A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Privately Complaining To Fox Execs
Fox News hosts Chris Wallace and Bret Baier criticized Tucker Carlson’s so-called “documentary” on the Capitol insurrection in private conversations with Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox News Media President Jay Wallace, according to NPR.
- The hosts’ complaints reportedly made it up the chain to Lachlan Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of Fox Corp., Fox News’ parent company.
- Carlson’s documentary on Fox Nation whitewashes the Capitol attack as a false flag operation–apparently step too far for Wallace and Baier, who work for a network that freely peddled misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and boosted the false “election fraud” narrative that led to the insurrection in the first place.
RNC Foots Trump’s Legal Bills In NY Probes
The Republican National Committee has been spending party funds on helping ex-President Donald Trump pay his defense lawyer amid New York Attorney General Letitia James’ and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s investigations into the Trump Organization.
- There hasn’t been any indication that the New York probes involve Trump’s presidency or his campaigns.
- The RNC paid out $121,670 to Trump’s attorney in October.
- The pretext? James vowed to crack down on the former president and his shady business practices, a source told the Washington Post.
- The RNC reportedly isn’t footing the bill for Trump’s legal battles with the House Jan. 6 select committee over White House records connected to the events of the Capitol insurrection.
Waukesha Christmas Parade Driver Charged With 5 Counts Of Murder
Darrell Brooks was charged with five counts of first-degree intentional homicide after he allegedly plowed an SUV into the crowd at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sunday.
- Brooks has a criminal history that includes domestic abuse.
- 48 other people were injured in the incident, according to local authorities.
- Authorities say they believe Brooks acted alone, and that there aren’t indications that the attack was tied to terrorism.
Pro-Trump Lawyers Must Cough Up Attorneys Fees For Big Lie Lawsuit
More consequences for pro-Trump attorneys who tried to use the courts to steal the election: A federal judge in Colorado ordered lawyers Gary Fielder and Ernest John Walker to fork over nearly $180,000 in attorneys fees to the defendants in their Big Lie lawsuit.
- Their lawsuit was used to “manipulate gullible members of the public and foment public unrest,” the judge wrote.
- The suit was “one enormous conspiracy theory,” the judge said in his previous ruling against the plaintiffs.
- The defendants were Facebook, Dominion Voting Systems, the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan and nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, an election reform advocacy group.
The Latest In Gaetz World
Florida real estate developer Stephen Alford pleaded guilty yesterday to trying to extort $25 million from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) father and somehow get a long-missing FBI agent released from Iran in exchange for a presidential pardon for Gaetz, who’s being investigated for sex trafficking.
Gohmert Launches Bid For Texas AG
Reliable Trump toady and professional wack Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) officially announced that he’s running for Texas attorney general, and of course one of the issues he’s focused on is “election integrity.”
Biden Will Run For Reelection, White House Says
White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that the President plans to run for a second term in 2024 amid private fears among Biden’s Democratic allies that he wouldn’t do so.
DOJ Reaches Huge Settlement With Families Of Parkland Shooting Victims
The Justice Department will pay $127.5 million to 16 families of the victims of the 2018 Parkland high school massacre, who accused the FBI of failing to act on tips about the shooter before the attack.
US Included In List Of ‘Backsliding’ Democracies For First Time
Congratulations, America! We’ve been added to the list of “backsliding” democracies by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a European think tank based in Sweden.
- The U.S. fell victim to “authoritarian tendencies,” IDEA wrote in its 2021 report.
- The group’s assessment is based on–you guessed it–Trump’s presidency. The report pointed specifically to his desperate crusade to undermine the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
TaskRabbit For Murder-For-Hire
A Michigan woman is going to jail because she tried to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband through RentAHitman.com, a service purportedly run by a man named (and I’m not kidding about this) “Guido Fanelli.”
- It’s a fake website owned by a guy in California, and he’s gotten hundreds of murder requests via the “service request form” on the site.
- The now-convicted Michigan woman even noted in her request that it was “kind of weird” that Guido’s service was right there out in the open instead of the dark web. Also, “I prefer not going to jail,” she wrote in her email.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!