Jack's Cliffhangers

The cliffhanger is an underappreciated element of the special counsel's indictments of Donald Trump and his fellow defendants in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. I hear legal experts calling these indictments "speaking indictments," in that they go beyond the minimum requirement of an indictment to recite a list of the charges against the accused. Rather, these so-called speaking indictments lay out in some detail the facts and allegations underlying the case.

Jack Smith and his team have surpassed the standard speaking indictment. They have made something of a literary narrative of the case. But rather than leaving the public with self-contained short stories, each indictment contains at least one cliffhanger: one thread of the story left dangling so that readers wonder what happens next. That is, Smith weaves into his narrative an essential literary tool: the element of suspense.

In the original indictment, prosecutors tell the story of Trump's waving around a classified document in front of staff and people working on a book for Mark Meadows. None of these visitors -- according to the indictment -- had either classified clearances or a need to know the information in the document. (See esp. p. 2 & pp. 14 ff. of the indictment.) At that July 21, 2021 meeting at Trump's Bedminister club, Trump himself told his visitors the document he showed them was "highly confidential" and "secret." He also admitted that the document was classified and that, since he was no longer president*, he did not have the authority to declassify it. What Trump did not say was that Bedminster is not an "authorized location" to keep classified documents, and in fact Trump had no right to take any classified documents out of the White House when he left office.

Yet the prosecutors drop the Bedminster story right there. They don't tell us exactly what the classified document was or who wrote it. They don't tell us whether or not they have the document. And even though they devote several pages to this thread of the narrative, they don't charge Trump with any criminal act related to the incident. That is, they just leave the incident "out there," as if it's nothing more than an indication of how cavalier Trump is in his handling of classified documents.

This seemingly irrelevant sidebar left legal experts and other observers scratching their heads. I don't think many recognized the element of suspense. I suspect the suspense was intentional, even if the intended target audience was not us but Donald Trump. No sooner was the indictment published than Trump made a series of contradictory claims about the Bedminister incident. He first said, "There was no document there. ... That was not a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles." After audio of the taped conversation surfaced in the media, Trump claimed he had 'copies of different plans' in his desk. Finally, his defense morphed into an admission: "I would say it was bravado, if you want to know the truth. It was bravado... I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents." In other words, Trump's changing story was no help at all. He isn't just an infamous liar so nothing he says can be believed; his final "defense" of this episode was to declare he was lying to his guests. 

But it turns out the Bedminster incident, as depicted in the original indictment, was a tease or preview of the superseding indictment. All will be explained in Episode 2. The dangling "loose end" wasn't loose at all. It was a cliffhanger. Tune in next month.

In the superseding indictment, released this past Thursday night, Smith revealed that prosecutors had possession of the Bedminster document (see p. 37, Count 32). More important, prosecutors charged Trump with an additional crime for the Bedminster "presentation," which they assert was "in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(e)." That is, the crime Trump committed at Bedminster was hiding in plain sight in the original indictment, but it was neither specified nor charged until Smith released the superseding indictment.

The Bedminister story was not Jack Smith's last cliffhanger. The superseding indictment leaves us with its own cliffhanger, one presented in a form and situation so common to episodic teevee mysteries and thrillers that everyone should recognize it. In formulaic scenes and finale, a subpoena for surveillance tapes threatens to reveal that Trump is still hoarding classified documents. (See pp. 27 ff. of the superseding indictment.) Oh noes! What to do, what to do? Trump and co-defendant Walt Nauta are in Bedminister, a thousand miles from Mar-a-Lago and Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Illinois the following day. Nauta, Trump's body man, is supposed to go to Illinois with Trump, but Trump quickly dispatches Nauta to fly down to Mar-a-Lago instead, with an implied mission to destroy the taped evidence.

Once at Mar-a-Lago, Nauta and new defendant Carlos De Oliveira, a former Mar-a-Lago car valet and maintenance man, now described as a "property manager," skulk through a dark tunnel armed with flashlights to help them find surveillance cameras.

Subsequently, De Oliveira lures "Trump Employee 4" to a secret meeting in a windowless closet. Reporters quickly figured out the mysterious Employee 4 was "Yuscil Taveras, an information technology worker. Taveras oversaw the surveillance camera footage at the property." After insisting that the conversation remain private, De Oliveira told Taveras that "the boss" -- that is, Trump -- wanted a surveillance camera server deleted. Taveras was skeptical of the plan, according to prosecutors. He told De Oliveira "that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do that." After some unspecified back-and-forth, the conversation ends, at least as far as Smith's narrative goes, with De Oliveira asking, "What are we going to do?"

Oh, cue ominous music. What indeed? That is the question. The superseding indictment leaves us hanging.

But -- unlike the cliffhanger in the original indictment -- this one at least lets us know that the question does not end the story. There is more to come. For one thing, the conversation-in-a-closet did not end the conspiracy among Trump and his co-defendants to destroy evidence that the government had subpoenaed. After De Oliveira's apparently inconclusive meeting with Taveras, Nauta and De Oliveira held two secretive meetings in the bushes of a property that abuts Mar-a-Lago (really!). Between those two clandestine meetings, according to the indictment, De Oliveira visited the IT office. There was a subsequent phone conversation between De Oliveira and Nauta.

We don't know what Nauta and De Oliveira said to each other in those meetings and phone call. We don't know what, if anything, was decided or promised during De Oliveira's visit to the IT office. We don't know if Trump's IT personnel refused to delete the surveillance server or if someone in IT tried and failed to delete the server. We don't know if someone in IT thought s/he had deleted the server but later the government was able to retrieve the video footage. We don't know if the Trump Organization turned over only a portion of the tapes while the co-conspirators managed to get some deleted.

What we do know is that the government did obtain enough surveillance footage to incriminate the defendants: in the first paragraph following the story of the meetings in the bushes, we learn that "In July 2022, the FBI and grand jury obtained and reviewed surveillance video from The Mar-a-Lago Club showing the movement of boxes...."

It seems unlikely that the special counsel will bring another superseding indictment, if only because each new indictment is apt to move back the trial date. Maybe reporters will ferret out the answer to this new cliffhanger, as they have done in other pieces of this story. Or perhaps the trial itself is Episode 3.

July 29, 2023

Afternoon Update:

Josh Dawsey, et al, of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's political group spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of 2023 to defend Trump, his advisers and others, according to people familiar with the matter, financing legal work that has drawn scrutiny from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest between Trump and witnesses. Save America, the former president's PAC, is expected to disclose about $40.2 million in legal spending in a filing expected Monday.... Trump's advisers say the costs of providing lawyers for dozens of people are necessary and will continue mushrooming as investigations continue trials are scheduled, and the possibility of indictment looms.... In an indictment unsealed Thursday ... in the classified documents case, authorities allege that Trump called [Carlos] De Oliveira last August to tell him he would pay for his attorney. That same day, authorities said, [Walt] Nauta had a conversation with a different Trump employee who assured Nauta that De Oliveira was loyal to Trump.... The PAC's own fundraising and creation is under investigation, The Post has reported, though the group has not been accused of wrongdoing. Much of the money it is using to pay for legal bills was raised on false claims that the 2020 election was stolen."

Adam Satariano, et al., of the New York Times: Elon "Musk, who leads SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, has become the most dominant player in space as he has steadily amassed power over the strategically significant field of satellite internet. Yet faced with little regulation and oversight, his erratic and personality-driven style has increasingly worried militaries and political leaders around the world, with the tech billionaire sometimes wielding his authority in unpredictable ways. Since 2019, Mr. Musk has sent SpaceX rockets into space nearly every week that deliver dozens of sofa-size satellites into orbit. The satellites communicate with terminals on Earth, so they can beam high-speed internet to nearly every corner of the planet. Today, more than 4,500 Starlink satellites are in the skies, accounting for more than 50 percent of all active satellites. They have already started changing the complexion of the night sky, even before accounting for Mr. Musk's plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years.... Starlink is often the only way to get internet access in war zones, remote areas and places hit by natural disasters."

From Sea to Sea. Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "Africa's coup belt spans the continent: a line of six countries crossing 3,500 miles, from coast to coast, that has become the longest corridor of military rule on Earth. This past week's military takeover in the West African nation of Niger toppled the final domino in a band across the girth of Africa, from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east, now controlled by juntas that came to power in a coup -- all but one in the past two years.... Russia has positioned itself as the torch bearer of anti-Western, and especially anti-French, sentiment in a swath of Africa in recent years.... For Wagner's mercurial boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the run of coups is a business opportunity. His forces already operate openly in Mali and Sudan in the coup belt, as well as in the nearby Central African Republic and Libya. Hovering on the margins of the St. Petersburg summit this past week, Mr. Prigozhin praised the coup in Niger, then proposed sending his own armed fighters to help." Read on.

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Marie: Some of you didn't think much of my support of a recent column by Maureen Dowd in which she related that her Republican sister Peggy had written to President Biden urging him to acknowledge his seventh grandchild, the out-of-wedlock daughter of Hunter Biden. Well, Joe Biden has vindicated MoDo, Peggy and me: ~~~

~~~ Katie Rogers & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Biden publicly acknowledged his 4-year-old granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts, for the first time on Friday, saying in a statement that he and the first lady, Jill Biden, 'only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.' The statement came as Mr. Biden faced increasing pressure from critics who said that failing to acknowledge Navy publicly went against the image of a loving patriarch that he has nurtured since the beginning of his political career. 'Our son Hunter and Navy's mother, Lunden [Roberts], are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,' Mr. Biden told People magazine in a statement.... In recent weeks, the president told his son that he wanted to meet Navy when the time was right...."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden gave final approval on Friday to the biggest reshaping in generations of the country's Uniform Code of Military Justice, stripping commanders of their authority over cases of sexual assault, rape and murder to ensure prosecutions that are independent of the chain of command. By signing a far-reaching executive order, Mr. Biden ushered in the most significant changes to the modern military legal system since it was created in 1950. The order follows two decades of pressure from lawmakers and advocates of sexual assault victims, who argued that victims in the military were too often denied justice, culminating in a bipartisan law mandating changes. The White House called the changes to the military justice system 'a turning point for survivors of gender-based violence in the military' and said they kept promises Mr. Biden made as a candidate.... The changes had for years been opposed by military commanders. But they were finally embraced by the Pentagon in 2021 and mandated by a law spearheaded by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York." (Also linked yesterday.)

Matt Viser, et al, of the Washington Post: "President Biden is sharply escalating his criticism of Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, highlighting his blockade of military nominations and using him to criticize other right-wing Republicans he characterizes as extreme, obstructionist and willing to jeopardize the country's national security.... 'Something dangerous is happening,' Biden said Thursday night, speaking at the Truman Civil Rights Symposium. 'The Republican Party used to always support the military, but today, they are undermining the military. The senior senator from Alabama, who claims to support our troops, is now blocking more than 300 military [nominations] with his extreme political agenda.'" ~~~

~~~ Connor O'Brien, et al., of Politico: "Senators flew home for recess Thursday with no solution in sight to Sen. Tommy Tuberville's (R-Ala.) blockade of military promotions, leaving the Pentagon in an unprecedented predicament: By mid-August, the heads of the Army and Navy are slated to retire with no Senate-confirmed leader to replace them. They'll join the Marine Corps, which has had a temporary commandant for the past three weeks, unable to act with the full force that comes with the stamp of approval from the upper chamber.... The logjam affects more than 270 military officers. They include 10 four-star officers, 54 three-stars, 70 two-stars and 139 one-stars, according to a Senate Armed Services Committee aide. Twenty-one of those three- and four-star officers have had their retirements deferred to ensure continuity of command."

But I Take My Science-y Advice From Sen. Potato Head. Chris D'Angelo & Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: "Two global climate organizations on Thursday confirmed that July is on track to be the single hottest month on record. It is also likely the hottest monthlong stretch in 120,000 years. Nearly 200 million people -- 60% of the U.S. population -- are currently under an extreme heat or flood advisory. But as usual, Republican climate deniers are quick to dismiss the dire impacts. 'There is a very scientific word for this: I's called summer,' Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told HuffPost when asked about the heat on Thursday. 'It's no hotter right now than it's ever been. I've been in this heat all my life in July and August as a football coach. This world's not heating up, come on.'... 'Southern Louisiana, it's always hot,' [House Majority Leader Steve] Scalise [said'. 'Thank God for air conditioning.'... Meanwhile, the Republican Party is attacking the Biden administration's effort to make home appliances, including air conditioners and dishwashers, more efficient. Fox News and other right-wing media have dutifully dubbed the federal effort as Biden's 'war on appliances.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Democrats are largely tuning out the House's lurid and shambolic investigatory hearings, which have so far featured photos of a naked Hunter Biden and a much-hyped star witness who turned out to be a fugitive indicted on charges of, among other things, arms trafficking and acting as an unregistered Chinese agent. Behind this circus, however, is something rather astonishing: A major part of the pretext for a possible impeachment of Joe Biden is exactly the same set of lies about Ukraine that helped persuade Democrats to impeach Donald Trump the first time. [Here Goldberg succinctly recounts the whole story of Trump's attempt to bribe President Volodymyr Zelensky to finger Joe Biden for ... something.] Rather than make a specific case, Republicans are trying to foment the cynical sense that scandal surrounds Biden just as it does Trump. The point is not to hold anyone accountable for actual wrongdoing but to parody the process of trying." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: BTW, you may recall that when Zelensky balked at participating in Trump's plan, Trump urged Zelensky to just go on the air and say his government was investigating Joe Biden. A pundit I read or heard recently (cannot recall who) pointed out that this was exactly the same tactic Trump used to try to overturn the 2020 election. When top DOJ officials said there was no significant election fraud and they would not say there was, Trump told them to just say the election was corrupt and Trump and his minions "would do the rest."

Another in the Long-running Series "Trump Was Always a Jerk." Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The accusation [in the special counsel's indictments] about [Donald] Trump's desire to have evidence destroyed adds another chapter to what observers of his career say is a long pattern of gamesmanship on his part with prosecutors, regulators and others who have the ability to impose penalties on his conduct. And it demonstrates how Mr. Trump viewed the conclusion of the Mueller investigation [-- which found evidence of Trump's obstruction --] as a vindication of his behavior, which became increasingly emboldened -- particularly in regards to the Justice Department -- throughout the rest of his presidency, a pattern that appears to have continued despite having lost the protections of the office when he was defeated in the election.... [Robert] Mueller's investigation ultimately identified nearly a dozen acts Mr. Trump took that could be seen as obstruction of justice." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I suppose Schmidt & Haberman partially explain Trump's remarkably stupid trick of attempting to erase the surveillance servers at Mar-a-Lago. That is, obstructing authorities has worked in the past. But if you look at the underlying facts of the Mar-a-Lago incident, you have to conclude that Trump is remarkably stupid. He bought those surveillance cameras. He had them installed and wired to servers. He paid the salaries of the IT staff that maintained the surveillance system. And yet. And yet. He had two employees commit crimes in full view of those cameras. It was not until he got a subpoena that Trump came up with the harebrained scheme of destroying the evidence he knew all along was sitting in his own servers. Who but Trump would be dumb enough to commit a crime in front of his own cameras?

Who's "Rabid" and "Lawless?" Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "Donald Trump on Friday defended the handling of surveillance footage at his Florida home that is at the center of major new criminal charges in the federal case over the former president's retention of classified documents. 'These are my tapes that we gave to them,' Trump told a conservative radio host in his first public interview since being accused of the new crimes.... 'If we wanted to fight that, I doubt we would have had to give it. But regardless, we gave it.'... Trump also repeated his previous assertion that he is shielded by the Presidential Records Act.... Later in the day, Trump fired off several social media posts raging against the Department of Justice. He accused special counsel Jack Smith ... of 'attempting to destroy the lives of two fine people who have worked for me (and have done a great job!) for a long time.' 'This is textbook Third World intimidation by rabid, lawless prosecutors,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. In a follow-up post, he called for Smith, his prosecutors and Attorney General Merrick Garland to be jailed." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Hmm, if Trump thought the tapes could not be subject to subpoena, why did he set his co-conspirators on an unlawful mission to delete them? Why not fight the subpoena in court as he claimed he could have done before he so willingly (ha ha) gave investigators the tape. Trump's two fine employees may be fine indeed, but they also (allegedly!) joined an illegal conspiracy against the federal government, then lied about their actions to federal agents. It isn't the government that "destroyed their lives"; it's Trump -- and of course their own bad choices.

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "After he lost the 2020 presidential election..., Donald Trump embraced conspiracy theories espoused by attorney Sidney Powell, who herself got them from a woman who claims she has the ability to speak with the wind. However, Rolling Stone now reports that Trump privately 'sneered at the ridiculousness' of Powell's ideas, which involved the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez designing voting machines that would be used to steal an American election seven years after his death in 2013. And what's more, special counsel Jack Smith's office has been pressing sources for their memories of Trump's mockery of Powell, whom he reportedly secretly believed to be 'crazy.' 'The special counsel's continuing interest in incidents where Trump either seemed to know -- or was told by his own aides -- that his election conspiracy theories were baseless suggests that prosecutors are likely preparing to demonstrate that Trump's attempts to overturn the election weren't the result of a reasonable or good faith belief in conspiracy theories but instead willful disregard of the facts,' writes Rolling Stone." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The underlying story -- that Trump thought Powell's conspiracy theories were crazy -- is an old one, unearthed by the House January 6 committee and printed in its final report, published in December 2022. But it's good to know prosecutors are following up on that thread.

Meet the Third Man. Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "This previously unreported account of [Carlos] De Oliveira's actions at Mar-a-Lago, and later statements to federal investigators, shows how the longtime Trump employee has become a key figure in the investigation, one whose alleged actions could bolster the obstruction case against the former president.... With De Oliveira, the government has another strong candidate for flipping...." Carlos appeared untruthful from the get-go, when he told agents who were executing an August 2022 search warrant that he couldn't unlock the storage room because he didn't know where the key was. "In January 2023, De Oliveira was questioned by investigators at his home, according to the indictment. His answers left agents more suspicious of him, the people familiar with the situation said. Weeks later, agents seized his phone, the people said. He was subpoenaed to testify in April before the federal grand jury. By that point, it was clear that prosecutors were deeply skeptical of De Oliveira's explanations of his interactions with Trump and Nauta, and his occasional claims of faulty memory." After a "queen-for-a-day" interview in April 2023 in which investigators told De Oliveira he would not prosecuted for any answers he gave, "prosecutors told De Oliveira's lawyer that they believed he was not being truthful and should expect to be charged."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post on the main things we learned from the superseding classified documents indictment: "The superseding indictment drives home how much this trial will be about the alleged coverup.... The document [Trump 'presented' in Bedminster is one] that he acknowledged in real time he hadn't declassified."

Zach Schonfeld & Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Friday appealed a judge's ruling that mandated his hush money criminal case be tried in state court in New York. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a President Clinton appointee, ruled last week that the 34-count indictment was not connected to Trump's role as president, rejecting his request to move the case to federal court in favor of prosecutors' objections. Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles filed a notice of appeal Friday afternoon, the first step in taking the dispute to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals."

Phil Helsel of NBC News: "A New York man who stole a police radio and badge from a Washington, D.C., police officer who was being beaten by a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S Capitol was sentenced to over four years in prison Friday, prosecutors said. Thomas Sibick, 37, of Buffalo, stole the badge and radio of then-Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone, who has been one of several officers attacked that day to testify before Congress. Sibick was sentenced to 50 months, or four years and two months in prison, and was ordered to pay over $7,500, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington said in a statement. He pleaded guilty in March."

I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year. But that's just not happening. And so at a certain point I've said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself. -- "Justice" Sam Alito, in an interview for the Wall Street Journal opinions section ~~~

~~~ Mitts Off My Perks, You Article I Riffraff. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: “Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said in an interview published Friday that Congress has no authority to impose an ethics policy on the Supreme Court, and he hinted that other justices share his view. In a piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal opinions section, Alito noted that he and other justices voluntarily comply with disclosure statutes, but he said mandating an ethics code would be beyond Congress's powers.... It is unusual for a justice to comment so definitively on the constitutionality of legislation, especially when bills are under consideration, and any law that is passed could come before the court. The Journal article ... was notable for another reason: It was written in part by David B. Rivkin Jr., a Washington lawyer well-known in conservative legal circles, who has an upcoming case before the court.... Rivkin and Journal editorial features editor James Taranto noted that Alito has now spoken with them 'on the record for four hours in two wide-ranging sessions.'..." The Hill's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Oh Lordy, There's a Text. Scott Lemieux, in LG&$, rips apart some of Alito's arguments. There's this central one, for instance:

Alito: I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court -- period.

Lemieux: Hmm, I happen to have the text of the Constitution right here and [it reads]: 'the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.'

Presidential Race 2024

Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: "Candidate after candidate at an Iowa Republican dinner on Friday avoided so much as mentioning the dominant front-runner in the race..., Donald J. Trump. But when Mr. Trump took the stage after more than two hours of speeches by his lower-polling rivals, it took him less than three minutes to unleash his first direct attack of the night on his leading challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Trump not only suggested that Mr. DeSantis was an 'establishment globalist' but called him 'DeSanctis,' which in Mr. Trump's argot is short for the demeaning nickname DeSanctimonious and is so well-known that most attendees clearly got the reference.... The one speaker who did criticize Mr. Trump at length, former Representative Will Hurd of Texas -- who is so far from contention that he's not even attempting to qualify for the first Republican debate next month -- was booed off the stage."

DeSantis May Be Campaigning on the Florida Taxpayer's Dime. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was involved in a car crash in Tennessee this week as he traveled for his campaign. He was unhurt in the incident. However, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, it's only thanks to that crash that the public found out DeSantis is using state government vehicles to travel for his presidential campaign. And even with that knowledge, there's no way to know who is paying for them. The problem arises from legislation passed earlier this year in Florida that carves out the governor's travel from the state's rigorous public transparency laws."

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Read together, [Florida's new 'educational'] guidelines seem like an exercise in equivocation and blame shifting -- an attempt to downplay the enormity of American slavery and its defining feature, hereditary racial bondage. This is bad enough. But then consider, as well, the political context of Florida under [Gov. Ron] DeSantis.... [Florida is] where DeSantis, as governor, has vetoed spending on Black history celebrations, actively worked to reduce the representation of Black voters in the state and promised, if elected president, to change back the name of an Army base in North Carolina from Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg, as in the Confederate general Braxton Bragg.... When the board that approved the language was handpicked by DeSantis -- as part of his crusade against so-called wokeness -- it's hard not to see this new instruction on the history of slavery as yet another part of the Florida governor's larger ideological project."

Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "A missile strike injured nine people, including two teenagers, in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor Serhiy Lysak said late on Friday. He said the Russian missile attack, the first on the city center in months, hit a high-rise and a building belonging to the Security Service of Ukraine, also known as SBU. In Brazil, justice officials said they could not approve a U.S. request to extradite Sergey Cherkasov, whom the United States accused of being a Russian spy, because they are already processing Moscow's request for him over allegations of drug trafficking.... The International Olympic Committee invited Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan to compete at next year's Paris Games after she was disqualified from the Fencing World Championships in Milan for refusing a mandatory handshake with Russian opponent Anna Smirnova.... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law moving the date of Christmas from Jan. 7 to Dec. 25, as part of an effort to 'renounce Russian heritage.'"

July 28, 2023

Afternoon Update:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden gave final approval on Friday to the biggest reshaping in generations of the country's Uniform Code of Military Justice, stripping commanders of their authority over cases of sexual assault, rape and murder to ensure prosecutions that are independent of the chain of command. By signing a far-reaching executive order, Mr. Biden ushered in the most significant changes to the modern military legal system since it was created in 1950. The order follows two decades of pressure from lawmakers and advocates of sexual assault victims, who argued that victims in the military were too often denied justice, culminating in a bipartisan law mandating changes. The White House called the changes to the military justice system 'a turning point for survivors of gender-based violence in the military' and said they kept promises Mr. Biden made as a candidate.... The changes had for years been opposed by military commanders. But they were finally embraced by the Pentagon in 2021 and mandated by a law spearheaded by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post on the main things we learned from the superseding classified documents indictment: "The superseding indictment drives home how much this trial will be about the alleged coverup.... The document [Trump 'presented' in Bedminster is one] that he acknowledged in real time he hadn't declassified.... With De Oliveira, the government has another strong candidate for flipping...."

I Take My Science-y Advice From Sen. Potato Head. Chris D'Angelo & Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: <"Two global climate organizations on Thursday confirmed that July is on track to be the single hottest month on record. It is also likely the hottest monthlong stretch in 120,000 years. Nearly 200 million people -- 60% of the U.S. population -- are currently under an extreme heat or flood advisory. But as usual, Republican climate deniers are quick to dismiss the dire impacts. 'There is a very scientific word for this: It's called summer,' Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told HuffPost when asked about the heat on Thursday. 'It's no hotter right now than it's ever been. I've been in this heat all my life in July and August as a football coach. This world's not heating up, come on.'... 'Southern Louisiana, it's always hot,' [House Majority Leader Steve] Scalise [said'. 'Thank God for air conditioning.'... Meanwhile, the Republican Party is attacking the Biden administration's effort to make home appliances, including air conditioners and dishwashers, more efficient. Fox News and other right-wing media have dutifully dubbed the federal effort as Biden's 'war on appliances.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand. -- Mark Felt a/k/a Deep Throat, to Bob Woodward, on the Watergate conspirators ~~~

** ~~~ Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Thursday added major accusations to an indictment charging ... Donald J. Trump with mishandling classified documents after he left office, presenting evidence that he told the property manager of Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, that he wanted security camera footage there to be deleted. The new accusations were revealed in a superseding indictment that named the property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, as a new defendant in the case. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Miami on Monday.... The revised indictment added three serious charges against Mr. Trump: attempting to 'alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence'; inducing someone else to do so; and a new count under the Espionage Act related to a classified national security document that he showed to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J." (This is a rewrite of a story linked yesterday.) The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is obstruction upon obstruction. On May 11, 2022, the DOJ subpoenaed all classified documents in Trump's possession. In Obstruction Scheme 1, which takes place in late May & early June, Trump has Nauta & De Oliveira move around boxes of various items & papers, including classified docs, so Trump can sift through the boxes and rearrange their contents. He has the guys move boxes containing more than 100 classified docs to places where Trump's own attorneys cannot access them. Then Trump falsely tells his lawyers that all of the classified docs in his possession are in a basement storage closet. The attorneys produce 37 classified documents and turn them over to investigators who come to Mar-a-Lago. While there, those investigators see some surveillance cameras. So in Obstruction Scheme 2, which takes place in late June, a grand jury subpoenas the surveillance video. Trump immediately tells Laurel & Hardy to have the surveillance server destroyed. Nauta secretly rushes from Bedminster to Palm Beach to carry out Trump's order, but a reluctant co-worker foils the scheme. ~~~

~~~ You can read the new indictment, via CNN, here. Mission Fail. MB: The section labeled "The Attempt to Delete Security Camera Footage" (begins at page 26) is a hoot. The guys walk through dark tunnels with flashlights & hold clandestine meetings in the bushes next door to Mar-a-Lardo and in a windowless closet. They sound like mobsters: Carlos tells an IT employee he had better delete the footage because "the boss" wanted it done; then Walt checks with another employee because "someone [MB: i.e., Trump] just wants to make sure Carlos is good," and that person's assures Walt that Carlos is loyal. On that assurance, Trump calls Carlos to tell him not to worry as He Trump would pay for Carlos' lawyer. Oh, and the upshot of all this is that neither the Frick & Frack team nor "the boss" get the IT guy to delete the surveillance footage or deep-six the server. The life of Trump would make a decent "B" mob movie. Better yet, maybe the Coen brothers are taking notes. (Also linked yesterday.)~~~

~~~ From CNN's liveblog: "Special counsel Jack Smith has brought additional charges against ... Donald Trump in the case surrounding his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, according to the court docket. Trump has been charged with three new counts, including one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts, related to alleged attempts to delete surveillance video footage at the Mar-a-Lago resort in summer 2022." You'll have to scroll down to read this content. AND ~~~

     ~~~ "... Smith has filed an additional charge against ... Donald Trump for willfully retaining a top-secret document about Iran attack plans, which he discussed with biographers during a taped meeting at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey in July 2021, according to the indictment." Scroll down. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Here's Jack Smith's description of the indictment and a rationale why the superseding indictment should not delay the court's trial schedule. Via Marcy Wheeler.

Marcy Wheeler points to "... a key paragraph of the superseding indictment ... [which] shows how Trump uses legal representation to secure loyalty. It's a fact pattern that crosses both of Trump's crimes, and may well be in the expected January 6 indictment. It may help to break down the omerta currently protecting Trump." That is, Trump keeps poor people from testifying against him by promising to pay their lawyers' fees. MB: It isn't surprising that both Nauta & De Oliveira have Trump-PAC-paid lawyers. Legal codes of ethics demand that lawyers represent their clients, not the entities who pay them, but it would appear Frick's & Frack's are, um, conflicted. You may recall that January 6 witness Cassidy Hutchinson said that her Trump-allied lawyer urged her to "forget" what she heard at the White House and hinted her "faulty memory" would pay off in the form of lucractive job offers; it was not until she got another lawyer that she testified truthfully to the January 6 investigators.

Tierney Sneed of CNN: "Special counsel Jack Smith has charged a third defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, in the Trump Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, according to court files.... De Oliveira was the maintenance worker who helped Nauta move boxes of classified documents around Mar-a-Lago after the Justice Department first subpoenaed Trump for classified documents last May." (Also linked yesterday.)

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: “If the allegations in the latest indictment of Donald Trump hold up, the former president is a common criminal -- and an uncommonly stupid one.... According to the superseding indictment handed up late Thursday, even after Trump knew the FBI was onto his improper retention of classified information, and even after he knew they were seeking security camera footage from the Mar-a-Lago storage areas where the material was kept -- in other words, when any reasonably adept criminal would have known to stop digging holes -- Trump made matters infinitely worse. The alleged conduct ... is nothing short of jaw-dropping...." ~~~

~~~ Oh, Yeah? Let's Ask the Trumpettes! Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: "Former President Trump's campaign lashed out Thursday at new charges levied against him and his associates in his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, calling it an attempt to harass Trump and those around him. 'This is nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him,' the campaign said in a statement."

Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out Thursday that the superseding indictment makes clear that Walt Nauta was not an unwitting employee who accidentally got caught up in a misadventure that got away from him; rather, he was a willing & enthusiastic co-conspirator, who went to great lengths to implement Trump's scheme.

Chutzpah! Laura Jarrett of NBC News: "On top of the new charges against the former president about his alleged mishandling of classified documents comes word from the special counsel that Trump wants to be able to discuss classified discovery [at Mar-a-Lago] outside of a classified setting. Clearly baffled, prosecutors from the special counsel's team write in part in the latest court filing: 'There is no basis for the defendant's request that he be given the extraordinary authority to discuss classified information at his residence, and it is particularly striking that he seeks permission to do so in the very location at which he is charged with willfully retaining the documents charged in this case...." This is part of a liveblog and you may have to scroll down.

**Uh-oh. Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "Lawyers for ... Donald Trump were meeting Thursday morning with prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith's office, more than a week after Trump said he received a letter from the Justice Department telling him he could face criminal charges in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The meeting, confirmed by a person familiar with the matter..., is another sign that Smith could be close to seeking an indictment of Trump in the Justice Department's long-running elections probe." At 8:35 am ET Thursday, this was a developing story. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update: Adam Reiss & Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News (at 11:14 am ET): "Trump's attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro have met with prosecutors in Smith's office, according to three sources. The lawyers were told to expect an indictment, two sources said." This is part of a liveblog. You'll have to scroll down. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update 2: Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "... Donald Trump posted on Truth Social saying his lawyers met on Thursday to appeal to special counsel Jack Smith that 'an indictment would only further destroy the country.' Trump's attorneys went into their meeting with the special counsel Thursday not to argue the facts of the case against indicting Trump, but instead with a broader appeal that indicting him would only cause more turmoil in the country's political environment, two sources familiar with the meeting said." This is part of a liveblog. You'll have to scroll down. (Also linked yesterday.)

Chang Che of the New York Times: "A Kentucky man who used a flagpole to batter a door near the House chamber during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was found guilty in federal court in Washington on Wednesday on nine counts, including civil disorder and disruption of an official proceeding, prosecutors said. Chad Barrett Jones, 45, of Mount Washington, Ky., was part of a standoff in the Speaker's Lobby that ended in the death of Ashli Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police lieutenant as rioters tried to breach the House chamber, prosecutors said. During the encounter, which was captured on video from multiple angles, rioters came close enough to lock eyes with lawmakers, separated only by a few officers and antique wood-and-glass doors. Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington found Mr. Jones guilty after a bench trial on two felony and seven misdemeanor charges, including the destruction of government property."

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "Former Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley pleaded guilty to a federal crime on Thursday in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Kelley pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining on restricted grounds.... Kelley ran for governor in Michigan in 2022 as a Republican, He was arrested last June, before the Republican primary, and was, for a time, leading in the polls." MB: Too bad it's just a misdemeanor. Kelley probably won't get jail time. And I was thinking he would have made a nice simpatico cellmate for Donald Trump. (Also linked yesterday.)

Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday gave overwhelming approval to the annual defense policy bill, sidestepping a contentious debate over abortion access for service members and quashing efforts to limit aid for Ukraine in a show of bipartisanship that set up a bitter showdown with the House. The vote was 86 to 11 to pass the bill, which would authorize $886 billion for national defense over the next year. It includes a 5.2 percent pay raise for troops and civilian employees, investments in hypersonic missile and drone technology, and measures to improve competition with China. But its fate is deeply in doubt as the measure heads for what is expected to be a contentious negotiation between the Democratic-led Senate and the Republican-led House, where right-wing hard-liners have attached a raft of conservative social policy mandates." MB: And then the whole damned Congress packed up and went home for a five-week summer vacay. ~~~

~~~ Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "House Republicans abandoned efforts to pass a spending bill to fund the Agriculture Department and the F.D.A. on Thursday before heading home for summer break, stymied by internal divisions over funding and social policy that threaten to make it impossible for them to avoid a shutdown in the fall. Caught between hard-right conservatives who wanted tens of billions of dollars cut from the legislation and more mainstream Republicans who oppose abortion-related restrictions that the far right insisted upon adding, G.O.P. leaders abruptly pulled the plug on their plans to pass the $25 billion bill. That added the agriculture measure to a looming legislative pileup in September, when Congress will have just weeks to pass a dozen spending bills or a temporary patch to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1." Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Meanwhile, I heard on the teevee tape of Kevin McCarthy boasting Thursday about how Republicans in Congress, unlike Democrats, get things done. It's like Donald Trump's boasting about his "perfect phone calls"; i.e., the one to Zelensky that got him impeached and the one to Raffensperger that is about to get him indicted, probably twice.

Annie Karni & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "It has been decades since there was any real uncertainty at the top of the Republican Party in the Senate. But Senator Mitch McConnell's alarming freeze-up at a news conference on Wednesday at the Capitol, as well as new disclosures about other recent falls, have shaken his colleagues and intensified quiet discussion about how long he can stay in his position as minority leader, and whether change is coming at the top.For months even before he had an apparent medical episode on camera on Wednesday while speaking to the press, Mr. McConnell, the long-serving Republican leader from Kentucky, has been weakened, both physically and politically."

Manu Raju of CNN: "Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who froze during a news conference Wednesday and earlier this year suffered a concussion after falling down, has also endured two other falls this year, according to multiple people familiar with the matter," once in Finland in February & earlier this month at Reagan International while deplaning. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Early Thursday, I wrote in the Comments, "Like Dianne Feinstein, Mitch should retire." The next thing you know, ~~~

     ~~~ Kristin Wilson of CNN: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein had to be corrected and told to vote during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday.... During Thursday's hearing, Feinstein was meant to cast her vote on the Defense Appropriations bill, requiring her to say 'Aye' or 'Nay,' when her name was called. When she didn't answer, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state tried to prompt her. 'Say aye,' she said, repeating herself three times to Feinstein. Feinstein then started to read from prepared remarks, and was interrupted by an aide whispering in her ear. 'Yeah,' Murray said once again. 'Just say "aye."' 'OK, just,' Feinstein replied. 'Aye,' Murray repeated once more. Then Feinstein sat back in her chair. 'Aye,' she said, casting her vote." (Also linked yesterday.)

Maegan Vazquez & Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) reportedly scolded a group of Senate pages late Wednesday evening, using expletives to curse out the teenagers because they were lying on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda. According to Punchbowl News, Van Orden was giving a tour 'for several dozen visitors around midnight' when he saw the pages lying on the floor in the Rotunda and taking photos because it was their final week as pages. Van Orden called the pages 'lazy s----' and told them to 'get the f--- up' off the floor, sources told the outlet. Senate pages are typically high school students who have a number of responsibilities assisting with the day-to-day operations at the Capitol, including shuttling material within the halls of Congress and acting as support staff. When the Senate continues its work late into the night, as it did Wednesday evening, pages are known to rest in the Rotunda -- which is midway between the House and Senate chambers." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I was preparing to write something like, "In fairness to Van Orden, at midnight he was probably drunk," when I read this graf down-story: "The lawmaker's communications director, Anna Kelly, also sought to provide additional context after a photo circulated of Van Orden's Capitol Hill office, appearing to show several empty bottles of alcohol in the trash and on a desk shortly before the incident with the pages allegedly occurred. Kelly shared a tweet with The Post, which said the congressman 'regularly hosts beer and cheese tours with constituents. The congressman hosted roughly 50 constituents and visitors yesterday before a private tour of the Capitol.'" So I'll have to remove the "probably." Both Senate Leaders -- Schumer & McConnell -- expected Van Orden to apologize to the teenagers. He did not.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way to complete a controversial Mid-Atlantic natural gas pipeline, agreeing that Congress greenlighted the project as part of a behind-the-scenes deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling. Without comment, the justices lifted a lower court's halt on the remaining construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will stretch 300 miles through rugged mountains in West Virginia and Virginia. Environmentalists claim that the pipeline threatens lands, water resources and endangered species along the way, and have found some success blocking final approval at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond. But much of the pipeline is already built. During the tense negotiations earlier this summer to keep the nation from defaulting on its debts, House Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia wrangled a deal with the Biden administration to cut the courts out of the process. The bill ... expressly stripped courts of jurisdiction to review 'any action' by a federal agency granting authorization for the construction and operation of the pipeline." Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Now, there's a great way to avoid judicial review. Just tuck into every bill a "mitts off, judges" clause. And Democrats could sweeten their bills with, "no Republican-appointed judges may review or rescind any part of this law." If Bibi Netanyahu had thought of this, he could have avoided all those problems with his effort to neuter Israel's judiciary.

Erica Green & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "President Biden will announce new measures on Thursday aimed at helping communities across the country deal with extreme weather, as rising temperatures scorch much of the country and amplify alarms about the climate crisis. The announcement, to be made in an auditorium on the White House grounds, will come on a day when the National Weather Service is warning that temperatures in the nation's capital could hit triple digits for the first time in nearly seven years. White House officials said the new measures would include funding to improve weather prediction, grants to help ensure clean drinking water across the West and protections for workers who are most vulnerable to heat deaths." MB: I sure as hell hope this invalidates the Texas legislature/Greg Abbott's law outlawing water breaks for construction workers. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Marie: Here are some measures President Biden announced, via NPR. It doesn't appear he has precluded enforcement of Texas' no-water-breaks-for-workers law, which goes into effect in September. (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ Raymond Zhong of the New York Times: "Weeks of scorching summer heat in North America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere are putting July on track to be Earth's warmest month on record, the European Union climate monitor said on Thursday, the latest milestone in what is emerging as an extraordinary year for global temperatures. Last month, the planet experienced its hottest June since records began in 1850. July 6 was its hottest day. And the odds are rising that 2023 will end up displacing 2016 as the hottest year. At the moment, the eight warmest years on the books are the past eight." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2024

Too askeert to go after frontrunner Donald Trump (he's about 30 points ahead of his nearest rival), GOP presidential candidates attack each other:

Lucy Hodgman of Politico: "Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott on Thursday criticized competitor Ron DeSantis on his support for Florida education standards requiring students to be instructed on the 'benefits' of slavery. Asked by a Politico reporter about the curriculum requirement at a campaign stop outside Des Moines, the South Carolina senator said he hoped that 'every person in our country, and certainly running for president, would appreciate that' slavery had no benefits to enslaved people. 'There is no silver lining in slavery,' Scott said. 'Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating."

Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley is pushing back against fellow White House hopeful Chris Christie's (R) claims that she and some other candidates do not call out former President Trump enough. 'Well I'm not obsessively anti-Trump like he is,' Haley said in an interview with Fox News Digital. 'I talk about policies,' she added, pointing to times she has 'disagreed with Trump,' including over Jan. 6, government spending and the Russia-Ukraine war."

Capitalism Is Awesome -- Just Ask Elon. Steve Stecklow & Norihiko Shirouzu of Reuters: "About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide 'rosy' projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters. The automaker last year became so inundated with driving-range complaints that it created a special ... 'Diversion Team' in Las Vegas to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible.... The directive to present the [overly] optimistic range estimates came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk.... Driving range is among the most important factors in consumer decisions on which electric car to buy, or whether to buy one at all.... Tesla was fined earlier this year by South Korean regulators who found the cars delivered as little as half their advertised range in cold weather."

Beyond the Beltway

Tennessee. David Nakamura & Mark Berman of the Washington Post: “The Justice Department on Thursday opened a sweeping civil rights investigation into allegations that the Memphis Police Department systematically used excessive force and discriminated against Black residents, dramatically escalating federal oversight seven months after the police beating death of Tyre Nichols. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said the probe is not based on any single instance of misconduct but was launched after the department's broad review of public records and information provided by community members." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Israel. The Plot Thickens. Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: “... on Wednesday night, some of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's closest allies provided a glimpse of how they could intervene in his prosecution. Eleven lawmakers from Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing party, Likud, introduced a bill that would strip the attorney general -- who has been critical of the government -- of the right to oversee the prosecution of government ministers, including the prime minister. The move sparked anger among the opposition and an Israeli public that has taken to the streets for months to protest the government's efforts to assert more authority over the judiciary.... Although the Likud leadership disowned the bill and its lead proponent pulled it back, its introduction by about a third of its legislators in Parliament, raised questions about the party's intent."

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefing for Friday is here: "Ukraine has reported gains in the southeast after launching a new counteroffensive push.... Ukraine's defense ministry said a U.S. citizen was killed in battle near Bakhmut. It identified him as a volunteer fighter and former Green Beret named Nicholas Maimer, the latest American veteran to die fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.... Vladimir Putin said 'Russia's attention to Africa is growing steadily' and that this 'is reflected in our plans to step up our diplomatic presence on the continent.' He said Russia was 'ready to restore and open new Russian missions abroad.' The Russian leader, seeking to boost ties, is hosting African leaders at the St. Petersburg summit, although far fewer African heads of state are attending compared to the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019." MB: Yeah, too bad Russia's refusal to allow safe passage to ships carrying Ukrainian ag products is starving Africans.