Trump’s Georgia Election Interference Case Is Effectively Dead

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again … and make criminal referrals, apparently.

Republican Representatives Jim Comer, Jim Jordan, and Jason Smith have finally concluded their juiceless push to impeach Joe Biden after providing no evidence of wrongdoing by the president and failing to drum up support in their own party. Their final product: referrals for prosecution for James and Hunter Biden for allegedly lying to Congress, a disappointing payoff for Republicans, given the “smoking gun” Comer promised to deliver.

“These false statements implicate Joe Biden’s knowledge of and role in his family’s influence peddling schemes and appear to be a calculated effort to shield Joe Biden from the impeachment inquiry,” a tweet announcing the referrals said.

The tortured logic on display is representative of the GOP’s half-hearted attempt to impeach Biden, which, after a disastrous House Oversight Committee hearing failed to turn up convincing evidence against the president, culminated in a resigned Comer admitting that Republicans did not have the votes to pass articles of impeachment. In March, Comer, lacking support from his own caucus, announced that he had begun preparing criminal referrals to send to the Department of Justice. Now, the referrals are here—and they represent an embarrassing anticlimax for House Republicans.

As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, now a convicted felon, faces his own legal troubles, GOP accusations of a “Biden Crime Family” aren’t likely to land.

The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee is just a month away, and a big mistake was made in promoting the event: A photo of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam was used on the convention website instead of the Wisconsin city.

After the blunder was pointed out on X on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee hastily changed the picture to one of Milwaukee, but not before the mistake was archived and Democrats began mocking the Republican Party.

“Maybe if Donald Trump and the RNC actually bothered to have a real campaign operation in Wisconsin, they could tell the difference between Milwaukee and Ho Chi Minh City. We encourage them to continue going all-in to win the voters of Ho Chi Minh City while Democrats earn the votes of Wisconsinites,” Democratic National Committee rapid response director Alex Floyd said in a statement.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its chairperson, Ben Wikler, also got in on the fun.

The Virginia Young Democrats pointed out that Republicans have made this mistake before in their state.

According to an RNC spokesperson, a web developer who no longer works for the convention was responsible for the mistake. But there’s no word on whether the Republican Party plans to do anything about an even bigger mistake: picking a convicted felon as its presidential nominee.

Jared Kushner is apparently keenly adept at making choices that piss off everyone: His recent contract with the Serbian government to bulldoze the bombed-out ruins of the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense complex and convert it into a luxury hotel carries with it a fine-print commitment to build a “memorial dedicated to all the victims of NATO aggression”—a direct condemnation of the United States that whitewashes the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo, according to intelligence blog SpyTalk.

Retired General Wesley Clark, who served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander during the 1999 bombing campaign, balked at the memorial commitment. Speaking to SpyTalk, Clark decried the proposed memorial as “worse than a reversal” of U.S. policies in the region, calling it “a betrayal of the United States, its policies and the brave diplomats and airmen who did what they could to stop Serb ethnic cleansing.”

In May, Kushner secured a massive $500 million contract with the state of Serbia to build a hotel on the memorialized ruins of a former military base in Belgrade, sparking protests in Belgrade against the deal. The contract is being bankrolled by Kushner’s Saudi-backed investment company, Affinity Partners. In defense of the contract, a Serbian government official described Kushner’s company, primarily funded by foreign interests, as a “reputable American company.”

Prior to approval of the contract, public officials in Serbia heavily opposed the deal for its insensitivity and potential for political manipulation. Serbian politician Borko Stefanovic described the location as “one of the pearls of pre-war architecture” to The Daily Beast, noting, “Most Serbs believe this site should not be desecrated in any way.”

The Yugoslav Ministry of Defense military complex was bombed by NATO forces in 1999 during a U.S.-backed campaign that killed an estimated 2,000 civilians and lasted until the Yugoslav Army retreated from Kosovo during the Kosovo War.

Clark criticized the overall contract between Kushner’s company and the Serbian government in addition to the memorial clause, arguing that the contract is not just an opportunistic gambit but “part of a broader Russian intelligence movement to split, discredit and weaken NATO.” Kushner’s father-in-law and Kremlin ally Donald Trump has long sought to build a hotel on the military complex ruins and has heavily criticized NATO, with looming threats of the U.S. leaving the alliance if he regains the presidency.

Hours after granting Donald Trump’s request to allow non-witness parties to weigh in on special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment, Judge Aileen Cannon has thrown another wrench into the former president’s Florida classified documents case.

In her latest round of judicial Calvinball on Wednesday, Cannon postponed key hearings compelling Trump’s attorneys to testify before a grand jury, rescheduling them in order to accommodate new hearings about Smith’s supposed “unlawful appointment,” as well as the gag orders he has requested (and she has denied) against Trump.

As Politico’s Kyle Cheney points out, the hearings—now scheduled for June 21, 24, and 25—will not be covering new ground on the issue of special counsel appointment, which has been resolved in previous cases.

It’s hard to see Cannon’s latest order as anything other than another effort to stall the trial, kicking the judicial can down the road as close to or past the presidential election in November as possible. Cannon, appointed by Trump after serving as a federal prosecutor, has come under fire for her conduct during the trial. She has reportedly been confused by court proceedings, requiring explanations from counsel on both sides, and has, since May 16, inspired more than 1,000 complaints filed against her with the 11th Circuit Judicial Court for delaying rulings.

The rescheduling is likely to bolster allegations that Cannon is not only running out the clock, but gunning to have the case against Trump dismissed entirely. If there’s any consolation, it’s that her actions could be used as ammunition in a potential motion to have Cannon removed from the case.