On the menu today: The potential criminal case against Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook gets more complicated; a familiar face in “Kollyfohneeya” reemerges to oppose Gavin Newsom’s partisan redistricting scheme; and Joe Biden runs up big debts, separate from the nation’s finances. Elsewhere, a song from the soul, and a new way to look at the Three Martini Lunch podcast. Read on.
It’s Going to Be Difficult for the DOJ to Win a Conviction
As written in this newsletter a few weeks ago, if Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is convicted of fraud, everyone would and should agree that President Trump has more than sufficient cause to fire her.
William J. Pulte, director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, wrote his “criminal referral letter” to the U.S. Department of Justice back on August 15.
A month later, we don’t know if the DOJ is pursuing a criminal case against Cook. You may have noticed that U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro is having an awfully rough start to her tenure; her office keeps trying to charge individuals with crimes, and grand juries keep concluding that there’s insufficient evidence for an indictment, never mind a conviction. Keep in mind, grand juries never see a counterargument from a defense attorney:
Federal prosecutors in D.C. have racked up at least eight separate rejections from grand juries during the past month. It’s an extraordinary losing streak that has no modern parallel, experts say, and a barometer of the city’s unhappiness with President Donald Trump’s federal surge.
In Washington, D.C., even a ham sandwich might not get indicted.
The path to a conviction of Cook appears to have grown more difficult:
The property tax authority in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook hasn’t broken rules for tax breaks on a home there that Cook declared her primary residence.
The finding, which came in response to a Reuters request that the city review Cook’s property records, could boost Cook’s defense against efforts by the Trump administration to remove her from the Federal Reserve board.
Ann Arbor has “no reason to believe” that Cook violated property tax rules, City Assessor Jerry Markey told Reuters. Cook has at times lived elsewhere and city records indicate she sought permission from Ann Arbor authorities to rent out the Michigan home on a short-term basis.
Temporary absence from the home or renting it out short-term wouldn’t disqualify her from a tax exemption in Ann Arbor, the tax official said. “Living elsewhere temporarily does not necessarily make an owner ineligible for a principal residence exemption,” said Markey. [Emphasis added.]
Sneer that the local government in Ann Arbor is going to be full of progressive Democrats if you like, but if a jury hears that the local tax assessor has declared that what Cook did isn’t illegal, it’s going to be very difficult to get a conviction. And if Cook reached out to city property tax authorities declaring her intent to use the property as a rental unit, that’s not behavior consistent with a secret plot to dodge tax burdens.
Schwarzenegger: Don’t Let Politicians Redraw U.S. House District Lines
He told us he would be back. He told us that many, many times, in fact:
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday entered the national battle over U.S. House control, urging voters to reject a California ballot proposal to rejigger districts that he said would erode democratic principles and allow politicians to “take the power away from the people.”
“It is insane,” the former Republican governor and action-movie star said of Democratic-backed Proposition 50, a November ballot initiative intended to add five Democratic U.S. House seats in California to offset President Donald Trump’s moves in Texas to gain five Republican districts before the 2026 midterm elections. . . .
Speaking at the University of Southern California, Schwarzenegger repeatedly stressed the proposal would set aside maps drawn in a public process by an independent commission he promoted as governor, and replace it with partisan maps shaped behind closed doors and blessed by “the politicians.” He never directly criticized Newsom or the Legislature’s Democratic majority, which endorsed the proposal.
Schwarzenegger signaled last month he would actively oppose the ballot proposal, posting a photo of himself lifting weights on the social platform X while in a T-shirt imprinted with the slogan, “Terminate Gerrymandering” and a partially obscured obscenity aimed at “the politicians.”
[Terminator soundtrack begins]
The argument from Newsom and his allies is that this is not a partisan power grab, it just takes away the authority to draw district lines from the bipartisan commission that California voters created through a 2010 referendum that passed overwhelmingly — 61.2 percent for yes, 38.7 percent for no — and replaces the current district lines with ones that nonpartisan analysts characterize as “an aggressive Democratic gerrymander” that would likely give Democrats 48 of the 52 House seats in the state. California’s Democratic state lawmakers promise that they’ll give the redistricting power back to the commission in 2030.
One of Newsom’s advisers, political strategist Jim DeBoo, said in August that Democrats aim to turn the referendum into a referendum on Trump.
Also note that Emerson College pollster Matt Taglia said at the end of August, “What happens with redistricting in November, whether that does pass in California — I think that’s going to be in a way a little bit of a referendum on Gavin Newsom and his potential future as a Democratic [presidential] nominee.”
According to state officials, the cost of putting the redistricting referendum before voters this fall is expected to be $282.6 million, between reimbursing counties for the cost of running an unscheduled election and state administrative costs.
So, this is, in some ways, a $282 million donation from California taxpayers to Newsom’s nascent 2028 presidential effort.
The redistricting battle continues to escalate, with Missouri getting ready to potentially redraw its lines, and likely moving the state’s delegation to the U.S. House from six Republicans and two Democrats to seven Republicans and one Democrat:
Missouri’s revised map targets a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching the rest of it into Republican-heavy rural areas. The plan reduces the number of Black and minority residents in Cleaver’s district, partly by creating a dividing line along a street that has served as a historical segregation line between Black and white residents.
Cleaver, who was Kansas City’s first Black mayor, has served in Congress for over 20 years. He won reelection with over 60 percent of the vote in both 2024 and 2022 under districts adopted by the Republican-led state Legislature after the 2020 census.
Joe Biden’s Other Mounting Debt Problem
We often accuse elected officials of not practicing what they preach. But give former president Joe Biden some credit — he ran up $4.7 trillion in new debt as president, and he ran up enormous debts in his personal finances, as well. He’s consistent!
In the weeks after Biden left office, he confided in some that he intended to pay off around $800,000 in personal debt he had accumulated, including through loans on the $2.7 million Rehoboth Beach house he and Jill Biden had purchased in June 2017, according to a person familiar with his finances. The Bidens were hit by a 20 percent increase in their property taxes on the beach home this year, public records show.
On top of bills for his son Hunter Biden’s legal woes, Biden also wanted to help his daughter Ashley, who filed for divorce last month, and ensure money is left for his grandchildren, people close to the Bidens said.
A roughly $10 million book deal will give the former president a major financial boost. Biden also receives pensions from his federal government service totaling as much as $416,000 a year, which includes about $250,000 annually as a former president and up to $166,000 from his years in Congress and vice president, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks government spending.
Higher taxes are a real pain, aren’t they, Mr. Biden? That’s probably why your son stopped paying them.
Dear reader, I don’t know what your personal finances are, but I’ll bet you’re not $800,000 in debt. Like I said, Biden’s consistent — both personally and as president, he was fine with running up humongous debts to be worried about later.
Yes, Joe Biden’s personal finances will look a lot better when the check from Little, Brown & Co. clears. The problem is that the American taxpayers don’t have a wildly generous book deal coming their way to wipe the slate clean.
ADDENDA: Ever have a friend face just the worst things in the world, reach into his soul, and somehow bring out something raw, heartbreaking, and beautiful? My dear friend Cam Edwards did that, composing and singing “Brand New Day,” a song that reflects where the country stands in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination and what feels like an uncontrollable spiral of division and contempt. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; if anyone could take the worst and turn it into something connecting and poignant, Cam could.
. . . The Three Martini Lunch podcast now has video on YouTube! If you’ve ever wondered, “Hey, what do Greg Corombos and Jim look like when they’re staring into their computer screens and talking to each other?” now you can know, and as America’s daring, highly trained special mission force taught us, knowing is half the battle. (The other one quarter of the battle is blue lasers, and one quarter of the battle is red lasers.)
If you like the traditional audio version, don’t worry, we’re not going to rely on sight gags from here on out. But as one listener has concluded, “I prefer looking at Megyn Kelly.”