Thursday, February 16th, 2023

Today's headlines: Jack Smith is reportedly seeking to invoke something called the “crime-fraud exception” to compel the testimony of one of Trump’s lawyers. Former VP Mike Pence plans to fight his own subpoena on the grounds of the constitution’s “speech and debate” clause. Yesterday Fox News lost its court appeal against Smartmatic Voting Machines for the false conspiracy theories that were spread on the network during the 2020 election. The DOJ announced yesterday that it is ending its sex trafficking investigation into Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, and that he will not be charged with any crimes. Finally for today, Elon Musk’s cousin James sent an early-morning urgent message to Twitter’s engineers because President Biden’s tweet in favor of the Philadelphia Eagles got 20 million more impressions than Musk’s tweet did. Resources/Articles mentioned this episode: NY Times: DOJ, citing crime-fraud exception, seeks to compel Trump attorney to testify in documents probe: Sources NBC: Pence plans to resist special counsel subpoena in Jan. 6 probe Law & Crime: Fox News loses appeal of Smartmatic defamation suit, claims against Rudy Giuliani and Jeanine Pirro revived NBC: DOJ tells Matt Gaetz that he won’t be charged in sex trafficking probe, his lawyers say Platformer: Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first Host: Sami Sage Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage alongside Amanda Duberman and Bridget Schwartz Original Music and Editing by Brandon Lee Bjornson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices