August 18, 2023 || ISSUE NO. 110

A Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

In this issue…

Kanye West’s Publicist, An “MMA fighter,” And A Lutheran Pastor Walk Into A Bar//Stop The Evil//Being A Real Pill

Written by TPM Staff

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

That’s one way to describe the current state of the rapper formerly known as Kanye West’s 2024 presidential campaign: a twisted fantasy.

Why does it matter? In an era where the margins of victory for presidential elections are infinitesimally small (Trump won by less than 80,000 votes across three states in 2016) a celebrity candidate capable of gathering a small number of votes in exactly the right spots could throw an election. Ye’s 2020 campaign yielded around 60,000 votes and, unfortunately for him, an FEC investigation into whether his presidential committee failed to properly disclose payments it made to Mercury Public Affairs for ballot access services.

To run again in 2024, Ye’s advisors believe that they need to resolve the investigations from 2020. But they themselves are a motley crew of avowed racists, the cancelled, and far-right provocateurs and, as my reporting showed, ended up in a byzantine series of conflicts, alleged threats, and allegations of more grifting which threaten to keep the Ye 2024 campaign nothing more than a dark, twisted fantasy.

At its peak, two people claiming to represent Ye’s presidential campaign sent the musician a letter demanding $225,000 for further investigations, “otherwise” there would be more public scrutiny of wrongdoing at the presidential committee. Bruce Marks, a former Trump campaign attorney and current lawyer for the Russian government, came on to represent Ye and fight off the takeover attempt.

It’s rabbit hole upon rabbit hole, but Marks himself is an intriguing figure. Apart from representing the Trump campaign in 2016 and consulting for it in 2020 (messages show he worked with Ken Chesebro and others on the fake electors plot), Marks may be the only person in American history to have experienced what Trump wanted to achieve in 2020: in 1994, Marks won a Pennsylvania state senate election after a federal judge invalidated his initial defeat due to a finding of massive voter fraud.

Whether Marks represents some Trumpian force aimed at sorting out the campaign in time for Ye to play a spoiler role in 2024 remains unclear. It wouldn’t be the first time that the rapper is involved in MAGAworld escapades; my colleague Hunter Walker did an amazing story this week revealing the role of a Ye aide in intimidating Georgia poll worker Ruby Freeman in 2020.

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

— Josh Kovensky

Kanye West’s Publicist, An “MMA fighter,” And A Lutheran Pastor Walk Into A Bar

TPM has extensive new reporting this week on the events leading up to efforts by three individuals — Rev. Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, and Trevian Kutti, whom District Attorney Fani Willis, in the indictment, accuses of “harassment and intimidation” — to pressure election worker Ruby Freeman. In a new piece published just after the indictment dropped this week, we document in new detail how the key players in the alleged scheme were linked to Trump’s campaign team and allies, including the “Black Voices For Trump” organization, the “My Pillow” pitchman and prominent election denier Mike Lindell, and the vast network of attorneys who were working with the former president to challenge the election result.

The story of how the election plot ended up on Freeman’s doorstep is a complex and winding tale involving one of the most persistent “Big Lie” conspiracy theories, the eccentric rapper-turned-Hitler enthusiast Ye, frantic 911 calls, and a chaplain who viewed himself as a first responder for “demonic births.” It all culminated in Kutti’s January 2021 visit to Freeman’s home. During that meeting, Kutti warned Freeman that she might be in unspecified danger if she did not admit to thoroughly debunked voter fraud allegations.

There has already been extensive reporting about the visits to Freeman’s home. The new information that we reveal here for the first time includes previously unreported comments from one of the co-defendants, social media posts that point towards Trump’s White House, and allegations of Kutti’s past “weird and unsettling” behavior.

Read the full story here.

— Hunter Walker

Being A Real Pill

A panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its ruling Thursday in a case where anti-abortion doctors are trying to make it as difficult as possible for women to access mifepristone, the abortion drug the FDA approved over 20 years ago. The anti-abortion group’s bid to overturn that initial authorization proved a bridge too far for even this court: the judges concluded that the six-year statute of limitations to challenge agency actions had, well, passed.

But they upheld other parts of the lower court decision crafted by district Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who’s quickly made a name for himself in his willingness to greenlight just about anything right-wing litigants want. The fact that he gets 100 percent of the cases filed in his division and works within the Fifth Circuit’s jurisdiction further sweeten the pot.

The Fifth Circuit panel rubber stamped Kacsmaryk’s ruling that all of the various restrictions the FDA has loosened since 2016 — expanding the gestational window mifepristone can be used within, lifting the in-person dispensing requirement — must be reimposed. The judges freely question the scientific conclusions of the experts at the FDA, the newest chapter in the right’s war against the administrative state. None of the restrictions will take effect until the Supreme Court either hands down its own opinion or declines to take up the case, thanks to an earlier stay.

To be clear, the FDA is not the untarnished hero of this story. Major medical organizations have been saying for years that mifepristone has been shackled by the agency’s wholly unnecessary restrictions, and those restrictions have poured fuel on the anti-abortion movement’s fire that mifepristone — and everything about abortion — is unsafe for women. The ready accessibility of misoprostol, often used in concert with mifepristone to perform abortions, is a major data point; misoprostol’s on-label use for ulcers has spared it the constant scrutiny and disinformation campaigns to which mifepristone has been subjected since it came on the scene.

What happens to mifepristone is vitally important in the post-Dobbs landscape. Allowing the drug to be mailed has opened up access to abortion even for those locked in anti-abortion states, with various tricks including getting the prescriptions mailed to addresses in blue states and then forwarded to those in red ones. It’s a huge step up from the old regime, where women mostly had to have pills mailed internationally — a riskier proposition, and a much more time-intensive one.

This case will almost certainly end up at the Supreme Court and become one of the most significant rulings since Dobbs.

— Kate Riga

My Pillow Guy’s ‘Plan’ To Stops ‘The Evil’

Mike Lindell has a lot going on.

Along with a business empire, the “My Pillow” entrepreneur has been one of the primary promoters of false conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. And, nearly three years after those votes were cast, Lindell has not given up on the idea that the man he calls “our great, real president Donald Trump” was robbed. Lindell has formed a constellation of activist groups and other enterprises dedicated to the cause of Trump dead-ender election denialism and, for months, he has been working on a project, the unveiling of which he vowed would be one of the “most important” moments in our nation’s history.

This week, Lindell finally revealed his grand plan, which involved a device he dubbed the “W.M.D.” and an army of his fellow conspiracy theorists supposedly staking out vote counting facilities around the country.