Federal prosecutors on Tuesday requested the judge overseeing ex-Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon's criminal contempt of Congress case to order that he begin his four-month prison sentence, after an appeals court last week upheld his conviction.

Prosecutors said there is no legal basis for Judge Carl Nichols to continue the stay on Bannon serving his sentence after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' conclusive ruling that rejected the basis for Bannon's appeal on all grounds.

"Consequently, there is no longer a 'substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial,'" prosecutors wrote in their filing Tuesday.

The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts soon after summarized in a column: “The Arizona Republican Party on Saturday sent a flat out, full-throated, flabbergasting message to the voters of this great state. We be crazy, they proclaimed.”

Two weeks later, it appears a related problem has spread to one of Arizona’s neighbors. The Las Vegas Sun reported:

Five of the six Nevada Republican Party officials accused of submitting “fake elector” ballots in a scheme to swing the 2020 presidential election for Donald Trump will be delegates to this summer’s Republican National Convention; two of them have also been nominated to be among the party’s presidential electors for Nevada.

In case anyone’s forgotten, it was late last year when six Republicans were indicted in Nevada, each of whom served as fake electors for Trump after his 2020 defeat. Six months later, five of the six people charged — including Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald and Vice Chairman Jim Hindle — were chosen as delegates to their party’s upcoming national convention in Milwaukee.....

Common sense might suggest that the criminal charges would make these Republicans politically radioactive. And yet, in Nevada as in Arizona, state party officials appear wholly unmoved by the indictment.

“Clearly, lessons learned,” The Nevada Independent’s Jon Ralston said sarcastically in response to this week’s news.

Nevada State Democratic Party spokesperson Tai Sims added, “It should not come as a shock to anyone that Nevada Republicans nominated indicted fake electors to be their 2024 presidential electors. Republicans have spent the last four years relentlessly spreading dangerous election conspiracy theories that threaten the basic functions of democracy.”

The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie responded soon after, “I’m obviously angered by the blatant disregard for the planet and its inhabitants. But I’m also struck by the in-your-face brazenness of Trump’s reported quid pro quo. This is more than the hint of corruption; it is the overpowering scent of the rotting corpse of corruption. It is influence trading of the sort that would embarrass a Boss Tweed or a Roscoe Conkling, whose 'honest graft' came with at least the pretense of pursuing the public good.”.....

Have the revelations opened the door to possible scrutiny on Capitol Hill? In the Republican-led House, no. In the Democratic-led Senate, maybe. The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported:

For starters, the revelations seem to cry out for more scrutiny from Congress. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has been presiding over hearings into the oil industry as chair of the Budget Committee, says it’s “highly likely” that the committee will examine the new revelations.

“This is practically an invitation to ask more questions,” the Rhode Island Democrat told Greg, describing this as a “natural extension of the investigation already underway.”

The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie responded soon after, “I’m obviously angered by the blatant disregard for the planet and its inhabitants. But I’m also struck by the in-your-face brazenness of Trump’s reported quid pro quo. This is more than the hint of corruption; it is the overpowering scent of the rotting corpse of corruption. It is influence trading of the sort that would embarrass a Boss Tweed or a Roscoe Conkling, whose 'honest graft' came with at least the pretense of pursuing the public good.”

Have the revelations opened the door to possible scrutiny on Capitol Hill? In the Republican-led House, no. In the Democratic-led Senate, maybe. The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported:

For starters, the revelations seem to cry out for more scrutiny from Congress. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has been presiding over hearings into the oil industry as chair of the Budget Committee, says it’s “highly likely” that the committee will examine the new revelations.

“This is practically an invitation to ask more questions,” the Rhode Island Democrat told Greg, describing this as a “natural extension of the investigation already underway.”

Whitehouse added, “The phrase that instantly came to mind as I was reading the story was ‘quid pro quo.’” Referencing both the Post’s report and the aforementioned Politico article, the senator concluded, “Put those things together and it starts to look mighty damn corrupt.”

All things considered, I think it’s fair to say that Senate Democrats have exercised extraordinary restraint — by some measures, too much — in not holding committee hearings in response to every episodic development surrounding the former president. While the likes of House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan have reached for their gavel in response to meaningless Fox News segments, Democrats in the upper chamber have been far more measured about chasing assorted Trump scandals.

Last week, for example, Sen. Tim Scott appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where host Kristen Welker repeatedly pressed the South Carolinian to simply say, “yes or no,” whether he was prepared to accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. Scott refused.

Seven days later, it was Sen. J.D. Vance’s turn. NBC News reported:

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, a potential vice presidential contender, said Sunday that he would “totally plan” to accept the presidential election results — if the election is “free and fair.” ... “I totally plan to accept the results of 2024,” Vance told CNN anchor Dana Bash, adding that he believes Trump will be victorious.

This is, to be sure, a rather clumsy shell game.

Republicans “plan” to accept 2024 results, so long as the elections are “free and fair.”

Republicans will decide for themselves whether the elections were “free and fair,” based on amorphous and undefined standards they will not share.

If Democrats win elections, the results necessarily trigger questions about the “free and fair” nature of the elections — because Republicans say so — at which point the GOP’s “plan” to accept the results is thrown out the window.

Obviously, Vance’s position is difficult to take seriously. But what makes this partisan dynamic far more alarming is the fact he and Tim Scott aren’t the only ones hedging and adding caveats to their answers about this foundational question......

But to see the developments this way is to overlook the broader dangers. When a major political party tells its most ambitious members that they’re expected to be skeptical of election results, it reflects a dangerous degree of radicalism.
https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1787949759191249258
Rachel’s A block from last week rings true. “The way you lose your democracy is by losing the expectation that we are participating in an election because all sides in that election plan to accept the result — to go home if they lose and to go into office if they win,” she said. “Once we no longer expect that, we are no longer in a democratic system of government in many important respects.

“Once one of the two major governing parties no longer believes elections are binding, then in many important ways, the democracy ship has sailed, because they are no longer competing on democratic grounds. Once one of the two major parties is no longer pledging that they will abide by the election results whether they win or lose, the democratic system of government is not threatened with harm, it is wounded already.”

And yet, while Thomas is likely satisfied with the direction of the judiciary, he’s apparently far less happy about the ethics allegations he’s faced. The Associated Press reported:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced “nastiness” and “lies” over the last several years and decried Washington, D.C., as a “hideous place.” Thomas spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

When the far-right jurist was asked specifically about a world that seems meanspirited, Thomas replied, “I think there’s challenges to that. We’re in a world and we — certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been — just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible.”

A New York Times report on the justice’s remarks noted, “It amounted to some of the most extensive public remarks he has made since revelations that he failed to disclose years of lavish trips from wealthy conservatives, like the Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow, including on private jets and a superyacht.”.....

In each instance, the far-right jurist’s luxurious benefits “have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence.” Though the precise value of the trips is difficult to measure, ProPublica described it as “likely in the millions” of dollars.

It’s an impossible dynamic to defend: Thomas has lived the life of a wealthy man, thanks to the generosity of his rich, likeminded friends.......

Because on the one hand we have a great many compelling, well-sourced, award-winning reports written and published by respected journalists. On the other hand, we have a controversial Supreme Court justice, burdened by decades of controversies, who apparently hopes the public takes his vague assertions at face value, despite his lack of credibility.

This doesn’t seem like an especially tough call.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says he has a "duty" and "responsibility" to contest the results of the presidential election if there is a question about the process complying with the U.S. Constitution and vowed to do so again this year as he did in 2020, if the same "circumstances were presented." The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the 2020 case with Johnson's claims, and his argument was dismissed by a constitutional expert as being on "the far-right fringes of American legal thought."

Johnson joined an increasing number of top GOP lawmakers this past week who were asked if they will accept the results of the 2024 election, especially if the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, loses. Up until the 2020 election amid Donald Trump's interference, the United States had enjoyed the regular, peaceful transfer of power for more than 200 years.

Before being elevated to Speaker, Johnson was a little known Louisiana Republican back-bencher who happened to be the "congressional architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, advocating an interpretation of the Constitution so outlandish that not even the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority could swallow it," according to Michael Waldman, a constitutional attorney and president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.....

"Johnson was the legal mastermind behind the doomed push to decertify the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin," Waldman wrote in October of 2023 after Johnson became Speaker of the House. "He pressured colleagues to sign on to his effort, warning them ominously that Trump would be 'anxiously awaiting the final list to review.'"

In a lengthy interview with Politico published Friday, Johnson was asked if he had any "regrets" about his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won.

"No, I don’t," Johnson told Politico. "My point in the amicus brief — people often ask me about this and they never read the brief — was a very simple and very profoundly important legal question. And that is, was the plain language of the Constitution violated in the days that led up to the 2020 election? And it very clearly was, because the language of the Constitution says plainly the state legislatures are the bodies in each of the states that determine the process by which electors are chosen. In a presidential election year, it’s a critically important thing."......

"And so you asked me if I regret that? I don’t. I would do the exact same thing today if the circumstances were presented, because I feel like I have a duty. I’m an officer of the Congress and I have a responsibility. We take an oath to uphold the Constitution, and if it’s plainly on its face not being followed, I have an obligation as an officer of this body to present that to the judicial branch."

Neither the presumptive Republican nominee nor his aides were willing to confirm the story, and there was no formal announcement about Manafort getting hired. That said, as recently as last week, he was playing an advisory role with the Republican National Convention and was attending high-level meetings in Milwaukee, which is hosting this year’s gathering.

Now, however, Manafort’s on-again, off-again relationship with Team Trump is apparently off again. The Washington Post reported over the weekend:

Paul Manafort, the longtime political power broker who served as the 2016 chairman for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, is no longer planning to help manage this summer’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The Post’s report noted that Manafort — who’d apparently agreed to work for free — backed off his Republican convention role just one day after the newspaper reported that he had re-engaged in international consulting, creating awkward challenges for the presumptive GOP nominee......

It was against this backdrop that Trump was “determined to bring Manafort back into the fold,” for reasons that have never been explained, and the operative started providing his services to party officials ahead of the upcoming Republican convention.

In the operative’s statement to the Times, Manafort boasted of his “nearly 50 years [of] experience.” What he neglected to mention is that much of this experience was rooted in working for Kremlin-aligned oligarchs in the former Soviet Union and, later, campaigns to benefit Vladimir Putin.

The question isn’t why Manafort is backing off from his latest role on Team Trump, the question is why in the world the convicted felon was provided with this role in the first place.