memeorandum: Trump shell company faces SEC investigation (Katy O'Donnell/Politico)

1:40 PM ET, December 6, 2021

Top Items:

Barton Gellman / The Atlantic:

Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun — Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024.

Discussion: Washington Post, Uneasy Citizenship, Raw Story, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Florida Politics, FiveThirtyEight and Axios

George Packer / The Atlantic:

Are We Doomed? — A year after the insurrection, I'm trying to imagine the death of American democracy. It's somehow easier to picture the Earth blasted and bleached by global warming, or the human brain overtaken by the tyranny of artificial intelligence, than to foresee the end of our 250-year experiment in self-government.

Axios:

Right wing builds its own echo chamber — Conservatives are aggressively building their own apps, phones, cryptocurrencies and publishing houses in an attempt to circumvent what they see as an increasingly liberal internet and media ecosystem. — Why it matters: Many of these efforts …

Discussion: National Review, Ace of Spades HQ, Raw Story, Political Wire and Twitchy

New York Times:

Donald Trump's media company deal is being investigated by securities regulators. — Securities regulators have opened investigations into the planned merger of a nascent social media company backed by former President Donald J. Trump with a so-called blank-check company that raised nearly $300 million …

Discussion: Insider, Mediaite and Hollywood Reporter

Timothy L. O'Brien / Bloomberg:

Who Just Gave Trump $1 Billion? Let's Find Out. — Investments in a blank-check company backing the former president could turn out to be IOUs if he wins back the White House. — Donald Trump's new social media enterprise announced on Saturday that the blank-check company it set …

Dan Mangan / CNBC:

Trump SPAC under investigation by federal regulators, including SEC — Federal regulators are investigating former President Donald Trump's SPAC deal. — The Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA probes were disclosed in a filing by Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company.

Discussion: Washington Times, Florida Politics, Variety, WTOP News, Bipartisan Report and One America News Network

Katy O'Donnell / Politico:

Trump shell company faces SEC investigation — The special purpose acquisition company taking former President Donald Trump's social media startup public is under investigation by federal regulators, the company said Monday. — The SPAC, Digital World Acquisition Corp. …

Discussion: Mic, The Verge, Deadline, New York Post and Talking Points Memo

Aaron Gregg / Washington Post: Trump SPAC under investigation by financial regulators

Amrith Ramkumar / Wall Street Journal: Trump Social-Media SPAC Deal Being Investigated By SEC

Politico:

‘Absolute liars’: Ex-D.C. Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6 — A former D.C. National Guard official is accusing two senior Army leaders of lying to Congress and participating in a secret attempt to rewrite the history of the military's response to the Capitol riot.

Discussion: VICE, New York Post, Insider, Bipartisan Report, Defense One, The Lid, POLITICUSUSA, Rolling Stone, Raw Story, Mediaite, Political Wire and Eschaton

Matt Schudel / Washington Post:

Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial page editor, dies at 66 — Fred Hiatt, a onetime foreign correspondent who in 2000 became The Washington Post's editorial page editor and greatly expanded the global reach of the newspaper's opinion writers in the era of 9/11, the election of Barack Obama …

Discussion: Washingtonian, The Hill and Lawyers, Guns & Money, more at Mediagazer »

Politico:

Democrats fall flat with ‘Latinx’ language — As Democrats seek to reach out to Latino voters in a more gender-neutral way, they've increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get traction among academics and activists on the left. — But that very effort …

Discussion: Townhall, The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire and RedState

Washington Post:

Sidney Powell group raised more than $14 million spreading election falsehoods — In the months after President Donald Trump lost the November election, lawyer Sidney Powell raised large sums from donors inspired by her fight to reverse the outcome of the vote.

Discussion: Raw Story, POLITICUSUSA and Rolling Stone

Brian Murphy / Raleigh News & Observer:

Court ruling stops 2022 candidate filing in new NC districts — The North Carolina Court of Appeals has halted candidate filing in U.S. House, state Senate and state House districts, according to the state elections board. — Candidate filing starts at noon Monday in federal, state and local races across North Carolina.

Natalie Allison / Politico:
Trump brokers deal to remake the field in N.C. Senate race

Discussion: Fox News, Washington Post, The Hill and The Daily Caller

Kaitlan Collins / CNN:

Biden administration expected to announce diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics this week — (CNN)The Biden administration is expected to announce this week that no US government officials will attend the 2022 Beijing Olympics, implementing a diplomatic boycott of the games, according to several sources.

Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Won't Send Officials to Beijing Winter Olympics

Discussion: The Guardian and The Daily Caller

David M. Drucker / Washington Examiner:

Brian Kemp moves swiftly to neuter David Perdue in primary poised to bloody Georgia GOP — Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday struck former Sen. David Perdue fast and hard, foreshadowing a bloody, months-long primary poised to tear the Georgia Republican Party asunder and elevate Democrats to power in a key battleground state.

Paul Steinhauser / Fox News:
Trump backed former GOP Sen. Perdue launches Georgia gubernatorial bid; charges Gov. Kemp ‘failed all of us’

Discussion: Washington Post, New York Post, UPI, Mediaite, CNN and Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Emma G. Fitzsimmons / New York Times:

New York City sets sweeping vaccine mandate for all private employers. — Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a sweeping Covid vaccine mandate for all private employers in New York City on Monday morning to combat the spread of the Omicron variant. — Mr. de Blasio said the aggressive measure …

Discussion: New York Post, HotAir, Human Events, The Gateway Pundit, Bloomberg, Axios, Liberty Unyielding, National Review, ABC7 and Twitchy

Lee Brown / New York Post:

Chris Cuomo claims CNN boss Jeff Zucker knew about involvement in gov scandal — Canned CNN host Chris Cuomo has fired back at the network — accusing his boss of knowing everything about his involvement in trying to quash ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo's sex scandal.

Discussion: The Federalist, National Review, Twitchy, HotAir and The Daily Wire, more at Mediagazer »

Wall Street Journal:
CNN President Jeff Zucker Protected Chris Cuomo. Then Came a U-Turn.

Discussion: HotAir, RedState, The Daily Caller, TheBlaze, Washington Examiner, Ace of Spades HQ, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Wire, Poynter, HuffPost, New York Post and Associated Press, more at Mediagazer »

New York Times:

Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars — The automaker may have undermined safety in designing its Autopilot driver-assistance system to fit its chief executive's vision, former employees say. — To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times …

Discussion: Raw Story

Ryan Goodman / Just Security:

The Absence of “The Donald” — In the several hundred criminal cases brought against individuals involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice and FBI have included scores of incriminating communications posted by defendants on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Parler.

Ben Smith / New York Times:

How TikTok Reads Your Mind — It's the most successful video app in the world. Our columnist has obtained an internal company document that offers a new level of detail about how the algorithm works. — There are four main goals for TikTok's algorithm: .户价值, .户 …

Discussion: Althouse, more at Mediagazer »

Nelson Warfield / New York Times:

I Was Bob Dole's Press Secretary. This Is What I Learned From Him. — Mr. Warfield, a Republican, is a political media consultant who was national press secretary for Senator Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. — Early in the 1996 race for the White House, the senior leadership …

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications, YouTube and Washington Examiner

Washington Post:
The GOP agenda for 2022? There isn't one yet.

Discussion: The Message Box

Associated Press:

Trump-tied group pushing for voting changes in Wisconsin — MADISON, Wisc. (AP) — A group formed to support former President Donald Trump's agenda is working with Wisconsin Republicans on a ballot measure that would bypass the state's Democratic governor to change how elections are run in the battleground state.

Washington Post:

‘Rife’ cocaine use reported in U.K. Parliament — just as Boris Johnson announces crackdown on drug crime — LONDON — The speaker of Britain's House of Commons says he is calling in police to investigate reports that drug use is “rife” in Parliament — as Prime Minister Boris Johnson dressed …

Discussion: Insider, Sky News, Conquest of the Useless and Breitbart

Sarah K. Burris / Raw Story:

Charlie Sykes stuns MSNBC host with lewd description of Thomas Massie's gun photo as like pic of his privates — Speaking to MSNBC on Sunday, conservative commentator and Bulwark editor attacked Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) after he posted a Christmas photo of him with his family in their pajamas with a bunch of guns.

Discussion: Morning Shots and HuffPost

Caitlin Gibson / Washington Post:

Jamie Raskin's Year of Grief and Purpose — A son's suicide, an attack on the Capitol and a congressman's renewed sense of mission — When Jamie Raskin revisits those shattered days of January, what surfaces in his memory are the sounds. Among them: a hideous pounding …

Bryan Schott / Salt Lake Tribune:

A Utah group is going door to door looking for election fraud. But they don't want you to know about it — Who is behind the Utah Voter Verification Project? A Tribune investigation uncovers some troubling tactics and connections. — (Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) …

Lenny Bernstein / Washington Post:

As covid persists, nurses are leaving staff jobs — and tripling their salaries as travelers — Wanderlust, and the money to fund it, made Alex Stow's decision easy. After working a couple of years in an intensive care unit, he signed up to be a travel nurse, tripling his pay to about $95 …

Politico:

Dems plot escape from Biden's poll woes — Rep. Jared Golden is facing one of the toughest reelection battles in the country. One thing he says doesn't keep him up at night, though, is President Joe Biden's sinking approval rating. — “I really don't care at all.