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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

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      Wednesday briefing: Could the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago be a gamechanger?

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      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

      Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition
      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 cellphone

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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

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      FBI raid of Trump’s estate prompts Republican anger and 2024 speculation

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      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