Joe Biden

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was once a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. But in late August, his mugshot was taken at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, where Giuliani is among the 18 co-defendants in District Attorney Fani Willis' sweeping prosecution of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

But Willis, according to Rolling Stone, isn't the only state prosecutor who has been "aggressively" probing Giuliani's post-election activities.

Sen. Tim Scott is having a hard time standing out amongst the 2024 GOP field, with most national polling showing him at below four percent. But according to MSNBC's Steve Benen, Scott seems to think his line of attack against Attorney General Merrick Garland will help his poor poll numbers.

“When I’m president, the first thing I’ll do is fire Merrick Garland," Scott said during Wednesday night's first GOP debate in a message he used for a fundraising pitch the following day.

Former President Donald Trump was booked at the Fulton County jail on Thursday night on state charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election's results, resulting in the first-ever mugshot of a former president.

The mugshot immediately went viral, showing Trump glaring into the camera with a defiant scowl. As expected, the image drew a wave of mockery, and one of those joining in on the fun was former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.

Among the many interested viewers who tuned into the first Republican Party 2024 presidential debate was likely Russian President Vladimir Putin who has more than a passing interest in who the next president will be.

According to CNN analyst Steven Collinson, the Russian strongman already knows what he has if Donald Trump manages to win a second term, and likely has his eye on several GOP candidates whose support for Ukraine isn't certain.

Nothing about former President Donald Trump's indictment and arrest on racketeering charges in Georgia was inevitable, wrote conservative commentator Charlie Sykes for The Bulwark's "Morning Shots" on Friday — and nor is it the result of political machinations against him.

Rather, he argued, everything that led to this point is a direct result of Trump's own choices.

With the clock ticking down to a possible strike, Detroit carmakers are staring at tough contract negotiations with an emboldened auto workers union led by a fiery new president.

Shawn Fain, who was sworn in as president of the United Auto Workers five months ago, is laying the foundation to potentially strike if there is no agreement by September 14.

Former President Donald Trump was booked and quickly released at the Fulton County Jail Thursday evening during a trip from New Jersey to Atlanta that played out on primetime TV and capped a drama-filled day outside the facility.

Trump’s sprawling motorcade arrived at the jail at about 7:30 p.m. And he was released after about 20 minutes on a $200,000 bond agreement that bars him from threatening or intimidating anyone involved in the case – including on social media where the former president is prolific.

Paxton’s allies are singling out a half dozen senators for lobbying. A mysterious entity is airing TV ads targeting certain senators. And an influential establishment group is urging senators to oppose efforts to effectively stop the trial before it starts.

“Anyone that votes against Ken Paxton in this impeachment is risking their entire political career and we will make sure that is the case,” Jonathan Stickland, who runs the pro-Paxton Defend Texas Liberty PAC, said Thursday in a media appearance.

The high-stakes trial of Texas’ top legal official is scheduled to start Sept. 5. It comes after the House impeached Paxton in May, accusing him of a yearslong pattern of misconduct and lawbreaking centered on his relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real-estate investor and Paxton campaign donor. Paxton, a Republican in his third term, was immediately suspended from office, and the trial will determine whether he will be permanently removed.

His fate lies in the hands of the 30 senators who can vote in the trial. (His wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, is recused.) Removal requires a two-thirds vote, meaning that if all 12 Democrats vote to convict Paxton, nine of the 18 remaining Republicans would have to cross over to force him out. Furthermore, only a majority vote is required for senators to grant a pretrial motion to dismiss, which would come before any opening statements. While that would require 16 of the 18 voting Republicans – assuming all Democrats oppose it — it may be a tempting option for GOP senators who do not want to go through with a weeks-long trial where the spotlight on them will burn even brighter.

Paxton’s supporters have touted him as the tip of the spear in Texas’ battles against President Joe Biden’s administration. The impeachment, they argue, is a plot by the Republican establishment to take him out after failing to defeat him in his reelection campaign last year.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is presiding over the trial, imposed a strict gag order on senators that largely prohibits them from commenting on the case publicly. Shortly after Paxton’s impeachment in May, several GOP senators issued identical or similar statements telling constituents they could not discuss the case but welcomed their feedback.

Paxton’s allies have gotten more aggressive in recent days. On Tuesday, Dallas County GOP activist Lauren Davis went on the show of Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, and urged viewers to apply pressure to six GOP senators: Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills, Bryan Hughes of Mineola, Charles Schwertner of Georgetown, Charles Perry of Lubbock, Drew Springer of Muenster and Mayes Middleton of Galveston. She said Middleton was especially important to lobby given that he was a top donor to Paxton’s primary challengers in 2022.

"We're gonna make all these six famous in the days ahead," Bannon said.

Earlier in the week, Davis used her group, Moms Love Freedom, to launch a petition asking the Senate to dismiss the articles of impeachment “with prejudice.”

Davis was the 2022 Republican nominee for Dallas County judge and is currently running for Dallas County GOP chair, challenging an incumbent. She shares a political consultant, Axiom Strategies, with Paxton.

The pressure ramped up more Wednesday, when a new group began airing TV ads targeting certain senators before the Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News. One commercial targets Schwertner and asks viewers to call him and “tell him to stand up to the left and stop the impeachment of our attorney general.”

The group, San Jacinto 2023, ran $31,000 in ads Wednesday and was set to air another $6,000 on Thursday, all on Fox News, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. While it was not immediately clear which senators they all targeted, the ad buy was in the Abilene, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Waco and San Antonio markets.

San Jacinto 2023 is a Virginia-based corporation that was formed June 28, according to records in the state. Other records show the group uses a media buyer, Ax Media, that is part of Axiom Strategies, Paxton’s political consulting firm. Those records list the group’s treasurer as Nancy Rennaker, an employee at The Gober Group, an Austin-based law firm that Paxton has used.

Rennaker did not respond to a request for comment.

Then on Thursday, the deep-pocketed GOP group Texans for Lawsuit Reform issued a rare public statement on the impeachment process. The group, which heavily funded one of Paxton’s primary challengers in 2022, reiterated it “had nothing to do with” his impeachment, a day after the Dallas Morning News reported that Paxton’s lawyers planned to call TLR founder Richard Weekley as a witness.

But what came next was more notable. The group, which was sitting on a $33 million warchest as of June 30, made clear it expected senators to oppose the pretrial motions to dismiss — or anything else that could derail a full-blown trial.

“There is an ongoing effort underway to intimidate the Senators into abandoning their constitutional obligations and acquitting Paxton before the trial even begins and the evidence has been presented,” the statement said. “These efforts are disrespectful of the constitutional impeachment process and insulting to the integrity of the Texas Senate.”

“TLR expects the Senate will conduct a fair, open and thorough trial and that each Senator will make her or his decision solely on the evidence presented,” the statement added, putting an emphasis on “solely.”

The statement was only attributed to Texans for Lawsuit Reform and not any specific representative of the group.

Such an intervention is likely to further inflame tension with Paxton and his allies, who have long theorized the impeachment was initiated by a GOP establishment that failed to defeat him at the ballot box last year.

That became clearer when Davis returned to Bannon’s show Thursday and elaborated on why she named those six. She said four of them — Hughes, Middleton, Perry and Springer — may be listening to political consultants who have “vendettas” against Paxton and noted all four share a consultant who previously worked for Paxton.

Davis’ appeared to be a reference to Jordan Berry, an Austin-based consultant who resigned from Paxton’s campaign in 2020 after senior officials in his office asked federal law enforcement to probe Paxton’s relationship with Paul. Berry declined to comment.

Davis appeared on the show jointly with Stickland, a former state representative whose PAC has been a top defender of Paxton. It has already put up billboards and sent out text messages attacking House Republicans who supported Paxton’s impeachment.

“We’re spending millions of dollars,” Stickland said. “We think this is a huge fight.”