More Comes Out On The January 6 Pipe Bomb Investigations

Yesterday's post on the FBI and ATF investigations of the January 6 pipe bombs was based primarily on testimony before the House Judiciary Committee from last summer. Since then, new allegations about those investigations have emerged. As of yesterday's post, the official story was that notwithstanding the FBI's huge investigative resources, three years of searching for the bomber have come up empty, while it seems as if the person who discovered the bomb the next day was never seriously considered as a suspect, despite this being a basic investigative principle.

Via the Daily Wire this past Monday:

A former FBI agent said that the Bureau quickly believed that it tied the person who planted pipe bombs at the Democrat National Committee and the Republican National Committee to a particular Metro fare card and license plate, but did not allow him to interview the person of interest and pulled his team off of the lead.

. . . Kyle Seraphin, who led FBI surveillance teams, told The Daily Wire that shortly after January 6, a counterintelligence team met him at a firehouse in Falls Church, Virginia to brief him on his next surveillance target: They had used security footage to follow the person into a Metro station after he planted the bombs, and identified the fare card that was used.

That fare card then allowed them to determine that the person got off at a Metro stop in Northern Virginia, where surveillance footage showed the person entering a car. Both the car and the fare card were in the name of the same person — a retired Air Force chief master sergeant who was now working as a contractor with a security clearance, they said.

Seraphin and his team were assigned to stake out the person’s row house for days, but the FBI blocked his request to interview the person, he said. Then they were called off the target completely and told to pore through low-priority leads about minor January 6 participants, he said.

This information was initially published in May 2023:

The Washington Times first reported the allegation in May 2023. The article, which was paywalled, did not get widespread attention, yet when the House Judiciary Committee interviewed Steve D’Antuono, the former head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, it seemed to be on his mind.

“People like Kyle Seraphin and others that are not a case agent, have no knowledge of the case, have no knowledge of what happened in the case, he also made another accusation too that there was an individual with a Metro card. My understanding is all that was chased down. There was a lead that was chased down, but he says that we didn’t chase it down,” D’Antuono said.

His comment seemed to confirm that the Metro card lead did exist, and he did not explain how or why it ultimately resulted in nothing.

Yesterday, more information also came out about the person who found the pipe bombs:

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Tuesday confirmed the person who found the January 6 pipebombs is a current US Capitol Police Officer.

Earlier this month new explosive J6 footage was released. It turns out that a plainclothes police officer found the DNC pipebombs at 1:05 pm on January 6.

Darren Beattie said according to sources who have seen the extended video, bomb robots showed up several minutes later and dismantled and diffused [sic] the pipe bomb.

Although former FBI Washington Field Office head D'Antuono discounted Kyle Seraphin's knowledge of the case, Seraphin did raise a key question in the first link above:

"The bureau is far too competent to fail this,” he said. “When they had the World Trade Center bombing in ‘93 they went under four stories of rubble and were able to find a partial VIN number that they used to track it down to the people responsible. And you’re telling me you had a pristine, non-detonated bomb and they couldn’t find anything on it?”

As a true crime fan, I've got to say this would appear to be another case of Investigations 101 -- you look at product information from the off-the-shelf components of the bomb, manufacturer, SKUs, batch numbers, and so forth, that you trace back to the store that sold them on a particular date and location. Then you look at surveillance video of the sale. The kitchen timer, apparently a common item, would be one line of inquiry, but electrical components, the pipe, and even the explosive would be another -- and since the bomb didn't detonate, all these items would be intact and available.

It appears that the Republicans are on the case, and more will inevitably come out. I'm still intrigued at the strange echoes of the Richard Jewell case -- there, the FBI focused on Jewell as the suspect, because he found the bomb. Now I note that the DNC bomb was planted under a park bench, which is where Jewell found the Atlanta bomb. It's almost as though someone in the FBI cooked up a scenario for a phony bombing based on the easiest example he could think of.

The Puzzle Of The January 6 Pipe Bombs

Yessterday I mentioned in passing the curious case, one of several from January 6, of two pipe bombs that were planted outside the Democrat and Republican national headquarters respectively. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms haven't been fully forthcoming over this case, and among other things, the perp or perps have never been idenified.

"People surmise and suspect that, 'oh, there's all this video all over the country, all over D.C.' It's not true," Steven D'Antuono, the former head of the FBI Washington Field Office, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on June 7, 2023.

. . . "We did every check, every lab test, every data. We ran this through systems back and forth, up and down, sideways, all over the place," he testified about the search for the suspect.

The bombs did not detonate, however, the FBI noted that the suspect placed them in "residential and commercial areas in Capitol Hill just blocks from the U.S. Capitol with viable pipe bombs that could have seriously injured or killed innocent bystanders."

"Over the past three years, a dedicated team of FBI agents, analysts, data scientists and law enforcement partners has worked thousands of hours conducting interviews, reviewing physical and digital evidence, and assessing tips from the public about who may have placed pipe bombs on Capitol Hill," said David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office.

One of the questions raised about the bombs' viability, though, was the type of timers used. Although Mr D'Antonuo in his testimony claimed the FBI had determined that the bombs were viable, the problem remains that they didn't explode even though they were apparently intended to do so. Photos of the bombs indicate that the timers were one-hour kitchen type timers, but the bombs were discovered unexploded 17 hours after they had been placed. Per the House Judiciary Committee's release:

While Mr. D'Antuono referenced a report from the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, that the pipe bombs were viable, and 'they could explode, and they could cause harm or death,' Mr. D'Antuono also acknowledged that the timer used on the pipe bomb could not have detonated the pipe bomb given the time already elapsed between placement and discovery.

He testified:

Mr. Massie. Well, let me ask you this: Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer . . . that has [a] 1-hour duration . . . to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?

A. No, I don't. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don't know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren't supposed to go off. We can't—we don't know. We honestly don't know, and that's some of the pain . . . .

A second problem was the FBI apparently never considered the person who discovered the bombs might be a suspect and seems to know nothing about him. Per the transcript of Mr D'Antuono's interview:

Mr. Massie. Because I think it's remarkable it was discovered within minutes of the other bomb being discovered. And my staff and I found video, and I don't know if you're aware of it, that seems to indicate that a passerby in a black hoodie --

Mr. D'Antuono. Oh, okay.

Mr. Massie. -- discovered that. Remarkably coincidental time. Walked up to a Metro police car, told the Metro police, who seems to have directed that individual in the video that I've seen to a detailee of the Vice President's car, another SUV, and within minutes, they get out of their SUV, find -- the officials now see the bomb. And then incoming Vice President Kamala Harris is evacuated. This all happens within minutes.

Mr. D'Antuono. Okay.

Mr. Massie. But the individual in a hoodie going up to two police cars after he's passed by that bench, did your investigation review this video?

Mr. D'Antuono. I'm not aware of the video you're talking about, sir. I'm not.

Mr. Massie. If you had seen that video, would you be interested in speaking to that person --

Mr. D'Antuono. Absolutely.

Mr. Massie. -- who seems to have discovered that second bomb?

Mr. D'Antuono. In any investigation, whoever discovers the device is somebody you need to talk to, right, because they could be the one that planted the device in the first place. You know, so that's just investigation 101.

But as far as anyone knows, even though the person or people who discovered the bombs went up to Capitol Police to report them, nobody seems to have taken their name or names and followed up.

This is especially puzzling, since the FBI has clear institutional memory of another bombing investigation, the Richard Jewell case:

During the 1996 Summer Olympics, a security guard named Richard Jewell discovered a bomb in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996. Thanks to Jewell’s quick thinking, he was able to evacuate dozens of people just before the bomb exploded, saving untold lives.

But just a few days later, media reports surfaced that the FBI had made Jewell the prime suspect in the bombing. The hero quickly became a villain in the public eye. Media outlets across the country — from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to CNN — painted Richard Jewell as a wannabe cop who was so desperate to play the hero that he was willing to kill people for it.

For an agonizing 88 days, everyone seemed to agree that Richard Jewell was guilty — even though he had never even been officially charged with the crime. In reality, the FBI soon stopped investigating Jewell when they realized that he wasn’t the man they were looking for.

For that matter, the FBI had its institutional memory refreshed just two years earlier with the release of the 2019 Clint Eastwood film that covered the case. All of this feeds reasonable suspicion that if federal provocateurs didn't plant the bombs themselves, the FBI was aware of the effort and has been feigning incompetence to cover it up.

If we ever get good answers, it will only be after Trump is reelected in 2024.

What's The Real 2024 Subtext?

A CNN op-ed from Julian Zelizer, a Princeton history professor, from last Friday asks some productive questions about Trump's so-far highly successful 2024 candidacy:

Following Trump’s strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, which has effectively knocked his final opponent — former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — out of the race, some of his critics continue to search for slivers of good news.

They point to the fact that despite “almost” being an incumbent, he didn’t receive a share of the vote on par with what previous incumbents have encountered in primary contests. Incumbents usually bring to the table unequaled name recognition, fund-raising capacity and the benefit of looking presidential as they run for reelection. Trump has most of this, with his supporters holding on to the memory of him in the Oval Office, and with many of his backers believing he literally won the presidency in 2020, yet Haley pulled a decent part of the electorate away from him.

The ambiguity of Trump's quasi-incumbent status is generally acknowledged, not least by Joe Biden himself over the weekend:

While giving an economic speech to voters in South Carolina, Biden stated, “Did you see what he recently said about. . . he wants to see the economy crash this year? A Sitting President.”

Prof Zelizer come close to the point when he notes that many of Trump's backers believe he literally won the election. On the other hand, I think it's more accurate to say they'll sign on to the idea that the election was "stolen". The connotation of the word goes far beyond any literal definition of a property crime; definition 3 for "steal" in this on line dictionary is "to take or gain insidiously or artfully", as in "he stole her heart" or "she stole the spotlight".

Wikipedia continues to characterize Trump's insistence that the 2020 election was "stolen" as a "conspiracy theory":

As of June 2021, Trump has continued to echo the conspiracy theory that the election was "stolen"; particularly focusing on the efforts of Arizona Senate Republicans to audit the results of the election in Maricopa County and on a lawsuit disputing the results of the election in Georgia.

But even absent proof of electoral fraud sufficient to overturn ballot results, the use of the word "stolen" outside a specific legal context isn't a conspiracy theory; it's no more of a big lie than to claim an umpire is blind or someone can't organize a two-car funeral, when after all, if we check the facts, he quite possibly can, and for that matter, the umpire can see perfecly well.

The fact is that since 2020, the American public has seen a sequence of stories from establishment opinionmakers that have been, at minimum, hinky, ranging from COVID and its multifold subsidiary embargoes that have proven unnecessary and destructive; to George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and "mostly peaceful protests"; to January 6 and the many unanswered questions about government provocateurs, deliberately withheld National Guard troops, and mysteriously unexploded pipe bombs.

If there was an effort to conceal from the public the simple question of whether Joe Biden was actually capable of performing in the chief executive role, the metaphorical use of the word "stolen" is entirely appropriate. Biden's increasingly visible struggle just to handle the basics of his job -- for whatever reason -- is a major 2024 issue:

The most pressing political challenge confronting President Joe Biden as he drifts uncontested toward renomination is that which he can do the least about: voters’ profound misgivings about his age and fitness to serve another full term.

Yet what’s striking, and to his allies increasingly unnerving, is Biden’s unwillingness even to try to fully address questions about his capacity to run for reelection next year, when he’ll turn 82.

There's been a mostly unexpressed misgiving over the past four years that Biden was misrepresented, both as a capable executive and as a unifying figure, in the 2020 election, with the outcome "stolen" in the metaphorical sense beyond any need to prove specific electoral fraud. Nor can this misgiving be dismissed as just a conspiracy theory; thre's a significant feeling of discomfort about Biden's occupancy in the White House that 's reflected in a desire, if not to reverse the 2020 election outright, at least to do it over.

This is what's behind the ambiguity in Trump's status as a quasi-incumbent, a sense that if he wasn't duly elected in 2020, by all indications, he should have been, and the 2024 election will be a do-over.

By The Way, Where Is The DC Circuit Court?

Remember this?

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments Jan. 9 on Trump's broad claim of presidential immunity in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith[.]

This in turn happened because Trump's lawers filed an appeal to the DC Circuit on the basis that a US president is immune from prosecution for official acts while in office. Smith filed a plea with the US Supreme Court asking it to rule immediately on the issue, but the court declined to hear the case before the appeals court ruled. This was generally felt to be a threat to Smith's schedule to begin Trump's January 6 trial on March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries:

The ruling is a scheduling win for Trump and his lawyers, who have sought repeatedly to delay the criminal cases against him as he campaigns to reclaim the White House in 2024. It averts a swift ruling from the nation’s highest court that could have definitively turned aside his claims of immunity, and it further throws into doubt the possibility of the landmark trial proceeding as scheduled on March 4.

The issue will now be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has signaled it will act quickly to decide the case. Special counsel Jack Smith had cautioned that even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review and final word before the court’s traditional summer break.

Smith had pressed the Supreme Court to intervene, citing significant public interest in a prompt resolution to the case. The request to leapfrog the appeals court, which Smith himself acknowledged was “extraordinary,” also underscored prosecutors’ concerns that the fight over the issue could delay the start of Trump’s trial beyond next year’s presidential election.

But although the DC Circuit had indicated it would review the case quickly, three weeks after it heard oral arguments, there's been no decision. Even if it rules over the coming week, it will put the tentative March 4 start date for the trial just a little over four weeks away, giving Trump's attorneys grounds to have the trial postponed, epecially since Judge Chutkan was forced to reiterate that no pretrial work could take place while the case was on appeal. So what's going on?

[L]egal analyst Harry Litman was among many experts who had expected a decision by now.

"The delay in the D.C. circuit opinion on immunity is worrisome not just, and not even primarily, because of the passage of days," Litman said. "It’s more because it augurs a divided (Henderson writing separately?) or complicated rationale that could lead to additional delays."

Litman was referring to Republican-appointed judge Karen Henderson, who raised the possibility during oral arguments that the case could be sent back to the trial court to analyze whether Trump's actions could be considered official acts as president — which could impact his immunity claim and possibly delay the trial that's scheduled to start in early March.

In other words, the lawfare strategy of starting a Trump January 6 trial the day before the Super Tuesday primaries was always flawed, and opinions I've read in the past suggest the idea of implementing the plan with indictments in mid-2023, expecting trials to begin before the 2024 election, much less the primary season, was expecting too much from the legal system and never realistic. The whole stretegy should have been put in motion at least a year ahead of 2023 if the Democrats expected it to succeed.

Coverage of Smith's December plea to the Supreme Court, as we see in the links here, carried the implication that Smith was expected to start the trial before Super Tuesday. Although his ability to do this is now seriously in question, even if he's able to bring it off, that part of the plan has been overtaken by events, since Trump effectively put the nomination out of reach for any other candidate in Iowa and New Hampshire, making any later primaries moot.

But observers like Mr Litman had probably been in denial from the time the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Even if the DC Circuit resoundingly rejects Trump's immunity appeal -- indeed, even if it had done so the day after the January 9 oral arguments -- Trump's attorneys would simply have resumed their appeals, both to the DC Circuit en banc and then to the Supreme Court. As Jack Smith himself pointed out above, "even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review and final word before the court’s traditional summer break".

Thus at this point the January 6 case under Judge Chutkan, unlikely to begin on March 4 as hoped, is now also unlikely even to get to trial before the November election, by the prosecution's own estimate. This is just one blow to the lawfare strategy, which had initially been to damage Trump's chances in the primaries and promote the nomination of a general-election candidate whom the Democrats might find easier to defeat.

But this leaves aside the problem of the Fulton County trial, whose appearance of legitimacy has been largely destroyed via salacious allegations whatever the eventual outcome for DA Willis. Even here, the likely collapse of these two trials is just a symptom of a bigger set of factors that's giving Trump an advantage in 2024, which I'll go into tomorrow.

Trump Is Already Changing Things

The results of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, having effectively decided the Republican nomination, seem to have changed political calculations within days, if not hours. The potential Senate compromise on the border is dead, not just in the House but in the Senate:

"The great Republican compromise is: ‘We’re for two-thirds of Joe Biden’s open borders, we’ll let in 6 million instead of 9 million,'” scoffed [Sen] Cruz.

“This [legislation] makes utterly no sense,” said Cruz. “There’s a reason Republican leadership is like Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football. Over and over again they run for the football and over and over again, Lucy Schumer pulls it away and Republican leadership lands on their ass.”

According to The Hill:

While some congressional Republicans had been hoping for a piece of election-year legislation aimed at fixing immigration and border security problems, Republican front-runner former President Trump is opposed, which means Senate Republicans are growing more hesitant. Trump’s push to kill the border deal to deny President Biden a legislative win is upsetting members on both sides of the aisle as negotiators hope to wrap up work on an agreement within days.

. . . Trump had been the sleeping giant in the background of talks, but his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, coupled with his recent remarks calling for Republicans to oppose any border compromise, have complicated the path forward for the Senate.

Trump's view, as he's now in a position to weigh in as the likely nominee, has carried great influence in the House:

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a Friday letter to his colleagues that Senate legislation addressing the border and aid to Ukraine and other countries would have been “dead on arrival” in the House, if reports about its terms are true.

The letter follows separate signals from House leadership aides and conservatives in the House and Senate that the supplemental package has no future in the House, even if approved by the Senate.

. . . Former President Trump’s wins in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary and his opposition to the border deal is a big part of the problem: Trump sees the package as not going far enough. He’s also said to want to use the border issue against President Biden in November.

The evidence of Trump's political strength has begun to disturb the Obama camp:

Insiders snitched that tensions between the two presidents recently exploded after irate Obama rushed to a secret meeting and confronted Biden about his fading chances to fend off surging Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming November election.

"Obama read Joe the riot act," spilled a Beltway insider to the National Enquirer. "He told him to up his game or step aside for a candidate who can win the race."

. . . In desperation, sources said Obama bellowed at bumbling Biden to go on the attack — and make sure trusted aides are constantly by his side on the campaign trail to keep them from committing the disastrous gaffes that have defined his presidency.

His surrogate David Axelrod is ramping up his warnings:

On Thursday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Here and Now,” former Obama adviser David Axelrod stated that President Joe Biden does have to be “very aggressive” in addressing the “crisis” on the border and that he needs “real action steps, quickly, about how to stem the flow of immigrants. Because that is one of the symbols to people that things are out of control.”

It appears that the White House has at least been making minor adjustments in response:

National Security Council Senior Director for Transborder Issues Katie Tobin will leave the White House amid mounting criticism of the administration's border security policies.

Tobin has held the post for roughly three years and plans to return to Chicago to spend time with family, The Hill reported, citing White House foreign policy spokesman John Kirby.

"To spend more time with family" has always been code for for saying you've been fired. But this is nothing but a token move; he only meaningful change would be to fire Secretary Mayorkas. And there's no sign of a newly aggresssive stance from Joe himself; instead, Gavin Newsom is campaigning for him as a surrogate in South Carolina:

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) hit the campaign trail for President Joe Biden in South Carolina on Wednesday and Thursday, where he vouched for Biden’s mental fitness.

. . . As Politico California Bureau Chief Christopher Cadelago wrote, at an event in Allendale, South Carolina, Mayor James L. Cohen raised concerns to Newsom “about the ‘narrative’ that Biden is not mentally fit to stand for reelection.”

Cadelago later shared a video of Newsom’s answer to X. After stammering for a few seconds, Newsom vouched for Biden’s fitness for office, noting he and Biden have spent plenty of time together in recent years.

For now, though, it looks like Joe himself is checked out and not likely to take much interest in his campaign, while Trump is beginning to show savvy and initiative we didn't see in his first term.

Trump Asserts Control

Via Breitbart News,

The donor class began to cut off all future funding of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign after she lost the critical Republican primary in New Hampshire, multiple advisers to political megadonors told the Washington Post Wednesday.

The desertions represent the beginning of the end for Haley’s ability to remain in the race. Haley was the donor class’s choice candidate to block former President Donald Trump, but after his historic victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley’s financial backers apparently see the writing on the wall.

The writing n the wall was from Trump himself:

"When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate's 'Donors' would immediately come to me, and want to 'help out.'"

"This is standard in Politics, but no longer with me. Anybody that makes a 'Contribution' to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp," Trump declared. "We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!"

The word seems to be out that if you ever might consider getting on the Trump train, you'd better do it now, because that train is leaving the station. It appears that message has been delivered to Congress as well:

Inside a special closed-door Republican meeting on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., cast doubt on an emerging deal to tighten immigration laws, citing GOP opposition to its provisions and telling senators that linking the two measures could also sink Ukraine aid.

It represents a marked shift for the top Senate Republican, who has been pushing hard for a bipartisan deal to pass the border legislation and foreign aid bill together through the Democratic-led Senate and the Republican-led House.

“When we started this, the border united us and Ukraine divided us,” McConnell told his fellow Republicans, according to a source familiar with his remarks. “The politics on this have changed.”

The shift comes as Donald Trump, who has pushed congressional GOP members to kill the deal, marches to the Republican presidential nomination and as hard-right Senate Republicans have grown increasingly pointed in their criticism of McConnell.

Trump’s desire to wield chaos at the border as a political weapon against President Joe Biden in a general election campaign is a factor in the ongoing congressional negotiations, with McConnell telling Republicans: “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him.”

Another source reported that McConnell referred to Trump as "the nominee".

NEWS from me & @bresreports in @PunchbowlNews PM:

MCCONNELL told a closed meeting of Senate Republicans Wed that the politics of the border has flipped for Rs and cast doubt on linking Ukraine and border.

“When we started this, the border united us and Ukraine divided us.”…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 24, 2024

The Hill reports,

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called Trump’s opposition to a border security deal “appalling.”

“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Romney said. “And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”

Senate Republicans across the spectrum say that Trump’s growing political momentum and the heating up of election year politics is going to make it exceedingly difficult to get funding for Ukraine and a border security deal through the Senate and House and to President Biden’s desk.

But Romney is a lame duck who will be retiring at the end of this year, doubtless understanding his chances of renomination or reelection. Things are changing fast.

Bailing On "Birdbrain"

Reid Hoffman, the Democrat donor who also funded E Jean Carroll's defamation suit against Trump, donated $250,000 to a pro-Haley super PAC last year, but no longer plans to support her campaign.

Billionaire Reid Hoffman does not plan to give any more money to Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign after her loss in the New Hampshire Republican primary, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Hoffman is one of Haley’s first wealthy donors to start heading for the exit after she said Tuesday that she will remain in the GOP’s nomination contests against former President Donald Trump despite failing to beat him in New Hampshire or in the Iowa caucuses.

The person who told CNBC that Hoffman didn’t have immediate plans to help Haley again declined to be named in order to speak freely about the matter.

This is another factor that suggests to me that Democrats wanted to support a candidate who could take Trump out of the running in the primaries but would be easier to beat in the general election. Now that the outcome appears less and less likely, they're putting their money elsewhere. The lack of enthusiasm for Haley extends to Republican donors as well, according to the same CNBC link:

A Republican fundraiser told CNBC on Wednesday that three clients who each helped Haley raise up to $100,000 for her campaign are now opting out of further financial efforts for the former United Nations ambassador.

Other fundraisers said Wednesday said that while they plan to speak out publicly in support of Haley, they are not convinced that they will be able to raise much money for her campaign because of her 0-for-2 record so far.

Meanwhile, Trump as irreverent entertainer has returned, with a new nickname for Haley:

"Nikki 'Birdbrain' Haley is very bad for the Republican Party and, indeed, our Country. Her False Statements, Derogatory Comments, and Humiliating Public Loss, is demeaning to True American Patriots," Trump posted on Truth Social. "Her anger should be aimed at her Third Rate Political Consultants and, more importantly, Crooked Joe Biden and those that are destroying our Country - NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL SAVE IT."

Like many of his previous nicknames such as "Low Energy Jeb", this one looks likely to home in on its target with devastating effect, but it's worth noting that Trump didn't deploy it until she refused to withdraw from the race following her defeat. David Axelrod's reaction even before Trump called her "Birdbrain" is an indication of how much Democrat strategists actually fear him as an opponent in the general:

Democratic strategist David Axelrod denounced former President Trump’s New Hampshire victory speech Wednesday, calling it “improvisational” and saying the former president acted like a “jackass.”

Trump’s rambling victory monologue after a strong performance in the Granite State included repeated jabs at his chief rival, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, including mocking her own concession speech earlier in the evening and making fun of her dress.

. . . The strategist said in a CNN interview Wednesday that the Trump campaign isn’t able to contain its candidate.

“I guarantee you that they did not say, ‘Go on out there and act like a jackass and go after Nikki Haley in really personal and sexist ways, humiliate Tim Scott,’” Axelrod said. “That was the improvisational Trump.”

As I've been sayling, Trump's appeal is in his irrepressibility, something Axelrod implicitly acknowledges here. At the same time, both Democrats and NeverTrumpers seem to have become resigned to rhe fact that Haley is neither a credible alternative to Trump for the nomination nor a potentially beatable candidate in November, and both groups have begun to bail.

Do The Democrats Really Want To Run Against Trump?

Ever since I noted Andrew McCarthy's resuscitation of that meme last week at National Review Online, I've kept it in the back of my mind as I watch developments. NRO repeated it this morning in response to Trump's New Hampshire win:

The Democrats want Trump as their opponent in the belief that they can salvage Joe Biden’s prospects by making the race all about Trump, and last night showed, once again, that they are making a sensible, if cynical, calculation. That independents turned out in such large numbers to cast votes in the Republican primary simply to protest Trump was an early indication of how he could lose the middle in November.

Republican voters could have avoided giving Democrats what they wanted, but instead are putting all their chips on their riskiest electoral bet.

The first problem with this view is CNN's reporting of the New Hampshire exit polls:

Roughly 7 in 10 of the New Hampshire voters backing Trump said they were registered as Republicans. . . . Haley’s backers present a near mirror image: about 7 in 10 said they were registered as undeclared prior to Tuesday[.]

The question is how many Haley voters were effectively Democrats voting for her in order to improve her chances of becoming the nominee, especiallly with Biden off the ballot. Certainly television interviews found numerous voters who claimed to be such. According to a local source,

Nearly 4,000 New Hampshire Democrats changed their party affiliation to undeclared or Republican during the window from Sept. 14 to Oct. 7, indicating they may participate in the Republican primary.

With about 161,000 Haley votes total in last night's primary, this amounts to potentially 2% of all Haley voters being former registered Democrats intending outright to boost Haley's chances in the Republican primary and should be factored into Haley's vote total. In fact, Just the News reports exit polls showed about 6% of Tuesday’s GOP primary voters identified as Democrat. Nevertheless, with Trump winning about 54% of the Republican vote, he achieved a credible victory even with some Haley voters unlikely ro aupport any Republican in the general election.

A second problem with the idea that Democrats want Trump as the nominee is the Democrat donors who've supported Haley. According to Forbes,

Billionaire LinkedIn cofounder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman gave $250,000 to support former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s GOP presidential primary campaign—joining a growing list of deep-pocketed donors supporting Haley, as many view her as the best alternative to former President Donald Trump, reports Sara Dorn.

Hoffman, a frequent Trump critic who has helped finance various efforts against the former president, recently donated $250,000 to the pro-Haley super PAC Stand For America Fund Inc., Hoffman’s political advisor Dmitri Mehlhorn told Forbes after the donation was first made public by the New York Times.

He is not the only monied Democratic donor getting behind Haley: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon—who said he has been in contact with Haley, but stopped short of endorsing her and has not donated to her campaign—urged business leaders and “liberal Democrats” last week to support Haley as “a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”

NeverTrumpers also rely on outlier polls to promote Haley, including this morning at the NeverTrump Hot Air aggregator: Polls Suddenly Looking Different Now That Trump Sealed the Deal?

Yep. Susquehanna shows President Joe Biden beating Donald Trump by more than 7 points, at least if the election were held today.

In 2020 the election was decided by 1 point, and that was before the past 3 years of failures have driven Joe Biden’s approval rating into the toilet.

So what’s going on? Is this a bad poll? A biased poll? An outlier–even pollsters will tell you that 1 out of 5 polls are just wrong, and the margin of error is almost 4%.

But geez, that is a shocking poll.

The problem for the headline is that the poll was taken between January 15 and January 24, after Iowa but before New Hampshire, and thus before anyone could have asserted tht Trump "sealed the deal". The idea that Haley could do better than Trump against Biden is wishful thinking -- according to Slate, which certainly prefers Biden,

Exit polling in New Hampshire found that Trump won registered Republicans on Tuesday by fifty points. Strange things have happened in American politics recently, but the Republican Party awarding its nomination to someone who is losing its voters by 50 is not going to be one of them.

In the unlikely event Haley secured the Republican nomination, she would lose much of the Republican base in the general election, while Trump would keep it but is continuing to win over key elements of the former Democrat base, including labor, Latins, Jews, and increasing numbers of African-Americans. Why would Democrats prefer Trump as an opponent when Haley would effectively be a repeat of Romney in 2012?

Kevin Morris Says He's Hunter's Attorney

Last Friday I posted on a bar complaint filed against Kevin Morris:

[I]f Mr. Morris has provided personal funds to an individual who has now been confirmed to be a client – or who would reasonably believe himself to be Mr. Morris’s client – Mr. Morris would have violated both the text of the Rules of Professional Conduct and the well-established norms of the legal profession.

. . . If Hunter Biden or a similarly situated person would reasonably anticipate that Mr. Morris was obligated to provide legal services, the alleged funding of the lifestyle of a client or potential client justifies the immediate opening of a misconduct investigation under Rule 1.8.5.

In that post, I raised the question of whether Morris is actually Hunter Biden's attorney -- he could potentially weasel his way out by saying he is in fact an attorney, but in Hunter's case, he's just acting as a friend, not as an attorney of record. But according to Just the News, Morris invoked attorney-client privilege 17 times in his deposition to the Comer committee last week:

According to the transcript of the testimony reviewed by Just the News, Morris said that he began representing Biden about one week after the December 2019 California fundraiser for his father, Joe Biden, who became president in 2020. The details surrounding this meeting were previously reported by Just the News.

Morris’ early representation of Hunter Biden allowed him to invoke the privilege frequently, to avoid answering questions about his first meeting with the first son, how he paid Hunter Biden’s other attorneys and about the planning for Hunter Biden’s defiant speech in front of the Capitol while avoiding complying with his first congressional subpoena.

Specifically, Morris attempted to invoke the privilege regarding his acquisition of one of Hunter Biden's companies after Joe Biden's inauguration. Additionally, he denied claims that he was motivated by political concerns to help the first son solve his tax issues and stay afloat during his father's campaign, which was indicated by evidence from the IRS whistleblowers last year.

. . According to the transcript, Morris claimed that his legal representation of Hunter Biden was “global and complete” and therefore argued that almost any detail of their relationship is off limits to congressional investigators. Yet despite this, Morris told the committee that he had not represented Hunter directly in the past three years.

The story indicates that Just the News was aware of the bar complaint:

America First Legal filed a complaint with the state bar against Morris for allegedly violating its Rules of Professional Conduct.

According to rule 1.8.5(a): “[a] lawyer shall not directly or indirectly pay or agree to pay, guarantee, or represent that the lawyer or lawyer’s law firm will pay the personal or business expenses of a prospective or existing client,’ according to the California Bar.

Yet, Morris confirmed to the committee that he loaned Hunter Biden millions of dollars from 2020 to 2024 that are recorded in promissory notes. Just the News reported in November that Morris had loaned at least $5 million to the younger Biden to cover his tax debts and living expenses.

The story also refrred to other answers Morris gave in the transcript that suggest the overall nature of his relationship with Hunter:

“Counsel, in my job I represent high-profile individuals. ... [H]igh-profile individuals have basically virtual corporations. And in those virtual corporations, they have all kinds of staff and assistants. You know, agents and managers ... publicists. You know, whatever. And what I do is I oversee ... sort of the squad. Sort of like a general counsel,” Morris told the committees.

“But I am involved in everything. I am involved in everything. And the same is with Hunter. If you check my retainer agreements, you’ll see that it’s not – it says all matters,” he continued.

Presumably it's his job to keep his clients out of trouble and away from bad publicity. Well, maybe somebody like Tom Hanks has that kind of uber-guardian angel who does this kind of work, but if Hunter is any sort of typical Kevin Morris client, he can't be working for Tom Hanks -- maybe he works for Alec Baldwin or Amber Heard instead. I'd love to hear whom else Kevin is working for this way.

That Morris shied away from questions on how he pays Hunter's other lawyers also suggests he is in fact paying Abbe Lowell, and this strongly suggests to me that Lowell has liens on Morris's properties to guarantee those payments. I can't imagine that Mrs Kevin, AKA Gaby Morgerman of the William Morris agency, is thrilled with this, and I suspect that marriage is on borrowed time due to Kevin's involvement with Hunter.

I'm continuing to think the Comer committee staff was working mainly to nail down Morris's version of events to be able to catch him in inconsistencies down the road. I wouldn't hire Kevin Morris to get me out of a speeding ticket, much less solve my tax, drug, or gun problems.

Here's How Lawfare Is Shaking Out

I suddenly realized Alan Dershowitz has had very little to say about developments in Trump's trials in recent weeks beyond comparing his strategy in New York to the successful Chicago Seven strategy of 1969. But here's how he saw the prospects, at least for his four criminal indictments, as of last August:

Alan Dershowitz believes all of former president Donald Trump’s trials will be completed prior to the 2024 election, but notes “There’ll be some convictions,” along the way.

. . . “I predict there’ll be some convictions,” speculated the lawyer. “I think the strategy is to get bad convictions, but to get them fast,” he continued, saying that Trump would then be able to appeal the decisions, after the election. Dershowitz argued that this is the reason prosecutors are “rushing” to get their cases against Trump to trial.

. . . “They’re going to get on the bandwagon,” Dershowitz said of prosecutors. The “approach is to get him before the election, convict him before the election, and he wins on appeal.”

“That’s tomorrow’s news,” Dershowitz concluded.

By this past December, he had scaled back his estimate:

They're going to try their best. It's going to be up to the discretion of judges. I suspect there will be at least one trial and probably one conviction before the election. And I think there's a substantial chance that any convictions will be very, very carefully scrutinized by the appellate courts and ultimately by the Supreme Court. . . . I think definitely it will be appealed after the election. And I think there's a substantial chance it could be reversed based on venue, based on immunity, based on a lack of a reasonable basis for a search of a phone. There are many, many grounds on appeal, but it will have no effect on the election if it occurs after the election rather than before. [ellipsis in original]

But this was before Trump's appeal of Judge Chutkan's denial of his immunity claim put the January 6 case on hold and before the ethical issues in Atlanta put the timing of that prosecution in question. No date had been set for the Atlanta trial before the allegations against District Attorney Willis surfaced, while any likelihood that the January 6 trial will start as scheduled on March 4 is fading as the DC appeals court continues to review the case. No date has been set for any of his other trials, and they now seem unlikely even to begin, much less to conclude, before the election. Judge Chutkan has been forced to reiterate that the January 6 prosecution cannot proceed with any trial business while the appeal is under review, and Trump is likely to appeal any adverse ruling from the appeals court to the US Supreme Court, further placing a trial date out of reach.

It's very hard to find a single cogent summary of the Democrat lawfare strategy as it was developed in 2023, but Dershowitz's version is correct as far as it goes. This version in the Washington Examiner from just a month ago is more general, but it does mention an objective of preemptively driving Trump out of the race:

The story of the 2024 campaign so far is the effort by Democrats and their appointees to use criminal charges and lawsuits to force former President Donald Trump out of the race for a second term in the White House. The name for such an effort is lawfare — that is, “the strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent,” to cite one law dictionary.

. . . [T]he reality is, the prosecutions and lawsuits are all the work of Trump’s political opponents. If they succeed, they will result in him going to prison, paying huge fines, and losing his business. They would, in short, once and for all remove Trump from the American political scene.

It is as if anti-Trump leaders concluded that elections did not succeed in getting rid of him and media attacks did not succeed in getting rid of him and investigations did not succeed in getting rid of him and now the next step is lawfare. That’s where we are now.

. . . Immediately after the first indictment, Bragg’s, support for Trump in the Republican primary race shot upward. It rose further amid later indictments and lawsuits, going from 44% support before the Bragg indictment to 63% support today in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Some Republicans are clearly using support of Trump as a way to express their disapproval of the wave of prosecutions and lawsuits. Whether that will last is unclear. But the Democratic lawfare campaign has been relentless, and it will surely provoke continuing Republican reaction in the months to come.

This discussion doesn't raise the issue of timing even as much as Dershowitz does, but as the cases have proceeded, it's become highly unlikely that any of the trials can conclude before the election. But the assumption had also been that the trials likely to begin the soonest, the January 6 trial scheduled to start March 4, and the Atlanta trial, still with an indefinite start date, would at least feature headline allegations in testimony against Trump atarting just before the March 5 Super Tuesday primary and extend through the rest of the primary season.

But as of now, with Gov DiSantis dropping out of the Republican race before tomorrow's New Hampshire primary and polls suggesting Trump will beat Ambassador Haley with 50% or more, the Republican primary season is effectively over, with a large segment of voters discounting Trump's indictments and farcical civil trials, with the credibility of the Atlanta prosecution collapsing. As the credibility of these trials diminishes, it will affect the public view of any future prosecutions, especially any that might yet be brought before the election.

So far, the Democrat lawfare strategy has, if anything, worked not just to keep Trump in the race but to enhance his general-election prospects in a way that's overtaken even Alan Dershowitz's predictions.

The Kevin Morris Mystery Grows

I've been posting about Kevin Morris for quite a while. in part because his story never quite adds up. As I posted last November,

. . . he's an entertainment lawyer whose career seems to have prospered, at least for a time, because his wife, William Morris partner Gaby Morgerman, is one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood. But the projects he's been asssociated with, South Park (1997) and the musical The Book of Mormon (2011), are old news. He left his former law firm Morris Yorn Barnes & Levine in 2020, oddly at the same time that he became heavily involved in Hunter's business and personal affairs.

But as I posted here, Morris appears to have lost interest in his law practice years earlier. In 2009, he "decided to become a writer" and seems to have worked full time at writing and publishing a collection of short stories, White Man's Problems (2014), and two novels, All Joe Knight (2016) and Gettysburg (2019). By most accounts, he met Hunter in 2019 at a Joe Biden fundraiser, Hunter impressed him, and the rest is history. He seems to have dropped his aspiration to become the John Updike of his generation, as well as his entertainment law career, and undertaken Hunter as his full time project.

This account of his deposition to the Comer committee last week fills in some blanks:

Comer revealed that Hollywood producer Lanette Phillips introduced Morris to Hunter Biden during a campaign event at her Los Angeles home for Joe Biden in the winter of 2019. One week later, Phillips called Morris to discuss what Morris apparently framed as an “entertainment” issue. Morris later visited Hunter at his home in L.A., according to the press release.

So Morris met Hunter via a connected intermediary at a time when he was easing out of his law firm and after his career as a writer failed to take off. It seems as if he was at loose ends, looking for something new. The story continues,

Morris testified he began providing money to Hunter Biden in January 2020. Then on Feb. 7, 2020, Morris emailed Hunter’s advisers and tax accountants, writing, “We are under considerable risk personally and politically to get the returns in.” Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden filed his long-overdue 2017 and 2018 tax returns, although he didn’t pay his hefty tax bill at the time. Around Oct. 18, 2021, Morris paid some $2 million in overdue taxes for the president’s son.

In addition to paying Hunter’s taxes, Morris also paid for many of his living expenses and bought 13 of Hunter Biden’s paintings — two from before Hunter retained a gallerist and 11 after, with Morris paying $875,000 for the set purchased from the gallerist.

Lanette Phillips, the Hollywood producer, also introduced Hunter to George Berges in December, 2019, at the same time she introduced Hunter to Morris. However, it took another year for Hunter and Berges to establish a business relationship:

. . . in December 2020, Hunter and Berges executed a contract appointing the gallery owner as his exclusive representative, with Berges receiving a commission of 40 percent on sales. That contract, Berges testified, included a provision that required the gallerist to disclose to Hunter the identity of the purchasers of his paintings.

As Berges explained, that was not a typical contract term; he had never included a similar clause in any of his other contracts. “Normally, the gallerist does not let the artist know who the collectors are,” Berges confirmed, adding that of the 15 or so artists he currently works with, none ask to know who purchased their artwork. Berges elaborated, stating, “It’s my collector base,” and you don’t want “your artists to circumvent you if they know your collectors.”

But it wasn't until 2023 that Morris purchased the bulk of Hunter's paintings:

Hunter Biden also knew the identity of Morris, who on Jan. 19, 2023, purchased, in the name of his LLC, Kuliaky Art, 11 paintings for $875,000. Berges explained that Morris had seen the paintings at Hunter’s exhibit in California in October 2021 and then negotiated the January 2023 sale with him by telephone.

Berges further explained that Morris did not pay the galley [sic] for the paintings, but instead paid Berges his 40 percent commission and then paid Hunter (or reduced his loan balance) separately.

. . . Why would Morris purchase paintings from Berges at all? As Berges testified, the reason gallerists don’t share the names of their buyers with the artists is so they aren’t cut out of the deal. Morris, however, likely didn’t want to ruin Hunter’s relationship with Berges, Berges reasoned. But that doesn’t explain why Morris wouldn’t have purchased art from Hunter before he had a gallerist.

Here we run into an interesting detail: Morris testified he had purchased two pieces of art from Hunter Biden before he had a gallerist. Why then wait for Hunter to enter a contract with Berges before purchasing more art? And why wait until January 2023, when he saw the art during an October 2021 exhibit?

As far as I can tell, the deal between Hunter and Berges was negotiated separately from Morris at the behest of Lanette Phillips, and Morris didn't buy paintings from Hunter via this route until months or years after that deal was made. Why did Morris buy paintings through Berges at all, especially if he'd already been giving Hunter "loans" through other channels? Nor was the deal lucrative for Berges:

Morris’ $875,000 represented a huge chunk of Hunter Biden’s total sales of $1.5 million. In fact, Morris’ purchase represented such an “outlier,” as Berges put it, that the Soho gallery owner hasn’t renewed his contract with Hunter and is considering dropping him as a client.

“I look at the totality,” Berges explained. “If I look at the whole picture of this artist objectively, I would say, okay, this is great that we got someone to do a major acquisition, but let’s look at the general response and what the value is.”

“It’s not that impressive,” he concluded.

In other words, Berges is in business, and selling Hunter's paintings as "art" didn't make business sense, even if he earned commission from the sales. Margot Cleveland, the author of the piece, thinks the idea of funneling payments to Hunter via Berges's gallery fell apart due to public scrutiny during 2023, but it looks like Berges didn't particularly want the business, and the problem with the whole arrangement would have been that any money that went to Hunter via Berges would have been subject to a 40% commission, hardly an efficient way to do things.

What's hard for me to get around is the idea that Kevin Morris, at loose ends for a career after leaving his law firm in 2020 and having failed as a writer before that, was throwing millions of dollars around in "loans" to Hunter Biden, at least $875,000 of which was in a scheme Hunter seems to have worked out with George Berges via Lanette Phillips that never made a whole lot of sense for anyone involved, least of all Morris.

I think Morris is starting to look like one of Hunter's marks, and I'm just not sure he's all there. I've got to assume Abbe Lowell has got liens on Morris's properties to be sure he gets paid.

How Goes The Lawfare Strategy?

As I noted on Wednesday, although NeverTrumpers like Andrew McCarthy claim that the Democrats' lawfare strategy has succeeded in making Trump the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination, statements by Biden supporters have consistently taken the position that the indictments and trials were timed to coincide with key campaign events that would tend to favor his opponents, especially Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. By that reasoning, at least as might have been foreseen in the middle of last year, the Letitia James civil trial in New York would have dampened Trump's prospects in the Iowa caucuses and early primaries, while starting the January 6 trial in Washington on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, would also have favored other Republican candidates.

Instead, it looks like there won't be much of a Republican primary contest at all. On Wednesday, following the Iowa caucus results, Sen Cruz, who ran against Trump in the 2016 primaries, announced “this race is over” before he stated he is “proud to endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States.” Philip Bump writes in the Washinton Post, "A lot of people are invested in presenting the 2024 Republican primary contest as competitive. It isn’t. It hasn’t been."

He goes on to say that media outlets have an incentive to cover the race as competitive, because it brings in clicks, but

No other Republican has landed a blow on Trump, particularly since he galvanized his support at the beginning of last year. This is one reason that Haley and DeSantis so often go after each other; there’s actual ground to be gained. The other reason is that neither candidate wants to irritate Trump’s base of support, just in case Trump gets hit by a meteor or something. The result is that there is a heated battle to win the Pro Bowl while Trump wins the Super Bowl by forfeit.

All of this, the preceding 1,000 words or so in this article, is talking generally about an obvious point. Barring that meteor strike, there’s no realistic outcome to the nomination other than Trump appearing on the November ballot.

In fact, it seems likely that neither the DeSantis nor the Haley campaigns will last even to March 4. DeSantis appears to have stopped all ad buys as of yeterday:

After losing to former President Donald Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses Monday, coming in a distant second, DeSantis does not have any ads running in New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada, according to ad tracking services.

Not only has his campaign apparently gone silent, but the various super PACs supporting his 2024 bid have also vanished from television in the early nominating states.

Meanwhile, Haley has a new potential problem as the UK Daily Mail has revived old allegations of adultery on her part. Newsweek, an anti-Trump outlet, is trying to put the issue in the best light:

Unproven rumors from more than a decade ago of GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley having multiple affairs have given supporters of former President Donald Trump's MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement fuel for a new attack.

. . . The rumors were never proven and no significant new information has emerged about the old accusations, but that hasn't stopped Trump supporters from spreading them again. Their attacks come as Haley has risen in the polls, with many analysts speculating she could defeat Trump in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

. . . The affair allegations gained more traction among Trump's base after the Daily Mail picked up the story on Friday, with Ryan Fournier, the co-founder of Students for Trump, and conservative X account @Proud Elephant referencing the Mail's article on social media.

Whether Haley is rising in the New Hampshire polls, as Newsweek claims, is questionable. According to NBC News,

Three high-quality New Hampshire polls have now been conducted after the Iowa caucuses — and they tell a consistent story about the battle in the state’s GOP presidential primary.

It’s not just that all three of them — two tracking polls via the Boston Globe/NBC-10/Suffolk, as well as another poll from St. Anselm College — have former President Donald Trump leading former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley by double digits, or that they all have Trump at 50% or higher.

If the goal of the Democrat lawfare campaign is to give Trump the nomination, why would anti-Trump, pro-Democrat Newsweek try to minimize his chances against Haley in New Hampshire and suggest she might beat him there? The fact is that there's no shortage of Democrats who are worried about Trump's potential performance in November, such as David Axelrod, who likely is speaking on behalf of Barack Obama.

The fact is that the January 6 trial, expected to start the day before the Super Tuesday primaries, looks like it will be overtaken by events, with the Republican nomination decided before that date, even leaving aside the increasing likelihood that it will be delayed past then. The Letitia James and E Jean Carroll trials in New York have had no discernible effect on Trump's primary performance, while if anything, the Fani Willis debacle in Atlanta will vindicate Trump and boost his popularity as well.

Lawfare so far has proven an utter debacle.

Kevin Morris Resurfaces

Retired Hollywood attorney and John Updike wannabe Kevin Morris has been lurking in the background of the news lately. He was interviewed by the Comer committee yesterday in what is generally characterized as a "lackluster" appearance that's said to have done nothing to advance the Republicans' case, although at this point, Hunter's income sources and how they may relate to Joe aren't major campaign issues -- they fade in comparison to the simple questions of Joe's condition, the border, and the economy.

Here's typical reaction:

Morris was there as part of the impeachment probe into Joe Biden, but it wasn’t entirely clear what the Republicans were expecting him to say. Morris admitted to virtually everything that we’ve heard about his relationship with the First Son but seemed baffled about why he was there. James Comer suggested that there were inappropriate connections between “loans” that Morris had made to Hunter and Joe Biden’s political campaigns, but little to no concrete evidence was provided. The Oversight Committee has provided plenty of fireworks over the course of this investigation, but this chapter seemed to be more of a dud than anything else.

Kevin Morris has emerged as one of the more colorful and potentially interesting characters in the story of Biden Incorporated, but his involvement with the Biden family’s affairs has always sounded very “hands-off” in nature. I suppose it was worth talking to him, but I’ll confess that I really wasn’t sure what, if anything, he could be accused of. He’s been on the periphery of the story and is definitely deeply embedded with the Bidens, but he never seems to show up in the truly insidious parts of the story.

The photo above shows him on the left with Hunter and Abbe Lowell during Hunter's surprise appearance on January 10 in the Comer committee hearing room. What struck me was how much Morris, 61, appears to have aged since his days as an aspiring writer pitching his first book only a decade ago. He was 51 then; now he's 61 and looks more like 81. A bicoastal multimillionaire, he's dressed like a used car salesman in a purple jacket, buttoned while he's seated, that no longer fits.

He's squinting inquisitively at the proceedings like an octogenarian not quite sure what they're about. Abbe Lowell, 71, looks ten years younger and far more focused; he and Hunter also knew to unbutton their jackets before they sat down -- but let's recall that Morris is generally understood to be paying Lowell's bills and is generally reported as heading Hunter's legal team. I don't feel 100% comfortable with this, frankly. Hanging with Hunter doesn't seem to have done much for the guy.

The coverage of Morris's tesimony so far leaves out a much more important development: this past Tuesday, the America First Legal Foundation filed a bar complaint with the State of California against Morris, alleging a violation of California’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

[L]ast year, Mr. Morris was publicly photographed appearing to use marijuana, while Biden, a recovering drug addict, was visiting his home. The year before that, it was reported that Mr. Morris had “been funding the 52-year-old’s lifestyle in Los Angeles – including his rent and living expenses.” Mr. Morris had allegedly paid $2 million in back taxes owed by Biden.

However, if Mr. Morris has provided personal funds to an individual who has now been confirmed to be a client – or who would reasonably believe himself to be Mr. Morris’s client – Mr. Morris would have violated both the text of the Rules of Professional Conduct and the well-established norms of the legal profession.

. . . If Hunter Biden or a similarly situated person would reasonably anticipate that Mr. Morris was obligated to provide legal services, the alleged funding of the lifestyle of a client or potential client justifies the immediate opening of a misconduct investigation under Rule 1.8.5.

Current coverage indicates that Morris has provided at least $5 million to Hunter, paying his tax bill, living expenses, and legal costs, although Morris is reported to have repeated his claim that these are loans in yesterday's committee testimony. This also leaves aside the testimony from Hunter's art dealer that most of that art was purchased by Morris.

There's also the question of whether Morris was actually ever Hunter's lawyer, although knowledgeable parties like Chris Clark, who negotiated Hunter's failed Delaware diversion deal, have told the press that he is:

Hunter Biden could not be reached for comment, but his criminal attorney, Christopher Clark, confirmed that Morris is serving as an "attorney and trusted adviser" to Hunter Biden.

It may be that the purpose of getting Morris's lackluster testimony before the Comer committee was simply to nail down his version of events, however uncontroversial this may seem, prior to exposing Morris as a liar. But for now, something strikes me as hinky indeed if Hunter has been relying on the guy in the picture at the top of this post as a "trusted adviser". He looks more like an over-the-hill actor who's been hitting the coke but still thinks he can make a comeback in the role of, say, Silas Marner.

I get the impression that the only guy in the vignette above who knows what he's doing is Abbe Lowell. I'm wondering how long he's going to last here, especially if Morris is Lowell's de facto boss. Lowell must certainly have understood Morris's ethical problem and the risk he faces giving sworn testimony that his payments to Hunter are just loans. I suspect Lowell has, first, an exit strategy, and second, an ironclad arrangement that makes sure either Morris, Hunter, or other Bidens pay his bills.

The Chicago Seven Strategy Still Works

Trump was back in court for the second E Jean Carroll civil trial in New York on Tuesday, and his exchange with Judge Kaplan was true to form:

"Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which what has been reported to me consists of. And if he disregards court orders, Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial," Judge Lewis Kaplan told Trump, who was reportedly making comments throughout the trial, according to CNN.

Trump responded to Kaplan by throwing his hands up.

"I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that," the judge said.

"I would love it," Trump said, according to reporters in the courtroom.

"I know you would," Kaplan responded. "You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance apparently."

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of Trump's public demeanor, as well as his conduct in the courtroom. It echoes similar comments by William Barr:

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said it would be a "particularly bad idea" for former President Donald Trump to take the stand in New York because the latter "lacks all self-control."

In a Sunday interview with Fox News' Shannon Bream, Barr was asked whether Trump would personally defend himself in court if his indictment went to trial.

"I'm not his lawyer, generally I think it's a bad idea to go on the stand," Barr replied. "And I think it's a particularly bad idea for Trump because he lacks all self-control, and it would be very difficult to prepare him and keep him testifying in a prudent fashion."

As I pointed out last October, Trump's strategy, at least in the New York civil cases, is based on the Chicago Seven defense, something Alan Dershowitz recognizes, and Dershowitz worked for the defense on that case. I quoted him in that post:

[T]he trial turned into a farce, because they had picked a judge named Julius Hoffman, who was a very right-wing jurist to preside over the trial, and he hated these radical defendants, and the radical defendants hated him, and Abby Hoffman came up with a tactic, he said basically to his lawyers and everybody else, "Look, we can't win this case in front of Judge Julius Hoffman. Let's see if we can go about getting it reversed on appeal, and the best way to do it is to provoke this judge, he has a short fuse, and provoke him into making error after error."

And that's exactly what [Abby] Hoffman did, he stood up, he made speeches, he wore costumes, he did everything possible to provoke the judge, and the judge fell into the trap, and I was one of the lawyers on the appeal, and we won the appeal, and he held the lawyers in contempt, and we won the appeal on contempt. So we had a total victory, and [Julius] Hoffman really was laughed at by his fellow judges, and he was condemned by jurists and appellate judges. So I call this the Chicago Seven tactic, and I think this is what Donald Trump is using now.

Unlike Judge Kaplan or Mr Barr, Dershowitz recognizes Trump's strategy as fully calculated. Both Trump and Dershowitz recognize Trump can't get a fair verdict in either of the New York civil trials, so on one hand, he's aiming to provoke Judge Kaplan, and it looks very much as though he'll succeed. But in addition, as Abby Hoffman was at the time, Trump is media savvy, and he's playing his courtroom performance for the media. Trump understands the media needs him as a story, and he's getting free coverage every day, while at the same time he calls attention to the other bizarre characters in the drama, this time "whack job" E Jean Carroll.

During the Letitia James trial, he's been able to play himself against Judge Engoron. Whether Judge Kaplan will prove as effective a foil, Trump is nevertheless now able to bring up Ms Carroll and her absurd allegations, which if nothing else prove delicious entertainment and keep the focus on Trump. He doesn't need campaign ads, and he doesn't need to debate. His name is in front of the public all day, every day, for free.

This is the error of NeverTrumpers like Andrew McCarthy. I quoted him yesterday in his apostrophe to Trump's supporters:

You need to put yourselves in the shoes of the country as a whole. Most Americans do not see this as you do. They vote, but they don’t follow politics closely. They are not attuned to the partisan machinations, the way incumbent Democrats convert the legal system into a campaign weapon. They know only the broad outlines of news coverage.

Trump knows well enough that most Americans won't necessarily understand whatever subtleties may be involved in HR 2 vs the Senate Lankford compromise, but they know entertainment when they see it, and they see it every day with Trump. Trump is a truthteller, a Huckleberry Finn, a Holden Caulfield, James Dean as Caleb Trask in East of Eden, or John Belushi as Bluto in Animal House.

Andrew McCarthy and William Barr misunderstand this as Trump's lack of self-control, when it's more like Bluto's pure irrepressibility. The American people understand this completely, and they'll be in the process of rejecting the NeverTrump alternative, that paragon of self-control Gov Haley, within the next few weeks.