“California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday signed a bill into law that allows private citizens to bring civil action against anyone who manufactures, distributes, transports or imports assault weapons or ghost guns, which are banned in the state,” CNN reports.
Video Outtakes Surprised Trump’s Allies
Vicky Ward reports that allies of Donald Trump were buzzing today about the January 6 Committee playing the video clip of Trump rehearsing both his Jan. 6 and Jan 7 speeches.
“The Trump folks didn’t know those clips even existed. They thought they’d been erased.”
U.S. Mulls Sending Fighter Jets to Ukraine
“The Pentagon is considering providing Ukrainian forces with fighter jets, the White House said Friday, marking what would be a significant expansion of U.S. involvement in the war and carrying with it a risk of more direct confrontation with Moscow,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Thiel Drops Another $1.5 Million for Blake Masters
“Billionaire Peter Thiel’s support for Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters has now grown to $15 million as the venture capitalist and tech entrepreneur continued this month to pour money into the race to boost Masters’ cash-strapped campaign,” Politico reports.
“Thiel made an additional $1.5 million donation to the pro-Masters Saving Arizona super PAC on July 7.”
Man Guilty of Casting Missing Wife’s Ballot for Trump
“The husband of a Colorado woman who has been missing for more than two years pleaded guilty on Thursday to casting her mail-in ballot for Donald Trump during the 2020 election,” the New York Times reports.
Barry Morphew told FBI agents: “I figured all these other guys are cheating.”
Steve Bannon Found Guilty of Contempt
“Stephen Bannon, a former top adviser to President Donald Trump, was convicted on Friday of two counts of contempt of Congress, months after he had defied a subpoena to answer questions from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol,” the New York Times reports.
“The jury deliberated for less than three hours.”
Washington Post: “The trial, which lasted a week and only featured two witnesses, tested a rarely-used criminal statute meant to ensure that people comply with congressional subpoenas. Earlier this month as he prepared for trial, Bannon had vowed to go ‘medieval’ on his enemies. But most of his legal arguments were rejected by the trial judge, and Bannon ended up calling no witnesses.”
Wall Street Journal: “He will be sentenced at a later hearing and faces a minimum sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in prison for each count.”
Bannon is the first to be found guilty for contempt of Congress since Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy in 1974.
Missouri Democrats Troll Josh Hawley with Road Race
Missouri Democrats are planning a “Hawlin’ Hawley 5K” race to mock Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) flight from protesters on January 6, Insider reports.
Secret Service Identified Potential Missing Texts
“Secret Service investigators were scrutinizing the phones of 10 Secret Service personnel that contained metadata showing text messages were sent and received around January 6, 2021, but were not retained,” CNN reports.
“Investigators had been working to determine whether the content of the text messages sent by the 10 personnel contained relevant information that should have been preserved… Among the 24 Secret Service personnel under scrutiny, 10 other Secret Service personnel had no text messages, and three had only personal records.”
Josh Hawley Mocked as a ‘Fleeing Coward’
A Kansas City Star editorial called Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) a “laughingstock” and a “fleeing coward” after the January 6 Committee showed video footage of him running for safety during the attack on the U.S. Capitol, which he famously encouraged with a fist pump.
Wisconsin Lawmaker Seeks to Invalidate 2020 Election
Wisconsin state Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R), the chair of the elections committee, “called for invalidating President Biden’s victory in the state — an idea that constitutional scholars and Republican legislative leaders have called legally impossible,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Brandtjen: “Fair and honest elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and we know that the 2020 presidential election was neither fair, nor transparent.”
Most Voters Don’t Know Infrastructure Bill Passed
A new Impact Research poll finds that just 24% of voters are aware that President Biden’s infrastructure bill passed Congress and was signed into law.
An astonishing 76% think the bill never passed Congress or don’t know whether it passed or not.
Democrats have a real problem communicating their successes in governing.
Battle for the House Enters a Critical Phase
David Wasserman: “House Republicans’ midterm structural advantages are conspicuous as ever: President Biden’s approval rating is at 38%, and the GOP’s leading Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, ended June with $130 million on hand to the Democratic House Majority PAC’s $60 million. Come the fall, Republicans will be leveraging that to flood the airwaves, tying every Democratic incumbent to historic 9.1% ‘Bidenflation’ and crime.”
“But the last few weeks have called into question the size of the impending ‘red wave.’ Not only has the Dobbs decision infuriated and energized Democrats, but Democrats continue to outpoll Biden’s approval on both the generic ballot and in polls of individual races.”
“In a special election in Nebraska’s 1st CD on June 28, Democrat Patty Pansing Brooks came within a surprising six points of Republican Mike Flood in a rural seat that had voted for Trump by 11 points in 2020. It’s just one positive data point for Democrats, but the timing — just four days after the Dobbs decision was issued — couldn’t be ignored. Now, with gas prices ebbing, some Democrats wonder if a “red tsunami” could be ebbing too.”
The Ex-Trump Aides Who Recently Hired Private Lawyers
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) confirmed that presidential security officials at the center of an explosive allegation about Donald Trump’s demand to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 have retained private counsel, CNBC reports.
She said the officials were Tony Ornato, Robert Engel and another agent.
Said Lofgren: “Some of the officers said that they would be coming and talking under oath. They have not come in, and they recently retained private counsel, which is unusual, but they have a right to do that.”
Trump’s Fixation on 2020 Is His Best Strategy to Win
Jonathan Chait: “The idea that Trump is harming himself is passed off as an undeniable fact. And it is almost certainly true that Trump’s election conspiracies are harmful to the interests of the Republican Party. People loyal to the party are trying very hard to convince Trump that it is also harmful to him. And yet, if you think carefully about it, Trump seems to be wise to ignore the advice pouring in from his party.”
“Enormous mental energy, and innumerable visits to small-town diners, have been invested into the mystery of the Republican base’s attachment to Trump. The answer I find most persuasive, and which also explains his behavior, is that Trump sold himself as a fighter and a winner. The conservative media spent years convincing its audience that the Republican Party was led by weaklings who were allowing the country to be stolen from them by a truthless enemy. Trump, by virtue of his lack of virtue, would smite them. Conceding that he lost the election would destroy his core attribute.”
A Trump Indictment May Come First In Georgia
Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe “predicted that former President Donald Trump will face an indictment in Georgia before he is potentially charged with a crime by the Justice Department,” Newsweek reports.
Jury Begins Deliberations in Steve Bannon Case
“Jurors began deliberating Friday in the case of former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is charged with contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee,” Politico reports.
“Deliberations began shortly before noon, after prosecutors closed their case with a simple assertion to the jury.”
Said Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston: “The defendant chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law.”
Ex-Trump Official Faces Disciplinary Charges
“Former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, a central player in Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, faces disciplinary proceedings from the District of Columbia’s chief investigator of attorney misconduct,” USA Today reports.
Cutting Through Trump’s Lies
Mona Charen: “The January 6 committee has not conducted hearings, in the traditional sense, so much as a multi-part documentary. Wise choice.”
“The purpose is to educate the American people and to cement in the public memory the infamy of Trump’s final days. They have succeeded magnificently. Every member of the committee has conveyed a sense of righteous outrage – whether because her family were refugees from communism like Stephanie Murphy, or because they personally put their lives on the line serving in the military, like Adam Kinzinger and Elaine Luria, or because they come from a tradition of service like Liz Cheney, or because they hail from a community that was enslaved and oppressed and fought for dignity like Bennie Thompson. These are Americans who represent what is best about the country – its freedom, its openness to immigrants, its repudiation of its racist past, and its commitment to the Constitution.”
“The effects of the committee’s work may not be evident in the short term (though there are some indications that the hearings have weakened Trump’s grip on the GOP), but they will be felt in the medium and long term as the import of what happened ripens in the national consciousness.”
