Georgia Indictment Candidate Is Latest Example Of The MAGA Infamy-To-Influencer Pipeline

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

Harrison Floyd is gearing up to be the first Trump indictment candidate. He is likely not going to be the last person who seeks to capitalize on the legal drama and infamy to build their profile in right wing politics.

Floyd is the former executive director of the 2020 campaign outreach organization “Black Voices For Trump.” He is one of 19 co-defendants who are facing charges in Fulton, County Georgia along with former President Donald Trump for their alleged roles in schemes to overturn the election. The charges against Floyd stem from his involvement in the wild pressure campaign against election worker Ruby Freeman.

Shortly after getting out of jail on a $100,000 bond on Wednesday, Floyd appeared before the press to denounce the case against him and declare his interest in running for Congress in Georgia. His move makes sense. Floyd and the others caught up in Trumpworld legal drama are facing major legal fees. His campaign launch also included a fundraising appeal to help pay his expenses.

Floyd’s effort to use his troubles to raise money and his profile is not unprecedented. The various scandals of the Trump administration and even the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have served as the launchpad for several would-be right wing influencers and politicians.

In West Virginia, former statehouse delegate Derrick Evans, who resigned from his seat after being arrested for storming the Capitol, is currently running for Congress. The so-called “QAnon Shaman,” who is perhaps the most recognizable face of the January 6 attack, has appeared at events and had somewhat mixed success trying to promote his unconventional religious beliefs. After being ousted from the White House in 2017, former Trump adviser Seb Gorka embarked on a career as a broadcaster and purveyor of controversial pain pills. The list of people who have tried to move from infamy to MAGA stardom is a long one.

While Floyd is following a clear road map, he also faces obvious road blocks. As our story on his potential candidacy noted, in addition to his legal woes, Floyd will have to deal with the fact that he doesn’t actually live in Georgia despite his interest in running for office there. Indeed, even one of his lawyers seemed pretty dubious about his potential campaign. One thing is clear, as Trump runs for re-election and tests whether the public sees alleged criminal activity as disqualifying, there are other candidates eager to push the boundaries alongside him. 
 

More on other news below. Let’s dig in. 

— Hunter Walker

Behind The Disqualification Buzz 

Josh Kovensky and I worked the phones this week, eager to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of efforts to disqualify Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot under a little-known section of the 14th Amendment.

A post-Civil War relic, it was written to stop former confederates from waltzing back into their old government positions. Under its plain letter terms, anyone who swore an oath to the U.S. and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” is disqualified from holding office. Legal scholars of all stripes argue that this section applies to Trump — and good government groups are working to put that argument into practice.

As Josh and I chronicle, it’ll be a massive undertaking, due both to the many unanswered legal questions and the state-by-state variance in disqualification procedures. There is also a small universe of disqualification cases — involving Big Lie-friendly Republicans post-Jan. 6 — from which to draw lessons and predictions. And election officials all across the country are paying attention.

“The President has to be 35 years old, has to live in the U.S. for at least 14 years and can’t have engaged in an insurrection against the Constitution — if you ask me, it’s a pretty low barrier of entry,” Nikhel Sus, CREW’s director of strategic litigation, told me. “Nobody’s complained about it before.”

Keep your eye on TPM’s homepage this weekend for Josh’s and my series on this big question, and its big implications. 

— Kate Riga

Georgia On Our Minds

We’ve definitively entered a period in the Georgia case defined by procedural wrangling. Some defendants, led by Ken “The Cheese” Chesebro, are asking for an early trial, set tentatively to start on Oct. 23. Trump, for his part, is furiously fighting that, demanding — as is his wont — that his trial be delayed as long as possible. Trump formally moved to sever his case in the vast RICO prosecution from that of The Cheese’s this week, while Chesebro himself moved on Friday to split his case off from that of Sidney Powell, the Kraken attorney who also wanted an early trial.

If that thicket isn’t enough for you, there’s more. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is trying to have his case removed to federal court, arguing that what he did for Trump in late 2020 and early 2021 was part of his duties as a federal official. In federal court, he might have a clean shot at having at least his portion of the case dismissed outright on that argument. But it raises bigger questions: would removing his case to federal court force the other 18 defendants’ cases into federal court as well? Or, as the federal judge overseeing Meadows’ case asked this week, does a finding that only one act alleged against Meadows in the indictment was part of his official duties grant him a broader win? All that and more will become clear in the coming weeks.

— Josh Kovensky

“They’re trying to go after and regulate ceiling fans. I gotta tell you, it’s hot in Texas. We don’t want to get rid of our ceiling fans. And now these idiots have come out and said, drink two beers a week. That’s their guideline. Well, I gotta tell you if they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly, they can kiss my ass.”

That’s Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Newsmax responding to Republicans’ new fake outrage over this week’s episode of what Democrats are taking away from rugged every day Americans.

As I’m sure you already know, these performative episodes of disgust from the GOP feature a wide range of stuff they claim to want to protect, from hamburgers to gas stoves. Now Cruz is yelling about beers after National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Director Dr. George Koob hinted in an interview that the U.S. guidelines for alcohol consumption could soon match Canada’s to become two drinks a week.

Of course, that would just be the recommended amount of alcohol intake. RECOMMEND being the key word here.

But I guess for someone who wants to cosplay as folksy and shout “kiss my ass” while drinking beer with a bunch of older white men in the background on TV — in a scene that could only be reasonably explained as an SNL skit — the word recommendation is hard to understand.

It’s worth watching the full clip to see the anchor’s response to Cruz’ theatrics.

Keep an eye on TPM’s homepage this holiday weekend for a roundup of all of my favorite Republican faux-controversies so far this year. 

— Emine Yücel