Even lawyers familiar with sharp language from the bench were stunned by it—a calm, reasonable judge giving the lawyer for a former president of the United States a thorough tongue-lashing. Day Six of the Trump Trial was mostly devoted to the first full day of direct examination of David Pecker, the former head of American Media International (the parent company of the National Enquirer) and a star witness for the prosecution. But it began with a contentious—and fascinating—hearing over whether Judge Juan Merchan should grant the prosecution’s motion to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court ..read more

Could Donald Trump face jail for contempt? You’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s post for my eyewitness report. (I’m a day behind. Sorry!) First, here’s a recap of Monday’s developments: With the 12 jurors and six alternates selected last week, the trial began in earnest, with important rulings, opening statements, and the beginning of David Pecker’s testimony, which is critical to the prosecution’s case. The morning began with a security delay. Those of us with reserved seats in the courtroom were held for more than an hour and a half under the scaffolding outside 100 Centre Street. That gave ..read more

In the United States, Europe, and beyond, there is a lot of unease about the future of democracy. Will Trump regain the White House? Will the Republican Congressional minority, enthralled by Trump, imperil democratic Europe and possibly NATO itself, despite a recent vote for Ukraine aid? Will France or Germany fall to ethnonationalists and fascists? Against this backdrop, Poland’s parliamentary elections and selection of Donald Tusk as Prime Minister last fall offered a hopeful counterpoint to the assaults on democracy. Voters embraced Europe and the world to rebuild democratic institutions t ..read more

The 48 Hours When Joe Biden Saved Us From World War III We at the Washington Monthly may have published our Presidential Accomplishment Index issue a couple of weeks too early. In the index, comparing the accomplishments of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, we already gave Biden the advantage on national security and diplomacy. But his greatest successes on those fronts happened last Friday and Saturday. Biden successfully pressured Israel to launch a minimalist military response to Iran’s drone attack. Then he convinced Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to put Uk ..read more

Donald Trump vows to root out the uncooperative public servants who constrained his first term and replace them with loyalists. “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” he told rallygoers in March last year. Bringing the sprawling federal bureaucracy to heel is necessary if he’s to realize his agenda: shutting down the southern border, building “vast holding facilities” for migrants facing deportation, and prosecuting his political enemies. Under current law, the vast majority of the 2.1 million-member federal workforce are “career” civil servants. The pres ..read more

It took a week in downtown New York to pick a jury, and the first phase of the Trump trial is over, with opening statements today. Judge Thomas Murphy, who made his reputation with the iconic prosecution of Alger Hiss, began his very model of an opening statement in that case with the words: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are welcome to a court of justice. Justice to the defendant, to be sure, and justice to my client, the United States of America.” Trump does not appear to understand that he is in a court of justice. The 45th president thinks that he is free to doze off unless he is ..read more

Grants Pass, a town of 40,000 souls on Oregon’s scenic Rogue River, may be the only place in the world where “Neanderthal” is a compliment. During the 1920s, the town’s locals decided to boost tourism at the nearby Oregon Caves National Monument by forming a “Caveman Club” whose members donned Alley Oop garb at local celebrations. The city later renamed its Rogue River Bridge the Caveman Bridge; since 1971, a 17-foot fiberglass Caveperson statue has brooded benignly not far from the local In-N-Out Burger. Even after living in Oregon, off and on, for 30 years, I still tend to drive through a f ..read more

The morning session on day four of the hush money trial offered one last chance to hear the voices of the prospective jurors who hold Donald Trump’s fate in their hands. This was jury selection for alternates, but with three seated jurors already excused (two because of the pressure, one dismissed by the judge for lying on the questionnaire), the six alternates are important, even in a short trial. One or more could easily end up on the jury.  Then, in the afternoon, the lawyers argued over so-called Sandoval rules. This sounds down in the weeds, but determining what Trump can be questio ..read more

Jury selection is usually tedious, but not in this trial. Day Three felt like voir dire on steroids, as the first jury with the power to jail an American president ended up being selected in about a third of the time most people expected. “We have our jury,” said the judge at 4:35 p.m., and I almost expected a puff of white Vatican smoke to waft out of the chimney of the courthouse. With the alternates to be selected on Friday, opening statements were now scheduled for Monday. My bottom line: I could be wrong, but I don’t sense any “stealth jurors”—Trumpsters who will hold out for hours or da ..read more

I recently spent three days in Poland with a group of congressional staffers, meeting diplomats, journalists, think-tank researchers, and political leaders from across the country’s political spectrum. We spoke with representatives of the coalition elected in October and the populist Law and Justice Party that controlled the government for most of the previous decade. The trip was sponsored by the Progressive Policy Institute, where I direct the New Ukraine Project, and the Hudson Institute, and we agreed in advance not to quote anyone we met. But our hosts weren’t shy, and no matter where th ..read more