Insurrection

In the hours since special counsel Jack Smith announced charges against Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Trump’s allies and the right-wing media have been pushing a weird theory that the special counsel wants to punish Trump with either hundreds of years in prison or … death.

Yes, death.

Mike Pence has been tip-toeing around actually criticizing Donald Trump ever since his former boss convinced a hoard of his supporters to bust into the United States Capitol and try to overturn the 2020 election, and to call for Pence to be murdered while they were at it.

His 2024 campaign announcement wasn’t all that different.

Just before the Jan. 6 committee unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump for testimony, we also learned that the Supreme Court had refused to hear the Trump team’s appeal in the Mar-a-Lago records case. The court unanimously sided with the Justice Department, which asked the High Court to not interfere in a lower court’s decision to keep certain documents out of the special master’s review.

Not a great day for Trump.

My colleagues Josh Kovensky and David Kurtz hosted a live Twitter discussion just after the hearing ended this afternoon, breaking down both big bits of news. We recorded it, in case you were busy. Listen here: