August 27, 2022
This Afternoon in Trumpster Dumpster Fire News:
Does This Orange Jumpsuit Make Me Look Fat? Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Since the release of the search warrant [on Mar-a-Lago], which listed three criminal laws as the foundation of the investigation, one -- the Espionage Act -- has received the most attention. Discussion has largely focused on the spectacle of the F.B.I. finding documents marked as highly classified and Mr. Trump's questionable claims that he had declassified everything held at his residence. But by some measures, the crime of obstruction is as, or even more, serious a threat to Mr. Trump or his close associates. The version investigators are using, known as Section 1519, is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a broad set of reforms enacted in 2002.... The heavily redacted affidavit [released Friday] provides new details of the government's efforts to retrieve and secure the material in Mr. Trump's possession, highlighting how prosecutors may be pursuing a theory that the former president, his aides or both might have illegally obstructed an effort of well over a year to recover sensitive documents that do not belong to him.... Section 1519's maximum penalty is 20 years in prison, which is twice as long as the penalty under the Espionage Act."
Jeremy Herb & Annie Grayer of CNN: "Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has sent a letter to the House Intelligence and House Oversight committee chairs, saying the intelligence community is conducting a damage assessment of the documents taken from ... Donald Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago, according to a letter obtained by CNN.... Several members of Congress have called for an intelligence damage assessment of the documents."
Notes from the Scene of the Crime. Niall Stanage of the Hill: "One of former President Trump's main claims about the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago is being undermined by Friday's release of a key affidavit. Trump has pushed the narrative that he and his lawyers were cooperating with the Department of Justice's (DOJ) inquiries about documents from his time in the White House. This, he claims, means that the Aug. 8 raid on his Florida estate was gratuitous.... Even in heavily redacted form, the affidavit points out that there was a prolonged process lasting around seven months in 2021 before Trump's team coughed up any documents at all.... [For instance,] according to a Trump legal filing earlier this week, one of the FBI agents, having been shown the storage room in which some documents were held, purportedly said, Now it all makes sense.' The same Trump filing refers to a June 8 letter in which the DOJ 'requested, in pertinent part, that the storage room be secured' -- a request that is implied to have been met when Trump told staff to put a second lock on the door. By contrast, the DOJ's affidavit quotes a letter on the same date -- presumably the same letter -- reiterating to a Trump lawyer that there was no 'secure location authorized for the storage of classified information' anywhere at the resort. The letter makes clear that the DOJ's request was not some generalized security check-up but a demand for the 'preservation' of the storage room in its 'current condition until further notice' -- phrasing that is far more redolent of an investigation of a possible crime scene than a friendly chat about padlocks."
Emily Peck & Sara Fischer of Axios: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refused Donald Trump's application for a trademark for 'Truth Social,' the name of his social media company earlier this month.... The USPTO found two other companies who already use the Truth Social wording, which would create what's known as 'likelihood of confusion' if Trump also got the mark. Typically, when a company files for a trademark -- the distinct brand-name it wishes to use exclusively -- lawyers vet the term to make sure there's no conflicts.... Trump can appeal, which trademark lawyers believe is likely.... The trademark refusal is just the latest setback for the former president's social media app and its parent company, which have been beset by a raft of issues over the past few months." MB: You might think Trump would have hired a patent attorney who knew how to apply for a patent, but I suppose he couldn't find any who would work for him without demanding a huge retainer. ~~~
~~~ Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's Truth Social website is facing financial challenges as its traffic remains puny and the company that is scheduled to acquire it expresses fear that his legal troubles could lead to a decline in his popularity. Six months after its high-profile launch, the site -- a clone of Twitter, which banned Trump after Jan. 6, 2021 -- still has no guaranteed source of revenue and a questionable path to growth, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings from Digital World Acquisition, the company planning to take Trump's start-up, the Trump Media & Technology Group, public. The company warned this week that its business could be damaged if Trump 'becomes less popular or there are further controversies that damage his credibility.' The company has seen its stock price plunge nearly 75 percent since its March peak and reported in a filing last week that it had lost $6.5 million in the first half of the year."
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Reading Between the Redactions
Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: "The Justice Department's search of ... Donald J. Trump's Florida home was spurred by the discovery that he had retained a trove of highly classified material that included documents related to the use of 'clandestine human sources' in intelligence gathering, according to a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant. The portions of the affidavit made public on Friday describe the Justice Department's monthslong push to recover sensitive materials taken from the White House by a former president who viewed state documents as his private property, and now faces a department investigating the possibility he illegally obstructed those efforts.... There was 'probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found' at Mr. Trump's house, prosecutors wrote in the affidavit.... The redacted document did not offer details of what the possible obstruction might be, but the mention raised the possibility that the former president could face considerable legal peril.... The affidavit, which was sworn to on Aug. 5, also noted that the F.B.I. had 'not yet identified all potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation.'"
Glenn Thrush & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Justice Department asked to search ... Donald J. Trump's Florida residence after retrieving an initial batch of highly classified national security documents, out of concern that their disclosure could compromise 'clandestine human sources' used in intelligence gathering, according to a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant. The affidavit -- including more than three dozen pages of evidence and legal arguments presented by the Justice Department's national security division plus supporting documents -- describes the government's monthslong push to recover highly classified materials taken from the White House by a former president who viewed state documents as his private property." This is a liveblog that was updated numerous times Friday afternoon. Reporters' comments are informative. Following are a few items in the liveblog: ~~~
"Less than an hour after a heavily redacted copy of the affidavit used to justify the F.B.I.'s search of ... Donald J. Trump's residence in Florida was released on Friday, he and many of his allies were directing their ire toward the judge who signed the warrant. In a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, Mr. Trump named Judge Bruce Reinhart and falsely described the search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 to retrieve classified documents as a 'break-in of my home.'...
[Another Lie.] "The General Services Administration, the federal agency charged with managing the government's property, rebutted on Friday a claim made by ... Donald J. Trump's aides that the agency had improperly packed hundreds of pages of documents with classified markings that were sent from the White House to Mr. Trump's home in Florida.... The agency said that it had no role in packing the boxes.... In the aftermath of the F.B.I.'s search of Mr. Trump's property two weeks ago, a top aide to Mr. Trump, Kashyap Patel, said ... that 'the G.S.A., not Trump, had mishandled the packaging of the documents.'... Around the same time, Mr. Trump's spokesman told NBC News that the former president was working to ensure that any items improperly moved by the General Services Administration were appropriately returned.'... The [GSA] said that while it was in charge of moving the boxes after they were packed[, shrink-wrapped & put on pallets], its personnel never examined the contents of the boxes, nor did it have any idea what was in them....
"A letter from the Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the national security division at the Justice Department, suggests that Trump had absolute declassification authority. But the letter does not state that Trump actually declassified any of these documents. Instead, the Trump adviser Kash Patel started making that claim around that time....
"A rare, unredacted line in a largely censored set of pages recounting events says that the National Archives made a request for the missing government documents on May 6, 2021, 'and continued to make requests until approximately late December 2021,' when Trump's office told them they had found 12 boxes that were ready for the agency to retrieve from Mar-a-Lago." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~ The Washington Post story, by Perry Stein & Devlin Barrett, is here. According to a note, it will be updated frequently. "The details contained in the affidavit and unsealed Friday ... underscore the high stakes and unprecedented nature of a criminal probe into whether the former president and his aides took secret government papers and refused to return all of the material -- even in the face of demands from senior law enforcement officials.... 'There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found,' the affidavit says.... Of the 38 pages in the affidavit, nearly half are entirely or mostly redacted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Records the FBI obtained from Trump’s Florida home in advance of the Aug. 8 search bore indications they contained human source intelligence, intercepts under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and signals intelligence, as well as other tags indicating high sensitivity. Several of those tightly-controlled documents contained Trump's 'handwritten notes,' the partially-redacted affidavit detailing the Justice Department investigation says.... In those boxes [obtained early this year], agents found 184 unique documents, 25 of which were marked 'top secret,' 92 of which were marked 'secret,' and 67 of which were marked 'confidential' -- the lowest level of national security classification. Prosecutors also added in another court filing unsealed Friday that the ongoing criminal probe into government records stashed at Trump's Florida home has involved 'a significant number of civilian witnesses' whose safety could be jeopardized if their identities were revealed." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~ Politico has a facsimile of the affidavit here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Amber Phillips of the Washington Post outlines top takeaways from the redacted affidavit.
More Big Lies. They could have had it anytime they wanted -- and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK. The bigger problem is, what are they going to do with the 33 million pages of documents, many of which are classified, that President Obama took to Chicago? -- Donald Trump, on his fake Twitter site, August 12 ~~~
~~~ Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times:"The National Archives and the Justice Department tried and failed repeatedly for more than a year and a half to retrieve classified and sensitive documents from ... Donald J. Trump before resorting to a search of his Mar-a-Lago property this month, according to government documents and statements by Mr. Trump's lawyers. The documents, including an unsealed, redacted version of an affidavit from the Justice Department requesting a warrant to conduct the search, make clear the lengths to which the government went before pursuing a law enforcement action to recover the material. Here's a timeline of the events that led to the search." ~~~
~~~ Marie P.S. President Obama did not take any documents to Chicago. All of his presidential papers in the custody of the National Archives.
Julian Barnes & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: Clandestine human sources "risk imprisonment or death stealing the secrets of their own governments. Their identities are among the most closely protected information inside American intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Losing even one of them can set back American foreign intelligence operations for years. [They] ... are the lifeblood of any espionage service. This helps explain the grave concern within American agencies that information from undercover sources was included in some of the classified documents recently removed from Mar-a-Lago..., raising the prospect that the sources could be identified if the documents got into the wrong hands. Mr. Trump has a long history of treating classified information with a sloppiness few other presidents have exhibited. And the former president's cavalier treatment of the nation's secrets was on display in the affidavit underlying the warrant for the Mar-a-Lago search. The affidavit, released in redacted form on Friday, described classified documents being found in multiple locations around the Florida residence, a private club where both members and their guests mingle with the former president and his coterie of aides."
Yeah but, what with all the security at Mar-a-Lago, there's no possibility any foreign spies or shady characters got into Mar-a-Lago. ~~~
~~~ Nikki Schwab, et al., of the Daily Mail: "A Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty successfully infiltrated Mar-a-Lago and former President Donald Trump's inner circle and is now being investigated by the FBI and Canadian authorities. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project were out with a report Friday on 33-year-old Inna Yashchyshyn, who told Florida socialites she was heiress Anna de Rothschild, and was 'fawned all over' by guests at Trump's private club.... Canadian law enforcement confirmed Yashchyshyn has been the subject of a major crimes unit investigation in Quebec since February, the Post-Gazette reported. Yashchyshyn started showing up at Mar-a-Lago last spring...." Yashchyshyn carries Ukrainian & Russian passports. Her Florida drivers license lists an address at a mansion where she had never lived. She was involved with a man whom she described in court as a violent criminal who held her hostage; he said she was a grifter. She apparently had connections with organized crime. Article includes a photo of Yashchyshyn posing with Trump & Lindsey Graham at Trump's Florida golf club. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Former Attorney General William Barr attacked Donald Trump and his Republican supporters for again 'pandering to outrage,' this time over the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Barr was pressed Thursday by journalist Bari Weiss on her podcast 'Honestly' on why Republicans should trust the legitimacy of the FBI search in the wake of Trump's attacks on the operation to retrieve government documents. An irritated Barr responded: 'Something I'm pretty tired of from the right is the constant pandering to outrage and people's frustrations. And picking and picking and picking at that sore without trying to channel those feelings in a constructive direction.' Barr said it's 'premature' to reach a conclusion about the Aug. 8 FBI search of Trump's resort and residence. Agents turned up 27 boxes of material, including 11 packets of classified material, including some top secret information.... Barr conceded it's 'hard to explain' why Trump would have held on to the official documents. He characterized vicious attacks on the FBI by Trump and his supporters as 'over the top.'"
New York Times Editors: "No matter how careful [Attorney General Merrick Garland is or how measured the prosecution might be, there is a real and significant risk from those who believe that any criticism of Mr. Trump justifies an extreme response. Yet it is a far greater risk to do nothing when action is called for. Aside from letting Mr. Trump escape punishment, doing nothing to hold him accountable for his actions in the months leading up to Jan. 6 could set an irresistible precedent for future presidents. Why not attempt to stay in power by any means necessary or use the power of the office to enrich oneself or punish one's enemies, knowing that the law does not apply to presidents in or out of office? More important, democratic government is an ideal that must constantly be made real. America is not sustained by a set of principles; it is sustained by resolute action to defend those principles.... Mr. Trump's actions have brought shame on one of the world's oldest democracies and destabilized its future. Even justice before the law will not erase that stain."
Andrew Weissmann in a New York Times op-ed: "The redacted affidavit is further proof that Mr. Trump's flouting of criminal statutes persisted for a long time and gives every appearance of being intentional.... The key questions that remain include what precisely is the full scope of what Mr. Trump took from the White House, why he took the documents and did not return them all and what he was doing with them all this time."
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Donald Trump's attorneys late Friday made a new pitch for an independent review of the materials seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate. In a 12-page filing, they urged a federal judge to appoint a 'special master' to prevent the Justice Department from continuing to comb through dozens of boxes taken by FBI agents earlier this month. The reporters lay out the case as presented. A CNN report, by Tierney Sneed, finds other shortcomings in the motion's arguments. ~~~
~~~Marie: I'm no judge, but their arguments sound unpersuasive. The one point the attorney made -- that under a 1991 appeals court ruling, the president* has "virtually complete control' over his records -- doesn't look so helpful to Trump when you actually read the 1991 ruling. First, it applies only to the president* during his time in office. Second, he must notify the Archivist -- who then must notify the Congress -- if he intends to dispose of any records he considers inconsequential. Third, Trump didn't dispose of the records in question here; he stole them & maintained them in an unsafe place where prying eyes might find them. That's different from his usual ripping, flushing or trashing techniques. (I find it pretty funny that, by law, Trump was required to notify the Archivist that he was going to flush some papers down the toilet. Under that law, Trump would have had to wait a couple of weeks to flush. Eeew!) It looks to me that, except for notes to himself [eg., "Fire McGahn!!!], there should be a record of all of Trump's communications, as the people to whom he wrote any notes would have had to retain them.
** Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:
President Biden on Thursday offered some harsh words about those of the 'extreme MAGA philosophy' currently hacking away at our democracy. 'It's not just Trump,' he said at a fundraiser. 'It's the entire philosophy that underpins the -- I'm going to say something: It's like semi-fascism.' He expanded on the theme later at a rally. 'The MAGA Republicans,' he said, are 'a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace -- embrace -- political violence.' Good for him. Those who cherish democracy need to call out the proto-fascist tendencies now seizing the Trump-occupied GOP. Republican candidates up and down the November ballot reject the legitimate outcome of the last election -- and are making it easier to reject the will of the voters in the next. Violent anti-government rhetoric from party leaders targets the FBI, the Justice Department and the IRS. A systemic campaign of disinformation makes their supporters feel victimized by shadowy 'elites. These are hallmarks of authoritarianism." Read on. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The one & only downside of defeating the fascists would be this: there will be no more absurd bullies, liars & lemmings to mock. We will have to satisfy ourselves with drunken old politicians taking dips with strippers in the Tidal Basin and congressmen stuffing their freezers with cold cash receipts of bribes. ~~~
~~~ Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post, in the first of several letters to her Dearest Mother: "I heard the good news today from Senator Grassley and Senator Cruz and many voices more: The Lord be praised, President Biden is starting a new army, 87,000 strong, and all armed, to work for the IRS. They shall burst into homes and knock down doors and wreak Biden's personal vengeance on the middle class, and every one shall have an AR-15. My dream is coming true. I am rushing to enlist; I am leaving the farm in your hands until my return from service in this glorious cause." MB: I do not want to give away the ending of this epistolary column, but suffice it to say that Biden's war against the American taxpayer disappoints Petri. I am sorry to tell you that, as a general rule, believing Chuck & Ted is bound to lead to disappointment.
There's a New Twitter Master at the White House. Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "... the White House [Twitter] account has been quiet and unassuming, largely regurgitating press releases and explaining [President] Biden's policies. Not anymore.... The White House account this week decided to hit back in uncharacteristically feisty -- and personal -- fashion after a number of Republicans hammered Biden's decision to wipe out up to $20,000 in student debt for many borrowers.... For the White House, the newly punchy tone seems to be part of a revamped strategy leading up to November's midterm elections, with Biden increasingly attacking Republicans directly and sometimes by name.... The White House also recently hired Megan Coyne ... in its Office of Digital Strategy. Coyne garnered widespread attention among Democrats for bringing humor and punchiness to a Ne Jersey state-run account with tweets that went viral."
Rebecca Robbins & Jenny Gross of the New York Times: "The vaccine manufacturer Moderna sued Pfizer and BioNTech on Friday, claiming that its rivals' Covid-19 shot copied groundbreaking technology that Moderna had developed years before the pandemic. The allegation of patent infringement sets up what could become a protracted and expensive legal battle between the companies behind coronavirus vaccines that have saved millions of lives worldwide and raised hopes for future medical products using similar messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology. Experts said Moderna's litigation, regardless of its outcome, was unlikely to impede access to Covid vaccines or chill the development of mRNA products. But the outcome could dictate whether Pfizer or Moderna controls and profits more from a powerful and lucrative medical technology."
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended four elected members of the Broward County school board on Friday, following the recommendation of a grand jury impaneled to look into school safety and other issues after the mass school shooting in Parkland that left 17 people dead in 2018. In its report, which was released last week, the grand jury found that the four school board members -- and a fifth one who no longer holds that position -- had 'engaged in acts of incompetence and neglect of duty,' in part for what the grand jury described as mismanagement of an $800 million bond issue.... [Laurie Rich Levinson, one of those suspended,] said that all the suspended board members had won elections since the shooting. 'What country is this? Ms. Levinson, formerly the board chairwoman, said in an interview Friday. 'Governor DeSantis ... doesn't care about democracy and he overturned the will of the voters.' She added that Mr. DeSantis 'impaneled this grand jury under the guise of school safety as a pretext to remove school board members who did not fire the former superintendent.'" The board is nonpartisan, but all four suspended members are registered Democrats. A UPI story is here. ~~~
~~~ ** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dan Froomkin of Press Watch: "Mainstream-media journalists are completely unprepared to cover a presidential candidate who would use the power of the state against his political enemies, who stokes division with racist conspiracy theories, and who will do anything to entrench one-party control of the government. Yes, we've been through this before. But in 2016, the media at least had the excuse that it was new to them.... But here comes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.... And in some ways, he's much more dangerous to our democracy than Trump. He's an ideologue, not just a narcissist -- with a real track record of authoritarian governance. He isn't just tweeting idle threats, or enriching himself personally. He is already using his position of power to punish his enemies and reward his allies in furtherance of his political goals. His hyperbole and mendacity match and surpass Trump's. He doesn't just insult people who disagree with him, he accuses them of wanting to sexualize kindergartners.... Trump is a Trumpist. But DeSantis is a fascist."
GOP Fields Dangerous Candidates
Michigan. GOP to Nominate Fraudster/Conspiracy Theorist as State Attorney General. Alexandra Berson & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "Bolstered by his association with [Donald Trump, Matthew] DePerno [-- well-known to state legislators & judges as am 'absurd' conspiracy theorist ---is poised to be nominated as the G.O.P. candidate for attorney general, the top legal official in the state, at a state party convention on Saturday. He is among a coterie of election deniers running for offices that have significant authority over elections, worrying some election experts, Democrats and some Republicans across the country. This month, the Michigan attorney general's office released documents that suggest Mr. DePerno was a key orchestrator of a separate plot to gain improper access to voting machines in three other Michigan counties." The article delves into DePerno's extremely dodgy career, which includes a 2020 scam in which he collected more than $400,000 for himself from a site calling itself "The 2020 Election Fraud Defense Fund." MB: No wonder Donald Trump endorses him.
Pennsylvania Governors Race. Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, wore a Confederate uniform for a faculty photo at the Army War College that surfaced on Friday. The photo, from the 2013 to 2014 academic year, shows Mr. Mastriano wearing a gray military uniform, including a gray cap with yellow trim, and holding a Civil War-era firearm. It was first reported Friday evening by Reuters, which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request. Mr. Mastriano -- a retired Army colonel and now a state senator whose district includes Gettysburg, the site of the battle where the tide of the Civil War turned against the Confederacy -- is running for governor against the Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Saturday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Saturday are here: "Russia and Ukraine accused each other of fresh shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, just two days after the plant was cut off from Ukraine's electricity, causing a massive power outage and sparking international fears of a radiation disaster, before backup diesel generators kicked in. Inspectors from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog are expected to visit the plant next week.... Shelling at the plant may result in hydrogen leakage, sputtering of radioactive substances and fires, Ukraine's nuclear power agency warned in a statement, as it accused Russian troops of 'repeatedly' targeting the facility over the past day. Russia's attack and control of the plant was a threat to 'the security of the whole world,' it added. Russia's ministry of defense meanwhile said Ukraine had fired shells at the facility in the past 24 hours. Negotiations for a visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by U.N. inspectors are nearing completion, but the Kremlin is insisting on a Russian media presence for the visit, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Washington Post. At the United Nations, Russia blocked the final draft of a declaration on a joint treaty on nuclear security after weeks of negotiations."
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