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      Trump sues US government over FBI search of Mar-a-Lago

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      Trump sues US government over FBI search of Mar-a-LagoEx-president seeks to prevent bureau from reading seized documents until court official weighs in Donald Trump on Monday filed suit against the US government over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home, seeking to temporarily stop the bureau reading seized materials until a special court official can be appointed to review documents concerned.As the Guardian reported on Saturday, citing Trump’s lead attorney, Jim Trusty, and two sources familiar with the matter, “the suit argues that the court should appoint a special master – usually a retired lawyer or judge – because the FBI potentially seized privileged materials in its search and the Department of Justice (DoJ) should not itself decide what it can use in its investigation”.The suit, filed in US district court for the southern district of Florida, also “requires the government to provide a more detailed receipt for property; and … requires the government to return any item seized that was not within the scope of the search warrant”.The Mar-a-Lago search, on 8 August, was mounted to look for official records and material from Trump’s presidency that the National Archives and DoJ believe was improperly taken from the White House when Trump left office.Cheney vows to fight other Republicans who embrace Trump’s election lieRead moreIt has been reported that the search was carried out under the Espionage Act, and that some material sought concerned nuclear weapons.The search has generally been held to have added significantly to Trump’s legal jeopardy, which stretches from investigations of his business affairs in New York to investigations of his attempts to overturn election results.Trump refused to admit defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, claiming widespread electoral fraud, a lie that stoked his incitement of the deadly attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on 6 January 2021.Despite a series of public hearings held by a House committee investigating the attack on Congress and Trump’s election subversion, Trump’s grip on the Republican party remains strong.The former president seized on the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago to claim mistreatment by the Biden administration, a stance backed by Republicans in Congress and the party’s electoral base.The suit filed on Monday called the search “a shockingly aggressive move” with “no understanding of the distress that it would cause most Americans”. It laid out a partial view of how the search unfolded and alleged unfair actions by the DoJ.Earlier on Monday, a federal judge considering an attempt by media organizations to unseal the warrant used to justify the search said he had not yet decided if the release of a redacted version would serve any useful purpose.The judge, Bruce Reinhart, wrote: “I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the government.”The DoJ opposes release of the warrant, citing an ongoing investigation.The suit Trump filed on Monday also sought to draw attention to his continued suggestions that he will soon announce another run for the White House.“Politics cannot be allowed to impact the administration of justice,” it said. “President Donald J Trump is the clear frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary and in the 2024 general election, should he decide to run.“Beyond that, his endorsement in the 2022 midterm elections has been decisive for Republican candidates.”The suit also says: “Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsBiden administrationFBInewsReuse this content More

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      Anthony Fauci to step down as chief US medical adviser at end of year – as it happened

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      Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top doctor who became perhaps the most recognizable face of the White House’s response to Covid-19 during the Trump and Biden administrations, announced that he will step down from his post in December.“I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as the position of Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career,” Fauci said in a statement.He highlighted his 38 years heading NIAID and his work combatting several diseases, including HIV/Aids, Zika and Ebola, in addition to Covid-19. While he appeared alongside Donald Trump in the news conferences during the pandemic’s early days, the president and his supporters soured on Fauci, and Trump at one point referred to him as “a disaster”.“I am particularly proud to have served as the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden since the very first day of his administration” Fauci wrote.In a statement, Biden said, “Because of Dr Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved. As he leaves his position in the US government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next. Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work. I extend my deepest thanks for his public service.”While Fauci had previewed a potential retirement last month, he clarified that he is “not retiring”.“After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field,” Fauci said.The United States’ top infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci announced he would step down in December, ending his nearly four decades of service after becoming a national name during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, a new poll showed Republicans coalescing around Donald Trump following the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, while Democratic voters showed surprising enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Trump’s legal problems could actually hurt him among Republicans, The Washington Post posited, reasoning that other GOP candidates might offer voters the same policies with less political baggage.
      A federal magistrate judge now looks to be leaning against releasing much of the affidavit justifying the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
      Conservatives cheered Fauci’s departure announcement, while House Republicans signaled they expected answers from him if they retook the chamber following the midterms.
      Rusty Bowers, formerly a top Arizona Republican state lawmaker who was ousted by GOP voters for defying Trump, talked to The Guardian about his decision.
      In rural Texas, the climate for polling officials has become so bad the entire election department of a rural county resigned weeks before the midterm elections, the Associated Press reports.The officials said they’d been threatened and harassed for their work in Gillespie County, which is heavily Republican and overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the 2020 election, and didn’t want to relive the experience. Across the state, voters are struggling to cast valid ballots following the passage of a strict election law last year that led to thousands of mail-in ballot applications being rejected in recent polls.Here’s more from the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Part of why Terry Hamilton says he abruptly left his job running elections deep in Texas wine country is by now a familiar story in America: He became fed up with the harassment that followed the 2020 election.
      But this was no ordinary exit.
      On the brink of November’s midterm elections, it was not just Hamilton who up and quit this month but also the only other full-time election worker in rural Gillespie County. The sudden emptying of an entire local elections department came less than 70 days before voters start casting ballots.
      By the middle of last week, no one was left at the darkened and locked elections office in a metal building annex off the main road in Fredericksburg. A “Your Vote Counts” poster hung in a window by the door.
      A scramble is now underway to train replacements and ground them in layers of new Texas voting laws that are among the strictest in the U.S. That includes assistance from the Texas Secretary of State, whose spokesperson could not recall a similar instance in which an elections office was racing to start over with a completely new staff. But the headaches don’t stop there.
      The resignations have more broadly made the county of roughly 27,000 residents — which overwhelmingly backed former President Donald Trump in 2020 — an extraordinary example of the fallout resulting from threats to election officials. Officials and voting experts worry that a new wave of harassment or worse will return in November, fueled by false claims of widespread fraud.
      Hamilton, who has clashed with poll watchers in Gillespie County in past elections, said he didn’t want to go through it again.
      “That’s the one thing we can’t understand. Their candidate won, heavily,” Hamilton said. “But there’s fraud here?”The top House Republican Kevin McCarthy has given the clearest indication yet that the GOP intends to call Anthony Fauci to testify, should they gain control following the November elections:Dr. Fauci lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of COVID. He owes the American people answers. A @HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable.— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) August 22, 2022
      A magistrate judge indicates he may be leaning towards keeping the affidavit justifying the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago away from public eyes, HuffPost reports.Bruce Reinhart is the magistrate judge handling requests from news organizations and others to make public the affidavit justifying the FBI’s entry into Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, where they were investigating potentially unlawful keeping of government secrets by former president Donald Trump. At a court hearing last week, he sounded sympathetic towards at least partially releasing the document, but now seems to have changed his mind. Here’s more from HuffPost:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Having carefully reviewed the affidavit before signing the warrant, I was — and am — satisfied that the facts sworn by the affiant are reliable,” Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in a 13-page order based on a hearing in his courtroom last week.
      Reinhart said during the hearing that he was leaning toward publicly releasing a redacted version of the affidavit — with names of FBI agents, witnesses and investigative details blacked out. He ordered prosecutors to provide him such redactions by Thursday, and said he would then decide whether to release that version or propose his own.
      On Monday, Reinhart said he may decide prosecutors were correct when they argued that the necessary redactions would make what was left lacking in both content and context.
      “I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the government,” Reinhart wrote.
      Releasing the entire affidavit, the judge said, would hurt the ongoing criminal investigation by revealing names of witnesses and investigative techniques, which could lead to “obstruction of justice and witness intimidation or retaliation” in the first instance and damage prosecutors’ ability to continue gathering information in the second.
      Both of those arguments were laid out by Department of Justice lawyers in their written filing and during last week’s hearing. Reinhart added one new argument of his own: that releasing the affidavit would make public details about the physical layout of Mar-a-Lago, which would make the Secret Service’s job of protecting the former president more difficult.
      “This factor weighs in favor of sealing,” he wrote.Judge orders DoJ to prepare redacted Trump search affidavit for possible releaseRead moreThe Democratic-controlled Congress has in recent months managed to pass major legislation addressing health care costs, fighting climate change and boosting semiconductor production, on top of last year’s Covid-19 relief bill and overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure.So what will Democrats do when they return from recess to start what could be their final months controlling both chambers of Congress? According to Politico, the Senate will likely be stepping up the process of confirming federal judges, giving Joe Biden the chance to leave his mark on the nation’s judiciary. While the confirmations wouldn’t undo the conservative majority on the supreme court, appointing Democratic-aligned judges to the lower ranks of the federal judiciary improves the chances that laws and policies from across the country survive court challenges. It’s also a tacit recognition that high inflation and Biden’s low approval ratings mean the party could lose control of the chamber in a few months time, and the new Republican majority may stop confirming judges altogether.Here’s more from Politico:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}While President Joe Biden has seen more judges confirmed at this point in his presidency than his three White House predecessors, some Senate Democrats and progressive advocacy groups want the chamber to start picking up the pace. Judicial confirmations will come to a standstill if Republicans win back the Senate in the fall, they warn.
      Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) put it this way: “Democrats really need to step up on judges.”
      Warren added that she’s spoken to Majority Whip and Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), “who I know feels the urgency of this moment, and he was talking about how much we’re going to have to double down in September,” she said. “We need more days, more hearings, more everything but we need to get these judges through.”
      The prospect of a September dominated by judicial confirmations comes as the Senate continues to openly mull the rest of its fall legislative agenda. The chamber is expected to vote again on legislation to cap the cost of insulin and could take up a same-sex marriage bill. Government funding also runs out at the end of September. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Democratic leaders say they’ve reached an agreement to include permitting reform as part of a funding package to keep the government open.
      But the focus on judges, in addition to a boon for progressives who want to see a faster pace, is a clear sign that the legislative agenda is slowing down ahead of November. Nominees had to compete for summer floor time with Democrats’ other priorities, including their signature climate, prescription and tax package, legislation to increase semiconductor manufacturing and a veterans health care bill. With those bills now sent to Biden’s desk, the Senate can spend more floor time on confirmations.The top Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress are pressing the Biden administration to allow them access to documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound earlier this month, Politico reports.The request comes from the so-called “gang of eight”, which consists of the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate, plus the heads of the chambers’ intelligence committees.Here’s more from the story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Privately, Capitol Hill aides have expressed frustration about the fact that Congress has learned little about the investigation into the former president, especially since it reportedly involves matters of national security. The executive branch has historically resisted congressional inquiries about ongoing law-enforcement actions, arguing that it could compromise the investigation.
      The FBI search warrant unsealed earlier this month revealed that the Justice Department was investigating potential violations of the Espionage Act, the Presidential Records Act and obstruction of justice in relation to Trump’s storage of White House materials at his home.
      At a hearing last week in south Florida, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, Jay Bratt, said the investigation is still in its “early stages.”James Comer, the Republican most likely to become the party’s top watchdog in the House of Representatives if the party takes the chamber in the upcoming midterms, has joined in the chorus threatening Fauci with investigations, even if he leaves his job:Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight.The American people deserve transparency and accountability about how government officials used their taxpayer dollars, and @GOPoversight will deliver.Discussed this and more on @foxandfriends👇 pic.twitter.com/deZtP2RJ5a— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) August 22, 2022
      Republican senator Lindsey Graham has been fighting a subpoena compelling his appearance before a Georgia special grand jury, and over the weekend won a temporary reprieve.A judge hearing the case has given a timeline for both Graham and the district attorney in Fulton County, which is investigating the attempt by Donald Trump’s allies to disrupt the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, to settle the matter, Politico reports:BREAKING: Judge overseeing Lindsey Graham effort to quash Fulton County subpoena sets expedited schedule to resolve remaining dispute. pic.twitter.com/u3dn6INBtp— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 22, 2022
      Rand Paul threatens Fauci with investigationPerhaps to the surprise of no one, Kentucky senator Rand Paul greeted Anthony Fauci’s resignation news with a threat of investigation and a hefty dose of conspiracy theory as to Covid-19’s origins.He tweeted: “Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak.”Yet another Democrat has cast aspersions on Joe Biden’s plans to run for a second term. This time, it’s Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse.In an appearance on Fox News, he said he would “duck the question” of whether the president should stand again in 2024:Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) when asked Friday whether or not Biden should run in 2024:“I’m gonna duck that question, if you don’t mind. We don’t have any candidates yet for 2024, and I’m not picking amongst them.” pic.twitter.com/kX1ZzAFNzU— The Recount (@therecount) August 22, 2022
      Earlier this month, Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney found herself in hot water for saying she didn’t think Biden would be back on the ballot: Democrat apologises for saying Biden won’t run in 2024 – then says it againRead moreMcConnell downplays Republican midterms expectationsThe art of politics is often as much about setting expectations as describing reality and so any predictions from people like senate minority leader Mitch McConnell should be taken with a pinch of salt.But the Republican party boss does seem to be tamping down ideas of an easy capture of the senate by his side this November. He told NBC News: “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”McConnell added: “Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”Read analysis of his remarks here on the Washington Post. The United States’ top infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci announced he would step down in December, ending his nearly four decades of service after becoming a national name during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, a new poll showed Republicans coalescing around Donald Trump following the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, while Democrats got a surprise enthusiasm boost.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Trump’s legal problems could actually hurt him among Republicans, The Washington Post posited, suggesting that other GOP candidates could offer their voters the same policies with less political baggage.
      Conservatives cheered Fauci’s departure announcement. He’d earned their enmity for breaking with Trump during his administration, as well for his policies meant to stop the spread of Covid-19.
      Rusty Bowers, formerly a top Arizona Republican state lawmaker who was ousted by GOP voters for defying Trump, talked to The Guardian about his decision.
      With Covid-19 less of a concern for many Americans, Anthony Fauci’s public profile has decreased recently, but that doesn’t mean conservative have let go of their issues with him.Many, in fact, cheered his departure. Here’s Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation:Commissar Fauci’s reign should have ended long ago. pic.twitter.com/udPyr5BmkU— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) August 22, 2022
      Rightwing radio host Buck Sexton linked his decision to the upcoming midterms:Sociopathic liar and political hack Fauci is making a run for it before Republicans can take over the House https://t.co/90utmxYYxm— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) August 22, 2022
      Diamond and Silk, the erstwhile Fox News guests who are now with Newsmax, had one of the more outlandish reactions:Fauci doesn’t need to just step down, he should be arrested for Crimes Against Humanity!— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) August 22, 2022 More

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      Trump set to ask court for ‘special master’ to review Mar-a-Lago evidence

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      Trump set to ask court for ‘special master’ to review Mar-a-Lago evidenceLegal motion would seek appointment of official to decide what materials can be used in investigation, attorney and sources say Donald Trump is expected to seek the appointment of a special court official to determine whether materials that the FBI seized from his Florida resort can be used in a criminal investigation, according to his lead attorney Jim Trusty and two sources familiar with the matter.US political violence is surging, but talk of a civil war is exaggerated – isn’t it?Read moreThe motion would be the first formal legal action by the former president after federal agents last week confiscated about 30 boxes of highly-sensitive documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort in connection with an investigation into the unauthorized retention of government secrets.Trump would argue that the court should appoint a special master – usually a retired lawyer or judge – because the FBI potentially seized privileged materials in the search, and the justice department should not itself decide what it can use in its investigation, the sources said.The ex-president’s lead attorney, Trusty, said on the Mark Levin Show on Friday evening that he was anticipating a motion that would force the justice department to disclose what “pre-raid” instructions were given to the FBI agents who executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.Trusty, a former chief of the organized crime section at the justice department, also said on the radio show that a court filing could come that evening, saying: “It’s probably going to be more like hours” – though there was no entry on the docket as of early Saturday afternoon.Why Trump is filing a motion now, nearly two weeks after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, was not clear. The former president and his allies have previously moved quickly to request special masters, including when the offices of his former lawyer Michael Cohen were searched in 2018.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsFBIMar-a-LagonewsReuse this content More

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      Justice Department asks not to disclose affidavit behind Mar-a-Lago search

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      Justice Department asks not to disclose affidavit behind Mar-a-Lago searchUnsealing the document could reveal the scope of the inquiry against Donald Trump, whose team is rattled by recent events The US Justice Department has asked a judge not to release the affidavit that gave the FBI probable cause to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, worsening distrust among top Trump aides casting about for any insight into the intensifying criminal investigation surrounding the former president.The affidavit should not be unsealed because that could reveal the scope of the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of government secrets, the Justice Department argued, days after the Mar-a-Lago search warrant showed it referenced potential violations of three criminal statutes.FBI agents a week ago seized around 20 boxes of materials – including documents marked Top Secret – executing a search warrant which referenced the Espionage Act outlawing the unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid an adversary.“The affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course,” the justice department said, adding that it did not oppose unsealing both a cover page and a sealing order that wouldn’t harm the criminal investigation.Trump demands return of seized documents – by order of social mediaRead moreIn arguing against unsealing the affidavit, the justice department also said that the disclosure could harm its ability to gain cooperation from witnesses not only in the Mar-a-Lago investigation but also additional ones that would appear to touch on the former president.“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations,” prosecutors added.The existence of potential witnesses who could yet cooperate in a number of investigations against Trump – seemingly people with intimate knowledge of the former president’s activities – rattled close advisors once more Monday, further deepening distrust inside his inner political circle.The lack of insight into what the justice department intends to do with the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of government documents has deeply frustrated the Trump legal team and aides alike in a week of perilous moments for the former president.At least one lawyer on the Trump legal team – led by former assistant US attorney Evan Corcoran, who also acted as the lawyer for Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon – has called up a reporter covering the story for any insight into how the justice department might next proceed.It added to the already fraught atmosphere inside the reduced group of advisors who have day-to-day roles around Trump that erupted shortly after the FBI departed Mar-a-Lago and sparked suspicions that a person close to the former president had become an informant for the FBI.That speculation came in part amid widening knowledge about how the FBI might have established probable cause that there was a crime being committed at Mar-a-Lago using new or recent information – to prevent the probable cause from going “stale” – through a confidential informant.According to multiple sources close to Trump, suspicions initially centered on Nicholas Luna, the longtime Trump body-man who stepped back from his duties around March, and Molly Michael, the former Trump White House Oval Office operations chief, who remains on payroll but is due to soon depart.Luna was subpoenaed by the congressional investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack but has not spoken to the FBI about this case, one of the sources said. And although Michael is slated to also leave Trump’s orbit, the source said, her departure – like Luna’s – is not acrimonious.The focus in the middle of the week shifted to Mar-a-Lago employees and other staff at the members-only resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the sources said, seemingly in part because the FBI knew exactly which rooms and where in the rooms they needed to search.But towards the weekend, and following the revelation that the FBI removed a leather-bound box from the property and already knew the location of Trump’s safe, scrutiny shifted once more to anyone else who had not yet been suspected – including members of Trump’s family, the sources said.A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment. Calls to Trump lawyers went unanswered or straight to voicemail. The justice department declined to comment on the investigation or Monday’s request.Nonetheless, the escalating distrust and rampant speculation about an informant has started to reach dizzying levels, even by the standards of the Trump presidency, which was characterized in many ways by competing interests and political backstabbing, the sources said.It remains unclear whether the FBI relied on confidential informants, and the Guardian first reported that the search came in part because the justice department grew concerned that classified materials remained at Mar-a-Lago as a result of interactions with Trump’s lawyers.At least one Trump lawyer signed a document – apparently falsely – attesting to the justice department that there were no more classified materials left at Mar-a-Lago after federal officials in June removed 10 boxes worth of government records, the sources said, confirming a New York Times report.TopicsDonald TrumpFBITrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump demands return of seized documents – by order of social media

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      Trump demands return of seized documents – by order of social mediaFBI took records including some top secret national security files after a search of the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago property Donald Trump has demanded the return of some documents seized by the US justice department in an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida last week – apparently under the impression that posts on his Truth Social platform carry legal weight.Trump should announce run for 2024 soon to avoid indictment, source saysRead moreIn a post on Sunday, the former president wrote: “By copy of this Truth, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!”It is generally held that social media posts are not legal documents.According to an actual legal document, a search warrant unsealed on Friday, records concerning top secret national security matters were among those seized by the FBI. It has been reported that some such documents concerned nuclear weapons.Trump has called the nuclear weapons report a “hoax” and claimed to have had authority to declassify top secret records while in office. No evidence has been produced that he did declassify the records in question.On Saturday, citing anonymous sources, Fox News reported that in the search at Mar-a-Lago last Monday, the FBI seized boxes “containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege”.Fox News also said anonymous sources said the justice department turned down Trump lawyers’ request to have such records reviewed by an independent third party.Trump’s post on his Truth Social platform – which he launched after being thrown off Twitter over the Capitol attack – appeared to be in response to the Fox News report.He also said: “Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken.”The former president has used claims of mistreatment to boost fundraising and positioning for a potential presidential run in 2024, his complaints echoed by supporters in the Republican party and across the American right.Among them, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota argued on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press that releasing the affidavit that persuaded a judge to permit the FBI search “would confirm that there was justification for this raid”.“The justice department should show that this was not just a fishing expedition,” Rounds said.The Ohio congressman Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said: “We want to know what did the FBI tell them?”On Monday afternoon the justice department said it objected to requests to unseal the affidavit, as doing so would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation”, possibly by “chill[ing] future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations”.The DoJ also said: “The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential for harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.”Trump continued to rage on Truth Social, claiming both that “Republicans could win many additional seats, both in the House and Senate, because of the strong backlash over the raid at Mat-a-Lago” and that the FBI “stole my three passports (one expired), along with everything else”.He added: “This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!”John Dean knows a thing or two about assaults on political opponents, having been White House counsel under Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal 50 years ago.He told CNN Trump and his allies “don’t seem to want to appreciate that the FBI and other federal law enforcement, as well as state and local, they enforce search warrants every day, against every kind of person”.“And there’s a reason Trump provoked this,” Dean said. “He’s the one who didn’t cooperate. He’s the one who forced [US attorney general] Merrick Garland’s hand. We don’t know what it is [Trump] has or had.“Garland isn’t a risk-taker. He isn’t a guy who’s bold and goes where no one else has ever gone. He’s somebody who does it by the book, so I think these people are going to have egg all over their face when this is over.”Trump has claimed the Mar-a-Lago search is comparable to the 1972 break-in at the Washington offices of the Democratic National Committee which fueled and christened the Watergate scandal.What does ‘Watergate’ teach us 50 years on?: Politics Weekly AmericaRead moreOn Saturday, a Fox News host also went to the Nixonian well, citing a famous claim about presidential authority the disgraced 37th president made in an interview with David Frost in 1977.Will Cain said: “You know, if I listen to alternative media today, and they’re telling me, ‘Oh, classified documents, no one is above the law, right? The rule of law applies to everyone.’“I’m curious. When it comes to classified documents, famously, President Nixon said, if the president does it, then it is not illegal. Is that not truly the standard when it comes to classified documents? The president has the ability to at any time declassify anything.”Experts agree that is not the standard when it comes to handling classified material. Furthermore, Nixon himself backed away from his infamous claim.After the Frost interview, Nixon said: “I do not believe and would not argue that a president is above the law. Of course he is not.“The question is what is the law and how is it to be applied with respect to the president in fulfilling the duties of his office.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsFBInewsReuse this content More

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      Fears of violence grow after FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago – as it happened

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      According to the memo from the FBI and department of homeland security, the federal agencies have identified an increase in threats “occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms” including social media.They specifically link the increase to the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, a strong sign of yet more legal trouble to come for the former president.“The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for ‘civil war’ and ‘armed rebellion,’” the agencies wrote.Far-right Republican lawmakers in the House have joined in the attacks on federal law enforcement, including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene:Impeach Merrick Garland and Defund the corrupt FBI!End political persecution and hold those accountable that abuse their positions of power to persecute their political enemies, while ruining our country.This shouldn’t happen in America.Republicans must force it to stop!— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) August 15, 2022
      She was joined by Arizona’s Paul Gosar:It is crucial that we hold our Department of Justice accountable after the obvious political persecution of opposition to the Biden Regime.The “national security state” that works against America must be dismantled.— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) August 14, 2022
      Yet there seems to be an awareness among Republicans that the attacks don’t match the message of a party that attempts to cast itself as supporters of law enforcement. “We cannot say that whenever they went in and did that search, that they were not doing their job as law enforcement officers,” Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson said of the FBI in a Sunday interview on CNN:”We need to pull back on casting judgment on them.”Gov. @AsaHutchinson (R-AR) responds to Republicans attacking the FBI after investigators seized classified documents from Trump’s home. @CNNSotu #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/o1CtvURUmB— CNN (@CNN) August 14, 2022
      The investigations into the Trump administration continued today, with Rudy Giuliani being informed that he was a target of the special grand jury looking into election meddling in Georgia, while another former Donald Trump lawyer, Eric Herschmann, was subpoenaed by the federal grand jury looking into the January 6 attack. Republican senator Lindsey Graham also lost his attempt to quash a subpoena compelling his appearance before the Georgia panel, though he has vowed to appeal. Meanwhile, a Trumpworld source said the former president should declare his 2024 run for the presidency soon to avoid indictment.Here’s what else happened today:
      US defense secretary Lloyd Austin tested positive for Covid-19 for the second time this year, he announced. His symptoms are mild and he’ll work remotely.
      President Joe Biden will tomorrow sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law, his marquee plan to lower both America’s carbon emissions and costs for health care.
      Democrats fear that if the Republicans win the House this fall they could reinstate the Holman Rule, which allows the party in control of the chamber to write language into spending bills to cut the salaries of federal employees such as the attorney general or FBI officials, The Washington Post reports.
      Much attention tomorrow night will be on the Wyoming and Alaska primaries, where congresswoman Liz Cheney is battling a Republican challenger in Wyoming and former vice-presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin is hoping for a comeback by winning the state’s lone congressional seat.
      The FBI and department of homeland security have warned of an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI headquarters in Washington DC and the issuing of general calls for “civil war” and “armed rebellion”.
      The Senate Republican campaign fund is slashing its ad purchases in three crucial states, The New York Times reports.The cuts made in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona total about $10 million, and are a sign of lackluster fundraising for the GOP’s attempt to retake the upper chamber of Congress, where it needs only one additional seat to create a majority. The Republican candidates in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, and in Arizona, Blake Masters, are both down in the polls, according to FiveThirtyEight, although incumbent Republican Ron Johnson is leading in Wisconsin.President Joe Biden will tomorrow sign into law the Inflation Reduction Act, his marquee plan to lower both America’s carbon emissions and costs for health care.Tomorrow’s event will take place in the White House State Dining Room, the Biden administration announced. In the coming weeks, Biden “will host a Cabinet meeting focused on implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, will travel across the country to highlight how the bill will help the American people, and will host an event to celebrate the enactment of the bill at the White House on September 6.”The act’s passage came after more than a year of negotiations among Democrats, who set out to pass what the Biden administration hoped would be transformational legislation addressing a range of issues from the high costs of child and elder case, to the nationwide housing shortage, to immigration reform. But Republicans refused to support the bill, and the party’s razor-thin margin of control in Congress meant many of those proposals were stripped out of the bill, chiefly due to opposition from conservative Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.US House passes Democrats’ landmark healthcare and climate billRead moreThe Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has further details about Rudy Giuliani’s new legal trouble in Georgia:Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani is a target of the criminal investigation in Georgia that has been examining efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state by the former president and his allies, a source briefed on the matter confirmed on Monday.The move to designate Giuliani, 78, as a target – as opposed to a subject – raises the legal stakes for the ex-New York mayor, identified as a key figure in the attempt to reverse the former president’s electoral defeat to Joe Biden in the state.The office of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney prosecuting the case, told Giuliani he was a target of the criminal investigation into that attempt.Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaRead moreA source close to former president Donald Trump says he should announce his 2024 campaign for presidency soon if he wants to avoid indictment, Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump “has to” announce a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 in the next two weeks, a senior Trumpworld source said, if the former president wants to head off being indicted under the Espionage Act after the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago last week.In communications obtained by the Guardian, the source indicated Trump needed to announce because politically it would be harder for the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to indict a candidate for office than a former president out of the electoral running.The source also suggested Ron DeSantis, Trump’s only serious competitor in Republican polling, will not run in 2024 if Trump chooses to enter the race.Trump should announce run for 2024 soon to avoid indictment, source saysRead moreEric Herschmann, a lawyer who advised Donald Trump and has become one of the more well known witnesses before the January 6 committee, has received a subpoena from the federal grand jury investigating the attack, Politico reports.He joins former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin in receiving summons from the panel looking into the breach of the US Capitol by Trump’s enraged supporters.With his witty ripostes and salty language, Herschmann’s testimony was among the more memorable aired by the January 6 committee. The lawyer detailed his opposition to other officials in the Trump White House, who wanted to take drastic actions to overturn the president’s loss in the 2020 election. More

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      GOP governors rebuke party members’ ‘outrageous rhetoric’ over Trump search

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      GOP governors rebuke party members’ ‘outrageous rhetoric’ over Trump search Larry Hogan describes comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as dangerous A handful of Republican governors have criticized the “outrageous rhetoric” of their party colleagues in the US Congress, who have accused federal law enforcement officers of a politicized attack on former president Donald Trump after executing a court-approved search warrant on his Florida home this week.Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican moderate, described attacks by party members as both “absurd” and “dangerous”, after a week in which certain Republicans have compared the FBI to the Gestapo and fundraised off the slogan: “Defund the FBI”.Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Hogan described the comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as “very concerning to me, it’s outrageous rhetoric”.He added: “It’s absurd and, you know, it’s dangerous,” especially after an armed man enraged by the raid was killed in Ohio when he tried to invade an FBI office. “There are threats all over the place and losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers and our justice system is a really serious problem for the country.”On Monday, FBI agents executed a search warrant at the former president’s private members club and residence in south Florida with an unsealed warrant later revealing Trump is under investigation for potential violation of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.The episode inflamed conservative commentators and politicians still deeply loyal to the former president, and was followed by the attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Thursday, which led to a six-hour armed standoff that left the lone gunman shot dead.Hogan, who is rumored to be considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, argued that many of his colleagues in Washington had been “jumping to conclusions without any information, which I think was wrong”.He added that revelations in the unsealed warrant were a “serious concern” but argued investigators should provide further details on the contents of the seized documents.Hogan’s comments were followed by remarks from Arkansas’s Republican governor Asa Hutchinson, who appeared on CNN on Sunday and partially mirrored his Maryland counterpart.“If the GOP is going to be the party of supporting law enforcement, law enforcement includes the FBI,” Hutchinson, a former US prosecutor and private practice attorney, said.He added: “We need to pull back on casting judgment on them. … No doubt that higher ups in the FBI have made mistakes, they do it, I’ve defended cases as well, and I’ve seen wrong actions. But we cannot say that whenever they [FBI officers] went in and did that search that they were not doing their job as law enforcement officers.”The comments marked a growing split on the extremist rhetoric from certain Republican party members following the execution of the search warrant. Many senior senate Republicans have remained largely quiet in the wake of the unprecedented law enforcement action, while others have appeared on conservative news channels supporting baseless accusations that the FBI planted evidence during the search.The Republican congresswoman from Wyoming Liz Cheney, a ranking member on the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US capitol, has condemned her colleagues’ rhetoric as “sickening”.“I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search,” Cheney wrote on Thursday. “These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”Her stance is slowly being mirrored by other House Republicans after the warrant was made public on Friday.Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from Texas told Axios on Saturday that sloganeering against the FBI “makes you look unserious”. And ranking homeland security committee member John Katko told the website: “This is not something you rush to judgment on. … It’s incumbent upon everybody to take a deep breath.”Meanwhile on Sunday, the White House continued refraining from commenting on the search warrant. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly declined to answer questions on the matter during an interview with ABC News, citing the US justice department’s independence on law enforcement matters.When shown video of comments made by House Republican Elise Stefanik, a staunch Trump loyalist, who described the search as “complete abuse and overreach” by the FBI, Jean-Pierre broadly fired back.She said: “The Department of Justice, when it comes to law enforcement, is independent. This is what we believe, and this is what the president has said. This is not about politicizing anything. That is not true at all.”Jean-Pierre added a reminder that US attorney general Merrick Garland was confirmed by the US Senate in bipartisan vote, and that Trump nominated FBI director Christopher Wray to his position in 2017.TopicsDonald TrumpFBIUS politicsRepublicansFloridanewsReuse this content More

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      FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified nuclear weapons documents – report

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      FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified nuclear weapons documents – reportSuspected presence of such documents could explain why US attorney general took step of ordering FBI agents into a former president’s house FBI agents were looking for secret documents about nuclear weapons among other classified material when they searched Donald Trump’s home on Monday, it has been reported.The Washington Post cited people familiar with the investigation as saying nuclear weapons documents were thought to be in the trove the FBI was hunting in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. They did not specify what kind of documents or whether they referred to the US arsenal or another country’s.DoJ has asked court to unseal Trump search warrant, Merrick Garland saysRead moreThe report came hours after the attorney general, Merrick Garland, said he had personally authorised the government request for a search warrant and revealed that the justice department had asked a Florida court for the warrant to be unsealed, noting that Trump himself had made the search public.The justice department motion referred to “the public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred in its contents”.Trump later released a statement saying he would not oppose but rather was “encouraging the immediate release of those documents” related to what he called the “unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in … Release the documents now!”Garland’s announcement followed a furious backlash to the search from Trump supporters who portrayed it as politically motivated. On Thursday a man who tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati office was shot and killed by police after he fled the scene.01:56The court told the government to present its motion to Trump’s lawyers and to report back by 3pm on Friday on whether Trump objected to the warrant being unsealed.The suspected presence of nuclear weapons documents at Mar-a-Lago could explain why Garland took such a politically charged step as ordering FBI agents into a former president’s house, as retrieving them would be seen as a national security priority.Trump was particularly fixated on the US nuclear arsenal while he was in the White House, and boasted about being privy to highly secret information.In the summer of 2017 he told US military leaders he wanted an arsenal comparable to its cold war peak, which would have involved a ten-fold increase, a demand that reportedly led the then secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, describe him as a “fucking moron”. Trump publicly threatened to obliterate both North Korea and Afghanistan.In his book on the Trump presidency, Rage, Bob Woodward quoted the former president as telling him: “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody – what we have is incredible.”Woodward said he was later told the US did indeed have an unspecified new weapons system, and officials were “surprised” that Trump had disclosed the fact.Cheryl Rofer, a chemist who worked on nuclear weapons at the Los Alamos national laboratory said there were varying classification levels applying to different kinds of documentation.“Information about the design of nuclear weapons is called Restricted Data and is ‘born classified’. That means it is assumed to be classified unless declassified,” Rofer, who writes a blog titled Nuclear Diner, wrote on Twitter. But she added: “There’s no reason for a president to have nuclear weapons design information that I can see.”Among the nuclear documents that Trump would routinely have had access to would be the classified version of the Nuclear Posture Review, about US capabilities and policies. A military aide is always close to the president carrying the “nuclear football”, a briefcase containing nuclear strike options, but it would be unusual for those documents to be taken out of the football.Another possibility Rofer pointed to is that Trump could have retained his nuclear “biscuit”, a piece of plastic like a credit card with the identification codes necessary for nuclear launch. Those codes would have been changed however the moment Biden took office at noon on 20 January 2021.TopicsDonald TrumpFBIMar-a-LagoUS politicsMerrick GarlandnewsReuse this content More