Is Donald Trump ever going to be president again? In theory, should he set aside the fact that he actually hated being president, and decide to run again in 2024, and should tens of millions of Americans lose their minds and cast their votes for a wannabe dictator who is probably at this moment ranting to a garden hose about how he beat Joe Biden, he could make his way back to the White House in January 2025. Is he going to be president as early as this August? No! Obviously! Why? Well, there’s the minor matter of the fact that Biden‘s first term doesn’t expire for another 1,329 days, making it impossible for Trump to take over any time before then, unless he is planning a coup. Which it sounds like he might be, insomuch as one can plan a coup from the omelet station at Mar-a-Lago.

According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Trump has apparently been “telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated [as president] by August.” Though we said it mere moments ago, it bears repeating that one is not simply “reinstated” as president of the United States as though their being booted from the White House was simply a mistake; again, the only way Trump could become president again by the end of the summer would be if he was scheming something that falls under the umbrella of treason. Sane people know this. Yet while Trump is assuredly not going to come within 1,000 feet of the Oval Office any time soon—or ever again!—some of his craziest supporters appear to worryingly believe he might.

Per Business Insider:

The anti-democratic conspiracy theory [that Trump will be “reinstated” as president] has been bubbling up in fringe conservative media for several months. It has no basis under the Constitution or any legitimate legal framework. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been a prominent proponent of the theory. The former Trump attorney Sidney Powell also floated the idea at a QAnon conference over the weekend.

The anticipation of a Trump reinstatement on a certain date could spread further among the most dedicated Trump supporters. The calls to help overturn the 2020 election on January 6, for example, gained steam through a pro-Trump bus tour by a fringe group and led to the insurrection at the Capitol. Lindell has said August is when he would go to the Supreme Court to present evidence he's acquired that would be so convincing that the justices would be forced to reject the 2020 election result. A podcast from the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has amplified the conspiracy theory, as Lindell and others have gone on the show to promote it with minimal pushback. The podcast is influential among GOP lawmakers hoping to avoid a primary challenge while seeking reelection. Trump’s lawyers and other Republicans filed dozens of lawsuits related to the election; all failed.

Over the weekend, disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn—who Ivanka Trump insisted on bringing onboard in the Trump administration and who her father pardoned in the waning days of his presidency—declared at a Dallas event on Sunday that a Myanmar-style coup “should happen here” in the United States. (He later claimed that his words had been “twisted.”) In December 2020, Flynn, along with Powell and others, met with Trump at the White House to reportedly discuss the former national security adviser’s idea to invoke martial law as part of the effort to stop Biden from becoming president. The meeting was said to have devolved “into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump’s aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn’s more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.”

While some people see Trump is an unhinged has-been whose delusions should be ignored, others think treating “evidence of a possible seditious conspiracy as mere loose talk from an addled man” is dangerous, and that we should pay very close attention to what Trump is reportedly telling people. In a long twitter thread on Tuesday, attorney and reporter Seth Abramson wrote, “There are efforts afoot now in GA, AZ, NV, and WI to delegitimize Biden’s victories there. Meanwhile, Trump advisers Flynn and Powell are saying that once those victories are delegitimized, the military should move in. If Trump is in on the conversations, it’s a coup attempt…. To be clear, I have *consistently* said that I do *not* believe the military would ever participate in a coup. The point of this thread isn’t to suggest a coup will happen, but that Donald Trump and his co-conspirators must be investigated for seditious conspiracy immediately.” He added: “We’ve been around this mountain with Trump before—and specifically on the question of conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and attempted crimes. You can be arrested for certain inchoate federal criminal offenses even if the crime you ultimately want to see committed doesn’t occur. We don’t have a federal criminal justice system that says a crime is only a crime after it’s successful. I suspect that even a child would be able to see why. If that were how the system worked, criminals would *succeed* before we could start trying to undo what they had done. Instead, we have state/federal criminal justice systems that try to cut off criminal conspiracies at the pass once law enforcement has evidence the conspirators have taken at least one discrete step toward achieving their illegal ambitions.”

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Biden continues to implement his “do the opposite of everything the last guy did” policy

Transgender military ban? “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy? Historically low, probably racist refugee cap? Oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? Not on this president’s watch. Per The Washington Post:

The Biden administration Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, overturning one of President Donald Trump’s most significant environmental acts during his last days in office. The move by the Interior Department, which could spark a major legal battle, aims to unwind nearly a dozen leases in the heart of a pristine expanse in Alaska that Republicans and Democrats have fought over for four decades. The Trump administration auctioned off the right to drill in the refuge’s coastal plain—home to hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl as well as the southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears—just two weeks before President Biden was inaugurated.

In Tuesday’s Interior Department order, Secretary Deb Haaland said that a review of the Trump administration’s leasing program in the wildlife refuge found “multiple legal deficiencies” including “insufficient analysis” required by environmental laws and a failure to assess other alternatives. Haaland’s order calls for a temporary moratorium on all activities related to those leases in order to conduct “a new, comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the oil and gas program.”

While Biden is clearly intent on reversing much of the damage done by the Trump administration, he hasn’t nixed everything. Last week, the Justice Department defended a drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, in addition to backing the Trump administration’s decision to issue gas and oil leases in Wyoming, The Washington Post noted. Biden’s DOJ also declined to call for the shutdown of the Dakota access pipeline, which the Post points out Haaland personally protested while serving in Congress.

Anyone in the market for a cursed hotel where federal crimes may have been committed?

Today’s your lucky day!

Former president Donald Trump’s company has again hired a broker to sell the lease to its D.C. hotel, according to two people familiar with the discussions, a second attempt to unload the property after the pandemic thwarted a previous effort.… The hotel, which Trump’s company leases from the General Services Administration, has suffered financially from both the toll COVID has taken on luxury travel and the damage Trump’s brand has endured due to his politics, with many liberal, corporate, and international clients unwilling to book rooms or events at the hotel.

Rooms were running nearly half empty at the hotel the last time the company put it up for sale, according to marketing documents acquired by The Washington Post. Last year revenue at the property fell by 62%, according to Trump’s government disclosure forms.

The newly proposed sale comes on the heels of Manhattan’s district attorney convening a grand jury expected to decide whether to indict the former president, other executives at his company, or the business itself. The move indicates that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s investigation of the former president and his business has reached an advanced stage after more than two years. It’s unclear whether the D.C. hotel will be a factor in Vance’s investigation into Trump’s business or in a related inquiry by New York attorney general Letitia James (D). The property has not been named as a target in any public filings related to either Vance’s case or the investigation by James, but the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Vance’s office is investigating the hotel in addition to other properties.

Located less than a mile from the White House, the hotel was the place where GOP lawmakers, corporate executives with business at the Justice Department, foreign-government officials, and anyone looking to kiss the ring knew their money would go far. “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’” an Asian diplomat told The Washington Post in 2016. More recently, the Washingtonian reported that servers at the hotel’s restaurant had to follow a seven-step process for serving Trump Diet Coke; that his dining companion could never have a bigger steak than him; that popovers “had to be served within two minutes” and shrimp cocktail “immediately;” that mini glass bottles of Heinz ketchup were to be opened “in front of [him], taking care to ensure he could hear the seal make the ‘pop’ sound;” and that “a tray of junk food needed to be available for every Trump visit: Lay’s potato chips (specifically, sour cream and onion), Milky Way, Snickers, Nature Valley Granola Bars, Tic Tacs, gummy bears, Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Nutter Butters, Tootsie Rolls, chocolate-covered raisins, and Pop-Secret.”

Elsewhere!

At Tulsa event, Biden announces Harris will lead a push for voting protections in response to states’ recent ballot restrictions (Washington Post)

Pelosi floats Democrat–led probe into January 6 after GOP derails outside commission (CNN)

The COVID Trauma Has Changed Economics—Maybe Forever (Bloomberg)

WHO Gives Virus Variants New Names, Drawing From Greek Alphabet (Bloomberg)

Accused Russian Agent Says Giuliani Was “Very Useful” (TDB)

Cuomo to Host $10,000-a-Ticket Campaign Fundraiser in NYC (Bloomberg)

Everything’s becoming a subscription, and the pandemic is partly to blame (Washington Post)

Lazard CEO Says Remote Work Damages Prospects for Young Bankers (Bloomberg)

John Oliver trashes the Cheerios Twitter account for “not even trying” (CNN)

Bodybuilder who wed two sex dolls is now open to dating humans (NYP)

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