memeorandum: Second person to plead guilty in plot to kidnap Michigan governor (Kanishka Singh/Reuters)

3:10 PM ET, February 7, 2022

Top Items:

Bob Herman / Axios:

Chris Christie: Trump incited Jan. 6 riot to “intimidate Mike Pence” — Former President Trump incited the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 “to intimidate” former Vice President Mike Pence into overturning the 2020 election, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday.

Discussion: HotAir and Mediaite

Farnoush Amiri / Associated Press:

What does Ivanka Trump know about Jan. 6? Congress is asking — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was in the Oval Office with his daughter Ivanka and Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, when he made yet another push to pressure Pence.

Discussion: Insider, Raw Story and Political Wire

Jamie Ross / The Daily Beast:

Trump ‘Confused’ That Staff Didn't Enjoy Him Rewinding Capitol Riot Highlights, Says Report — LET'S SEE THAT AGAIN — Donald Trump didn't get why his White House staff wasn't enjoying themselves as much as he was when he rewound his favorite bits of the Capitol riot to watch them again, according to a new report.

Discussion: Raw Story and POLITICUSUSA

Chris Cillizza / CNN:

How Mike Pence just doomed his 2024 chances — (CNN)Mike Pence just crashed his political career into Donald Trump — and the former President's ongoing claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and should have been overturned on January 6. — “President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in a speech to a conservative group in Florida.

Discussion: Washington Post, Raw Story and Alternet.org

Marc Caputo / NBC News:
DeSantis refuses to take sides in Trump-Pence clash as 2024 speculation grows

Discussion: The Hill, Raw Story and Washington Post

Hugh Hewitt / The Hugh Hewitt Show:
Chris Christie On 1/6, 2021 and 11/5/24 (The Next Presidential Election)

Discussion: The Daily Beast and Raw Story

Wall Street Journal:
Mike Pence's Constitution

Discussion: Washington Post, Tangle, CNN, NBC News, Raw Story, pjmedia.com, Outside the Beltway, HuffPost, Talking Points Memo, The Guardian, The Hill and CBS News

Washington Post:

National Archives had to retrieve Trump White House records from Mar-a-Lago — The recovery of multiple boxes from Trump's Florida resort, including letters from Barack Obama and Kim Jong Un, underscores the previous administration's cavalier handling of presidential records

Discussion: Occupy Democrats, New York Magazine, The Guardian, POLITICUSUSA, Daily Kos, Gizmodo, New York Post, The Gateway Pundit, The Moderate Voice, The Daily Caller, IJR, Metro.co.uk, Raw Story, Alternet.org, Insider, Rolling Stone, Talking Points Memo and The Hill

Amber Phillips / Washington Post:
What is the Presidential Records Act, and how did Trump violate it?

Discussion: Raw Story

CNN:

US intel indicates Russian officers have had doubts about full scale Ukraine invasion — (CNN)Intercepted communications obtained by the US have revealed that some Russian officials have worried that a large-scale invasion of Ukraine would be costlier and more difficult than Russian President Vladimir Putin …

Discussion: Washington Post, Insider, Washington Examiner, KVIA-TV, National Review, Clayton Cramer, Metro.co.uk, New York Times, UPI, The Bismarck Cables, Aearnur's Newsletter, CBS News, The Dispatch and The Russia-Iran File

Peter Beinart / The Beinart Notebook: Biden's CIA Director Doesn't Believe Biden's Story about Ukraine

Souad Mekhennet / Washington Post:
Scholz says response to Russia will be ‘united and decisive’ if Ukraine is invaded

Discussion: The Hill, The Federalist, Metro.co.uk, The Guardian, The White House, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, UPI, Al Jazeera, New York Times, Insider, Voice of America, One Gak a Day, TASS, Euractiv, CNN, Politico, New York Times, Associated Press and Bloomberg

Alex Thompson / Politico:

Biden's top science adviser bullied and demeaned subordinates, according to White House investigation — President Joe Biden's top science adviser, Eric Lander, bullied and demeaned his subordinates and violated the White House's workplace policy, an internal White House investigation recently concluded …

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Free Beacon, Washington Examiner, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Protocol, Washington Post, The Daily Wire, Detroit News, Insider, Bloomberg, CNN, The Honest Broker Newsletter, NBC News, Political Wire, IJR and STAT, more at Techmeme »

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Jonah Goldberg Joins CNN as a Contributor After Leaving Fox News … Jonah Goldberg, one of the two conservative political analysts who resigned from Fox News Channel in colorful fashion over its coverage, is joining CNN as a contributor, the WarnerMedia network confirmed Monday.

Discussion: driftglass, IJR and Twitchy, more at Mediagazer »

Dominick Mastrangelo / The Hill:
Jonah Goldberg joins CNN

Discussion: TVNewser, Deadline and lewrockwell.com

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Spotify CEO says company won't be “silencing” Joe Rogan — Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told employees Sunday that while he strongly condemns past racial slurs used by Joe Rogan, he won't be cutting ties with the platform's most popular podcaster, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios.

Charles C. W. Cooke / National Review:
If Spotify's Staff Can't Cope with Running a Content Library, They Should Find Another Job

Discussion: Media Matters for America, The Daily Wire, RedState, Mediaite and The Gateway Pundit, more at Mediagazer »

William Saletan / The Bulwark:

Lies Are the Building Blocks of Trumpian Authoritarianism — Deceit and the danger to democracy. — Americans like to think our country is immune to authoritarianism. We have a culture of freedom, a tradition of elected government, and a Bill of Rights. We're not like those European countries that fell into fascism.

Discussion: The Atlantic, Insider, Washington Post and Salon

Sarakshi Rai / The Hill:
Kinzinger says RNC deserves backlash for Jan. 6 resolution language

Discussion: MSNBC, Mercury News, Raw Story and POLITICUSUSA

Noah Smith / Noahpinion:

The NYT article on MMT is really bad — The fringe ideology's star is falling, and puff pieces will not resuscitate it — The New York Times just came out with a big glowing writeup of MMT, entitled “Time for a Victory Lap*”. This article aroused the anger of just about every macroeconomist on Twitter …

Discussion: Althouse and New York Times

Tracey Tully / New York Times:

N.J. Governor to End School Mask Mandate in Move to ‘Normalcy’ — For the first time since the start of the pandemic, New Jersey districts will be permitted to allow students and teachers to stop wearing masks. — Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat who has imposed …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, CBS News, National Review, NBC New York, HotAir, Breitbart, NPR, UPI, The Hill, The Daily Caller, Politico, Human Events, Forbes, TheBlaze, abc7NY, Fox News, Chaos and Control, CNN, Twitchy, Townhall, Washington Examiner, KVIA-TV, Political Wire and Just The News

Laura Nahmias / Bloomberg:

Andrew Cuomo Says He's Been ‘Vindicated,’ Won't Rule Out Run — Five months after he resigned over a swirl of sexual harassment allegations, New York's former Governor Andrew Cuomo isn't ruling out another run for public office. He insists it's too soon to talk about it.

Discussion: New York Magazine, The Hill, Human Events, No More Mister Nice Blog, Mediaite and Wall Street Journal

Rick Rouan / USA Today:

New book details how Palin felt uncomfortable after 2010 meeting with Fox News CEO Ailes … Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was so unsettled after a 2010 meeting with then-Fox News executive Roger Ailes that she told staff members she would not meet with him alone again, according to a new book from a New York Times journalist.

Discussion: The Guardian and Rolling Stone

Kanishka Singh / Reuters:

Second person to plead guilty in plot to kidnap Michigan governor … A second person charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 has agreed to plead guilty and testify at a trial in March, according to a federal court filing on Monday.

Discussion: The Hill

Robert Snell / Detroit News:
Second Whitmer kidnap plotter to plead guilty, court records show

Discussion: Raw Story and Political Wire

Sam Dorman / Fox News:

Pro-mask Democrats keep getting caught maskless — Stacey Abrams' campaign accused critics of exploiting a Black History Month reading — Gingrich on Stacey Abrams, Canadian truckers: People are realizing it's all baloney — As Americans mask up during the coronavirus pandemic …

Discussion: pjmedia.com, RedState, New York Post, The Daily Wire and Breitbart

Greg Bluestein / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Deleted Abrams tweet shows how schools' COVID policies are in 2022 crosshairs

Josh Israel / The American Independent:

Indicted GOP congressman seeking reelection claims he forgot alleged 2018 crime — Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) is taking a page from former President Donald Trump's legal playbook. — Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) was indicted in October on three felony charges relating to illegal campaign contributions …

Discussion: Above the Law, The Hill and Insider

Kyle Cheney / Politico:

See the 1960 Electoral College certificates that the false Trump electors say justify their gambit — When Donald Trump's allies signed false documents claiming he won several states he lost — and that they were his legitimate presidential electors — they came armed with an excuse: Democrats did it first, 60 years earlier in Hawaii.

Discussion: Raw Story

Mark S. Wrighton / Office of the President:

Message Regarding Posters Displayed on Campus — Dear Members of the George Washington University Community, — Last week, the university learned of posters on campus depicting images that alarmed some members of our community, and we began to receive a number of concerns through official …

David Leonhardt / New York Times:

Why Americans Are Slow to Get Booster Shots — Why are Americans slow to get booster shots? — The United States has a vaccination problem. And it is not just about the relatively large share of Americans who have refused to get a shot. The U.S. also trails many other countries …

Kate Bennett / CNN:

Donald Trump quietly making millions from coffee table book — WaPo reporter on Trump's ‘unprecedented’ document destruction habits — (CNN)A few months ago, former President Donald Trump signed a book deal. — There wasn't the huge fanfare most former presidents receive when they ink deals …

Discussion: Insider, Mediaite and Raw Story

Alan Rappeport / New York Times:

I.R.S. to End Use of Facial Recognition for Identity Verification — The tax collection agency will transition away from using a service from the authentication service ID.me amid bipartisan backlash. — WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service plans to stop using facial recognition software …

Discussion: Washington Post, CBS News and Political Wire, more at Techmeme »

USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism:

ProPublica team wins 2022 Selden Ring Award for series exposing how the wealthiest Americans avoid paying income tax — When ProPublica received a trove of tax data from an unidentified source — the largest confidential leak of tax records in U.S. history — the journalists there knew …

Washington Post:

Heritage Foundation, former powerhouse of GOP policy, adjusts in face of new competition from Trump allies — ‘People do not walk around in fear of the Heritage Foundation the way they did 10 years ago,’ one conservative expert said — The Heritage Foundation has long shaped mainstream Republican policy in Washington.

David Rothkopf / The Daily Beast:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Russia, Ukraine, and NATO's Rebirth — Blinken talks with The Daily Beast about the Biden administration's response to the Russia/Ukraine crisis, part of the biggest reset to the international order since the Cold War. … The Ukraine crisis is at a precarious point.

Discussion: The Moscow Times, Vic's Weather Report and The 100 Days