The Plot Lengthens

Largely because we learned bit-by-bit the elements of Donald Trump's plot to overturn the 2020 election, and also because of the ragtag band of wacky, unscrupulous characters who helped him carry out his plot, many of us thought Trump's attempts to retain power were the last-minute, haphazard endeavors of a desperate lunatic who could not "face" the loss he had suffered. But as the House's January 6 select committee hearings have brought into focus, Trump had developed a multi-faceted approach to overturning the election. So we can forget Rudy Giuliani's press conference in the Four Seasons Total Landscaping parking lot and all the other laughably inept post-election shenanigans. As it turns out, Donald Trump had planned at least some of his nefarious scheme for six months.

As early as May 2020, Trump kicked in one part of his plot to overturn the election if he lost in November. He began repeatedly badmouthing mail-in ballots. This was much to the consternation of Republican operatives who knew that many older Republicans voted by mail, that voting by mail was generally fair and safe, and that Trump's opposition to vote-by-mail would depress Republican vote totals. Some Republicans attempted to explain this to Trump and urged him to embrace vote-by-mail. But he remained adamantly opposed to mail-in ballots and declared them an important element in an election-year "fraud" and "hoax." No one understood why. At first he was claiming that "foreign countries" were flooding the system with counterfeit ballots, which would result in a "rigged" (or "RIGGED") election. By early September, Trump was repeatedly claiming that Democrats were mailing out 80 million unsolicited ballots.

Recently, we learned from an audio recording which Dan Friedman of Mother Jones obtained that on October 31, 2020 -- a few days before the election -- Steve Bannon told a group that Trump would declare victory late on voting-day night, whether or not the AP & television networks had called the election. Bannon explained that Trump knew that early counts in close, key states would show Trump ahead of Joe Biden -- precisely because masses of Democrats had voted by mail, and that their ballots would take days to tally. Friedman notes that other reporting backs up Bannon's claim about Trump's strategy. ~~~

Trump did just what Bannon had predicted. In the wee hours of the morning following the election, he stepped to a White House podium and announced he had won. He carried his declaration a step further: he called for all vote-counting to stop. "We don't want them to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning," Trump said. On Thursday of that week, he tweeted, "STOP THE COUNT!" The AP & networks would call the national race for Biden two days later, on Saturday.

So now we understand Trump's opposition to mail-in-ballots. It had nothing to do with voting integrity, of course. It was part of his plot to "win" even if he lost. And he set it in motion way back in the spring of 2020.  

July 21, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday and is experiencing mild symptoms, the White House announced in a statement.... 'This morning, President Biden tested positive for COVID-19. He is fully vaccinated and twice boosted and experiencing very mild symptoms. He has begun taking Paxlovid. Consistent with CDC guidelines, he will isolate at the White House and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time,' White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement." A Washington Post story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Dr. Jill Biden told the press Thursday morning that she had tested negative for the virus. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. Included are updates on the President's health.

Mark Mazzetti & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "As the House committee investigating Jan. 6 uses its prime-time hearing on Thursday to document ... Donald J. Trump's lack of forceful response to the attack on the Capitol by his supporters, it will again raise one of the enduring mysteries of that day: Why did it take so long to deploy the National Guard? The hearing is unlikely to answer that question, but it could shed light on what Mr. Trump and his top aides did or did not do to send troops to assist police officers who were overrun by an angry mob determined to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The mobilization and deployment of National Guard troops from an armory just two miles away from the Capitol was hung up by confusion, communications breakdowns and concern over the wisdom of dispatching armed soldiers to quell the riot. It took more than four hours from the time the Capitol Police chief made the call for backup to when the D.C. National Guard troops arrived, a gap that remains the subject of dueling narratives and finger-pointing."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "The House on Thursday passed legislation to codify access to contraception nationwide, moving over almost unanimous Republican opposition to protect a right that is regarded as newly under threat after the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. The measure is almost certain to fail in the evenly divided Senate, where most Republicans are also likely to be opposed.... The measure passed 228 to 195, with eight Republicans joining Democrats in support. It would protect the right to purchase and use contraception without government restriction. The legislation drew only slightly more Republican support than two bills that the House passed last week, which aimed to ensure access to abortion in the post-Roe era; almost all Republicans were united in opposition." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Are Republicans now asserting that life begins with a twinkle of a man's eye? Why the hell would they be opposed to contraception? (Yeah, I scanned the whole article, and the excuses Republicans gave were ridiculous.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Tal Axelrod & Luke Barr of ABC News: "During a press conference [Wednesday], a visibly animated [Merrick] Garland twice said that 'no person' was above the law when pressed specifically about [Donald] Trump.... 'We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election, and we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism, Garland [said]." MB: This is a pretty subpar article, but it's all I could find. The video that accompanies the article is a little more helpful.

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "A bipartisan group of senators proposed new legislation on Wednesday to modernize the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, working to overhaul a law that ... Donald J. Trump tried to abuse on Jan. 6, 2021, to interfere with Congress's certification of his election defeat. The legislation aims to guarantee a peaceful transition from one president to the next, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol exposed how the current law could be manipulated to disrupt the process. One measure would make it more difficult for lawmakers to challenge a state's electoral votes when Congress meets to count them. It would also clarify that the vice president has no discretion over the results, and it would set out the steps to begin a presidential transition. A second bill would increase penalties for threats and intimidation of election officials, seek to improve the Postal Service's handling of mail-in ballots and renew for five years an independent federal agency that helps states administer and secure federal elections." Lead negotiators were Susan Collins & Joe Manchin. An NBC News report is here.

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post summarizes the findings, so far, that the House January 6 committee has presented to the public. "At each moment [in the weeks leading up to January 6, 2021,] when Trump could have soothed an agitated nation, he escalated tensions instead, the committee has illustrated through its presentation of 18 live witnesses, scores of videotaped depositions and vast documentary evidence. At each moment when longtime loyal advisers offered their view that his election loss was real, he refused to listen and found newcomers and outsiders willing to tell him otherwise. On at least 15 different occasions, the president barreled over those who told him to accept his loss and instead took actions that sought to circumvent the democratic process and set the nation on the path to violence, according to the committee's evidence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Amy Gardner, et al., of the Washington Post: Thursday night's hearing of the January 6 select committee "will focus heavily on Trump's inaction in the White House during [the 187-minute period when he did nothing to stop the insurrection, committee] aides said on a background call with reporters.... One day after the last rioter had left the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021..., Donald Trump's advisers urged him to give an address to the nation to condemn the violence, demand accountability for those who had stormed the halls of Congress and declare the 2020 election to be decided. He struggled to do it. Over the course of an hour of trying to tape the message, Trump resisted holding the rioters to account, trying to call them patriots, and refused to say the election was over, according to individuals familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.... Not only did Trump do nothing despite repeated entreaties by senior aides to help end the violence, but he sat back and enjoyed watching it. He reluctantly condemned it -- in a three-minute speech the evening of Jan. 7 -- only after the efforts to overturn the 2020 election had failed and after aides told him that members of his own Cabinet were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office." ~~~

     ~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "In an interview previewing the hearing, which is scheduled for 8 p.m. on July 21, [Rep. Elaine] Luria [(D-Va.), who will co-lead the hearing with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.),] said the panel planned to document in great detail how Mr. Trump did nothing for more than three hours while his supporters stormed the Capitol, raising ethical, moral and legal questions around the former president.... The committee plans to demonstrate that Mr. Trump had the power to call off the mob but refused to do so until after 4 p.m. that day -- and then only after hundreds of officers had responded to the Capitol to support the overrun Capitol Police force, and had begun to turn the tide against the mob, making it clear that the siege would fail, according to committee aides.... Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, plans to preside over the hearing remotely, after having tested positive for Covid-19 this week." A Guardian story is here.

** Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "A senior Secret Service official said agency employees received two emails -- at least one prior to Jan. 6, 2021 -- reminding -- them to preserve records on their cellphones, including text messages, -- before their devices were essentially 'restored to factory settings' and texts were lost as part of a planned reset and replacement program across the agency. The senior official said employees received a third email on Feb. 4, 2021, instructing them to preserve all communications specific to Jan. 6. At that point, several Congressional committees had asked for Secret Service communications from the day of the insurrection on the Capitol.... [The first two] emails included reminders that federal employees have the responsibility to preserve their records and included instructions on how to do so, the senior Secret Service official said.... The Secret Service official said that by the time the Inspector General asked for the records more than a month after the attack on the Capitol, that information was already lost." ~~~

~~~ Covering Up the Cover-up. Carol Leonnig & Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: "A watchdog agency learned in February that the Secret Service had purged nearly all cellphone texts from around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but chose not to alert Congress, according to three people briefed on the internal discussions. That watchdog agency, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, also prepared in October 2021 to issue a public alert that the Secret Service and other department divisions were stonewalling it on requests for records and texts surrounding the attack on the Capitol, but did not do so.... The previously unreported revelation about the inspector general's months-long delay in flagging the now-vanished Secret Service texts came from two whistleblowers who have worked with Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari.... 'It's a dereliction of duty to keep the public and Congress in the dark for months,' said POGO [-- Project on Government Oversight --] senior investigator Nick Schwellenbach. 'Digital forensics experts could have been working to recover these lost texts a long time ago.'"

David Siders of Politico: "The conventional wisdom about the Jan. 6 committee hearings was that no single revelation was going to change Republican minds about Donald Trump. What happened instead, a slow drip of negative coverage, may be just as damaging to the former president. Six weeks into the committee's public hearing schedule, an emerging consensus is forming in Republican Party circles -- including in Trump's orbit -- that a significant portion of the rank-and-file may be tiring of the non-stop series of revelations about Trump.... The cumulative effect of the hearings, according to interviews with more than 20 Republican strategists, party officials and pollsters in recent days, has been to at least marginally weaken his support." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Oh Yeah? This guy is still a fan: ~~~

     ~~~ Jordan Green of the Raw Story: "After invoking the Fifth Amendment and executive privilege more than 100 times to refuse to answer questions from the January 6^th Committee on Tuesday, former White House aide Garrett Ziegler opened a livestream to vent his frustrations to his followers in a nearly 30-minute rant laden with white nationalist grievance on Telegram. Ziegler complained that he has less resources to fight the committee than his older cohorts, including his boss former Trade Advisor Peter Navarro, who is suing the committee, and former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who is being prosecuted for contempt.... '[The committee members are] Bolsheviks so they probably do hate the Fifth Amendment, and most white people in general,' he said. 'This is a Bolshevist, anti-white campaign.... They see me as a young Christian who they can basically try to scare.'... I'm the least racist person that many of you have ever met, by the way. I have no bigotry. I just try to see the world for where it is.' Then, his rant veered into misogyny when he lamented that no one else in his generation was defying the January 6^th committee, because 'the other people in the White House are total hos and thots.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Update: CNN's story is here.

Zach Montague of the New York Times: "The prosecution rested its case on Wednesday in the trial of Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to ... Donald J. Trump, as government lawyers sought to show that Mr. Bannon had repeatedly ignored warnings that he risked facing criminal charges in flouting a subpoena.... The trial on Wednesday largely centered on the testimony of Kristin Amerling, the deputy staff director and chief counsel to the Jan. 6 committee, who offered a detailed accounting of the committee's attempts to compel Mr. Bannon to testify last year.... During questioning, Ms. Amerling told the court that Mr. Bannon would not acquiesce to the committee's requests for emails and other documents even after receiving a letter threatening legal action. Mr. Bannon never asked that the deadline for the subpoena be extended, nor did the committee consider his claim of executive privilege to be valid, Ms. Amerling added.... Prosecutors also called Stephen Hart, an F.B.I. special agent, as a second witness. Mr. Hart, who had met with Mr. Bannon's former lawyer about the subpoena last year, presented social media posts in which Mr. Bannon appeared to celebrate his decision to flout the subpoena." An AP report is here.

Kate Brumback of the AP: "A judge in New York has ordered Rudy Giuliani to appear next month before a special grand jury in Atlanta that's investigating whether ... Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia. New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 issued an order directing Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury on Aug. 9 and on any other dates ordered by the court in Atlanta, according to documents filed Wednesday in Fulton County Superior Court." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Danny Hakim & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "A Georgia judge ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to testify in Atlanta next month in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference by ... Donald J. Trump and his advisers and allies, according to court filings released on Wednesday.... After Mr. Giuliani failed to show for a hearing last week in Manhattan, where the matter was to have been adjudicated, Judge Robert C. I. McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County ordered him to appear before a special grand jury in Atlanta on Aug. 9.... Mr. Giuliani appears to be of interest for a number of reasons, including his participation in a scheme to create slates of pro-Trump presidential electors.... Mr. Giuliani also appeared in person before two Georgia state legislative committees in December 2020, where he spent hours peddling false conspiracy theories about secret suitcases of Democratic ballots and corrupted voting machines."

Didn't We Just Find Out Arizona Is the Worst State to Live In? Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Rusty Bowers, the Arizona house speaker who testified to the January 6 committee about how he resisted Donald Trump's attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the sun belt state, has been formally censured by his own Republican party. Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican party, said on Tuesday its 'executive committee formally censured Rusty Bowers tonight -- he is no longer a Republican in good standing and we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary'."

We Did It for Trump. Ben Collins, et al., of NBC News: "Researchers at Harvard University who conducted the largest study yet of what motivated Jan. 6 rioters say the data is clear: The most common responses focused on ... Donald Trump and his lies about the election.... The researchers ... wrote that the documents make clear that Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., 'was mostly correct in her assessment' that 'Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.'... 'Far and away, we find that the two most commonly-cited reasons for breaching the US Capitol were a desire to support Trump on January 6th in DC and concerns about election integrity,' the report reads."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A Democratic super PAC filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, seeking to force officials to take action against Donald J. Trump for all but running for president in 2024 without having declared himself a candidate. The suit comes more than four months after the group, American Bridge, lodged a complaint with the F.E.C. against Mr. Trump. The complaint argues that he has been behaving like a 2024 presidential candidate while avoiding the oversight of the commission by not filing a statement of candidacy. For a year, Mr. Trump has held rallies across the country that are ostensibly for Republicans running in local, statewide and congressional races, but during which he talks about himself. He has also given several interviews in which he has sounded like a candidate. When Mr. Trump will make a formal announcement remains uncertain, but he has accelerated his campaign planning in hopes of blunting damaging revelations from investigations into his attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election." A CNN story is here.

Today's committee memo pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals. -- Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Oversight Committee chair ~~~

~~~ Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "A new stash of documents obtained by Congress has confirmed that the Trump administration pushed to add a citizenship question to the census to help Republicans win elections..., a House committee report concluded on Wednesday. The report from the Committee on Oversight and Reform, the culmination of a yearslong investigation, detailed new findings based on drafts of internal memos and secret email communications between political appointees at the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, and counterparts in the Justice Department. The documents provided the most definitive evidence yet that the Trump administration aimed to exclude noncitizens from the count to influence congressional apportionment that would benefit the Republican Party, the report concluded, and that senior officials used a false pretext to build a legal case for asking all residents of the United States whether they were American citizens.... The committee was expected on Wednesday to mark up a bill to enhance the institutional independence of the Census Bureau in order to prevent political interference in the agency." NPR's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Coral Davenport, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Wednesday that he would expand existing federal programs to help Americans cope with the extreme heat wrought by climate change, even as he faces intensifying pressure to take aggressive action to cut the fossil fuel emissions that are dangerously warming the planet. The measures fell short of the types of executive action an increasing number of Democrats have called on Mr. Biden to take in the wake of last week's decision by Sen. Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, to walk away from clean energy legislation.... Mr. Manchin's move followed a June decision by the Supreme Court to limit the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate climate-warming pollution from power plants.... Speaking at a shuttered coal plant in Somerset, Mass., that is being converted into a facility to make wind power components, Mr. Biden insisted that even after the two cornerstones of his climate agenda had crashed and burned, he would use executive authority to rein in heat-trapping fossil fuels." A Politico report is here.

Louis Caved. Somewhat. Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service pledged Wednesday to electrify at least 40 percent of its new delivery fleet, an increase that climate activists hailed as a major step toward reducing the government's environmental footprint. The Postal Service had been set to purchase as many as 165,000 vehicles from Oshkosh Defense, of which 10 percent would be electric under the original procurement plan. Now it will acquire 50,000 trucks from Oshkosh, half of which will be EVs, plus another 34,500 commercially available vehicles, 40 percent of which will be electric. The combined 84,500 trucks -- which begin making deliveries in late 2023 -- will go a long way toward meeting President Biden's goal for the entire government fleet to be EV-powered by 2035. The Postal Service's more than 217,000 vehicles make up the largest share of federal civilian vehicles.... Sixteen states plus four of the U.S.'s top environmental groups sued to stop the [original 10%-electric] contract in April." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You just have to drag Republicans kicking & screaming to do every partly the right thing.

Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "A Labor Department employee uncovered almost a half-billion dollars in federal government waste. All he got was a plaque. The former Occupational Safety and Health Administration staffer alerted officials nearly three years ago to unpaid fines owed the agency from companies with workplace safety violations. The Treasury Department, which did not collect the money because of a computer software error, soon found millions were owed to OSHA. Now, it's clear the glitch created a much larger problem than anyone -- including the anonymous whistleblower -- realized. As a result of his complaint to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a new audit has found that the government didn't collect almost $473 million owed to 28 federal offices, including the House, through June 27. Problems apparently began in October 2017, when Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service installed 'a commercial off-the-shelf' computer program for government-wide debt collection, according to July 7 report from the Bureau.... As of June 27, the report said, only 10 percent of the $96.9 million owed to OSHA was collected. The problem for the other agencies is much worse. They have collected just $3.2 million, less than 1 percent of the $376 million due."

A Ray of Hope. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "... when the House called its vote this week on the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify federal protections for same-sex couples that were put in place in a 2015 ruling, 47 Republicans voted 'yes.' That raised the possibility that there could be a narrow bipartisan path for the legislation to move ahead in the Senate and make its way to President Biden's desk to be signed into law. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, who has positioned himself as an obstacle to most of the Democrats' agenda, declined to reveal a stance on the bill. And on Wednesday, four Republican senators -- Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina -- said they supported it." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Funny thing is, I would have said a few years ago that a law was not as sure a thing as a Constitutional right because a new Congress can always overturn a law where as a right is a right is a right. But now it turns out, the confederate Supreme Court is just as, if not more, fickle than Congress. So I sure hope this law passes -- not that Clarence Thomas & the gang couldn't declare it unconstitutional on some flimsy, fake "rationale."

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska addressed Congress on Wednesday, making a rare personal appeal as the wife of a foreign leader for the United States to provide Ukraine with air defense systems, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its sixth month. In a brief but emotional speech, Zelenska spoke about the increasingly dire security, economic and humanitarian conditions in Ukraine. 'I want to address you not as first lady, but as a daughter and as a mother,' Zelenska said in Ukrainian, as a woman interpreted her speech in English, their voices breaking at times.... She closed her speech with an appeal for more weapons, saying the war in Ukraine is not over and that the answer lies in Washington.... Zelenska received a standing ovation from members of Congress from both sides of the aisle when she took the stage of the main auditorium at the Capitol Visitor Center shortly after 11:10 a.m., as well as when she concluded her remarks about 10 minutes later."

Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration is reorganizing the federal health department to create an independent division that would lead the nation's pandemic response, amid frustrations with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The move elevates a roughly 1,000-person team -- known as the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR -- into a separate division, charged with coordinating the nation's response t health emergencies...." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia. Eliza Fawcett of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court panel immediately allowed a Georgia law that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy to go into effect on Wednesday, ending a yearslong battle over one of the country's most restrictive laws. The law, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, prohibits most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which is typically when doctors can begin to detect a fetus's cardiac activity. Exceptions to the law are allowed if a woman faces serious harm or death in pregnancy, or in cases of rape or incest, so long as a police report has been filed. Georgia law previously allowed abortions until at least 20 weeks of pregnancy."

Pennsylvania Senate Race. Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate who suffered a stroke in May, said he has 'nothing to hide' about his health and called the lingering effects of his illness minor and infrequent, as he vowed to be back on the campaign trail 'very soon.'"

Texas. Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: "Facing widespread public pressure, the school superintendent in Uvalde, Texas, has recommended firing the school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, for his role in the delayed response to a mass shooting that allowed a gunman to remain in two classrooms full of surviving students for more than an hour. A school board meeting set for Saturday will include a closed session with the district's lawyer to discuss 'possible action regarding termination for good cause' of Chief Arredondo based on a recommendation from the superintendent, Hal Harrell, according to a board agenda made public on Monday."

Way Beyond

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here: "Russian state company Gazprom resumed gas flows to Germany on Thursday. The move eases European fears that a planned maintenance shutdown on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would become permanent. But wider concerns about the energy crisis remain high, and the European Union has asked countries to ration gas before winter. CIA Director William J. Burns said there is no intelligence suggesting ... Vladimir Putin is ill. After widespread speculation that the Russian leader is sick, possibly with cancer, Burns quipped that Putin remains 'entirely too healthy.'... Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated that Moscow's ambitions go beyond Ukraine's east, which has been ravaged by fighting. He told a state media outlet that it makes no sense to revive peace talks at this stage and said Russia would expand its territorial goals if Western weapons keep arriving in Ukraine."

Annabelle Timsit of the Washington Post: "Daria Kasatkina, Russia's highest-ranked female tennis player, came out as gay and criticized the war in Ukraine in an unusually candid interview.... Kasatkina, 25, touched on two of the most sensitive topics in Russia -- Ukraine and LGBTQ rights -- in a wide-ranging conversation with Russia blogger Vitya Kravchenko that was recorded in Barcelona and released Monday on YouTube. Kasatkina -- the No. 12 in the world -- said she wanted 'the war to end' and described the conflict as 'a full-blown nightmare.' She said there 'hadn't been a single day since February 24,' when Russia invaded Ukraine, that she hadn't read or thought about the war. She expressed empathy for Ukrainian players affected by the war." Both criticizing the war and being openly gay are illegal in Russia.

Italy. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "The national unity government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who restored Italy's influence and credibility, fell apart on Wednesday, leaving the country careening toward a new season of political chaos at a critical moment when the European Union is struggling to hold together a united front against Russia and revive its economies. After key parts of Mr. Draghi's coalition excoriated him on the Senate floor and abandoned him in a confidence vote on Wednesday evening, the prime minister was expected to discuss his resignation Thursday for a second, and almost certainly final, time in a week with the country's president, Sergio Mattarella." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Angela Giuffrida of the Guardian: "Mario Draghi has confirmed his resignation as Italy's prime minister after an attempt to salvage his broad coalition failed when three key parties snubbed a confidence vote, paving the way for snap elections that could take place as early as late September.... Draghi formally handed his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday morning and it was accepted. However, the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), Matteo Salvini's far-right League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia did not participate in a confidence vote in the senate on Thursday night that essentially called for parties to approve a spirit of cooperation.

U.K. The New PM Will Not Be a White Guy. Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's Conservative Party narrowed the field for its next leader on Wednesday, advancing two candidates to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson after a scandal-scarred tenure that ended with his government in disarray and the country adrift at a time of deepening economic crisis. Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor of the Exchequer, and Liz Truss, the current foreign secretary, emerged as the two finalists after five rounds of voting by Conservative lawmakers whittled the original field of 11 candidates. The two will now compete to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a vote of the party's rank-and-file membership, with the results announced in early September." An AP report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

Washington Post: "Extreme temperatures haunted two continents on Wednesday, with more than 100 million people in the United States facing excessive heat conditions and a heat wave that had scorched Western Europe taking aim at Central Europe.... In the United States, temperature records were obliterated in the Great Plains, where thermometers recorded 115 degrees in Texas and Oklahoma. More than 60 million Americans will probably experience triple-digit heat over the next week. Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings were issued affecting more than 105 million people in 28 states across the central United States and the Northeast, where the combination of hot weather and high humidity will lead to conditions ripe for heat-related illness or heatstroke."

July 20, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Louis Caved. Somewhat. Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service pledged Wednesday to electrify at least 40 percent of its new delivery fleet, an increase that climate activists hailed as a major step toward reducing the government's environmental footprint. The Postal Service had been set to purchase as many as 165,000 vehicles from Oshkosh Defense, of which 10 percent would be electric under the original procurement plan. Now it will acquire 50,000 trucks from Oshkosh, half of which will be EVs, plus another 34,500 commercially available vehicles, 40 percent of which will be electric. The combined 84,500 trucks ... will go a long way toward meeting President Biden's goal for the entire government fleet to be EV-powered by 2035. The Postal Service's more than 217,000 vehicles make up the largest share of federal civilian vehicles.... Sixteen states plus four of the U.S.'s top environmental groups sued to stop the [original 10%-electric] contract in April." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You just have to drag Republicans kicking & screaming to do every partly the right thing.

The Washington Post is liveblogging Steve Bannon's trial for criminal contempt of Congress.

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post summarizes the findings, so far, that the House January 6 committee has presented to the public. "At each moment [in the weeks leading up to January 6, 2021,] when Trump could have soothed an agitated nation, he escalated tensions instead, the committee has illustrated through its presentation of 18 live witnesses, scores of videotaped depositions and vast documentary evidence. At each moment when longtime loyal advisers offered their view that his election loss was real, he refused to listen and found newcomers and outsiders willing to tell him otherwise. On at least 15 different occasions, the president barreled over those who told him to accept his loss and instead took actions that sought to circumvent the democratic process and set the nation on the path to violence, according to the committee's evidence."

David Siders of Politico: "The conventional wisdom about the Jan. 6 committee hearings was that no single revelation was going to change Republican minds about Donald Trump. What happened instead, a slow drip of negative coverage, may be just as damaging to the former president. Six weeks into the committee's public hearing schedule, an emerging consensus is forming in Republican Party circles -- including in Trump-s orbit -- that a significant portion of the rank-and-file may be tiring of the non-stop series of revelations about Trump.... The cumulative effect of the hearings, according to interviews with more than 20 Republican strategists, party officials and pollsters in recent days, has been to at least marginally weaken his support." ~~~

~~~ Oh Yeah? This guy is still a fan: ~~~

     ~~~ Jordan Green of the Raw Story: "After invoking the Fifth Amendment and executive privilege more than 100 times to refuse to answer questions from the January 6^th Committee on Tuesday, former White House aide Garrett Ziegler opened a livestream to vent his frustrations to his followers in a nearly 30-minute rant laden with white nationalist grievance on Telegram. Ziegler complained that he has less resources to fight the committee than his older cohorts, including his boss former Trade Advisor Peter Navarro, who is suing the committee, and former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who is being prosecuted for contempt.... '[The committee members are] Bolsheviks so they probably do hate the Fifth Amendment, and most white people in general,' he said. 'This is a Bolshevist, anti-white campaign.... They see me as a young Christian who they can basically try to scare.'... I'm the least racist person that many of you have ever met, by the way. I have no bigotry. I just try to see the world for where it is.' Then, his rant veered into misogyny when he lamented that no one else in his generation was defying the January 6^th committee, because 'the other people in the White House are total hos and thots.'"

Kate Brumback of the AP: "A judge in New York has ordered Rudy Giuliani to appear next month before a special grand jury in Atlanta that's investigating whether ... Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia. New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 issued an order directing Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury on Aug. 9 and on any other dates ordered by the court in Atlanta, according to documents filed Wednesday in Fulton County Superior Court."

Today's committee memo pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals. -- Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Oversight Committee chair ~~~

~~~ Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "A new stash of documents obtained by Congress has confirmed that the Trump administration pushed to add a citizenship question to the census to help Republicans win elections..., a House committee report concluded on Wednesday. The report from the Committee on Oversight and Reform, the culmination of a yearslong investigation, detailed new findings based on drafts of internal memos and secret email communications between political appointees at the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, and counterparts in the Justice Department. The documents provided the most definitive evidence yet that the Trump administration aimed to exclude noncitizens from the count to influence congressional apportionment that would benefit the Republican Party, the report concluded, and that senior officials used a false pretext to build a legal case for asking all residents of the United States whether they were American citizens.... The committee was expected on Wednesday to mark up a bill to enhance the institutional independence of the Census Bureau in order to prevent political interference in the agency." NPR's story is here.

U.K. The New PM Will Not Be a White Guy. Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's Conservative Party narrowed the field for its next leader on Wednesday, advancing two candidates to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson after a scandal-scarred tenure that ended with his government in disarray and the country adrift at a time of deepening economic crisis. Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor of the Exchequer, and Liz Truss, the current foreign secretary, emerged as the two finalists after five rounds of voting by Conservative lawmakers whittled the original field of 11 candidates. The two will now compete to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a vote of the party's rank-and-file membership, with the results announced in early September." An AP report is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Amy Wang & Karina Tsui of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska visited the White House on Tuesday, part of her high-profile trip to Washington.... Zelenska arrived at the White House just after 1:30 p.m. and was greeted on the South Lawn by President Biden and first lady Jill Biden. The president presented Zelenska with a bouquet of yellow sunflowers, blue hydrangeas and white orchids -- reminiscent of the colors of the Ukrainian flag -- and the first lady hugged Zelenska. The group, which included Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, posed for a photo at the south entrance to the White House, flanked by an American flag and a Ukrainian flag. They did not answer reporters' shouted questions about what they would discuss. Zelenska and Jill Biden had a private meeting, then held an expanded meeting [to include a number of U.S. leaders].... On Wednesday morning, Zelenska is scheduled to address Congress to give an update on the security, economic and humanitarian conditions on the ground in Ukraine." More on Ukraine linked under Way Beyond the Beltway below.

Ben Gittleson & Morgan Winsor of ABC News: "President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday a few executive actions to address climate change, with a focus on helping Americans facing extreme heat -- but the steps fall far short of the more sweeping measures climate activists are calling for. In fact, the directives largely appear to provide more funding to or otherwise strengthen existing programs."

Stephanie Lai of the New York Times: "The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages at the federal level, as Republicans joined Democrats in support of a measure responding to growing concern that a conservative Supreme Court could nullify marriage equality. The Respect for Marriage Act would codify the federal protections for same-sex couples that were put in place in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges established same-sex marriage as a right under the 14th Amendment. The legislation would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which defined a marriage as the union between a man and a woman, a law that was struck down by Obergefell but has remained on the books. The legislation, which passed in a vote of 267 to 157, faces an uncertain future in the evenly divided Senate, where most Republicans have opposed gay rights measures. But Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, declined on Tuesday to state a position on the measure." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marianna Sotomayor, et al., of the Washington Post: The bill "also would protect interracial marriage." (Also linked yesterday.) Politico's report is here.

Mychael Schnell of the Hill: "The House approved a resolution on Monday that expressed support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO, exactly two months after the Nordic countries submitted applications to become part of the military alliance amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The resolution cleared the House in a 394-18 vote, with only Republicans voting in opposition. Two Democrats and 17 Republicans did not vote." The article lists the naysayers, who include the usual suspects. Thanks to Bobby Lee for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ellie Silverman of the Washington Post: "Seventeen members of Congress -- including Democratic Reps. Cori Bush (Mo.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) -- were among dozens of abortion rights protesters arrested Tuesday outside the Supreme Court in a rally demanding immediate action to protect abortion following the court's decision last month to overturn Roe v. Wade. Thirty-five people were arrested for crowding, obstructing or incommoding, a D.C. code often cited when arresting protesters during peaceful, planned and coordinated actions of civil disobedience such as the demonstration on Tuesday. Those arrested were ticketed and released on-site, as is standard practice during events such as this, said Capitol Police spokesman Tim Barber. Among those arrested were ... Assistant House Speaker Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Reps. Bush, Omar, Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Jackie Speier (Calif.) and Carolyn B. Maloney (N.Y.), according to their offices." An ABC News story is here.

Marie: (Yesterday): On her MSNBC show Monday night, Rachel Maddow flashed a memo from AG Merrick Garland instructing DOJ officials not to begin any investigations or bring any charges against any presidential candidates or their top staff after the candidates had announced their intentions to run, unless first cleared by the AG. Garland's order, he stated in the memo, was in keeping with a February 2020 order by former AG Bill Barr. So the sooner Trump declares, the sooner he can weasel out of any new investigation. It's almost as if Trump & Garland are colluding. Very distressing. ~~~

     ~~~ See Marcy Wheeler's comment, excerpted by unwashed in the Comments section yesterday, about the Garland memo. Wheeler's full post is here, linked yesterday by unwashed. Wheeler, in effect, sees the Garland memo as routine. (BTW, Maddow's guest for the segment was Andrew Weissmann, and the fact that he didn't jump out of his skin about the memo -- he didn't -- suggests he agrees with Wheeler.) ~~~

     ~~~ Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "The Justice Department's investigation into various efforts by Donald Trump to undermine the 2020 election will continue regardless of whether the former president announces his intention to again seek office in 2024. 'We're going to continue to do our job, to follow the facts wherever they go, no matter where they lead, no matter to what level,' Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Tuesday in response to questions after speaking at a cybersecurity conference in New York. 'We're going to continue to investigate what was fundamentally an attack on our democracy.'" MB: I'm not as sure as Beitsch is that Monaco says the DOJ's investigation "will continue regardless of whether the former president announces his intention" to run for president in 2024. In any event, Monaco didn't say Trump himself could become the subject of an investigation after he announced his candidacy. ~~~

     ~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "MSNBC's Rachel Maddow broke the news of the May 25 memo on her show Monday night. The crux is that [Merrick] Garland has left in place a policy first instituted by his Trump-appointed predecessor, William P. Barr. The policy requires the attorney general to sign off on investigations involving presidential candidates and their staff.... Barr certainly earned his reputation as an exceedingly political attorney general, and it's understandable to balk at doubling down on a policy he forged. But those facts alone do not a bad policy make.... Some Trump critics will fear that an allegedly reluctant Garland might use this policy as an excuse to stifle such an investigation." MB: Blake's post is sort of an on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand analysis. Blake does acknowledge, as I felt, that Lisa Monaco's response to a question about the Garland memo was ambiguous (see Hill report linked above).~~~

     ~~~ Chris Hayes had a guest (whose name I didn't catch) who made the point that the problem here is that the Barr-Garland policy leaves the decision on whether or not to investigate presidential candidates to the department's top political appointee: the attorney general. Previous administrations (Bush II & Obama) had left the decision to the "public integrity unit"; i.e., career DOJ attorneys who operate under established procedures. It's easy to see that any attorney general could have an interest in influencing a presidential election. Investigating top politicians is always going to be a sticky wicket, but I can't help thinking Barr & Garland made it a bit stickier.

** Carol Leonnig & Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Secret Service has determined it has no new texts to provide Congress relevant to its Jan. 6 investigation, and that any other texts its agents exchanged around the time of the 2021 attack on the Capitol were purged, according to a senior official briefed on the matter. Also, the National Archives on Tuesday sought more information on 'the potential unauthorized deletion' of agency text messages. The U.S. government's chief record-keeper asked the Secret Service to report back to the Archives within 30 days about the deletion of any records, including describing what was purged and the circumstances of how the documentation was lost.... Many of its agents' cellphone texts were permanently purged starting in mid-January 2021 and Secret Service officials said it was the result of an agencywide reset of staff telephones and replacement that it began planning months earlier. Secret Service agents ... were instructed to upload any old text messages involving government business to an internal agency drive before the reset, the senior official said, but many agents appear not to have done so." (Also linked yesterday.) A Politico report on the National Archives action is here. A Guardian story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This looks like criminal obstruction of justice to me. It's possible -- but extremely unlikely -- that there was nothing more controversial in those text messages than weather condition updates. Those messages were not preserved for a reason, and I just don't see how "I forgot" is going to work as a defense. These agents -- and their bosses -- belong behind bars. For a while. This may turn out to be one of my "never mind" moments, but from today's vantage point, it looks really bad. Update: Lawrence O'Donnell is as outraged as I am; I feel better. O'Donnell is particularly pissed off at Secret Service director James Murray, a Trump appointee who will retire next month. ~~~

     ~~~ Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC had a segment on this, too, and Carol Leonnig of the WashPo was a guest. Leonnig is a straight reporter, and she's careful not to verge into delivering opinions. But she did manage to make the point that Trump waited till his third year in office to appoint James Murray as Secret Service director, and by that time, Trump had learned how to bring on people who would do what he wanted. In addition, Leonnig said that Trump appointed Murray on the insistence of Tony Ornato, a Secret Service agent whom Trump liked so much he made Ornato a political appointee. IOW, both Murray & Ornato are Trump guys. ~~~

~~~ Jamie Gangel of CNN: "The Secret Service was only able to provide a single text exchange to the DHS inspector general who had requested a month's worth of records for 24 Secret Service personnel, according to a letter to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, and obtained by CNN.... 'The Secret Service submitted the responsive records it identified, namely, a text message conversation from former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to former Secret Service Uniformed Division Chief Thomas Sullivan requesting assistance on January 6, 2021, and advised the agency did not have any further records responsive to the DHS OIG's request for text messages,' Assistant Director Ronald Rowe wrote in the letter to the January 6 committee." The agency left it up to individual agents to preserve their texts & sent them "step-by-step" instructions on how to do so, according to the letter, which stated that Secret Service personnel are responsible for preserving government records. The letter said the texts of 24 employees were lost.

Aishvarya Kavi & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "After weeks of legal wrangling and heated speeches on the courthouse steps, the criminal trial of Stephen K. Bannon ... opened on Tuesday.... Prosecutors insisted that Mr. Bannon had clearly violated the law [by ignoring a subpoena by the House January 6 committee].... Amanda Vaughn, a federal prosecutor, said..., 'The defendant decided he was above the law and didn't have to follow the government’s orders like his fellow citizens.'... M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for the defense, countered the assertion that Mr. Bannon willfully ignored the subpoena, saying that the committee had not mandated him to comply.... The defense also emphasized the political nature of the House committee and its members.... The government's first witness on Tuesday, Kristin Amerling, the deputy staff director and chief counsel to the Jan. 6 committee, outlined how the panel sought to provide a 'complete account' of what happened on Jan. 6 and the importance of the subpoena as a fact-finding tool."

Mychael Schnell of the Hill: "Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, announced on Tuesday that he has tested positive for COVID-19. The congressman, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, said he received a positive diagnosis on Monday and is experiencing mild symptoms.... Thursday's [committee] presentation, however, will proceed as planned, according to the committee's spokesperson." (Also linked yesterday.)

Thursday's Hearing Is a "Season Finale," Not the End of the Series. Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: January 6 committee "members describe Thursday's hearing as only the last in a series. Committee members, aides and allies are emboldened by the public reaction to the information they're unearthing about the former president's actions and say their full sprint will continue, even past November.... The committee is pursuing multiple new avenues of inquiry created by its investigation of Trump's scheme to seize a second term he didn't win, from questions about the Secret Service's internal communications as well as leads provided by high-level witnesses from his White House.... The new open-ended timeline is a marked shift in the public posture of a committee that once eyed a conclusion as early as springtime, then looked to a September wrap-up."

Still Crazy. Dan Mangan of CNBC: "... Donald Trump this month called Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and urged him to decertify President Joe Biden's 2020 election win in that state, Vos said in a new interview Tuesday.... '... I explained that it's not allowed under the Constitution,' Vos said. 'He has a different opinion.'... One ... Republicans, state Rep. Timothy Ramthun, submitted a resolution calling on the state legislature to 'reclaim' those electors.... After speaking with Vos, Trump posted a message on Truth Social that called the speaker 'a long time professional RINO.... The Democrats would like to sincerely thank Robin, and all of his fellow RINOs, for letting them get away with "murder." A Rigged & Stolen Election!' Trump wrote."

Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Prosecutors in Atlanta have informed 16 Trump supporters who formed an alternate slate of 2020 presidential electors from Georgia that they could face charges in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference, underscoring the risk of criminal charges that Donald J. Trump and many of his allies may be facing in the state. The revelations were included in court filings released on Tuesday in an investigation being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County.... Ms. Willis, in court filings, has indicated that a number of other charges are being considered, including racketeering and conspiracy, which could take in a broad roster of Trump associates both inside and outside of Georgia.... 'She's made clear that she has a sharp eye on Trump,' [Norm] Eisen [of the Brookings Institution] said of Ms. Willis, adding that there were indications 'that this first salvo of target letters will be followed by additional possible targets, culminating in the former president himself.'"Politico's report is here.

Kevin Breuninger & Dan Mangan of CNBC: "Sen. Lindsey Graham agreed Tuesday to accept service of a subpoena for his testimony before a Georgia grand jury investigating possible criminal meddling in the 2020 election by ... Donald Trump. But Graham, R-S.C., still retained his right to challenge the legality of the subpoena, a court filing showed.... Graham's agreement to accept the subpoena likely will streamline his dispute with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over the demand for his testimony. Asked Tuesday afternoon about the development, Graham told NBC News that Fulton County hasn't 'even tried to subpoena me. I just want to get it done.' The Republican lawmaker ... had asked a federal judge in South Carolina last week to quash the subpoena. But Willis in a court filing Monday told the judge that Graham's challenge was both too early, and not filed in the right court.... Any future challenges to the subpoena will be pursued in Georgia, either in Fulton County Superior Court or U.S. District Court in Atlanta." (Also linked yesterday.)

Triumph Triumphs. Colbert Staff Beats the Rap. Mike Ives of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors said late Monday that they would not prosecute staff members of 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' who were arrested last month at the United States Capitol complex on charges of unlawful entry. When members of a production team for the CBS show were arrested on June 16, they had been filming a segment featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a cigar-chomping canine puppet that is voiced by the comedian Robert Smigel, who was among those arrested. Mr. Colbert later said on his show that they were guilty of 'high jinks with intent to goof.'... The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said in a brief statement on Monday that it would not move forward with misdemeanor charges against the nine people arrested by the Capitol Police because the case wasn't strong enough. The crew members had been invited to enter the building on two separate occasions by congressional staff who never asked them to leave, although the Capitol Police did tell some members of the group that they were supposed to have an escort, the statement said." (Also linked yesterday.)

GOP Stunt Strains D.C. Charitable Orgs. Vanessa Sánchez of the Washington Post: "Ten D.C. Council members are calling on the District government to direct local resources to support migrants who have been arriving in buses from Texas and Arizona for months, taking a toll on city organizations that are relying on donations and one federal grant. It's been more than three months since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and two months since Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) started offering what they have said are voluntary bus trips to the nation's capital for migrants caught crossing the border from Mexico, a measure in response to President Biden's decision to lift an emergency health order that allowed immigration authorities at the border to deny entry to migrants. In the last few weeks the number of buses arriving a day has increased from two to four, sometimes five, sometimes late at night, exhausting donations and exceeding the ability of volunteers and mutual aid networks in the city to respond." (Also linked yesterday.)

Rebecca Kern of Politico: "A Delaware judge granted Twitter's request for an expedited trial in its lawsuit seeking to force Elon Musk to uphold his agreement to buy the social media company for $44 billion. Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick said the case will proceed with a five-day trial in October, favoring Twitter's request for a speedy trial to avoid the irreparable harm delays might cause. The lawsuit marks the latest in a monthslong back-and-forth between Twitter and Musk over his April offer to buy the platform for $54.20 per share and take the company private."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday recommended that a newly authorized vaccine from Novavax be used as an option for adults seeking a primary immunization against the coronavirus. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C.'s director, signed off on the recommendation of a panel of vaccine experts that had unanimously endorsed the vaccine on Tuesday afternoon. The decision removes the final regulatory hurdle for the fourth Covid-19 shot authorized in the United States. The Novavax vaccine is expected to play a limited role in the country's immunization campaign, at least initially."

Beyond the Beltway

Indiana/Ohio. Ava Sasani & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "An Indianapolis doctor who provided abortion care to a 10-year-old rape victim is preparing to sue Attorney General Todd Rokita of Indiana for defamation after he said he would investigate her actions in the case, according to a statement released on Tuesday by her lawyer. Dr. Caitlin Bernard earned the ire of conservative lawmakers and pundits after she told The Indianapolis Star about her patient, a 10-year-old girl who crossed state lines from Ohio to receive an abortion. Ohio is one of nearly a dozen states with abortion restrictions that do not make exceptions for rape or incest.... In a tort claim notice sent on Tuesday to Mr. Rokita and filed with the City of Indianapolis, Dr. Bernard's lawyer, Kathleen A. DeLaney, said a quick check of Indiana's electronic licensing registry showed that Dr. Bernard's license was 'active with no disciplinary history.' 'Mr. Rokita either knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the statements,' the claim notice says."

Maryland Primary Elections. The New York Times is live-updating Tuesday's results in Maryland's primary elections: "Delays in learning who won in Maryland's primaries for governor and a few House races are expected, because the counting of mail-in ballots won't begin until Thursday. But a few contests have been called by The Associated Press." ~~~

~~~ Reid Epstein: "Republican voters in Maryland on Tuesday nominated for governor Dan Cox, a state legislator who was endorsed by ... Donald J. Trump and who wrote on Twitter during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that Vice President Mike Pence was a 'traitor.' The Associated Press called the race late Tuesday. Mr. Cox defeated Kelly Schulz, a former cabinet secretary under Gov. Larry Hogan, an ambitious term-limited governor who has sought to present himself as a potential alternative to Mr. Trump in 2024. But Mr. Hogan's inability to push through his political protégé in his home state will put a significant damper on his chance of galvanizing a national movement in the party against Mr. Trump."

New York. Ed Shanahan of the New York Times: "Brooklyn film location for a ripped-from-the-headlines television crime show became a murder scene early Tuesday when a man who was enforcing parking restrictions connected to the production was fatally shot while he sat in a car, the police said. The killing happened ... in the Greenpoint neighborhood as a crew working on the crime show, 'Law & Order: Organized Crime,' was preparing to film on the block, according to the police and fliers posted there. The police identified the victim as Johnny Pizarro, 31, of Queens. Mr. Pizarro, whose job was to make sure the street was clear so that vehicles affiliated with the show could park, was sitting in a car when a lone assailant approached the vehicle, opened the door and shot him in the head and neck, the police said." The neighborhood is relatively crime-free.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Wednesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "Putin received support for his war in Ukraine from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Karoun Demirjian & Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "The White House on Tuesday doubled down on its assertion that Russia will try to annex additional Ukrainian territory, warning that Moscow intends to claim as its own large swaths of the country's east and south sometime later this year. 'Russia is beginning to roll out a version of what you could call an "annexation playbook,"' said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, citing what he called 'ample evidence' gathered by Western intelligence and already 'in the public domain' indicating that... Vladimir Putin wants to take Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and the Donbas region 'in direct violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.'"

Europe. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "For the first time on record, Britain suffered under temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius -- 104 Fahrenheit -- on Tuesday, as a ferocious heat wave moved northwest, leaving a trail of raging wildfires, lost lives and evacuated homes across a Europe frighteningly ill-equipped to cope with the new reality of extreme weather. While the heat's effects cascaded from Greece to Scotland, the greatest damage was in fire-ravaged France. More than 2,000 firefighters battled blazes that have burned nearly 80 square miles of parched forest in the Gironde area of the country's southwest, forcing more than 37,000 people to evacuate in the past week." ~~~

~~~ U.K. Nadeem Badshah of the Guardian: "Major incidents have been declared by fire services across the country as services endured immense pressure dealing with multiple blazes on the hottest day in the UK since records began.... The Metropolitan police advised people not to start a barbecue or bonfire, avoid leaving broken bottles or glass on the ground and dispose of cigarettes safely."

News Lede

Washington Post: Muriel Engelman, a World War II U.S. Army nurse who served on the front lines during the Battle of the Bulge and other battles, died June 30 in Laguna Niguel. She was 101. The French appointed her to the Legion of Honor for her services. Her memoir Mission Accomplished: Stop the Clock (2008) was well-received.