Marjorie Taylor Greene May Finally See Consequences for Shenanigans

Representative Marjorie Taylor Grenee’s spectacularly failed effort to strip Speaker Mike Johnson of the gavel has earned her a whole slew of new enemies.

The motion to vacate fell apart Wednesday after an overwhelming majority of the House voted 359–43 to keep Johnson in leadership. But the time-consuming and chaotic effort came at the cost of Greene’s already minimal popularity in the lower chamber, with Republicans insisting that the Georgia Republican see some level of consequence for leading another attempt to divide an already thin and historically unproductive majority.

“I would suggest a 80 percent rule. Oddly enough, what the Freedom Caucus has,” Representative Ryan Zinke told Politico. “If someone routinely violates the rules … then it should be the conference’s decision of whether he should be removed or suspended from committees.”

Other conservative lawmakers insinuated that Greene could lose her committee assignments for causing more intraparty bedlam. Greene currently sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, the House Committee on Homeland Security, and the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, as well as several related subcommittees.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some changes on a couple of committees after watching that motion to table vote,” Representative Steve Womack told the outlet.

Representative Dusty Johnson, meanwhile, claimed that there was an “extremely high level of interest” by a “high number of members” to completely change the rules around how the House functions.

“I am interested in anything that would make the House run better,” Johnson told Politico.

But Greene was already prepared for the backlash, flagrantly brushing off the ramifications of her own behavior.

“They probably want to kick me off committees. They probably want a primary. I say, go ahead.… That is absolutely their problem,” Greene told the publication after Wednesday’s vote.

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels got in some jabs at Donald Trump, who is accused of paying her off via his lawyer to cover up their affair before the 2016 election, during her testimony in his hush-money trial Thursday.

During cross-examination, Trump attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels a series of questions that seemed to have been posed to make the former president happy, including one about Trump being a good golfer at the tournament where they met, and whether a lot of people followed him around. Daniels didn’t play ball, saying she couldn’t remember his performance and some of his entourage probably included paid staff.

Not long after that, Necheles asked Daniels about Trump’s indictments, to which the adult film actress replied, “There are a lot of indictments.” Necheles moved to strike that answer from the record, but was rebuffed by Judge Juan Merchan.

Later, Necheles attempted to discredit Daniels by mentioning her merchandise sales, noting that she sold items based on Trump’s criminal proceedings.

“Not unlike Mr. Trump,” Daniels replied to a small amount of laughter in the courtroom.

When asking Daniels about her career in the adult film industry, Necheles insinuated that Daniels had made “a lot of phony stories about sex” appear to be real in her films. Daniels replied that the sex in her films “is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room [with Trump],” and followed up with a quip about her tryst with the former president.

“And if that story was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better,” Daniels said.

Daniels’s testimony has included other jibes against Trump, resulting in “orange turd” being entered into the court record Tuesday. The term again came up in court Thursday during cross-examination.

Daniels’s testimony, which has now concluded, has included salacious details about her affair with Trump, including his comparing her to his daughter, Ivanka, as well as an excuse Daniels used to avoid sex with him another time. But her testimony could also be very damaging to Trump’s case, as he can’t lie about her statements under the penalty of perjury.

Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime by paying off Daniels through his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them.

Donald Trump’s youngest son is about to join the new family business: leading the Republican conference.

After he graduates from high school next week, Barron Trump will assume his role as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention. The 18-year-old was selected as an at-large delegate, along with his siblings Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Tiffany Trump, according to a list released Wednesday by the Florida Republican Party.

Other family members named on the list include Tiffany’s husband, Michael Boulos, and Don Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, whose name was misspelled to omit the first ‘L’ in her last name. Ivanka Trump—the presumed GOP presidential nominee’s former star child who left politics in an attempt to salvage her social life—was not listed.

The lineup also includes a wide swath of Trump allies and state-level officials who opted to back Trump over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the presidential race.

“We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation to the 2024 Republican National Convention,” Florida GOP chairman Evan Power said in a statement.

With his children’s selection as delegates, Trump is even closer to completely taking over the Republican Party. Eric Trump’s wife, Lara Trump, has assumed the reins at the Republican National Committee. Since becoming co-chair in March, Lara has focused all of the RNC’s power on putting her father-in-law back in office.

Meanwhile, Trump has chosen to fly off to a Minnesota GOP rally on the same day as his son’s high school graduation on May 17, even after his attorneys fought to get him the day off in his New York hush-money trial in order to be with his family.

“We are thrilled to welcome President Trump back to Minnesota,” said Minnesota GOP chairman David Hann, announcing that Trump would be headlining the event after the former president was excused from his Friday attendance in New York. “I can think of no one more fitting to join us this year than President Trump.”

After Judge Aileen Cannon announced that Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida has been postponed indefinitely, there’s been a dramatic spike in calls for her removal or recusal from the case. 

Several online petitions have been launched from liberal and progressive websites, including one from the Daily Kos calling for her to recuse herself from the case with 102,000 signatures, and another led by Demand Justice, Demand Progress, Dose of Democracy, and People Power United with 42,622 signatures. Yet another petition from MoveOn.org, with nearly 102,000 signatures, calls for Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to remove Cannon from the case.

While online petitions don’t have a strong track record for accomplishing their goals, the calls show a growing backlash to Cannon, a Trump appointee, and her decisions that keep helping Trump. Even prior to being assigned to the documents case, Cannon drew ire from legal observers when she granted Trump’s request for a special master to review the classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago—only for her decision to be struck down by a federal appeals court, which rebuked her.

Later, after being formally assigned to the classified documents case, Cannon repeatedly drew ire for decisions that seemed to drag the case out and put potential witnesses at risk. Her rulings convinced at least one potential witness, former Mar-a-Lago worker Brian Butler, to publicly come forward and criticize Cannon’s handling of the case.

Cannon’s conduct even disillusioned some of her clerks, two of whom decided to quit as a result of her conduct on the classified documents case as well as an allegedly hostile work environment. Despite all this bad press, she still indefinitely delayed the case, possibly paving the way for a positive outcome for Trump. Barring any sort of action compelling her to be removed from the case, it seems as though the prosecution is also indefinitely stuck with Cannon’s delays and seemingly biased decisions.

Donald Trump’s sexual escapades aren’t exactly the conquests that his allies have made them out to be—at least, not according to one woman he slept with.

Stormy Daniels continued her testimony on the stand Thursday, clarifying point blank that it was no high honor to sleep with the former reality TV star.

“Even though you had agreed that you would not discuss this supposed story and you had received a lot of money for that agreement, you then decided that you wanted to publicly say that you had sex with Donald Trump,” prompted Trump attorney Susan Necheles.

“No, nobody would ever want to publicly say that,” Daniels replied.

But that wasn’t her only punch at Trump’s bedroom performance. During another exchange in which Necheles attempted to sow doubt about Daniels’s vivid recollections of the events, the porn star reminded the court of her professional abilities.

“You bragged about being good at writing dialogue and sex scenes in adult films, right?” asked Necheles.

“If that story [with Trump] was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better,” Daniels quipped back.

Daniels wasn’t keen to jump back into bed with Trump, either. On Tuesday, the actress revealed that she slinked out of his advances at a Los Angeles bungalow in 2007 by lying about being on her period.

Daniels’s get-out-of-jail-free card was a lighthearted anecdote in an otherwise heavy description of a relationship that stemmed from what she described as an “imbalance of power.” Daniels has previously said she was mad at herself for not seeing right away that Trump didn’t want to help her career and just wanted to have sex with her, and told the court Tuesday that she hates him.

Meanwhile, Trump’s allies—including Senator Ted Cruz, whom he humiliated in the 2020 election—have vehemently defended his sexual performance, with one Fox News host describing Trump as a “sex god” merely for getting a woman to have sex with him.

Trump is accused of using Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.