In Leaked Audio, Texas Judge Whines About “Brainwashed” Republicans

Newly obtained audio of a Texas Supreme Court justice has unearthed some unexpected opinions from a member of the typically reserved and insular judiciary—including that he believes he’s a singular cure to the “Big Law” backgrounds of his “brainwashed” conservative colleagues.

Speaking to a group of East Texas voters in September, Supreme Court Justice John Devine—a former anti-abortion demonstrator—was recorded bemoaning his colleagues’ deference to procedure over their moral and legal responsibility to the U.S. Constitution, according to audio obtained by The Texas Tribune.

“At times I feel like they would sacrifice the Republic for the sake of the process,” Devine said in the recording. “My concern is that they all bow down to the altar of process rather than to fidelity to the Constitution. And when I say that, it’s not meant to be malice towards my colleagues. I think it’s how they were trained—how they were brainwashed.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Devine attacked several Texas officials, decried the “RINOs” and “trans-Republicans” occupying the state’s all-GOP Court of Criminal Appeals, and claimed that Democratic leaders in Harris County were using “Democrat dirty tricks” in an effort to “bastardize our election code.”

Devine also used the event to vent his frustrations over his bench’s ruling against Jeff Younger, a former Texas House candidate who asked the high court to prevent his ex-wife from moving to California with their child on the basis that the state had recently passed a refuge law that shielded parents escaping states with restrictive transgender care statutes. The court refused to hear the lawsuit, arguing that it was founded on “tenuous speculation” that Younger’s ex-wife would violate a standing order to avoid gender-transition therapy for their child, according to the Tribune.

“I’m not going to stand here sanctimoniously and say, ‘Well he didn’t cross a T or dot an I,’” Devine said of Younger at the September event. “We are talking about great constitutional issues here that will determine whether we survive as a representative republic or not. Are we going to just have it stolen from us? Over process, for crying out loud?”

Devine will face off against his Republican primary opponent, Brian Walker, a judge on the Texas Second District Court of Appeals, on March 5.

Joe Biden is expected to win Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, but those around him are reportedly “freaking out” about a growing call to vote “uncommitted.” And they have every right to be nervous.

An increasing number of voters throughout the country, but particularly in Michigan, are expressing their intent to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primaries. Many may even sit out the general election entirely. Their frustration with Biden is due to policies in Gaza, including his refusal to demand a cease-fire and his support of Israel amid its relentless bombing campaign.

While the Biden campaign is outwardly acting calm about it, “they are freaking out about the uncommitted vote,” a Democrat close to Biden, speaking anonymously, told Politico.

Biden’s stance on Gaza has alienated many Muslim and Arab Americans, who make up a large portion of Michigan’s Democratic voters. But it’s also costing him support among young voters, progressives, and other voters of color. These are crucial voting demographics that helped deliver multiple swing states—including Michigan—for Biden in 2020.

There are two main uncommitted vote campaigns. One is called “Listen to Michigan,” whose supporters hope that voting “uncommitted” will send a strong enough message to Biden that he will change his stance. Another campaign, “Abandon Biden,” is similarly urging voters to check the “uncommitted” box.

It has been nearly five months since the war broke out in Gaza, and in that time, nearly 29,900 Palestinian civilians have been killed. The vast majority of Americans support a cease-fire, which they have repeatedly made clear through huge protests.

But it appears that Biden has only just begun to listen. During a Monday night appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Biden said that he hoped there would be a cease-fire, at least a temporary one, by Monday.

But by Tuesday morning, both Israel and Hamas had said that they weren’t close to a breakthrough.

Representative Ro Khanna, who often works as a liaison between the White House and the progressive caucus, confirmed that Biden’s shift was because “the president is hearing that a large part of his coalition wants this war to end.”

Khanna said he warned Biden ahead of the South Carolina primary over the weekend that he was losing the progressive vote.

“He said, ‘Ro, I hear you. I understand. I understand that people are upset and I am pushing Bibi,’” Khanna said, using the nickname for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the White House continues to push for billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, and Biden has yet to explicitly call for a cease-fire.

Even if he were to demand a cease-fire tomorrow, that wouldn’t be enough to swing the full support of Arab Americans back to him, warned Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. Hammoud is the first Arab mayor of the majority-Arab city, and he is one of more than 40 Michigan Democratic elected officials who have pledged to vote “uncommitted.”

Hammoud told NPR that calling for a cease-fire would get Biden “another conversation at the table,” but the president has to earn voters’ support back. Hammoud said he hopes that Arab and Muslim Americans’ “uncommitted” vote is a big enough rebuke to make Biden start listening.

“We’re not sizable enough to make a candidate win,” Hammoud said. “But we’re sizable enough to make a candidate lose.”

Donald Trump is arguing that he shouldn’t have to post the massive bond in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him … because he’s simply too rich.

Trump owes Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019 when she first accused him of sexual assault. The former president had 30 days to either pay the damages or post a bond required by New York state law to appeal the decision. But Trump’s legal team filed a motion on Friday to delay payment.

“Having argued to the jury that President Trump has great financial resources, Plaintiff is in no position to contradict herself now and contend that she requires the protection of a bond during the brief period while post-trial motions are pending,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

They argued that Trump’s extreme wealth was security enough that he would eventually pay. The lawyers also suggested that the court project that the total judgment would be reduced on appeal to $22.25 million, requiring a bond of about $24.48 million.

Presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday declined to grant Trump a stay until Carroll’s lawyers had a chance to reply. Carroll’s legal team has until Thursday to respond, and then Trump’s team has until March 2 to reply to them. Kaplan also noted that Trump’s team had waited almost until the end of his payment window to file the request for a stay.

Under New York law, if a person wants to appeal a civil case ruling, they must first post a bond equal to 110 percent of the judgment. In this case, Trump would have to pay $91.63 million in order to appeal the Carroll ruling.

While Trump claims to have plenty of financial assets, the bond would definitely eat significantly into his cash coffers. Trump reportedly holds only about $600 million in liquid assets, not nearly enough to pay the millions he owes in this and other legal penalties.

Trump currently owes Carroll a total of $88.3 million. In addition to the $83.3 million from January, a jury determined last spring that he owes her $5 million for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s and then defaming her in 2022 while denying the assault.

He was also fined $354 million two weeks ago for real estate–related financial fraud in New York state and temporarily banned from doing business in the state. The presiding judge in that case, Arthur Engoron, gave Trump 30 days to pay the fine. But Engoron also ordered Trump to pay prejudgment interest dating back to March 2019, when New York Attorney General Letitia James first began investigating the Trump Organization.

James’s office has calculated that, including interest, Trump owes more than $450 million. And as Trump tries to delay paying that fine, interest keeps increasing the total amount he owes. According to a penalty calculator created by Associated Press journalist Mike Sislak, as of Tuesday, Trump owes the state of New York $454,604,719.

And all of that still doesn’t cover the thousands of dollars in fines that Trump racked up during his recent trials for attacking courtroom staff, or the $400,000 he owes to The New York Times.

Representative Ken Buck is getting increasingly frustrated with his party’s endless impeachment inquiries.

On Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight on Thursday, the Colorado Republican pushed back on emerging theories regarding Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom the GOP spent the better part of January attempting to unseat.

“I don’t understand how that doesn’t meet the bar of impeachment for Mayorkas,” Schmitt prompted, suggesting that murders caused by immigrants around the country constituted a basis to strip Mayorkas of his title.

“What’s the crime?” Buck responded, frankly. “You tell me, Rob, what is the crime?”

“I think lying to the public over and over again, telling them that the border is secure, I think that should be a crime,” Schmitt wavered. “I think it should be a crime to take a job and exploit it for just the opposite, is it not?”

“Well it’s not a crime to take a job and exploit it for the opposite,” Buck continued. “But in terms of lying to Congress, that is a crime, and in his opinion the border was secure. In my opinion it’s not secure, in your opinion it’s not secure, but when you start getting into opinions, and charging people under 18 U.S. Code 1001 with a false statement, that gets very specific and he would not be convicted by a jury.”

“I believe that it’s a crime to lie, I don’t believe that he had a specific enough statement that it is a lie,” he added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Buck pushed back against the idea that he was duped into telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last week that House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and House Oversight Chair James Comer had both been warned ahead of time that the story sold by their primary Biden impeachment witness, Alexander Smirnov, was full of holes.

“Well, Rob, I didn’t play into anything. She asked about a particular allegation that was made, that Smirnov made, that Joe Biden received $5 million. That particular allegation is not credible at this point in time,” Buck said.

“So, there is no evidence that Joe Biden received money,” he continued. “When Senator [Ron] Johnson talks about the Biden crime family and talks about the ‘don’ of the ‘Biden crime family,’ you have to have evidence that Joe Biden received money or took some act, specifically, as a result of Hunter Biden receiving money from these various countries.”

Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are not friends. They have not spoken since December 2020, when the powerful lawmaker recognized that Joe Biden had won the presidency, undermining Trump’s election interference campaign.

And yet there is a coordinated effort by key advisers behind both politicians to reconcile the rift, according to unidentified members of both camps that spoke with The New York Times.

Should he get it, McConnell’s endorsement of Trump would prove an incredible vote of confidence amid unparalleled legal troubles for a presidential candidate, suggesting to Republican voters and (more importantly) donors that the front-runner could still have a shot at retaking the White House. That could translate to a much-needed spending boost for Trump, who is so far on the hook for $354 million for committing real estate–related bank fraud in New York state; $88.3 million to E. Jean Carroll after he sexually assaulted her, lied about it, and defamed her twice; $50 million in legal fees; and $400,000 he owes The New York Times.

Trump and McConnell have both been aware of the back-channel communications since at least January, when Trump acknowledged to members of his team that he would be expecting McConnell’s endorsement.

Even without the added communications, that would make sense. McConnell has pledged to endorse the GOP nominee, even if that nominee turns out to be Trump. It is still unclear, however, if the GOP intends to nominate its front-runner amid a flurry of ongoing criminal trials, the first of which is set to begin in late March.

“President Trump is the presumptive nominee and it is time for the entire party to coalesce behind him to defeat Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, told the Times.

“Senior members of the campaign have had many conversations,” he continued, “but only engage with those who are actually willing to fight for America First principles and to take back the White House.”