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When Life Gives You an Assassination Attempt, Make Lemonade

The so-called "assassination attempt" against Donald Trump continued to dominate headlines yesterday, in no small part because the White House wanted it that way.

In our item yesterday, we noted that the incident has launched a thousand conspiracy theories, which have spread like wildfire across social media. We do not think it incorrect to observe that the readership of our site skews heavily towards folks who are rational, and whose thinking is evidence-based. And yet, even our readers are wrestling with this particular incident. Here's a few examples from the messages we've gotten:

J.L. in Albany, NY, writes: I'll admit that I'm in the "It Was Staged" camp. Reportedly, security was extremely lax. If the President is going to enter a building, the Secret Service usually knows everything about everyone who might possibly be in that building. So missing that there was a very armed guy with some kind of grievance against Trump is, at best, a sign of incompetence and, at worst, suspicious.

A few other points don't help. For example, you used a zoomed in photo of Stephen Miller rushing out with his wife. The full photo shows Donald Trump behind the curtains waiting around. If there was an actual shooting, I'd think that the Secret Service would be trying to remove the President from the area ASAP. They wouldn't let him wait backstage to see what happened.

Another point comes from Fox. They had a reporter on via phone who said she was sitting next to Karoline Leavitt's husband. The reporter said that he leaned over and said that she would need to "be safe because..." And then the call was abruptly cut off. Fox claimed that the call was dropped, but it's very suspicious why Karoline Leavitt's husband would be telling someone to be safe. I doubt it was because the chicken was undercooked.

Finally, there's the ballroom. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Trump doesn't need the ballroom for national security reasons. Then the WHCD becomes a crime scene. Immediately after the "assassination attempt," Trump and his allies started referencing this as proof positive that the ballroom was needed for national security reasons. Because no other venue could be secured ever. (Despite the fact that the Secret Service have a lot of experience with securing venues for the President to appear in—be they hotels, stadiums, or restaurants.) They needed a national security argument only for one to immediately and totally coincidentally appear for them.

I'd also point out that an administration that constantly lies about the most trivial and easily proven false things doesn't always get the benefit of the doubt as to whether something is true or not. The boy cried wolf a few too many times and now people are rightfully doubting if this was an actual wolf.


C.S. in Flushing, MI, writes: I hate how jaded I have become, but it just seems... off, plausible, and entirely what I would expect from a reality TV president. Journalists were receiving awards for their (earned) unflattering coverage of Trump, keeping this spotlight on his Epstein association and perceived dementia/lack of humanity and what better way to hijack the moment and squash that additional coverage and plug his $400 million ballroom to boot? And it's hard to overlook the fact that he enjoyed a ratings boost in the polls after the Butler, PA, assassination attempt.

I am thinking of deadbeats that I have known in my life who will do anything and everything to avoid an honest day's work when the easiest solution is to work a job. So much effort gets put into avoidance of work, that they would end up working harder. It would have been so easy for Trump to do the right things and decent things... I mean think of the world looking at him in a positive light because he was doing humanitarian things. The press! The polls! He would be universally loved, which is what he craves! But alas, just another deadbeat.


D.R. Massapequa Park, NY, writes: Make it make sense.

The correspondents dinner has been in the SAME Hilton every year since 1968 without issue.

But the one year when the sitting president wants this ballroom and hitting roadblocks to build it just happens to magically be the same year there is a major breach of security.

Sorry, not sorry, I don't buy it.


S.N. in Sparks, NV, writes: When I first heard about a shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, I wondered if this was a false flag operation. In favor of the theory: (1) Trump's poll numbers suck and he is desperate for support and, (2) Trump has ignored the WHCD for several years until suddenly deciding to come this year.

But I moved away from that idea pretty quickly since I am not a big fan of conspiratorial thinking. I also doubt there is anyone around Trump who could carry out a credible operation.

Anyone who would like to read a rundown of the various conspiracies, click here, here, here or here.

It presumably won't come as any surprise that we agree entirely with S.N. in Sparks. We considered the possibility that there might be something sneaky going on here, but that notion just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Starting with the general, assassination attempts pretty much always lead to conspiracy theories. The JFK conspiracy theories are the best known, but there are plenty attached to the Lincoln assassination as well, and to nearly all of the high-profile attempts (all unsuccessful, obviously) made against presidents in the last half-century. An assassination attempt against someone as important and well protected as the President of the United States represents serious disorder in the world, and some people don't like that. The conspiracy brings the order back for them.

Another general observation is that in any situation where there are a lot of people, and there is a lot of chaos, a lot of odd things are going to happen. Those odd things are not inherently meaningful, just because they are odd. For example, there has been much attention paid to Michael Glantz, who is Wolf Blitzer's agent, and who calmly continued eating his salad while chaos reigned around him. This does not mean he was "in" on it, or that he had some sort of inside information. He decided (quite reasonably) that he wasn't in actual danger, and there was no value in getting agitated. End of story. For another example, see the "umbrella man" from the Kennedy assassination.

A third general observation, which is somewhat related to the second, is that something like an assassination attempt is, pretty much by definition, a black swan event. But the fact that it is so is not inherently suspicious. Consider the remark above, that "The correspondents' dinner has been in the SAME Hilton every year since 1968 without issue." First of all, it wasn't at the correspondents' dinner, but Ronald Reagan was shot at that same Hilton in 1981. Second, if presidents were regularly getting shot at that Hilton, well, presidents would stop visiting that Hilton. Of course any assassination attempt is going to be out of the ordinary. Or, to put that another way, what if we wrote "More than a dozen presidents visited Dallas without incident UNTIL the U.S. had the ambitious Lyndon B. Johnson as VP"? That the first eleven presidents were not the victims of a conspiracy does not mean that the twelfth was.

Moving toward the specifics of this particular incident, far and away the most common line of thinking is: (1) Trump wants his ballroom, (2) the assassination attempt happened, and (3) now he's using that to try to get his ballroom. The sequence of events is correct, but there is yet to be any evidence that the administration developed this as a scheme in order to advance its goals. More probable (and a major theme of the rest of this item) is that the attempt happened, and an extremely opportunistic Team Trump quickly thought of how to get mileage out of it. We will also point out that if your "proof" of a conspiracy is "Boy, Trump really wants to achieve [UNPOPULAR POLICY X]" or "Trump could really use a distraction from [SCANDAL Y]," well, Trump ALWAYS has some unpopular policy he's pushing, and he ALWAYS has some scandal he's trying to detract attention from. So, if we have to wait for neither condition to be met for an assassination attempt to be "legitimate," we are going to wait... well, forever.

And finally, if this was all just for show, we can't wrap our mind around how the show was supposed to work. Consider the assassination attempt where Trump was actually hit with... something, and he got his bloody head/raised fist photo out of it. There are conspiracy theories about that one, too. But we just cannot accept that: (1) Trump would knowingly allow himself to be put in such danger (i.e., bullets whizzing past his head), or (2) other people getting killed would be in the cards. In this case, we cannot fathom how a "staged" assassination attempt could be so milquetoast. It does not seem to be getting much attention, but here's a rundown of what happened, courtesy of CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Jennifer Jacobs:

The shooting happened on the level above the ballroom where the White House Correspondents Association dinner was.

I don't think people hearing about this—or even those of us in the room—realized how far from the president, VP and other guests this incident was. It was on another floor, up some stairs and several sets of security away.

Because the Washington Hilton's hotel and other public spaces were open for other functions, the entire building wasn't secured by the Secret Service, just the specific areas where the WHCA dinner was held, law enforcement officials told CBS News.

This is why we put "assassination attempt" in quotes above. Not because we buy the conspiracies, but because Trump, et al., were not remotely in danger. Put it this way: You could probably get a loaded gun about that close to Trump if you just stormed the fences outside the White House and fired a few shots in the direction of the Oval Office. But that would not actually create any meaningful danger for the President, nor would it be any sort of failure on the part of the Secret Service.

Anyhow, add it up, and we just can't see how someone in the White House would say "We'll put together an extremely weak 'assassination attempt,' one that produces no compelling visuals nor dramatic moments, and THAT will give us the political capital to get this ballroom built!" There is much stupidity, and much irrationality, and much magical thinking in this White House, but even given that, this seems a bit much to swallow.

One other thing, before we get to the lemonade-making promised by the headline. The would-be assassin, Cole Tomas Allen, who has already been formally charged with attempted assassination, clearly is not right in the head. In particular, if you read his "manifesto," he very obviously has lost track of the line between reality and video games. We got this comment from reader J.G. in San Diego, CA, that covers it pretty well:

Did you see the manifesto?

It's interesting because this guy is really clearly a gamer. He doesn't know how to use guns, but bought a bunch of them, and his plan was just like... use them expertly. He talks about not wanting to shoot Secret Service agents unless he has to, and if he does he hopes they will wear body armor because he will shoot "center mass." That is all gamer talk. Oh, you are just going to shoot them center mass! Easy! I mean, when you play Call of Duty, you just point in a direction and hit "X"—in real life, it can't be any harder, right?

And he says stuff like, "Hotel security not a target unless they start shooting at me..." Dude, this is not a video game. You don't get to take multiple shots and keep going. The point at which trained people are shooting back at you, the game is over in a second or two. These are pointless plans you are making.

Anyway, it's an interesting read.

Anyone who has played Call of Duty, or Wolfenstein, or Doom or Grand Theft Auto or any other first-person shooter knows that each level starts with easy resistance, progresses to harder resistance, and ends with the Boss. Real life, not so much. If you go after the president, you start with near-impossible resistance and... the end. You never get within a country mile of the Boss.

So again, we take the view that all the efforts to get some mileage out of this incident were post hoc. A (somewhat underwhelming) assassination attempt took place, and Team Trump rapidly shifted into "How can we use this to our advantage?" mode because that is what they do. And boy, oh, boy has MAGAworld been trying to squeeze this for all it's worth. A definitely non-exhaustive rundown:

We have a couple of more things to say before we finish this item and, hopefully, don't have to talk about this story again. First, if you want to find a president to blame here, it's doable, but it's not Obama. We've written this before, and we'll write it again, but Trump has done just about everything possible to communicate the messages that: (1) It's OK to be angry, and (2) It's OK to act on that anger, violently, if need be. Think Charlottesville, or 1/6, or the ICE occupations, or Venezuela, or Iran or any of the other ways he's used violence and anger as tools. And, to borrow a pretty good turn of phrase from the Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last, if this is going to be your message, then eventually you are going to break containment.

On a related note, the hand-wringing from Leavitt, Miller, Trump and others over "violent rhetoric" is really a world-class display of resolving cognitive dissonance. In Trump, we have a man who celebrated the attack on the elderly Paul Pelosi. A man who cheered the death of Robert Mueller. A man who proclaimed that Rob Reiner got what he deserved. Trump and MAGA long ago ceded any moral high ground here, and people remember that well. #Pelosi, #Mueller and #Reiner were all trending on Twitter yesterday.

And that brings us to our final remark. As we outline above, the White House and its allies are trying to get as much mileage out of this incident as is possible. We feel confident in saying that it just won't work. The "threat" was too inconsequential, the hypocrisy is too obvious, the overreach is too great. What, after all, did Trump get out of the (much more serious) assassination attempt in Pennsylvania? A dead-cat bounce? What did he get out of the other two assassination attempts? Nothing? Indeed, what lasting benefit has Trump gotten out of ANY of his many and varied "victim" narratives? MAGA buys it, but nobody else does. We will be very surprised indeed if this incident is still a story a week from now. That said, we put it under the microscope nonetheless, just in case.

Oh, and since Calvin Coolidge took office, the only president to (apparently) avoid any assassination attempts is Lyndon B. Johnson. (Z)

The Elbridge Gerry World Tour Continues

There were a couple of pretty important developments on the gerrymandering front yesterday. We'll start in the Deep South, and work our way up from there.

The "Deep Southern" news is that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) released the House district map he wants the state legislature to adopt. Here it is, such as it is:

Florida is a sea of red, but for four small, blue splotches. That means that there would be four Democratic districts, all of them centered on urban centers. Three of them appear to be east Miami, the other appears to be in Jacksonville.

DeSantis does not appear to have shared anything more specific than this yet, so it's hard to assess the impact of the new map. However, the four blue districts that would theoretically go the way of the dodo are the ones currently represented by Democrats Kathy Castor, Lois Frankel, Darren Soto and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Undoubtedly, the thought of booting Wasserman Schultz—friend of Hillary Clinton and former DNC Chair—is a particular source of delight for the RonBot.

Democrats, from Hakeem Jeffries on down, promptly declared the map to be a dummymander, and warned it would cost Florida Republicans more seats than it would gain them. That's probably wishcasting at this point, since presumably if the Democrats really believed that, they would keep their mouths shut and let the Florida Republicans shoot themselves in the foot. Exactly how wishy the wishcasting is, we do not know, due to the lack of specifics. Even Cook Political Report, which is the go-to for this kind of analysis, hasn't been able to crunch the numbers yet.

This said, there are still a couple of hurdles in DeSantis' path, so he better make sure to put his boots on. First, it's not clear what Republicans in the Florida state legislature think about all this. They have been increasingly willing to defy the Governor over the last 18 months or so. And while they might see value in toeing the MAGA line, they also might not. In particular, if they approve a gerrymander, and it becomes a dummymander, they might well get the blame, which could harm their chances at reelection or at a promotion to Washington, DC.

Assuming the legislature signs off, then the courts will have their say. In 2010, Florida voters adopted the "Fair Districts" voting standards, which specifically prohibit redrawing district maps for political purposes. Consequently, anti-gerrymander forces think they have a solid case here, and that the courts will toss the new map if it is adopted. On the other hand, the courts already gutted part of the "Fair Districts" standards, the portions having to do with minority representation. Consequently, pro-gerrymander forces think that means the entire "Fair Districts" ball of wax is in abeyance, and that the courts will uphold the new map if it is adopted. So, who knows?

And speaking of the courts, the other big news is from Virginia. The new maps adopted last week were stayed shortly thereafter by a staunchly Republican judge. Yesterday, they were un-stayed by Richmond Circuit Court Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland, who effectively ruled that this is a political question and not a judicial one. We can't ascertain exactly what Thorne-Begland's politics are, since he served in nonpartisan positions before being nominated to the bench. He was nominated by a Republican governor (Bob McDonnell), but he was confirmed largely with Democratic votes.

Anyhow, a final resolution here is going to have to come from the Virginia Supreme Court. And yesterday, the Virginia Supremes listened to oral arguments in the case. The key question, as a reminder, is whether the Democratic-controlled legislature followed the proper timeline for ballot initiatives. Folks in the courtroom yesterday said that the tea leaves are murky, and there's no clear indication as to which way the justices are leaning. They'll have to decide soon, however, as primary season is nigh upon us. (Z)

Laughing All the Way to the Bank... or Prison

For several weeks, we've been meaning to get to the legal perspective on this issue, and now the day has arrived. In short: Donald Trump and his subservient officials at the Department of Justice are really playing with fire with payouts to his supporters and co-conspirators in the effort to defraud voters and overturn the 2020 election results.

So far, the DoJ has paid out $8.5 million to allies and supporters who claim they were unfairly targeted by the feds. Carter Page received $1.25 million despite the fact that multiple courts had dismissed his suits against the federal government on the grounds that the statute of limitations had run. There has been no explanation for the payout other than the standard "weaponization" line, despite the fact that Page actively engaged with Russian government officials while working for the Trump campaign.

Last month, the DOJ paid Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, $1 million and claimed he, too, was a victim of overzealous law enforcement. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his involvement with Russian officials. So, he admitted to the crime and yet somehow gets paid by Trump's DOJ? What exactly is he being paid for? His continued silence and cooperation? Has anyone gotten a cut of this "settlement?"

And now, former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has gotten in on the action by filing his own claim to be reimbursed for his legal fees expended for defying Congressional subpoenas and evading special counsel Jack Smith's investigation.

Of course, Trump himself has filed two separate claims totaling $230 million. And that's not including his most recent suit against the IRS for $250 million. And more than 450 people who were accused or convicted of participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection have also filed claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act. These claims haven't been settled yet, but they also haven't been rejected.

There are several ways these payouts can backfire. If a lawsuit has been filed, then a federal judge can, and does, scrutinize proposed settlements, particularly when the government and taxpayer money is involved. The court will look at possible collusion and acts that are contrary to the public interest. They will also ensure that federal officials are not abusing their power or that settlements are not inflated to boost attorneys' fees. With respect to collusion, it's illegal to initiate a fake lawsuit ginned up to secure a pre-determined payout. And courts are well-equipped to suss out these shenanigans. A good example is the lawsuit against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) over excessive billing. It turns out that the lawyer for the lead plaintiff was also doing work for the City and, instead of representing his client to the best of his ability, was actually low-balling the settlement figure to help LADWP. Here, the reverse appears to be true. Instead of vigorously defending the U.S. and the American people that the DoJ is supposed to be representing, they appear to be working with the plaintiffs to get them a nice, fat payout regardless of the merits, or lack thereof, of the claims. This is illegal.

It gets a little more complicated if we're not at the lawsuit stage, but only at the stage where a claim has been filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Under the FTCA, people who believe they've been damaged by the federal government must first file a claim before bringing a lawsuit in federal court. In normal times, when the administration and DoJ were not in cahoots and on the take, this requirement allows the government to look at the claim first to determine if there is any merit and decide whether to accept or reject it. If the claim is rejected, then a lawsuit may be brought. But here, it appears that Trump and other supporters, like the Jan. 6 rioters, are using the FTCA to avoid any kind of court scrutiny of these frivolous claims. Nonetheless, there will still be evidence as to how these claims were initiated, who determined the payouts and who approved them and on what basis. There will also be communications between the parties' lawyers that are not privileged. For example, Mark Houck, who was indicted for violence at a Planned Parenthood and whose later suit for compensation was dismissed for lack of evidence, said that he was getting nowhere until his lawyer spoke with Stanley Woodward, Trump's former defense attorney. If there is evidence of collusion between those parties, they can be prosecuted and the settlement disgorged.

Even if a judge doesn't reject the settlements or doesn't get the chance to review them, let's hope these people put the money into an escrow account, because the next administration can claw it back. And even before then, a Democratic House can investigate these arrangements. In fact, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has already written to the DoJ demanding a "full accounting" of the taxpayer funds spent on these settlements.

Federal officials who approved the payouts can also be prosecuted for the misuse of public funds. And if there is evidence of any kickbacks (and come on, this is Trump and his MAGA mafia we're talking about), they're looking at serious jail time.

Beyond Congress and the next administration, state attorneys general can also scrutinize these deals. It's not hard to imagine New York AG Letitia James leading a lawsuit by several state attorneys general for collusion, fraud, and other violations for systematic abuse of the public trust.

As for Trump's exposure, the Supreme Court said in the immunity case that any discussions the president has with the DoJ are per se official conduct, but one wonders if they would carve out an exception for "settlement discussions" where the president is a private plaintiff who sued the government in his personal capacity and who is negotiating with his hand-picked attorneys in the DoJ whose continued employment he controls. It's hard to see a more clear case of self-dealing and collusion. Trump may think he's only limited by his own morality, but the law, however slowly it moves, may prove otherwise. (L)

Patel Is Reportedly a Dead G-Man Walking

FBI Director Kash Patel continues to embarrass the Trump administration, between his abuses of the spoils of office, and his very apparent drinking problems, and his propensity to put his foot in his mouth. He also has a few skeletons in the closet; the latest to come to light is that he was twice-arrested while in college, once for public intoxication, the other for public urination (which, presumably, was a product of public intoxication). We are not sure how these things are only seeing the light of day now; doesn't EVERYONE check the criminal record of a would-be FBI Director while he's in the process of being confirmed? Apparently not.

There was some fairly reliable scuttlebutt yesterday that not only are Patel's days numbered, but they are so numbered you can count them on one hand. Politico White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns went on the record with that prediction (although not in a piece for her employer), so there's a good chance it's true. For what it is worth, Polymarket has Patel at 5% to be out by April 30, 42% to be out by May 31, 61% to be out by June 30, and 79% to be out by the end of the year.

All of this said, the demise of Patel isn't really what interests us here. He's going to get the boot, sooner or later, and he's going to be replaced with some other sycophant. What actually interests us is that the Republican members of the Senate are pressing Trump to do whatever firing he is going to do ASAP. There are only so many work days left in the year, and they've already got several key appointments to deal with. If there are going to be more high-profile vacancies, John Thune & Co. want as much time as is possible to deal with them.

This implies two things. First, Trump's suddenly rapid pace for cashiering high-level appointees may continue for another month or two, in deference to the Senate's calendar. Second, this would not be all that much of a problem if Senate Republicans were certain they would hold on to the upper chamber. Clearly, they are not certain, and so want to get as much mileage out of their majority as they can, in the event they end up spending the next 2-10 years wandering the desert. (Z)


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