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

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

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

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

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

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

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      Trump says he invoked fifth amendment in New York attorney general’s investigation: ‘I declined to answer’ – as it happened

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      In a lengthy statement, Donald Trump has announced he refused to answer questions during a deposition today as part of New York attorney general Letitia James’s investigation into his real estate dealings.The statement is full of attacks on James, but closes with the former president declaring he has lost faith in the justice system – at least under his Democratic rival, president Joe Biden:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I once asked, “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice. If there was any question in my mind, the raid of my home, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday by the FBI, just two days prior to this deposition, wiped out any uncertainty. I have absolutely no choice because the current Administration and many prosecutors in this Country have lost all moral and ethical bounds of decency.
      Accordingly, under the advice of my counsel and for all of the above reasons, I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.Trump to face sworn deposition in New York lawsuit as legal troubles mountRead moreBe they at Mar-a-Lago or the New York attorney general’s office, former president Donald Trump’s legal issues were a major story today, as was an alleged Iranian plot to kill John Bolton, one of Tehran’s biggest enemies in Washington.Here’s a recap of the day’s events:
      Donald Trump invoked the fifth amendment against self incrimination when he sat for a deposition at the office of state attorney general Letitia James this morning, in her civil case relating to the former president’s real estate business.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan warned Iran against any attacks targeting Americans following allegations that it plotted to kill Bolton, a former national security adviser in the Trump administration and noted Iran hawk.
      Data showing inflation flatlining in July prompted Joe Biden to say the figures were a sign that the world’s largest economy was healthy and poised to see prices moderate in the months to come.
      House speaker Nancy Pelosi said her visit to Taiwan was meant as a show of solidarity and not to fundamentally change Washington’s relationship with the island.
      Politico reports some new developments in the FBI’s visit to Mar-a-Lago, specifically efforts to get access to the search warrant, which hasn’t been released.Both rightwing group Judicial Watch and the Times Union newspaper serving the Albany, New York areas have filed motions to unseal the warrant:JUST IN: Judicial Watch motion to unseal the (possible) sealed search warrant for Mar-a-Lago has hit the docket.https://t.co/JORzlrE7rl pic.twitter.com/DT3XF5fNPs— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 10, 2022
      BREAKING: Magistrate Judge Reinhart is asking for DOJ to respond to Judicial Watch’s unsealing request for (what I presume is) the Mar-a-Lago warrant by COB on Aug. 15. pic.twitter.com/Y4uJV3TGoz— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 10, 2022
      The Albany Times-Union has also made a motion to unseal the search warrant, and Magistrate Reinhart has said DOJ can file a consolidated response to all unsealing motions: https://t.co/vdCBCdPwpG— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 10, 2022
      And the Times-Union has made an identical motion to unseal a second sealed search-warrant case that was also docketed on Friday. It’s unclear which of the two is the Mar-a-Lago warrant.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 10, 2022
      Meanwhile, FBI director Christopher Wray isn’t saying much about the matter, according to ABC:Speaking for the first time since the FBI searched Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters in Omaha, NB he couldn’t get into the details. “Well, as I’m sure you can appreciate that’s not something I can talk about,” he said.— Luke Barr (@LukeLBarr) August 10, 2022
      Voters in four more states went to the polls last night to choose candidates in primary elections – and to also offer a glimpse into how Americans are thinking as the November midterms draw ever nearer.Multiple pollsters now see the Democrats’ prospects improving thanks to voters rallying around reproductive rights following the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and Republicans opting for more extreme, Trump-friendly candidates to stand in the upcoming general election. Nate Cohn of The New York Times puts it this way:The GOP holds MN-1 in last night’s special election, but only by a modest 4 point margin (Trump+10 district; R+3 in last House race)The signs of a Democratic rebound post-Dobbs are starting to pile up https://t.co/9XJZGnxPqT— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) August 10, 2022
      There haven’t been many other special/non-primary election results since Dobbs, but MN-01 isn’t exactly alone. NE-01 was also a strong showing for Democrats. There’s also the KS abortion referendum, if you count it.We’ll get more data, including NY-19, over the next few weeks.— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) August 10, 2022
      Democrats have also trended upward on the generic congressional ballot, where they’ve reached parity with the GOPNo way to know if it lasts until November, but the focus on abortion/Jan 6 hasn’t ebbed–yet. At the same time, the news on inflation has improved for Ds— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) August 10, 2022
      Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight sees things like this:Here’s something I think about. Let’s say Democrats somehow do hold the House this year. It’s not likely, but it’s also not impossible (~20% chance per 538 model). In 20 years, will people have a hard time explaining why it happened?I think no, they won’t. https://t.co/IiuAg9cVWO— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 10, 2022
      The last time POTUS’s party gained seats in the House were 1998 and 2002. These are generally attributed to Lewinsky and 9/11, respectively.If Ds hold the House in 2022, people will attribute it to Roe being overturned and overall GOP radicalization including Jan. 6.— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 10, 2022
      Is Dobbs + Jan. 6 a “special circumstance” equal in magnitude to 9/11? That’s a very apples-to-oranges comparison but I’d tend to say no; people forget how profoundly 9/11 changed public opinion. But is it comparable to Lewinsky? Certainly. It’s bigger, I’d think.— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 10, 2022
      Dave Wasserman of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter sums it up:This much is clear from Kansas and the #NE01/#MN01 House specials: there’s still time for things to snap back before November, but we’re no longer living in a political environment as pro-GOP as November 2021.— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 10, 2022
      To be sure, Democrats appear to be deep under water in the polls when it comes to control of the House, FiveThirtyEight says. Faring even worse is Joe Biden himself, whose approval rate has slid and slid and slid for months, with signs of stabilization coming only recently.The House of Representatives has taken the first steps to passing the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s marquee spending proposal that is intended to lower health care costs and fight climate change.The Senate approved the legislation over the weekend with Democratic votes alone after pulling an all-nighter Saturday. While the House isn’t expected to vote on the bill till Friday, the chamber’s rules committee convened today to move it towards consideration by the full chamber.With Democrats thought to be on the cusp of losing control of the House in the November midterm elections, the bill could be one of the last major pieces of legislation passed in Biden’s first term. It was also intended to be much more ambitious, but provisions to lower housing costs and provide more aid and social services to poor Americans were stripped out in the lengthy negotiations that preceded its passage in the Senate.The Washington Post reports that Democrats are now making something of a long-shot pitch to voters: re-elect us in September and we will try again to pass those programs that didn’t make it into the Inflation Reduction Act. As Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer put it to the paper: “If we win, we’re going to have to do a reconciliation bill that will take care of a lot of the things that we couldn’t do”.Monkeypox cases are increasing across the United States, and as Wilfred Chan reports, the campaign against the disease is caught up in rightwing campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights:The conservative campaign against LGBTQ+ rights has found a new fixation for its hatred: monkeypox. On TV, rightwing commentators openly mock monkeypox victims – the vast majority of whom are men who have sex with men – and blame them for getting the disease. On social media, rightwing users trade memes about how the “cure” to monkeypox is straight marriage while casting doubt on monkeypox vaccines’ efficacy.This aggressive stigmatization of monkeypox – reminiscent of the homophobic response to HIV/Aids in the 1980s – poses a serious challenge to public health advocates and community leaders trying to have honest conversations about the disease with the gay and bisexual men who are most at risk during the current outbreak. Should public messaging highlight the fact that monkeypox is primarily affecting men who have sex with men? And should public health bodies urge gay men to change their sexual practices?The simultaneous threats of homophobia and monkeypox require making a difficult choice about which to tackle first, says the writer and veteran Aids activist Mark S King, a 61-year-old gay man.Rightwing media embraces Aids-era homophobia in monkeypox coverageRead moreFederal prosecutors in Michigan today began laying out their case against two men accused of plotting to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, saying that conversations about their plan went beyond just idle talk, Reuters reports.Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr face kidnapping and weapons conspiracy charges for the second time after a federal judge in Grand Rapids, Michigan declared a mistrial last April.The men – alleged members of the Three Percenters, a self-styled militia group – are accused of plotting to abduct Whitmer from her vacation home and stage a “trial” for her for treason. Two other defendants were found not guilty in the men’s first trial.The mistrial was a setback for federal prosecutors in one of the highest-profile cases in years involving militias. The second trial will give them another opportunity.In his opening statement on Wednesday, a prosecutor said the men determined where the governor, performed reconnaissance on her summer cottage and gathered the equipment they needed, such as body armor and ammunition, to carry out their plan, according to a local TV station..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This wasn*t just talk. You will see these defendants and others took specific steps, planning and training,” Chris O’Connor, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, told the jury, local Fox affiliate WXMI reported.Attorneys for Fox and Croft revived their arguments from the first trial saying that there was no conspiracy.Christopher Gibbons, who represents Fox, described the accused as “big talkers” whose comments should not be taken seriously, according to NBC-affiliate WOOD-TV.If convicted on the conspiracy charges, the men face the possibility of life in prison.The two men on trial are among 13 men who were arrested in October 2020 and charged with state or federal crimes in the alleged kidnapping conspiracy. Seven of them are facing charges in state court.It’s been a sparky morning in US political news, mainly relating to the man Joe Biden refers to as “that guy”. The president has now jetted off on vacation but we’ll bring you all the developments as they happen.Here’s where things stand.
      Donald Trump invoked the fifth amendment against self incrimination (with an eye to a parallel criminal case in New York) during a deposition at the office of state attorney general Letitia James this morning, in her civil case relating to the former president’s real estate business.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan warned Iran against any attacks targeting Americans following allegations that it plotted to kill John Bolton, a noted foe of Tehran who served in the Trump administration.
      The justice department announced charges against a Tehran-based member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards for attempting to hire someone in the United States to kill John Bolton, a national security adviser under Donald Trump.
      Data showing inflation flatlining in July prompted Joe Biden to say the figures were a sign that the world’s largest economy was healthy and poised to see prices moderate in the months to come.
      Here is the president and family heading to South Carolina for a break..⁦@POTUS⁩ and fam off to South Carolina for vacation pic.twitter.com/LFEEU9a4BD— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) August 10, 2022
      There’s also this.Did you ever have to take the 5th? Nope? Me neither. pic.twitter.com/LJNOoEA060— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) August 10, 2022
      Following her visit to Taiwan that has sent tensions with China soaring, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference that the trip’s goal was not to change Washington’s relationship with Taipei, but rather express solidarity.“We will not allow China to isolate Taiwan”, Pelosi said. “They have kept Taiwan from participating in the World Health Organization, other things were Taiwan can make a very valued contribution. And they may keep them from going there, but they’re not keeping us from going to Taiwan.”She noted Taiwan’s status as a democracy in contrast with authoritarian China, which considers the island a breakaway province and has vowed to reunify with it, even by force. Beijing warned Pelosi against going and responded to her trip by announcing military drills around Taiwan – steps the Democratic lawmaker said China did not take when a delegation of senators visited the island earlier this year.“So in any event, we’re very proud of our delegation”, she said.National security adviser Jake Sullivan has warned Iran against any attacks targeting Americans following allegations that it plotted to kill John Bolton, a noted foe of Tehran who served in the Trump administration.“We have said this before and we will say it again: the Biden Administration will not waiver in protecting and defending all Americans against threats of violence and terrorism. Should Iran attack any of our citizens, to include those who continue to serve the United States or those who formerly served, Iran will face severe consequences. We will continue to bring to bear the full resources of the U.S. Government to protect Americans,” Sullivan said in a statement.Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, presided over Washington’s decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal, and has advocated for bombing the country. The assassination plot alleged by the justice department earlier today appeared to be in retaliation for the 2020 assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was killed on Trump’s orders.US charges Iranian man over alleged plot to kill ex-Trump aide John BoltonRead moreFormer national security adviser John Bolton has released a statement thanking the justice department for exposing the assassination plot against him.I wish to thank the Justice Dept for initiating the criminal proceeding unsealed today; the FBI for its diligence in discovering and tracking the Iranian regime’s criminal threat to American citizens; and the Secret Service for providing protection against Tehran’s efforts. pic.twitter.com/QDjkX6gUWM— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) August 10, 2022
      He also takes a stab at the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which the United States pulled out of in 2018, during Bolton’s time in Donald Trump’s White House. The Biden administration along with its allies are in the midst of uncertain and lengthy negotiations with Tehran to revitalize the deal.EU team submit ‘final text’ at talks to salvage 2015 Iran nuclear dealRead moreDespite his apparently mounting legal troubles, Trump has continued to have success in getting his preferred candidates through primaries, as yesterday’s elections show:Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.The evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.But Tim Michels, backed by Donald Trump, was projected to win the Republican nomination for governor of Wisconsin, a day after the FBI searched the former US president’s home in Florida reportedly seeking classified documents.Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in MinnesotaRead moreMore details are emerging about the FBI’s search on Monday of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, including that agents were looking for papers that the former president may have unlawfully taken from the White House. Hugo Lowell reports:Federal investigators searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday bearing a warrant that broadly sought presidential and classified records that the justice department believed the former president unlawfully retained, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The criminal nature of the search warrant executed by FBI agents, as described by the sources, suggested the investigation surrounding Trump is firmly a criminal probe that comes with potentially far-reaching political and legal ramifications for the former president.And the extraordinary search, the sources said, came after the justice department grew concerned – as a result of discussions with Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks – that presidential and classified materials were being unlawfully and improperly kept at the Mar-a-Lago resort.The unprecedented raid of a former president’s home by FBI agents was the culmination of an extended battle between Trump and his open contempt for the Presidential Records Act of 1978 requiring the preservation of official documents, and officials charged with enforcing that law.FBI searched Trump’s home seeking classified presidential records – sourcesRead moreNo matter how he does it, a judge in Georgia yesterday ordered Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani to appear in person before an Atlanta special grand jury looking into attempts to tamper with the state’s election results in 2020.According to The New York Times, Giuliani has claimed his health doesn’t allow him to fly to the state – an argument a judge wasn’t buying.“John Madden drove all over the country in his big bus, from stadium to stadium. So one thing we need to explore is whether Mr. Giuliani could get here without jeopardizing his recovery and his health. On a train, on a bus or Uber, or whatever it would be,” Robert C.I. McBurney, a superior court judge in Fulton County, said.Giuliani has been tentatively ordered to appear on August 17.Giuliani ordered to go before grand jury in Trump election meddling caseRead more More

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

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

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

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

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

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      Finally, Donald Trump's misdeeds are catching up with him | Richard Wolffe

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      Finally, Donald Trump’s misdeeds are catching up with himRichard WolffeThe FBI Mar-a-Lago search suggests that the former president is no longer living in a protective bubble For a party that loves to stand on the thin blue line, Donald Trump is a curiously crooked leader. Here is a party, a grand old one, that is merrily revving up the old scare machine about crime in time for November’s congressional elections. Yet its likely presidential nominee finds the whole notion of laws and law enforcement an entirely alien concept – intended literally for aliens.Never mind that he may have broken multiple laws in taking classified materials to his private residence after leaving office. Never mind that he apparently flushed papers down the presidential toilet in breach of record retention laws, if not the plumbing protocol of half of the country.Trump is most outraged by the obviously criminal gang of people pretending to catch criminals, otherwise known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, third world countries,” he said, elevating such countries from the shithole status he previously conferred on them.FBI seizes documents at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home – live reactionRead more“They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”Well, Mr President, that’s quite an interesting question.Watergate was a criminal act ordered by an almost-impeached president, whereas Mar-a-Lago is the home of a twice-impeached president. Easy to confuse the two, obviously. Watergate is the tasteless home of ageing has-beens who hanker after the 1970s and 1980s. Mar-a-Lago is a spiritual twin.Sources close to the FBI (normally the secret code for the FBI press office) say that Monday’s raid was concerned with finding any more of those rogue records that mysteriously accompanied Trump to Florida. Trump somehow purloined 15 boxes of materials requested by the National Archives.In the hands of any other president, these records might have helped with the writing of those all-important presidential memoirs. But in the tiny hands of Donald Trump, they are unlikely to be intended for book-writing purposes. After all, his ghostwriter Tony Schwartz famously doubted that Trump had ever read an entire book in his adult life – not even the ones published under his name.That leads us to speculate what kind of probable cause the FBI has to seek a warrant to bust open Trump’s safe. The pressing needs of the National Archives are almost certainly not the foundation for this particular exercise of law enforcement powers.We obviously could speculate about the kind of papers the FBI might be looking for. There has been a singular tear in the time-space continuum around the person of Donald Trump on January 6 last year. Secret service texts have disappeared down digital wormholes, along with Pentagon records. Presidential call logs appear mysteriously blank.Perhaps the entire contents of the phone of Alex Jones might have prompted some new lines of inquiry. Or perhaps it was the sight of Trump’s fine profile at the Saudi-funded golfing boondoggle at his very own country club turned cemetery.Ours is not to question the motive or the conduct of the fine boys and girls who stand between us and the criminal elements destroying our civilization.Just listen to Trump’s own home-state senator, “Little” Marco Rubio, who just entertained the Senate with a rousing speech against the climate change bill that might stop Florida from disappearing into the ocean. In between talking about his cancelled flight and a Cuban bakery he loved, Rubio said he overheard a few regular people complaining about inflation, immigration and – worst of all – rampant crime.“I’m telling you that what the people by the millions, registered to vote, people that voted for Biden, people that voted for Trump, I’m telling you what they are worried about is the fact that the streets and many cities in this country have been turned over to criminals,” he claimed. “There are prosecutors funded by Soros who refuse to put people in jail. They won’t do it. Entire categories of crime they won’t even prosecute.”Well thank goodness the United States Department of Justice is not funded by the great boogeyman of antisemites the world over. Thank goodness it has finally recognized the entire category of crime known as the corrupt and seditious acts of a former president called Trump.FBI searches Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and seizes documentsRead moreBecause, seriously, we were getting worried that there was some kind of protective bubble that allowed all sorts of stuff to happen in Mar-a-Lago. A bit like international sports organizations in Switzerland.This latest turn of the screw leaves Trump’s cultish lackeys – sorry, Republican leaders – in a bit of a pickle. Given a choice between following the rule of law or the whims of a sociopathic narcissist with no scruples, the choice is obvious for the party of law and order.Almost the entire body of elected Republican officials in the nation’s capital, with a tiny handful of notable exceptions, find it impossible to muster a single word to condemn the ringleader of the brutal attack on the police who protected their lives and limbs on January 6.“These are dark times for our nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said, helpfully distinguishing his own residence from an identically named bungalow in Boise, Idaho.“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he added, before bleating on about Hillary Clinton’s emails.Who wants to tell him that his presidency vanished almost 18 months ago, along with a justice department that could not prosecute him, a white nationalist mob intent on murdering his vice-president, and a bunch of fake electors ready to commit treason?Trump is a unique figure in our lifetime of American presidents. The clear and present danger is that he might not be the last.
      Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBIcommentReuse this content More

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      Hello, Mr Resident: Is Palm Beach ready for the Trumps to move in?

      by

      The men sported tuxedos, the women extravagant evening gowns. They crowded into Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, unmasked and without any pretence at social distancing. After cocktails and a luxurious dinner, the partygoers danced in the new year to the live music of rapper Vanilla Ice and Beach Boy veterans.
      “We shouldn’t be caged in our homes,” said Amber Gitter, a local estate agent who attended. No government should “tell you that you have to stay in and can’t work”.
      Once Trump leaves the White House this week, the two-times impeached president is expected to reside at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. It’s an unhappy prospect for many Palm Beachers who fear Trump’s presence and maskless Mar-a-Lago soirees will undermine the tiny town’s tranquility and its fight against the pandemic. The display of unbridled wealth and partying at Mar-a-Lago highlights the awkward and ugly reality of a rich elite that continues to party while its poor working-class neighbours struggle to survive.
      Trump in Florida
      Nestled on an island off the coast of Florida, Palm Beach is a fixture for America’s 1%. Tree-lined South Ocean Boulevard, which runs past Mar-a-Lago, is nicknamed billionaire’s row, the site of some of the world’s ritziest beachside mansions. Residents include cosmetic heiress Aerin Lauder, billionaire financier Stephen Schwarzman and, notoriously, the now-deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump is not even the wealthy community’s first experience with presidents – John F Kennedy used his family’s property as a winter White House.
      Trump divides his future hometown’s residents, as he does all Americans. While he won the town’s vote in the 2020 presidential election and more than 500 followers paid a reported $1,000 a ticket to attend the Mar-a-Lago new year party, the president has feuded with neighbours and local officials. In 2006, Trump erected a giant flagpole at Mar-a-Lago, which violated local zoning rules. The town began fining him $1,250 a day. Trump sued and kept his flagpole. Mar-a-Lago declined to comment on either the dispute or its maskless parties.
      During Trump’s Mar-a-Lago presidential visits, dozens of police and secret service officers protected the property. Barricades blocked off the main road, creating traffic jams. A group of angry neighbours has sought legal advice to block him from living at Mar-a-Lago full-time, the Washington Post first reported. More