The affidavit as released is of course full of redactions, across its 38 pages. But it reveals some interesting nuggets about the search, including that the Department of Justice and FBI had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be found at Mar-a-Lago.
In another interesting section … the affidavit says that on 9 February 2022, the DoJ leaned that a preliminary review of 15 boxes taken to Mar-a-Lago “indicated that they contained ‘newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records, and ‘a lot of classified records’.
“Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.”
The affidavit reproduces a Trump statement after the issue became public, and then … is extensively redacted. The redacted passage is a chronological retelling of how the issue developed.
The next significant un-redacted passage contains the news that Trump’s own notes were included in the materials in question. It reads as follows:
“From May 16-18, 2022, FBI agents conducted a preliminary review of the FIFTEEN BOXES provided to NARA and identified documents with classification markings in fourteen of the FIFTEEN BOXES. A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI.
“Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s [Trump’s] handwritten notes.
Closing summary
It has been a day of drama as the redacted affidavit explaining why the FBI chose to raid Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was finally published to an eagerly awaiting world. It wasn’t exactly a damp squib. The document – much of which was blanked out – detailed the huge numbers of secret documents squirreled away and security risks they posed.
But due to the large numbers of redactions there was no explosive new line, though one thing does seem certain: this FBI investigation is just getting started and has a long long way to go.
Here’s what else happened today:
Amy Coney Barrett was in the news via a Guardian US scoop showing that a faith group she has been closely associated with places huge emphasis on female obedience.
Joe Biden and his administration stood by his calling out of the Republican politicians as behaving like semi-fascists. The move drew ire from the rightwing party.
Washington is to follow the path of its fellow west coast state California and pursue the eventual ban of sales of new gasoline-powered cars.
A Jim Crow-era provision of the Mississippi constitution designed to disfranchise Black voters is constitutional, a federal appellate court ruled.
Dow drops 1,000 points
The Guardian’s Dominic Rushe writes here that there has been a steep drop on Wall Street in response to the latest forecasts on the economy from Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell.
A 1,000 plus point drop is hardly a catastrophe but it is definitely a nasty fall.
Dominic writes:
US stock markets nosedived on Friday after Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, warned of “pain” ahead as the central bank struggles to bring down inflation from a 40-year high.
Powell’s highly anticipated speech was more hawkish than had been expected, with the Fed chair pledging to do all he could to end rising prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost just over 1,000 points, 3%, the S&P fell 3.3% and the Nasdaq dropped almost 4%.
Speaking at the Kansas City Fed’s annual meeting of the world’s central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell said the Fed’s “overarching focus right now is to bring inflation back down”.
Read more:
Nikki Haley for 2024?
The former UN ambassador under Donald Trump is often mentioned as a potential 2024 candidate and someone who could – potentially – straddle the two disparate and often bitterly feuding worlds of Trump and non-Trump Republicans.
That sees Haley frequently seek to a perform a difficult dance between courting her old bosses’ favor, but also trying not to seem too close to him.
Politico has the details of some of the people donating to her political future and it makes interesting reading of a long list of Republican stalwarts.
The report says: “Many of the GOP’s biggest donors are among those who funneled anonymous contributions to former U.N ambassador Nikki Haley’s nonprofit as she lays the groundwork for a prospective 2024 presidential bid, according to previously unreported tax documents obtained by Politico.
Haley’s nonprofit policy advocacy group, Stand For America, Inc, has received major donations from people including New York hedge fund manager Paul Singer, investor Stanley Druckenmiller, and Miriam Adelson and her late husband, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the Internal Revenue Service filings reveal.
The roster of supporters who gave undisclosed donations in 2019 also includes Suzanne Youngkin, the wife of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, himself a possible presidential contender; former Pennsylvania Senate candidate and hedge fund executive David McCormick; and Vivek and Lakshmi Garipalli, members of a New Jersey family that has donated large sums to Democrats – but which gave Haley’s organization $1 million.”
Fascist or not?
It might have seemed an odd question even just a few years ago, but Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday night has put the word “fascism” squarely into mainstream American political discourse.
His accusations that modern Republicans were behaving like semi-fascists certainty triggered questions to his top press spokesperson. The Biden administration – understandably – is standing behind the phrase.
Reuters captures the scene:
The actions of some Republicans allied to former President Donald Trump fit the definition of fascism, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday, a day after President Joe Biden said they edged toward “semi-fascism.”
“I was very clear when laying out and defining what MAGA Republicans have done and you look at the definition of fascism and you think about what they’re doing in attacking our democracy. … That is what that is. It is very clear,” Jean-Pierre told a press briefing.
MAGA refers to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. Fascism is a political philosophy that exalts nation and often race above the individual and supports an autocratic government led by a dictatorial leader involving the forced suppression of opposition, U.S. dictionary Merriam-Webster says.
In response to Biden’s Thursday evening comments that Trump-allied Republicans embraced violence and hatred, and edged toward “semi-fascism,” the Republican National Committee called the remarks “despicable.”
A key question
Washington Post columnist Helaine Olen seems to have hit the nail on the head with a very simple tweet. Answers on a postcard please… no redactions.
What’s the innocent explanation for Trump keeping all these classified documents?
— Helaine Olen (@helaineolen) August 26, 2022
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What’s the innocent explanation for Trump keeping all these classified documents?
— Helaine Olen (@helaineolen) August 26, 2022
Arizona judge strikes blow against election fairness skeptics
In just one of many such scenes playing out in courts across the US, Republicans who believe Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election and a fraudulent US voting process have suffered a set back.
An Arizona judge has refused to require that Arizona officials count ballots by hand in November, dismissing a lawsuit filed by Republican nominees for governor and secretary of state based on false claims of problems with vote-counting machines.
AP has more:
Kari Lake, who is running for governor, and Mark Finchem, a secretary of state candidate, won their GOP primaries after aggressively promoting the narrative that the 2020 election was marred by fraud or widespread irregularities.
Their lawsuit repeated unfounded allegations about the security of machines that count votes. They relied in part on testimony from Donald Trump supporters who led a discredited review of the election in Maricopa County, including Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, who oversaw the effort described by supporters as a “forensic audit.”
U.S. District Judge John Tuchi ruled that Lake and Finchem failed to show any realistic likelihood of harm and that their lawsuit must be brought in state, not federal, court. He also ruled that it is too close to the election to upend the process.
“The 2022 Midterm Elections are set to take place on November 8,” Tuchi wrote. “In the meantime, Plaintiffs request a complete overhaul of Arizona’s election procedures.”
Various reactions have been pouring out online over the affidavit.
Virginia Democratic senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee said:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“It appears, based on the affidavit unsealed this morning, that among the improperly handled documents at Mar-a-Lago were some of our most sensitive intelligence * which is one reason the Senate Intelligence Committee has requested, on a bipartisan basis, a damage assessment of any national security threat posed by the mishandling of this information. The Department of Justice investigation must be allowed to proceed without interference.”
Meanwhile, North Carolina Republican Representative Dan Bishop said:
“So much for transparency,” tweeting alongside a photo of redacted sections of the affidavit. Bishop is a member of the House of Representatives Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. echoed similar sentiments online, tweeting a photo of the redacted affidavit with the caption, “Well this really clears things up.”
Well this really clears things up. pic.twitter.com/6S2FxIQtSi
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 26, 2022
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Well this really clears things up. pic.twitter.com/6S2FxIQtSi
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 26, 2022
Nina Lakhani and Oliver Milman report…
Taking on the fossil fuel industry in West Virginia was always going to be a David v Goliath type battle, but after years of protests, lobbying and lawsuits, 68-year-old Becky Crabtree thought the community-led resistance had beaten the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP) in a fair fight.
So when news broke earlier in August that the state’s fossil-fuel friendly senator Joe Manchin had resurrected the pipeline, Crabtree, a high school science teacher who teaches students about the climate crisis, felt “numb”.
Manchin, a conservative Democrat who receives more campaign financing from the fossil fuel industry – including pipeline companies – than any other lawmaker in Congress, had agreed to back his party’s historic climate legislation before the crucial midterm elections. But only after he negotiated a side-deal to fast-track the MVP.
“It’s the unfairness that makes me so angry. It’s a deal with the devil,” said Crabtree, 68, who owns a 30-acre sheep farm in Lindside, Monroe county.
Full story:
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just finished briefing the media and taking questions and she was asked about Joe Biden’s remarks at a fundraiser last night where he referred to the “MAGA Republican philosophy” as akin to “semi-fascism”.
Asked to explain what the US president meant by that remark, Jean-Pierre said of right-wing Republicans: “He was very powerful last night. When it comes to ‘MAGA Republicans’, when it comes to the extreme, ultra wing of the Republicans, they are attacking democracy, they are taking away rights and freedoms, they are using threats of violence, taking away voting rights, and he [Biden] called it what it is … and what many would argue, historians would agree with us on.”
“He believes that presidents should be the strongest voice for democracy,” she added.
Jean-Pierre also strove to differentiate between what she referred to as “traditional, conservative” Republicans and the [Trumpist] “Make America Great Again” rightwing loyalists to the former president.
A quick recap, blog readers, it’s been a dramatic morning and there will be plenty more news over the coming few hours. But for now, here’s where things stand:
Donald Trump has released a statement about the release of the government affidavit that underpinned the search of his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Florida earlier this month. He posted it on Truth Social, his struggling social media platform that he created after being banned by Twitter.
The US Department of Justice and the FBI had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be found at Mar-a-Lago when it sought a warrant to search the property, the affidavit notes.
The affidavit is replete with details that would provide “a roadmap” for anyone intent on obstructing the investigation.
The affidavit reminds us of the context of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, thus: “The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records.”
While the public waited for the affidavit to be released, we also noted that Joe Biden called the “MAGA Republican” philosophy “semi-fascism” last night, based on the anti-democratic efforts of the more extreme wing of the GOP that hews unfailingly to Trump.
We have Donald Trump’s reaction, on Truth Social, the social media platform he set up after being kicked off Twitter over the Capitol attack…
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Affidavit heavily redacted!!! Nothing mentioned on “Nuclear,” a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover – WE GAVE THEM MUCH. Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home. He recused himself two months ago from one of my cases based on his animosity and hatred of your favorite President, me. What changed? Why hasn’t he recused himself on this case? Obama must be very proud of him right now!
To unpick:
“Nuclear” – it has been reported that some of the materials kept at Mar-a-Lago concerned nuclear weapons. And some concerned Emmanuel Macron, which, by the by, might interest Liz Truss. But anyway…
“Break-in” – nope. Warrant duly served, etc, which is why we’re here.
“Obama must be very proud” of the judge … we may all remember John Roberts, the chief justice of the supreme court, rebuking Trump for referring to “Obama judges”, etc. We may also all remember Trump’s pride at having installed a huge number of judges himself, including three on Roberts’ court. In short – judges are not meant to act politically but they are politically appointed. And so on.
Of Judge Reinhart: he made a donation to Barack Obama in 2008. He also donated to Republicans, if not Donald J Trump.
Attached to the affidavit is a letter from lawyers for Donald Trump, complaining of unfair treatment and asserting a president’s “absolute authority to declassify documents” – both features of his response to the search and the claims of his supporters in Republican ranks and on the right of the US media.
The letter, signed by M Evan Corcoran of Silverman Thompson Slutkin White, begins:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Public trust in the government is low. At such times, adherence to the rules and long-standing policies is essential. President Donald J Trump is a leader of the Republican Party. The Department of Justice (DOJ), as part of the Executive Branch, is under the control of a President from the opposite party. It is critical, given that dynamic, that every effort is made to ensure that actions by DOJ that may touch upon the former President, or his close associates, do not involve politics.”
I refer you back to President Joe Biden’s comment to reporters before the affidavit was filed today, when asked if he thought national security might have been compromised at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was storing classified documents there:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’ll let the justice department determine that.”
The lawyers’ letter conforms to Trump’s worldview, that attorneys general and the Department of Justice exist to serve presidents politically. Biden’s answer speaks for generally accepted wisdom, which is that the DoJ does not exist for that purpose and is in fact independent of any White House or administration.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
