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      Trump: US justice department appeals judge’s Mar-a-Lago investigation hold

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      Trump: US justice department appeals judge’s Mar-a-Lago investigation holdDoJ seeks to continue reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Florida home The justice department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.The department told the 11th circuit US court of appeals in Atlanta that the judge’s hold, imposed last week, had impeded the “government’s efforts to protect the nation’s security” and interfered with its investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago. It asked the court to remove that order so work could resume, and to halt a judge’s directive forcing the department to provide the seized classified documents to an independent arbiter for his review.Special master in Trump documents case described as fair and no-nonsenseRead more“The government and the public would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay” of the order, department lawyers wrote in their brief to the appeals court.US district judge Aileen Cannon’s appointment of a so-called special master to review the documents, and the resulting legal tussle it has caused, appear certain to slow by weeks the department’s investigation into the holding of classified documents at the Florida property after Trump left office. The justice department has been investigating possible violations of multiple statutes, including under the Espionage Act, but it remains unclear whether Trump, who has been laying the groundwork for a potential presidential run, or anyone else might be charged.The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home on 8 August. Weeks after the search, Trump lawyers asked a judge to appoint a special master to conduct an independent review of the records.Cannon granted the request last week, assigning a special master to review the records and weed out any that may be covered by claims of attorney-client or executive privilege. She directed the department to halt its use of the classified documents for investigative purposes until further court order, or until the completion of the special master‘s work.On Thursday night, she assigned Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, to serve in the role. She also declined to lift her earlier order, citing ongoing disputes about the nature of the documents that she said merited a neutral review by an outside arbiter.“The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” she wrote.The justice department on Friday night told the appeals court that Cannon’s injunction “unduly interferes with the criminal investigation”, prohibiting investigators from “accessing the seized records to evaluate whether charges are appropriate”. It also prevents the FBI from using the seized records in its criminal investigation to determine which documents, if any, were disclosed and to whom, the department said.Though Cannon has said investigators are free to do other investigative work that did not involve a review of the documents, the department said on Friday that that was largely impractical. Noting the discovery of dozens of empty folders at Mar-a-Lago marked classified, it said the judge’s hold appeared to bar it from “further reviewing the records to discern any patterns in the types of records that were retained, which could lead to identification of other records still missing”.The department also asked the appeals court to reject Cannon’s order that it provide the newly appointed special master with the classified documents, suggesting there was no reason for the arbiter to review highly sensitive records that did not involve questions of legal privilege.“Plaintiff has no claim for the return of those records, which belong to the government and were seized in a court-authorized search,” department lawyers wrote. “The records are not subject to any possible claim of personal attorney-client privilege. And neither Plaintiff nor the court has cited any authority suggesting that a former President could successfully invoke executive privilege to prevent the Executive Branch from reviewing its own records.”Cannon has directed Dearie to complete his work by 30 November and to prioritize the review of the classified documents. She directed the justice department to permit the Trump legal team to inspect the seized classified records with “controlled access conditions” something government lawyers said on Friday was needless and harmful.On Friday, Dearie, a former federal prosecutor, scheduled a preliminary conference with Trump lawyers and justice department lawyers for Tuesday afternoon.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsTrump administrationFBIMar-a-LagonewsReuse this content More

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      Judge proposed by Trump named special master in Mar-a-Lago records case

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      Judge proposed by Trump named special master in Mar-a-Lago records caseJudge Cannon appointed Judge Raymond Dearie to vet documents and denied the DoJ’s plea to continue reviewing the seized records A federal judge has named Raymond Dearie, a senior US district judge with experience handling US national security matters, as an independent arbiter to vet records seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.Mar-a-Lago documents: Trump delaying tactics causing ‘irreparable harm’ – DoJRead moreFlorida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed Dearie to serve as a special master in the legal fight between Trump and the Department of Justice over government documents the former president kept at his Florida resort.Dearie was one of two candidates for the post proposed by the former president, and the US justice department had said it would not oppose his appointment.In her order, Cannon also rejected the justice department’s demand that prosecutors would be allowed to continue their review of the seized records while the dispute is ongoing, and their assertion that the investigation is urgent due to the highly classified and sensitive material in the records.“The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” Cannon said in the ruling.Dearie, who is 78 and based in Brooklyn, is tasked with deciding whether any of the documents seized by the FBI during the August search are privileged – either due to attorney-client confidentiality or through a legal principle called executive privilege – and should be off limits to federal investigators.Dearie has until 30 November – after the midterms – to finish the review. Trump will be required to pay costs associated with the special master.Earlier this month, Cannon had granted a request by Trump’s lawyers to name a special master to vet the seized records. Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundRead moreTrump is under investigation by the justice department for retaining government records – some of which were marked as highly classified, including “Top Secret” – at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach after leaving office in January 2021. During a search of the property, FBI agents seized more than 11,000 records and 48 empty folders marked classified.The justice department also is looking into possible obstruction of the investigation after it found evidence that records may have been removed or concealed from the FBI when it sent agents to the property in June to try to recover all classified documents.Dearie served as US attorney in Brooklyn before being appointed to the federal bench there by Republican president Ronald Reagan in 1986, and was chief judge of that court from 2007 to 2011. He assumed what is called senior status – a sort of semi-retirement with a reduced case load – in 2011, a role in which he continues to serve.The justice department had said in a court filing on Monday that Dearie’s experience as a judge qualified him for the special master role, but opposed the other candidate proposed by Trump’s team, private attorney Paul Huck. Trump’s lawyers opposed the two retired federal judges proposed by the department.On the bench, Dearie was one of multiple judges presiding over cases against several men accused in 2009 of plotting to bomb New York City’s subway system at the direction of al-Qaida leaders.Dearie was appointed in 2011 to the foreign intelligence surveillance court, which reviews warrant applications from the US government on matters of national security, where he served until 2019.In 2017, he was one of four federal judges who approved warrants used to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page amid concern about Trump campaign contacts with Russians, according to papers released to media outlets that sued for the records. The justice department had opposed Trump’s request for a special master to review the seized documents to see if any should be withheld from investigators as privileged. In ruling in favor of Trump’s request for a special master, Cannon rejected the department’s arguments that the records belong to the government and that because Trump is no longer president he cannot claim executive privilege. Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020.The documents probe is one of several federal and state investigations Trump is facing from his time in office and in private business as he considers another run for the presidency in 2024.TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFloridaFBIUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump lawyers reject US government’s arguments against special master – as it happened

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      Lawyers for former president Donald Trump have submitted their counterargument to the justice department’s attempt to halt a federal judge’s order preventing them from reviewing documents taken from Mar-a-Lago.The filing is the latest in the squabble over the special master Trump wants appointed to sift through the documents, which the government has objected to because it stops them from reading the materials seized from the former president’s south Florida estate.You can read the filing here. The legal battle over documents seized by the government from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort continued, with the former president’s lawyers rejecting the justice department’s efforts to convince a federal judge to let them continue reviewing the materials. The filing avoided questions of whether what was taken was indeed protected – despite Trump’s assertions that he had declassified everything that was found before leaving office.Here’s a rundown of what else happened today:
      Trump also rejected the justice department’s nominees for special master, though declined to say why publicly.
      Republicans are considering investigating the security failures that led up to the January 6 attack if they win control of the House.
      Democratic candidates are polling strongly in some swing states – but an analysis from The New York Times warns it could be an illusion.
      A new poll indicates sizable minorities of Americans would be ok with unelected leaders, and many would also be ok with the government overruling minority ethnicities and religions.
      Democrats have spent almost $19 million across eight states in controversial efforts to promote rightwing Republican candidates, believing them to be weaker in the November midterm elections.
      Meanwhile in Congress, lawmakers may be back in Washington but not much has happened – yet.The Senate will soon confirm president Joe Biden’s 80th judicial nominee, CNN reports, as Democrats look to make their mark on the federal judiciary:After Salvador Mendoza is confirmed today to the Ninth Circuit, he will be the 80th Biden judicial nominee confirmed — something Schumer just said amounts to more than Trump, Obama, George W. Bush at similar points in their presidencies— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 12, 2022
      The chamber’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has also confirmed that work is ongoing on a new government funding bill, and on finding 10 GOP senators willing to sign on to a bill codifying same-sex marriage rights, according to Politico:Schumer updates: Senate on verge of confirming 80th judge of Biden presidencyBipartisan group still working on same-sex marriage bill, trying to get GOP votesWork ongoing on bill to fund government past Sept. 30— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 12, 2022
      “If you thought Fulton was a good county to bring your crime to, to bring your violence to, you are wrong.” So declares Fani Willis, the district attorney in Georgia’s Fulton County, in the opening lines of a profile published in The New York Times. While the statement was made in the context of a gang racketeering case, the piece makes clear it could also be said about Donald Trump and the people from Georgia and elsewhere who helped in his attempt to meddle with the state’s 2020 election result. Willis has convened the special grand jury that is investigating that campaign, which has subpoenaed Trump allies including attorney Rudy Giuliani, Republican senator Lindsey Graham and others. The piece doesn’t contain much new details about what the grand jurors have learned, but it makes clear the scope of the ongoing investigation, which some analysts have warned is a source of legal peril for the former president.Here’s more from the profile:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In recent weeks, Ms. Willis has called dozens of witnesses to testify before a special grand jury investigating efforts to undo Mr. Trump’s defeat, including a number of prominent pro-Trump figures who traveled, against their will, from other states. It was long arm of the law stuff, and it emphasized how her investigation, though playing out more than 600 miles from Washington, D.C., is no sideshow.
      Rather, the Georgia inquiry has emerged as one of the most consequential legal threats to the former president, and it is already being shaped by Ms. Willis’s distinct and forceful personality and her conception of how a local prosecutor should do her job. Her comfort in the public eye stands in marked contrast to the low-key approach of another Trump legal pursuer, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
      Ms. Willis, 50, a Democrat, is the first Black woman to lead Georgia’s largest district attorney’s office. In her 19 years as a prosecutor, she has led more than 100 jury trials and handled hundreds of murder cases. Since she became chief prosecutor, her office’s conviction rate has stood at close to 90 percent, according to a spokesperson.
      Her experience is the source of her confidence, which appears unshaken by the scrutiny — and criticism — the Trump case has brought.There’s been a new development in the ongoing legal wrangling over the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago and the documents found there. As The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, Trump’s attorneys have objected to the candidates for special master proposed by the justice department:New: Trump objects to proposed Special Master candidates proposed by DOJ — says it would offer rationale to judge privately https://t.co/1zfTaUzUt6— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) September 12, 2022
      Trump objects even to former US district court judge Barbara Jones, who was the special master in the Michael Cohen case in 2018 and Rudy Giuliani in 2021— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) September 12, 2022
      Last week, a federal judge granted Trump’s request for a special master to review documents taken by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago to screen for privileged material. The decision stopped the government’s ability to review the seized documents, and the justice department is appealing it.Twenty-one years after 9/11, CBS News reports that five of the defendants held at Guantanamo Bay for alleged involvement in the attacks are negotiating plea deals with the government.The defendants have been incarcerated for years due to disputes over what evidence can be used in the court and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. Plea deals would resolve several of their cases and likely result in lengthy jail sentences, but CBS reports some relatives of those killed in the attack oppose such agreements. “The families are outraged,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was among those killed when hijackers steered his plane into the Pentagon.Here’s more from CBS:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The chief defendant is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of 9/11. The other four defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ammar al-Baluchi.
      The possibility of a plea deal has angered the families of some 9/11 victims, including Debra Burlingame, whose brother, pilot Charles “Chic” Burlingame, was killed when al Qaeda terrorists took over his plane, American Airlines Flight 77, and crashed it into the Pentagon.
      “We didn’t have remains for weeks,” his sister Debra Burlingame told CBS News. “We were constantly saying to each other, ‘What would Chic want? What would Chic do?’”
      Burlingame said she has been in touch with other 9/11 families.
      “The families are outraged,” she said of the possibility of plea deals. “They don’t want closure, they want justice.”
      Another group, 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, has said that a guilty plea and agreement not to appeal the sentence “would be partly in recognition of the torture each of the defendants experienced” and bring “some measure of judicial finality.”
      “All five defendants and the government are all engaged in good faith negotiations, with the idea of bringing this trial which has become a forever trial to an end,” said James Connell, a defense attorney for al-Baluchi.
      “Mr. al-Baluchi’s number one priority is obtaining medical care for his torture,” Connell continued. “In order to get that medical care, he is willing to plead guilty to a substantial sentence at Guantanamo in exchange for a guarantee of medical care and dropping the death penalty.The Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania has put abortion at the center of his pitch to voters, in the latest sign the party is banking on the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade to drum up support in the midterms. Richard Luscombe reports:John Fetterman has placed abortion rights at the top of his agenda to capture Pennsylvania’s Senate seat in November, telling supporters at a raucous rally on Sunday: “Women are the reason we can win. Don’t piss off women.”The Democrat was targeting comments made by his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz in May that abortion at any stage of pregnancy was “murder”.Oz, in keeping with a recent trend among Republican candidates, has attempted to soften his extremist position as the fall’s midterm elections draw closer, insisting that he now believes in exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the woman.But Oz’s rival was uncompromising in his criticism during Sunday’s rally at a community college in rural Pennsylvania attended by several thousand supporters, including a large number of women in pink “Fetterwoman” T-shirts.‘Women are the reason we can win,’ John Fetterman says at Pennsylvania rallyRead moreThe justice department has brought charges against a Texas woman who left threatening voice messages on the phone of a judge involved in disputes around documents taken by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Reuters reports.“Donald Trump has been disqualified long ago, and he’s marked for assassination. You’re helping him, ma’am,” said one of the voicemails, which was allegedly left by Tiffani Shea Gish of the Houston area for Aileen Cannon, a US district judge in Fort Pierce, Florida. Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, last week granted his request for a special master to review documents taken from Mar-a-Lago as part of the government’s investigation into whether the former president unlawfully retained government secrets.Here’s more from Reuters’ report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Gish faces two criminal charges – influencing a federal official by threat and interstate communications with a threat to kidnap or injure.
      Cannon, who was appointed to the bench in 2020 by Trump, ruled last week that she was granting the former president’s request over the Justice Department’s objections to install a “special master” to review the seized records to weed out possibly privileged materials.
      The complaint said that on Sept. 3, Cannon forwarded three separate voicemails from Gish, who referred to herself in some of them as “Evelyn Salt,” to the U.S. Marshals Service.
      “Donald Trump has been disqualified long ago, and he’s marked for assassination. You’re helping him, ma’am,” one of the voicemails said, according to the complaint.
      “He’s marked for assassination and so are you,” the caller also said, while including an expletive.
      After FBI agents identified a cellphone number associated with the voicemails, they interviewed Gish at her home, the complaint stated. The FBI said she admitted to leaving the voicemails and confirmed that the number belonged to her and no one else had access to the cellphone.One of the most controversial electoral tactics Democrats have deployed recently is spending money to elevate rightwing candidates in Republican primaries, the logic being that more extreme nominees will hurt the GOP in the November midterm elections.The Washington Post has tallied the money spent on these candidates in an analysis released today, and found it adds up to almost $19 million across eight states, but could go up to $53 million if spending in Illinois is factored in. In that state, Democrats spent massively to help a Republican who said party leaders in the state should not have told Donald Trump to leave the White House when his term was up.The tactic is controversial because it could backfire and result in Republicans who hold extreme views – such as that the 2020 election was stolen – elected to major offices in the November midterms.Here’s more from the Post’s story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The approach often involves TV ads suggesting that a far-right GOP candidate is too conservative for a state or district and drawing attention to the candidate’s hard line views on abortion, guns and former president Donald Trump — messages that resonate with conservative primary voters. In other cases, Democrats have run ads attacking GOP candidates seen as tougher to defeat in general elections in ways that could erode support for them in Republican primaries.
      Total Democratic spending rises to roughly $53 million when a ninth state, Illinois, is added. There, the Democratic Governors Association and the campaign of Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) spent a combined $34.5 million successfully elevating a GOP candidate who has said it was “appalling” that party leaders in Illinois wanted Trump to concede the 2020 election.
      Some Democrats explain their actions by saying they are simply getting a jump on attacking Republican candidates for the general election, while others openly acknowledge trying to secure weaker competition in the fall. But there is little dispute about the effect of altering the Republican primaries in ways that could affect the November matchups.
      As primary season nears its Tuesday endpoint, Democrats are giving the strategy one more try in New Hampshire, in two congressional races. In the Republican Senate primary, Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), is spending $3.2 million on ads that effectively enhance the candidacy in the GOP primary of ret. Gen. Don Bolduc, by portraying his more moderate rival, state Senate President Chuck Morse, who has trailed in GOP primary polls to Bolduc, as beholden to the party establishment.Neck and neck in Ohio senateIt is only one poll but a recent survey in the Ohio senate race shows Democrat Tim Ryan basically level with right-wing Trump ally and famous author JD Vance. Ohio is a state has has been drifting more red and so the news fits in with a revival of Democrat fortunes over the past month.The Hill has more details: A USA TODAY Network Ohio/Suffolk University poll released Monday found 47 percent of Ohio general election voters said they would vote or lean toward Ryan if the Senate election were held today, while 46 percent said they could back Vance.Six percent of respondents in the poll said they were undecided, while 1 percent said they would support someone else. The slim margin between the two leading candidates falls within the poll’s margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.The legal battle over documents seized by the government from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort continued, with the former president’s lawyers rejecting the justice department’s efforts to convince a federal judge to let them continue reviewing the materials. The filing avoided questions of whether what was taken was indeed protected – despite Trump’s assertions that he had declassified everything that was found before leaving office.Here’s a rundown of what else happened today:
      Republicans are considering investigating the security failures that led up to the January 6 attack if they win control of the House.
      Democratic candidates are polling strongly in some swing states – but an analysis from The New York Times warns it could be an illusion.
      A new poll indicates sizable minorities of Americans would be ok with unelected leaders, and many would also be ok with the government overruling minority ethnicities and religions.
      Ukraine is planning to ask Washington for more long-distance weapons to continue its offensive into Russian-held territory, including a missile system its ally had held off on providing for fears it could provoke Moscow, The Wall Street Journal reports.Citing a document shared with US lawmakers, the Journal reports Ukraine will ask for 29 types of weapons and ammunition systems, including anti-ship missiles, drones and tanks. It will also ask for the Army Tactical Missile System, a long-range weapon that Washington fears could be used to strike Russian territory and start a war with Ukraine’s western allies.Here’s more from the Journal’s report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Biden administration, which has dispatched more than $15 billion worth of weapons and other security assistance to Ukraine, has declined to provide that system over concerns Ukraine could use it to strike Russian territory and spark a wider conflict with the West.
      Ukraine’s list of requirements for “offensive operations” includes 29 types of weapon systems and ammunition. Among them are tanks, drones, artillery systems; more Harpoon antiship missiles; and 2,000 missiles for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, which the United States began providing earlier this year.
      Ukraine’s requests come as its forces have routed Russian troops in northeastern Ukraine.
      It follows the recent publication of a strategy statement by Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s force, and Mykhailo Zabrodsky, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and a senior military officer who led the most significant Ukrainian counterattack in the 2014 war with Russia.
      They argued that Russia has long-range cruise missiles that greatly outdistance the systems in the Ukrainian inventory. A turning point could come if the Ukrainians also had longer-range systems, they argued, specifically mentioning the ATACMS.Trump may be in hot water, legally speaking, for allegedly taking government secrets with him when he left the White House, but as Ramon Antonio Vargas reports, a new book reveals he never wanted to leave in the first place:In the days after Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Donald Trump told an aide he was “just not going to leave” the White House, according to a new book on his presidency and its chaotic aftermath.“We’re never leaving,” he vowed to another aide, says the book from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman titled Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. “How can you leave when you won an election?”CNN, where Haberman also serves as a political analyst, said Monday it reviewed reporting for the book – set for a 4 October release – and published new details on Trump’s insistence that he intended to stay at the White House despite his electoral loss to Biden.Trump threatened not to leave White House after election loss, book saysRead more More

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

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      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

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

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      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

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

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      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

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

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      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

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

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      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