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With a Democrat in the White House, Rep. Young Kim is not an influential voice in shaping U.S. foreign and national security policy. But she has sought out opportunities to serve as a link between Americas conservative party and the right-wing government in Seoul. | Olivia Beavers/POLITICO

SEOUL, South Korea When a group of American lawmakers arrived in South Korea for meetings with government and military officials, President Yoon Suk-yeol singled out one in particular for special recognition.

It was not the senior-most official on the trip that would be Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chair but a junior colleague with just three years in office: Rep. Young Kim of California, one of only two Korean American Republicans in Congress.

In a meeting last week at the Yongsan presidential office, the conservative Yoon recognized Kim and thanked her for her efforts on the Hill.

I know enough about the work that youve done, Kim recalled Yoon saying to her during a brief one-on-one exchange. He personally thanked me for that, and that really meant a lot to me.

It was a rewarding moment for a relative newcomer to Washington who has moved to claim a kind of informal diplomatic role linking American lawmakers with the politics of South Korea, the country of her birth.

I consider myself really a bridge builder between our two countries, said Kim, 60, in an interview last week after the delegation toured the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its heavily armed neighbor to the north.

Her bridge-building remains aspirational in many respects. With a Democrat in the White House, Kim is not an influential voice in shaping U.S. foreign and national security policy. But she has sought out opportunities to serve as a link between Americas Conservative Party and the right-wing government in Seoul.

As part of the trip to East Asia intended as a show of support for allies in the region, Kim and her fellow U.S. lawmakers formally delivered an invitation to Yoon to address Congress when he visits Washington later this month. And on a visit to the DMZ, Kim paused to examine the wall outside the U.S. military mess hall there where dignitaries sign their names and quickly found her own signature from a previous visit.

Thank you for fighting to defend our freedom, it read. Kim added an upbeat note of support for the U.S.-South Korea bond: U.S.-ROK Rock! (She used an abbreviation for Republic of Korea, the countrys formal name in English.)

Even Kims symbolic role is complicated, though. She is a prominent Asian American in a party struggling to allay fears among voters of color, including Asian Americans, that Republicans are focused on white voters and overly tolerant of racial bigotry and xenophobia.

A recent blowup on Capitol Hill illustrated this tension in wrenching terms: When Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) questioned the national loyalty of a leading Asian American Democrat, the U.S.-born Rep. Judy Chu of California, Kim sought a private meeting with Gooden. She did not call him out publicly at the time, but said during an interview in Seoul that his comments were inappropriate.

Lance, out of nowhere, started attacking her loyalty. So I said no. Whether or not she is a Democrat or Republican, it didnt matter, Kim said. Dont question someones loyalty when she is born in the U.S., and she has served honorably in her position.

Responding to a request for comment, Gooden showed no contrition and instead chastised Kim.

Rep. Kim requested this private meeting and I believed it was to remain private, Gooden said in a statement. She has betrayed the trust of our visit but as a now-undeserved courtesy to her, I will not further broach some of the other things she said.

Kim was a young teenager when her family made what she has called the difficult decision to leave Seoul for the U.S. Her early days in politics, including time advising former Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), align with the resume she leans on today: focused on Asian American communities and foreign policy.

After ousting a Democratic incumbent to become the first Korean American Republican woman to serve in the California State Assembly, she unsuccessfully challenged then-Rep. Gil Cisneros (D) in 2018 before prevailing in their 2020 rematch.

Since taking office representing a battleground district that favored President Joe Biden in 2020, Kim has diverged from her own party during a few big moments. When anti-Asian rhetoric and acts of racist violence flared during the pandemic, for example, she testified before a House committee to denounce discrimination.

Kim said she saw it as an opportunity to educate my colleagues about how they could talk about the pandemic in a respectful way without deploying provocative terms like China virus. (That concern did not stop her from supporting Trumps reelection in 2020, however.)

In 2021, when the Democratic majority in the House voted to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments because of her incendiary rhetoric, Kim voted for that punishment.

The chair of the Foreign Affairs Committees Indo-Pacific subpanel has also voted for some bipartisan bills including one that stirred anger in South Korea.

During her visit, Kim confronted frustration with her vote for a bipartisan package of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing incentives that enraged foreign tech manufacturers, powerful Korean conglomerates among them.

Touring a Samsung facility in Seoul, Kim insisted that the U.S. semiconductor law was less offensive to free-trade principles than the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats massive clean energy-focused law that passed with zero GOP votes. That may or may not have reassured Korean executives.

In the interview, Kim said she had tried to assure them that she was lobbying the Biden administration to ensure countries that have free-trade pacts with the U.S., such as South Korea, receive better treatment under laws that award special benefits to domestic companies.

Issuing subsidies that disadvantage foreign manufacturers, Kim said, is not how we treat one of our biggest trading allies like South Korea.

Linking up with Korean officials may be more realistic for Kim now that Seouls government is more politically aligned with the U.S. GOP.

Back in 2021, Kim and Rep. Michelle Steel of California, the only other Korean American Republican in Congress, joined a small group that met in Washington with then-Korean President Moon Jae-in, a popular liberal then nearing the end of his term. But the dynamic is clearly warmer now.

In an interview, Steel said we are actually working much closer with the Yoon administration than its predecessor, adding: This year its going to be much more comfortable.

It remains to be seen how comfortable the House GOP can be as a home for Steel and Kim, emigres from South Korea whose friendship long predates their service in Congress. These days, both represent districts that Democrats have targeted in recent campaigns.

Steel acknowledged that the womens entry into the congressional Republican ranks hasnt always been smooth.

A lot of people, the first year, they couldnt recognize the differences between Kim and me, she recalled. I had to mention that Im taller than her, I have longer hair than her.

Despite exit polls showing the Asian American electorate generally tilting leftward, Kims anti-communist rhetoric has helped her connect with conservative Asian American voters in her Orange County-area district particularly Vietnamese Americans, who tend to lean more to the right. House Republican leaders, eager to diversify the partys ranks, have pointed to Kim and Steel as valuable messengers and potential models.

What has worked for Kim in her district hasnt quite translated into national success for the GOP, though.

Republicans still havent been able to break through among Asian American voters in other key races, with the fast-growing voting bloc still swinging decisively towards Democrats during the last election in swing states from Georgia to Nevada.

And Kim is plainly still finding her own way in Washington, too, even as Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicts she could rise to become a committee chair or senator.

In an interview, Chu, the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said Kim had initially expressed some interest in joining the all-Democratic group. Membership in CAPAC might have functioned as a useful platform for a junior lawmaker with hopes of closing the gap between the Republican Party and Asian Americans and between the U.S. and East Asia.

But Kim ultimately opted against joining, Chu said, after realizing she would have been outvoted by the groups executive board on any major decision.

Wu reported from Washington.

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This Korean American Republican is trying to educate her party in ... - POLITICO

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on the 2024 convention in Milwaukee

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel discusses the 2024 Republican National Convention coming to Milwaukee.

Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON The next presidential election will take shape on the shores of Lake Michigan now that Democrats have chosen Chicago to host their 2024 national convention, taking place a month after Republicans will gather in Milwaukee to nominate their presidential nominee.

National Democrats will convene in the Democratic stronghold of Illinois four years after organizing and then calling off the 2020 national convention that was supposed to take place in Milwaukee but was ultimately carried out mostly virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee gave a nod to the importance of Wisconsin and other Midwestern states to its presidential strategy.

"The DNC is returning to the Midwest, a critical Democratic stronghold: Illinois along with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota part of the blue wall were crucial to the 2020 victory of President Biden and Vice President Harris and to Democrats success in the 2022 midterm elections," party officials said in a statement.

More: Wisconsin House delegation seeks 50% bump in money to cover Milwaukee's security costs for the Republican National Convention

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Madison who will likely be on the ballot in 2024, said Tuesday the recent state Supreme Court race underscored the region's role in Democratic victories.

"The decisive results we saw in our Supreme Court race last week prove that Democrats win when they invest in the Midwest. Thats exactly what our party is doing by hosting our convention here," Baldwin tweeted.

The decision was announced Tuesday after President Joe Biden signaled his support of Chicago over Atlanta and New York City.

Chicago is a great choice to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, said Biden, who has said he plans to run for re-election in 2024. Democrats will gather to showcase our historic progress including building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, not from the top down."

The Democrats' national convention will take place at the United Center in downtown Chicago from August 19-22 in 2024. Republicans will gather in Milwaukee from July 15 to July 18 largely at Fiserv Forum in the city's downtown.

Fiserv Forum will serve as the centerpiece for the convention, along with a newly expanded Wisconsin Center. Delegates are expected to be housed within 30 minutes of the main convention sites.

More: Milwaukee will host a Republican presidential primary debate, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel confirms

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who lobbied heavily for the Republicans to bring their convention to the city, said Milwaukee could also benefit from the Democratic convention in Chicago.

With the Republicans selecting Milwaukee and Democrats choosing Chicago, it is clear the Midwest is front-and-center this Presidential election cycle. Im happy for Chicago, and I will certainly extend an invitation to Democratic convention goers to come on up to Milwaukee.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in December: "We look forward to our continued work with the beautiful city of Milwaukee to make this convention week a success. Republicans will stand united in Milwaukee in 2024 to share our message of freedom and opportunity with the world."

The local host committee, headed by Reince Priebus, a former White House chief of staff under ex-President Donald Trump, is responsible for raising funds for the event, with a target of $65 million.

On Tuesday, McDaniel said "we look forward to the DNCs convention where their radical agenda will be on full display for the world to see."

"Voters will soundly reject whichever out-of-touch liberal the Democrats nominate in Chicago and instead elect our Republican nominee as the next President of the United States," she said.

Alison Dirr of the Journal Sentinel contributed.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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Chicago to host DNC a month after Republicans gather in Milwaukee - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin presented a tale of two elections Tuesday one that captured a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years, and another that seemingly threatened to take that victory back.

In the court race, voters sent Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the other race, a special election, voters chose state Rep. Dan Knodl, a Republican from Germantown, to fill a vacant seat in 8th state Senate district.

Knodl's win was significant for another reason: It gave Republicans a two-thirds majority in the Senate, a margin that would let them remove officials from office after they're impeached. And weeks before the election, Knodl said he'd consider using that power to impeach Protasiewicz.

On Wednesday, Knodl backed away from his comments, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, a Republican from Oostburg, told reporters he wouldn't pursue it.

But it's a tool Republicans could use in state government if they chose to, for as long as they maintain their current numbers in the Senate.

Here's some background on the process and what that could mean.

The process is laid out in the state Constitutionand is also summarized in a recent memo written by Wisconsin's nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau, or LRB,at the request of Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, a Democrat from Madison.

Impeachment takes a majority vote in the state Assembly, or 50 of the chamber's 99 representatives. Republicans currently hold 64 seats in the Assembly and will still hold 63 seats after Knodl departs for the Senate.

Only the Senate has the power to convict and remove someone from office once they're impeached, a process that requires a two-thirds vote of the senators present. When all 33 Senators are present, the two-thirds threshold is 22, which is often referred to as a supermajority.

Senate Republicans were headed for a 22-seat majority after last year's election, but longtime Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, announced her retirement in late November.

That left Senate Republicans with 21 seats. Knodl's victory Tuesday over Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin will bring them back to 22.

A spokesperson for LeMahieu said there's no firm date yet for when Knodl will be sworn in, but it could happen in early May.

Yes, but it's been a while 170 years to be exact.

On March 3, 1853, the Assembly adopted a resolution to impeach Circuit Judge Levi Hubbell for "corruption and malfeasance in office." But the Senate took repeated votes to acquit Hubbel.

So while Hubbel retains the distinction of being the only person ever impeached by the Wisconsin Assembly, no one has ever been convicted and removed from office by the Wisconsin Senate in the state's history.

The Wisconsin Constitution says "civil officers of this state" can be impeached "for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors." According to the LRB's memo, "civil officers" include the governor, lieutenant governor and judges as well as "similar situated elected officials" like the attorney general, state treasurer, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction.

According to the Legislative Reference Bureau, the answer is yes.

Wisconsin Public Radio asked LRB Director Rick Champagne variations of that question in an email. Champagne responded that justices are impeachable because the Wisconsin Constitution makes reference to impeaching a "judicial officer."

"'Judicial officer' under Article VII, Section 1, would include a supreme court justice," Champagne said. "Both justices and judges may be impeached."

The Wisconsin Supreme Court made passing mention of impeachment in a 2011 opinion when the majority wrote that a justice may be removed from office through impeachment, among other methods. That 4-3 ruling was supported by Justices David Prosser, Patience Roggensack, Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman, all conservatives.

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Wisconsin's statutesalso reference impeachment, though not in a straightforward way when it comes to justices. The law says a civil officer "may be removed from office by impeachment" and that "any supreme court justice may also be removed by office by address of both houses of the Legislature."

That word "address" refers to another process altogether.

A different section of the Wisconsin Constitution spells out the process for removing justices by "address."

"Any justice or judge may be removed from office by address of both houses of the legislature," the Constitution states, "if two-thirds of all the members elected to each house concur therein."

In other words, removing a justice by "address" would require a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and Assembly. Republicans have reached that threshold in one house but not in the other.

Under state law, when there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the governor appoints their replacement. So if the Republican Legislature were to remove a Supreme Court justice, the next justice would be picked by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

In short, no. But they're the ones who started talking about impeachment in the first place.

On Nov. 10, 2022 after Senate Republicans initially won their two-thirds majority but before Sen. Darling retired Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester,told WISN-AM radio that impeachment was a new power for Republicans after the election.

"I mean, the state Senate does have the ability now with the two-thirds majority they can take out people who aren't doing their jobs," Vos said. "They have the ability to impeach officials if they are not following the Constitution and the law."

In an interview that aired on WISN-TVMarch 26, Knodl said he'd consider impeaching prosecutors and circuit court judges in Milwaukee.

"Janet Protasiewicz is a circuit court judge right now in Milwaukee, and she's failed," Knodl said at the time.

"You would support impeaching her?" asked WISN-TV host Matt Smith.

"I certainly would consider it," Knodl said.

Knodl has backed away from his earlier remarks after he and Protasiewicz both won Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Knodl said he had been talking earlier about potentially impeaching Protasiewicz as a county judge, not as a justice. He said he saw no reason to do that now that she was leaving Milwaukee County and did not see a reason to impeach any other member of the state Supreme Court.

A spokesperson for Vos did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

LeMahieu downplayed the prospect of impeachment in a Wednesday interview with WISN-TV, where he suggested Knodl's remarks had been blown out of proportion.

"He was asked about it on one station, so he answered off the cuff," LeMahieu said. "To impeach someone, they would need to do something very serious. So no, we are not looking to start the impeachment process as a regular occurring event in Wisconsin."

In an interview with WPR, Agard said she welcomed LeMahieu's remarks, saying it gave her comfort to hear him say he did not plan to use impeachment.

"But there are people in this building that oftentimes take action without the blessing of their leadership," Agard said. "And when you have someone who ran for office very recently, talking about this possibility in the building, you have to take them seriously as well."

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Wisconsin Republicans now have impeachment power. Here's how ... - Wisconsin Public Radio

Geoff Bennett: History was made in New York City this week when for the first time in our nation's history a former American president was indicted, arrested and arraigned on criminal charges. Former President Donald Trump was charged in a Manhattan courtroom with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in a hush money scheme during the 2016 election. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

After Mr. Trump's arraignment, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg emphasized the seriousness of the charges.

Alvin Bragg: True and accurate business records are important everywhere. To be sure, they are all the more important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world.

Geoff Bennett: At that night, Mr. Trump responded in a defiant and embittered speech at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, criticizing the case and its presiding judge, Juan Merchan.

Donald Trump: This fake case was brought to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election. I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.

Geoff Bennett: Judge Merchan and his family have received dozens of violent threats since the arraignment. The Biden White House has largely avoided commenting on the active case, but White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre responded to news of those threats.

Karine Jean-Pierre: I am not going to speak to an ongoing case. We condemn any type of attacks on any judge.

Geoff Bennett: Joining us to talk about this and more, Jacqueline Alemany, Congressional Investigations Reporter for The Washington Post, Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent for USA Today, and Hugo Lowell, Reporter at The Guardian. Thanks to all of you for being with us.

Let's start our conversation tonight where we started this historic week, Donald Trump pleading not guilty on Tuesday to 32 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Jackie, if this case goes to trial, it likely won't happen until the New Year, what happens between then and now in this case and how I the Trump team preparing?

Jacqueline Alemany, Congressional Investigations Reporter, The Washington Post: A very good question, Geoff. There are sort of two prongs two this answer. There is the process part of it and then sort of the political strategy part of it.

From a process perspective, as Hugo and I both heard in the courtroom in New York this week during the arraignment, prosecutors sort of laid out a schedule. Trump and his lawyers and the prosecution need to come to an agreement on a protective order that was laid out during the arraignment. So, that needs to be set before anything else can really happen. That has not yet been agreed to.

From there, there is going to be different stages of the discovery that prosecutors laid out. That's going to take up to a week depending on when the protective orders are agreed to, and then up to 65 days. And then by the end of August, potentially, Trump's legal team will have all of the discovery that Alvin Bragg's team has put together. And then by the end of the year, maybe we will see them in court again for sort of a conference. But, as you noted, we are not going to see them all together back in that courtroom in New York on trial until potentially sing of 2024, as Todd Blanche, Trump's newest lawyer, asked for Judge Merchan on Tuesday.

Geoff Bennett: Yes. And, Hugo, if you read the indictment's statement of facts, the D.A.'s office seems to have the payments pretty well-documented. But New York law says that prosecutors have to prove it was part of another crime in order to bump that misdemeanor up to a felony, and the charging documents don't specify which laws Mr. Trump allegedly broke. And Alvin Bragg is basically saying, I don't have to show my cards.

Hugo Lowell, Political Investigative Reporter, The Guardian: Right, no. Under New York law, Alvin Bragg, doesn't have to lay out the particulars. That comes in the bill of particulars. And that's why in the statement of facts, you basically get the narrative and it seems to be the kind of information that they got in the grand jury investigative phase. And the key question is going to, what is that second crime? And there seemed to be multiple paths that were laid out there.

One was, of course, the hush money payments and the potential campaign finance violence. The second, tantalizingly, was the element about mischaracterizing the payments for tax purposes. And then the third was about filing these sorts of documents to other entities, potentially to the FEC, potentially to other government entities. And so I think there are multiple paths that were have laid out, all of them pretty chargeable. I mean, there's a lot of discussion about whether you can have a state prosecutor use a federal crime in conjunction with an underlying state crime. And under New York law, that seems to be pretty permissible.

Geoff Bennett: And, Peter, there are two ways, I think, to read former President Trump's reaction to all of this, his furious reaction. One, it sort of fuels his particular brand of grievance politics. On the one hand, it's not all surprising. But on the other hand, it could be read as him acknowledging his vulnerability, not just in Manhattan but the three other ongoing cases.

Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, that's the thing, exactly. If this were the last thing we were going to see as a legal challenge to former President Trump, that will be one thing, because people would make their judgments about it. They say they won't see a trial until next year and they may have to decide, well, it's laundry (ph), it's not all that pretty a picture, but on the other hand, is it disqualifying for a president?

We went through this 25 years ago, by the way, with bill Clinton. We had the exact, very similar conversation, about whether lying about sex in an official proceeding is disqualifying for a president or not. Republicans and Democrats have different views today than they once did. But it's not the last thing we are going to see.

We are going to see some kind of resolution, if not, an indictment from three other cases. And when you start to build them up one after the other after the other, and you have all of these other legal issues he has got, he is on a trial for what amounts to rape in three weeks with E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit in a civil court in New York and he's got another civil case from Letitia James in New York. He is going to be in a courtroom, or his lawyers will, all year long. And it's going to be -- the cumulative effect of that, we don't know.

Geoff Bennett: Well, Francesca, in the meantime, former President Trump's goal seems to be crystal clear, which is to turn his legal problems into political gain.

Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent, USA Today: And he has raised quite a bit of money off of this so far. But when you look at the rest of the expected Republican field our current Republican field, they are banking on exactly what Peter just said, is that the cumulative effect of all of this will start to wear down his numbers. So, while you are seeing a jump now in his numbers and his popularity, that you'll see that dip back down. But as you were saying, the question really remains as to whether one of them can also break out in that sort of environment and permanently beat him in this race.

Geoff Bennett: Yes. Who can take us behind the curtain of Trump world? How are they really feeling about this beyond the spin and the bluster?

Jacqueline Alemany: Well, I think that actually Trump's performance on Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago after the arraignment was pretty telling. At the top of his mind, what he kept going back to was the classified documents case.

It wasn't -- he did attack Bragg, he attacked Judge Merchan in violation of that protective order and of the warning that the judge -- not of the protective order but the warning that the judge had given to him that day, saying you really need to tamp down the rhetoric out of concern for the safety of the officials involved in these proceedings and also for Judge Merchan. But he was fixated on the classified documents case as well.

And so I think that is fairly telling that there are, as Peter judge laid out, a number of potential avenues for criminal exposure down the line that have potentially more grave consequences than what he is facing in New York. And even just looking at his face in that courtroom -- I was in the overflow room, so I didn't see him firsthand, but you could see up on the live stream of him, and he was downcast, dour and did not look like someone despite a lot of bravado and fundraising appeals who wanted to be there.

Geoff Bennett: Yes. And, Hugo, to Jackie's point, I mean, legal analysts have always said that the mishandling of the classified documents, if you're going to compare the cases, that one is more of a slam dunk.

Hugo Lowell: Yes. I think that -- look, the documents case is complicated, right, because you have espionage elements and then you have obstruction elements. And, actually, I think a lot of recent reporting seems to suggest that the special counsel is looking towards an Espionage Act charge.

All these questions to witnesses in the grand jury about what were the kinds of documents that Trump was throwing around, was there stuff about Milley, the former joint Chiefs of Staff, was there stuff about like math that he was showing to donors? Those are the kinds of questions that strike me you would ask if you are instructing espionage case.

And I think the espionage case comes in conjunction with the obstruction case. I don't think you can do one without the other. Because to basically say Trump willfully retained documents and to prove that willfulness, the easiest way to do that is to say, well, he obstructed the investigation. And there you go, that's the willfulness.

Geoff Bennett: Peter, the New York case strikes me. The thing that makes that case difficult is that prosecutors have to prove intent, which is notoriously hard to do. Ask anybody who was involved in the John Edwards case, which he was acquitted about that. What do you see as the historical analog there between that case and the Trump case?

Peter Baker: Well, that's an interesting case. So, John Edwards, of course, was a United States senator who ran for president and then was on a vice presidential ticket and he covered up, in effect, an affair with money that was construed by lawyers as an illegal campaign or an unreported campaign contribution. He went to trial. He was acquitted on one charge. There was a hung jury on the other. The prosecutors took away from that a lesson that this doesn't work because it is kind of a novel definition, the hush money counts as campaign contribution, right? We had not thought of it that way in the past and that was a new way of looking at it.

Now, a lot of people are saying that means this one is in trouble for the same reason, that the logic may not work. I think it is a little different. First of all, the judge in that case and the other's case did let it go to trial, okay? And it was the jury who decided, okay, we're not sure about this particular case, they weren't judging on the law, the jury (INAUDIBLE) the facts that they were presented to them. The jurors in this case assumed that the judge lets it go to trial, again, judge the facts as they're presented.

And the facts are pretty remarkable. We have known this for six or seven years, right, because the reporting in The Wall Street Journal gave us a lot in advance, Michael Cohen told a lot of this event (ph). But if you would read the statement of facts for the first time, you had never seen this before, there a remarkably powerful recitation of the evidence there.

And I think the intent comes through pretty clearly that he wants to cover this up before an election. And that is at the heart of the case. Are you trying to taint an election by preventing the public from having information that they otherwise would have?

Geoff Bennett: Francesca, one criminal prosecution is onerous enough. Trump has not been charged in any of the other cases. And we should say he is innocent until proven guilty in the New York case. But they are facing this multi-front defense across multiple cases and it further disrupts his ability to dictate his political schedule and really control his own political destiny. That is what a political candidate does not want, this sort of lack of control.

Francesca Chambers: But it is complicating the entire field's ability to dictate their schedule as well. You had Asa Hutchinson announce his presidential bid. And you saw him try to get in there right before Trump was indicted. And then he has his formal announcement later in a month.

And I think that is a challenge that's facing the GOP field but also President Joe Biden as well, as he tries to figure out when he should get in this race as well. And you have any numbers. You're talking about court cases that could come up. So, it makes the entire election cycle unpredictable. If that unpredictability, though, that again is giving opponents of the former president the sense of an opportunity here where they might just be able to sneak by him.

Geoff Bennett: Let's talk about the Republican reaction, because Republican lawmakers, to include Mitt Romney, who twice voted for impeachment, in various different ways, are coming to Donald Trump's defense. Only Asa Hutchinson, who you mentioned, suggested that he should step down, get out of the presidential race now that he is under indictment.

Francesca Chambers: Well, the difficulty for them is that when you have Donald Trump, who is taking up so much of the oxygen in the GOP field, it is very evident that you need to win Trump's voters while differentiating themselves.

And I've heard from a number of campaigns that they believe that there will be a favorable contrast drawn between their own candidates and also between President Biden and what's going on right now as well.

Geoff Bennett: Peter, for Republicans who are looking to break away from Donald Trump, a number of them say that privately, the former president keeps giving Republicans off-ramp after off-ramp after off-ramp, unintentionally so, and yet the party is not taking any of these exits.

Peter Baker: No, they really haven't, right? They haven't from the beginning. I mean, they didn't after Access Hollywood, they didn't after Charlottesville, they didn't after January 6th, they didn't after last year's midterms, and everybody most recently thought, well, that's it for him, he's done. They don't want to do it for all the reasons Francesca just said. They are afraid of his voters or they want or covet his voters or think they cannot succeed without his voters.

So, their logic comes down to what Mitch McConnell's court is saying about my colleagues, John Martin and Alex Burn, in their book last year saying, we will let the Democrats take care of him for us. He was talking about that in the context of the second impeachment. But broadly speaking, that's their thought right now. We are going to let the Democrats/prosecutors/Justice Department/judges take care of him for us. We won't have to do it.

Geoff Bennett: Hugo, one more potential problem for Donald Trump. We learned this week that former Vice President Mike Pence will not appeal a judge's ruling that orders him to testify before a grand jury in connection to the January 6th investigation. What kind of story would Mike Pence, the former V.P., be able to give this grand jury?

Hugo Lowell: I think, overall, this is a win for the special counsel. He gets Pence in the grand jury. And Pence can testify to the entirety of November through January 6th. And he was there. He saw a lot. He had a lot of discussions with a lot of people.

But I actually am more of a skeptic about the order than I think other people because there is a speech or debate clause protection that was baked in, in that order. And if that is basically going to cover him for all his preparations as president of the Senate on January 6th, then that would include his discussions about what sort of electors he could throw out while he's presiding as president on the Senate. There were discussions at the White House December 21 with the Republican members of Congress, the discussion he had with Trump on January 5 and January 6 about he was going to preside.

Those are the black holes that the January 6th committee never actually managed to fill because they couldn't get Pence and they couldn't get the members in. And it doesn't strike me that the special counsel is going to be able to get those either because Pence will just claim speech or debate.

Geoff Bennett: And here again, history made this past week. Never before in American history has a vice president been summoned to appear in court to testify about the president with whom he served. What is your reporting suggests the impact of this might be?

Jacqueline Alemany: Yes. I was actually joking with some of Trump's legal team that last week would have been -- or this past week, geez.

Geoff Bennett: All the days were blending together.

Jacqueline Alemany: It would have been a great time for Pence to have snuck in and testified before the grand jury with little fanfare.

But I do tend to agree with Hugo here, that it is sort of a performative win for the special counsel's office, but we will see how much information and how helpful he can be. And at the end of the day, he already had some of his top advisers, people like Marc Short, Greg Jacob, testify to the committee. And they have been dealing with the special counsel's office as well and have given them all the information they have with regards to Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the election.

Geoff Bennett: Let's talk about how the White House is handling this. Because, Peter, you wrote a piece for The Times recently and the headline caught my eye. Biden has the Oval Office but Trump has the center stage. And I would say, The White House seems to be perfectly fine with that. President Biden is not trying to compete for attention with the former president who is brought up on criminal charges.

Peter Baker: Yes. It's the old saying, of course, when your opponent is busy shooting himself, don't get in the way, and they don't want to get in the way. And they want this next election to be -- if Trump is going to run, they want it to be a rerun of 2020, in which Biden may not be a favor guy, you might not be happy about it, inflation or Afghanistan or all the other different issues that he people aren't happy with him about, but he is not Trump.

And so the more that Trump is out literally getting his fingerprints taken and appearing in court rooms, they're going to let that stand. You played the tape of Karine Jean-Pierre, they are not going to comment. They don't want to look what like they are doing what Trump says they are doing, which is orchestrating this. But they're not going to try to compete either because this is not going to anyway.

Geoff Bennett: Yes.

Francesca Chambers: Literally, the White House press briefing started on time that day when Trump's indictment happened, so, to your point, maybe not even trying to compete at all that day with the split screen.

But when it comes to the White House, they say that he is just going to continue to focus on his agenda. And they do believe that that benefits him here, both when it comes to comparing himself to the former president of the United States but also what's going on with the GOP in Congress, where now you see them zeroing in on this Manhattan district attorney and spending their time focused on this as well.

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Republicans rally around Trump following his historic indictment and ... - PBS

Its probably fair to say Democratic members of Congress were already skeptical of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Its also fair to say those concerns reached a new level last week, after they saw ProPublicas report on the far-right jurist spending the last couple of decades accepting gifts and luxury trips from a Republican megadonor, which Thomas failed to disclose.

Some Democrats called for the justices resignation, while a few raised the specter of impeachment. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, added in a written statement, The Pro Publica report is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.

As for Republicans, whove long pointed to Thomas as a judicial hero, the justices latest ethics scandal hasnt generated much in the way of discussion. GOP officials have largely overlooked Thomas other controversies, and its likely the party is content to wait for this story to fade from the headlines.

On Saturday, however, Sen. John Cornyn published a message to Twitter that caught my attention. The Texas Republican, paraphrasing a piece from The Wall Street Journals editorial board, wrote:

The left is furious it lost control of the Supreme Court, and it wants it back by whatever means possible. The latest effort is a smear on Justice Thomas.

At this point, we could spend some time challenging the idea that the left lost control of the Supreme Court, which is dubious in part because its been more than a half-century since a majority of the justices were appointed by Democratic presidents, and in part because of the unprecedented abuses Cornyn and his GOP colleagues have engaged in.

We could also spend some time marveling at the idea that the left wants to seize control of the high court by whatever means possible. In this context, even if Thomas scandal were to force him from the bench a fanciful notion, to be sure and even if the Democratic White House and Democratic-led Senate were to confirm a successor, the rights majority on the high court would remain secure.

But what stood out as especially notable was the use of the word smear.

As a rule, when those in the political or legal arena are being smeared, it means theyre facing false and ugly allegations that tarnish their reputations. This certainly happens, and it can be awful for the targets.

But in this instance, ProPublica appears to have published an accurate report on Thomas dubious behavior. The justice released a 146-word written statement in response to the controversy, but at no point did Thomas challenge or contest a single detail of the revelations.

In other words, the story appears to be true. Thomas, several years after joining the Supreme Court, forged close ties with real estate magnate Harlan Crow, whos repeatedly been excessively generous toward the conservative jurist. Thomas, in turn, spent years failing to disclose the benefits of his friendship with the Republican megadonor.

If stating these uncontested facts constitutes a smear, that says more about Thomas than those concerned about his conduct.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

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The glaring flaw in the Republicans defense of Clarence Thomas - MSNBC