A Lightning Round (12.08.23)

A Texas abortion ruling, Hunter Biden tax charges, Ukraine aid, Johnson in the hot seat, and Trump files appeals.

A programming note! I will be offline tomorrow for most of the day, so my weekly Xeets and Giggles will come out on Sunday, with a week-ahead look on Monday.

Photo courtesy of Kate Cox, via the Texas Tribune

This is one of those days where multiple headlines compete for our attention. Here’s my best attempt to distill the most important parts of these stories with a touch of analysis and, admittedly, some anger at the hypocrisy and injustice.

I’m watching five fairly big stories.

Texas Abortion Ruling

Kate Cox and her husband desperately wanted to have a baby. But when she was 20 weeks pregnant, Kate Cox learned devastating news: her fetus had a lethal abnormality. Continuing the doomed pregnancy posed a risk to her health and her future fertility. But under Texas law, now in place under Dobbs, a judge had to sign off on her being allowed to terminate her pregnancy. Yesterday, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble intervened to restrain Texas authorities so that this procedure could move forward.

That judges now have say over the private medical decisions between women and their doctors in the state of Texas is already a travesty. But to compound the injustice and horror, indicted defendant and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is newly emboldened from surviving an impeachment, warned that the restraining order “would not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.” He also did not say whether he would try to seek an appeal from the order.

This case may become a beacon for abortion rights advocates. GOP politicians everywhere should have to answer whether they agree with the Texas law and Paxton’s enforcement actions. And the people of Texas need to vote out their far-right legislators who put this draconian law into place.

Hunter Biden indicted on tax charges

Hunter Biden owed the government millions in back taxes that he had failed to pay on his business income from 2016-2019. And he did repay it, along with interest and penalties. Normally when that happens, the government doesn’t seek criminal indictments. Apparently unless your last name is Biden.

The Special Prosecutor, David Weiss, appears to have caved to political pressure from the GOP. After the collapse of an initial plea agreement, which was widely blasted by Republican partisans who wanted to see trials and prison sentences, Weiss asked for Special Counsel status and took his case to courts in California. A grand jury there indicted Hunter Biden on Thursday on nine counts of evading taxes. The public charges make a point of showing that Hunter Biden spent lavishly on drugs, women and luxury items instead of paying the taxes he owed. 

Together with his gun-related charges in Delaware, Hunter Biden faces serious jail time—up to 17 years, according to Justice Department officials. His trials are likely to draw attention away from the trials of Donald Trump and to add fuel to efforts to impeach President Joe Biden by tarnishing his son’s name and suggesting nefarious transactions between them, none of which has ever been substantiated. 

The charges also muddy the narratives around the alleged politicization of the Justice Department. If the White House is, as most of the GOP falsely claims, driving the prosecution of Donald Trump behind the scenes, then why couldn’t it also prevent an indictment against the President’s own son? 

At the same time, now if Democrats rightly point out that this prosecution really is a politically-driven witch hunt, it reinforces the idea that the DoJ can be used to punish political enemies. This is something Trump not only wants his followers to believe today, but in the same breath is a power he intends to deploy with vengeance in mind if he is elected for a second term.

Aid to Ukraine and Israel, and the fight over the border

The White House’s request for aid to our allies in Ukraine and Israel is stalled out in the Senate, where the sides remain far from agreement over what else the package will include. Republicans want to attach the question of immigration and the border to the bill, but Democrats have balked at the draconian measures proposed and the way legal immigration is being conflated with illegal migration.

The border is a vexing wedge issue that the GOP is currently driving into the Democrats’ flank. If Biden appears too soft on migration, then he will lose support among more centrist voters. But if he is too tough, progressive activists and Latino rights groups may cry foul. Republicans are now, predictably, exploiting that rift. But the wedge may prove less successful than before, as many Democratic leaders, particularly urban mayors, are now calling for greater border security to help ease the migrant crisis within their own cities. 

Whether the Democrats can reach agreement with Republicans on immigration and the border before the holiday recess remains unclear. Republicans have made clear that they’re willing to put our national security at risk over the question of migration. This includes holding up critical Ukraine funding. Without those funds, Ukraine might well lose its war with Russia—which explains why state-run television out of Moscow has been gloating over the thus-far failed Ukraine bill.

Speaker Johnson is just McCarthy redux

Speaker Kevin McCarthy got booted from his position because, in the end, he caved on budget demands and sent through “clean” continuing resolutions on spending. Hardliners wanted him to use the budget to wage social issue wars, but this was never a realistic goal. After all, budget bills laden with anti-abortion, anti-trans and anti-diversity amendments would be DOA in a Democratic-controlled Senate. In other words, “Nice try, but no.”

This principle came up for a big test over the largest appropriations bill of them all: the $886 billion annual defense bill. After some negotiations with the Senate, Speaker Johnson quietly agreed to strip nearly all of those social issues out of the bill. Those included abortion access, trans health care and DEI training. The abandonment by Johnson of all these conservative darlings in order to pass a bipartisan bill was met with outrage by far-right House members, who saw it as a betrayal. It’s the very kind of thing that felled Speaker McCarthy—but even this GOP knows it can’t take out yet another Speaker and expect to hold together.

The bill is up for a House floor vote, and things may get nasty. Many of Johnson’s allies on the right likely will vote against it. That would mean, once again, that yet another budget bill will be one backed mostly by Democrats. This is what I mean when I say the GOP is nominally in charge of the House, but it is the Democrats who are driving the legislation that actually passes and becomes law.

Trump appeals and asks for a stay of everything

Trump lost his motions to dismiss the D.C. federal charges on grounds of “presidential immunity” and a kind of “double jeopardy” because he was already impeached but acquitted by the Senate. He has not only appealed these rulings, but has asked for a stay of all trial proceedings until the issue is resolved. (He actually claimed he would now proceed as if there is a stay, something he doesn’t have the power to do.) Judge Tanya Chutkan has asked for briefing on the question of whether proceedings should be stayed while the appeals are making their way up.

As I’ve noted before, the question of when the D.C. Circuit will take up the appeal of the denials of Trump’s motions to dismiss matters a great deal. Jack Smith has asked for an expedited briefing schedule, but he doesn’t get this as a matter of right. A lot depends on which judges are drawn to hear the appeal. Judges who place a high premium on getting the trial over and done with before the election might move the appeal along a lot faster. 

Then there is the matter of the Supreme Court. At least four judges would need to agree to take up the case, but at least five would be required to issue an injunction to halt the trial. It is quite possible, and in my mind likely, that most justices on SCOTUS would rather not get involved. Trump might and probably will be convicted, but if he’s exonerated that moots his appeals. He might and probably will lose the election, though if he wins, any conviction might also be moot during the time of his presidency. It would be far simpler, and better for our democracy, to allow the process to proceed and for the Court to await the outcome of the trial and election.