FBI

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats condemn Lindsey Graham’s nationwide abortion ban proposal – as it happened

      by

      Top Democrats have decried a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks proposed today by Republican senator Lindsey Graham.“Today, Senator Graham introduced a national ban on abortion which would strip away women’s rights in all 50 states. This bill is wildly out of step with what Americans believe,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.“While President Biden and Vice President Harris are focused on the historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, health care, and energy – and to take unprecedented action to address climate change – Republicans in Congress are focused on taking rights away from millions of women,” Jean-Pierre continued, adding that the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress “are committed to restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade.”Democratic house speaker Nancy Pelosi joined in, saying, “The nationwide abortion ban proposal put forth today is the latest, clearest signal of extreme MAGA Republicans’ intent to criminalize women’s health freedom in all 50 states and arrest doctors for providing basic care. Make no mistake: if Republicans get the chance, they will work to pass laws even more draconian than this bill – just like the bans they have enacted in states like Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.”Republican senator Lindsey Graham caused quite the stir by proposing a nationwide ban on abortions past the 15-week mark, which even many fellow GOP lawmakers don’t support, at least not right now. The legislation could mark the start of a campaign to seek federal restrictions on the procedure after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June. Meanwhile, new inflation data showed prices continuing to rise – albeit at a slower rate – across the economy, dampening hopes that the wave of cost increases had faded for good.Here’s what else happened today so far:
      Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was among those downplaying Graham’s proposal, but the Kentucky lawmakers has previously said the chamber could consider a federal ban on abortion if the GOP wins a majority.
      Criminal referrals from the January 6 committee to the justice department are “likely”, a lawmaker on the panel said. More public hearings by the committee are also expected to be announced soon.
      Democrat and Republican lawmakers love trading stocks, according to an analysis from The New York Times that will likely add pressure on party leaders to ban congress members from owning or trading securities.
      A jury in Connecticut is considering how much to order conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre for spreading lies that the killings were a hoax.
      Lindsey Graham’s proposal to outlaw abortion after 15 weeks isn’t just unpopular with many of his fellow Senate Republicans – it would also appear to be unpopular with the Lindsey Graham of just a month ago, who said the question of abortion access should be left up to the states.Here’s a reminder from The Recount of what Graham had to say about the issue just this past August:Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in August: States should regulate abortion.Sen. Lindsey Graham in September: The federal government should regulate abortion. pic.twitter.com/VvMDZd9fsp— The Recount (@therecount) September 13, 2022
      The discomfort over the Republican abortion ban proposal extends beyond the Senate to the campaign trail, where several of the party’s nominees to the chamber are trying to distance themselves from it.Tiffany Smiley, the GOP Senate nominee in Washington state, says she wouldn’t get behind such a bill, Politico reports:A spokesperson for WA GOP nominee Tiffany Smiley also said she doesn’t support the Graham bill and that it should be left up to the states to decide their abortion laws— Marianne LeVine (@marianne_levine) September 13, 2022
      Joe O’Dea, a Republican vying for Colorado’s Senate seat, also opposed it, according to Politico. However Herschel Walker, who’s in a tight race for the senate seat occupied by Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock, appeared to support it:Herschel Walker: “I believe the issue should be decided at the state level, but I WOULD support this policy.”Joe O’Dea of Colorado: “I don’t support Senator Graham’s bill. A Republican ban is as reckless and tone deaf as is Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer’s hostility to” compromise— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 13, 2022
      Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell may have downplayed the idea of a national abortion ban today, but don’t be surprised if he one day changes his mind.Consider his comments to USA Today in May, after a draft opinion leaked showing the supreme court was poised to overturn Roe v Wade, but before they officially did so later the following month.“If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies – not only at the state level, but at the federal level – certainly could legislate in that area,” the Kentucky lawmaker said. “And if this were the final decision, that was the point that it should be resolved one way or another in the legislative process. So yeah, it’s possible. It would depend on where the votes were.”That means Graham’s proposal, or one like it, could be put up for a vote if Republicans reclaim control of the Senate – which they’ll have a chance of doing in the November midterms.However, Democrats could use the filibuster to block any such legislation, and even the GOP’s most optimistic forecasts don’t have the party winning the 60 seats needed to overcome that. In the USA Today interview, McConnell also made clear he was not in favor of changing the chamber’s rules to make legislation easier to pass. “No carve out of the filibuster – period. For any subject,” he said.Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to make the most of Graham’s abortion ban proposal as they make their case to maintain control of Congress.Here’s top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer at a press conference today:Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) slams Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) proposed 15-week abortion ban:”What Senator Graham is introducing is a MAGA Republican nationwide abortion ban. If it walks like a nationwide abortion ban and talks like a nationwide abortion ban…” pic.twitter.com/CofXO5SUB4— The Recount (@therecount) September 13, 2022
      So much for that. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has poured cold water on the party making any concerted effort to get a vote on Lindsey Graham’s proposed 15-week abortion ban.Here’s what CNN reports that McConnell, who would become Senate majority leader if the GOP wins a majority in the upper chamber in the midterm elections, had to say about the idea:McConnell on Graham’s bill: “you’ll have to ask him about it.” Says most Republicans want to leave it to the states— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 13, 2022
      A more immediate obstacle for Graham is the Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, which are sure to oppose his bill.Politico has more on the cool reception Lindsey Graham’s abortion ban has received in the Senate, particularly among his fellow Republicans.“That wasn’t a conference decision. It was an individual senator’s decision,” Texas’s Republican senator John Cornyn said in the piece, echoing the sentiment of several lawmakers from Republican-dominated states that are moving to restrict abortion, but wary of pursuing such bans nationwide.“My state, today, is working on this. I’m not sure what he’s thinking here. But I don’t think there will be a rallying around that concept,” Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator from West Virginia, said.Elsewhere, Democrats have seized on the proposal to attack Republicans. The Democratic Party of Virginia put out a statement accusing Jen Kiggans, a state senator vying for a US House seat against Democratic incumbent Elaine Luria, of changing her stance on abortion rights.“The reason why Jen Kiggans is trying to walk back her stance on abortion is that she knows her extreme anti-abortion agenda is out of touch with Coastal Virginians and will cost her the election,” the Democrats wrote.The full text of the 15-week abortion ban proposed by Republican senator Lindsey Graham can be read here, and contains an important detail about exactly what would be outlawed.“The term ‘perform’, with respect to an abortion, includes inducing an abortion through a medical or chemical intervention, including writing a prescription for a drug or device intended to result in an abortion,” according to the text of the bill.That likely means it would outlaw abortion pills that are seen as one of the best options for women to receive care in states where the procedure has been outlawed or restricted.Mail-order abortion pills become next US reproductive rights battlegroundRead moreThe Republican proposal to ban abortion after 15 weeks is only hours old, but it’s already become an issue on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania.According to Insider, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee to represent the state in the Senate, has used the proposal to attack his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz.Fetterman already using the Graham bill against Oz pic.twitter.com/gBkSslVOI4— bryan metzger (@metzgov) September 13, 2022
      Republican senator Lindsey Graham has proposed legislation to ban abortions nationally after 15 weeks, in what is likely the start of a campaign to seek federal restrictions on the procedure after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June. Meanwhile, new inflation data showed prices continuing to rise – albeit at a slower rate – across the economy, dampening hopes that the wave of cost increases had faded for good.Here’s what else happened today so far:
      Criminal referrals from the January 6 committee to the justice department are “likely”, a lawmaker on the panel said. More public hearings by the committee are also expected to be announced soon.
      Democrat and Republican lawmakers love trading stocks, according to an analysis from The New York Times that will likely add pressure on party leaders to ban congress members from owning or trading securities.
      A jury in Connecticut is considering how much to order conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre for spreading lies that the killings were a hoax.
      Further cracks have appeared in Graham’s insistence that his proposed 15-week abortion ban has wide political support.CNN reports that not all Senate Republicans are onboard with the measure:Senate GOP not on same page on Graham’s 15-week abortion. Thune supports it. Rick Scott said he’d “look at it.” Cornyn and Ron Johnson said it should be left to the states. Asked if he backs Graham bill, Johnson said it should be decided by “we the people” in the 50 states.— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 13, 2022
      “I think there will be a couple of Democrats who will be with us, maybe, hope, pray,” Republican senator Lindsey Graham replied when asked about whether his proposed nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks will win enough votes to pass the closely divided Congress. “I think the public’s with us,” he added.It’s unclear whether any Democratic votes would materialize for the proposal, but that party controls the House and Senate, and it’s unlikely they’ll even let the measure come up for a vote as long as that’s the case.As for public support for Graham’s proposal, a recent poll doesn’t bear that out. Earlier this month, a poll by The Wall Street Journal found 57% of respondents opposed an abortion ban at 15 weeks with exceptions for the health of a mother – exactly the kind of measure Graham proposed.In fact, the survey found voter support for abortion increasing overall since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June. While in March, 55% of voters said the procedure should be legal in all or most cases, that had risen to 60% in the phone survey conducted in mid-August.Top Democrats have decried a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks proposed today by Republican senator Lindsey Graham.“Today, Senator Graham introduced a national ban on abortion which would strip away women’s rights in all 50 states. This bill is wildly out of step with what Americans believe,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.“While President Biden and Vice President Harris are focused on the historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, health care, and energy – and to take unprecedented action to address climate change – Republicans in Congress are focused on taking rights away from millions of women,” Jean-Pierre continued, adding that the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress “are committed to restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade.”Democratic house speaker Nancy Pelosi joined in, saying, “The nationwide abortion ban proposal put forth today is the latest, clearest signal of extreme MAGA Republicans’ intent to criminalize women’s health freedom in all 50 states and arrest doctors for providing basic care. Make no mistake: if Republicans get the chance, they will work to pass laws even more draconian than this bill – just like the bans they have enacted in states like Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.”Senator Lindsey Graham has unveiled his proposed nationwide abortion ban, which would outlaw the procedure after 15 weeks, with certain exceptions.“I think we should have a law on the books that says after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand except in cases of rape, incest, to save the life of the mother, and that should be where America’s at,” Graham said as he unveiled the legislation in the Capitol.Graham said the proposal, dubbed the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act”, would match similar laws in European countries. He said the 15-week threshold is when fetuses will feel pain, however that doesn’t quite match the science. Many scientists say fetuses can’t feel pain before 24 weeks, although the subject is complicated and continuing to be researched.Graham acknowledged the political realities of his proposal. “If the Democrats are in charge, I don’t know if we’ll ever have a vote on our bill.”As The Guardian has reported previously, late-term abortions are very rare in the United States.The truth about late-term abortions in the US: they’re very rareRead moreRepublican senator Lindsey Graham will soon introduce his legislation to ban abortions nationally. While it has no chance in the Senate as long as Democrats are in control, it will likely attract considerable support from Republican lawmakers, and could mark the start of the party’s effort to restrict the procedure nationwide thanks to the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade.The Washington Post reports that Graham has said the ban will apply after 15 weeks of pregnancy – five weeks less than in previous versions of the legislation the South Carolina lawmaker has introduced:Breaking: Graham just told Fox News that his “late-term abortion act” is indeed a 15-week ban.This is pretty extraordinary language to be using for 15 weeks. When antiabortion groups use “late term abortions” (not a medical phrase), it’s usually understood to mean 21-24 weeks +— Caroline Kitchener (@CAKitchener) September 13, 2022
      You can watch the senator’s press conference here.A Connecticut jury began hearing arguments Tuesday in a trial to decide how much money conspiracy theorist and right-winger Alex Jones should pay relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy, for spreading a lie that the massacre was a hoax, The Associated Press reports.A settlement was ordered at trial against Jones last month in a civil case in Texas brought by parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting with the current case in Connecticut pending.Critics have said many things of Jones and his platform Infowars, among them the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate and extremist groups in the US, whose spokesman said in August: “He has probably done more to further the cause of hate in this country than almost anyone outside of Donald Trump himself.”The AP writes today of this trial in Waterbury, Connecticut, not far from Sandy Hook:More than a dozen family members, including parents of some victims, filed into the courtroom to listen to the opening statements and first day of evidence.A jury of three men and three women along with several alternates will decide how much the conspiracy theorist should pay relatives of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school.Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones liable without a trial last year after he failed to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.On Tuesday, she sanctioned Jones for failing to turn over analytic data related to his website and the popularity of his show.She told his lawyers that because of that failure, they will not be allowed to argue he didn’t profit from his Sandy Hook remarks.Jones did not attend the opening of the trial Tuesday.He said on his show Monday that he would be traveling to Connecticut next week.The trial is expected to last about a month and feature testimony from both Jones and the families.More of the Guardian piece that contains that SPLC quote, above, here.‘He has done more to further the cause of hate in the US than almost anyone’: the rise and fall of Alex JonesRead more More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump lawyers urge judge to block DoJ’s bid to access Mar-a-Lago documents

      by

      Trump lawyers urge judge to block DoJ’s bid to access Mar-a-Lago documentsEx-president’s team reiterates request for special master to review seized materials and asks judge to uphold earlier order Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a federal judge on Monday to deny the justice department’s request to regain access to some documents the FBI seized from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort and restart the criminal investigation into his unauthorized retention of government documents.The response from the Trump legal team reiterated that it wanted a so-called special master to review all of the seized materials, asking the judge to uphold her earlier order barring prosecutors from using the documents in a criminal investigation until the process was complete.But in the 21-page filing, Trump’s lawyers interpreted the Presidential Records Act in sometimes unusual ways, and accused the justice department of criminalizing what they considered a dispute between Trump and the National Archives about how documents should be handled.“In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control,” the response from the Trump legal team said, “the government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th president of his own presidential and personal records.”The fight over the documents Trump took to his Florida resort has become a protracted and increasingly tangled fight. But at its heart is the treatment of secret government files, some of which have been reported to be highly sensitive, even involving nuclear secrets.Democrats and others have argued that Trump has behaved outrageously in relation to the documents and that the case should end with a prosecution. Trump and his defenders have played down the affair, characterizing it as either politically motivated or blown out of proportion.Trump’s lawyers appeared to principally advance the argument that the justice department’s request last week to US district judge Aileen Cannon to regain access to about 100 documents marked classified should not be granted, because Trump may have secretly declassified those documents.The justice department had asked in its request that prosecutors be allowed to resume working with the 100 documents as documents marked classified could never be personal or presidential records, and Trump therefore had no “possessory interest” – the key legal standard – in the materials.It also complained that the documents marked classified needed to be reviewed by the FBI, a division of the justice department, in the risk assessment being conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which has been halted because officials were unsure about the scope of Cannon’s order.The FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago about 11,000 documents and 48 empty folders marked classified. The risk assessment into the empty folders, for instance, was to be completed by the FBI – but Cannon’s order threw that review into limbo, the justice department said.But in the new filing, Trump’s lawyers – without explicitly stating so – suggested that the special master needed to examine those 100 documents for potential privilege protections before prosecutors or the FBI could look at them, because Trump may have declassified them.The question about whether the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago marked classified – even after Trump’s lawyers represented to the government it had complied with a subpoena demanding any documents marked classified – were actually declassified has become a central issue in the case.For weeks, Trump and his allies have claimed the documents marked classified stored at Mar-a-Lago were declassified subject to a “standing declassification order” – though his lawyers have never actually said this in court filings, which require statements to be wholly truthful.The latest filing from the Trump legal team, as with previous court submissions, once more danced around whether Trump actually declassified the materials without cutting either way, and left unclear whether he had actually designated some of the seized materials personal records.Trump’s lawyers in essence appeared to be making the sort of arguments criminal defense attorneys might make in a motion to suppress after a client has been indicted, rather than in a typical fourth amendment claim pre-indictment, former US attorney suggested.The Trump legal team in the filing offered a particularly unusual reading of the Presidential Records Act, on which the entire legal argument is based, claiming the provision that says the National Archives “shall” become the custodian of presidential records, did not mean that it “must”.TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpUS politicsFBInewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Senate intelligence chair urges judge to allow briefing on Trump Mar-a-Lago search

      by

      Senate intelligence chair urges judge to allow briefing on Trump Mar-a-Lago searchDemocrat says clarification from judge urgently needed and the mishandling of state secrets could have disastrous consequences The Democratic chair of the US Senate intelligence committee has demanded that a federal judge allows the committee to be briefed on the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago and the potential damage caused by Donald Trump hoarding top secret documents at his private club.Mark Warner, the US senator from Virginia, said that there was confusion over whether the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the FBI were allowed to brief the Senate committee on their review of classified documents held at the former president’s club-resort and residence in Palm Beach, Florida.The FBI searched the property on 8 August, retrieving more than 100 classified documents.Last week a Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon of the federal district court for thesouthern district of Florida, sided with Trump and ordered a “special master” to oversee the documents. The DoJ is appealing the decision, but its criminal investigation of Trump’s removal of state secrets from the White House has been halted by the court’s action.Warner told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that clarification from the judge was urgently needed, and the mishandling of state secrets could have disastrous consequences.“Some of the documents involved human intelligence, and if that information got out people will die. If there were penetration of our signals intelligence, literally years of work could be destroyed.”Warner added that if information in the documents had been obtained from foreign intelligence services, then “the willingness of our allies to share intelligence could be undermined”.Hillary Clinton, the former presidential candidate who lost to Trump in 2016, argued that he should be liable to criminal prosecution. She told CNN on Sunday: “No one is above the law, no one should escape accountability … He is not the president and so I do think, just like any American, if there is any evidence that should be pursued.”The White House has stayed aloof from the DoJ’s actions..US vice-president Kamala Harris declined to answer in an NBC interview whether Trump’s status as a possible presidential candidate in 2024 should be taken into account in the DoJ’s criminal investigation.“I wouldn’t dare tell the Department of Justice what to do,” she said. “The president and our administration, unlike the previous administration, have been very, very careful to make sure there is no question about any kind of interference.”Pressed on whether it would be too divisive to prosecute a former president, Harris signaled that Trump should be held accountable, saying: “Our country has gone through different periods of time where the unthinkable has happened, and where there has been a call for justice, and justice has been served…people are going to demand justice, and they rightly do.”TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBIUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officials

      by

      Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsThe ex-president’s cries of a witch hunt by law enforcement, echoed by his allies, have imperiled officers’ physical safety Donald Trump’s non-stop drive to paint the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents as a political witch hunt is drawing rebukes from ex-justice department and FBI officials who warn such attacks can spur violence and pose a real threat to the physical safety of law enforcement.But the concerns have not deterred Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump allies from making inflammatory remarks echoing the former US president.Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundRead moreThe unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally.Before the 8 August raid, Trump and his attorneys stonewalled FBI and US National Archives requests for the return of all classified documents and did not fully comply with a grand jury subpoena in a criminal probe of Trump’s hoarding of government documents.The FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and club recovered 33 boxes with over 100 classified documents, adding to the 200 classified records Trump had earlier returned in response to multiple federal requests.Trump’s high decibel attacks on law enforcement officials for trying to recover large quantities of classified documents including some that reportedly had foreign nuclear secrets was palpable in Pennsylvania recently when Trump at a political rally branded the FBI and justice department “political monsters” and labelled president Joe Biden “an enemy of the state”.The day before in Pennsylvania, to coincide with a major Biden speech about threats to democracy posed by Trump and some of his allies, McCarthy mimicked Trump’s high decibel attacks on the court-approved FBI raid by calling it an “assault on democracy”.Former law enforcement officials and scholars warn that using such conspiratorial rhetoric impugning the motives and actions of justice department and the FBI runs the risk of inciting threats of violence and actual attacks, fears that have already been proven warranted.Consider Trump supporter Ricky Shiffer, who posted angry messages about the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump Social, and then on 12 August armed himself with an assault rifle and attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati. After fleeing the scene he was hunted down and killed by police.In another sign of potential violence, federal judge Bruce Reinhart in Florida, who had approved the FBI warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, reportedly received death threats after his name was cited in press accounts.“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian. “It’s a chorus led by Trump but that includes elected officials at every level. It is dangerous and unacceptable.”Bromwich added: “It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”Similarly, Chuck Rosenberg, a former US attorney for the sastern district of Virginia and ex-chief of staff to former FBI director James Comey, told the Guardian: “The attacks on federal law enforcement are sickening and reckless.”To historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has studied authoritarian leaders and wrote the book Strongmen, Trump’s attacks on the FBI and justice department and his retention of classified documents are consistent with his “authoritarian” leadership style“It’s very typical of authoritarians to claim that they’re the victims and that there are witch hunts against them,” Ben-Ghiat told the Guardian.Trump’s furious assaults on law enforcement also targeted the National Archives and Records Administration, causing a notable uptick in threats against the agency, according to sources quoted by the Washington Post.“No NARA official involved in negotiating the return of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago would have acted with any motive other than to ensure the safe return of all of the presidential records back into the custody of the government,” said Jason R Baron, the former director of litigation at the US National Archives. “It is unfortunate that some would impugn the motives of NARA staff in simply doing their job.”The frenzied attacks on law enforcement began almost immediately after the raid and included some especially rabid Trump supporters.Former White House adviser Bannon, who has been convicted on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 panel, made unsupported claims to conspiracy monger Jones on Infowars that the FBI planted evidence against Trump during the Mar-a-Lago raid, and that the “deep state” is planning to kill Trump.“I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump,” said Bannon, who on 8 September was charged by New York prosecutors with fraud, money laundering and conspiracy involving his role in a private fundraising scheme to fund constructing the US-Mexico border wall.Right before he left office, Trump pardoned Bannon who had been indicted on similar federal charges involving fraud and the border wall.Graham provoked heavy criticism for making the suggestion in a Fox News interview that the FBI raid and investigation would lead to “riots in the street”, if charges were filed against Trump.After critics noted Graham’s comments could fuel violence, Graham doubled down a week later saying he was just trying to “state the obvious”.In a twist, some veteran justice department prosecutors point out that predictions of violence can potentially be criminal.“The risk is that predictions of violence can easily become threats of violence bordering on extortion,” former justice department prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig told the Guardian. “Explicitly calling for violence against the government can, in context, become criminal. When Trump loyalists like Bannon and Graham seem to cross that line, they are risking criminal prosecution.”On another front, even some former close allies of Trump say that his shifting and hard edged attacks on law enforcement look desperate and don’t pass the smell test.William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who formerly was a close ally, told Fox News on 2 September he didn’t see any reason why classified documents were at Mar-a-Lago once Trump left office.“People say this was unprecedented,” Barr told Fox News “But it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?”To historian Ben-Ghiat, the fact that “Trump had those classified documents and they were mixed in with golf balls and family photos is very typical of authoritarian type leaders who don’t recognize any divides between public and private. Everything is theirs to trade, to sell and to use as leverage.”For Bromwich, the attacks on law enforcement by Trump and his ardent allies is unprecedented and very dangerous.“For those of us who have spent time with federal law enforcement personnel, the idea that they are members of the deep state or doing the bidding of the radical left is ridiculous. In my experience, the majority are conservative and Republican. Whatever their politics, they don’t let their political views affect their work.”“The search of Mar-a-Lago was indeed unprecedented. It was preceded by an unprecedented and colossal theft of government property by the former president.”TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBILaw (US)RepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      DoJ bids to regain access to classified documents seized in Trump search – as it happened

      by

      The justice department’s legal filing is expected sometime today expanding its arguments why district court judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, must reverse her decision appointing a “special master” in the case of the former president’s hoarding of classified materials at his Florida residence.In a strongly-worded notice of intent to appeal submitted on Thursday, department lawyers let Cannon know in no uncertain terms that her decision was impeding the progress of an investigation critical to national security.The lawyers made clear it needed access back immediately to classified documents seized last month at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion by FBI agents, while Trump’s attorneys are claiming he is entitled to have sent back to him everything that was taken away.The inquiry took on added poignancy this week when it was reported that another country’s nuclear secrets were among the stash of highly classified documents Trump is said to have hidden from federal agents.The department will make its own arguments, but we couldn’t explain things any better than Politico Playbook likening Trump to a jewel thief demanding the return of his ill-gotten gains:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Imagine that someone allegedly stole a sack of diamonds from a jewelry shop and then stashed the gems in junk drawers around their house. The cops raid the place, take away everything in the drawers where they find stolen diamonds, and spend two weeks separating them from the junk.
      Then a judge comes along and says that the big issue in the case isn’t the stolen diamonds but that the cops still have some of the alleged thief’s personal belongings. She halts the heist investigation until an outside expert can sort the gems from the junk.
      The government thinks the judge’s decision is absurd – no other suspect has received this special treatment – but they offer the judge a compromise: let us keep all of the diamonds, and we’ll return all of the alleged thief’s junk, even a few cheap watches that they think he might have swiped from the store.Also today, the justice department and Trump’s legal team were due to jointly file a list of possible candidates to serve as the “special master” to review the records seized by the FBI.We’ll bring you news on both fronts as we get it.Read more:Trump lawyers and justice department to file list of special master candidatesRead moreThat’s it for the US politics live blog today! Here were some of the events we followed:
      The Biden administration announced that it plans to admit up to 125,000 refugees in next fiscal year, the same target for this current period, announced state department spokesperson Ned Price.
      Joe Biden gave a speech about transforming America’s Rustbelt region into “the silicon heartland” while speaking at the groundbreaking of a new Intel semiconductor factory in Ohio.
      Kamala Harris was in Houston and spoke to astronauts aboard the international space station. The vice-president also chaired a meeting of the National Space Council this afternoon.
      Department of Justice lawyers aimed to regain access to highly classified documents that were seized during an FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida mansion. Lawyers called the seized documents “critical” to national security.
      Have a great weekend and thank you for reading!As of August 31st, only 19,919 refugees have been admitted to the US under the Biden administration.The figure falls fairly short of the 125,000 goal proposed by his administration and doesn’t include refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine who have come more recently.From CNN reporter Priscilla Alvarez:The US has admitted only 19,919 refugees into the country as of Aug 31, falling far short of the Biden admin’s goal of 125K refugees with a month left in the fiscal year, according to federal data. That doesn’t include the thousands of Afghans and Ukrainians paroled into the US.— Priscilla Alvarez (@priscialva) September 8, 2022
      The Biden’s administration says it will recommend to Congress a cap on refugee admissions to 125,000 for the fiscal year 2023, the same target for the current period, the state department says.Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement that the figure would “address the growing needs generated by humanitarian crises around the globe, including the more than 100m displaced persons around the world”.Under the previous administration of Donald Trump, the refugee cap was reduced to 15,000, its lowest ever level, something Joe Biden said during his campaign for the White House he would seek to reverse.“Over the past fiscal year, we have taken steps to increase the resettlement of members of particularly vulnerable populations including refugees from the Americas, Congolese, Syrians, Ukrainians, populations from Burma, and many other nationalities, as well LGBTQI+ persons, all while providing additional initial resettlement support to more than 80,000 Afghans in communities across the US,” Price said.“The US is, and will continue to be, a global leader in international humanitarian response, including through refugee resettlement”.Two extremist Donald Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol during the 6 January riot incited by the former president pleaded guilty Friday on felony charges.Nicholas Ochs, 36, founder of the Hawaii Proud Boys chapter, and Nicholas DeCarlo, 32, a Fort Worth, Texas, resident, shared a social media channel called Murder the Media and claimed to have been in Washington DC covering the Trump “stop the steal” rally as journalists.They will be sentenced in December and face up to four years in prison, although the judge has discretion to go beyond the guidelines.The men admitted to throwing smoke bombs at police trying to keep the mob from the stage set up for Biden’s inauguration, and posed for photos in front of a door in which they scrawled “murder the media”.According to the Associated Press, more than 870 people have been charged so far in the Capitol riot and almost 400 have pleaded guilty to charges ranging from low-level misdemeanors for illegally entering the building to felony seditious conspiracy.By all appearances, Steve Bannon likes to think that he represents the soul of the Maga movement. He sees himself as a tireless champion of the common man, fighting their battles against America’s corrupt elites. It’s not for nothing that his radio show is called War Room and carried by the Real America’s Voice network. But just like everybody else who has worked closely with Donald Trump, Bannon is either delusional or trying to delude. He’s not the everyman – he’s the corrupt elite.This was driven home once again on Thursday, when Bannon surrendered himself to New York prosecutors to face charges of defrauding donors to We Build the Wall, a non-profit organization that raised more than $25m to build a wall to keep immigrants from crossing America’s southern border. Although donors to the group were assured that 100% of their money would be used on construction, large sums were siphoned into the pockets of those running the group. And who as chairman of the board allegedly took the greatest sum of all? None other than Steve Bannon.Full column:Steve Bannon’s indictment reveals the truth about Trumpism | Andrew GawthorpeRead moreElizabeth II, who died yesterday at the age of 96, visited the US as both a princess and queen, meeting more American presidents than any other head of state, according to the White House. Here’s a pictorial look at her visits:Washington to Yosemite: the Queen’s visits to the US over the years – in picturesRead moreAnd for further reading, here’s Hadley Freeman’s look at the Queen’s relationship with America and Americans….css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Few countries are as obsessed with celebrity as the US, and royals are the ultimate celebrity, being exotically unattainable and – unlike most other celebrities – intriguingly silent. Even the most arrogant come over all awed in the Queen’s presence. When then president Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, made their 2019 state visit, he might not have understood royal protocol, occasionally walking in front of the Queen during a parade, but he was still uncharacteristically respectful in her presence.Full story: For Americans, the Queen was the ultimate celebrity | Hadley FreemanRead moreHere’s a taste of Joan E Greve’s report on another (and more explicitly political) Biden speech, made in Maryland on Thursday night…Joe Biden continued his attacks on “extreme Maga Republicans” on Thursday night, as he spoke at the Democratic National Committee summer meeting in Oxon Hill, Maryland.“We’re in a serious moment in this nation’s history,” Biden said. “That’s why those who love this country – Democrats, independents and mainstream Republicans – have to be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving American democracy than the Maga Republicans are to literally destroying American politics. You just have to vote.”Full report:Biden seeks to motivate voters from all parties against ‘Maga Republicans destroying politics’Read moreJoe Biden says it’s time to “bury the label Rust Belt and call it the silicon heartland” as he touts the groundbreaking of a new Intel semiconductor factory in Ohio, and what he says is a new dawn for US technology.The president is taking a victory tour of the US following the passage of the $52bn bipartisan Chips and Science Act this summer that he hopes will kickstart the stalled production of semiconductors in the US.That shortfall, he says, has held back the country’s automobile, healthcare, manufacturing and other industries:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The US has to lead the world in producing advanced chips, and this law makes sure that we will.
      The act moves us up once again. We’re going to make sure we lead the world in industries of the future, in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, advanced biotechnology… think of the things this kind of investment can deliver, vaccines for cancer, cures for HIV, inventing the next best thing that hasn’t even been imagined yet.Aware of criticism from some Republicans, and others, that the Chips Act is a corporate giveaway, and threatens national security by sending taxpayer money to companies who do business with global competitors including China, Biden made an attempt at reassurance:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The act is not handing out blank checks to companies. I’ve directed my administration to be laser focused on the guardrails that will protect taxpayers dollars.
      We’ll make sure that companies partner with unions, community colleges, technical schools, to offer training and apprenticeships and to work with small minority owned businesses.
      We’re going to make sure that companies that take taxpayer dollars don’t turn around and make investments in China to undermine our supply chain and national security. We have the power to take back any federal funding if companies don’t meet these requirements.The Intel factory, Biden says, is a “field of dreams”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s fitting to break ground for American infrastructure here in Ohio.
      Think about our tradition here. The Wright brothers, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn… they defined American spirit, a sprit of daring innovation.
      Intel’s vision builds on that legacy, a brand new $20bn campus, 7,000 construction jobs, 3,000 full-time jobs paying an average of $135,000 a year and not all of them require a college degree.He’s finished the speech now, which was focused entirely on the Chips Act and did not veer off into any other global events.Joe Biden is in the intriguingly named Licking county, Ohio, where he’s at the groundbreaking ceremony of a new Intel factory and about to deliver remarks about the Chips Act, which will boost US production of semiconductors.The White House says this particular groundbreaking is a different occasion from the usual “scripted, backslapping affairs for political dignitaries”. We’re about to find out, but so far various industry officials and political dignitaries have spent a lot of time lauding each other and talking about the forthcoming factory.We’ll bring you the best of Biden’s remarks when he delivers them.”Groundbreaking ceremonies are often scripted, backslapping affairs for political dignitaries, but this marks an important milestone for a project with major regional and national implications.” https://t.co/dCFJNsQkVC— Herbie Ziskend (@HerbieZiskend46) September 9, 2022
      Self-confessed “space nerd” Kamala Harris had a problem in Houston this morning as she spoke with astronauts aboard the international space station.The vice-president is at the Johnson Space Center to chair an afternoon visit of the National Space Council, and took the opportunity to call astronauts Jessica Watkins, Bob Hines and Kjell Lindgren orbiting 250 miles above Earth. It didn’t end well.The National Space Council, chaired by @VP, will meet today at @NASA_Johnson. The vice president will talk to astronauts aboard the @Space_Station before sharing remarks about advancing space exploration & touring the home of the astronaut corps. Details: https://t.co/A5wHAyGz6M pic.twitter.com/LGpd8wP3IF— NASA (@NASA) September 9, 2022
      Harris and the ISS crew exchanged pleasantries and a conversation about plants being grown on the space station, and the astronauts’ perspective looking down on the planet.“We look down and we see a world with no borders,” Hines said.“You realize how fragile it is and how much we have to take care of it as well”.The trouble came when Harris, who introduced herself to the crew as a “space nerd”, wanted some guidance for young people who might want to become astronauts, or part of the Nasa team supporting their missions. “What’s your advice for our students?” she wondered.“Well, I think that…” the reply came, followed by the audible equivalent of a black hole.“Just as the vice-president was asking her question, we passed out a range of our tracking and data relay satellite system,” a Nasa commentator on the ground interjected.Harris will deliver remarks this afternoon about “advancing space exploration”, six days after Nasa’s most recent attempt to launch its new Artemis 1 moon rocket from Florida was called off for technical problems.There are developments in the war in Ukraine, with Russian forces being driven out of areas they formerly occupied and the Ukrainian military appearing to be closing in on the city of Kupiansk, a key logistical hub for the invading forces in the Kharkiv region.The US, with its western allies, continues to provide military and humanitarian support for the Ukrainian defense effort, Joe Biden announcing two weeks ago the largest tranche of aid to date, bringing to $13bn the total the country has supplied or pledged to Kyiv since the president took office.A reminder that you can follow all the developments in the Ukraine-Russia war in our live blog here:Ukraine-Russia war live: nuclear watchdog calls for Zaporizhzhia safety zone to avoid accidentRead moreOn the night of the 2018 midterm elections, as a wave of anti-Trump sentiment swept Democrats to take control of the House, top Republican Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president.“You have to run,” said Romney, the Republican presidential nominee Biden and Barack Obama defeated in 2012, speaking to the former vice-president by phone.The same night, Romney was elected a US senator from Utah, a post from which he would twice vote to convict Donald Trump in impeachment trials.Romney’s exhortation to a man then seen as a likely challenger to Trump in 2020 will probably further enrage the former president, his supporters and the Republican party they dominate.The Biden-Romney call is described in The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, a book by Gabriel Debenedetti that will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Describing how Biden spent 6 November 2018, Debenedetti writes: “Biden spent election night glued to his phone as usual … He talked to most of the candidates he’d campaigned for, and plenty he didn’t, either to congratulate or console them, or just to catch up.“This time felt better than 2016” – when Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency – “in part because Democrats were winning big, at least in local races and in the House.“But it was also because of a refrain [Biden] kept hearing, and not always from the most expected sources.“At one point he connected with Mitt Romney, who’d been easily elected to the Senate that night as a rare Trump-opposing Republican. They were warm as Biden cheered Romney’s win.“Then Obama’s old rival got to the point: You have to run, Romney said.”Read more:‘You have to run’: Romney urged Biden to take down Trump, book saysRead moreA federal judge in Florida has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and former top FBI officials, rejecting the former president’s claims that they and others acted in concert to concoct the Russia investigation that shadowed much of his administration.According to the Associated Press, US district judge Donald Middlebrooks said in a sharply worded ruling that Trump’s lawsuit, filed in March, contained “glaring structural deficiencies” and that many of the “characterizations of events are implausible.”He dismissed the idea that Trump had sued to correct an actual legal harm, saying that “instead, he is seeking to flaunt a 200-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this court is not the appropriate forum.”The lawsuit named as defendants Clinton and some of her top advisers, as well as former FBI director James Comey and other FBI officials involved in the investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of the election.A 2019 justice department inspector general report identified flaws by the FBI during the Russia investigation, but did not find evidence that the bureau’s leaders were motivated by political bias.Ginni Thomas, the self-styled “culture warrior” and extreme rightwing activist, has links to more than half of the anti-abortion groups and individuals who lobbied her husband Clarence Thomas and his fellow US supreme court justices ahead of their historic decision to eradicate a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.A new analysis of the written legal arguments, or “amicus briefs”, used to lobby the justices as they deliberated over abortion underlines the extent to which Clarence Thomas’s wife was intertwined with this vast pressure campaign.The survey found that 51% of the parties who filed amicus briefs calling for an end to a federal abortion right have political connections to Ginni Thomas, raising concerns about a possible conflict of interest at the highest levels of the US judiciary.The six-to-three rightwing majority of the court, supercharged by Donald Trump’s three appointed conservative justices, in June overthrew the constitutional right to an abortion. Clarence Thomas was among the six who voted for the hotly contested ruling, Dobbs v Jackson.The ruling was one of the most consequential in the supreme court’s 233-year history. It has triggered the lightning spread of partial or total abortion bans across Republican-controlled states, affecting almost one in three women aged 15 to 44.The Dobbs case, brought by Mississippi which sought to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, attracted an almost unprecedented 130 amicus briefs from both sides of the legal argument. Of those, 74 were filed in favour of overturning the right to an abortion, enshrined in 1973 in Roe v Wade.In turn, the new analysis shows that 38 of the 74 anti-abortion amicus briefs – 51% – were produced by entities and individuals with links to Ginni Thomas. They included rightwing groups, religious interests, prominent conservative individuals and lawyers.“The Thomases are normalizing the prospect of too close an association between the supreme court and those who litigate before it,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast. “This isn’t the first time that Mrs Thomas has had dealings with those who come before the court and seek her husband’s vote.”Read the full story:Revealed: Ginni Thomas’s links to anti-abortion groups who lobbied to overturn RoeRead moreThe Washington Post’s White House reporter Matt Viser has taken a fascinating look at some of the similarities between Joe Biden and King Charles III.The White House said Friday that Biden would join other world leaders in attending the state funeral in London of Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on a date yet to be confirmed, but likely to be Monday 19 September.Biden was the 13th US president to meet with Queen Elizabeth II — and will likely now be the first to meet with King Charles III. Both men late in life assumed a role they spent decades hoping for, bringing experience after having served as an understudy. https://t.co/8qIJrBWCRw— Matt Viser (@mviser) September 9, 2022
      Viser notes that Biden was the 13th US president to meet the Queen, and will likely become the first to meet with King Charles after his accession.“Both are men who late in life assumed a role they had spent decades positioning themselves for, and who took their positions with a deep well of experience after having served as an understudy. They also arguably capture less of the public’s fascination than their predecessors,” he writes.You can read the article here.When the far-right firebrand Steve Bannon was hit with fresh fraud charges for an alleged border wall fundraising scheme, he joined the ranks of several close Donald Trump cronies recently prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.In 2019, then district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr brought mortgage fraud charges against Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman. And in 2021, the current district attorney, Alvin Bragg, charged the former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg with fraud, and Ken Kurson with felony cyberstalking, in separate cases.Put together the cases suggest that the actions of some top Trump allies can still generate legal headaches long after Trump left the White House and also despite being issued pardons.Charges do not necessarily lead to convictions, of course, let alone hard prison time, as evidenced by the outcome of these past cases. Manafort, who was convicted in federal court before the New York case unfolded, ultimately didn’t face state charges on double-jeopardy grounds. Manafort was pardoned by Trump about two months before the decision came down that he couldn’t be tried in state court due to double jeopardy.Kurson – who was first charged in Brooklyn federal court for cyberstalking, but pardoned by Trump before he left office – pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and was ordered to do community service in his state case. Weisselberg, meanwhile, is expected to serve just 100 days in local jail under his plea deal.On the surface, some might wonder whether Bannon’s state-level case has the same legal weakness as Manafort’s did. Bannon was charged federally in August 2020 for allegedly siphoning more than $1m from the “We Build the Wall” online fundraising campaign. Trump also pardoned Bannon before his case went to trial.But longtime attorneys told the Guardian that Bragg’s Bannon case was different from Vance’s Manafort prosecution because when Bannon was pardoned, state-level charges for the same alleged misconduct do not carry the same double-jeopardy risks, they said.Read the full story:Legal fallout for Trump cronies persists despite his pardonsRead moreThe justice department’s legal filing is expected sometime today expanding its arguments why district court judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, must reverse her decision appointing a “special master” in the case of the former president’s hoarding of classified materials at his Florida residence.In a strongly-worded notice of intent to appeal submitted on Thursday, department lawyers let Cannon know in no uncertain terms that her decision was impeding the progress of an investigation critical to national security.The lawyers made clear it needed access back immediately to classified documents seized last month at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion by FBI agents, while Trump’s attorneys are claiming he is entitled to have sent back to him everything that was taken away.The inquiry took on added poignancy this week when it was reported that another country’s nuclear secrets were among the stash of highly classified documents Trump is said to have hidden from federal agents.The department will make its own arguments, but we couldn’t explain things any better than Politico Playbook likening Trump to a jewel thief demanding the return of his ill-gotten gains:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Imagine that someone allegedly stole a sack of diamonds from a jewelry shop and then stashed the gems in junk drawers around their house. The cops raid the place, take away everything in the drawers where they find stolen diamonds, and spend two weeks separating them from the junk.
      Then a judge comes along and says that the big issue in the case isn’t the stolen diamonds but that the cops still have some of the alleged thief’s personal belongings. She halts the heist investigation until an outside expert can sort the gems from the junk.
      The government thinks the judge’s decision is absurd – no other suspect has received this special treatment – but they offer the judge a compromise: let us keep all of the diamonds, and we’ll return all of the alleged thief’s junk, even a few cheap watches that they think he might have swiped from the store.Also today, the justice department and Trump’s legal team were due to jointly file a list of possible candidates to serve as the “special master” to review the records seized by the FBI.We’ll bring you news on both fronts as we get it.Read more:Trump lawyers and justice department to file list of special master candidatesRead moreGood morning, it’s Friday, and welcome to our US politics blog. An unusually busy week has plenty more to offer, including the justice department spelling out today in a legal filing its arguments for regaining access to highly classified documents seized in an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Florida mansion.Department lawyers on Thursday said they would appeal the ruling by district judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a “special master” in its investigation of the former president’s improper hoarding of confidential materials – including another nation’s nuclear secrets – at his residence, arguing her decision was blocking an inquiry critical to national security.They’ll flesh out their arguments in today’s expected legal filing, and Trump’s lawyers will have until Monday to respond. But it’s already evident the justice department is playing hardball. We’ll have more analysis coming up.The White House, meanwhile, announced that Joe Biden would join other world leaders at the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London, expected to be on Monday 19 September.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      Joe Biden is heading for Ohio and the groundbreaking for a new Intel factory, where he’ll deliver remarks on the Chips Act at 12.15pm.
      There’s no scheduled White House media briefing, but press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a “gaggle” for reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Ohio.
      Vice-president Kamala Harris is in Houston to talk to astronauts aboard the international space station, and chair a meeting of the National Space Council this afternoon.
      It’s a day off and a long weekend for both the US House and Senate, so we’re not expecting big news out of Congress. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly found

      by

      Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundFormer intelligence chiefs say national security officials are ‘shaking their heads at what damage might have been done’ Mar-a-Lago – the Palm Beach resort and residence where Donald Trump reportedly stored nuclear secrets among a trove of highly classified documents for 18 months since leaving the White House – is a magnet for foreign spies, former intelligence officials have warned.FBI found document on foreign nuclear defenses at Mar-a-Lago – reportRead moreThe Washington Post reported that a document describing an unspecified foreign government’s defences, including its nuclear capabilities, was one of the many highly secret papers Trump took away from the White House when he left office in January 2021.There were also documents marked SAP, for Special-Access Programmes, which are often about US intelligence operations and whose circulation is severely restricted, even among administration officials with top security clearance.Potentially most disturbing of all, there were papers stamped HCS, Humint Control Systems, involving human intelligence gathered from agents in enemy countries, whose lives would be in danger if their identities were compromised.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting a damage assessment review which is focused on the sensitivity of the documents, but US officials said it is the job of FBI counter-intelligence to assess who may have gained access to them.That is a wide field. The home of a former president with a history of being enthralled by foreign autocrats, distrustful of US security services, and boastful about his knowledge of secrets, is an obvious foreign intelligence target.“I know that national security professionals inside government, my former colleagues, [they] are shaking their heads at what damage might have been done,” John Brennan, former CIA director, told MSNBC.“I’m sure Mar-a-Lago was being targeted by Russian intelligence and other intelligence services over the course of the last 18 or 20 months, and if they were able to get individuals into that facility, and access those rooms where those documents were and made copies of those documents, that’s what they would do.”US investigates fake heiress who infiltrated Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resortRead moreLast month, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported that a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine was able to mingle with the former president’s family and friends at Mar-a-Lago, posing as Anna de Rothschild, presenting herself as being an heiress of the banking dynasty.Inna Yashchyshyn, the daughter of a truck driver who emigrated to Canada, regaled those around her with tales of vineyards and estates and growing up in Monaco, and even met the former president in person, getting herself photographed with him on a golfing green.There is no evidence that Yashchyshyn was a spy, but the episode underlined how easy it is to get into Mar-a-Lago. During Trump’s presidency, two Chinese women were caught trespassing there on separate occasions.One of them, Yujing Zhang, was in possession of four mobile phones, a laptop, an external hard drive, and a thumb drive later found to carry malware. In her hotel room, investigators found nine USB drives, five SIM cards and a “signal detector” device for spotting hidden microphones or cameras. She was found guilty of unlawfully entering a restricted building and making false statements to a federal officer, and deported to China in 2021.The guests, invited or otherwise, are not the only security concern. In 2021, the Trump Organization sought 87 foreign workers for positions at Mar-a-Lago, with wages starting at $11.96 an hour.“Any competent foreign intelligence service, whether those belonging to China, those belonging to Iran, to Cuba, certainly including Russia are … and were interested in gaining access to Mar-a-Lago,” Peter Strzok, former deputy assistant director of counter-intelligence at the FBI, told MSNBC.TopicsMar-a-LagoFBIUS politicsDonald TrumpNuclear weaponsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge grants Trump’s request for special master to handle seized documents

      by

      Judge grants Trump’s request for special master to handle seized documentsFederal court accepts ex-president’s call for official to set aside materials potentially subject to privilege protections A federal judge has granted Donald Trump’s request to have a “special master” appointed to review documents the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate that could be subject to privilege protections in the investigation into unauthorized retention of government secrets.The order from the US district court judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, also temporarily barred the justice department from reviewing the documents for its criminal inquiry until the special master completes its work, in a decision that marked a procedural victory for the former president.What is a special master and why does Donald Trump want one? Read moreCannon wrote in her 24-page ruling, however, that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) could continue to review the seized materials for its separate inquiry into whether Trump’s retention of documents with classified markings at Mar-a-Lago risked national security.Cannon gave Trump’s legal team and the DoJ until Friday to file a proposed list of special master candidates.The DoJ is likely to appeal the decision to the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit, officials said, though in the meantime it will almost certainly delay the investigation into potential violations of the Espionage Act and potential obstruction of justice.Still, the ruling does not change the underlying facts of the investigation that led to the FBI executing a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last month – that Trump was in unauthorized possession of highly sensitive government documents that could yet result in criminal charges.Cannon disagreed with the DoJ’s opposition to appointing a special master on several points, including its main argument that Trump lacked standing for such a motion because he had no “possessory interest” in White House records since he was no longer president, according to the filing.The judge wrote that she believed the government had misinterpreted the appellate court precedent, writing that Trump did not need to conclusively prove ownership of the seized property, but only that he had a colorable right, or plausible legal claim, to possess some of the materials.Cannon also disagreed with the DoJ’s argument that another review of the seized materials by a special master was unnecessary after the FBI’s so-called filter teams screened the documents for potentially privileged material in the two weeks it took Trump’s lawyers to file their motion.The judge, as she previewed in court last week, noted that the DoJ’s investigative team had inadvertently seen potentially privileged material on at least two occasions that she said raised questions about the adequacy of the FBI’s filter team review.Cannon additionally wrote that she disagreed with theDoJ’s argument that Trump could not seek a special master to set aside documents potentially protected by executive privilege from an investigation being conducted by the DoJ, part of the executive branch.The judge wrote she believed the government was overstating the law, saying – as she corrected the DoJ’s lawyer in court – that in the landmark case of Nixon v General Services Administration 1977, the US supreme court left open the concept that a former president’s assertion of executive privilege might be stronger than a current president’s waiver of it.In this case, Cannon’s ruling referred to the possibility of Trump asserting executive privilege over certain documents and preventing the DoJ from using them in its investigation, even if Joe Biden, the current president, declined to assert privilege. The law over what happens in such a dispute has not been conclusively settled.“Even if any assertion of executive privilege by Plaintiff ultimately fails in this context, that possibility, even if likely, does not negate a former President’s ability to raise the privilege as an initial matter,” Cannon said in her decision. William Barr defends FBI and justice department over Mar-a-Lago searchRead moreBut the judge also made no mention of the Presidential Records Act mandating the documents belong at the National Archives.Cannon gave the DoJ and Trump’s lawyers until Friday to submit a joint filing for candidates to serve as the independent arbiter, known as special master – typically a retired lawyer or judge – to weed out any attorney-client or executive-privileged documents from the evidence cache.A special master was used, for instance, to review materials seized in the searches of the homes and offices of two of Trump’s former attorneys – Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen.The DoJ had opposed Trump’s motion, arguing that it would delay its criminal investigation, and in a court hearing last week in West Palm Beach, Florida, sounded alarm that a special master process could give Trump access once more to highly sensitive and classified documents.Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, also called the special master request a “waste of time”, adding: “Even if they are subject to executive privilege, they still belong to the government.“And any other documents that were seized … those were seize-able under the warrant,” Barr said.In a reaction posted on Twitter, Neal Katyal, former US acting solicitor general, wrote that the appointment of a special master wouldn’t derail the federal investigation but that this decision “sets a terrible precedent”.“Even though this judge’s order appointing a special master won’t stop the very serious Trump stolen docs investigation, having been the decider of whether DOJ should appeal various cases in the past, I think DoJ has to appeal here,” Katyal tweeted, adding: “That’s what I’d do.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsFBIMar-a-LagonewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      FBI materials seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home included 90 empty folders

      by

      FBI materials seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home included 90 empty foldersRevelation raises possibility that some of government’s most highly sensitive documents may still be unaccounted for Among the items the FBI retrieved from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort this month were 90 empty folders marked classified or for return to the White House staff secretary or a military aide, according to a detailed inventory of items made public on Friday.The inventory – unsealed by a federal judge overseeing the former president’s request to get a so-called special master to determine what materials the justice department can use in its investigation – provided the fullest picture to date of what Trump had retained.New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeys | Lloyd GreenRead moreIn itemizing the contents of boxes of seized materials, the inventory, put together by the justice department, showed the FBI retrieved 71 empty folders from Trump’s office and 19 empty folders from a storage room when agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.The empty folders carried one of two designations, according to the inventory: some files had “Classified” banners, while other files were labeled “Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide”, appearing to indicate that highly sensitive documents were not returned as designated.The startling discovery immediately raised, for the first time, the prospect that some of the US government’s most closely guarded secrets could remain unaccounted for, even after the FBI went through Mar-a-Lago and retrieved vast amounts of materials from the property.Still, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting a risk assessment – not a damage assessment – of Trump’s unauthorized retention of classified documents, signaling that at least for now, it believes the material has not otherwise been compromised.Federal agents also seized thousands of government documents – some with classification markings ranging from “Confidential” to “Top Secret”, and others that appeared to be presidential records – as well as hundreds of newspaper and magazine clippings from 2008 to 2020, gifts and clothes, the inventory showed.In a status report from its case team conducting the criminal investigation into the Mar-a-Lago documents that accompanied the inventory, the justice department said that although it had completed an initial review of the materials, its full review process was ongoing.“The seized materials will continue to be used to further the government’s investigation, and the investigative team will continue to use and evaluate the seized materials as it takes further investigative steps, such as through additional witness interviews and grand jury practices,” it read.The justice department added in the status report that it intended to use all evidence about the documents, including their nature and their location, to inform the criminal investigation examining potential obstruction and potential violations of the Espionage Act.Trump remained quiet about the release of the inventory on Friday, though a spokesman said it showed the FBI overreached: “The new ‘detailed’ inventory list only further proves that this unprecedented and unnecessary raid of President Trump’s home … was a smash and grab.”The detailed list of 33 boxes seized from Mar-a-Lago, which followed the release of the initial property receipt filled out by the FBI at the time of the search, additionally provided more information about how sensitive documents were commingled with more general items Trump potentially kept as souvenirs.Item number 26 – described by the Justice department as a “Box/Container from Storage Room” – included, for example, eight press clippings from 2017-2020, three documents marked “Top Secret”, an article of clothing, a book, and 1,841 government documents or photographs without classification markings.The chaotic and wide-ranging contents of the boxes reflected previous reporting by the Guardian and others that the West Wing and the White House residence was packed up in a hurry, and in haphazard fashion, during the final days and hours of the Trump presidency.Trump was something of a “pack rat” who hoarded materials he saw as his, according to former aides, and partly as a consequence of his refusal to accept he lost the 2020 election, many items from the White House were collected into boxes that were transported to Mar-a-Lago.The items listed in the inventory have already been screened for potential attorney-client privilege, the justice department said. Judge Aileen Cannon is expected to rule shortly on whether to grant Trump’s request to have a special master conduct the filter instead.At least 320 classified documents have been recovered from Mar-a-Lago since January. More than 100 of those were seized in the August search. The justice department has also released a photograph of folders marked “Secret” and “Top secret” scattered over a Mar-a-Lago carpet. Some were stamped “NOFORN”, indicating they should not be seen by any non-US citizen without permission.Trump has decried the investigation as a politically motivated attack on him and nearly all top Republicans have closed ranks around him and rallied to his defense. His lawyers have sought to argue that the case should be treated akin to failing to return a late library book – not a real threat or conspiracy.Trump has never explained his motive in retaining the documents, and top Democrats have said his resistance to returning them to the justice department – even after being subpoenaed – is evidence of obstruction that the justice department should prosecute.Democrats have also said the documents reveal a fundamental lawlessness in Trump’s behavior, characterized by acting with impunity and a disregard for the US norms and traditions that usually govern former presidents.At the same time the scandal has probably harmed Trump’s frequent hints that he wants to run for the White House again in 2024. Joe Biden has used the FBI search as part of a general warning of the extremist nature of Trump and his followers which in a primetime speech on Thursday night he portrayed as a growing threat to American democracy and a potential cause of political violence.Since the FBI raid numerous law enforcement officials have warned that federal buildings and government workers are at risk of attack, especially as rightwing politicians and media pundits have sought to blame them for seeking to stop any Trump political comeback.TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBIUS politicsnewsReuse this content More