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      Trump seized classified documents – but for Republicans the story is Hunter Biden’s laptop | Lawrence Douglas

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      Trump seized classified documents – but for Republicans the story is Hunter Biden’s laptopLawrence DouglasThere was a time when Republican lawmakers took dangerous security breaches seriously but Trump’s actions are unworthy of attention for the likes of Senator Ron Johnson In a Friday appearance on Newsmax, the rightwing media site, Ron Johnson blasted the FBI for not being aggressive enough in following the evidence. Was the great patriotic Republican senator from Wisconsin angry that the FBI had waited too long before searching Mar-a-Lago for illegally stashed documents critical to US national security? Hardly. What agitated Johnson was an alleged whistleblower’s complaint that the FBI had failed to take the “necessary investigative steps after receiving Hunter Biden’s laptop”.Remember laptop-gate? The FBI received the laptop back in 2020 from a computer repair shop owner who claimed the PC had been left in his shop but never retrieved by Hunter Biden. Analysts determined that much of the data was a “disaster” from a forensics standpoint, as the hard-drive had clearly been accessed by persons other than Biden’s son. Nonetheless, after exhaustive studies completed earlier this year, both the New York Times and the Washington Post concluded that some of the retrieved material had been authentic; and while it showed that Hunter clearly tried to trade on his father’s name, it failed to indicate any corruption on Joe Biden’s part.For the likes of Senator Johnson, the laptop remains the story of the hour. Unworthy of the senator’s attention was the release of the redacted affidavit that indicated former president Trump, in defiance of a subpoena, had refused to hand over documents that had the highest security classification and arguably included the names of American intelligence assets abroad. There was a time when Republican lawmakers took dangerous security breaches seriously. But this was back when Republican lawmakers also recognized the possibility of electoral defeat after a fair vote.Senator Johnson was hardly alone in his peculiar priorities. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, attacked the “raid” on Mar-a-Lago as “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves”. Also joining the attack was former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who earlier lamented, “look what the DoJ did … to President Trump, while it slow-rolls and looks the other way on Hunter Biden”. And while Senator Johnson is yet to join Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar in their calls to “defund the FBI”, the Wisconsin senator insists the handling of the laptop affair demonstrates the FBI’s “corruption”; the bureau, he concludes, is “not to be trusted”.If we struggle to characterize the unrelenting efforts of those like Johnson, who defend Trump through systematic misdirection and by attacking the integrity of US institutions of law enforcement, President Biden himself supplied a helpful term – “semi-fascism”. In a speech given last Thursday, the president rightly described “Maga Republicans” as a “threat to our very democracy”.The rise of semi-fascism within the heart of the Republican party underscores the exceptional risks in indicting Trump and bringing him to trial. That some form of indictment will soon follow now seems increasingly likely. The redacted affidavit reveals that in hoarding and refusing to surrender government documents, Trump may have violated three separate federal criminal statutes, which carry penalties from three to 20 years imprisonment. And this investigation is unrelated to the criminal fraud inquiry in Manhattan; the election interference investigation in Georgia; and the Department of Justice’s examination of the election tampering scheme that culminated in the violence of January 6.While many no doubt eagerly look forward to Trump’s day of legal reckoning, dread is the more proper response. When even a Maga-lite lawmaker like the Florida senator Marco Rubio counters the president’s claim of authoritarian strains within the Republican party by tinnily declaring, “If you’re looking for authoritarianism, look no further than what happened under the watch of Anthony Fauci and his allies in the elite establishment,” we know that any future indictment will be greeted by hysterical and violent attacks on the integrity of the US system of justice.And yet the costs of inaction are greater still than the costs of moving against Trump. A failure to indict born of fear of the political risks of doing so suggests that Trump and the semi-fascists have already succeeded in deforming the rule of law in America. Holding Trump to legal account may not succeed; it may trigger civil unrest and redound to his favor. But it may also begin a long, painful process of removing the poison of Maga authoritarianism from our body politic.Those who cherish democracy need to call out the proto-fascist tendencies now seizing the Trump-occupied Republican party.
      Lawrence Douglas is the author, most recently, of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US and teaches at Amherst College
      TopicsUS newsOpinionUS politicsMar-a-LagoDonald TrumpHunter BidenJoe BidenRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office | Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut

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      Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in officeAustin Sarat and Dennis AftergutRepublicans have put all their chips on extremism. But voters are sending more and more signals that they’re fed up with it Polls and election results over the last week reminded Americans that politics seldom moves in a straight line. As in physics, action produces reaction. Overreach invites backlash.For a long while former President Trump and his cronies seemed to be immune from this rule of political life and from the consequences of even the most outrageous conduct. As Trump himself once famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”And so it seemed. He escaped conviction in not one but two impeachment trials and cowed Republican leaders to fall in line after the January 6 insurrection. He remains the leading contender for the Republican party’s 2024 presidential nomination.Today Republicans are still falling over themselves to prove their loyalty to him by outdoing each other in extremism.On 19 August, a Republican candidate for Florida’s state assembly even took to Twitter to call for violence against federal law enforcement officials. “Under my plan,” Luis Miguel tweeted, “all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other [federal agents] ON SIGHT! Let freedom ring!”In Washington, the US supreme court cast aside almost 50 years of settled precedent to overturn Roe v Wade. Republican-dominated state legislatures rushed to enact draconian restrictions on women’s reproductive rights.This kind of extremism may be off-putting to swing voters. There are signs that most Americans aren’t ready to trade their rights and freedoms for a strongman and his election-denying, rights-infringing, violence-threatening allies. As the Cook Report’s Amy Walters wrote on 26 August: “The more Trump is in the news, the more dangerous the political climate for the GOP.”But let’s start with the supreme court’s Dobbs decision.Dobbs sent shock waves across the political spectrum and has jolted Democratic turnout. On 25 August, Axios reported that immediately after Dobbs, “Democratic primary turnout for governors’ races increased … in five of the eight states holding contested primaries.”Similarly, a report from TargetSmart suggests that in states like Michigan and Wisconsin “where reproductive rights are at stake”, women “are out-registering men by significant margins.”This pattern portends a “pink wave” in November, as women mobilize to defeat pro-life candidates. We saw evidence of this in the 23 August special congressional election in New York, where Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro, 52% to 48% in a bellwether swing district.Ryan’s campaign message was largely focused on protecting abortion rights. His victory follows the striking 2 August referendum vote in Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to ban abortion.Are Republicans being taught a lesson they should have learned from history?When the supreme court gets too far out in front of – or too far behind – the American public by ignoring American sentiment, political backlash results. That happened in the 1850s in the run-up to the civil war and in the 1930s when the conservative court that Franklin Roosevelt inherited struck down a new minimum wage law.It happened again after Roe v Wade, when abortion foes reacted and organized for a 50-year battle that resulted in a reactionary court majority.Republicans may now be reaping what those reactionaries on the court sowed.And it isn’t only that many Americans have been alarmed and aroused by what the court did last June. They are also awakening to the threats posed by Trump’s “big lie” and the election denial it has inspired.Democratic messaging that has called out the “big lie”, along with the meticulously presented hearings of the January 6 congressional hearings, seem to be taking root.Americans are coming to see that, as President Biden has warned, “A poison is running through our democracy … with disinformation massively on the rise. But the truth is buried by lies, and the lies live on as truth.”At the start of this summer’s January 6 hearings, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney echoed that sentiment: “People must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”An NBC News poll last week suggests that the American people are indeed now paying attention. It found that more respondents ranked “threats to democracy” as the most important issue facing the country, more important than inflation or jobs.Other polls suggest that candidates who are running as election deniers or opponents of a woman’s right to choose will pay a price in November.Take Pennsylvania, for example. A Franklin & Marshall poll released on 25 August found that the Democratic candidate for the Senate, John Fetterman, is leading Trump-endorsed election denier Mehmet Oz, 43% to 30%. Fetterman is also a vocal abortion rights supporter, while Oz supported overturning Roe.The same poll also shows that the Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, leads the Trump favorite and abortion foe, Republican Doug Mastriano, by 44% to 33%.According to the Washington Post, “In 2020, Mastriano tried to block Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory by introducing a resolution asserting incorrectly that the Republican-dominated legislature had the right to choose which electors’ votes should be counted.” As the Post also notes, “He attended the Jan. 6 riot … where he was captured on video crossing the police line.”This is not to say that in Pennsylvania or elsewhere the Trump fever has completely broken. And polls are not the same thing as an election. But they are signs of hope.Democracy won’t save itself. Abortion rights will not restore themselves. The American majority’s power to defeat Trumpism lies at the ballot box. If Trumpist candidates lose in general elections, over time Republicans may get the message that they’ve placed a losing bet on extremism.There is much to be done by Americans committed to preserving our republic and to saying “no” to Trump. As former president Obama put it in his 2017 farewell address: “It falls to each of us to be … jealous guardians of democracy.” Across America, a majority of voters are ready to do just that.
      Austin Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and the author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty
      Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022US SenateUS CongressHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More

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      More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decade

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      More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decadeMore than half of ‘strong Republicans’ think such a conflict is at least somewhat likely, poll finds More than two-fifths of Americans believe civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years, according to a new survey – a figure that increases to more than half among self-identified “strong Republicans”.US political violence is surging, but talk of a civil war is exaggerated – isn’t it?Read moreAmid heated rhetoric from supporters of Donald Trump, the findings, in research by YouGov and the Economist, follow similar results in other polls.On Sunday night, the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham predicted “riots in the streets” if Trump is indicted over his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House, materials recovered by the FBI at Trump’s home this month.Graham earned widespread rebuke. On Monday, Mary McCord, a former acting deputy attorney general, told CNN it was “incredibly irresponsible for an elected official to basically make veiled threats of violence, just if law enforcement and the Department of Justice … does their job”.Saying “people are angry, they may be violent”, McCord said, showed that “what [Trump] knows and what Lindsey Graham also knows … is that people listen to that and people actually mobilise and do things.“January 6 was the result of this same kind of tactic by President Trump and his allies.”Nine deaths including suicides among police officers have been linked to the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, when supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden attempted to stop the certification of electoral results.Since then, fears of political violence have grown.Most experts believe a full-scale armed conflict, like the American civil war of 1861-65, remains unlikely.But many fear an increase of jagged political division and explicitly political violence, particularly as Republican politicians who support Trump’s lie about electoral fraud run for Congress, governor’s mansions and key state elections posts.This month, Rachel Kleinfeld, a specialist in civil conflict at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Guardian: “Countries with democracies and governments as strong as America’s do not fall into civil war. But if our institutions weaken, the story could be different.”In the poll by YouGov and the Economist, 65% of all respondents said political violence had increased since the start of 2021. Slightly fewer, 62%, thought political violence would increase in the next few years.Participants were also asked: “Looking ahead to the next 10 years, how likely do you think it is that there will be a civil war in this country?”Among all US citizens, 43% said civil war was at least somewhat likely. Among strong Democrats and independents that figure was 40%. But among strong Republicans, 54% said civil war was at least somewhat likely.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Critics denounce Lindsey Graham for warning of ‘riots in the street’ if Trump indicted – as it happened

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      Critics are decrying as “irresponsible” and “shameful” South Carolina Republican Senator and enthusiastic Trump convert Lindsey Graham’s comments that there will be “riots in the street” if Donald Trump is prosecuted.Graham twice made the reference when he went on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America show last evening, the Washington Post reports.Richard Haass, president of the nonpartisan think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, tweeted that Graham’s “prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.”.@LindseyGrahamSC’s prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) August 29, 2022
      Republican Joe Walsh, described by the Post as the former congressman and a tea party adherent turned frequent Trump critic, also tweeted “a message for Graham” that: “Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that. Shameful.”A message for @LindseyGrahamSC:Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that.Shameful.— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 29, 2022
      And the Post added that Trump posted the Fox News interview without comment to his Truth Social platform.I’m handing the blog over to Richard Luscombe now, fresh from his disappointment at Cape Canaveral at seeing NASA’s Artemis rocket not lift off from the Kennedy Space Center, but ready to take you through US political news developments for the next few hours.Thanks for joining us on a very Trump-centric day in US politics. We’re closing our blog now, but here’s a final look at what we were covering:
      Critics decried as “irresponsible” and “shameful” South Carolina Republican Senator and enthusiastic Trump convert Lindsey Graham’s comments that there will be “riots in the street” if Donald Trump is prosecuted.
      The White House said it was “appropriate” that the US intelligence community is reviewing potential national security risks from disclosure of materials recovered during a search of Trump’s Florida residence. But national security spokesperson John Kirby said the White House was not involved in the review.
      The justice department told a federal court in Florida more about its review of materials seized by the FBI during the raid, and also said it will provide a further filing, sealed, with a more detailed receipt of what was seized on August 8.
      A Georgia judge ruled this morning that the state’s Republican governor Brian Kemp must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating possible illegal attempts by Trump and others to influence the 2020 election result there – but not until after the November midterm election.
      Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon is leaning towards approving a request by Trump to appoint a so-called “special master” to review the assessment of the materials taken away in the FBI search. Other material had previously been returned by Trump after pressure from the government, but more was found upon the search.
      The DoJ and the Trump legal team square off this week in Cannon’s court, with the government obliged to provide more details about the FBI search and Trump’s team expected to present arguments in a hearing on Thursday afternoon in favor of the appointment of a special master.
      Karine Jean-Pierre took a swipe at Washington politicians for failing to act on the Biden administration’s request for pandemic funding, and hastening the end of widespread free Covid-19 tests.The White House has announced it is halting the distribution of free tests starting next month, and blames a lack of funding. The last day for orders will be 2 September.White House press secretary Jean-Pierre said the lack of progress in the House towards funding a package to support testing, vaccines and therapies had led to “some tough decisions”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We warned that congressional inaction would bring unacceptable trade-offs and harm our preparedness and response and guidance, and the consequences would worsen over time.
      This is an action we’ve been forced to take that will help preserve our limited remaining supply, ensuring we have a limited supply of tests available in the fall.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is delivering her daily briefing and is taking pains to stress again that Joe Biden has not been briefed about, and has had no input in the justice department’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump.The office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) is currently sifting material seized in the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is alleged to have hidden improperly retained classified documents from his administration.Without evidence, the former president has accused Biden, the ODNI, the FBI and anybody else he believes had a hand in the search and seizure, of a political witch-hunt against him.But Jean-Pierre said this afternoon that Trump was off track:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We have been very clear that the president was not briefed in advance of the justice department’s recent actions. We have not been involved. We are committed to the independence as it relates to any matter the justice department has.
      This is an ODNI decision that they have made. The president hasn’t been briefed on any of this. None of us have.Joe Biden will visit the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania next week, aiming to ride a wave of increased popularity and attempting to lift Democrats’ fortunes two months before the midterm election.Biden will speak at Milwaukee’s Laborfest celebration, then go to Pittsburgh where other national labor leaders are appearing at that city’s Labor Day Parade, the Associated Press reports.The president plans to “celebrate Labor Day and the dignity of American workers,” according to the White House.Biden is expected to tout the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act, which he signed in August.Both states have races for governor and seats in the US Senate.In Wisconsin, Democrats are trying to reelect governor Tony Evers and oust Republican senator Ron Johnson. “We have a good relationship,” Evers said. “I’m looking forward to it.”In Pennsylvania, Democrats are trying to hold on to the state’s open governor’s office and to flip the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Pat Toomey.An “aspiring member” of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Monday to more than four years in prison for storming the US Capitol during the 6 January riot, the Associated Press reports.Joshua Pruitt, 40, came face-to-face with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate majority leaders as he joined fellow Donald Trump supporters in efforts to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, the court heard.“One look at Pruitt, and the leader of Senator Schumer’s security detail immediately saw the threat and hustled the 70-year-old senator down a hallway, having to change their evacuation route on a dime,” assistant US attorney Alexis Loeb wrote in a court filing.US district court judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Pruitt, of Maryland, to four years and seven months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release.Prosecutors wanted a five-year sentence for Pruitt, a bartender and personal trainer they described as “an aspiring Proud Boys member” whose intimidating figure made him an “ideal recruit” for the group.Democrats’ apparently resurgent fortunes ahead of November’s midterms are pushing Republicans into panic-buying “aggressive” media slots in markets where believe they are lagging.That’s the assessment from Axios, which has looked into Republican campaign spending across the country, including a $125m ad buy by House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s political action committee, the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), in almost entirely Democrat held districts.Of McCarthy’s spending, “$9 of every $10 [is] targeting seats carried by President Biden in 2020,” Axios reports.“CLF is doubling down on offensive spending, even in places where Biden won by double digits two years ago”.First look: Kevin McCarthy’s leadership PAC has reserved another $37 million in TV time — with $9 of every $10 targeting seats carried by President Biden in 2020.It’s a rejoinder to growing talk about Democrats finding a shot to retain the House. https://t.co/5oBNmGgwje— Axios (@axios) August 29, 2022
      Biden’s approval ratings have climbed steadily since earlier this year, buoyed by a series of legislative successes including the Inflation Reduction Act, and a perceived backlash by more moderate voters to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade federal abortion protections.Republicans who once assumed retaking control of the House in November was a given appear increasingly fearful that there will be no rout of the Democratic majority, and the rash of sudden spending is an attempt to shore up their support, Axios says.“Democrats hope to harness voter energy around protecting abortion rights to motivate their base and appeal to independents in an election Republicans had hoped would focus on economic anxiety,” the media site says.Critics are decrying as “irresponsible” and “shameful” South Carolina Republican Senator and enthusiastic Trump convert Lindsey Graham’s comments that there will be “riots in the street” if Donald Trump is prosecuted.Graham twice made the reference when he went on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America show last evening, the Washington Post reports.Richard Haass, president of the nonpartisan think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, tweeted that Graham’s “prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.”.@LindseyGrahamSC’s prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) August 29, 2022
      Republican Joe Walsh, described by the Post as the former congressman and a tea party adherent turned frequent Trump critic, also tweeted “a message for Graham” that: “Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that. Shameful.”A message for @LindseyGrahamSC:Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that.Shameful.— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 29, 2022
      And the Post added that Trump posted the Fox News interview without comment to his Truth Social platform.I’m handing the blog over to Richard Luscombe now, fresh from his disappointment at Cape Canaveral at seeing NASA’s Artemis rocket not lift off from the Kennedy Space Center, but ready to take you through US political news developments for the next few hours.The White House today said it is “appropriate” that the US intelligence community is reviewing potential national security risks from disclosure of materials recovered during a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence, Reuters reports.The director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, told lawmakers in a letter last week that her office is working with the Justice Department to “facilitate a classification review” of documents including those recovered during the August 8 search.Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has told congressional leaders that her department has launched a review “of the potential risk to national security” in the event that Trump compromised secrets from classified Mar-a-Lago documents. pic.twitter.com/lDBeeEwbkO— The Recount (@therecount) August 29, 2022
      The White House is not involved in the assessment of the risk associated with those documents, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.John Kirby just now tells reporters the White House is not involved in the damage assessment DNI is conducting re: classified docs Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. Kirby calls the assessment an “appropriate action.”— Morgan Chalfant (@mchalfant16) August 29, 2022
      Meanwhile:DOJ also tells the court it is conducting a classification review, along with ODNI, of the materials seized from Trump’s home. It also confirms what was reported this weekend: ODNI is leading an intelligence community assessment— Sarah N. Lynch (@SarahNLynch) August 29, 2022
      It’s been a very Trump-dominated morning and we’ll have some updates on other things coming up shortly, as well, while also bringing you any further developments in the various legal cases enveloping the former president.Here’s where things stand:
      The US Department of Justice has told a federal court in Florida more about its review of materials seized by the FBI during a search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private resort and residence in Palm Beach and also said it will provide a further filing, sealed, with a more detailed receipt of what was seized on August 8.
      A Georgia judge ruled this morning that the state’s Republican governor Brian Kemp must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating possible illegal attempts by then-president Donald Trump and others to influence the 2020 election result there – but not until after the November midterm election.
      Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon is leaning towards approving a request by Trump to appoint a so-called “special master” to review the assessment of the materials taken away from Mar-a-Lago after the FBI search. Other material had previously been returned by Trump after pressure from the government, but more was found upon the search.
      The DoJ and the Trump legal team square off this week in Cannon’s court, with the government obliged to provide more details about the FBI search and Trump’s team expected to present arguments in a hearing on Thursday afternoon in favor of the appointment of a special master. This all involves the criminal investigation into Trump hanging onto highly-sensitive official documents after he left office and potential obstruction.
      In the Department of Justice’s filing in federal court in south Florida today, relating to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and seizure of classified documents apparently secreted there by former president Donald Trump, it has told the court it will comply with the request to provide “a more detailed receipt” for property seized during the search on August 8.The government has promised “a sealed, supplemental filing” on this with the court “as well as a ‘particularized notice indicating the status of [the United States’] review of the seized property, including any filter review conducted by the privilege review team and any dissemination of materials beyond the privilege review team’,” according to the filing. More

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      Graham predicts ‘riots in streets’ if Trump is prosecuted over classified records

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      Graham predicts ‘riots in streets’ if Trump is prosecuted over classified recordsRepublican South Carolina senator cites ‘the ‘Clinton debacle’ and claims the FBI failed to investigate Hunter Biden Amid growing fears about political violence in the US, a senior Republican senator predicted “riots in the streets” if Donald Trump is prosecuted for mishandling classified information.Of all the legal threats Trump is facing, is this the one that could take him down?Read moreLindsey Graham, of South Carolina, made his remarks about the ex-president while speaking to Fox News’s Sunday Night in America, hosted by Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman from the same state.Graham said: “Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It’s all about getting him. There’s a double standard when it comes to Trump.”Alleging a failure by the FBI to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, Graham added: “I’ll say this, if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets.”As a House committee chairperson, Gowdy investigated Hillary Clinton’s work as secretary of state, including her handling of the attack on a US facility in Benghazi in 2012 and her use of a private email server for government business. Clinton was not charged over the email issue.Trump is under investigation and could be indicted over the handling of classified White House records he took to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, in contravention of federal law.On Friday, an affidavit released with redactions showed how concerns about illegal activity and obstruction of justice merited an FBI search at Trump’s resort earlier this month.Trump seized on the search to claim unfair treatment and whip up supporters. He is reportedly close to announcing another White House run. He is eligible to do so because he escaped conviction in his second impeachment trial for inciting the Capitol attack.Graham’s remarks were widely condemned.Law professor and former White House ethics chief Richard Painter referred to Trump supporters’ deadly attack on the Capitol when he said: “A senator who calls for ‘riots in the streets’ if Trump is indicted should be expelled from the Senate. He’s inciting January 6 all over again.”The president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, said the “prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former [president] may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are [obliged] to call for the rule of law.”Graham was on friendly terms with Biden when they were senators together but his dogged support for Trump has reportedly prompted the president to ice Graham out. In his interview with Gowdy he slammed Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, then returned to his theme.Saying that as “a simple-minded guy” he thought “people want to be treated the same without regard to political ideology”, Gowdy asked about his guest’s own legal problems.Graham is resisting attempts to force him to testify about his involvement in Trump’s attempt to overturn his electoral defeat in 2020 by Biden in Georgia, a swing state.Graham said: “If we let county prosecutors start calling senators and members of Congress as witnesses when they’re doing their job, we’re out of … constitutional balance here.“I’ve got a good legal case. I’m going to pursue it … I love the law. I’ve never been more worried about the law and politics as I am right now.”US political violence is surging, but talk of a civil war is exaggerated – isn’t it?Read moreHe continued: “How can you tell a conservative Republican that the system works when it comes to Trump? … If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there will literally will be riots in the streets. I worry about our country.”Trump indicated his approval, posting video of Graham’s remarks to Truth Social, the platform Trump set up after being suspended from Twitter over the Capitol attack.Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who has emerged as a Trump critic, predicted that there will indeed be violence if Trump is indicted.“I see and hear those threats all the time,” he wrote. “But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that. Shameful.”TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Billions in ‘dark money’ is influencing US politics. We need disclosure laws | David Sirota and Joel Warner

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      Billions in ‘dark money’ is influencing US politics. We need disclosure lawsDavid Sirota and Joel WarnerA donor secretly transferred $1.6bn to a Republican political group. Because of America’s lax laws, the donation was never disclosed in any public record or database This week, the Lever, ProPublica and the New York Times discovered the largest known political advocacy donation in American history. We exposed a reclusive billionaire’s secret transfer of $1.6bn to a political group controlled by the Republican operative Leonard Leo, who spearheaded the construction of a conservative supreme court supermajority to end abortion, block government regulations, stymie the fight against climate change and limit voting rights.This anonymous donation – which flowed to a tax-exempt trust that was never disclosed in any public record or database – was probably completely legal.Whether you support or abhor Leo’s crusade, we should be able to agree on one larger non-partisan principle: such enormous sums of money should not be able to influence elections, lawmakers, judicial nominations and public policy in secret. And we should not have to rely on a rare leak to learn basic campaign finance facts that should be freely available to anyone.Unfortunately, thanks to our outdated laws, those facts are now hidden behind anonymity, shell companies and shadowy political groups. America is long overdue for an overhaul of its political disclosure laws – and news organizations in particular should be leading the charge for reform.In the early 1970s, leaks and shoe-leather reporting by news organizations uncovered the Watergate scandal – the modern era’s foundational dark money exposé. That debacle birthed the original federal disclosure laws and a golden age of journalism. For a time, the new statutes allowed campaign finance reporting to become systematic, methodical and based on required disclosures, rather than sporadic, random and reliant on the goodwill of courageous whistleblowers.A half-century later, however, the dark money practices of 50 years ago have again become normalized. In 2020 alone, more than $1bn worth of dark money flooded around weak disclosure rules and into America’s elections, financing Super Pacs, ad blitzes, mailers and door-knocking campaigns. As millions of votes were swayed, reporters and the public had no knowledge of the money sources, or what policies they were buying.Heading into the 2022 election, the situation is getting worse. The two parties’ major Senate and House Super Pacs are all being funded by anonymous dark money groups that are not required to disclose their donors.These problems aren’t unique to the campaign arena. Front groups are also shaping public policy, leaving reporters unable to tell voters who exactly is funding what. In the last few years, an anonymously funded group used post-election ads to successfully pressure lawmakers to water down landmark healthcare legislation designed to eliminate so-called “surprise” medical bills.Similarly, Leo’s anonymously funded network spent tens of millions to boost the nomination campaigns of three conservative supreme court justices, after leading a campaign supporting Republicans’ refusal to hold a vote on Barack Obama’s 2016 high court nominee, Merrick Garland.To be sure, news outlets can still cover the shrinking portion of the political finance system that still discloses some money flows to politicians, lobbyists and advocacy groups. And thankfully, there are occasionally disclosures like the Leo leak, which provide a fleeting glimpse into the real forces influencing sweeping policy decisions.But for every sporadic leak, there are scores of secret donors systematically funneling ever more dark money into elections and legislative campaigns without ever being exposed – and they are reaping the rewards of corrupted public policy.That’s the bad news. The good news is there is already a legislative blueprint for reform.The Disclose Act, sponsored by the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse, would force dark money groups to disclose any of their donors who give more than $10,000, require shell companies spending money on elections to disclose their owners, and mandate that election ads list their sponsors’ major contributors. These requirements would extend not only to election-related activity, but also to campaigns to influence governmental decisions – including judicial nominations.A separate Whitehouse bill would additionally require donor disclosure from shadowy groups lobbying the supreme court through amicus briefs designed to tilt judicial rulings without letting the public know which billionaire or CEO’s thumb is on the scale. And other pending legislation would finally allow the Securities and Exchange Commission to require major corporations to more fully disclose their political spending.Journalists should proudly advocate for laws like these, which allow us to tell the public what its government is doing. Our industry has done that before in defending open records laws, and we must do it now in advocating for new campaign finance disclosure rules.In practice, that means reporters elevating the transparency issue and demanding answers from politicians about where they stand on disclosure laws – rather than ignoring or downplaying the rising tide of dark money now shaping every public policy in America.It means newspaper editorial boards advocating for campaign finance reform.It means media organizations lobbying for stronger disclosure laws at the federal, state and local levels.It means the journalism industry participating in – and at times leading – this fight, rather than using objectivity as a cop-out.This battle to update campaign finance disclosure laws and bring sunlight to the darkest of dark money already faces powerful opponents. In recent years, the US Chamber of Commerce and Koch Industries – which represent some of America’s biggest dark money spenders – have been lobbying against the Disclose Act, preventing it from advancing for more than a decade.The Koch network recently convinced the supreme court’s conservative bloc to strike down a California law requiring non-profit dark money groups to at least disclose their major donors to state tax regulators, after spending to back some of those justices’ confirmations to the court.Most recently, conservative groups and Republican state attorneys general have been trying to block a proposal to force companies to disclose greenhouse gas emissions by arguing that it is unlawful “compelled speech” – a preview of the argument they might use against new campaign finance transparency legislation.Just as alarming, segments of the journalism industry itself have opposed transparency efforts. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) — which represents the major media outlets making huge profits off of dark money ads — tried to block a rule at the Federal Election Commission a decade ago to require TV and radio stations to disclose ad buys from political groups, arguing it would cost them advertising revenue. The NAB has recently successfully opposed the Federal Communications Commission’s requirements that broadcasters disclose when foreign governments sponsor material. NAB is right now lobbying on the Disclose Act.But this week’s revelations about history’s largest dark-money donation should be an alarm telling us that the status quo must change – and indeed it can change, even within the confines of the supreme court’s own precedents.In the landmark Citizens United ruling that unleashed the modern era of big money politics, the majority noted that while it was unwilling to permit political spending restrictions, it still held that “government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements”.Those requirements are so desperately needed now – for the free press to play its vital role, and for voters to make informed decisions when they go to the polls.But the only chance it will happen is if news outlets and reporters get off the sidelines and enter the battle to secure what they need to do their jobs – and what we all need to preserve our democracy.
      David Sirota is an award-winning journalist who founded the investigative news outlet the Lever
      Joel Warner is the Lever’s managing editor
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      Kinzinger: Republicans ‘hypocritical’ for defending Trump over taking classified material

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      Kinzinger: Republicans ‘hypocritical’ for defending Trump over taking classified materialParty spent years chanting ‘lock her up’ at Hillary Clinton for private email system, says congressman, a vocal critic of Trump Congressman Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican who has been one of the most vocal critics of Donald Trump, called out his party for criticizing Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while continuing to defend the former president’s decision to take sensitive government information to his home at Mar-a-Lago.Kinzinger’s comments came days after the FBI released a redacted version of the affidavit the agency submitted to a federal judge to justify a search of Trump’s home. The document details how Trump retained classified material at Mar-a-Lago and that the government had been working for more than a year to retrieve those materials. A batch of documents returned earlier this year contained 184 documents marked as classified, including 25 marked as top secret.“The hypocrisy of folks in my party that spent years chanting, ‘Lock her up,’ about Hillary Clinton because of some deleted emails or – quote/unquote – ‘wiping a server,’ are now out there defending a man who very clearly did not take the national security of the United States to heart,” Kinzinger, who is retiring from Congress after this term, said on NBC’s Meet The Press. “And it’ll be up to [the US justice department] whether or not that reaches the level of an indictment.“But this is disgusting in my mind. And, like, no president should act this way, obviously.”It’s not yet clear whether Trump will face criminal charges in the matter. But during the 2016 presidential campaign that propelled him to the Oval Office, Trump and his Republican allies said his Democratic rival Clinton should be punished for her use of a private email server while she was serving as secretary of state.“Lock her up,” became a rallying cry at Trump rallies on the campaign trail. A US state department investigation ultimately found there was “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information”.The former justice department official who oversaw the agency’s investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material, David Laufman, told Politico earlier this month that case and Trump’s were different.“For the department to pursue a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago tells me that the quantum and quality of the evidence they were reciting – in a search warrant and affidavit that an FBI agent swore to – was likely so pulverizing in its force as to eviscerate any notion that the search warrant and this investigation is politically motivated,” Laufman said.Trump has asked a federal judge to appoint a so-called special master who would determine whether materials that the FBI seized from his Florida resort can be used in any criminal investigation into him. The judge late Saturday issued an order indicating an openness to appointing a special master in the case, though that ruling is not final and called for a Thursday afternoon hearing to further consider the matter.Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the US House committee investigating the deadly January 6 Capitol attack that Trump supporters staged in a desperate attempt to prevent the congressional certification of Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.The other Republican on the committee, the Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, recently lost her bid for re-election in a party primary against Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman.TopicsRepublicansDonald TrumpHillary ClintonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Broken News review: fired Fox News editor has broadsides for both sides

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      Broken News review: fired Fox News editor has broadsides for both sidesChris Stirewalt helped call Arizona early and right, enraging Donald Trump. He has harsh words for the US media in general Late on 3 November 2020, Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden. In that moment, Rupert Murdoch’s US flagship upended Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Chris Stirewalt, a decade-long Fox News editor, was part of the team that put the state in the Democrat’s column. One insurrection and two months later, the network fired him.‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreFox called it a “restructuring”. Others, including Stirewalt, shared a different view: he and more than a dozen others had been sacrificed to mollify Trump, Republicans and Fox’s fanbase.“I got canned after very vocal and very online viewers – including the then-president of the United States – became furious,” Stirewalt writes.According to Stirewalt, viewer anger had bled on to Fox’s bottom line: “The high ratings born of a presidential coup attempt in the midst of a global pandemic were never going to be sustainable, but the decline was sharper than industry experts expected.”The suits in the Fox C-Suite and elected Republicans demanded scalps. But Stirewalt would have the last word.This past June, he appeared before the January 6 committee. Under oath, he testified that Biden won and Trump lost. He also accused the ex-president and his minions of seeking to “exploit” a systemic “anomaly”.Specifically, during the 2020 election, in states like Arizona where same-day votes were counted before mail-in ballots, Republicans appeared to lead early on election night.Generally, Democrats tended to vote by mail or before election day while Republicans appeared at the polls on election day itself. On the night, as the hours pass, an apparent Republican advantage may evaporate, leaving little but a red mirage – and enraged viewers.Stirewalt’s book is both a critique of the media and a rebuke of his former employer and Trump. He spares no one. The Washington Post, the New York Times, MSNBC and Joe Scarborough all fare poorly too.Substantively, he contends that much of the news business is about the pursuit of ratings. In part, the media inflames passions to monetize all that passes through its domain. No story is insignificant if it can double as clickbait.Stirewalt says Fox News failed to prepare Trump followers for the possibility that he would lose to Biden, a failure far beyond negligence. Fox News, he writes, stoked “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred”, in order to entice viewers to buy a $65 “Patriot” streaming service. These days, Fox is facing rather higher costs, battling defamation lawsuits arising from repeatedly airing Trump’s “big lie”.As for the Times, Stirewalt attacks the paper of record for using its 1619 Project, which casts American history in light of racism and slavery, as a vehicle to “upsell super-users from subscriptions to $35 books”. He also characterizes the 1619 Project as a “frontal assault on the idea of America’s founding as a new birth of freedom that it very plainly, if imperfectly was”.Stirewalt’s devotion to journalism spills on to the page. He places a premium on individual freedom and the classic liberal tradition. He is sympathetic to the intellectual underpinnings of liberalism and conservatism but casts a wary eye toward progressivism and nationalism. He takes both to task for fetishizing the collective will and distorting history.“Progressivism seeks to ameliorate the problems of humankind,” he writes “… but not necessarily within the framework of the American system or the humanistic concept of human rights.”By contrast, “nationalists believe that the appropriate aim of the federal government should always be the improvement of life for the greatest number of Americans, even when that comes at a cost to individual rights greater than a strict reading of the constitution would allow”.Steve Bannon, Sohrab Amari and JD Vance might disagree. Or not.Stirewalt also tackles the issue of the media and politicians being cowed by their bases. As Stirewalt sees it, the threat of the mob – real and virtual – leads people to avert their gaze from our national train wreck.He knocks “liberals who believe in free speech” but “look at their shoes when people are shouted down or fired for their beliefs”. Likewise, he takes to task those “seemingly normal members of Congress” who went “along with Trump’s efforts to steal a second term”.Not surprisingly, Stirewalt has little patience for performative politicians. He lumps together Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and pairs Marjorie Taylor Greene with Rashida Tlaib. He suggests such figures excel at triggering partisan outrage but lack Trump’s entertainment chops.Breaking History review: Jared Kushner’s dispiriting Trump bookRead more“They’re Showtime after 10pm,” Stirewalt cracks. “Trump was hardcore.”Stirewalt is unsparing in his takedown of Cruz. Broken News recalls the Texas senator’s groveling for Tucker Carlson, for referring to the January 6 insurrection as a “violent terrorist attack on the Capitol”. Cruz was a “quavery mass of regret and humiliation” on Carlson’s show, Stirewalt writes.Turning to Carlson, Stirewalt lets us know the Swanson frozen-food heir is loaded, yet at the same time rails against the “big, legacy media outlets”. There is a lot of cognitive dissonance in prime time. For good measure, Stirewalt reminds the reader that Carlson’s employer is a “multinational corporation led by an Australian billionaire who owns arguably the single most powerful news outlet in America”.Stirewalt offers no easy way out. He “urges us to question our own assumptions when consuming news” but does not assure us that doing so will actually lower the volume and temperature. He hopes we can see the other side of the political divide, but sounds uncertain. He provides plenty of food for thought.
      Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back is published in the US by Hachette
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