seek charges against those who formed an alternate slate of presidential electors. As those cases slowly make their way through the legal system, Trump is again running for president, and officials in Arizona and other battleground states are preparing for another likely contentious election.