US Politics

Trump and Republicans’ terrible, no good, very bad week is about to get worseLloyd GreenAlready, the 45th president suffered twin humiliations and a third one looms, as Trump is slated to appear at a court-ordered deposition This is a bad week for Donald Trump and the Republican party. Already, the 45th president suffered twin humiliations and a third one looms. On Monday, the FBI enforced a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the center of his universe. One day later, a federal appeals court upheld the right of a House committee to his tax returns. Trump is also slated to appear on Wednesday at a court-ordered deposition conducted by New York’s attorney general.Meanwhile, voters made the Republican party pay for the US supreme court gutting Roe v Wade. In Minnesota’s special congressional election, Democrats came within five points of an upset victory in a district that Trump won by double digits. What happened in the Kansas abortion referendum didn’t just stay there.Republicans cry foul: FBI raid could re-tighten Trump’s grip on partyRead moreTrump’s horrible week began with a court-approved raid on Mar-a-Lago, his safe space and shrine to himself. Breaking with history, the feds treated an ex-president with less dignity than members of the world’s most exclusive club believe themselves entitled to.Suspicion that Trump withheld key government documents when he returned others to the National Archives seven months ago appears to be at the center of the firestorm. During his final days on the job, his White House purportedly shipped 15 boxes of records to Trump’s Florida home that should instead have been routed to the National Archives.Then again, he always had a problem with distinguishing between himself and the office. Significantly, the seizure follows a June visit to Mar-a-Lago by Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the justice department. The whiff of espionage now hangs in the air.Trump’s casual approach to record keeping is well-documented. Photos of torn paper in his handwriting nestled at the bottom of commodes in DC and on the road recently graced the Axios news site, courtesy of the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.Hillary Clinton, break out the popcorn. In 2016, her email and computers occupied center-stage in Trump’s brain and campaign. Chants of “lock her up” emerged as his battle cry.Six years ago, Kevin McCarthy, then House majority leader, trashed Clinton’s judgment, and castigated her “total disregard for protecting and handling our nation’s highly classified secrets”. He also demanded an expeditious FBI investigation, together with a thorough and “transparent” briefing.Not any more. This time, McCarthy has put Merrick Garland on notice. The attorney general will be the focal point of Republican-driven congressional investigations come next year. “I’ve seen enough,” McCarthy tweeted 20 months after he had blamed Trump’s base for the invasion of the Capitol.Time and ambition can salve all wounds. The speaker’s gavel probably awaits him in January.For his part, the former guy has done nothing to tamp down on the ensuing uproar. Trump refuses to release a copy of the search warrant or an inventory of the removed contents. Uncertainty is his ally.We have seen this movie before. The ex-reality show host stokes resentments even as he elides specific allegations. To date, Trump has not rebutted the substance of the House select committee’s hearings.More broadly, the search warrant directed at Trump’s Palm Beach property coupled with the aftermath of the US supreme court’s decision in Dobbs crystalize the growing divide between red and blue America. These days, the Republican party demonizes federal law enforcement and the US intelligence community as “deep state”. Talk of overreach by the national government is standard.At the same time, the Trumpian right seeks to turn red states into a set for The Handmaid’s Tale 2.0. A 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio and her doctor in Indiana were hounded for ending the girl’s pregnancy. In Nebraska, prosecutors obtained a court order to scour Facebook for evidence that a 17-year-old woman planned a drug-induced abortion.Said differently, opposition to federal authority should not be equated to distaste for government coercion and intrusion. As long as the diktat doesn’t emanate from the Potomac, the Republican party is fine with the long arm of the state flexing its muscle.The Confederacy loved slavery and secession. It was fine if some were freer than others. Now Texas has set the template for turning neighbors into informants. Apparently, Governor Greg Abbott yearns to emulate East Germany and the Stasi.Last, in Minnesota’s special congressional election, the Republican party’s Brad Finstad leads Democrat Jeff Ettinger by only four points, 51-47. Dave Wasserman, the maven of congressional elections, tweeted: “If Finstad’s margin is 5 pts or less, it would be a great result for Dems.”The run-up to the midterms will be acrid. The elections of 1860, which preceded the US civil war, comes to mind. History is never dead.
Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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Rightwing media embraces Aids-era homophobia in monkeypox coverageHealth experts want to talk to men who have sex with men about monkeypox. Stigmatization of gay sex makes that harder The conservative campaign against LGBTQ+ rights has found a new fixation for its hatred: monkeypox. On TV, rightwing commentators openly mock monkeypox victims – the vast majority of whom are men who have sex with men – and blame them for getting the disease. On social media, rightwing users trade memes about how the “cure” to monkeypox is straight marriage while casting doubt on monkeypox vaccines’ efficacy.This aggressive stigmatization of monkeypox – reminiscent of the homophobic response to HIV/Aids in the 1980s – poses a serious challenge to public health advocates and community leaders trying to have honest conversations about the disease with the gay and bisexual men who are most at risk during the current outbreak. Should public messaging highlight the fact that monkeypox is primarily affecting men who have sex with men? And should public health bodies urge gay men to change their sexual practices?The simultaneous threats of homophobia and monkeypox require making a difficult choice about which to tackle first, says the writer and veteran Aids activist Mark S King, a 61-year-old gay man.“I’m about killing the alligator closest to the boat. And right now that means getting information to men who have sex with men about how to avoid this.”Early in the outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) struck a cautious note in its communications about monkeypox, which causes painful lesions, fever, and other symptoms. On 18 May, the agency said that “cases include individuals who self-identify as men who have sex with men” while stressing “anyone, regardless of sexual orientation” could spread the disease. But an international study published on 21 July found 98% of recent Monkeypox cases outside of Africa were found in gay or bisexual men, with transmission suspected to have occurred through sexual activity in 95% of those cases.That’s why King is aligned with an increasing number of US public health officials and advocates who believe the messaging around monkeypox needs to be brutally honest in communicating the risks to the population most affected – even if homophobes are going to pounce on it.Last week, the CDC appointed Dr Demetre Dasklakis, a gay man and renowned Aids activist, as the deputy coordinator of its national monkeypox response. Days later, the agency published guidance for preventing monkeypox through safer sex that includes an illustration of two men in a bed. The article recommended people limit their number of sex partners, avoid anonymous hookups, and “wash your hands, fetish gear, sex toys” after having sex. It also suggested socially distanced or video masturbation as alternatives to sex.Sex-positive public health messages like these have drawn scorn from conservative commentators.“Chastity. Celibacy. Modesty. Disciplined. Not being gross. Keeping your legs closed. All viable options, people,” tweeted the Republican commentator Kathy Barnette in response to the CDC’s guidance.“Still waiting for gay men who are having random sex with strangers during the Monkeypox outbreak to get lectured and scolded by public health authorities the way that the rest of us did for going to grocery stores and restaurants during Covid,” tweeted the Daily Caller’s Matt Walsh.And in late July, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson tweeted a poll declaring that the disease should be renamed “schlong Covid”, tagging the CDC.But King says these rightwing attacks are just a distraction. “We have to ignore that if we are to deliver an effective public message to the community that we care about.”King contracted HIV in 1985 and remembers feeling frustrated over the lack of official acknowledgment of the toll on gay men. “How many years was it until our president said how many people died of Aids, before there was detailed, explicit language on how the virus was transmitted?” he says. “Fast forward to 2022, where we are at least getting all of this great, explicit information out about monkeypox so that gay men can protect themselves. I consider that progress.”But not everyone in the queer community agrees on how to talk about the new outbreak. The prominent rights group Glaad has notably cautioned against framing monkeypox as a disease that primarily affects men who have sex with men in guidance issued to the media. Framing monkeypox as a disease within the gay community will discourage other people from educating themselves on prevention, says DaShawn Usher, the director of communities of color and media at Glaad.“If history has shown us anything, it would show us that a communicable disease like this doesn’t stay within one community,” he said. “Stigma drives fear, and fear then becomes resistance to public health and stopping the spread of the disease.”Usher says the belief that monkeypox only affects some people might also discourage employers from offering accommodations for monkeypox, or prevent workers from disclosing that they have monkeypox for fear of being labeled or outed as queer.There is also disagreement within the queer community about whether and how to discuss changing sexual behavior during the outbreak. Some health authorities’ suggestions that affected communities scale back their sexual activity while the US grapples with vaccine delays can sound uncomfortably similar to conservative attacks on gay culture.Usher says that just telling people to abstain from sex would send the wrong message. “You could still contract monkeypox if you were to kiss someone that had an active case of monkeypox, or if you cuddled with someone without clothes on. I would just encourage people to understand all of the ways that it could be spread.”King says he has received pushback within his community for telling others to consider dialing back their hookups. “I’m getting attacked by people who think that I’m contributing to the stigmatization of gay sex. My response to that is: you’re welcome to go back to whatever kind of sexuality suits you in a few weeks. The vaccines are on the truck. Give it a minute.”‘Like winning the lottery’: Americans struggle to get monkeypox vaccinesRead moreThe activist believes the best way to offer frank public health advice about sex is to remove any moral judgment. “We’ve learned through the last 40 years of HIV that moral judgments only help HIV,” he says. “Moral judgments shame the people who are most at risk, which leads to people going underground, not admitting what their behaviors are, and not wanting to talk about the risks.”That’s not to say there isn’t room to discuss why gay men make the choices they do, King says. “But right now it is a completely worthless conversation when it comes to stopping the spread of monkeypox.”King says it’s a mistake to think that avoiding the realities of monkeypox will reduce homophobic aggression – which has been increasing for many years. The number of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes reported have risen substantially over the last decade, federal hate crime statistics show. During that period, US state legislatures have passed an unprecedented number of anti-LGBTQ+ measures, with 2021 deemed the “worst year” ever by the Human Rights Campaign. Many US schools have banned LGBTQ+ books, and attacks on queer spaces are on the rise. In recent months, rightwing activists have stoked fears by promoting conspiracy myths that queer-friendly people are “grooming” children for sexual abuse.“Those people tracking down queer men to bash, they have a pocket full of hatred on any number of issues that will lead them to pick up that beer bottle,” King says. “They might have new language to use while they’re bashing us over the head, but they would still be bashing us over the head.”TopicsMonkeypoxLGBTQ+ rightsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Strength in Numbers by G Elliot Morris review – why polls matterA valuable history of polling that examines the reasons for recent failures while arguing that it remains a vital tool It is no longer possible to understand politics without understanding polling. It doesn’t just drive the media narrative around politicians and candidates but, often, the policy agendas they adopt and the way they talk about issues. Yet it remains poorly understood, not just by the wider public, but by analysts and office holders too. In the UK, for example, you don’t have to spend long on social media to find an MP promoting an entirely unrepresentative poll from a newspaper website, or a talk radio host claiming a result they dislike is due to that pollster being in cahoots with some nefarious actor.In this short, valuable guide, G Elliot Morris gives us a brief history of how polls came to play such an important role in politics, and how they work. Its focus is on the US but the debates play out in a similar way in Britain.The history is interesting, particularly on the various polling gurus used by presidents, such as Emil Hurja, a mercurial small-town hustler who ended up working for Franklin D Roosevelt and transforming the way in which political parties used data.But the most useful part of the book focuses on the methodological challenges that make polling difficult, and increasingly so. The biggest problem is that people don’t answer phones any more. In the 1970s or 80s pollsters could achieve a representative sample of the population by calling randomised numbers. But now that’s impossible: only a handful of people will pick up and they won’t be typical members of the public.As a result, polling has moved increasingly online. This has some advantages – it’s much cheaper to collect large amounts of data and easier to do repeat surveys of the same people to identify trends over time. The downside is that companies can’t randomise their sample as they typically rely on people signing up to online panels. This then increases the importance of modelling the sample against ever more complex lists of variables.It’s when this modelling goes wrong that we see the kind of polling misses that have increased scepticism about their value, even as they become more central to political life. In the 2015 UK election, pollsters overestimated the number of younger voters who would turn out, failing to spot the impending Conservative majority. In 2016 many US pollsters oversampled voters with degrees, making Trump’s victory seem less likely. In 2020 they fixed that problem but again underestimated Trump’s support – possibly because, after he attacked polls, some of his fans stopped answering them.The reaction to this has been to employ increasingly opaque and sophisticated methods such as MRP (multilevel regression with poststratification). Even the more thoughtful political analysts struggle to understand how these polls are constructed. One result is that there’s little distinction in the amount of coverage well and poorly designed models get.Morris is surely right in his conclusion that pollsters and the media that use them need to do a better job at explaining complexity and uncertainty. He’s also right that issue polling, where being a few points out matters much less, is more important than voting intention data. It can be a critical tool in pushing back against vested interests by showing the level of public concern about, say, the climate emergency or its dislike of corporate tax cuts. Most of all Morris is right that, for all its problems, polling remains our best tool for understanding how people think about politics. The alternative is prejudice and guesswork.TopicsPolitics booksUS politicsreviewsReuse this content More

While Biden is tackling inflation and shaping a green economy for the US, Britain is being left behindCarys RobertsThe Inflation Reduction Act is a big win for jobs and the environment, but Truss and Sunak have nothing similar to offer Over the weekend, US Democrats overcame months of political struggle to pass the Inflation Reduction Act in the Senate, marking a major victory for the president, Joe Biden, and for “Bidenomics” before the US midterms.The bill makes the single largest climate investment in US history, with $369bn for climate and clean energy. It is expected to enable the US to get two-thirds of the way towards its Paris agreement commitments while reducing energy costs. It lowers health costs for millions of Americans. It seeks to tackle inflation by directly reducing costs for individuals and by reducing the deficit through closing tax loopholes and increasing tax on corporates and the wealthy.The act is far from perfect. It is the diminished descendant of the failed Build Back Better Act, a $2tn package that would have radically extended childcare, free community college and subsidised health insurance, but which ultimately failed to secure the support of the Democrat senator Joe Manchin (a necessity given the evenly divided Senate). Winning political support for the act has required rowing back on climate ambition and more extensive plans to reduce costs for families; allowing further drilling for fossil fuels; and carve-outs to protect private equity profits from the corporation tax element of the act. For this reason, the act will and already has come under intense criticism from activists and climate groups.However, in the face of fierce political opposition it is a major – even landmark – achievement. It is also a win for the activists and economists who have been persistently pushing and providing ideas for the Biden administration to pursue an alternative approach to the economy and environment: market-shaping green industrial strategy to create good, green jobs; social investment; worker power and incentives for employers to offer decent pay, apprenticeships and profit-sharing with communities; higher taxes on the wealthy to reduce inflation and contribute to the costs, including through a new tax on share buybacks which only serve to boost investors’ incomes. These ideas are no longer stuck on the bench.Historically the US and UK have taken a shared, leading role in the intellectual development and political implementation of new ideas and policy paradigms. Whether we think about the postwar Keynesian consensus, the neoliberal revolution of Thatcher and Reagan or the third way politics of Clinton and Blair, both countries have tended to move in lockstep. Yet right now, in the context of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US and the Conservative party leadership race in the UK, our policy paths are diverging.The US has further to go than the UK when it comes to reducing climate emissions and building economic justice. The US has significantly higher levels of emissions (on an absolute and per capita basis) than the UK and the US is also the world’s biggest producer of fossil fuels. Similarly, inequality in the US is starker, and poverty deeper than in the UK. Put simply: the land of opportunity is not delivering for too many American citizens.But Democrat leaders are pushing through a bold agenda to break through deep political polarisation and reset the shape and direction of what US economic success looks like. The irony when we compare this with the UK is that the conditions are far more favourable here for action commensurate to the scale of the climate and nature crisis, an economic strategy that prioritises everyday people and places over wealth and profits, and for extending collective provision of the things and services we all rely on. We have a head start in terms of the social democracy basics. In sharp contrast to the US, there is more consensus across parties on the need for the government to take action on the climate and nature crises. Action taken now would be far less likely to be wiped away by an opposition win than the fragile progressive gains in the US.Biden can still stop Trump, and Trumpism – if he can find a bold plan and moral vision | Robert ReichRead moreThe Conservatives, who have held power for more than a decade, have in recent years flirted with some of those ideas – from May’s mission-oriented industrial strategy to Johnson’s net zero and levelling up pledges – recognising the electoral benefits of doing so. Yet at this moment, the Conservatives are plunging in the opposite direction to their US counterparts, and debating – in the middle of sharply rising inflation and a cost-of-living emergency – policies that are catnip for the Tory membership such as grammar schools and corporation tax cuts, rather than looking around the world or at the evidence on how to address the pressing problems of our time. Truss, widely seen as the frontrunner, has fallen back on outdated tropes of financial support as handouts and has virtually nothing to say on how she would achieve net zero, both for its own sake and as a response to the cost-of-living crisis. Nothing of substance is being suggested to address the creeping, real privatisation of the NHS as those who can go private rather than languish on a waiting list.It would be wrong to point at the US and claim it has its house in order or that lessons can be read in a simplistic way. But Biden and the activists and researchers around him are ambitiously forging a new kind of economic policymaking that seeks to rapidly decarbonise, reduce pressures on family purses through collective provision, and tax wealth and profits to fund this and quell inflationary pressures. The UK government – whoever it is headed by – should take note of the new economics rather than be left behind.
Carys Roberts is executive director of the Institute for Public Policy Research
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FBI searched Trump’s home seeking classified presidential records – sourcesSearch warrant executed by FBI agents suggests investigation comes with potentially far-reaching political ramifications for former president Federal investigators searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday bearing a warrant that broadly sought presidential and classified records that the justice department believed the former president unlawfully retained, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The criminal nature of the search warrant executed by FBI agents, as described by the sources, suggested the investigation surrounding Trump is firmly a criminal probe that comes with potentially far-reaching political and legal ramifications for the former president.FBI raid of Trump’s estate prompts Republican anger and 2024 speculationRead moreAnd the extraordinary search, the sources said, came after the justice department grew concerned – as a result of discussions with Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks – that presidential and classified materials were being unlawfully and improperly kept at the Mar-a-Lago resort.The unprecedented raid of a former president’s home by FBI agents was the culmination of an extended battle between Trump and his open contempt for the Presidential Records Act of 1978 requiring the preservation of official documents, and officials charged with enforcing that law.01:09For years, Trump has ignored the statute. But the criminal investigation into how he took dozens of boxes of presidential and classified records in apparent violation of that statute when he left the White House last year signals potential legal jeopardy for him for the first time.The statute governing the wilful and unlawful removal or destruction of presidential records, though rarely enforced, carries significant penalties including: fines, imprisonment and, most notably, disqualification from holding current or future office.But the justice department may take no further action now that it has secured what sources said were around 10 boxes’ worth of documents in addition to 15 boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year – but what it does next was not immediately clear.The FBI obtained a warrant for the search, meaning it showed there may be evidence of a crime at the location, which in this case would be the very presence of sensitive government documents that the justice department concluded should be held at the National Archives.The improper handling of classified materials raised the additional prospect that the FBI might have sufficient basis to open a counterintelligence investigation, amid concerns that the records could have been accessed by individuals not authorized to view secret documents.On his social media app, Trump on Tuesday denounced the search as a “coordinated attack” that included congressional and federal investigations into his role in the Capitol attack, and state-level probes in Georgia and New York as he weighs running for a second term.The search warrant appeared to be approved by Florida federal magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart. The attachment to the warrant, describing the “property to be seized”, broadly referred to classified documents and materials responsive to the Presidential Records Act, one of the sources said.The operation would have likely required approval from the highest echelons of the justice department, former officials and FBI agents said, including attorney general Merrick Garland, and the Trump-appointed FBI director Christipher Wray. An agency spokesperson declined to comment.One of Trump’s lawyers, Christina Bobb, later said the warrant sought “presidential records”. Trump has not released his copy of the warrant.In executing the search warrant on Monday, teams of FBI agents wearing nondescript clothes fanned out across the entirety of the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Springs, Florida, the sources said. Trump was not there at the time of the raid and learned about it while he was in New York.The agents searched through storage areas in the basement of the property, the sources said, before moving to Trump’s office on the second floor of the main house, where a safecracking team opened a hotel-style safe, though that contained no records responsive to the warrant.Later, the FBI agents searched the residence of Trump and his wife, Melania, and navigated through the pocket-door that separates their separate rooms, one of the sources said. The FBI agents believed the records they were seeking were at Trump’s residence, the sources said, in part through the justice department’s talks with Trump’s lawyers – led by former assistant US attorney Evan Corcoran – about the retrieval of official records from the property.In early June, the sources said, four justice department officials, including the chief of counterintelligence and export control Jay Bratt, went down to Mar-a-Lago to ask about what materials Trump removed from the White House, and met with Corcoran and Bobb.The officials asked to see where the White House records were being kept. They were shown the storage facility in the basement where the boxes had been placed, and after looking around for some time, during which Trump dropped by to say hello, the officials left.Corcoran and Bobb continued to be in touch with the justice department in the weeks afterwards, and complied with a 8 June 2022 letter that asked the basement storage area to be secured with a lock, the sources said.The justice department is understood, at some point since the investigation was opened in April this year, to have asked for the return of classified materials. Trump’s lawyers are understood to have agreed, and indicated they would go through the boxes to comply with the request.But that otherwise cordial channel of communication appears to have somehow gone awry – prompting the justice department to take the aggressive step of seeking a search warrant to seize documents – though a person close to Trump disputed this assessment and called it an incomplete account.The exact inventory of what the FBI removed was still not clear late on Tuesday. Corcoran was in possession of the search return ‘receipt’ but appears to have not divulged its contents even to some associates.A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Corcoran declined to comment.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsFloridanewsReuse this content More

Wednesday briefing: Could the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago be a gamechanger?In today’s newsletter: After Donald Trump’s Florida home is ‘raided’, legal experts weigh in on whether the documents retrieved could rule him out of a comeback in the 2024 presidential election

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Good morning – and apologies for the unfamiliar name in your inbox. With Archie away, they’ve given me a go at First Edition this morning. And where else to start but with Donald Trump and his run-in with the FBI.The Feds weren’t searching for the “love letters” from Kim Jong-un. Those had already been returned by Trump after a back-and-forth with the US National Archives. Nonetheless, when federal investigators raided the former US president’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Monday, they were still looking for documents related to his time in office.Trump has no shortage of legal troubles, but the FBI search was a sharp escalation in the investigation into Trump’s potentially unlawful removal and destruction of White House records after he left office in 2021. And it’s likely to have consequences for the 2024 presidential election – whether the FBI’s action produces criminal charges or not.But why is it happening now and is there actually a chance Trump could be prevented from running for office again? All that, after the headlines.Five big stories
Cost of living | Boris Johnson has said he is “absolutely certain” his successor will offer help to households, as annual bills were forecast to top £4,200 by January. Tory leadership hopeful Liz Truss, meanwhile, rejects energy bill help as “Gordon Brown economics”.
Sport | Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time and a 23-time grand slam singles champion, has announced that she is retiring from professional tennis.
Climate crisis | The UK is braced for drought conditions until October, with rivers forecast to be low and exceptionally low in central and southern England, according to the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology.
Russia | A Russian airbase in Crimea has been damaged by several large explosions, killing at least one person; it is unknown if it was the result of a long-range Ukrainian missile strike.
Royal Mail | More than 115,000 UK postal workers are to stage a series of strikes in the coming weeks; the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said it would be the biggest strike of the summer so far to demand a “dignified, proper pay rise”.
In depth: ‘You don’t start something you can’t finish’Of course, Trump reacted with trademark calm as the FBI marched through Mar-a-Lago. Actually, in a hyperbolic statement, he expressed his anger at the raid: “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe!”Trump went on to compare the FBI search to Watergate, where individuals with ties to Richard Nixon’s re-election committee burgled the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington. The former president isn’t totally off to draw on that reference point: the raid took place on the anniversary of Nixon’s resignation in 1974; and Trump is suspected of breaking a law, the Presidential Records Act, brought in during the late 1970s to stop post-Nixon presidents tampering with presidential records.But it’s unlikely that Trump and I talk to the same legal experts.What happenedAgents at the FBI, the US federal crime agency, executed a search warrant at Trump’s home at the Mar-a-Lago resort, Florida, at about 9am on Monday. Sources familiar with the matter told the Guardian that the raid was part of an investigation into the former president’s removal and destruction of White House records after he left office in 2021.Trump was golfing in New Jersey when the search took place. Speaking to Fox News, Trump’s son Eric said he had told his father that the search was taking place and that it was related to presidential documents.This is not the first time that Trump’s treatment of official documents – which presidents are required to preserve – has made the news (see recent pictures of ripped-up notes in the bottom of toilet bowls, above). But it is a significant escalation in the affair.Why the raid took placeThe FBI had a search warrant, issued by a federal judge in Florida. The application for the warrant would have detailed why the bureau wanted access to the property and the type of evidence it expected to find. It also should have specified the items to look for and seize.“The Department of Justice knows that initiating an investigation of a past president, especially one who is still politically active, will be a powder keg,” says Christopher Slobogin, professor of law at Vanderbilt University. “It also knows that if no charges are forthcoming, the department will have major egg on its face given the high-profile nature of this case. You don’t start something like this you can’t finish. The federal judge who issued the warrant knows all of this. So I assume both the DOJ and the judge made absolutely sure they had crossed all their Ts and dotted all their Is before moving forward.”It is not clear whether that warrant was directly related to the apparent disappearance of evidence linked to the 6 January 2021 riot on Capitol Hill. Bob Woodward, of Watergate scoop fame, reported in March that call logs turned over to the House committee investigating the insurrection had an unexplained gap of seven hours and 37 minutes covering the period when the violence was unfolding.But we do know that in February the US chief archivist wrote to Congress. In that letter, he confirmed that the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara), which looks after presidential documents and records, had found classified documents in 15 boxes of materials taken to – and then returned from – Mar-a-Lago. It had then informed the justice department. “Because Nara identified classified information in the boxes, Nara staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice,” wrote the chief archivist, David Ferriero.The oversight committee at the House of Representatives has also opened a separate investigation that noted “removing or concealing government records is a criminal offense”.Christina Bobb, a Trump lawyer and TV host, said she had seen the contents of the search warrant and that the agents were looking for presidential records or classified material. She added that agents seized around a dozen boxes during the raid. The warrant stating the grounds for the search would have been left at Mar-a-Lago when the FBI gained access to the property.In terms of what happens next, Slobogin adds: “The DOJ will look over what it finds, combine it with what it already has, perhaps conduct other searches or seek subpoenas, and then decide whether it wants to proceed to a grand jury, which will decide whether formal criminal charges, in the form of an indictment, should be brought.”What is the Presidential Records Act?Trump has Richard Nixon to thank for the PRA. Congress moved to stop the disgraced ex-president – I’m referring to Nixon here, btw – from destroying his records by passing the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act.Its descendant is the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents and vice-presidents to preserve their records. Those records include everything from official documents to handwritten notes, phone logs, tapes and emails. Destruction of a document requires the archivists’ permission.The purpose of the act, among other things, is to help congress and law enforcement investigate wrongdoing, to keep a record of presidential history and help subsequent incumbents in the White House understand what their predecessors had been up to. The Washington Post reported that Trump was warned about the act early on in his presidency, when his first two chiefs of staff expressed concern about documents being ripped up.On Monday, photographic evidence emerged of wads of paper in White House toilets, embellished with what appeared to be Trump’s telltale handwriting and inscribed with his favourite type of pen: a Sharpie. The photographs were released by the Axios news site in advance of the publication of Confidence Man, a book by the New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman.What it means for Trump and re-electionIt is worth taking a look at US federal law, specifically section 2071 of title 18 of the United States Code. Whoever “wilfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys” a government record or document faces a fine or a three-year jail sentence.But here’s the kicker: if you’re convicted, you shall be “disqualified from holding any office under the United States”.This where the raid could be a gamechanger, according to Marc Elias, who was the top lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. On Twitter, he flagged the disqualification provision in section 2071 and called the search a “potential blockbuster in American politics”. So could Trump be ruled out of a comeback in the 2024 presidential election?Don’t punch the air just yet. Trump would have to be convicted first and, even then, there are strong legal arguments that the US constitution, not criminal law, sets eligibility criteria for the highest office in the land. Elias admitted later that an attempt to disqualify Trump would be challenged on that basis – it’s a question that could go all the way to the supreme court (which has three Trump appointees on it). Still, he adds, get the popcorn out.What Republicans thinkAs you would expect, Trump’s base has been energised by this. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extreme rightwing Republican who doesn’t do civic discourse, variously tweeted “DEFUND THE FBI” and “Save America STOP COMMUNISM! Impeach Joe Biden!!”Accusations of a politically motivated stitch-up flew immediately, with the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, describing the raid as an “abuse of power”.She added: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Countless times we have examples of Democrats flouting the law and abusing power with no recourse. Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans …”Such language helps position Trump, once again, as an anti-establishment figure being denied a rightful crack at the presidency by those bad people at the Department of Justice and elsewhere. Hours after fulminating at the search, he posted a campaign video on his Truth Social network. It was filmed before the search but contained lines that will be an obvious narrative for a presidential run.“We’re a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before. We’ve never seen anything like this. We’re a nation that no longer has a free and fair press. Fake news is about all you get. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed.”Barack Obama’s former strategy guru, David Axelrod, knows a thing or two about when a political narrative is being shaped. “This is why Trump is going to run. He wants to portray any criminal probe or prosecution as a plot to prevent him from once again becoming Potus. Many of his followers will believe it – as they did his lies about the last election.”Our Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, says the FBI action already seems to have galvanised Trump and the Republican party. “The general rule with Trump is, what does not kill him makes him stronger. In the hours since news of the FBI raid emerged, it’s been unnerving to see the Republican party rally around him. Even foes such as Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Mike Pence, the former vice-president who split with Trump over the January 6 insurrection, have expressed concern over the FBI’s actions and demanded answers.“Potential rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis have done likewise, asserting without evidence that it’s political persecution by the ‘deep state’ – the word of the day has been ‘weaponisation’. They realise they have to stay in lockstep with the Make America Great Again base,” says Smith. “And Trump and other Republicans are fundraising off the raid. It’s been galvanising for him and increases the likelihood of him running for president again – unless, of course, he is prosecuted, charged and put on trial.”Perhaps the search could end up being to Trump’s benefit.What else we’ve been reading
Steve Jobs’s favourite designer and king of micro-pleating, Issey Miyake, died yesterday. I learned much about him in this warm tribute in Esquire. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Shaun Walker spoke with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw and Budapest – many of them women, children and elderly people – about their anguish at being away from home and their new lives in safe houses and shelters. Craille Maguire Gillies, production editor, newsletters
I am a lifelong lover of the humble spud – fried, roasted or otherwise. Nigel Slater’s recipe for warm potato salad with smoked salmon is everything that I love about his cooking: classy comfort food that makes life feel better and, says Slater, “sumptuous” in a wrap. Hannah
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s insatiable ambition is put in chilling context by the Economist in its Editor’s Picks podcast, a weekly selection of stories from the magazine. Craille
The Guardian’s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins writes entertainingly about seeing her 2013 book Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain reimagined on stage – as a romcom. Hannah
SportAthletics | Jessica Ennis-Hill’s former coach Toni Minichiello has been banned for life from training athletes after an investigation found he had engaged in sexually inappropriate behaviour, emotional abuse and bullying.Football | Rangers have reached the Champions League play-off with a thrilling 3-0 win over Union Saint-Gilloise to go through on a 3-2 aggregate.Tennis | Tumaini Carayol pays tribute to one of the greatest athletes ever, after Serena Williams announced her decision to retire from sport: “Over her 27‑year career, Williams set the marker that matters for all who follow her, no asterisks needed.” The front pagesThe Guardian’s lead today is “Johnson: new PM ‘certain’ to bail out households over cost of living”. The Metro has “Wake up zombies” as Martin Lewis the “consumer champ” calls for the government to act over energy bills. The i says “Truss softens on ‘handouts’ for cost of living” while the Express offers its endorsement – “In Liz we trust” – leading with a comment piece to that effect by Leo McKinstry. The Times has “Universities blacklist ‘harmful’ literature”. The Telegraph has “Inflation stealth tax of £30bn looms” – it says millions of people face being dragged into higher tax bands. The Financial Times reports “New powers to override City regulators win Truss backing”, which it calls a “Rare show of policy unity with Sunak”. The Mail’s splash is “Minority of babies now born to married couples”. The Mirror’s front-page lead concerns ex-footballer Ryan Giggs, who is on trial in Manchester on charges of assault and coercive and controlling behaviour, which he denies. “‘Giggs cheated on me with 8 women’” is their headline, while the Sun has “He came at me & headbutted me. I could taste blood”. The trial is expected to last two weeks.Today in FocusThe UK’s energy-bill crisis explainedBig oil companies are making record profits while consumer energy bills soar. Finance reporter Jasper Jolly explains why.Cartoon of the day | Martin RowsonThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badCBeebies is taking on Shakespeare – and the premise is not as daft as you might think. They’ve tackled the Proms and, for the last few years, a shortened Shakespeare, all of which is performed on stage and then broadcast later. This year it is partnering with London’s Globe theatre on a new production of As You Like It for the under-sixes – with some non-binary casting, but minus the melancholy subplots – which will run until tonight and be screened next year. Catherine Shoard has entertaining conversations with the Globe director Michelle Terry – who’s on a mission to demystify Shakespeare, “the earlier the better” – and CBeebies actors including Steven Kynman: “You cannot fool children. They will see through you. They’re like sniffer dogs for insincerity.”Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
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Congressman and Trump ally Scott Perry says FBI seized his cellphoneRepublican’s phone could be relevant to bid to overturn 2020 election and mishandling of official records Federal investigators seized the cellphone of the Republican congressman Scott Perry on Tuesday, his office said, suggesting the justice department is examining the communications of a close ally of Donald Trump and person of interest to the House January 6 select committee.The move by the FBI to take Perry’s phone came a day after federal agents executed a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and seized boxes of documents, though it was not clear whether the two events were connected.Perry, the prominent Republican from Pennsylvania who is also the chair of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and has been subpoenaed by the select committee, confirmed that his phone was taken by federal investigators in a statement earlier reported by Fox News.“This morning, while traveling with my family, 3 FBI agents visited me and seized my cell phone. They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish,” Perry said in the statement.“My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government’s business.”The congressman – one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders on Capitol Hill – compared the seizure of his phone to the FBI’s search of Trump’s Palm Beach resort, claiming, without evidence, that the moves were politically motivated overreach by the Biden administration.“As with President Trump last night, DoJ chose this unnecessary and aggressive action instead of simply contacting my attorneys. These kinds of banana republic tactics should concern every citizen,” Perry said of the court-approved warrant used by the FBI.FBI raid of Trump’s estate prompts Republican anger and 2024 speculationRead moreThe circumstances surrounding the seizure of Perry’s phone could not immediately be established, and a spokesman for Perry did not respond to questions about the nature of the criminal investigation under which the FBI took his device.But Perry has come under increased scrutiny in recent months over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, with respect to his roles in objecting to the certification of Joe Biden’s election win and in seeking to remove top justice department officials.The congressman has refused to testify to the select committee to answer questions about those issues, despite the subpoena. His lawyer, John Rowley – also representing Trump himself – has said Perry did “nothing improper” with respect to the Capitol attack.Still, the seizure of his phone appears to suggest that Perry’s communications have become ensnared in a criminal investigation. According to the select committee, Perry is also among several House Republicans who sought a pre-emptive pardon from Trump after the January 6 insurrection.TopicsFBIRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

FBI raid of Trump’s estate prompts Republican anger and 2024 speculationTrump is believed to be pursuing a presidential run in 2024, and many calculate the Mar-a-Lago raid would benefit him politically Shockwaves spread across America in response to the news that the FBI had searched the private Florida residence of Donald Trump, a dramatic and unprecedented move that prompted threats of retaliation from the former US president and his allies.It also brought calls for accountability from his opponents and inspired speculation about what it could mean for Trump’s plans to run for the White House again in 2024, as some suggested it may prompt him to announce a candidacy before vital midterm elections in November.The court-authorized raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate appeared to be related to a long-running investigation into whether he mishandled classified government documents when he left the White House in 2021.In the hours after Trump announced on Monday evening that his “beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents”, top Republicans rallied to his defense, as America’s already divided politics roiled with reaction.Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, threatened to investigate the justice department if his party wins control of the chamber next year, which forecasts suggest is probable.“I’ve seen enough,” the California Republican wrote in a statement that he posted online. “The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.”He went further, hinting that should he wield the gavel next year, House Republicans would open a congressional investigation into the attorney general, Merrick Garland. “Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar,” he wrote.Democrats, who have pushed the department to bring criminal charges against the former president for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, welcomed the raid.“It is a horrible precedent for the Department of Justice to investigate a former president of the United States,” said congressman Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California who was a manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial. “The only worse precedent would be for @TheJusticeDept not to investigate because the person happens to be a former President. No one is above the law.”Democrats also accused Republicans of hypocrisy after years of calling for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 Democratic rival in the presidential race, over questions of whether she mishandled classified information by using a private email server. Trump sought to exploit the investigation and encouraged chants of “lock her up” during campaign rallies.Referring to McCarthy, Congressman Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, said: “This man and his fellow bootlickers hid under a rock rather than respond every time Donald Trump called for persecution, investigation, imprisonment or violence against his political opponents.“These same people talk about Trump like he’s above the law. He’s not above the law.”The FBI’s presence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach on Monday was reportedly related to its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully took classified documents from the White House to his Florida residence rather than turn them over to the National Archives. Some Democrats have gleefully pointed out that a possible, albeit unlikely, punishment for mishandling sensitive government documents is disqualification from holding future federal office.What exactly federal investigators were looking for remains unclear. But to obtain the search warrant, investigators would have had to show a judge that they had probable cause of a crime and that there was relevant evidence located at Mar-a-Lago. Trump, who disclosed the search in a furious statement, said investigators had entered his home and opened a safe.Given its unprecedented and political nature, legal experts speculated that investigators would probably have sought authorization from the highest levels of the justice department.Many also noted that Trump would have been shown a copy of the warrant, but has chosen not to make that information public.In an interview on Fox News on Monday night, Trump’s son, Eric Trump, said that the search happened because “the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession”.Lashing out at the FBI, the younger Trump said he believed the raid was an attempt to prevent his father from running again in 2024.“Honestly, I hope – and I’m saying this for the first time – I hope he goes out and beats these guys again because honestly, this country can’t survive this nonsense,” he said. “It can’t.”Trump is widely believed to be pursuing a presidential run in 2024, and many speculated that the raid would benefit him politically. Some suggested that it would fuel his supporters’ suspicion of federal law enforcement officials, whom Trump and his allies have long disparaged as corrupt and biased and part of an anti-Trump conspiracy they call the “deep state” – although former aide Steve Bannon has dismissed the concept of the deep state. It also served to rally his allies and potential 2024 Republican rivals to his side.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor viewed as a possible contender in 2024, said the search of Trump’s beachside property was “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents”.Despite insinuations by Republicans that Biden was behind the raid, the White House said it was unaware of the search before it happened.“The president and the White House learned about this FBI search from public reports,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said on Tuesday. “We did not have advance notice of this activity.” She added that as president, Biden vowed to restore the independence of the justice department after years of Trump’s efforts to pressure his attorneys general to advance his agenda.The Florida search is far from the only legal trouble facing the former president, all of which he has cast as political witch-hunts.The justice department is also investigating the January 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that Trump groundlessly claimed was stolen. It remains unclear whether Trump is a target of the inquiry.In Georgia, a prosecutor in Atlanta is looking into a phone call Trump made to the state’s secretary of state in which he pressured him to “find” just enough votes to reverse Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. And in New York, the state attorney general, Letitia James, is leading an investigation into Trump’s family business.In another blow, the DC circuit court of appeals ruled on Tuesday that the House ways and means committee can obtain Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, a decision the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, hailed as a “victory for the rule of law”.As news of the Mar-a-Lago search reverberated across the country, a crowd swelled outside Trump’s upmarket private resort club and residence, where supporters waved American flags and some showcased campaign signs with Mike Pence’s name crossed out.Online, far-right Trump supporters raged against the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. In the hours after the disclosure, references to “civil war” spiked on Twitter while Maga and QAnon forums lit up with violent rhetoric and threats of civil unrest, alarmingly similar, analysts and reporters said, to the kind of activity observed on these platforms in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection. The top comment ​​on a pro-Trump message board was “Lock and load.”TopicsMar-a-LagoDonald TrumpFBIRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More