Disbarment For Couping?
A nonpartisan election integrity group is demanding an investigation into whether John Eastman, the conservative legal scholar who mapped out a potential plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to steal the 2020 election for Trump, engaged in professional misconduct.
- The States United Democracy Center sent a letter to the California bar association on Monday requesting that the state bar examine whether Eastman “violated his ethical obligations as an attorney by filing frivolous claims, making false statements and engaging in deceptive conduct.”
- The letter’s signatories included two former California Supreme Court justices plus an ex-GOP governor and an Obama official.
- “Is it now a disbarrable offense to engage in political speech, First Amendment protected?” Eastman asked in response to the group’s complaint while hinting that he might fire back with a defamation suit.
- The bar complaint comes as other Trumpland lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, face bar investigations for misusing the courts to overturn the election.
Garland Defends DOJ’s Handling Of Jan. 6 Insurrectionist Cases
Attorney General Merrick Garland is on the defensive after observers (including a judge) criticized what they see as prosecutors’ kid glove treatment of the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
- The prosecutors are “making determinations in every case about what charge fits the offense, what charge fits the law,” Garland argued during a discussion at The New Yorker Festival on Monday.
- The criticism is “part of the territory for any prosecutor in any case,” the attorney general added.
Sinema Gets Confronted By Activists Again
Protesters greeted Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport yesterday after she returned from a trip to her home state for a medical appointment (according to her office) and a fundraiser in Phoenix:
During Sinema’s flight, a woman claiming to be a DACA recipient tried to talk to the senator about using the reconciliation bill to build a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
- The activist asks Sinema to commit to including immigration reform in the legislation. The senator largely ignored her.
- New York Times opinion writer Michelle Goldberg’s latest column has an incredible anecdote about Sinema organizing a protest against then-Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) in 2003, whom she called “a shame to Democrats.”
- “I don’t even know why he’s running,” Sinema said at the time. “He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him — what kind of strategy is that?”
Top State Official Blasts Biden’s Trumpian Treatment Of Haitian Migrants
Harold Koh, a political appointee at the State Department who is leaving his position as a senior legal adviser, has circulated a memo internally blasting the Biden administration’s “inhumane” expulsions of Haitian migrants at the border via Trump’s Title 42 policy.
- Koh pointed to Biden’s declaration that the shocking images of Border Patrol agents charging at migrants on horseback were “not who we are.”
- “The same could be said of current illegal and inhumane policy of Title 42 expulsions,” Koh wrote. “It simply is not worthy of this Administration that I so strongly support.”
- Koh’s internal memo came less than two weeks after the U.S. special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s “deeply flawed” policies on Haitian refugees.
- “I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs to daily life,” Foote wrote in a particularly blistering letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Facebook Goes Kaput
Facebook, along with its other services (Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger), went down for more than five hours yesterday, a tragic day for COVID-19 vaccine truthers:
- More seriously, this New York Times article lays out the disturbing extent to which the global population depends on Facebook and its apps, particularly WhatsApp.
- The crash came the day before Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s scheduled Senate hearing today to testify on how Facebook and its products “harm children,” “stoke division” and “weaken our democracy” by amplifying misinformation and extremism, according to her opening statement.
- Haugen gave a blockbuster interview on “60 Minutes” where she explained how Facebook failed to prevent the spread of the extremism that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Desantis’ Wife Is Diagnosed With Cancer
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced yesterday that his wife, Casey, has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Curiosities Across The Pond
Can our British readers please explain what Boris Johnson’s trying to do here?
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
