NBC Should Have Grilled Ronna McDaniel Until She Self-Deported
In December, Detroit News’ Craig Mauger described a previously unreported November 17, 2020 call involving then-President Trump, Ronna McDaniel, and the two Republican canvassers who were equivocating over certifying Wayne County, Michigan’s election results.
On the call, McDaniel instructed Monica Palmer and William Hartmann to go home without certifying the result and “we will get you attorneys.”
On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they’d look “terrible” if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.
“We’ve got to fight for our country,” said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”
McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
To which Trump added: “We’ll take care of that.”
Palmer and Hartmann left the canvassers meeting without signing the official statement of votes for Wayne County, and the following day, they unsuccessfully attempted to rescind their votes in favor of certification, filing legal affidavits claiming they were pressured.
The report, which still hasn’t been widely covered nationally, is a testament not just that Ronna McDaniel played a key role in a conspiracy to steal the election, but also that there’s still a great deal we don’t know about that 2020 conspiracy.
And yet those two details have been largely (in the case of McDaniel’s role in a criminal conspiracy) or almost entirely (that there’s a bunch we still don’t know about Ronna’s role) absent from the “debate” over NBC’s stupid hiring, then firing, of the former GOP Chair.
Even solid lefties (including many people at NBC properties) are describing the problem with hiring Ronna Not-Romney to be entirely about her lying — about her willingness to lie about the 2020 election.
They are not describing that NBC should no more aim for diversity by hiring murder or rape suspects than they should choose to hire key players in a criminal attempt to overturn democracy.
Ronna occupies the sweet spot where the ongoing criminal investigation in Michigan and the ongoing criminal Jack Smith investigation might merge.
You purport to be a news organization, NBC!!! How could you hire someone who, the least little vetting would suggest, might be indicted at both state and federal levels in the not too distant future?
And about that: You purport to be a news organization, NBC.
This is what I don’t understand. Given all that we don’t yet know about the coup attempt — given that Craig Mauger, at least, is still producing scoops about Ronna’s role — why did you ever consider Ronna as a candidate for hiring rather than a candidate for four months of investigative focus?
Which is my real puzzlement. Once executives realized what a stupid mistake they had made, it seems they had a better alternative than simply firing Ronna, paying whatever she was contracted to get, only to feed right wing grievance culture.
Why didn’t you use the opportunity to grill Ronna about those details we don’t yet know? Why didn’t you define her “commentary” role to be entirely about answering questions from Ari Melber or Rachel Maddow about what calls she did have during the 2020 transition?
After just a few such sessions, I would imagine that Ronna Not-Romney would have removed herself from the situation. She would have self-deported.
And along the way, she would have properly been treated as an ongoing news subject, the focus of ongoing reporting on Republican attempts to steal the election.
While making Ronna squirm on TV is an entertaining visual, realistically the only way to get her to talk even somewhat truthfully is to put her under oath and NBC doesn’t have that capability as her employer.
However, Ronna will provide that opportunity to NBC if she does sue, because as a defendant NBC has discovery rights and that includes depositions under oath.
Unless of course the very same executives who hired her are complicit with the effort to overthrow our constitutional order, in which case they will just pay her what she asks.
Mr. Roundhead nailed it!
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Agreed!
Many US media executives supported Trump in 2016 and 2020 for their own personal financial goals, i.e., lower tax rates and pressuring the Fed Chairman to keep interest rates abnormally low for a long period of time, thus giving the US stock market a “sugar high” in stock price inflation for too long.
Trump the Bible Salesman has already promised the financial and media executives he’ll lower taxes for them again while also “juicing” the stock market again by lowering the interest rates.
Trump learned early in life how the Mafia executed company “bust outs” to make money.
Of course, a Mafia “bust out” destroys the company being “busted out.”
Perpetrators like Trump, however, don’t care about the company; they only care about the cash it can provide them until the company is drained and dead.
Trump will try again to “bust out” the USA if he’s re-elected.
“Many US media executives supported Trump in 2016 and 2020 for their own personal financial goals….” Here is an exact quote from 2016 by then CBS Chairman Les Moonves:
Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,”
Exactly. I forgot about Moonves’s quote back then, but I remember it now.
What amazes me today is that I know high wealth financial executives who despise Trump personally and who, coincidentally, are married to immigrants, thus do not like or approve of his xenophobia and immigrant bashing, who do not like his adulterous behavior, or his vulgar and crude descriptions of women, yet they intend to vote for him again in 2024 because they believe he’ll lower taxes and Fed interest rates again.
Your comment made me think of whether “complicit” is for people like the executives at NBC, that Sulzberger guy, CNN. I think there are disagreements of thoughts and words and so we try to find the best word. You have to be careful, because a word that is just a little wrong can become the whole thought. Lots of people reading here went to school where are were ultra-rich preppies throwing frisbee in front of the frat houses. You might have had a few friends and partied a few times among them, the privileged and the glorious, and you know how few true evil geniuses were among them. The vast majority, even people who are very “sophisticated” and “elites” are moral dopes more than crooks, and that is me too. A moral philosopher might have a different deontological approach to a dope at NBC who lacks schema. How to assimilate into the complexity of existing ideas this new idea. The Chairwoman of the RNC participated in a criminal and seditious conspiracy to take down the constitutional order. In Piaget, you can’t assimilate an idea because you lack the schema. First, the brain has to do accommodation. That in Heidegger which is like a clearing or lighting in the forest is a form of “cognitive development” or paradigm shift. In so much of life we do not have a will or attention or we do not see somehow. There are attitudes already there which are value expressive, ego protective, self-interested, etc.; cognitive miserliness; and positive punishment when a person feels a behavior doesn’t align with their beliefs. If there is a strong normative, interpersonal or professional impetus behind the behavior demanded, such as in fascist social structure, I think you can find it in Piaget to say that beliefs will shift to accommodate to the stimuli of your own behaviors as a kind of cognitive development that can be engineered in fascist situations.
For a crook, the deontology goes something like they should and did know better. Deontology is to take moral principles and interpret actions based on the principles. Different actions can look differently in the light. Such as in my work, a medical ethicist will assign disclosure based what a reasonable physician would disclose but in another moral framework an informed consent form should be at a reading level and provide the information a trial participant would expect. For a crook complicity can be in cowardice, if they know better, so some of the more sophisticated at NBC in social networks with Clarence Thomas camping buddy types in mahogany rooms, a world the campus eating clubs only hinted at, or Bad Acid Trip Tech Billionaires, the oligarchs, Royalists, capitalists and skull measurers, and so there is a strong normative ethos against powerful totalitarians, but they don’t debate you, I think, so cowardly crooks like Ronna McDaniel, who should know better, can’t resist the normative, interpersonal or professional impetus from these types of people, I think, let alone some dope at NBC who is taking it to his Priest in confession and thinks the Republican Party is a proud, old American political party.
523 words long, wetzel. You’re slipping in the wrong direction.
I apologize. I should know better, but my mother, father and grandmother would talk your ear off.
Pretend you still have to pay for internet access/long distance calls by the minute like your forebears.
Morality could have nothing to do with it. McDaniel’s behavior could also be amoral in nature in its entirety.
“However, Ronna will provide that opportunity to NBC if she does sue, because as a defendant NBC has discovery rights and that includes depositions under oath.”
Perhaps, but I am not sure that inquiring into Ms. McDaniel’s complicity in the events of January 6 is reasonably calculated to lead to discovery of admissible evidence if the gravamen of the complaint is an allegation that NBC breached its contractual obligations. If NBC pays her what she is owed despite not putting her on the air, what would she sue about?
If NBC ditched Ronna because she was not forthcoming about her role in J6 then I think they could certainly ask the questions. One thing I did see yesterday was that Lester Holt had been the point man for pitching the NBC debate deal, so he might have some ‘splaining to do as well.
If NBC executives get some blowback for this (there’s reporting about the C-suite cluelessness about how it would play) so much the better. It’s time that reality pierces their bubble.
Holt may be able to shed some light on NBC’s overall approach to the RNC, but negotiating for coverage of presidential debates is hardly a gotcha since the debates are standard fare every four years.
“I would imagine that Ronna Not-Romney would have removed herself from the situation. She would have self-deported.”
And thereby saved NBC a passel of money.
That’s brilliantly devilish.
Make Ronna earn her money, by being questioned about her crimes.
Now that’s must see TV.
It would have turned Trump’s “Catch and Kill” tactics with the National Enquirer completely on its head. Instead of killing the story, it would have been killing the coverup. “OK, you work for us now, Ronna. So let’s sit down on camera and talk . . .”
Except that the one time she was interviewed, by Kristen Welker, McDaniel just smoothed the corners off of her previous lies and generated new ones. She seems skilled at that, if nothing else.
While the strategy EW proposes makes sense, and might provide moral restitution, I’m not sure it would pay off with a prevaricator like Ronna.
Believe me, it would get real tedious real quick.
Long time reader, 1st time commenting. This premise was my thought exactly. Have her on every show and hard press her on her lies. This would have been “good tv”
No. That’s already what we’ve got. And we don’t have to pay her to see it.
I was thinking along those lines. Make her confess. Make her regret the role, like Paulus regretted the invasion of Russia and Speer eventually admitted he was seduced by the prospect of power. Thanks to Ms. Wheeler.
It’s Comcast and they really swung and missed on this one. Comcast isn’t in the news business, it’s in the making money in the media/entertainment business. Apparently they thought, stupidly, that she had clout thus accruing clout for Comcast. Hell, they hired Chelsea Clinton once and paid her like half a million bucks for nothing it seems. It’s true Ronna knows everyone in the GOP but she’s got zero clout. The MAGA base has a white hot hatred of her but maybe they didn’t rely on clout calculations but instead did a both sides calculation and figured if everyone hated her she must be perfect.
For more on the MAGA base’s hatred of her, and the hiring in general: https://www.salon.com/2024/03/27/nbcs-ronna-blunder-a-failed-attempt-to-appeal-to-maga–except-they-hate-her-too/ from a former MAGA “volunteer and activist.”
How NBC didn’t realize that Romney McDaniel was hated by the Trump camp is impossible for me to fathom.
I pretty much refuse to wade into the payche of anyone who still suported Trump after 1/6. I have yet to find a redeemable story among any of them. It’s always the same self deluding nonsense until some highly personal event finally allows them to see their “other” status to Trump. Or they’re grifting.
Reading this passage made my skin crawl.
“ As the niece of 2012 Republican nominee turned U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, a well-known Trump skeptic, she was always Ronna Romney, with added emphasis on that name. It was something of a political scarlet letter, and like her uncle, Ronna was regarded as a Vichy-style quisling, a RINO who was worse than almost any Democrat, with the possible exception of Barack Hussein Obama.”
Logis seems to be as irredeemable as others like Marc Caputo.
I appreciated the article though. Common sense and being terminally online told me that Trumpers hate Ronna. A concrete story from one of their “former” ranks is a good concrete anecdote.
Uh…but Chelsea Clinton never tried to overthrow the US election system…
NBC brass seem gutless. The Welker interview, for example, took place shortly before McDaniel was hired. The brass knew they had bought trouble and was trying to brazen it out. Doesn’t seem to have worked out.
In my humble career experience… nothing feeds GUTLESSNESS more effectively than BIG PILES of MONEY.
(see Boeing, 2008 Financial Crisis, Regulatory Capture, Clarence Thomas, DJT, Death Spiral of MSM… etc. etc…)
“Bought and paid for.”
A great, creative idea. Had NBC responded to the palace revolt by telling RNR (Ronna Not Romney) that her job included submitting to one or more recorded interviews, from one or more of their own bevy of reporters, then (a) the palace revolt has a focus other than opposition, and (b) either she refuses to talk and is fired, fudges the truth and is fired, or tells the truth and creates news. Even if she isn’t under oath.
It’s the opposite of “catch and kill.” It’s “catch and blow out.” Or some such. A brilliant idea by EW.
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Rayne: apologies for the error.
I think –
“Even solid lefties … are describing the problem with hiring Ronna Not-Romney to be entirely about her lying — about her willingness to lie about the election.”
should perhaps be –
“Even solid lefties … are describing the problem with hiring Ronna Romney to be entirely about her lying — not about her willingness to lie about the election.”
No. What I’m saying is the complaint should FIRST be that she’s a key player in a still only partly reported story, THEN that she’s a suspected criminal, and only after that that she’s a liar.
The first two distinguish her from a lot of other people that cable news has hired.
This is why i come here.
Exactly! She is one of many who conspired with Trump to destroy the right to vote.
My mistake, and apologies for the waste of time. It was the ex-typesetter in me (hyphen vs em-dash) rearing its head once again.
I think the fact that Ronna was unceremoniously fired from the RNC by Trump makes me think that she’s already proffered both to MI and the Feds on J6, and possibly other developments in MI as well (thinking Whitmer case, invasion of the MI state capitol, etc).
Hell, for all we know, she could have been a CHS for much of 2020 and 2021. I agree NBC did a really stupid thing by hiring her. But precisely because NBC would get to depose her if she tried to sue for wrongful termination, pretty sure she’s not going to; either way you look at it she has a vested interest to not answer questions about J6 in another forum, especially under oath. Either she’s going inculpate herself in a criminal conspiracy, or she’s going to violate the terms of a proffer agreement or CHS agreement. In case of the former, she’d plead the fifth (which certainly would not help her suit). In case of the latter, it would jeopardize any non-prosecution agreements she might have, which she’s not going to do willingly.
I don’t know if this is publically available information, but can a CHS reveal their work for the FBI in a civil proceeding if it is material to their allegations and yet still maintain immunity against prosecution if that work involved otherwise criminal activity? Is that true even if the reveal would jeopardize an ongoing investigation or prosecution? That certainly would be a twist.
She was fired because she was spending money on trying to recruit minority voters—makes about as much sense as any other speculation. Or, to look at it another way, maybe Trump wanted the RNC’s coffers for his own legal problems and McDaniel was using the money he needed to employee people who weren’t giving Trump money, and whose salaries he must have.
A brilliant idea.
Of course, it could produce mixed results as occurred when Ari Melber has had interviews with Peter Navarro and various attorneys for Trump.
PS Alexandra Petri of the WaPo did a wonderfully funny column yesterday about a Gotham City newspaper hiring the Joker to add a different viewpoint.
PPS Flying under the radar is Clark’s DC disbarment trial. Donahue and Philbin have already testified.
Having been so conditioned by TV over the decades, I have to admit that when you mentioned Clark, Donahue and Philbin, I first thought of Dick, Phil, and Regis. But, after a pause, I realized you mean Jeffrey, Richard and Patrick. lol.
Hearing calendar shows Clark’s disciplinary hearing continues today, 3/28/24, and next week Mon/Tues EST 9:30a-5p. https://www.dcbar.org/attorney-discipline/board-on-professional-responsibility/hearing-and-oral-argument-schedule available to live stream at DC Bar’s Hearing page https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCU1JZlha9GboHkIl4s6H24w (NO prior day recordings appear to be listed here).
BUT other materials on Jeff Clark’s disciplinary hearing that might be of interest:
+ Video recording of Tuesday’s hearing, including Philbin (6th/7th hour) and Donohue (5th-ish hour) testimony. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xXi8-YYgD-E (note: this link was provided by ABAJournal and others, but appears to be a right-leaning site if you read comments. It was the only full Tuesday recording I could find; I found none for Wed.)
+ ABA Journal links to other news coverage https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/is-ex-doj-official-facing-ethics-trial-for-a-thought-crime-his-election-fraud-letter-was-based-on-sincerely-held-belief-lawyer-says
+ This written summary of Wed’s hearing https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/election-denier-trump-wanted-take-doj-pleads-5th-disbarment-hearing-rcna145341 which, among other things, highlight’s the bizarre way Clark answered the question “Who was your client?” when he invoked attorney-client privilege: “President Trump, the head of the executive branch, the sole head, the unitary head of Article Two, the executive branch of the United States government.” The typical answer for DOJ employees is simply “the United States of America,” the article notes — NOT, a particular (named) president. A video snippet of the hearing where Clark answers this question: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=arGQdEMCe4g (perhaps better web searchers can use this to find a link to the full hearing?)
OMG. Who has another example of a string of titles this long, that wasn’t born with at least some of them? This is pretty close to the length of the description of Jesus in the Apostles’ Creed.
I giggled when Marcy spells out the complete titles for Weiss and his minions, but compared to Clark’s answer, they are a marvel of modesty.
“Ronna Not-Romney”
I think we can all agree that this was a legacy hire, which begs the question of how one goes about, you know, actually firing/un-hiring a legacy hire? OTOH, it certainly shows how much currency the Romney name is given these days…
It was worth about seven years of employment at the RNC under Trump to RNR.
Seven years was a lot of “these days” ago. There’s a reason she’s no longer there, and it’s not because her name is McDaniel.
The problem NBC has in the inevitable litigation is that Ronna’s bad acts are all in the public record. Transcripts, phone calls, Fox appearances – her bad, potentially criminal acts and her disdain for democratic norms are out there for all to see. If they’d hired her and then this all had come out, that’s defensible. But they had to know – any amount of due diligence would have brought this out to the extent it wasn’t out already. And they hired her anyway. She can stand up in court and say that she didn’t lie about her past because she didn’t.
And the MAGA ethos will not permit her to go quietly. She will scream and rend her garments on Fox for many news cycles before she accepts her million-dollar + settlement and fades (we hope) from view.
I want NBC to try and get out of paying her by claiming that Italian Spy satellites used Smart Thermometers to secretly sign her contact. Or they should say the contract was secreted into a river in Maine by a North Korean sub then shipped around the country by a secret fleet of semi trailers until it got to 30 Rock.
self-deport, aka auto-defenestrate. (rhetorically speaking, of course).
Ultimately, she’s a Romney, so I assume she’ll treat that as A Thing.
Is it too late for the Ronna grilling option? (Not that NBC would have the spine to do that.)
“And yet those two details have been largely (in the case of McDaniel’s role in a criminal conspiracy) or almost entirely…absent from the “debate” over NBC’s stupid hiring, then firing, of the former GOP Chair….Even solid lefties (including many people at NBC properties) are describing the problem with hiring Ronna Not-Romney to be entirely about her lying — about her willingness to lie about the 2020 election…They are not describing that NBC should no more aim for diversity by hiring murder or rape suspects than they should choose to hire key players in a criminal attempt to overturn democracy.”
I would say that this all was pretty well-covered by MSNBC evening hosts (particularly Hayes and Maddow) that last couple of nights. There was considerable reference to Ronna’s active role in the coup, including the Michigan call.
That was my take too, cmarlowe. And I thought Nicolle Wallace bringing Tim Snyder on to reiterate the first lesson from On Tyranny (“Don’t obey in advance”) gave useful context as well.
It wasn’t the on-air talent that whiffed it. It was the executives with the braindead idea to hire this desperately grasping reject from the MAGA fold.
“ desperately grasping reject from the MAGA fold.”
What a perfect way to describe her. Snivelers like Jeffrey Clark and Jason Miller are at least “loyal” in their embarrassing prostrations.
Romney is a used up name changer that wanted to stay but wasn’t allowed. “Grasping and parochial” reject is exactly what she is.
And what about Ronna’s friendship with former Coffee County GOP chair, Cathy Latham? On Jan. 7, 2021, Latham appears to be on surveillance camera escorting a team, sent by Trump attorney Sidney Powell, into the Coffee County elections office to access voting machines. Fulton County Sheriff’s Office has Latham’s booking photo.
Just one more example of how NBC brass ignored the reality of the legal jeopardy of a person they were willing to drop $300K on. Seems like they care to bother to do a background check…because…reasons?
Adding:
I may have been thinking of Kathy Berden, former head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in Michigan, who was indicted in MI. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Ronna knows and/or is friends with Cathy Latham, as well.
In the UK, at least, such an approach by management might plausibly be considered “constructive dismissal,” and lead to serious consequences at an employment tribunal. https://www.gov.uk/dismissal/unfair-and-constructive-dismissal
Oh, I don’t think there’s much doubt about the constructive dismissal bit. In the UK and the rest of Europe, that sort of treatment would mean a higher payout and bad press.
If she was an employee
1 what occurred was actual dismissal not constructive dismissal
2 in the case of unfair dismissal (constructive or actual) there is a threshold 2 year period of employment for most cases unless there is a discrimination claim
Without having any actual knowledge of the terms of R-NotRomney-McD contract, I do know that in English law it would need to be scrutinised to determine whether it was
1 an employment contract or 2 a contract for services,
and my guess is that it is very likely the latter not the former, very probably a retainer plus appearance fees, with fairly one-sided pro-corporation termination clauses.
However:
How much NBC pay depends more on how much they want to avoid adverse coverage: their high level decision making is all over the place
(given there is reportage that there was high level discussion of canning Psaki as a both-sidesing cover for the decision to fire R-NR-McD after the shit decision to hire her) so the calculation will probably be to pay up in full to make it go away.
To clarify
“NBCUniversal chairman Cesar Conde said: ‘After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor‘ “
Nothing constructive about that ‘I have decided she will not be…’
The constructive dismissal discussion related to the original hypothetical that NBC should have kept her, but interviewed her so critically, it would drive her to leave.
“Canning Psaki” would make a very bad situation immeasurably worse. Jen Psaki works at MSNBC, not NBC, where McDaniel was supposedly headed. And if the talent is angry about the McDaniel hire, I would hope they’d be up in arms about firing Psaki.
Does anyone know if Ronna was actually fired? NBC just said she won’t be on the air. They might be paying her full salary to stay at home for the duration of her contract (‘gardening leave’ as they say in England).
The No Labels obstructionist movement’s attempt to put forward a presidential candidate will have to get along without Joe Lieberman. RIP Joe.
I’ll wait for the necessary favorable reviews of his personality and accomplishments to settle before commenting. Suffice it to say that his centrism was probably not all it was cracked up to be.
I lived through the magic that was Connecticut for Lieberman, and his abandonment of the state for 6 years in the name of sheer hatred of those he was allegedly representing. I have been having acid flashbacks watching that same anger and hate being wielded through No Labels. As always I feel for the family but I can’t help believing things are just a little better today than they were yesterday
Frank, from another long-time CT resident. I agree with everything you noted.
Shocker. From the FDL days: “My contempt for Joe Lieberman will never abate”. Oh well, speak not ill of the dead I suppose.
Now that Joe has passed, he might make the perfect No Labels Prez candidate.
Ouch! That hurts — made me laugh too hard.
Rape gurney Joe.
Ouch, that old chestnut leaves a mark.
Yup. Weighing the value of a thread to it. But I can hold off on the dancing.
Note, that Christie also gave them a pass.
“them”? I’d have thought Ole Joe was more of a he/him/his fellow.
No Labels (them), although JL was somewhat two-faced.
A typical quick take on his career from the Guardian and AP:
“Joe Lieberman, former US senator and vice-presidential nominee, dies at 82….After leaving the Senate, Lieberman joined a New York law firm and took up company boards – as is common for retiring senators. But his public positions continued to be a mish-mash of liberal and rightwing views.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/27/joe-lieberman-dies-82
Apparently he fell and complications ensued. (Dr Atkins, remember him? Died after falling. So did one of my uncles. Hit your head, and it’s a real problem.)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/former-sen-joe-lieberman-democrats-vp-pick-19372133.php
The SFGate article is much better than the Guardian’s; it adheres slightly less faithfully to the, “Joe was a good guy,” motif. Like most such obituaries, it errs on the side of optimism and good faith.
Ivana Trump died from a fall as well. Down the stairwell. A very Russian way to expire!
As did Roger Ailes. Not a stairwell, though.
As is (alleged) self-defenestration.
Kari Lake just interfered with her own election.
I took the Ronna hire as pure positioning for potential Trump in ’24. The move Tim Snyder refers to as appeasing. Unsurprising.
What I found disturbing is the anti-social behavior of the group of folks who thought this was a good idea and those who signed off on it (and didn’t speak up). As noted here, aside from the lying she was deeply involved in the coup planning and should not be counted as out of the woods for her actions. And this is just it; they did count on that and didn’t care to hold her accountable publicly or at arms length until at least until the courts finish their work. The anti-social behavior here is a group of media exec’s basically saying “nah, we’re good with it all. They’ll be noise but it’ll pass” and very telling not even concerned about their own appearance in their role in a disintegration of a democratic civil society. It is worse than the small minded bubble life and more along the lines of the book “Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work” (Babiak/Hare). The personable respectable public view they put forth is “acting” like they care but here they did not even pretend.
I’ll entertain almost any speculation, but not that. trump kicked her to the curb. How would having McDenial aboard benefit Comcast under President trump?
Similarly with the idea that McDenial was bringing insider knowledge.
As long as peculation is rife, I’ll suggest that the hire was just because of her well-knownness.
It’s comments like this that feed my skepticism about your background in journalism.
As if hedging possible GOP win(s) by buying access through McDaniel wasn’t a thing.
I am sure they’d love access in that situation but why would you think McDaniel would provide it? You are expecting trump to demonstrate some more of his famous ability to shrug off opposition and make her an insider again?
The fact you can’t see McDaniel can flip between MAGA/never-Trump is troubling. If McDaniel had remained at NBC/MSNBC, Team Trump would have tried that angle because Trump is parasitically opportunistic.
Apparently the California State Bar judge has determined that Eastman should be disbarred.
Link?
Marc Elias writes about it and links to documents here:
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/former-trump-lawyer-john-eastman-should-be-disbarred-california-judge-rules/
Matt Cohen highlights the money damages, too, a $10,000 fine and costs of the state bar association.
But Cohen gets one thing wrong. This order does NOT disbar Eastman. It suspends his license, puts him on “involuntary inactive enrollment;” as from three days after the date of this order, 27 Mar 24. It’s up to the state supreme court to actually disbar him.
Here’s the decision (~128 pages):
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24521265-sbc-23-o-30029-decision-trial
It was linked from this Politico story.
Thank you. Caveat, there are often recommendations like this made that never truly make it into disbarments in CA. Hopefully, this one will, we shall see.
This is satisfying as far as it goes.
I see Eastman had the likes of Janice Rogers Brown and John Yoo lined up to testify for him, only to have that strategy shot down by motions in limine.
How John Yoo is allowed to practice law in California is utterly beyond me.
I would love to see John Yoo as a jailhouse lawyer (the kind practicing from behind bars), but You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24521265/sbc-23-o-30029-decision-trial.pdf
The order is the recommendation of the judge who conducted the 34 day hearing. The decision as to discipline will be made by the Supreme Court of California.
He wants to appeal because he has legal bills to pay, Not getting sympathy.
https:// twitter.com/ kyledcheney/status/1773150727180779912
Lol, the Eastman press release is almost absurd in its hilarity.
“Please don’t take my law license away in THIS court proceeding, because I need to be able to pay lawyers in this OTHER court proceeding” can’t be a good look.
“I would like the California Bar to give me one more opportunity to make a big, big mistake on my theoretical clients behalves!”—Eastman’s Shaky Legal Gold Pan
Citations for this sort of development should be routine, or a comment that you’ve tried and can’t find one.
The story is apparently a day old. It’s now in multiple sources, including those below. The link to the opinion comes from NPR. It’s now up to the state supreme court to accept or reject the recommendation.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24521254/sbc-23-o-30029-decision-trial.pdf
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1240905447/john-eastman-trump-lawyer-california
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/27/eastman-california-bar-ruling/
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/27/politics/judge-recommends-john-eastman-be-disbarred/index.html
Marcy has a post up about this:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/28/worse-than-segretti-judge-recommends-john-eastman-be-disbarred/
Thank you for this post EW.
I’ve been thinking about this strategy all day.
Here is what I think would happen in our current propaganda-disinformation environment had she been kept on and pressed with justice and evidence based questions. She would have played the victim.
Post interview takes by GOP would have been branded “the ultimate gotcha journalism” with branding language like “liberal media hired her in order to corner her and make her look bad.”
Maybe I’m overblowing this risk? I still think she would have been coached to use the following disinformation tactics:
1. Innocent victim
2. Historical revisionism
3. Defining Jan. 6 as a collapse and changing nature of our current political system
4. She was part of a popular movement
5. The reality of her actions during the election were whatever she wanted them to be.
Let’s be honest. The above are disinfo tactics being used currently to distract from the fact Jan 6 was a Coup attempt.
I’m glad she is gone and was not given a chance to roll out a disinformation narrative.
Proof of the above:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1773346187464069472?
Julie Kelly using #2.
“Mike Wallace is here with a job offer”
NBC offered Ronna McDaniel a better contract to appear on MSNBC
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/27/ronna-mcdaniel-nbc-msnbc-contract/
She was already concerned about questions. They paid her extra.
It also appears that her employment in some way could have been a quid pro quo for the debate she steered to NBC last year
THANKS to Teri Kanefield, who posts a gift link to this WaPo article here:
https://mastodon.social/@Teri_Kanefield/112173374033418874
Mar 28, 2024, 08:44 AM
There appears to be significantly more to the story. It noticeable that there was an attempt to equate Ms. Psaki with a person, as noted by Marcy Wheeler, who was engaged in trying to illegally nullify the election results in Michigan in 2020. They may be still trying to normalize a fascist coup. Tim Snyder doesn’t seem hyperbolic any longer.
Yes, somebody left a link to a Keith Olbermann podcast here where Keith hashes out the whole Jen Psaki angle, apparently re-reading from Puck News, which apparently had the jump on that particular story.
And…speaking of Tim Snyder, here’s a link to a very interesting recent talk in Boston, where he gets asked some very pointed and snippy questions by historian academics/colleagues in the audience who disagree with him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkhoWXak4J8
Olbermann has some typically hyperbolic and self-serving yet entertaining things to say about this event.
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK9zM0kig_s
A cynic’s take on the hiring/firing business: could the whole enterprise have been simply to generate clicks and views, the executives knowing full well that there would be great controversy over hiring such a person to the role of “journalist?” Maybe, they even factored in the cost/rewards in the whole business?
Forgive my question if it seems too obtuse. I am an artist, and we sometimes look at things obliquely.
Possibly. But it seems the viewers did not appreciate the joke. And the viewers can cancel able subscriptions, cancel streaming services, and stop watching ads.