That's A Shame

Based on reports, it seems like he has chosen a.) to just harangue her for the whole day and b.) to prove conclusively why women are afraid to speak out against rich abusers who have the resources to hire thugs like Tacopina to slap them around publicly.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) April 27, 2023

 Meanwhile, we may know know the "trigger" that set Trump off on Jack Smith today:

NBC News is reporting that former Vice President Mike Pence spent 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday speaking before the grand jury impaneled in Washington, D.C. by special counsel Jack Smith.

And in the same investigation:

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team at the Justice Department questioned the founder of the firm about his work disproving Trump's claims.

"Ken Block, founder of the firm Simpatico Software Systems, studied more than a dozen voter fraud theories and allegations for Trump’s campaign in late 2020 and found they were 'all false,'" the Post said, quoting the lawyer. Block previously ran for governor in Rhode Island as a Republican.

“No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was I able to confirm any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked to look at,” he said. “Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false.”

He also confessed he was subpoenaed by Smith's office and met with the prosecutors, but he wouldn't reveal what he said. He explained that he sent his findings disputing the voter fraud in late 2020. It means that Trump had even more information and evidence proving that his claims were false. 

Trump calls it all lies and fake news; which isn't even a court of public opinion defense anymore. 

Reminder to those writing up the Mike Pence testimony that Dick Cheney gave an August 2004 transcribed interview that was treated as a grand jury appearance in the CIA leak investigation, so write your superlative-laden story carefully.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) April 27, 2023

Point being, democracy and rule of law would be a lot better off if you traded the arguably inaccurate superlatives for a discussion about how investigations work, step-by-step.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) April 27, 2023

History is hard. It’s hard!