September 7, 2022
From the Book of All the President*'s Crooks. Shayna Jacobs, et al., of the Washington Post: "Stephen K. Bannon is expected to surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday to face a new criminal indictment, people familiar with the matter said, weeks after he was convicted of contempt of Congress and nearly two years after he received a federal pardon from ... Donald Trump in a federal fraud case. The precise details of the state case could not be confirmed Tuesday evening. But people familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sealed indictment, suggested the prosecution will likely mirror aspects of the federal case in which Bannon was pardoned. In that indictment, prosecutors alleged that Bannon and several others defrauded contributors to a private, $25 million fundraising effort, called 'We Build the Wall,' taking funds that donors were told would support construction of a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border." A CBS News story is here.
Devlin Barrett & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "A document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property. Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search.... Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.... ~~~
~~~ "The Washington Post previously reported that FBI agents who searched Trump's home were looking, in part, for any classified documents relating to nuclear weapons. After that story published, Trump compared it on social media to a host of previous government investigations into his conduct. 'Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved,' he wrote, going on to suggest that FBI agents might have planted evidence against him." A Guardian report on the report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, this super-duper classified document was one of those Trump not only refused to turn over to the National Archives, he hid it from the FBI. And the DOJ can't use it or refer to it or question witnesses about finding it until Judge Cannon's special master -- or somebody -- declares it is not subject to executive privilege. ~~~
~~~ Everybody Thinks Judge Cannon Is Ridiculous. David Knowles of Yahoo! News: "Former Attorney General William Barr decried the decision by a federal judge to appoint a special master to review government documents discovered in an FBI raid of ... Donald Trump's Florida home and country club.... 'The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it,' Barr said during a Tuesday interview on Fox News. 'It's deeply flawed in a number of ways.' Numerous legal experts have taken issue with Cannon's ruling, calling it 'unprecedented,' especially in that it prohibits federal prosecutors from further examining seized documents for an ongoing Department of Justice investigation of Trump until the yet-to-be-chosen special master finishes a full review.... He added, 'But I think the fundamental dynamics of the case are set, which is the government has very strong evidence of what it needs to determine whether charges [are] appropriate, which is government documents were taken, classified information was taken and not handled appropriately, and they are looking into, and there's some evidence to suggest, that they were deceived. And none of that really relates to the content of documents; it relates to the fact that there were documents there and the fact that they were classified, and the fact that they were subpoenaed and were never delivered.'" ~~~
~~~ Andrew Weissman has a column in the Atlantic articulating what-all is wrong with the Cannon/Trump ruling. No link. ~~~
~~~ Ian Millhiser of Vox: "Judge Aileen Cannon's order suspending one of the Justice Department's criminal investigations into ... Donald Trump, at least until a court-appointed official can review documents the FBI seized from Trump, is a trainwreck of judicial reasoning. Cannon mangles the law so completely that it's hard to know where to even begin in criticizing her opinion in Trump v. United States. For starters, Cannon, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump days after he lost the 2020 election, argues fairly explicitly that Trump is entitled to special rules that apply to virtually no other criminal defendant, because he used to be a powerful person.... On a practical level, [the ruling] could also allow Cannon or other judges to delay this criminal investigation into Trump indefinitely. Cannon's opinion ... plays with legal concepts, such as executive privilege, which she seems to barely understand.... Cannon ordered the United States to halt its criminal investigation into the documents seized from Trump -- something she decidedly does not have the power to do -- until after the process she set up to review those documents is complete." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is a ruling that should have begun, "Well, it seems to me...." OR, perhaps, "In order to best protect our noble President* from another hoax perpetrated upon him by the Democrat Department of Justice, it is ORDERED:..."
Zachary Cohen & Jason Morris of CNN: "A Republican county official in Georgia escorted two operatives working with an attorney for ... Donald Trump into the county's election offices on the same day a voting system there was breached, newly obtained video shows. The breach is now under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is of interest to the Fulton County District Attorney, who is conducting a wider criminal probe of interference in the 2020 election. The video sheds more light on how an effort spearheaded by lawyers and others around Trump to seek evidence of voter fraud was executed on the ground from Georgia to Michigan to Colorado, often with the assistance of sympathetic local officials. In the surveillance video, which was obtained by CNN, Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County who is under criminal investigation for posing as a fake elector in 2020, escorts a team of pro-Trump operatives to the county's elections office on January 7, 2021, the same day a voting system there is known to have been breached. The two men seen in the video with Latham, Scott Hall and Paul Maggio, have acknowledged that they successfully gained access to a voting machine in Coffee County at the behest of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Richard Fausset & Sean Keenan of the New York Times: "The video footage reflects just how many pro-Trump activists descended on the county, roughly 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, in an effort to find anomalies that would help them challenge Mr. Trump's narrow loss in Georgia. And it raises new questions about how many individuals and groups gained access to the county's voting software, a data breach that is under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is one of a number of similar incidents coordinated by Trump allies in various swing states. Legal experts say that state investigators are most likely exploring whether Georgia laws were violated, including laws specifically barring access to voting equipment. More broadly, the breaching of numerous election systems around the country raises questions about their vulnerability to being hacked in future elections."
Who's the Moron Now? From the Book of All the President*'s Dupes. Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A Jan. 6 rioter turned in by his ex after he called her a 'moron' because she didn't believe Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election was sentenced to nine months in federal prison Tuesday. Richard Michetti of Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding in May. He admitted that he went inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.... 'If you can't see the election was stolen you're a moron,' Michetti [texted his ex-girlfriend as he stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021]."
Oath Keepers Membership Roster Leaked; Includes Many Elected Officials, Law Enforcement Officers & Military Members. Alanna Richer & Michael Kunzelman of the AP: "The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that's accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies -- including as police chiefs and sheriffs -- and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military. It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.... It's especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The challenge to a peaceful transfer of power after ... Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election has worsened 'an extremely adverse environment' for the U.S. military, according to an open letter signed by several top generals and former defense secretaries. The letter does not mention Mr. Trump by name. But in 16 points on the principles that are supposed to define civil-military relations, the signatories issued a thinly veiled indictment of Mr. Trump and the legions of his followers who called on the military to support his false claim that the election was stolen from him.... Two former defense secretaries who served under Mr. Trump, Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper, were among those who signed the letter, which was published Tuesday on War on the Rocks, an online platform for analysis of national security and foreign affairs issues."
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha. Ha. David Folkenflik of NPR: In November 2020, a Fox "News" "producer warned: Fox cannot let host Jeanine Pirro back on the air. She is pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the Web to justify ... Donald Trump's lies that the election had been stolen from him.... Pirro was far from alone in broadcasting such false claims. In the weeks that followed Election Day 2020, other prominent Fox stars, commentators and their guests heavily promoted them. A repeat target was Dominion Voting Systems, the election machine and technology company. Trump and his allies alleged on Fox that Dominion was engaged in a conscious effort to throw the 2020 race to Joe Biden.... The producer's email is among the voluminous correspondence acquired by Dominion's attorneys as part of its discovery of evidence in a $1.6 billion defamation suit it filed against Fox News and its parent company." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'll bet the paralegal who pulled that email from the piles of papers got the rest of the day off.
Anna Merlan of Vice: "On September 1st, Evie Magazine -- which strives to be the conservative answer to Cosmo, and which promotes COVID denialism and vaccine misinformation, soft-focus transphobia, and a weird obsession with organ meats -- announced a new venture: 28, a 'femtech' company offering workouts and nutritional tips based on users' menstrual cycles, and which requires those users to enter information about the first day of their last period. The week prior, TechCrunch announced the new venture's biggest funder: the investment firm Thiel Capital, which led the latest $3.2 million funding round, and whose founder Peter Thiel has a variety of other interests. (Those include, of late, funding the MAGA movement to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.)" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Colorado. Colleen Slevin of the AP: "A judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit challenging a primary election recount lost by an indicted Colorado county clerk who alleged voting fraud in her failed bid to become the state's top election official. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters filed a lawsuit objecting to the methods used to recount ballots on Aug. 3 but did not ask for the recount to be stopped until the following day, after the recount was completed and several hours after the recount results had been certified by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Judge Andrew P. McCallin ruled that election law only gives him the authority to consider recount challenges while a recount is underway and his jurisdiction stops once it is over and is certified. The recount barely changed the results of the primary election to choose a Republican candidate to challenge Griswold in November's election...."
Massachusetts. The New York Times is liveblogging the state's primary election results. ~~~
"Maura Healey, the barrier-breaking attorney general of Massachusetts, secured the Democratic nomination for governor on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, putting her on track to become the first woman to be elected governor in the state." ~~~
~~~ Steve LeBlanc of the AP: "Geoff Diehl, a former state representative endorsed by ... Donald Trump, has won the Republican nomination for Massachusetts governor over businessman Chris Doughty, who was considered the more moderate candidate in the race. The victory for Diehl sets up a general election contest against Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, who would be the first openly gay person and the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts if she wins in November. The state's current governor, Republican Charlie Baker, decided against seeking a third term."
New Mexico. From the Book of All the President*'s Dupes. Hannah Rabinowitz, et al., of CNN: "A New Mexico judge on Tuesday removed January 6 rioter and Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin from his elected position as a county commissioner for his role in the US Capitol attack. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit seeking Griffin's removal, which alleged that he violated a clause in 14th Amendment of the Constitution by participating in an 'insurrection' against the US government. He had been convicted of trespassing earlier this year. The historic ruling represents the first time an elected official has been removed from office for their participation or support of the US Capitol riot. It also marks the first time a judge has formally ruled that the events of January 6, 2021, were an 'insurrection.'... Griffin, one of three commissioners in Otero County, is also barred from holding any state or federal elected position in the future, state Judge Francis Mathew ruled Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The New York Times story is here.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Wednesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed calls from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog for a protected zone to be established around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.... Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan, Russian state news agencies reported.... Putin will discuss the possibility of limiting grain and food exports from Ukraine to Europe with Turkey's leader. The Russian president announced his intention to talk with Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the structure of the grain deal that eased Russian blockades.... Russian energy giant Gazprom released a video showing Europe freezing this winter. The video comes as Russia has cut off supplies, sending prices soaring and governments into a frenzy as they attempt to circumnavigate the crisis.... Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss, pledged 'steadfast support' to Ukraine."
Eric Nagourney & Matthew Bigg of the New York Times: "The United Nations' nuclear watchdog on Tuesday called for a no-fire zone around an embattled Ukrainian nuclear generator, but like the plant itself, the agency was quickly caught up in the war between Russia and Ukraine. In a highly anticipated report, nuclear inspectors who had to wend their way through the battlefield to get to the plant said they were 'gravely concerned' about conditions there. 'We are playing with fire, and something very very catastrophic could take place,' Rafael Mariano Grossi, the U.N. official who led the inspectors, said in an address to the Security Council on Tuesday afternoon."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The second of two brothers sought by the police after a stabbing rampage in western Canada that killed 10 people died on Wednesday after he was taken into police custody, the authorities said. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police initially announced that the man, Myles Sanderson, had been captured on a highway near the town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan, at about 3:30 p.m. But at a news conference about four and a half hours later, Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore of the mounted police in Saskatchewan said that Mr. Sanderson had gone into 'medical distress' shortly after his arrest and was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Saskatoon, where he was pronounced dead. An independent investigation will review the death and the police's conduct, Assistant Commissioner Blackmore said."
New York Times: "A string of shootings in Memphis and a feverish police manhunt for a 19-year-old suspect that effectively closed down Tennessee's second largest city for five hours ended on Wednesday night when the police announced that they had captured the man. The manhunt, which began after the first shootings at about 4:30 p.m., prompted the authorities to encourage residents to stay inside. The police said that the man was responsible for multiple shootings, some of which that he might have filmed on Facebook Live. The Memphis Police Department identified the man as Ezekiel Kelly. It was unclear what charges he will face, but as the police searched, they described him as 'armed and dangerous.' It was not immediately clear how many people had been shot and whether the shootings were random." An AP report is here.