Huge break for another insurgent...and more Trump people convicted
Just before Donald Trump touched down in West Virginia for his rally tonight, both his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and his fixer, Michael Cohen, were convicted on a slew of corruption charges.
Not to brag -- who am I kidding, this is totally bragging -- but Dave Dayen sniffed out these Manafort crimes in The Intercept back in February 2017!
Elizabeth Warren picked quite a morning to launch her aggressive new anti-corruption platform. It would be a wholesale transformation of Washington’s political economy, and I have a story on it here.
Looking for the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? How about Ammar Campa-Najjar, the 29-year-old Democratic candidate in San Diego, raised by a single mom, half Mexican, half Palestinian, 100% progressive.
I just checked, and we wrote about his primary against New Democrat Josh Butner at least six times. Butner had the backing of Joe Crowley and other party leaders, but we focused on the race not just because of the contrast between the two candidates, but based on the rationale that while the seat wasn’t winnable in a normal year, if Duncan Hunter happened to be indicted after the primary, the seat could flip Democratic. (He was under federal investigation.)
Campa-Najjar was smeared by association with his grandfather, who was a Palestinian terrorist who was killed long before Campa-Najjar was born, but the California Democratic Party stuck by him, even as elements of the national party were lining up behind his opponent. It turned out, as we first reported, that Butner had actually been a long-time Republican, and Campa-Najjar ended up beating Butner and making it into the general election.
And now Hunter was just indicted (for spending campaign money on himself and his wife, who was also indicted). Check out Campa-Najjar, there’s a very good chance he’s now coming to Congress, as California makes it extraordinarily difficult to to get Hunter off the ballot.
There are some interesting parallels to the 2006 wave here, as Democrats that year picked up two seats they had no business winning (Tom Delay’s and Mark Foley’s) because of scandals and prosecutions. This is slightly different, as Campa-Najjar had a shot of beating Hunter even without the indictment.
A nationwide prison strike launches today. Here’s Natasha Lennard with background on it.
Another Intercept drone scoop: the US is building a $280 million drone base in Africa. I wish Trump would just stick to military parades.