The 24 Seven: The Best Defense
On the Epstein Scandal and a flood of White House confirmations, FEC inaction, Crocodile Dundee and more
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Hey, friends, trying a new format here for the 24sight News email dispatches. I’m sure you’ve all noticed a good bit of email traffic not just from us here but from the rapidly expanding universe of independent journalists. So, to spare your inboxes and help keep things manageable for all of us, I’m shifting to more of a news digest style for many of our email dispatches. (Not to worry, if we’ve got some hot breaking news, scoops or other pressing items, you’ll still get those fresh to your inbox.)
Reminder, you can always swing by the homepage: www.24sight.news to check in on anything you may have missed.
White House Offense
The latest twist in the White House/Epstein saga, with top Justice Department official and former Paul Manafort lawyer Todd Blanche heading to jail to meet privately with convicted sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell (and the back-and-forth over Maxwell’s request for immunity to testify before House lawmakers, which they rejected), reminded me of one of the other top defense lawyers who aided Trump in court last year: Emil Bove.
While the start of the week was dominated in the fractured media, again, by the White House Epstein drama, Bove sped to a narrow confirmation to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the full Senate, along with Susana Monarez to lead the Centers for Disease Control and a number of other top administration nominees are in the pipeline for Senate confirmations before senators split town for August.
(Bove was confirmed to the powerful judgeship by Senate Republicans Wednesday evening, over the protests of Democrats who revealed claims from whistleblowers saying that Bove, when he was at the Justice Department, directed lawyers to ignore court rulings and the law. … Also of note, Blanche was at the center of the bizarre attempt by Trump to remove the Librarian of Congress and install him as acting librarian a few months ago.)
Regarding what may yet be revealed in the ongoing Epstein scandal it’s important to note what
has been saying for a while now: Many of victims/survivors of Epstein and Maxwell are out there telling their stories, and have been for awhile. (Catch our discussion from last week, here, in case you missed it.)Meanwhile, the Senate is plowing forward with Trump nominees.
🚨🚨 Stop in tomorrow at Noon ET on Substack Live for a chat with former longtime Trump lawyer
. Nobody understands better how Trump operates. We’ll be getting into the mechanics and the “Why?” of how he and his team handle things like the Epstein Scandal. 🚨🚨100% Dundee
In case you missed our latest “Around the Horn” Monday, catch up on my chat with
here. Very rough show notes follow (and a caveat that I’m still tinkering with streaming video formats.)“I was promised this would be an hour of Crocodile Dundee”
Parenting and South Park
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
Second Liberation Day (August 1). Trump TACO’d. “Is he actually going to go through with it? … Is he going to back down again?”
Trump Coke, Mexican Coke, sugar versus corn and “Sugar has probably killed more Americans than cocaine, certainly.”
The Midterms and The Redistricting Wars. Texas, Jasmine Crockett? Beto?? Trump onboard with John Cornyn??
Are they running? You can float your name for just about any office now, but not for long.
Memories of when Don Blankenship ran for Senate as a Democrat, “If they tell you I fell out of bed and hung myself, I didn’t.”
And more.
Which personality are you? (Matt’s anti-Trump, in the personality sense.)
And a shoutout to the 100% Dundee Roots Crew.
Whither the FEC?
Veteran California conservative activist James Lacy is pressing for an FEC investigation of NPR on allegations of supporting candidates Kamala Harris and former president Joe Biden in 2024. Lacy filed an administrative complaint last October accusing NPR of violating the campaign law by making in-kind contributions to the Democratic ticket in the form of favorable coverage. But the FEC voted 4-0 in February to dismiss the complaint.
Lacy appealed the decision and is now seeking a default investigation the board tasked with investigating campaign law violations lacks the quorum to enter a defense in court. Writing at his Substack, Lacy argues, “Normally, when a defendant says they can’t defend a lawsuit, the Plaintiff is entitled to a ‘default judgment’ in their favor.”
Among the many astounding developments of the first six months of Trump’s second and final term in office has been the de facto shutdown of the Federal Elections Commission through the White House’s attempts to fire Democratic members of the commission. (A Democratic lawsuit seeking to find the FEC moves illegal was tossed for lack of standing, and the federal courts have issued mixed rulings on similar cases fought over attempts to fire Democratic members of other commissioners, punctuated by a nebulous Supreme Court opinion deeming they can be removed while litigation continues.)
The lack of a quorum also precludes official action from the FEC in opening an investigation, but Lacy notes that a judge can compel the commission to begin probing NPR.
Russia helped Trump in 2016
That’s it, just the subhead. Pretty basic.
Here’s the Senate Intelligence Committee report on this. And the very useful criminal indictment against the Kremlin’s “Internet Research Agency” and its agents.
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