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      FBI searched Trump Mar-a-Lago home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files, justice department says

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      FBI searched Trump Mar-a-Lago home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files, justice department saysCourt filing alleges files were found despite Trump lawyers saying all documents had been returned The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after it obtained evidence there was probably an effort to conceal classified documents in defiance of a grand jury subpoena and despite his lawyers suggesting otherwise, the justice department said in a court filing.The recounting – contained in a filing from the justice department that opposed Trump’s request to get an independent review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago – amounted to the most detailed picture of potential obstruction of justice outlined to date by the government.“Efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the justice department alleged in its filing on Tuesday night.Among the new revelations in the 36-page filing were that FBI agents recovered three classified documents from desks inside Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago and additional classified files from a storage room, contrary to what the former president’s lawyers indicated to the justice department.The justice department said in the submission that, after a Trump lawyer in May accepted service of a subpoena for materials removed from the White House, the lawyer and Trump’s records custodian in June gave the government a single Redweld legal envelope, double-taped, that contained the documents.As Trump’s lawyer and custodian turned over the folder to Jay Bratt, the justice department’s chief counterintelligence official, the custodian produced and signed a letter certifying a “diligent search” had been conducted and all documents responsive to the subpoena were being returned.The lawyer for the former president also stated to Bratt that all the records in the envelope had come from one storage room at Mar-a-Lago, that there were no other records elsewhere at the resort, and that all boxes of materials brought from the White House had been searched, the justice department said.The custodian who signed the letter has been identified by two sources familiar with the matter as Christina Bobb, a member of Trump’s in-house counsel team, though a copy of the letter reproduced by the justice department in the filing redacted the custodian’s name. But the FBI subsequently uncovered evidence through multiple sources that classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of the subpoena, and that other government records were “likely” concealed and removed from the storage room, according to the filing.The justice department said in its submission that the evidence – details of which were redacted in the search warrant affidavit partially unsealed last week – allowed it to obtain a warrant to enter Mar-a-Lago, where FBI agents found more classified documents in Trump’s private office.“The government seized 33 items of evidence, mostly boxes,” from its search of Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the filing said. “Three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but rather were located in the desks in the ‘45 Office’, were also seized.”Illustrating the contents of the 8 August seizure, in an exhibit resembling how the justice department would show the results of a drug bust, the filing included a photo of the retrieved documents emblazoned with classification markings including “top secret” and “secret” designations.The justice department added that the documents collected most recently by the FBI included materials marked as “sensitive compartmented information”, while other documents were so sensitive that the FBI counterintelligence agents reviewing the materials needed additional security clearances.“That the FBI,” the filing said, “recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former president’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform, calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification.”After painting an extraordinary portrait of the hurdles that the justice department had to overcome to even recover the documents that belong to the government, prosecutors argued that Trump had no basis to seek the appointment of a so-called special master to review the files.The request for a special master in this case fails, the filing argued, because Trump is attempting to use the potential for executive privilege to withhold documents from the executive branch – which the supreme court decided in Nixon v GSA did not hold.The justice department added that even if Trump could somehow successfully assert executive privilege, it would not apply to the current case because the documents marked classified were seized as part of a criminal investigation into the very handling of the documents themselves.Trump is expected to press on with his request for a special master and to obtain a more detailed list of materials taken from Mar-a-Lago, according to a source close to his legal team, which also disputed that the justice department’s filing raised the likelihood for an obstruction charge.On Tuesday morning, before the justice department filed its response minutes before a court-imposed midnight deadline, Trump added a third lawyer, the former Florida solicitor general Christopher Kise, to his outside legal team, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. TopicsDonald TrumpFBIMar-a-LagoFloridaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Peace is Possible if India and Pakistan Listen to Each Other’s Stories of Partition

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Top Secret Service official at heart of January 6 Trump row steps down

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      Top Secret Service official at heart of January 6 Trump row steps downTony Ornato, who reportedly told aide Trump lunged for steering wheel as Capitol attack was starting, was key figure to committee Top US Secret Service official Tony Ornato, who has become a figure of intense interest to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, has retired from the agency.Ornato was thrust into the center of the January 6 furor as an eyewitness to some of the most critical incidents involving Donald Trump in the hours leading up to the deadly assault on the US Capitol.He began as head of Trump’s Secret Service detail but in an unprecedented move in December 2019 became deputy chief of staff in the White House.Biden to take on Republicans over gun control, crime and attacks on FBI – liveRead moreIn that capacity, he was drawn into the sights of the January 6 committee in its investigation of Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol insurrection. A former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, in June testified publicly to the committee that Ornato had told her Trump had become “irate” when his security detail refused to drive him to the Capitol as the assault on Congress was beginning.The attack aimed to prevent the congressional certification of Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.When his Secret Service driver insisted it was not safe to go, Trump lunged for the steering wheel and then grabbed the agent’s throat, Hutchinson testified Ornato had told her. Ornato reportedly denied the account through unnamed sources.Hutchinson also revealed to the committee that Ornato had briefed top White House aides on January 6 itself that weapons were being carried among the crowd at the Capitol, including guns, knives and spears. Ornato has not denied that allegation.On Monday, he confirmed that he had retired from the Secret Service, saying in a statement that he wanted to work in the private sector. He has already been interviewed twice by the January 6 committee, though the contents of his testimony have not been made public.Among the areas of interest that the committee is likely to be pursuing is Ornato’s knowledge of how Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, was handled by Secret Service agents on January 6. As armed rioters were milling through the Capitol, shouting “Hang Mike Pence!”, the vice-president’s security detail tried to persuade him to evacuate the area.“I’m not getting in the car,” Pence told the lead special agent, according to Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig in their book I Alone Can Fix It.At the White House, Ornato, who as deputy chief of staff had oversight over Secret Service decisions, told Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, that the vice-president was going to be moved to the Maryland military facility Joint Base Andrews. Had he been evacuated, Pence would no longer have been able to certify Biden’s electoral victory, and Trump’s goal of postponing his defeat would have been fulfilled.When Ornato said that the Secret Service would move Pence, Kellogg was adamant, Rucker and Leonnig reported. “You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg said. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.”TopicsSecret ServiceDonald TrumpUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse 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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      Erdoğan’s Attempt to Woo Assad Could Go Horribly Wrong

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      An Indian Perspective on Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      The AfD’s Duplicitous Attempt to Target Germany’s National Minorities

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      ‘Time has run out’: UN fails to reach agreement to protect marine life

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      ‘Time has run out’: UN fails to reach agreement to protect marine lifeThis fifth round of discussions was meant to establish a UN Ocean Treaty that would protect biodiversity in international waters The latest round of talks at the United Nations aimed at securing protections for marine life in international waters that cover half the planet ended without agreement Saturday.The fifth round of discussions, which began two weeks ago, were designed to establish a UN Ocean Treaty that would set rules for protecting biodiversity in two-thirds of the world’s oceanic areas that lie outside territorial waters.Time running out to protect world’s oceans, conservationists say as UN treaty talks stallRead moreBut UN members failed to agree on how to share benefits from marine life, establish protected areas, or to prevent human activity with life on the high seas.“Although we did make excellent progress, we still do need a little bit more time to progress towards the finish line,” UN oceans ambassador Rena Lee said, according to Agence France-Presse.Many hoped that the New York session, which began on 15 August, would ultimately produce an agreed treaty text on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction”.But environmental campaigners, who noted that discussions had been continuing on and off for 15 years, expressed disappointment and blamed wealthy countries, including the US, of being too slow to compromise.Among the issues holding up the treaty is agreement on a process for creating protected areas as well as environmental impact assessments.“While progress has been made, particularly on ocean sanctuaries, members of the High Ambition Coalition and countries like the USA have moved too slowly to find compromises, despite their commitments,” said Laura Meller of Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign.Meller said that some groups, like the Pacific islands and the Caribbean group, had pushed to complete the agreement. But countries in the global north had only started working to reach compromises in the final days of negotiations, she said.“Time has run out,” Meller added. “Further delay means ocean destruction. We are sad and disappointed. While countries continue to talk, the oceans and all those who rely on them will suffer.”Greenpeace had warned Thursday that treaty talks were on the brink of failure because of the greed of countries in the High Ambition Coalition and others such as the US and Canada. At issue, the group said, was prioritizing hypothetical future profits from Marine Genetics Resources over protecting the oceans.Meller also said that Russia had blocked negotiations, refusing to engage in the treaty process and in attempts at compromise with the European Union “on a wide range of issues”.Monica Medina, the assistant US secretary of state, said her country remained committed to the goal of protecting at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. “We cannot let the tides and currents push us back,” Medina said. “We must keep going.”Unless the UN general assembly schedules a special emergency session to conclude negotiations, talks will not automatically resume until next year.If the body fails to do so, Greenpeace warned that “it will be challenging to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 – the 30×30 target that scientists say is the minimum needed to give the oceans space to recover”.The failure to reach an agreement comes after world leaders at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon in July vowed to do everything in their power to save the seas. But despite uplifting calls to action in the closing statement, no clear commitments emerged.“While it’s disappointing that the treaty wasn’t finalized during the past two weeks of negotiations, we remain encouraged by the progress that was made,” said Liz Karan of the NGO Pew Charitable Trusts of the latest round of talks.Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed reporting.TopicsUnited NationsOceansNew YorkUS politicsnewsReuse this content More