Attention to the Unseen

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump is just days away from getting slammed with a court judgment that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars as a punishment for his decades of bank fraud with the Trump Organization. And two little-known New York laws could leave Trump scrambling for cash: a requirement that he immediately front the money to appeal the decision, and a sky-high state interest rate. During a deposition with the New York Attorney General in April…

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George T. Conway III writes: On July 24, 1974, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, ordering President Richard Nixon to produce the Watergate tapes, the president turned to his chief of staff, Alexander Haig, to understand what had just happened. He later recounted the exchange in his memoirs: “Unanimous?” I guessed. “Unanimous. There’s no air in it at all,” he said. “None at all?” I asked. “It’s tight as a drum.” These words echoed…

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Politico reports: The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., criminal case acknowledged Monday that the former president’s trial could extend deep into 2024 — though significant uncertainty continues to cloud the timeline. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan told attorneys in another criminal case that she intended to be out of the country in early August — unless Trump’s trial is underway. “I hope not to be in the country on August 5,” Chutkan said in a sparsely attended conference…

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Vaibhav Vats writes: On December 11, India’s supreme court upheld ending the constitutional privileges of the Indian-controlled province of Kashmir, a disputed region claimed by both India and Pakistan. The decision was a sobering example of the Indian judiciary’s creeping servility in the era of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just as India’s vibrant, secular democracy is transforming into an authoritarian, ethnonationalist state, the supreme court, once vaunted for its fierce independence, is failing to stand up for the rule of…

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Rolling Stone reports: In the middle of last year, several of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, including some of his 2024 campaign’s senior staff, started noticing an ominous trend in independent polling and in internal Republican survey data: A significant share of swing voters in key states — even some Republicans — say they would not want to vote for a freshly-convicted criminal. The trend spooked them enough that, in recent months, some of these officials and political allies have directly…

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Jill Wine-Banks writes: I am not an alarmist by nature. From my time as a prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, I have never doubted that justice would prevail or that democracy would survive. I never doubted that our union would last — until now. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s actions at the southern border and his reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the federal government make me fear for the continued existence of the United States of America….

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John Cassidy writes: The history of U.S. gun-control efforts is largely dispiriting. Yes, there have been some examples of progress, such as the spread of “red flag” laws, which allow state courts to temporarily disarm individuals who are considered a threat. At the federal level, though, the gun lobby has long exercised an effective veto. Just last month, Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill that would have banned assault weapons and introduced universal background checks for gun purchases. Over…

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The Daily Beast reports: An Arizona lawmaker who signed on to be a “fake elector” for Donald Trump after the former president lost his bid for a second term has introduced a bill that would allow members of the statehouse to overturn future election results that they don’t like. The bill, formally known as Senate Concurrent Resolution 1014 and sponsored by state Sen. Anthony Kern, seeks to bypass the popular vote altogether. “[I]t is the responsibility of the Arizona Secretary…

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