The Conversation -- August 21, 2023

Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump has agreed to a $200,000 bond in the Georgia criminal case charging him with trying to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.... The order was signed off on by Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. The order, which was signed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Trump's attorneys, says that Trump 'shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a codefendant or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.' It also says the 'Defendant shall make no direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community; The above shall include, but are not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media.'" The story also covers bond agreements reached for defendants John Eastman, Ken Chesebro & Scott Hall. MB: The terms of Trump's bond agreement put a severe crimp in his SOP. We'll see what happens, won't we?

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "Delaying Donald Trump's federal trial for his efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power until 2026 would 'deny the public its right to a speedy trial,' federal prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith wrote in a court filing on Monday.... Smith's team wrote that Trump's proposal is premised on the notion that lawyers will individually and manually review discovery, which is not consistent with modern practices.... 'In cases such as this one, the burden of reviewing discovery cannot be measured by page count alone, and comparisons to the height of the Washington Monument and the length of a Tolstoy novel are neither helpful nor insightful; in fact, comparisons such as those are a distraction from the issue at hand -- which is determining what is required to prepare for trial,' they wrote. 'To accomplish that, the discovery should instead be measured by its relevance, organization, accessibility, searchability, and reviewability. Here, the Government has organized and produced materials in a manner designed to ease and expedite the defendant's review and search, which allows for trial to proceed as the Government has proposed.'"

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Trump Crime Family Blotter

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows has asked a federal court to order all charges against him brought by Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors last week to be dismissed, since he says the charges relate to his then-role in the federal government. In a weekend filing, Meadows argues he should have immunity from the state's 2020 election interference criminal case because he was carrying out his duties as a federal official working for ... Donald Trump. The filing argues that his actions arose only because he was serving Trump as a close White House adviser." MB: I doubt this motion will succeed. And personally, I think it's a bad "look" for Meadows to formally declare he should not be held responsible for his actions. (Also linked yesterday.)

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post explains several reasons that efforts of various Georgia defendants, including Donald Trump & Mark Meadows, should not be successful in their attempts to remove the cases against them from state to federal court. (Meadows has already filed to remove the case.) For one thing, "Neither Trump nor Meadows ... had any constitutional duties regarding state certification of Georgia's own election. The Framers parceled out election duties to the states, the electoral college and Congress, but not the president. Moreover, in seeking removal, a defendant must also show that he has a 'colorable' defense under federal law, such as immunity. [That is, they must have a federal defense against the charges, which they don't.]... Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., held last November, 'If Former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count..., such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution.'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "Appearing to contradict ... Donald Trump's primary public defense in the classified documents case, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith's investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any 'standing order' from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office.... ABC News has also reviewed an early draft of the prologue to Meadows' book ... about his time serving as Trump's chief of staff..., which includes a description of Trump having a classified war plan 'on the couch' at his office in Bedminster, New Jersey, at a meeting attended by Meadows' ghostwriter and publicist, but not by Meadows himself. The reference to that document being in Trump's possession was removed before the book was published. Multiple sources tell ABC News Meadows acknowledged to investigators that he asked that the paragraph be changed, and that it would be 'problematic' had Trump had such a document in his possession. Sources tell ABC News that Meadows told special counsel investigators that he did not discuss making those edits with Trump." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jamie Gangel, et al., of CNN (Aug. 18): "In the days since the FBI seized classified and top secret documents from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, the former President and his allies have claimed that Trump had a 'standing order' to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence. But 18 former top Trump administration officials tell CNN they never heard any such order issued during their time working for Trump, and that they believe the claim to be patently false.... 'Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given,' said John Kelly, who served as Trump's chief of staff for 17 months from 2017 to 2019. 'And I can't imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.' Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as acting White House chief of staff, also dismissed the idea and told CNN he was 'not aware of a general standing order' during his tenure." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Summer Concepcion of NBC News: "Former Vice President Mike Pence ... said Sunday he did not know of any 'broad-based effort' by ... Donald Trump to declassify documents before he left the White House.... '... I don't have any knowledge of any broad-based directive from the president,' he [said]. 'But that doesn't mean it didn't occur, I just -- it's just not something that I ever heard about.'" MB: This "secret declassification" defense has never made a whit of sense. Everyone who has access to government documents has to know the current classification status of each document. Unless there was a general government-wide email announcement every day like, "Okay, the Prez took today's Presidential Daily Briefing to his residence so you can post it on your Facebook page and talk about it with Putin," then the PDB remained, as it should be, classified. (Also linked yesterday.)

Shawna Mizelle of CNN: "Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy described the case against ... Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents as 'almost a slam dunk' and said he thinks Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race. '... He will lose to Joe Biden, if you look at the current polls,' he told CNN's Kasie Hunt on 'State of the Union.' 'I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee will do a better job than Joe Biden. And so I want one of them to win...,' the Louisiana senator said. The comments from Cassidy, who was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in 2021 at his second impeachment trial, mark some of his strongest criticism of Trump to date. They come as the various charges against Trump continue to dominate the GOP primary, with the former president widely viewed as the party's front-runner." (Also linked yesterday.)

Blame It on the Supremes. Gregory Margarian, in a New York Times op-ed: The police raid of a small-town Kansas newspaper & its editor and the seizure of the paper's records & devices, supported by a local judge's warrant, "sounds like a lurid tale from Vladimir Putin's Russia.... But the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents dozens of government (as well as private) offenses against American journalists every year -- not just searches and seizures but also arrests, physical assaults by the police, prior restraints, intimidation and improper denials of access to locations and information.... Much of [the problem] owes to the [Supreme Court] justices'; disdaining of the social value of the press while fixating instead on the First Amendment rights of businesses, big electoral spenders and anti-abortion extremists. By abandoning the press, the Supreme Court has licensed law enforcement and lower courts to regard journalists with ignorance, laziness or malice. This problem is especially acute in smaller communities that get little outside scrutiny."

Presidential Race 2024

Arlette Saenz of CNN: "President Joe Biden is preparing to blanket the airwaves with a $25 million television and digital ad campaign in battleground states this month as Republicans are set to face off in their first presidential primary debate. The first minute-long ad, titled 'Fought Back,' which was first obtained by CNN, has an economic focus, marking the campaign's latest effort to improve voter perceptions about Biden's handling of the economy. It also makes explicit reference to ... Donald Trump, as Democrats attempt to tie GOP candidates at this week's debate to Trump's 'MAGA agenda.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

"A Weird Group of Folks." Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) on Sunday called the GOP presidential candidates heading to the debate stage a 'weird group of folks.' When asked by NBC's 'Meet The Press' moderator Chuck Todd about his working relationship with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), who appeared earlier on the show, Walz said he was 'sad' to see Burgum dodge so many questions about former President Trump and his mounting legal troubles. 'I do believe that Doug is probably the most normal of these -- that's a pretty weird group of folks going to be on the debate stage...,' Walz said.... '[T]he minute they all step on the stage, the American people have lost. Are they going to debate who can ban the most books?'"

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California. AP: "A dispute over an LGBTQ+ pride flag at a California clothing store spiraled into deadly violence this weekend when a man shot and killed the 66-year-old business owner right in front of her shop, authorities said. The man ran away from the store after the shooting Friday night but was later found and killed in a confrontation with officers from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. The agency said Laura Ann Carleton was pronounced dead at Mag.Pi, the store she owned and operated in Cedar Glen. The small community in the San Bernadino Mountains is roughly 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles." The New York Times story is here. MB: In Guns America, you can get shot dead for just being a decent human being. It's so disheartening.

Ecuador. Genevieve Glatsky, et al., of the New York Times: "An establishment leftist and a newcomer businessman appeared to capture the top two spots in Ecuador's presidential election on Sunday in a campaign cycle that has centered on voters' frustration with the country's soaring gang and drug cartel violence. Luisa González, who was backed by a former socialist president, and the political outsider Daniel Noboa received the highest percentage of ballots with 84 percent of the vote counted. They will compete in a runoff election on Oct. 15."

Guatemala. Nic Wirtz & Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post: "A political outsider who has vowed to fight corruption was headed for a landslide victory in Sunday's presidential election in Guatemala -- a vote that could mark a turning point for a nation with a faltering democracy. The big question as Guatemalans cast their ballots, though, wasn't just whether Bernardo Arévalo would win. It was whether he'd be allowed to govern. Prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to suspend his party after he finished as the surprise runner-up in the first round of voting on June 25. U.S. and European Union officials, as well as the Organization of American States, pressed the government to allow a fair race. With nearly 96 percent of the vote tallied, Arévalo had a 59 percent to 36 percent lead, according to provisional results -- crushing his opponent Sandra Torres, a former first lady seen as close to the traditional Guatemalan political and economic power brokers." MB: Gosh, sounds like the U.S., where a loser president* tried to negate the results of a presidential election.

Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Yemen. Sarah Dadouch of the Washington Post: "Saudi security forces have killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the country's border with Yemen, Human Rights Watch said, shooting people at close range and firing explosive weapons at groups in the mountains in what could amount to crimes against humanity. In a report released Monday, the New-York based human rights organization detailed a pattern of killings it said was widespread and systematic, based on interviews with witnesses and an analysis of photos, videos and satellite imagery going back to 2021.... The report accuses Saudi forces -- including border guards and possibly specialized units -- of killing 'hundreds, possibly thousands' of Ethiopians in recent years while subjecting survivors and detainees to torture, rape and other inhumane treatment." MB: But, hey, let's be friends with Saudi Arabia. Is there no point at which the U.S. President & State Department will say enough is enough?

News Ledes

The New York Times live updates of developments from Tropical Storm Hilary are here: "Southern California residents on Monday were assessing the impact of Hilary, a powerful storm whose strong winds and lashing rains transformed roads into streams, broke rainfall records, downed trees and power lines and knocked out 911 systems in several places. Officials warned that the extent of the damage was not yet known, though initial reports indicated that Southern California had evaded the worst. Areas to the north and northeast were still at risk of heavy rain and flooding from the storm, which weakened to a post-tropical cyclone with winds that were expected to dissipate further as the day wore on." ~~~

~~~ AP: "Tropical Storm Hilary deluged arid parts of Mexico and then drenched Southern California from the coast to inland mountains and deserts, forcing rescuers to pull several people from swollen rivers. Millions expected more flooding and mudslides Monday, even as the storm begins to weaken. The storm first made landfall in Mexico's arid Baja California Peninsula on Sunday in a sparsely populated area about 150 miles (250 kilometers) south of Ensenada. One person drowned. It then moved through mudslide-prone Tijuana, threatening the improvised homes that cling to hillsides just south of the U.S. border. The first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, Hilary dropped more than half an average year's worth of rain on some areas, including the desert resort city of Palm Springs, which saw nearly 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain by Sunday evening."

AP: "A moderate earthquake shook a large swath of Southern California on Sunday just hours after a tropical storm came ashore bringing torrential rain. The 5.1-magnitude quake struck at 2:41 p.m. about 4 miles (7 kilometers) southeast of the mountain community of Ojai, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was felt widely across the region and bookended by smaller foreshocks and aftershocks, the USGS said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe if I still lived in Southern California, I'd believe in powerful supernatural forces, and about now I'd believe the gods were extremely irritated.

The Conversation -- August 20, 2023

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: “Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows has asked a federal court to order all charges against him brought by Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors last week to be dismissed, since he says the charges relate to his then-role in the federal government. In a weekend filing, Meadows argues he should have immunity from the state's 2020 election interference criminal case because he was carrying out his duties as a federal official working for ... Donald Trump. The filing argues that his actions arose only because he was serving Trump as a close White House adviser." MB: I doubt this motion will succeed. And personally, I think it's a bad "loo" for Meadows to formally declare he should not be held responsible for his actions.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post explains several reasons that efforts of various Georgia defendants, including Donald Trump & Mark Meadows, should not be successful in their attempts to remove the cases against them from state to federal court. (Meadows has already filed to remove the case.) For one thing, "Neither Trump nor Meadows ... had any constitutional duties regarding state certification of Georgia's own election. The Framers parceled out election duties to the states, the electoral college and Congress, but not the president. Moreover, in seeking removal, a defendant must also show that he has a 'colorable' defense under federal law, such as immunity. [That is, they must have a federal defense against the charges, which they don't.]... Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., held last November, 'If Former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count..., such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution.'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "Appearing to contradict ... Donald Trump's primary public defense in the classified documents case, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith's investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any 'standing order' from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.... ABC News has also reviewed an early draft of the prologue to Meadows' book ... about his time serving as Trump's chief of staff..., which includes a description of Trump having a classified war plan 'on the couch' at his office in Bedminster, New Jersey, at a meeting attended by Meadows' ghostwriter and publicist, but not by Meadows himself. The reference to that document being in Trump's possession was removed before the book was published. Multiple sources tell ABC News Meadows acknowledged to investigators that he asked that the paragraph be changed, and that it would be 'problematic' had Trump had such a document in his possession. Sources tell ABC News that Meadows told special counsel investigators that he did not discuss making those edits with Trump." ~~~

~~~ Jamie Gangel, et al., of CNN (Aug. 18): "In the days since the FBI seized classified and top secret documents from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, the former President and his allies have claimed that Trump had a 'standing order' to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence. But 18 former top Trump administration officials tell CNN they never heard any such order issued during their time working for Trump, and that they believe the claim to be patently false.... 'Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given,' said John Kelly, who served as Trump's chief of staff for 17 months from 2017 to 2019. 'And I can't imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.' Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as acting White House chief of staff, also dismissed the idea and told CNN he was 'not aware of a general standing order' during his tenure." ~~~

~~~ Summer Concepcion of NBC News: "Former Vice President Mike Pence ... said Sunday he did not know of any 'broad-based effort' by ... Donald Trump to declassify documents before he left the White House.... '... I don't have any knowledge of any broad-based directive from the president,' he [said]. 'But that doesn't mean it didn't occur, I just -- it's just not something that I ever heard about.'" MB: This "secret declassification" defense has never made sense. Everyone who has access to government documents has to know the current classification status of each document. Unless there was a general government-wide email announcement every day like, "Okay, the Prez took today's Presidential Daily Briefing to his residence so you can post it on your Facebook page and talk about it with Putin," then the PDB remained, as it should be, classified.

Arlette Saenz of CNN: "President Joe Biden is preparing to blanket the airwaves with a $25 million television and digital ad campaign in battleground states this month as Republicans are set to face off in their first presidential primary debate. The first minute-long ad, titled 'Fought Back,' which was first obtained by CNN, has an economic focus, marking the campaign's latest effort to improve voter perceptions about Biden's handling of the economy. It also makes explicit reference to ... Donald Trump, as Democrats attempt to tie GOP candidates at this week's debate to Trump's 'MAGA agenda.'"

Shawna Mizelle of CNN: "Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy described the case against ... Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents as 'almost a slam dunk' and said he thinks Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race. '... He will lose to Joe Biden, if you look at the current polls,' he told CNN's Kasie Hunt on 'State of the Union.' 'I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee will do a better job than Joe Biden. And so I want one of them to win...," the Louisiana senator said. The comments from Cassidy, who was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in 2021 at his second impeachment trial, mark some of his strongest criticism of Trump to date. They come as the various charges against Trump continue to dominate the GOP primary, with the former president widely viewed as the party's front-runner."

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Amy Wang & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump intends to skip the first Republican presidential primary debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday and instead plans to post a prerecorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that will be released that night, according to a person briefed on the matter. Trump advisers said the interview had already been recorded. It is not yet clear where the interview will appear. Carlson has started a show on X, formerly called Twitter, but Trump sees the platform as a rival to Truth Social, which he helped create." MB: "Create"? How about "copy from Twitter"?

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Prominent conservative legal scholars are increasingly raising a constitutional argument that ... Donald Trump should be barred from the presidency because of his actions to overturn the previous presidential election result. The latest salvo came Saturday in The Atlantic magazine, from liberal law professor Laurence Tribe and J. Michael Luttig, the former federal appellate judge and a prominent conservative who's become a strong critic of Trump's actions after the election. Not all in the legal community agree -- and what the scholars are proposing would need to be tested in court.... They and others base their arguments on a reading of part of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War provision that excludes from future office anyone who, previously, as a sworn-in public official, 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion ... or [had] given aid or comfort to the enemies' of the government.' The pair write: '... both of us concluded some years ago that, in fact, a conviction would be beside the point. The former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the [14th Amendment's] disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Gerard Magliocca in the Washington Monthly: "To address this pressing problem, at least one secretary of state with the authority to make candidate eligibility rulings under state law must declare that Trump cannot appear on that state's presidential primary ballot.... A swift declaration by a secretary of state ... will get the eligibility litigation started sooner and give the [Supreme Court] Justices more time to consider the matter before voters in Iowa and New Hampshire go to the polls. This would be a non-partisan act to ensure an orderly election. When the Justices hear the Trump challenge, they must rule on the merits. Any attempt to dodge the heart of Section Three by dismissing a proper case as non-justiciable or on some tangential ground would be disastrous." ~~~

~~~ Ned Foley on Election Law Blog: "The new essay in The Atlantic by Judge Luttig and Larry Tribe significantly raises the risk, in my judgment, that Democrats in Congress will attempt to prevent Trump from being inaugurated on January 20, 2025 if he wins the election in November 2024." Foley suggests Congress pass legislation to avert the likelihood of "Constitutional Armageddon." MB: Good luck with that.

More on Rudy's desperate pleas to the Biggest Deadbeat: ~~~

~~~ Maggie Haberman & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani is running out of money and looking to collect from a longtime client who has yet to pay: ... Donald J. Trump. To recover the millions of dollars he believes he is owed for his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power, Mr. Giuliani first deferred to his lawyer, who pressed anyone in Mr. Trump's circle who would listen. When that fizzled out, Mr. Giuliani and his lawyer made personal appeals to the former president over a two-hour dinner in April at his Mar-a-Lago estate.... When those entreaties largely failed as well, Mr. Giuliani's son, Andrew, who has an independent relationship with the former president, visited Mr. Trump at his club in New Jersey this month, with what people briefed on the meeting said was the hope of getting his father's huge legal bills covered.... For the better part of a year, as Mr. Giuliani has racked up the bills battling an array of criminal investigations, private lawsuits and legal disciplinary proceedings stemming from his bid to keep Mr. Trump in office after the 2020 election, his team has repeatedly sought a lifeline from the former president.... And even as the bills have pushed Mr. Giuliani close to a financial breaking point, the former president has largely demurred...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Tobi Raji of the Washington Post: "Law enforcement authorities were searching this weekend for a Proud Boys member who had been scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday for sentencing after he was convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.... An FBI wanted poster says Christopher Worrell, 52, of Naples, Fla., violated 'conditions of release pending sentencing on federal charges.' The bureau asked anyone with information about Worrell's whereabouts to contact their local FBI office or the nearest American embassy or consulate." MB: Naples, huh? Maybe he took a swamp boat into the Everglades & an alligator jumped up & et him.

Presidential Race 2024. Andrew Zhang of Politico: "The Trump campaign and MAGA world on Saturday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for remarks appearing to label some of the former president's supporters 'listless vessels.'... 'A movement can't be about the personality of one individual,' DeSantis said [in an interview]. 'If all we are is listless vessels that's just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement.'" MB: Calling Trumpbots listless vessels is deplorable. They're more like "selfish, aggrieved losers."

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Russia's Luna Lander Crash-Lands on the Moon. Kenneth Change & Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "A Russian robotic spacecraft that was headed to the lunar surface has crashed into the moon, Russia's space agency said on Sunday, citing the results of a preliminary investigation a day after it lost contact with the vehicle."

News Lede

AP: "Hurricane Hilary roared toward Mexico's Baja California peninsula early Sunday as a weakened but still dangerous Category 1 hurricane likely to bring 'catastrophic and life-threatening' flooding to the region and cross into the southwestern U.S. as a tropical storm, the National Weather Service said."

The Conversation -- August 19, 2023

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Prominent conservative legal scholars are increasingly raising a constitutional argument that ... Donald Trump should be barred from the presidency because of his actions to overturn the previous presidential election result. The latest salvo came Saturday in The Atlantic magazine, from liberal law professor Laurence Tribe and J. Michael Luttig, the former federal appellate judge and a prominent conservative who's become a strong critic of Trump's actions after the election. Not all in the legal community agree -- and what the scholars are proposing would need to be tested in court.... They and others base their arguments on a reading of part of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War provision that excludes from future office anyone who, previously, as a sworn-in public official, 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion ... or [had] given aid or comfort to the enemies' of the government.' The pair write: '... both of us concluded some years ago that, in fact, a conviction would be beside the point. The former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the [the] disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again.'"

More on Rudy's desperate pleas to the Biggest Deadbeat: ~~~

~~~ Maggie Haberman & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani is running out of money and looking to collect from a longtime client who has yet to pay: ... Donald J. Trump. To recover the millions of dollars he believes he is owed for his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power, Mr. Giuliani first deferred to his lawyer, who pressed anyone in Mr. Trump's circle who would listen. When that fizzled out, Mr. Giuliani and his lawyer made personal appeals to the former president over a two-hour dinner in April at his Mar-a-Lago estate and in a private meeting at his golf club in West Palm Beach. When those entreaties largely failed as well, Mr. Giuliani's son, Andrew, who has an independent relationship with the former president, visited Mr. Trump at his club in New Jersey this month, with what people briefed on the meeting said was the hope of getting his father's huge legal bills covered.... For the better part of a year, as Mr. Giuliani has racked up the bills battling an array of criminal investigations, private lawsuits and legal disciplinary proceedings stemming from his bid to keep Mr. Trump in office after the 2020 election, his team has repeatedly sought a lifeline from the former president.... And even as the bills have pushed Mr. Giuliani close to a financial breaking point, the former president has largely demurred...."

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What Real Presidents Do

Toluse Olorunnipa & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "President Biden sought to mark a 'new era' for one of the United States' most high-profile trilateral partnerships Friday, using a first-of-its-kind summit with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts at Camp David to announce new measures on defense, technology, education and other key areas of cooperation. 'This is the first summit I've hosted at Camp David, and I can think of no more fitting location to begin the next era of cooperation,' Biden said at a joint news conference, standing between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at his presidential retreat in Maryland and pledging that the commitments the leaders agreed to will stand the test of time. 'This is about decades and decades.' The summit was the culmination of what White House aides have described as a two-year effort to assist in a rapprochement between South Korea and Japan after decades of frosty relations. It also marked the beginning of what the White House hopes will be an extended stretch of three-way engagement, designed in part to counter China's military aggression and economic coercion and North Korea's growing nuclear weapons program." ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden welcomed his counterparts from Japan and South Korea to Camp David on Friday morning as he seeks to cement a newly fortified three-way alliance, bridging generations of friction between the two Asian powers to forge mutual security arrangements in the face of an increasingly assertive China. Mr. Biden greeted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea at the presidential retreat in Maryland, the first time he has invited foreign leaders there and the first time the leaders of the three countries will have met in a stand-alone session rather than on the sidelines of larger international gatherings.... Biden administration officials said the leaders would sign off on a formal 'commitment to consult,' an understanding that the three nations would treat any security threat to one of them as a threat to all, requiring mutual discussion about how to respond. The pledge would not go as far as the NATO treaty's Article 5, which obligates allies to 'take action' in the event of an attack on any member, but it would reinforce the expectation that the three would act in tandem." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The White House has published the Camp David Principles here.

MEANWHILE, What Anti-Americans Do

Peter Baker & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "While [Donald Trump]'s name appeared nowhere in the 'Camp David Principles' that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year's election and disrupt ties with America's two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region. Both Japan and South Korea struggled for four years as Mr. Trump threatened to scale back longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments while wooing China, North Korea and Russia. In formalizing a three-way alliance that had long eluded the United States, [President] Biden and his counterparts hoped to lock in a strategic architecture that will endure regardless of who is in the White House next." MB: So, in a way, Trump -- or the Trump threat -- has improved Indo-Pacific relations.

I, Trumpius. Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump plans to upstage the first Republican primary debate on Wednesday by sitting for an online interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.... 'Reagan didn't do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?' [Trump wrote on his knock-off social media site.]... If [the interview] goes ahead as currently planned, the debate-night counterprogramming would serve as an act of open hostility .... to both the R.N.C. and Fox News, which is hosting the event." CNN's story is here. MB: No normal person would publicly describe himself as the BEST EVER, even if -- like the Evil Queen in "Snow White" -- that's what he told the mirror, mirror on the wall.

Chauncey DeVega of Salon: Donald "Trump has shown a wide range of pathological behavior over the past seven years or so. He has an unhealthy fascination with violence. He lacks impulse control and empathy. He revels in cruelty. He compulsively lies and exhibits traits of malignant narcissism. He is a confirmed sexual predator and misogynist. He has a tenuous relationship to reality, and increasingly retreats into victimology and a persecution complex. He believes himself to be almost literally superhuman and often behaves like a cult leader.... Trump's pathological behavior is in no way separate from his role as leader of the neofascist MAGA movement and larger white right.... Sick societies produce sick leaders; sick leaders have sick followers; in combination, those forces produce sick political movements.... Donald Trump's poor mental health and aberrant behavior amount to a political, social and legal crisis for America and the world." DeVega interviews some psychiatrists, who describe Trump as a crazy (layman's interpretation) Orwellian character.

** The Architect, There at the Insurrection. Andrew Kaczynski, et al., of CNN: "When conspiracy theorist Alex Jones marched his way to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, riling up his legion of supporters, an unassuming middle-aged man in a red 'Trump 2020' hat conspicuously tagged along.... The man dutifully recording Jones with his phone as the bombastic media personality ascended to the restricted area of the Capitol grounds where mobs of ... Donald Trump's supporters eventually broke in... The man ... is attorney Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of the scheme to subvert the 2020 Electoral College process by using fake GOP electors in multiple states. When asked by the House select committee where he was the first week of January 2021 and on January 6, Chesebro invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. But a CNN investigation has placed him outside of the Capitol at the same time as his alleged plot to keep Trump in office unraveled inside it. There is no indication Chesebro entered the Capitol Building or was violent. Jones did not enter the Capitol on January 6, 2021, or engage in violence, but he had warned of a coming battle the day before and urged his supporters to converge on the Capitol." The New York Times story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The Strange Career of a Latter-Day Revolutionary. Ken Chesebro went from a long post-doctoral gig as liberal Harvard Law Prof. Lawrence Tribe's aide to hanging out at the insurrection with crazed right-wing provocateur & conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. According to this report by Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post, what seems to have flipped Chesebro's politics was making several million dollars in a cryptocurrency investment. MB: Now, Ken may go from crypto king to inmate in the Fulton County Jail. (Also linked yesterday.)

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "It is not hard to find commentators asking a simple question about the events of the past few years:... How did 'America's mayor' -- the man who rocketed to national fame after the Sept. 11 attacks -- come to disgrace and debase himself in defense of Donald Trump?... But ... the line from 'America's mayor' to indicted co-conspirator is a straight one.... He is the same man he's always been.... If we think of [Rudy] Giuliani as the scowling demagogue who stoked the flames of chauvinism and racial hatred against New York's first Black mayor [David Dinkins] for his own gain, then there's little other than his carefully crafted image in the press that separates the Giuliani of '92 from the Giuliani of '23.... It is easy to see that [Giuliani & Trump] are of a type. They share the same demagogic instincts, the same boundless resentment, the same authoritarian manner -- it is not for nothing that Giuliani reportedly tried to get the 2001 mayoral election canceled so that he could stay in office beyond the limit on his term -- and the same willingness to indulge in racism and use it for their own political purposes." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have long associated Giuliani with the racist police attack on Dinkins. But recently, when I looked for contemporaneous stories about the incident, I didn't find anything that mentioned Giuliani, so I thought I must have been mistaken. I was not. Bouie spells it out. The stories I read also hedged on the racism expressed during the police protest with language like, "reported to have used the N word." I lived in Manhattan then, and I saw the video on a local TV channel and the audio was replete with cops using the racial slur. It confused me for a moment because I had forgotten that Dinkins was Black. He never made his race a feature of his mayoralty and there was no reason for anyone else too, either.

On the Lam. Daniel Barnes & Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "Christopher Worrell, a Florida Proud Boy convicted on seven counts stemming from his actions during the Jan. 6 riot, was scheduled to be sentenced today in Washington, D.C, federal court but is now missing, according to a spokeswoman from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.... Worrell had been initially detained pre-trial following his arrest in March 2021. However, [Judge Royce] Lamberth ordered Worrell released to home detention in November 2021 after finding that DC jail officials had failed to provide Worrell with adequate treatment for his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and a broken hand that may have required surgery. As part of his conditions of release, Worrell surrendered his passport and was subject to GPS monitoring." (Also linked yesterday.)

Emily Davies of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Department of Justice has designated the death of D.C. police officer Jeffrey Smith -- who took his own life after helping defend the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot -- as having occurred in the line of duty, granting his widow access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal benefits, according to the family's attorney. The Justice Department revealed the determination to the family Thursday. It did so under a law amended last year to make it easier for families of officers who die by suicide to access death benefits, marking a shift in how the government treats first responders who suffer mental health crises arising from what they encounter on the job. 'I could have given up. But I did not want any future widow, or widower, to ever go through what I went through in the aftermath of Jeffrey's death,' said Erin Smith, Jeffrey Smith's widow, in a statement. She spent years pressing local and federal officials to honor officers who die by suicide in the same way as any others who die in the line of duty."

Holly Bailey & Hannah Allam of the Washington Post: "The FBI has joined an investigation into a barrage of threats against Fulton County officials in recent days, including members of the Atlanta-area grand jury that voted to indict ... Donald Trump and 18 of his allies in a sweeping criminal case focused on alleged 2020 election interference."

Kathryn Watson of ABC News: "Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office is conducting an ongoing investigation of an alleged attempt to use alternate electors after the 2020 presidential election to benefit ... Donald Trump, a spokesperson for the attorney general confirmed." ~~~

     ~~~ Gideon Rubin of the Raw Story: "Rolling Stone reported that, 'Investigators have started asking questions about any potential contacts between false electors such as [for Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward..., then-President Trump, and other out-of-state officials and lawyers working on his behalf to steal the election, one of the sources tells Rolling Stone. In recent discussions with possible witnesses and others, some investigators have asked or requested information related to a video -- tweeted by the Arizona GOP in December 2020 -- where Ward and other Trump allies sign documents falsely claiming to be the state's legitimate electors.'"

Marie: It strikes me that if the United States is headed for civil war -- and we may be -- the Supreme Court might be, if not the catalyst, at least a central player in the crisis. If no one institution is "the decider," then there is no rule of law and everyone is a decider. We would be living in a Rand Paulish dystopian/everyone-for-himself world. ~~~

~~~ Weekend Read. Garrett Epps in the Washington Monthly: "The precedent-smashing, highly political Roberts Court is likely to trigger outright defiance by the left and right. Just look at Alabama's failure to comply with a recent Court ruling.... By balking at producing a redistricting plan that can pass judicial muster, [Alabama's] legislature has refused to comply with a district court order and a Supreme Court Voting Rights Act decision in what may be a foretaste of future crises on the left and right. States on both sides of the red-blue divide are growing querulous about Supreme Court rulings. Even though it is now dominated by a radical-right majority, resistance to its precedent-shattering decisions seems at least as likely to come from the right as from the left.... The Court may even face something not seen since the Civil War -- defiance of a President of the United States.... [The Supreme Court] is not acting like a court; it will not be treated indefinitely by friend or foe as if it were one." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In his analysis of Alabama's definance of a Supreme Court decision, Epps concludes that "The question seems to be whether the Supreme Court will let Alabama back it off. The answer is by no means clear." You'll have to read the analysis to see why. But let's say the Supremes do not back off. It strikes me that a president could once again enforce a federal court order on the state, just as occurred when Gov. George Wallace infamously stood at the University of Alabama door to block Black students from entering, only to step aside when J.F.K.'s federalized National Guard confronted him. But that assumes a reasonable court order and a reasonable president. On the other hand ~~~

     ~~~ Here's Epps' example of defiance from the left: "The next debt-ceiling crisis is scheduled for January 1, 2025, or shortly thereafter. Imagine a re-elected Biden facing a Republican House that will not listen to reason this time. I have argued since 2011 that a President would have the constitutional duty to set aside the debt-ceiling statute and pay the nation's debt. Now imagine the Supreme Court telling him to stop paying it -- in effect, ordering him to preside over the economy's collapse. Honestly, reader, if you were President, what would you do?"

Kasha Patel of the Washington Post: "The richest 10 percent of U.S. households are responsible for 40 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study released Thursday in PLOS Climate. The study, which looked at how a household's income generated emissions, underlines the stark divide between those who benefit most from fossil fuels and those who are most burdened by its effects.... Many of the ways people earn money are also linked to carbon pollution, including from how and where they earn their wages to where they invest parts of their income. These investments, especially if linked with fossil fuel-related industries, can seriously tip who is most responsible for the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, said ... Jared Starr, lead author of the study. 'It just seems morally and politically problematic to have one group of people reaping so much benefit from emissions while the poorer groups in society are asked to disproportionately deal with the harms of those emissions,' Starr, a sustainability scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said." The Raw Story's report is here. Thanks to RAS for the link.

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "James L. Buckley, a conservative recruit from Connecticut who invaded the New York strongholds of Democrats and liberal Republicans in 1970 and against the odds won a United States Senate seat on the Conservative Party line, died early Friday in Washington. He was 100." (Also linked yesterday.)

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Kansas. Bill Chappell of NPR: "...Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, who signed the search warrant allowing police to seize the equipment [of the Marion County Record], was arrested at least twice for driving under the influence. Those 2012 arrests came months apart in two counties -- and it's not clear how much information was shared between officials at the time, The Wichita Eagle reports.... It was a confidential tip to the Record about the DUI history of Kari Newell, a local restaurant and catering company owner, that set incidents in motion." The city police chief Gideon Cody, who initiated the warrant request, previously had threatened to sue the newspaper because it had looked into disciplinary action taken against him in his previous job. MB: So small-town politics as usual.

News Ledes

New York Times: "As Hurricane Hilary heads north, Southern California and Mexico are bracing for a rare and powerful storm that could produce dangerous flash flooding and sustained winds that have not been seen for decades.... The Category 4 hurricane is so unusual that it has prompted the National Hurricane Center to issue a tropical storm watch for California for the first time in its history. Hilary is currently projected to make landfall in Baja California on Sunday and move northward as a tropical storm near San Diego and across the deserts and mountains east of Los Angeles -- though its path could still veer elsewhere."

Washington Post: "Dueling heat waves -- across Texas and the South, and in the Pacific Northwest to northern Plains -- are joining forces to deliver the hottest stretch of weather this year to the central Plains and parts of the Midwest." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Weirdly, I have run my A/C a total of no more than 36 hours this summer, not at all in August -- so far. As I write, the outside temp in lower New Hampshire is 58 degrees.