The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Washington Post: “ John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom 'Good Times' and the epic miniseries 'Roots' — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84.”

New York Times: “Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.”

The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

The Wires
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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Friday
Aug122022

August 13, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Glenn Thrush & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "At least one lawyer for ... Donald J. Trump signed a written statement in June asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence and club had been returned to the government, four people with knowledge of the document said. The written declaration was made after a visit on June 3 to Mar-a-Lago by Jay I. Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department's national security division.... Over recent months, investigators were in contact with roughly a half-dozen of Mr. Trump's current aides who had knowledge of how the documents were handled, two people briefed on the approaches said. At least one witness provided the investigators with information that led them to want to further press Mr. Trump for material....

"Shortly before [Attorney General Merrick] Garland made [a public statement on Thursday], a person close to Mr. Trump reached out to a Justice Department official to pass along a message from the former president to the attorney general. Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Garland to know he had been checking in with people around the country and found them to be enraged by the search. 'The country is on fire,' Mr. Trump said, according to a person familiar with the exchange. 'What can I do to reduce the heat?'... As a judge unsealed the warrant and the inventory of items that the F.B.I. took, Mr. Trump alternately claimed he did nothing wrong and also made the baseless statement that officials may have planted evidence on him." CNN has a story here. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Based on reviews of the property receipt, several news outlets, including this one, have noted that "FBI agents removed 11 sets of classified documents and 27 boxes from [Donald Trump's] Florida residence." I've briefly looked at the receipt, and I can't do the math, but I'll assume for argument's sake that number 27 is correct. In addition to those 27 boxes, Trump returned 15 boxes in January 2022, and according to theNYT story linked above, FBI agents took additional material from Mar-a-Lago in June 2022. So that's at least 43 boxes of stuff --and probably more -- Trump stole from us. Whatever the size of the boxes, and whatever their contents, you can't take that much stuff "accidentally." ~~~

     ~~~ Various news outlets have reported that at least some of the stuff was kept in a basement storage room. My house in Florida was on a large waterway; Trump's is between two bodies of water -- the Atlantic Ocean & Lake Worth. My house was built at the same time Mar-a-Lago was, and my house & Trump's are among the few in Florida that have basements. During rainy season, which runs for months, I had a sump pump that ran almost 24/7. During these months, the basement was never dry. It's possible the basement at Mar-a-Lago has since been made water-tight, but given its location, that's difficult to do. So I'm wondering about the condition of those retrieved docs, papers that have been in a likely-damp basement for at least a year-a-and-a-half.

GOP Terrorists. Steve M. republishes a portion of a (firewalled) Daily Beast story that reads, in part, "Just hours after a list began circulating among right-wing media of FBI agents who signed off on the search warrant for Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, a former Trump aide tried to sic MAGA fans on the family members of the purported agents. Garrett Ziegler ... took to Telegram to post the personal information of men he identified as agents. 'This is one of the two feds who signed the "Receipt for Property" form, which detailed == at a very high level -- the fishing expedition that the FBI performed at Mar-a-Lago,' Ziegler said on both Truth Social and Telegram. The former Trump administration staffer that worked under White House trade adviser Peter Navarro further listed out the FBI agents' date of birth, work emails and linked to alleged family members' social media accounts." There's more. ~~~

     ~~~ Steve M. writes, "This is the new normal.... We're rapidly approaching the point where anything that offends Republicans will result in the doxxing of the responsible parties, with threats of violence as the inevitable consequence. Soon -- again because of Republican intransigence -- we'll conclude that we simply can't prevent this, and anyone who engages in conduct that upsets Republicans will need to invest in extra security and urge every peripheral person who might be affected to do the same. America will be divided into two nations: Republicans and those terrorized or potentially terrorized by Republicans." ~~~

~~~ David Moye of the Huffington Post: "While filling in for host Tucker Carlson on Thursday, [Fox News' Brian Kilmeade displayed a fabricated image of Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart [-- who authorized the search of Mar-a-Lago --] having his feet massaged by convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell and holding Oreo cookies and alcohol on a plane. 'Sean, can you relate to that?' Kilmeade asked Fox News personality Sean Hannity, who noted that the photo looked doctored. 'I think that's actually a picture of [financier and convicted sex offender] Jeffrey Epstein with somebody putting his [Reinhart's] head on there,' Hannity said. 'I'm guessing. I don't know.' 'Who knows?' Kilmeade said.... The fake photo seems to be a reference to Reinhart's past work defending several of Epstein's employees in court. On Friday, Kilmeade took to Twitter to clarify that the photo wasn't real. '... This depiction never took place & we wanted to make clear that we were showing a meme in jest.' So far, Kilmeade has not apologized on air to the viewers who saw the image and possibly believed it to be authentic.... Twitter users read Kilmeade the riot act for pushing misinformation, especially as Reinhart has received violent and antisemitic threats since approving the warrant...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Twitter commenters, including comedian Patton Oswalt & journalist Mehdi Hasan, saw or heard no indication in Kilmeade's on-air performance that he was "showing a meme in jest." It's a bad day for Fox "News" when the person who pushes back with at least a bit of journalistic fact-checking is Sean Hannity. Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See also his commentary below.

~~~~~~~~~~

So here was Politico's banner headline Friday afternoon: ~~~

Trump Under Investigation for Potential Violations of Espionage Act

Wall Street Journal reporters got hold of the search warrant & inventory of documents sought & retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. I myself, for reasons unknown was able to breach the WSJ firewall. ~~~

Alex Leary, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "FBI agents who searched ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump's ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the 'President of France,' according to the three-page list. The list is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises which was granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida. The list includes references to one set of documents marked as 'Various classified/TS/SCI documents,' an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. It also says agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents. The list didn't provide any more details about the substance of the documents. Mr. Trump's lawyers argue that the former president used his authority t declassify the material before he left office. While a president has the power to declassify documents, there are federal regulations that lay out a process for doing so.... The search and seizure warrant, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, shows that FBI agents sought to search 'the 45 Office,' as well as 'all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by [the former president] and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.'" A CNN report, which has been expanded since first linked, is here. An NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's story, by Devlin Barrett & Josh Dawsey, is here. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times is once again live-blogging developments in Trump's theft of highly-sensitive national security documents. ~~~

"Federal agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potential crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation; and another statute associated with unlawful removal of government materials.... The most informative and sensitive document, an affidavit detailing the "probable cause" evidence that prompted Judge Reinhart to approve the search, will not be released now, or probably ever, department officials said on Thursday....

"The search warrant for Trump's residence cited three criminal laws, all from Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; Section 1519, which covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings; and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. Notably, none of those laws turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified....

"Shortly after 3 p.m. Eastern, the Justice Department notified the court that 'counsel for former President Trump -- M. Evan Corcoran, Esq., and James Trusty, Esq. -- have informed the government that the former President does not object to the government motion to unseal' the search warrant and the inventory list." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times stand-alone story, by Maggie Haberman & others, is here: "The results of the search showed that material designated as closely guarded national secrets was being held at an unsecured resort club, Mar-a-Lago, owned and occupied by a former president who has long shown a disdain for careful handling of classified information. The documents released on Friday also made clear for the first time the gravity of the possible crimes under investigation in an inquiry that has generated denunciations of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. from prominent Republicans and fueled the anger of Mr. Trump, a likely 2024 presidential candidate.... Last year, he told close associates that he regarded some presidential documents as his own personal property." ~~~

~~~ Politico has published the warrant & inventory here.

Yeah? So? Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump claimed on Friday that before leaving office, he declassified all the documents the F.B.I. found in this week's search of his Florida residence ... including several caches apparently marked as 'top secret.' 'It was all declassified,' Mr. Trump asserted in a statement.... Such a claim would not settle the matter. For one thing, two of the laws that a search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago this week referred to -- Sections 1519 and 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code -- make the taking or concealment of government records a crime regardless of whether they had anything to do with national security. For another, laws against taking or hoarding material with restricted national-security information, which generally carry heavier penalties than theft of ordinary documents, do not always line up with whether the files are technically classified.... A third law ... known as the Espionage Act ... was enacted by Congress during World War I, decades before President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order creating the modern classification system for the executive branch. As a result, the Espionage Act makes no reference to whether a document has been deemed classified. Instead, it makes it a crime to retain, without authorization, documents related to the national defense that could be used to harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So let us assume for a moment that Trump did declassify all that formerly-super-sensitive material that had been squirreled away in super-secure rooms where only a few select officlals with top clearance were allowed to venture. Then why hasn't Trump released this declassified stuff to the public? Suddenly, we all -- and that "we" includes the country's most dangerous enemies -- have a right to read these declassified docs, don't we? After all, declassification renders them no more secret or sensitive than say, an executive order or Melanie's tour of her White House holiday decorations.

Zoë Richards of NBC News: "... Donald Trump on Friday denied a report from The Washington Post that said FBI agents were looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons, among other items, when they searched his Mar-a-Lago home this week. On his Truth Social platform, Trump said that 'Nuclear weapons is a hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax,' referring to then-special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Trump attacked the officials involved with the search of his home, calling them 'sleazy.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Given that Trump knew we were about to find out that he had stolen top-secret docs, this is an extraordinary denial. Of course it's true that Trump didn't lift any "nuclear weapons" as he mentions; on the other hand, the WashPo article did not suggest he was storing a nuclear bomb in the Mar-a-Lardo basement. So Trump is denying something that no one asserted. However, since the Mueller investigation also was not a hoax, I suppose it's fair for Trump to compare the Mar-a-Lago search with the Mueller probe. So I guess Trump is reasonable, after all!

At the top of today's Comments, Akhilleus explains Trump's evolving excuses/lies for engaging in, well, espionage against the United States.

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Republicans who days ago united in preemptive defense of Donald Trump are struggling to stay on the same page following new questions about documents that the former president was holding at his Florida residence. The FBI's daylong search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this week, personally approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, sparked near-universal GOP outrage and allegations of a politicized Justice Department. In the wake of reports that the search was tied to concerns Trump may have improperly taken highly classified White House documents related to nuclear weapons and so-called special access operations, however, Republicans are politically diverging. While some GOP lawmakers acknowledged Friday that a scenario in which Trump withheld nuclear-related documents would be problematic, House Republican leaders are still rallying behind him and suggesting without evidence that President Joe Biden sought to weaponize DOJ against a political rival." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Max Boot of the Washington Post: "The more we learn about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, the sillier -- and more sinister -- the overcaffeinated Republican defenses of ... Donald Trump look. A genius-level spinmeister, Trump set the tone with a Monday evening statement announcing: 'These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.'... Although Trump's team had a copy of the search warrant, he gave no hint of why the FBI might have been there.... His followers -- which means pretty much the whole of the Republican Party -- took up the cry based on no more information.... What has been reported so far bears no relation to the persecution fantasies of Trump and his cult followers.... The right now appears to be in disarray." ~~~

~~~ BUT. Marianna Sotomayor, et al., of the Washington Post: "House Republicans stood by ... Donald Trump on Friday despite the revelation that FBI agents sought classified documents relating to nuclear weapons in their search of his Mar-a-Lago estate this week.... Republicans also were highly critical of the FBI, Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray over the execution of the search warrant and about what they characterized as a lack of transparency in sharing information with Congress about a criminal investigation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday singled out Garland, saying the attorney general 'has a lot of explaining to do.'... Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the No. 3 Republican in the House leadership, on Friday called the FBI search a 'complete abuse and overreach of its authority' and promoted baseless claims that the agency protected Hillary Clinton, former FBI director James B. Comey and President Biden's son Hunter.... House Republicans, who were back in Washington on Friday to vote against the Democrats' climate, health-care and tax bill, deflected blame that their rhetoric has inspired Trump supporters to attack law enforcement."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "On few previous occasions has the Trump movement so embraced Stephen K. Bannon's strategy (paraphrased here) of flooding the zone with garbage as after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago....But ... it's difficult to top the latest entry." After several Fox "News" hosts latched onto a story that President Obama had "had 30 million records shipped to Chicago for his presidential library," Trump got out the muck spreader & fake-tweeted, 'What happened to the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama? He refused to give them back! What is going on? This act was strongly at odds with NARA. Will they be breaking into Obama's "mansion" in Martha's Vineyard?'... But ... the Obama team was transferring the records to Chicago through the National Archives.... There isn't the faintest hint of legal violations -- nor does the New York Post's story suggest as much.... And on Friday, after Trump raised the issue again, the Archives sought to put an end to the charade [and clarified that they, not President Obama, has retained control of those records]." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So if I were Trump, I would rob a bank cashier's till, then complain that you were worse than I because you had gotten more money when you made a cash withdrawal from your bank account. Unfortunately, "Barack Hussein Obama stole 30 million documents & the FBI ignored it" will soon become a true thing among the Trumpbots. ~~~

President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots! -- Donald Trump, August 12

Trump is wrong. News reports starting in 2016 showed that the National Archives and Records Administration would oversee transfer of Obama's presidential records. The agency announced it would digitize the records and that classified records were sent to a facility in College Park, Maryland. -- Jim Greenberg & Amy Sherman of PolitiFact ~~~

     ~~~ Update. John Wagner of the Washington Post: “The National Archives and Records Administration issued a statement Friday in an attempt to counter misstatements about former president Barack Obama's presidential records after several days of misinformation that had been spread by ... Donald Trump and conservative commentators. Since the FBI search of his Florida home and club this week for classified documents, Trump has asserted in social media posts that Obama 'kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified' and that they were "taken to Chicago by President Obama.' In its statement, NARA said that it obtained 'exclusive legal and physical custody' of Obama's records when he left office in 2017. It said that about 30 million pages of unclassified records were transferred to a NARA facility in the Chicago area and that they continue to be maintained 'exclusively by NARA.'"

Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "Leadership at the Justice Department forcefully pushed back against attacks on the bureau, with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray issuing statements condemning such rhetoric just hours apart on Thursday. Wray made clear Thursday that he sees the attacks as undermining not just the bureau, but the role law enforcement plays in a democracy. 'Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans,' Wray said in a statement.... [Donald] Trump has repeatedly referred to the FBI's search as a raid and suggested multiple times, without evidence, that agents may have been 'planting information.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Josh Campbell, et al., of CNN: "The FBI is investigating an 'unprecedented' number of threats against bureau personnel and property in the wake of the search of ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, including some against agents listed in court records as being involved in the recent search, a law enforcement source tells CNN. On Friday, the names of the two agents who signed the search warrant paperwork circulated online. The names had been included in a version of the search warrant that was leaked prior to the official unsealing of the documents. The version released by the court redacted the agents' names." MB: We know, of course, who released the agents' names. As shocking as it is, Trump and his team certainly seem to want to endanger the lives of federal agents & their families.

Lucia Walinchus, et al., of the New York Times: "A man whom the police say they killed hours after he tried to breach the F.B.I.'s Cincinnati office had been on the radar of the federal authorities for months, two law enforcement officials said on Friday. The officials said federal investigators had been looking into whether the man, Ricky Shiffer, 42, of Columbus, had been involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. They also said the F.B.I. had received a tip about Mr. Shiffer in May that was unrelated to Jan. 6, and agents opened a separate inquiry that included conducting interviews in Florida and Ohio. The F.B.I. acknowledged in a statement that it had received information about Mr. Shiffer before Thursday, but said that the information 'did not contain a specific and credible threat.' The bureau said agents from multiple offices had tried to find and interview him, but had not been successful. A neighbor at an apartment complex in Columbus where Mr. Shiffer lived, who declined to give his name, said federal agents had visited the property a few weeks ago and had asked him questions about Mr. Shiffer...."

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: Department of Homeland Security Inspector General "Joseph V. Cuffari [--a Trump appointee --] and his staff have refused to release certain documents and tried to block interviews, effectively delaying ... [an investigation], which has now stretched for more than 15 months and evolved into a wide-ranging inquiry into more than a dozen allegations of misconduct raised by whistleblowers and other sources.... That probe, for now, does not include an investigation into the missing Secret Service texts [sent around Jan. 6, 2021], which instead are the subject of multiple congressional inquiries. Some Republican senators have also raised stiff resistance to the wider investigation into Cuffari -- which is being overseen by a panel of federal watchdogs from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE).... Led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) the senators have demanded that investigators scale back records requests from Cuffari's office and pressed them on their motives...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Needless to say, any sentence that begins with the phrase, "Led by Sen. Josh Hawley," can only end in nonsense or worse, unless what is being led by Josh Hawley is cute little puppies.

Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "A Manhattan state court judge on Friday declined to throw out the criminal case against Donald J. Trump's family business and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, clearing the way for a trial in the case scheduled for the fall. Mr. Weisselberg and the business, the Trump Organization, were charged last year by the Manhattan district attorney's office with having engaged in a 15-year scheme in which executives were compensated with hidden benefits so that they could evade taxes. The charges stemmed from the office's long-running investigation into the company's business practices. In February, Mr. Weisselberg and the company filed motions to dismiss the charges, arguing that the case was politically motivated and that the defendants were charged only because of their link with former president Donald J. Trump. The decision marked the latest legal blow to Mr. Trump in a week full of them." Here's a Law & Crime story. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


** Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Congress gave final approval on Friday to legislation that would reduce the cost of prescription drugs and pour billions of dollars into the effort to slow global warming, as House Democrats overcame united Republican opposition to deliver on key components of President Biden's domestic agenda. With a party-line vote of 220 to 207, the House agreed to the single largest federal investment in the fight against climate change and the most substantial changes to national health care policy since passage of the Affordable Care Act. The bill now goes to Mr. Biden for his signature. The legislation would inject more than $370 billion into climate and energy programs aimed at helping the United States cut greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 40 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. It would also extend for three years subsidies to help people afford insurance under the Affordable Care Act, as well as fulfill a long-held Democratic goal to lower the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to directly negotiate prices and capping recipients' annual out-of-pocket drug costs." ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear & Zolan-Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "With final House passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday, President Biden is poised to deliver the latest in a series of legislative victories that will ripple across the country for decades -- lowering the cost of prescription drugs, extending subsidies to help people pay for health insurance, reducing the deficit and investing more than $370 billion into climate and energy programs. 'The choice we face as Americans is whether to protect the already-powerful or find the courage to build a future where everybody has a shot,' Mr. Biden said on Twitter. 'Today, I proudly watched as House Democrats chose families over special interests.'... Taken together, the bills Mr. Biden has helped usher through a closely divided Congress since taking office 18 months ago touch many parts of American society."

Joshua Goodman of the AP: "Salman Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked Friday as he was about to give a lecture in western New York. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The 75-year-old author was pushed or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained. Rushdie was quickly surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, presumably to send more blood to his chest. His condition was not immediately known." MB: According to Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, Rushdie suffered a stab wound to the neck. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Update: "The assailant stabbed Mr. Rushdie, 75, in the abdomen and the neck, the police and witnesses said, straining to continue the attack even as several people held him back. Mr. Rushdie was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital in Erie, Pa., where he was in surgery for several hours on Friday afternoon. Mr. Rushdie's agent, Andrew Wylie, said Friday evening that Mr. Rushdie was on a ventilator and could not speak. 'The news is not good,' Mr. Wylie said in an email. 'Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.' Major Eugene J. Staniszewski of the New York State Police identified the suspect in the attack as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man who was arrested at the scene, but said at a news conference late Friday afternoon that there was no indication yet of a motive."

Thomas Fuller of the New York Times: "The leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, said on Friday that the church was under investigation by the Justice Department for sexual abuse and that it would 'fully and completely cooperate.' Church leaders said in a statement that multiple branches of the denomination, which includes seminaries and missionary organizations, were under investigation.... In May, leaders of the church published a scathing review that said reports of sexual abuse were suppressed by top church officials for two decades."


Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "The polio virus has been detected in wastewater from New York City, suggesting the virus is likely circulating in the city, New York's health authorities said Friday. The announcement came after a man in Rockland County, N.Y., north of the city, was stricken with polio that left him with paralysis. Health officials fear that the detection of polio in New York City's wastewater could be followed by other cases of paralytic polio. The vaccination rate across the city fell slightly during the pandemic, as children's pediatrician visits were postponed. But most adults were vaccinated against polio as children. Across New York State, nearly 80 percent of people have been vaccinated. The spread of the virus poses a risk to unvaccinated people, but the polio vaccine is nearly 100 percent effective in people who have been fully immunized." (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Pennsylvania Senate Race. Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, returned to the campaign trail on Friday evening for his first major public event since he suffered a stroke in mid-May. Mr. Fetterman was by turns emotional and brash as he addressed an exuberant crowd, acknowledging the gravity of the health scare he faced while also slamming his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician, and pledging to fight for 'every county, every vote.'... Several people who have spoken with him or heard him speak at private events described him as eager to return to the campaign trail, though some have also said it was evident when he was reaching for a word. He has acknowledged that challenge, and it was at times apparent on Friday when he started a sentence over or spoke haltingly." Politico's story is here.

Wisconsin. 2020 Presidential Election. Scott Bauer of the AP: "Wisconsin's Republican Assembly leader on Friday ended a 14-month, taxpayer-funded inquiry into the 2020 election by firing his hand-picked investigator. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos' firing of Michael Gableman came just three days after the lawmaker narrowly survived a primary challenge from an opponent endorsed by ... Donald Trump and Gableman. While Gableman found no evidence of widespread fraud during his inquiry, he had joined Trump in calling for lawmakers to consider decertifying the 2020 election -- something Vos and legal experts say is unconstitutional and impossible. Vos announced the investigation last year under pressure from Trump and chose Gableman, a conservative former Supreme Court justice, to lead it. But as the investigation progressed, Vos' relationship soured with both Gableman and Trump.... [Gableman's] investigation had drawn bipartisan scorn, and his firing generated bipartisan praise."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Saturday are here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Saturday are here: "The Kremlin has condemned calls to ban all Russian travelers after [Ukraine's President] Zelensky told The Washington Post he wants Western countries to deny visas to Russians in a bid to deter Moscow from annexing Ukrainian territory. In a nightly address, Zelensky renewed his appeal for a ban.... Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States 'is concerned' by reports of British, Swedish and Croatian nationals being charged by 'illegitimate authorities in eastern Ukraine.' Pro-Moscow separatists in the east have tried foreign nationals for fighting alongside Kyiv.

Comments Off
Thursday
Aug112022

August 12, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

So here's Politico's banner headline: ~~~

Trump Under Investigation for Potential Violations of Espionage Act

Wall Street Journal reporters got hold of the search warrant & inventory of documents sought & retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. I myself, for reasons unknown was able to breach the WSJ firewall! ~~~

Alex Leary, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "FBI agents who searched ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump's ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the 'President of France,' according to the three-page list. The list is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises which was granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida. The list includes references to one set of documents marked as 'Various classified/TS/SCI documents,' an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. It also says agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents. The list didn't provide any more details about the substance of the documents. Mr. Trump's lawyers argue that the former president used his authority to declassify the material before he left office. While a president has the power to declassify documents, there are federal regulations that lay out a process for doing so.... The search and seizure warrant, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, shows that FBI agents sought to search 'the 45 Office,' as well as 'all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by [the former president] and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.'" A CNN report, which has been expanded since first linked, is here. An NBC News story is here. ~~~

The New York Times is once again live-blogging developments in Trump's theft of highly-sensitive national security documents. ~~~

"Federal agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potentia' crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation; and another statute associated with unlawful removal of government materials.... The most informative and sensitive document, an affidavit detailing the 'probable cause' evidence that prompted Judge Reinhart to approve the search, will not be released now, or probably ever, department officials said on Thursday....

"The search warrant for Trump's residence cited three criminal laws, all from Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; Section 1519, which covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings; and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. Notably, none of those laws turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified....

"Shortly after 3 p.m. Eastern, the Justice Department notified the court that 'counsel for former President Trump -- M. Evan Corcoran, Esq., and James Trusty, Esq. -- have informed the government that the former President does not object to the government motion to unseal' the search warrant and the inventory list."

Marie: Sooner or later, the two unsealed docs will be published, and I'll link to copies.

Zoë Richards of NBC News: "... Donald Trump on Friday denied a report from The Washington Post that said FBI agents were looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons, among other items, when they searched his Mar-a-Lago home this week. On his Truth Social platform, Trump said that 'Nuclear weapons is a hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax,' referring to then-special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Trump attacked the officials involved with the search of his home, calling them 'sleazy.' MB: Given that Trump knew we were about to find out that he had stolen top-secret docs, this is an extraordinary denial. Of course it's true that Trump didn't lift any "nuclear weapons" as he mentions; on the other hand, the WashPo article did not suggest he was storing a nuclear bomb in the Mar-a-Lardo basement. So Trump is denying something that no one asserted.

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Republicans who days ago united in preemptive defense of Donald Trump are struggling to stay on the same page following new questions about documents that the former president was holding at his Florida residence. The FBI's daylong search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this week, personally approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, sparked near-universal GOP outrage and allegations of a politicized Justice Department. In the wake of reports that the search was tied to concerns Trump may have improperly taken highly classified White House documents related to nuclear weapons and so-called special access operations, however, Republicans are politically diverging. While some GOP lawmakers acknowledged Friday that a scenario in which Trump withheld nuclear-related documents would be problematic, House Republican leaders are still rallying behind him and suggesting without evidence that President Joe Biden sought to weaponize DOJ against a political rival."

Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "Leadership at the Justice Department forcefully pushed back against attacks on the bureau, with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray issuing statements condemning such rhetoric just hours apart on Thursday. Wray made clear Thursday that he sees the attacks as undermining not just the bureau, but the role law enforcement plays in a democracy. 'Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans,' Wray said in a statement.... [Donald] Trump has repeatedly referred to the FBI's search as a raid and suggested multiple times, without evidence, that agents may have been 'planting information.'"

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "On few previous occasions has the Trump movement so embraced Stephen K. Bannon's strategy (paraphrased here) of flooding the zone with garbage as after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago....But ... it's difficult to top the latest entry." After several Fox "News" hosts latched onto a story that President Obama had "had 30 million records shipped to Chicago for his presidential library," Trump got out the muck spreader & fake-tweeted, 'What happened to the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama? He refused to give them back! What is going on? This act was strongly at odds with NARA. Will they be breaking into Obama's "mansion" in Martha's Vineyard?'... But ... the Obama team was transferring the records to Chicago through the National Archives.... There isn't the faintest hint of legal violations -- nor does the New York Post's story suggest as much.... And on Friday, after Trump raised the issue again, the Archives sought to put an end to the charade [and clarified that they, not President Obama, has retained control of those records]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So if I were Trump, I would rob a bank cashier's till, then complain that you were worse than I because you had gotten more money when you made a cash withdrawal from your bank account. Unfortunately, "Barack Hussein Obama stole 30 million documents & the FBI ignored it" will soon become a true thing among the Trumpbots.

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: Department of Homeland Security Inspector General "Joseph V. Cuffari [--a Trump appointee --] and his staff have refused to release certain documents and tried to block interviews, effectively delaying ... [an investigation], which has now stretched for more than 15 months and evolved into a wide-ranging inquiry into more than a dozen allegations of misconduct raised by whistleblowers and other sources.... That probe, for now, does not include an investigation into the missing Secret Service texts [sent around Jan. 6, 2021], which instead are the subject of multiple congressional inquiries. Some Republican senators have also raised stiff resistance to the wider investigation into Cuffari -- which is being overseen by a panel of federal watchdogs from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE).... Led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) the senators have demanded that investigators scale back records requests from Cuffari's office and pressed them on their motives...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Needless to say, any sentence that begins with the phrase, "Led by Sen. Josh Hawley," can only end in nonsense or worse, unless what is being led by Josh Hawley is cute little puppies.

Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "A Manhattan state court judge on Friday declined to throw out the criminal case against Donald J. Trump's family business and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, clearing the way for a trial in the case scheduled for the fall. Mr. Weisselberg and the business, the Trump Organization, were charged last year by the Manhattan district attorney's office with having engaged in a 15-year scheme in which executives were compensated with hidden benefits so that they could evade taxes. The charges stemmed from the office's long-running investigation into the company's business practices. In February, Mr. Weisselberg and the company filed motions to dismiss the charges, arguing that the case was politically motivated and that the defendants were charged only because of their link with former president Donald J. Trump. The decision marked the latest legal blow to Mr. Trump in a week full of them." Here's a Law & Crime story.

Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "The polio virus has been detected in wastewater from New York City, suggesting the virus is likely circulating in the city, New York's health authorities said Friday. The announcement came after a man in Rockland County, N.Y., north of the city, was stricken with polio that left him with paralysis. Health officials fear that the detection of polio in New York City's wastewater could be followed by other cases of paralytic polio. The vaccination rate across the city fell slightly during the pandemic, as children's pediatrician visits were postponed. But most adults were vaccinated against polio as children. Across New York State, nearly 80 percent of people have been vaccinated. The spread of the virus poses a risk to unvaccinated people, but the polio vaccine is nearly 100 percent effective in people who have been fully immunized."

Joshua Goodman of the AP: "Salman Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked Friday as he was about to give a lecture in western New York. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The 75-year-old author was pushed or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained. Rushdie was quickly surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, presumably to send more blood to his chest. His condition was not immediately known." MB: According to Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, Rushdie suffered a stab wound to the neck. ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments.

~~~~~~~~~~

Harper Neidig & Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "The Justice Department on Thursday moved to unseal a warrant authorizing a search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this week following escalating demands for answers about the unprecedented investigation. 'The public's clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing,' Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing submitted Thursday afternoon. The filing coincided with a public statement from Attorney General Merrick Garland, his first since FBI agents executed the search warrant on Monday. Garland said he personally signed off on the decision to apply for and execute search warrant, and that the decision was not made 'lightly.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Garland's full remarks, as delivered, are here (via the DOJ site). Here's is the DOJ's motion to unseal the search warrant & property receipt, via CNN. ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging reactions to Garland's remarks: Here's one entry from Katie Benner: "Trump allies are discussing the possibility of challenging the Justice Department's motion to unseal the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. They have contacted outside lawyers about helping them, according to a person briefed on the discussions."

To the AG & FBI Dir: RELEASE THE WARRANT NOW. The American people deserve to see it. NOW. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Twitter

At a minimum, Garland must resign or be impeached. The search warrant must be published. Christopher Wray must be removed. And the FBI reformed top to bottom. -- Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) ~~~

     ~~~ Calling the Trumpists' Bluff. Kyle Cheney & Meredith McGraw of Politico: "Some [of Donald Trump's allies] even developed a rallying cry as they attacked the [Justice D]epartment: Release the warrant! On Thursday, the Justice Department responded to the deluge with a simple 'OK.' Then, just before midnight, Trump -- who has had a copy of the search warrant since Monday -- announced he too supported the release, all but ensuring it is likely to be revealed as soon as Friday.... Though Trump has had the option to release the search warrant since Monday, it took a DOJ gambit to force the issue."

Dear Trumpbots, the Gestapo did not go to Trump's house. This is not like Nicaraqua, Marco. It is not a Third-World raid, Rick Scott. The agents did not go rogue, Steve Scalise. The Nazis did not plant evidence, Li'l Randy. ~~~

~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year, when he returned boxes of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people familiar with the matter said.... The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago.... Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act. The subpoena was first disclosed by John Solomon, a conservative journalist who has also been designated by Mr. Trump as one of his representatives to the National Archives." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The reporters note that "The existence of the subpoena is being used by allies of Mr. Trump to make a case that the former president and his team were cooperating with the Justice Department in identifying and returning the documents in question and that the search was unjustified." Say what? Are Trumpbots just that flat-out stupid? Trump wasn't "cooperating." When caught, he returned some of the stuff he stole but not all of it. The FBI obtained the warrant because Trump did not fully comply with the subpoena. It's as if I robbed you, then when the cops found my fingerprints all over your house, I returned some of the stuff to you but kept your most expensive jewelry. Oh, and then I whined to the local newspaper that the police chief & the mayor were Nazis or third-world dictators.

** Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of ... Donald Trump's Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation. Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So, Republican "leaders," are you really okay with Trump's leaving nuclear secrets lying around the place? Just asking. (Maybe I should remind you that a Chinese spy carrying four cellphones & other electronic equipment once gained entrance to the property.) ~~~

     ~~~ John Brennan said on MSNBC last night that when he was a national security advisor to President Obama, he sometimes handled nuclear weapons documents that were secured in the White House, & the procedure to access them was exacting. When he was promoted to CIA director, however, he no longer had access to these documents because they were made available only on a need-to-know basis. And these types of docs, to secret for the CIA director to access, are what Trump secreted off to Mar-a-Lardo for anyone who attends any of the club's social events to find. I get why Trump stole some mementos, but there is certainly a more sinister reason for stealing top-secret nuclear docs. Brennan & Ali Velshi also establish that the way in which these docs are monitored, a person could not "accidentally" stuff them in his briefcase & "accidentally" carry them upstairs. BTW, now that the FBI has secured these documents, hasn't it ever occurred to anyone that there's a photocopying machine at Mar-a-Lardo? (I suppose it's possible that some of these documents can't be copied.) That is, just because the FBI retrieved most or all of the documents doesn't mean Trump doesn't still have copies of them. ~~~

     ~~~ OR, as mistermix of Balloon Juice puts it, "'Falling into the wrong hands' LOL. Those fucking documents weren't going to 'fall' or be 'misplaced'. Trump was going to sell or trade them. It looks like what happened is that Trump first turned over some documents voluntarily, then he was subpoenaed for some more, then a little bird told the FBI that there were still more documents, so they executed a search warrant and carried them away. I'll bet there are some more documents squirreled away in his laundry hamper or hidden under one of his packages of adult diapers."

Dareh Gregorian & Marc Caputo of NBC News tackle the question of whether or not a president* can wave a magic wand & declassify bunches of unspecified classified documents in boxes. Why, Trump's people say yes. And responsible people say no. In fact, Mark Meadows -- who is not a responsible person -- accidentally once said no: "The president indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents."

Trump Hires #BillionDollarLawyer. Danny Hakim & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has hired a high-powered Atlanta lawyer to represent him in an inquiry into election interference in Georgia. The lawyer, Drew Findling, has represented an array of rap stars including Cardi B, Gucci Mane and Migos, and is known by the hashtag #BillionDollarLawyer. But he has not been a fan of Mr. Trump; in one 2018 post on Twitter, after Mr. Trump criticized LeBron James, Mr. Findling referred to Mr. Trump as 'the racist architect of fraudulent Trump University.' In 2017, after Mr. Trump fired the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, Mr. Findling said on Twitter that it was 'a sign of FEAR that he would aggressively investigate the stench hovering over this POTUS.' He has also called Mr. Trump's history of harsh comments about the five Black and Latino men who as teenagers were wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park 'racist, cruel, sick, unforgivable, and un-American!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Death Comes to the Trump Believer. Marie: This story started out linked under News Ledes because I anticipated it would be a standard crazy-man-with-gun story. But no ~~~

~~~ New York Times liveblog: "After a lengthy standoff, police officers shot and killed an armed man accused of trying to break into the F.B.I.'s Cincinnati office on Thursday, officials in Ohio said, but the motives of the man remained unclear. Investigators are looking into whether the man had ties to extremist groups, including one that participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter. In what appeared to be one of his social media accounts, the suspect posted a message earlier this week, just days after federal agents searched the Florida home of ... Donald J. Trump, threatening to kill employees of the F.B.I.... The suspect, identified by the officials as Ricky Shiffer, 42, seems to have appeared in a video posted on Facebook on Jan. 5, 2021, showing him attending a pro-Trump rally at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington the night before the Capitol was stormed." Shiffer also claimed he was present at the insurrection but claimed in May only to have watched what he called "goons" scaling the Capitol's walls. ~~~

     ~~~ A Washington Post story is here. A CNN report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Ben Collins, et al., of NBC News: "A man identified by two law enforcement sources as Ricky Shiffer, who died in a confrontation with police after firing a nail gun at an FBI Cincinnati building, appeared to post online in recent days about his desire to kill FBI agents shortly after ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence was searched.... On Truth Social, a social media platform founded by Trump's media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, Shiffer appeared to have posted a message detailing his failed attempt to gain entry to the FBI building.... Shiffer posted to Truth Social multiple times in the days after the FBI searched Trump's residence about wanting to engage in violence. One post called for people to arm themselves and be ready for 'combat.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Keegan Hamilton & Tess Owen of Vice: "Two days ago, after the Mar-a-Lago search, Shiffer posted, 'People this is it. I hope a call to arms comes from someone better qualified, but if not, this is your call to arms from me. Leave work tomorrow as soon as the gun shop/ Army-Navy store/ pawn shop opens, get whatever you need to be ready for combat. We must not tolerate this one. They have been conditioning us to accept tyranny and we must respond with force.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have heard that Trump's platform does not allow commentary critical of Trump. But apparently messages that threaten to kill FBI agents are A-OK. I thought Trump's fake-Twitter platform was stupid; now I am beginning to see that it could become the public platform for a violent revolution. Update: according to the Vice report, Truth Social deleted Shiffer's entries Thursday evening. So Shiffer's calls for violence were okay until he became a national story. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe none of us, including the now-dead Trump follower, would have known about the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago if Donald Trump had not chosen to complain about it. If Trump's lackeys had not then expressed outrage about the FBI's retrieving items Trump stole from the American people, the dead guy might not be dead. I suppose nobody but his family cares about the dead guy, but if the nascent news stories about his motivation prove true, he is definitely a victim of the right-wing liars & screamers consortium.

Vimal Patel of the New York Times: "A federal judge sentenced a former police officer on Thursday to more than seven years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 attack, equaling the longest punishment handed down so far in the Justice Department's sprawling investigation into the Capitol riot. The man, Thomas Robertson of Ferrum, Va., was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, by Judge Christopher Cooper of U.S. District Court in Washington. A federal jury found Mr. Robertson, 49, guilty in April of five felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, and carrying a weapon in a restricted building, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Prosecutors said the Army veteran, who had wielded a large stick and donned a gas mask during the riot, had confronted police officers...."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "It took many accidents, catastrophes, misjudgments and mistakes for Donald Trump to win the presidency in 2016. Two particularly important errors came from James Comey, then the head of the F.B.I., who was excessively worried about what Trump's supporters would think of the resolution of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.... Comey's attempts to pre-empt a conservative firestorm blew up in his face. He helped put Trump in the White House, where Trump did generational damage to the rule of law and led us to a place where prominent Republicans are calling for abolishing the F.B.I. This should be a lesson about the futility of shaping law enforcement decisions around the sensitivities of Trump's base. Yet ... some intelligent people have questioned the wisdom of subjecting the former president to the normal operation of the law because of the effect it will have on his most febrile admirers.... We already know, however, that the failure to bring Trump to justice ... has been disastrous.... No doubt, Trump's most inflamed fans might act out in horrifying ways; many are heavily armed and speak lustily about civil war. To let this dictate the workings of justice is to accept an insurrectionists' veto." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The right-wing scream machine is a political tactic as much as are leftist peaceful protests. Wingers used mob violence to stop the vote count in Miami in 2000, putting Bush in the White House. They used violence & fake outrage to put Trump in the White House the first time, as Goldberg points out, and they ramped that up to try to effect a coup. And in the meantime, they have used it in hundreds of other instances, from disrupting school board meetings to intimidating lawmakers imposing mask mandates. Behaving badly is what they do. And it works.


Lena Sun & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday loosened many of its recommendations for battling the coronavirus, a strategic shift that puts more of the onus on individuals, rather than on schools, businesses and other institutions, to limit viral spread. No longer do schools and other institutions need to screen apparently healthy students and employees as a matter of course. The CDC is putting less emphasis on social distancing -- and the new guidance has dropped the 'six foot' standard. The quarantine rule for unvaccinated people is gone. The agency's focus now is on highly vulnerable populations and how to protect them -- not on the vast majority of people who at this point have some immunity against the virus and are unlikely to become severely ill. The new recommendations signal that the Biden administration and its medical advisers have decided that the lower fatality rate from covid-19 in a heavily vaccinated population permits a less demanding set of guidelines." Access is free to nonsubscribers. A CNN report is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Mississippi. Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch told a federal court last week that U.S. law already makes mailing abortion pills a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and even racketeering charges. She made the argument on the behalf of the State of Mississippi as a defendant in a case against GenBioPro Inc., a generic manufacturer of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved abortion pill mifepristone. In the case, GenBioPro, Inc. v. Edney, the pharmaceutical company is arguing that the State's trigger law banning almost all abortions at any stage 'prevents GBP from selling its product in Mississippi' and that it 'prevents access to an FDA-approved medication that has been deemed safe and effective.'... A June 27, 2022, article in Reason cited Professor David S. Cohen, an expert on gender and law at Drexel Kline School of Law, who said 'the circuit courts long ago declared [the federal laws Fitch cited] only apply to unlawful items.'"

Texas Gubernatorial Race. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: "Beto O'Rourke on Wednesday railed against Texans' easy access to AR-style rifles like the one used in May to massacre 19 students and two of their teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex.... A heckler cackled." And it wasn't long before Beto responded. (Also linked yesterday afternoon. ~~~

     ~~~ Oh, Dear. Dustin Jones of NPR "weigh[s] the pros & cons of ... dropping an f-bomb on a heckler."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's warn on Ukraine are here.

News Lede

Washington Post: "The actress Anne Heche, who had been in a coma since a car crash last week, has been declared brain-dead and is being kept on life-support to see if her organs are viable for donation, one of her representatives said Friday. Ms. Heche, 53, was critically injured on Aug. 5 when she crashed the Mini Cooper she was driving into a home in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, the authorities said. She sustained a severe anoxic brain injury and was being treated at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital, according to a statement released on behalf of her family and friends Thursday night."

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Wednesday
Aug102022

August 11, 2022

Reality Chex was down for a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon, so don't be all surprised if it goes down again. If worse comes to worst, I'll post a few entries on Twitter @CONSTANTWEADER. In the meantime, if all goes well, it's bizniz as usual. -- Marie

Afternoon Update:

Harper Neidig & Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "The Justice Department on Thursday moved to unseal a warrant authorizing a search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this week following escalating demands for answers about the unprecedented investigation. 'The public's clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing,' Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing submitted Thursday afternoon. The filing coincided with a public statement from Attorney General Merrick Garland, his first since FBI agents executed the search warrant on Monday. Garland said he personally signed off on the decision to apply for and execute search warrant, and that the decision was not made 'lightly.'"

Dear Trumpbots, the Gestapo did not go to Trump's house. This is not like Nicaraqua, Marco. It is not a Third-World raid, Rick Scott. The agents did not go rogue, Steve Scalise. The Nazis did not plant evidence, Li'l Randy. ~~~

~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year, when he returned boxes of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people familiar with the matter said.... The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago.... Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act. The subpoena was first disclosed by John Solomon, a conservative journalist who has also been designated by Mr. Trump as one of his representatives to the National Archives." ~~~

     ~~~ The reporters note that "The existence of the subpoena is being used by allies of Mr. Trump to make a case that the former president and his team were cooperating with the Justice Department in identifying and returning the documents in question and that the search was unjustified." Say what? Are Trumpbots just that flat-out stupid? Trump wasn't "cooperating." When caught, he returned some of the stuff he stole but not all of it. The FBI obtained the warrant because Trump did not fully cooperate. It's as if I robbed you, then when the cops found my fingerprints all over your house, I returned some of the stuff to you but kept your most expensive jewelry. Oh, and then I whined to the local newspaper that the police chief & the mayor were Nazis or third-world dictators.

Trump Hires #BillionDollarLawyer. Danny Hakim & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has hired a high-powered Atlanta lawyer to represent him in an inquiry into election interference in Georgia. The lawyer, Drew Findling, has represented an array of rap stars including Cardi B, Gucci Mane and Migos, and is known by the hashtag #BillionDollarLawyer. But he has not been a fan of Mr. Trump; in one 2018 post on Twitter, after Mr. Trump criticized LeBron James, Mr. Findling referred to Mr. Trump as 'the racist architect of fraudulent Trump University.' In 2017, after Mr. Trump fired the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, Mr. Findling said on Twitter that it was 'a sign of FEAR that he would aggressively investigate the stench hovering over this POTUS.' He has also called Mr. Trump's history of harsh comments about the five Black and Latino men who as teenagers were wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park 'racist, cruel, sick, unforgivable, and un-American!'"

Texas. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: "Beto O'Rourke on Wednesday railed against Texans' easy access to AR-style rifles like the one used in May to massacre 19 students and two of their teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex.... A heckler cackled." And it wasn't long before Beto responded: ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

** Michael Scherer, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden paused last week, during one of the busiest stretches of his presidency, for a nearly two-hour private history lesson from a group of academics who raised alarms about the dire condition of democracy at home and abroad. The conversation ... on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance.... Comparisons were made to the years before the 1860 election when Abraham Lincoln warned that a 'house divided against itself cannot stand' and the lead-up to the 1940 election, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled rising domestic sympathy for European fascism and resistance to the United States joining World War II." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As someone who has held high-level Washington jobs for all but four years since January 1973, Joe Biden is the best-informed president in American history. Donald Trump, who has never held a real job since his father had him collecting rents when he was a very young man, came to the presidency as the most uninformed person to hold the office. And yet, and yet. It is Joe Biden who has been holding meetings without outside experts to increase his knowledge of the bigger picture. Trump, on the other hand, whose defense of ignorance was to claim he had a very good brain, told experts -- rather than ask them -- what he thought the big picture was. For instance, we learned earlier this week that Trump told John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, that Hitler's generals were loyal to Hitler, unlike Trump's generals who didn't bend to his will. When Kelly informed Trump that Hitler's general were so disloyal that some of them tried to assassinate Hitler, Trump told Kelly he was wrong (NYT link). And that, kids, explains why Joe Biden has tried -- and mostly succeeded IMO -- to be a good president, and Donald Trump, who never gave good governance a thought, was the worst. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Also see Akhilleus' commentary on this in today's thread. Akhilleus has me enraged because every word he writes is true -- and infuriating.

Trumpidy-doo-dah, Trumpidy-ay, My Oh My ...

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Throughout his four years in the White House, [Donald] Trump tried to turn the nation's law enforcement apparatus into an instrument of political power to carry out his wishes. Now as the F.B.I. under [Christoper] Wray has executed an unprecedented search warrant at the former president's Florida home, Mr. Trump is accusing the nation's justice system of being exactly what he tried to turn it into: a political weapon for a president, just not for him. There is, in fact, no evidence that President Biden has had any role in the investigation. Mr. Biden has not publicly demanded that the Justice Department lock up Mr. Trump the way Mr. Trump publicly demanded that the Justice Department lock up Mr. Biden and other Democrats. Nor has anyone knowledgeably contradicted the White House statement that it was not even informed about the search at Mar-a-Lago beforehand, much less involved in ordering it. But Mr. Trump has a long history of accusing adversaries of doing what he himself does or would do in the same situation." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Baker cites Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, who echoes something I said yesterday: "Trump simply doesn't understand people like Garland and the top leadership of D.O.J. and the F.B.I. because their values are so alien to him."

The Mole at Mar-a-Lardo. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "In a telling exclusive for Newsweek, Government officials revealed that a 'confidential informant' helped provide the basis for the FBI search of ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-lago resort home.... [Newsweek reports that] 'The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.'... According to the two sources[, t]he raid had nothing to do with the January 6 investigation or any other alleged wrongdoing by the former president.'" ~~~

~~~ Alex Leary, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "Monday's search [of Mar-a-Lago] came after weeks of internal deliberation among senior Justice Department and FBI officials and marked an escalation of their investigation into [Donald] Trump's handling of classified material, people familiar with the matter said.... The [search] warrant, signed by a judge in Palm Beach County, refers to the Presidential Records Act and possible violation of law over handling of classified information, according to Christina Bobb, a lawyer for the former president. The warrant hasn't been made public by Mr. Trump nor has the inventory of documents retrieved by the government. FBI officials showed up with instructions to keep the search as unobtrusive as possible, with agents dressed in plainclothes and told not to take any weapons, people familiar with the plan said.... In the days since then, Mr. Trump's associates have been reaching out to defense attorneys to see if they would represent Mr. Trump in the matter, a sign of concern over the former president's potential legal trouble." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As you no doubt know, WSJ stories are subscriber-firewalled, but I was able to access the story. If you can't access the story via the link above, try Googling a short quote. The Guardian has a related story here.

Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "... Donald Trump has so far declined to release the search warrant served at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida on Monday, prompting various third-party efforts to unseal the document in federal court even as his supporters have taken to issuing an avalanche of death threats against the magistrate judge who issued the writ authorizing the unprecedented law enforcement visit. On Wednesday, conservative legal nonprofit group Judicial Watch filed a motion to unseal the Trump search warrant with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.... The judge overseeing the case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, quickly directed the U.S. Department of Justice to respond to Judicial Watch-s motion to unseal by the end of next Monday, Aug. 15, 2022.... Two media organizations -- the Albany, New York-based Times Union and The New York Times -- filed their own motions in the case regarding the warrant."

David Gilbert of Vice: "Far-right extremists on pro-Donald Trump message boards and social networks are making violent, antisemitic threats against the judge who reportedly signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to search the former president's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Multiple members of these toxic online communities are even posting what appears to be Judge Bruce Reinhart's home address, phone numbers, and names of his family members alongside threats of extreme violence.... These threats of violence and antisemitic slurs [appeared] on a range of platforms, including 4chan, Telegram, Gettr, Gab, and Trump's own platforms called Truth Social.... A message board where a number of these threats were posted also happens to be the same one where many of those involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot posted threats of violence in the lead-up to Jan. 6.... As Trump has scrambled to explain why his home was searched, he has also pushed conspiracy theories about the FBI supposedly planting evidence there. Right-wing news outlets have also tried to connect the judge to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, [a friend of Trump's]." Reinhart once represented some of Epstein's employees, not Epstein himself. Some commenters said or implied Reinhart himself was a pedophile.

The mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment? -- Donald Trump, September 2016 (WashPo link) ~~~

~~~ Trump Surprised Constitution Can Come in Handy. From the New York Times liveblog, also linked below: "Donald J. Trump declined to answer questions from the New York state attorney general's office on Wednesday, a stunning gamble in a high-stakes legal interview that is likely to determine the course of a civil investigation into his company's business practices. In a statement released shortly after the questioning began on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, explaining that he 'declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.' After the deposition began, two sources with knowledge of the matter confirmed that he was refusing to answer questions, citing the Fifth Amendment." The Hill's report is here. The Guardian has a story here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Thanks to Ken W. for the link. MB: As Ken pointed out yesterday, there's a bit of irony in this development -- Trump spent four years as president* (and in his telling, he is still president) ignoring the laws & the Constitutution, but suddenly he finds something in the venerable document he likes. I suppose Ken & I are being a bit unfair inasmuch as Trump was fond on that part of the Article II -- apparently written in invisible ink, as no one else has seen it -- that said he could do whatever he wanted. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times now has a stand-alone story covering the nation's Number 1 Mob Boss & his pathetic deposition appearance: ~~~

     ~~~ Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump has long derided public figures who invoke their constitutional right against self incrimination, but on Wednesday he took full advantage of the Fifth Amendment. For hours under oath, Mr. Trump sat across from the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, responding to every question posed by her investigators by repeating the phrase 'same answer' over and over again.... Mr. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right while openly questioning the legitimacy of the legal process -- as he has with the nation's electoral system -- and insulting a law enforcement official sitting just a few feet away. Mr. Trump's only detailed comment, people with knowledge of the proceeding said, was an all-out attack on the attorney general and her inquiry which he called a continuation of 'the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.... I once asked, "If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"' he said while reading from a prepared statement, which overlapped significantly with one he released to the public. 'I now know the answer to that question.' He said that he was being targeted by lawyers, prosecutors and the news media, and that left him with 'absolutely no choice' but to do so." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Nothing shocking about Trump's insulting Letitia James. She's a Black woman who has power over him. Over the years, Trump has made it apparent he can't stand that. BTW, invoking the Fifth has consequences in a civil case, as this one is. As the NYT reporters note, "Jurors in civil matters can in many cases draw a negative inference when a defendant invokes his or her Fifth Amendment privilege, unlike in criminal cases, where exercising the right against self-incrimination cannot be held against the defendant." According to Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, Trump invoked the Fifth 440 times over the course of four hours.

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "While the [New York] case involves Trump's personal business, Business Insider noticed that the ex-president used taxpayer dollars in his response that attacks New York Attorney General Letitia James. Four email messages were sent out from the official Office of the Former President of Donald J. Trump, all of which lashed out at Trump for what he deemed a 'radical witch hunt.' He then posted videos on the anything-goes video site Rumble attacking [James] further.... Read the full report at Business Insider (firewalled)."

Irony Stacked Upon Irony. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "If Trump is found to have violated federal law in removing and retaining classified documents without authorization, he could be convicted of a felony punishable by five years in prison. And that conviction would be a felony carrying that punishment because of a law signed by President Donald Trump.... During his first year in office, a central tool used for surveillance by the intelligence community -- Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act -- was set to expire. Shortly before it did, Congress passed an extension of the authority for another five years.... [Trump criticized the extension, but] on Jan. 18, 2018, he signed it into law.... [The bill, as signed, included a provision that escalated the punishment for improperly retained classified documents, specifying that a person who does so]: '... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.' And with that, it became a felony." Former administration official Kash Patel claimed on Fox "News&" Tuesday that Trump has declassified all the material he took from the White House. "... it is conceivable that Trump's defense against his potential possession of classified material at Mar-a-Lago may be that he declassified it while still president, even if no formal record of the declassification was made." ~~~

     ~~~ AND Hillary Gets the Last Laugh. Marie: Bump adds a fun coda: Accurately describing Patel as "one of the [Trump] administration's most loyal defenders during Trump's presidency," Bump reminds us that Patel had previously served as a staffer to Rep. Devin Nunes during the infamous period in which Nunes made an hilarious midnight White House run in an attempt to absolve Trump from the Russia scandal. Nunes also was a prominent critic of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. So ... "H.R. 4478, the legislation that became S. 139 and which escalated the punishment for the retention of classified material, was introduced in the House by Nunes." ~~~

Marie: The "I declassified all this stuff" defense may not prove to be convincing. First, a former president or president* has no ability to declassify classified material. Even as Patel claims Trump declassified the docs while he was still president*, numerous reports have asserted that the classified docs retrieved at Mar-a-Lardo were not properly recorded as declassified & were not marked as such. There's no evidence, IOW, that Trump declassified the docs -- other than his say-so. Which is worthless. Moreover, since Trump is still president* only his own mind, the real President -- Joe Biden -- can reclassify documents Trump has declassified. (It occurs to me that since Biden doesn't necessarily know what-all Trump stole, Biden may not have been able to reclassify documents he doesn't know Trump claims to have declassified.) And then there's this: Neal Katyal pointed out on MSNBC that Trump, unlike former real presidents, does not have security clearance because President Biden determined Trump could not be trusted to safely handle classified information. In addition, as Bump points out, Trump signed a bill making what he did a felony, so he can hardly assert ignorance of a law of his own making. In short, IMO, Trump not only had no right to retain classified documents that belong to the federal government, he has no right to read or otherwise access them.

Jan Murphy & Charles Thompson of the (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News: "Federal investigators delivered subpoenas or paid visits to several House and Senate Republican offices in the Pennsylvania Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to multiple sources. At least some of the individuals receiving subpoenas were told they were not targets of an investigation..., but that they may have information of interest to the FBI. The information being requested centered around U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and the effort to seek alternate electors as part of ... Donald Trump's efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election, several sources said.... Perry, in a post to his re-election campaign's Facebook page Tuesday evening, called the seizure of his phone ... 'banana republic tactics.... I'm outraged -- though not surprised -- that the FBI under the direction of Merrick Garland's DOJ, would seize the phone of a sitting member of Congress,' he said. If the telephone was seized under the cover of a search warrant, however, it would have had to have been approved by a federal magistrate judge.... Perry, in a [new] statement..., said that he has been told he is not a target of the probe that resulted in the seizure of his phone." Perry also invoked the Constitution's speech & debate clause. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Would that be where Article I says you can do anything you want, Scotty? I don't see where a cellphone record, unless it records something you said into an open mic on the House floor, is protected under the speech & debate clause. You people need to grow up & take responsibility for your actions. ~~~

~~~ Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: "The F.B.I.'s seizure of Representative Scott Perry's phone this week was at least the third major action in recent months taken in connection with an escalating federal investigation into efforts by several close allies of ... Donald J. Trump to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the matter.... While the [DOJ] inspector general's office had initial jurisdiction in the probe because [former DOJ official Jeffrey] Clark [-- also part of the scheme Perry allegedly advanced --] was an employee of the department, there have been signs in recent days that the investigation is increasingly being run by prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office in Washington.... Mr. Perry was instrumental in pushing Mr. Trump to appoint Mr. Clark as his acting attorney general over the objections of several other top officials at the Justice Department. At one of its presentations, the House committee released text messages in which Mr. Perry repeatedly pressured Mark Meadows ... to reach out to Mr. Clark."

Tiffany Hsu & Stuart Thompson of the New York Times: [Calls for voter drop-box stakeouts] "were galvanizing people in at least [ten] states, signaling the latest outgrowth from rampant election fraud conspiracy theories coursing through the Republican Party. In the nearly two years since ... Donald J. Trump catapulted false claims of widespread voter fraud from the political fringes to the conservative mainstream, a constellation of his supporters have drifted from one theory to another in a frantic but unsuccessful search for evidence. Many are now focused on ballot drop boxes ... under the unfounded belief that mysterious operatives, or so-called ballot mules, are stuffing them with fake ballots or otherwise tampering with them. And they are recruiting observers to monitor countless drop boxes across the country, tapping the millions of Americans who have been swayed by bogus election claims.... Some online commenters discussed bringing AR-15s and other firearms, and have voiced their desire to make citizens' arrests and log license plates." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Love the photo accompanying the story. That little old lady inserting what appears to be a single ballot into a drop box doesn't look much like a "ballot mule." But, hey, appearances can be deceiving!


Jordan Williams of the Hill: "President Biden on Wednesday signed into law a bill to expand benefits for millions of veterans who were exposed to toxins during war and are suffering illnesses as a result. The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act also expands presumptions of service connections for a variety of conditions related to toxic exposure -- meaning veterans don't have to prove their illness was service-connected." (Also linked yesterday.) A New York Times story is here. ~~~

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has charged a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with a plot to murder former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, accusing him of attempting to pay individuals $300,000 to kill Bolton in D.C. or Maryland. The suspect, Shahram Poursafi, 45, remains at large abroad, the Justice Department said. If found and convicted, he would face up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine up to $250,000 for the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, and up to 15 years imprisonment and a fine up to $250,000 for providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot. Federal officials said the attempted assassination of Bolton would have been retaliation for the U.S. military killing in January, 2020 of Qasem Soleimani, a top commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a branch of Iran's military. Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update: This essential DOJ assertion has been added to the story: "Officials said Poursafi was acting on behalf of the IRGC's elite Quds Force." An AP story is here.

Kate Sullivan of CNN: "Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday directed the Internal Revenue Service not to use any of the new funding allocated in the Democrats' new health care and climate bill to increase the number of audits of Americans making less than $400,000 a year, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by CNN. The letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig comes amid attacks from Republicans that the $80 billion the Inflation Reduction Act would give to the IRS over the next 10 years would result in more middle-class Americans and small businesses getting audited. The Biden administration has repeatedly said the IRS would focus on increased enforcement activity on high-wealth taxpayers and large corporations and not target households who earn less than $400,000 a year."

Happy Holidays! Hamza Shaban of the Washington Post: "Sending loved ones packages this holiday season will get more expensive, based on a planned rate hike from the U.S. Postal Service. The mail agency's board of governors approved a peak-season plan to up the costs of commercial and retail parcels from early October through late January to capture the bustling holiday shopping season when packages crisscross the country. Postal officials said the surcharge was necessary to keep rates competitive. The Postal Service generally does not receive taxpayer funding, but Congress restructured its finances this year to relieve $107 billion in past-due and future obligations. The agency relies on the sale of postage products to fund its operations, but Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Tuesday that the agency was facing a $60 billion to $70 billion shortfall over the next decade without substantial revisions and price hikes."

Jasmine Hilton of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors allege that a special deputy U.S. Marshal from Marylandwas part of a network that defrauded seniors out of almost $2 million in 'romance scams' over several years. Isidore Iwuagwu, 35, of Upper Marlboro, [Maryland,] has been charged with conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, according to the U.S. attorney's office for Maryland. Between October 2015 and July 2021, Iwuagwu was a part of romance scams where individuals engaged in online relationships with more than 20 victims via social media platforms and dating websites and swindled them out of large sums of money, prosecutors alleged. Victims reported a combined loss of $1.9 million,according to an affidavit, and at least $585,180 was connected to accounts belonging to Iwuagwu." MB: Well, see, Trump is right; you can't trust federal law enforcement officials. (Okay, never mind that Trump himself has scammed nitwits out of $millions.)

Beyond the Beltway

Indiana. One Way to Steal an Election. And It Works! Meryl Kornfied of the Washington Post: “Two Indiana officers were suspended after a stunning courtroom revelation that police thought a potential town council candidate was anti-police and arrested him, stopping him from running for office. During a July 19 hearing, Franklin County Prosecutor Chris Huerkamp dropped charges that included drug possession against Trevin Thalheimer after an officer and witness recounted how Brookville police talked about Thalheimer. Huerkamp, who also did not pursue a rape charge police had investigated, said he was 'disturbed beyond words' by the alleged police conduct and reported the incident to the Indiana State Police, which launched a criminal investigation. Brookville Police Chief Terry Mitchum and the investigating officer, Ryan Geiser, were suspended with pay from the nine-person force Thursday by the town’s council, which ordered them to stay away from other officers and town property.” Thalheimer said his arrest caused him not to seek election to the town council.

Minnesota House Race. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: “Republican Brad Finstad, a former state lawmaker, won the special election for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, defeating Democrat Jeff Ettinger in a closely watched race. The Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning, with Finstad holding a narrow lead of 51.1 percent to 46.9 percent with 98 percent of precincts reporting. The seat had been held by Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.), who died in February after a battle with kidney cancer. A member of a family that has farmed for generations, Finstad is the former director of rural development in Minnesota for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The 46-year-old Minnesota native was appointed to the position by ... Donald Trump.”

New Mexico. Ava Sasani, et al., of the New York Times: “The Afghan man accused of killing two Muslim men in Albuquerque had been charged in a series of assaults in recent years, accused of beating his wife and son and attacking a man whom his daughter was dating, according to police records released on Wednesday. Each time, prosecutors dismissed the charges against the man, Muhammad Syed, 51, who is now the leading suspect in the shooting deaths of four Muslim men — three of them over a recent 10-day stretch — that have shaken the tight-knit Muslim community in Albuquerque. Mr. Syed, who is also Muslim, was arrested on Monday by police officers who stopped his car about 100 miles from the Texas state line.”

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Thursday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Thursday are here: “Craters can be seen near a runway in aerial images of the Saki Air Base in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The pictures by U.S.-based Planet Labs emerged as a Ukrainian official ... told The Washington Post that Ukrainian special forces were behind the attack on the Russian base. While Kyiv claimed nine warplanes were destroyed, Moscow said an ammunition explosion caused Tuesday’s blasts.... Two separate explosions at the Crimea base suggest a potential attack rather than an accident in Tuesday’s incident, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said.... Russia and the United States are negotiating a prisoner exchange, a Russian foreign ministry official said, confirming talks on a swap are ongoing, without providing further details.... Russia requested a U.N. Security Council meeting on Thursday over the Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine. The head of the U.N. atomic energy watchdog has appealed for access to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and warned of the need to avert 'nuclear disaster.'... China’s ambassador to Moscow called Washington the 'main instigator' in the war.”

News Ledes

New York Times: “An armed man accused of trying to break into the F.B.I.’s Cincinnati office on Thursday morning exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officers after fleeing the area. He remained in a standoff hours later, officials said. The attack came three days after F.B.I. agents served a search warrant at the Florida home of ... Donald J. Trump, and a day after the F.B.I. director told reporters that online threats against federal law enforcement were 'deplorable and dangerous.' There was no immediate indication that the incident in Ohio was related to the Trump search.” This is a liveblog.

New York Times: “Gas prices in the United States fell below $4 a gallon on Thursday, retreating to their lowest level since March, a drop that has brought relief to Americans struggling with the skyrocketing cost of everything from groceries to rent. The national average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline now stands at $3.99, according to AAA. That’s higher than it was a year ago but still well below a peak of nearly $5.02 in mid-June.”

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