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Before we get to the fake Ron Klain memo….
ESSENTIAL READING
* The New York Times has a full-on update on Jack Smith’s intense probing of Donald Trump’s (alleged) obstruction of justice in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Sure, there is some recycled news (the toilet flushing again! the lawyers maybe lying at the request of a Certain Someone!), but there is new news, including a fresh mystery witness who works at the Florida club, the screws turned on Walt Nauta, and the DOJ’s scrutiny of Trump’s ties to the “Saudi-backed professional golf venture known as LIV Golf.”
The heart of the matter:
The Justice Department investigation has returned repeatedly in recent weeks to a crucial question: Did Mr. Trump instruct Mr. Nauta, or anyone else, to move boxes out of the storage room before the lawyers conducted the “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago and said no classified records remained at the property?
SPIDEYSENSE SAYS: If there is one potential indictment that can fell The Don – where the facts and the evidence and the law all come together to produce a legal case and narrative that would cause even some of MAGA World to finally say, “Well, he shouldn’t have done that,” – this is it.
Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.
Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
SPIDEYSENSE SAYS: If there is one ethical flap – where the facts and “explanations” all come together to produce a narrative that would cause even John Roberts and Republican Senators to finally say, “Well, they shouldn’t have done that,” – this is it.
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The following is a FAKE memo from former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain to President Biden. It is not a real memo, but it is based on real reporting.
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TO: JRB
FROM: Ron Klain
DATE: 05/05/23
RE: Four more years…..
I was going to write that, barring any surprises, I’ve never been so confident about your reelection.
By I know that your dad always told you, “Honey, if life had no surprises, it wouldn’t be life.”
And I know that your mom always told you, “Joey, only rich folks have chicken eggs to count.”
As zany as the last few years have been, the fundamentals of this election cycle are sound, which is to say, if we can avoid a recession, you should be able to beat Trump (or DeSantis). The jobs numbers later this morning will keep us on track to still make our “return to steady growth” argument.
I know your team is continuing to look for options to gain leverage over Speaker McCarthy in advance of the meeting next week. Playing the national security card on default worked to some extent for Clinton and Obama, but the defection of all the business groups to the dark side is really hurting us. We were counting on the Chamber and the BRT to be for a clean lift.
Even the media wants more meetings and a deal (because they like to cover meetings and deals, not because they suddenly think Kevin McCarthy is a principled genius).
Leg affairs should be figuring out exactly what the traffic will bear in the House Conference regarding a short-term deal because it seems like you will need one. My lobbyist sources tell me McCarthy is not going to blink. The real surprise to everyone is that McConnell and the other Senate Republican dealmakers are sticking with the Speaker.
And Chuck’s take-no-prisoners partisanship, which has mostly been great for you, has retarded the development of what we really need to find a solution – a Senate bipartisan Gang that works with the Problem Solvers to find a neat two-step to push this into September (or, really, December) where you can make a grand fiscal bargain.
I recommend turning the meeting next week into a high human drama of unexpected big news in order to distract the press and the voters from immigration. I know you have told the team to use an all-of-government approach to minimizing bad TV pictures from happening on the border. And I know Jeff is applying his hyper-organized, metric-driven, personnel-is-policy approach to being ready. But it still seems like we are headed for a sh*t show.
Normally, a president running for reelection dealing with a possible recession and a vivid border crisis would have to worry about winning another term, but our team is feeling footloose and fancy free.
Thanks to Donald Trump.
As your Grandma Finnegan used to say, “It’s good to have good friends, but it’s great to have good enemies.”
Bloomberg reports Trump is going to use his CNN town hall to pivot to focus on running against you now, trying to bypass his nomination fight.
That’s wonderful news. We would love to spend the next eighteen months on “Biden versus Trump.” That’s an election dynamic we know how to win.
Celinda says the rape trial is really hurting Trump with women, which means a conviction there could checkmate him on the gender gap.
Female voters are obviously a big part of the Biden-Harris coalition, but we also need to keep up our work on Black, Hispanic, and young voters.
I warned Jeff that a lot of his time would be taken up with the care and feeding of the progressives, but I think he is sort of overwhelmed by the amount of TLC required, which is why I am still handling some key pieces of those accounts.
I’m not saying I’m a liberal hero, but I’m a liberal hero! And the calls are a nice break from my other work.
I will not, however, be resuming my role as Manchin Whisperer; Jeff can have that.
Two other accounts I have to say I don’t miss running point on remain trouble spots. What I call “The Two H’s”: Harris and Hunter.
The Vice President and her operation are in better shape operationally and politically than at any point since Day 1. But the combination of baked-in perceptions and baked-in limits mean the slog will continue. Your team’s attitude perfectly reflects your own: She needs to be ready; we will do everything we can to get her ready; but she might not be ready.
As I’ve long told you about Hunter, in the end, it isn’t going to be what is illegal that is the problem – it is going to be the unseemly. The New York Post is already guessing about what foreign power Grassley might be talking about, but the Republicans are going to overplay their hand on this one. They are doing our bidding, setting the bar so that if you aren’t caught taking a bag full of cash from a dictator, you will be home free. I remain confident that DOJ will do right by Hunter, and that the media, concerned above all else about stopping Trump, will do right by you and your family.
And, yes, before you ask, I’m told the Bobby Kennedy oppo is primed and ready to go, with no shortage of friendly reporters ready to publish it. There’s a lot, and a lot of directions we can go, but the team still thinks “too wacky to be a serious candidate” will be the way to do it. We still aren’t sure we will need to use the material. We are watching it closely every day.
On fundraising, the bundling is on track, but we would all like to see more robust action at the digital and grassroots level. That will come automatically, however, once it is clear that Trump is going to be our opponent.
The two other pieces of good news I want to leave you with:
1. Our operation both inside and outside the White House remains (despite what the First Lady tells you…) the most leak-free administration since the invention of the telegraph.
2. I’m back big time on Twitter.
I know you’ve been hearing whispers (and more than whispers…) from some folks lately about how old you look and how old you seem. Ignore all that. Jeff and I will continue to manage Father Time.
To paraphrase Coach Taylor: Clear plan, full Trump, can't lose.
PS: I think a revised workout schedule would indeed be a good idea.