BadaBing

From the article:

Trump’s motion contended that Willis and McBurney “at every turn” have trampled on the procedural safeguards and rights of Trump and others under investigation.

“The whole of the process is now incurably infected,” the motion said. “And nothing that follows could be legally sound or publicly respectable.”

It asserted that the Georgia statute allowing for the operation of special grand juries was unconstitutionally vague. It said that publication of excerpts of the final report would violate the former president’s rights to fundamental fairness and due process and lead to “irremediable injury” to his reputation as he runs for the GOP nomination for president for a third time.

The Phillies had a surprising, positive update on top prospect Andrew Painter Saturday afternoon.

Painter, who was diagnosed with a sprained UCL in his throwing arm in March and was shut down from throwing this week because of elbow discomfort, underwent an MRI arthrogram that showed healing in the UCL.

The Phillies will back him off from throwing for a few days and then resume his progression.

"Actually better news than what we expected because the testing showed there is healing in there, seriously," manager Rob Thomson said before Saturday's game against the Marlins.

"(The tear) is closing up, we're seeing healing. So all we're going to do is just back him off for a few days, let that discomfort get out of the way and then we'll start going again. It's better news than what we were expecting."

Noah Cates and the Flyers avoided salary arbitration pretty quickly.

The sides reached a new two-year, $5.25 million contract Monday. The deal has an average annual value of $2.625 million. Cates will also be switching from No. 49 to No. 27 for his jersey, according to his agent Ben Hankinson.

Over the weekend, the allegations returned to the fore, and for good reason. The New York Times reported on Saturday:

John F. Kelly, who served as former President Donald J. Trump’s second White House chief of staff, said in a sworn statement that Mr. Trump had discussed having the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies investigate two F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. Kelly said that his recollection of Mr. Trump’s comments to him was based on notes that he had taken at the time in 2018. Mr. Kelly provided copies of his notes to lawyers for one of the F.B.I. officials, who made the sworn statement public in a court filing.

The base/loyalty plays

Kari Lake: Despite never holding office, Lake exudes Trumpism arguably more than anyone on this list — right down to her thoroughly bogus, dead-ender election denialism. She did underperform in 2022, like a lot of Trump-aligned candidates, but not as much as many of them. The early knock on her is that she might be trying a bit too hard and that Trump doesn’t want to be overshadowed.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: More than most new governors, the Arkansas governor has made a strong play for a national profile by going hard to the right, including on culture war issues. She also has a relationship with Trump and plenty of experience vouching for him as White House press secretary.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: A Greene selection would give the national party fits more than anyone on this list; even with her attempted reinvention of herself, she’s spouting many of the same conspiracy theories and proving just as unwieldy. She also performed surprisingly poorly in her ruby-red Georgia district in 2022.

Marsha Blackburn: The senator from Tennessee has long been one of the most right-wing, culture-war-focused senators, and her name was floated a time or two in 2016.

Josh Hawley: The senator from Missouri says he’s not interested. But many people say that, and perhaps no senator is as much at pains to play to the MAGA crowd as he is.

The (more) pragmatic picks

Tim Scott: This is among the ones that just make too much sense, especially if Trump wants to go with a woman or an African American. The senator from South Carolina generally has tried to avoid getting wrapped up in the Trump controversy of the day, and perhaps because of that is well-regarded party-wide. The question is whether he’s shown Trump enough loyalty.

Elise Stefanik: The New York congresswoman might be up there with Scott in terms of who makes sense. And her decision not to try to climb the GOP leadership ladder after the 2022 election led more than a few to (very validly) speculate that she might be angling for this job instead.

Nikki Haley: Haley’s later-aborted break with Trump after Jan. 6 would surely loom over her potential selection. But she was very popular when she served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations and could set herself up well with a strong 2024 campaign.

Kim Reynolds: The Iowa governor is enjoying being courted by all the presidential hopefuls coming to her state and has said she’ll remain neutral in the primary.

Kristi L. Noem: The South Dakota governor doesn’t have much of a national profile, despite considering her own 2024 bid. Without such a bid, it’s tough to see how she’d rise to the top.

Ron DeSantis: The main problems here are that he and Trump are going after each other right now and that they live in the same state. (This would mean they would forfeit Florida’s 30 electoral votes since the Constitution says at least one member of the ticket in a given state must be from another state, which would be a dealbreaker.) The former could be ironed-over in the service of building a winning ticket. The latter probably would force Trump to change his residency back to New York. But there is some precedent for this kind of thing.

Glenn Youngkin: The Virginia governor is keeping his options open on his own campaign. In his 2021 campaign, he was viewed as navigating the post-Trump era with aplomb, in both the primary and the general election.

The unlikely fliers

Francis Suarez: The Miami mayor is running his own 2024 campaign, but many see it as a steppingstone, and Kellyanne Conway apparently is a big fan. (The residency thing, of course, applies here, too.)

Tulsi Gabbard: The former congresswoman and former Democrat has become a Fox News favorite, but her résumé probably is too limited.

Byron Donalds: The Florida congressman has emerged as a significant voice of the House Freedom Caucus and younger Republicans, particularly during the debate over McCarthy’s speakership. But he’s only in his second term in Congress.

Tucker Carlson: The buzz around Carlson has died down since he was canned by Fox News, and he’s said he has no interest in elective office. We also learned in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox that he privately bashed Trump.

Vivek Ramaswamy: Who knows, if he somehow runs a solid 2024 campaign?

Michael Flynn: Can you truly rule anything out?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: He’s running a very Trumpian campaign (albeit in the Democratic primary), latching on to many in Trumpworld who are happy to promote him in the service of trying to embarrass President Biden. But, despite all the hype, he’s not exactly ideologically aligned with Trump on major issues, and his modest level of early success seems to owe more to Democratic disillusionment with Biden and a golden Democratic name than anything else.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has reportedly been removed from the conservative House Freedom Caucus after a series of disagreements, including calling her colleague Rep. Lauren Boebert a "bitch" on the House floor.

Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican who serves on the board of the House Freedom Caucus, said that the group held a formal vote on Greene's status last month, according to Politico and CNN. CNN separately reported that the group's rules are tightly held, but Harris believes that for all intents and purposes she has been removed.

"As far as I know, that is the way it is," Harris told Politico.

Harris told Politico that Greene's clash with Boebert was the final straws for the Georgia Republican. Conservatives had been upset with Greene for months due to her close ties to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Historically, the Freedom Caucus has clashed with GOP leaders, most notably former Speaker John Boehner.

"I think the way she referred to a fellow member was probably not the way we expect our members to refer to other fellow, especially female, members," Harris told Politico.

Greene was incensed that Boebert was, in her view, co-opting a push to impeach President Joe Biden and members of his administration. Greene confirmed to reporters that she called Boebert a "bitch" on the floor and then repeated the insult in a later interview.

"She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me," Greene told Semafor. Boebert told reporters she was "not in middle school" when asked to respond.

This is a historic moment for the conservative group. It has never before formally voted to boot one of its members. The caucus is selective in who it allows in for membership and refuses to release a full roster of its members.

Then-Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan resigned from the group after he became the first Republican to say that President Donald Trump had committed "impeachable conduct." Amash had been a founding member of the conservative group.

A spokesperson for the Freedom Caucus did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did a spokesperson for Greene.

Nauta is represented by Sasha Dadan, a defense attorney based in Fort Pierce, where the trial is scheduled to be held on Aug. 14.

Nauta's plea follows the release of more details contained in the search warrant for Trump's Mar-a-Lago property almost a year ago. The warrant describes a person, identified as witness 5, moving dozens of boxes in May and June last year from a room where federal prosecutors say Trump kept the boxes. Witness 5 is believed to be Nauta.