Month: August 2022

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No, Trump didn’t committ actionable treason or espionage

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The headlines are damning: Trump had national security documents or classified documents or nuclear secret documents in his possession, a clear criminal violation. One former CIA head even put out a tweet effectively saying that Trump should be executed for treason. Everyone who believes Trump committed a criminal act is wrong. These claims completely misunderstand the nature of Trump’s (indeed of every president’s) plenary power and how it plays out with respect to documents and classified information.

The left is ecstatic. The Washington Post hollered, “Trump warrant papers list 11 sets of classified documents seized.” The Atlantic assured readers that “Not Even the President Can Declassify Nuclear Secrets: Fan letters and snapshots are one matter, and launch codes are another—and here the details of classification might decide just how much trouble Trump is in.”

Michael Hayden, who served in the Air Force, and then went on to a career as a high-level government functionary—former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency—approvingly retweeted “historian” Michael Beschloss’s explicit suggestion that Trump should be executed:

Sounds about right. https://t.co/hJCjxhN2BQ

— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) August 12, 2022

That tweet establishes that brains and an understanding of our constitutional system are not a prerequisite for being either a government hack or a leftist historian.

The Democrat line is clear: Trump had classified national security documents in his possession, which is a criminal act, so he needs to be prosecuted and, preferably, executed. In fact, it is impossible for a president to mismanage classified or national security documents. Indeed, even if Biden reclassified the information, Trump still did not commit a crime. Everything the Democrats believe is dead wrong.

Image: Moving Van (edited) by SGMCA. CC BY-SA 4.0; Donald Trump (edited) by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.

The President of the United States has plenary power over national security issues, including document classification. That means that, under the Constitution, as to national security, the president has complete and unlimited power. He is the king of the national security world, and no one can gainsay him, whether the bureaucrats who work for him, Congress, or the Supreme Court.

Democrats, however, are pushing back against this reality. The best example I’ve found comes from Graeme Wood, an African-American studies and philosophy major, who authored the above-mentioned Atlantic article (which is currently The Atlantic’s “most popular” article.

Wood reluctantly concedes some of the president’s unlimited power. He quotes J. William Leonard, former head of the Information Security Oversight Office, who said that “the rules and procedures governing the classification and declassification of information apply to everyone else [other than the president].” Wood continues, saying, “[The president] would not have had to file paperwork—just ‘utter the magic words,’ Leonard told me.” In other words, Wood acknowledges that Trump, while president, by packing up and taking documents with him automatically declassified them.

Wood accurately notes that Biden could have reclassified the documents. There’s no evidence, though, that he did so. In addition, even had Biden done so, that would not convert Trump into a criminal. The Constitution is extremely hostile to after-the-fact (i.e, ex post facto) criminalization of acts that were legal when taken. (Art 1, §§9 and 10.) Britain’s habit of doing that was one of the main reasons behind the American Revolution.

Wood’s core argument against Trump is that a president’s plenary power does not extend to nuclear secrets. The reason, Wood says, is that the Atomic Energy Acts of 1946 and 1954, produced a super-category of classification revolving are anything nuclear, one that overrides even the president. That’s untrue.

Congress cannot override the president’s plenary power. Presidents can voluntarily respect a national security law, but they do not have to abide by it. Again, plenary power means, as Wikipedia summarizes, “a power that has been granted to a body or person in absolute terms, with no review of or limitations upon the exercise of that power.”

Wood cites Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988) to argue that nuclear secrets override the president’s power. He contends that “The 1988 Supreme Court case Navy v. Egan confirmed that classification authority flows from the president except in specific instances separated from his powers by law.” Wrong again.

The Egan decision examines only whether a civil service board can review a “laborer’s” being denied national security clearance. In that context, the Supreme Court was clear about the president’s plenary power, unimpeded by congressional acts:

The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S.Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. See Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 367 U. S. 890 (1961).

In sum, the only proof you need that Trump declassified the documents is the fact that, when he was still president, Trump treated them as declassified. Biden cannot criminalize Trump’s actions by later re-classifying the documents (and there’s no evidence that he did). And of course, if there were nuclear codes, they are changed regularly and would certainly be changed from one administration to the next, meaning that any information Trump has is as useful as the cartoon in an old Bazooka bubble gum wrapper.

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NYPD reveals bicycle-riding gunman followed ‘Law & Order’ worker before killing him in Brooklyn

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The gunman who killed a security worker on the set of  “Law & Order: Organized Crime” in Brooklyn last month was riding a bike and followed him from one set locale to another before circling the block and shooting him, cops revealed Friday.

Surveillance video reviewed by cops shows the man on the bicycle follow Johnny Pizarro, 31, from a site at North 12th Street and Bedford Avenue near McCarren Park to 229 North Henry Street, where he was shot to death on July 19, Chief of Detectives James Essig said.

“He gets a call from his boss ‘Go down to the other park,’” Essig said of Pizarro. 

The video cops have shows the bike following Pizarro to the new spot on Henry Street near McGolrick Park and then “circling the block” a couple times.

“We see the bike at both locations,” Essig said. “We see him at the shooting location, circling him, ID’s him, specifically targets him, shoots him and kills him and then leaves.”

He followed him from one set locale to another before circling the block and shooting him.The gunman who killed a “Law & Order: Organized Crime” security worker was riding a bike and followed his victim, the NYPD said.G.N.Miller/NYPost

Cops believe that the drug was likely involved in the shooting.The NYPD suspects that Johnny Pizarro was selling “Cali” a designer marijuana strain, though it’s not clear if that played any role in the shooting.

Police have been collecting surveillance footage to figure out where it went “and then hopefully we get that shot,” Essig said of a photograph of the suspect.

“We are now tracking that bicycle,” Essig said. “We probably tracked it at least two miles now. We’re waiting for other evidence to come back to see who the victim was in touch with.”

Cops found 30 to 40 bags of “designer marijuana” in a cooler in the car where Pizarro was shot, Essig said. He had been parked on the side of the street providing set security.

A memorial for Pizarro was set up near the spot he was killed in Brooklyn.Cops are still tracking where the bicycle went after the rider killed Pizarro. Gabriella Bass

Pizarro was believed to be selling designer marijuana.Johnny Pizarro was shot to death on July 19, 2022.G.N.Miller/NYPost

Police still aren’t sure if the marijuana known as “Cali” played any role in the killing, but believe he was selling it, Essig said. 

“So we don’t know what the relationship from the marijuana was,” Essig said. “We know it’s not personal marijuana use. But we know he was tracked to that location from the other park.”

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FBI recovered ELEVEN sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago

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Published: 18:33 BST, 12 August 2022 | Updated: 01:38 BST, 13 August 2022

Donald Trump is under investigation for obstruction of justice and violating the Espionage Act, according to the newly unsealed search warrant showing the FBI retrieved 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. 

Meanwhile the former president insisted Friday that everything was ‘declassified’ and agents ‘didn’t need to seize anything.’

Some of the documents were marked ‘top secret’ and are meant to be kept in specialized government facilities, according to a copy of the warrant. 

The FBI would have needed to prove reasonable suspicion that Trump committed a crime in holding on to the documents – criminal statutes cited in the warrant include espionage, removal of records and obstruction of justice. 

Violations of the Espionage Act could include: harboring or concealing persons, gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, gathering or delivering defense information to aid a foreign government, or disclosure of classified information. 

The 11 sensitive items included miscellaneous documents labeled ‘secret,’ ‘top secret’ and ‘confidential.’  

Agents recovered 20 boxes in total from the Florida estate, with the rest including handwritten notes, photo binders, the grant of clemency of Roger Stone and a file with information on the President of France. 

DailyMail.com obtained a copy of the warrant and receipts before it was unsealed by a Florida magistrate judge Friday afternoon. 

The warrant gave FBI agents permission to search in Trump’s office and all storage areas on the premises, and states four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents were retrieved. 

Trump’s attorneys now also claim former President Trump declassified the documents before he left office. A president has the power to declassify any document, but there is a strict federal procedure for doing so. 

Trump has called for the release of the search warrant in the FBI raid on his Florida resort, following reports that the search was related to classified documents regarding nuclear weapons. He is pictured leaving Trump Tower on Wednesday morning 

In breaching the former president’s residency Monday, the FBI was looking for Top Secret and ‘compartmented’ documents dealing with intelligence ‘sources and methods,’ government sources told Newsweek on Friday. 

‘Compartmented’ documents would pertain to ‘classified information concerning or derived from intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes, which is required to be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence.’ 

Only a very small circle of people would be allowed to know what was on such documents, which could mean that a warrant or a receipt would not reveal much information about what was taken. 

Intelligence sources say that Trump would not have the capability to declassify such documents. 

Trump declared Friday afternoon that everything in his possession was declassified. He claimed agents could have had the documents ‘LONG ago’ if they had just asked.  

‘Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request,’ he wrote on Truth Social.

‘They could have had it anytime they wanted—and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK,’ he added. 

The former president took to Truth Social earlier to compare the latest allegations to ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’, impeachment and the Steele Dossier, and again suggested that law enforcement could have ‘planted’ evidence.

The search and seizure warrant, signed by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, allowed for a search of ‘the 45 office’ and ‘all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by [the former president] and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.’ 

The warrant was signed on Aug. 5, the raid conducted three days later on Aug. 8.

The warrant further reads that ‘property to be seized’ includes ‘All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime or other items illegally possessed in violation.’

‘Any physical documents with classification markings, along with any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are locations, as well as any other containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents and containers/boxes.’ 

Donald Trump claims it is a ‘hoax’ to suggest FBI agents were looking for documents related to nuclear weapons when they searched Mar-a-Lago on Monday

The warrant then broadly allows for the seizure of any official record from Trump’s presidency.  

It continues: ‘Information, including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material; Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017,’ the day Trump took office, and the end of his term.

Though the warrant has been released the government does not yet have plans to release the affidavit to the warrant, which could reveal much more information. 

Trump and his team say they do not have a copy of the affidavit and his lawyers have asked for a more detailed account of what was taken from Mar-a-Lago. 

A report from News Nation then claimed that agents discovered ‘boxes everywhere’, including some papers labeled top secrets, from two areas including a ‘storage room near a pool’ and his ‘personal office above a ballroom’. 

The report did not specify the ballroom or pool where the documents were found, but did state that some of the papers had Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information – the highest level of classification.

Trump’s post criticizing agents for banning his lawyers from watching the search came just hours after he said he backed a Florida judge unsealing the search warrant that led to the search on his estate on Monday.

A new report on Friday claimed some documents labeled top secret were found in a storage room near the Mar-a-Lago pool. There are two pools on the Florida estate, one near the main house and the other parallel to the ocean

The same report states that some boxes of documents were also found in an office above a ballroom. Pictured above is one of the ballrooms at Mar-a-Lago 

His lawyers have until 3pm on Friday to object to the release, but they are unlikely to object.

‘Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more,’ Trump wrote Friday morning. 

He added: ‘Same sleazy people involved. Why wouldn’t the FBI allow the inspection of areas at Mar-a-Lago with our lawyer’s, or others, present. Made them wait outside in the heat, wouldn’t let them get even close – said ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT.’ Planting information anyone? Reminds me of a Christofer (sic) Steele Dossier!

Trump also posted about the House vote on the Inflation Reduction Act – calling it ‘the biggest green new fake deal bill in history – and tore into Republican ‘impeachers’ and ‘Crazy’ Liz Cheney ahead of her Wyoming primary on Tuesday night.

The Friday morning statement on the raids was prompted by a Washington Post story published Thursday night that the search at his property was based on documents related to nuclear weapons.

Late on Thursday, Trump said he would not challenge the release of the warrant, after Attorney General Merrick Garland said he would petition for the document to be unsealed.

According to Garland, Trump’s attorneys do have their own copies of both the warrant and the receipt for items seized in Monday’s raid — documents that are routinely provided to the target of a court-approved search. 

Trump announced his stance in a post on his Truth Social network. ‘Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the un American, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents,’ he wrote.  

Trump added that he encouraged the warrant’s release even though it was ‘drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and vested interest in attacking me.’

The statement came well ahead of the 3pm Friday deadline that Trump’s legal team faced if they decided to oppose the DOJ motion to unseal the warrant, and a ruling on the motion could come before the weekend.

Earlier Thursday, Garland appeared before cameras to defend the search and reveal that he had approved the operation at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

Fall-out from the unprecedented search of a former president’s residence has dominated the political world ever since Monday and the Justice Department is under increasing pressure to explain its decision.

Garland said he could not reveal further details of what prompted the hunt, but sources told the Washington Post it was to do with nuclear weapons.

But they did not say whether it was to do with the U.S. nuclear program or that of another nation. 

Moments before Garland’s brief remarks the Justice Department petitioned a judge to unseal the search warrant. 

He said the DOJ moved to make the search warrant public ‘in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter.’

Garland took no questions but went out of his way to criticize the recent verbal attacks and threats against law enforcement in the wake of the ‘raid.’ 

‘Let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors. I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,’ the Biden official said.

‘Men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves.’

His last-minute appearance comes after the former president claimed his home was ‘raided’ by federal agents who apparently broke a padlocked door and seized documents sought by the National Archives.

According to AG Garland, Trump’s attorneys do have their own copies of both the warrant and the receipt for items seized in Monday’s raid

Late on Friday, Trump said he would not challenge the release of the warrant that the FBI used to search Mar-a-Lago

‘The department does not take such a decision lightly,’ Garland explained in an apparent bid to counter accusations of political persecution from Trump’s allies. 

‘Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.’

Trump was ordered to respond by 3pm on Friday to the DOJ’s motion to unseal the warrant. 

In his own Thursday statement after Garland’s appearance, Trump claimed his lawyers ‘were cooperating fully’ with the investigation and accused agents of ‘getting way ahead of themselves’ – but notably made no comment on what he’ll do about the warrant.

‘My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established. The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it,’ Trump posted on his app Truth Social.

‘They asked us to put an additional lock on a certain area – DONE! Everything was fine, better than that of most previous Presidents, and then, out of nowhere and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided, at 6:30 in the morning, by VERY large numbers of agents, and even ‘safecracker.’ They got way ahead of themselves. Crazy!’

Trump has been fuming since revealing news of the search on Monday night, when he said it meant ‘dark times for our nation.’ 

Garland said Thursday, ‘The department did not make any public statements on the day of the search. The former president publicly confirmed the search that evening, as is his right.’

The Justice Department has moved to unseal the search warrant used in the operation, though Trump has time to respond and potentially block its release. The above photo shows the two locations of the swimming pools on the property (center and top left by the beach)

Trump was not in Florida when the FBI conducted its search but rather in New York City

A day after the Mar-a-Lago ‘raid,’ FBI agents seized the cellphone of Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, one of Trump’s top allies in Congress who allegedly aided his efforts to try to steal the 2020 election.

But that seizure was related to another Justice Department investigation of the former president, regarding a ‘fake-electors scheme’ that he and his allies are accused of promoting to stay in power, according to the Washington Post.

The raid on Trump’s home comes months after the National Archives asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into the Republican’s handling of classified records.

The Department of Justice will speak through its court filings and its work. Just now, the Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court approved search that the FBI conducted earlier this week. 

That search was a premises located in Florida, belonging to the former president. The department did not make any public statements on the day of the search. The former president publicly confirmed the search that evening, as is his right. 

Copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the former president’s counsel, who was on site during the search. 

The search warrant was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. The property receipt is a document that federal law requires law enforcement agents to leave with the property owner. 

The Department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter.

Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing. 

All Americans are entitled to the even-handed application of the law, the due process of law, and to the presumption of innocence. Much of our work is, by necessity, conducted out of the public eye. We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations. 

Federal law, longstanding department rules, and our ethical obligations prevent me from providing further details as to the basis of the search at this time. There are however, certain points I want you to know. 

First, I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. Second, the department does not take such a decision lightly – where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and, to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. 

Third, let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors. I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. Men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. 

They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. I am honored to work alongside them. This is all I can say right now. More information will be made available in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time.

Officials from the Archives flew to Mar-a-Lago in January to retrieve 15 boxes of files that were meant to be handed over when Trump left office. Some have since been confirmed to have been labeled ‘classified.’

Garland’s Thursday appearance happened on the heels of a bombshell new CNN report that reveals federal authorities took documents from Mar-a-Lago in June and served a grand jury subpoena while on the grounds. 

But his days-long silence on the explosive raid has spurred fury among Republicans, some of whom are even calling for him to be impeached.

‘No one would have ever imagined before that we would be using or one political party would be using the FBI to attack their political opponents,’ Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told Fox News on Wednesday.

‘Now, this is really something that’s going to require an investigation. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation leads to abuse of power that this could even lead to an impeachment of the attorney general.’

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley tweeted that ‘Garland must resign or be impeached’ at the very least, and that FBI Director Chris Wray should be removed altogether. 

Monday’s raid was reportedly based on ‘witness claims’ of classified documents within Mar-a-Lago even despite the January collection and June DOJ visit, CNN reported on Thursday. 

Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida was raided by the FBI on Monday night, the former president revealed in a furious and lengthy statement.

The unannounced search was related to White House documents sought by the National Archives, his son Eric Trump told Fox News later that night.

Federal agents ‘ransacked’ his father’s office, he said, and in his own statement the former president accused them of breaking into his safe.

But Trump’s issues with the National Archives reportedly began before he even left office. 

Politico reported in 2018 that aides were forced to follow the then-president around to tape back documents that he had shredded – a habit the Republican was known for during his prior life heading the Trump Organization – in fear of running afoul of record-keeping laws.

And late last year, Trump attempted to slow the release of presidential documents from the National Archives to the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack.

It’s not clear what specifically is being investigated, but it’s worth noting there are laws on the books against tampering and destruction of classified presidential records. 

Below is a timeline piecing together reports of the former president’s legal battle with the Capitol riot committee over his documents, which appeared to run parallel to the National Archives’ own efforts to recover classified pages from Trump.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday afternoon that the two are not related. 

Trump sues January 6 committee to block National Archives records

In October 2021, the former president launched a lawsuit against the Democrat-led House panel and the National Archives to block the release of White House records linked to last year’s Capitol riot.

Trump’s lawyers called the probe a ‘fishing expedition’ in a 26-page lawsuit filed in mid-October.

The attorneys had also requested that the National Archives send Trump’s team any documents that could be relevant for review.

Trump lost the case along with two subsequent appeals later that year.

FBI agents with a search warrant raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida on Monday morning

The above timeline highlights just some of former president Donald Trump’s battles with the National Archives since leaving office, including an unrelated court fight with the January 6 committee

Supreme Court shuts down Trump’s bid to block documents, National Archives says it will turn them over 

The January 6 committee revealed on January 19 that it had begun receiving documents from the National Archives that Trump ‘had hoped to keep hidden.’

It happened the same day as the Supreme Court rejecting Trump’s last-ditch request to shield his records. 

Nine justices voted against the former president, including three who he appointed to the bench.

Only Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni is now being investigated by the committee over her efforts to push Trump’s election fraud claims, voted in Trump’s favor.

In addition to his own documents, the tranche also included records belonging to White House legal counsel, ex-adviser Stephen Miller and ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, The Guardian reported.

National Archives reveals some Trump records were ‘torn up’

The record-keeping body confirmed to the Washington Post on January 31 that the documents it handed to the January 6 committee ‘included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump.’

At this point the National Archives had reportedly handed more than 700 pages to the committee.

Anti-media and pro-Trump protesters stands across the waterfront from Mar A Lago. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after it was raided by FBI agents on Monday

Not all of them had been taped back together at the time of the committee’s receipt. 

‘These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump Administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House,’ the Archives reportedly said.

Trump’s 15 boxes of sensitive White House documents

The next month, the National Archives revealed that Trump had taken 15 boxes full of White House records to his Mar-a-Lago retreat after leaving Washington, DC the year before.

Officials from the Archives and the Records Administration had to retrieve the boxes this past January.

It was first reported by the Washington Post on February 7. 

Items that were improperly taken and had to be retrieved included what Trump called ‘love letters’ exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. 

A letter from then-outgoing President Barack Obama to Trump when he first took office was also among the trove.

National Archives asks Justice Department to probe Trump record-keeping

Two days after it was revealed that Trump took 15 boxes of White House documents to Mar-a-Lago, the National Archives stepped up its enforcement by asking the Justice Department to probe the ex-president’s handling of the sensitive pages.

The Archives asked President Joe Biden’s DOJ to investigate whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act, a source told CNN on February 9.

The Washington Post reported the next day that some of the files in the 15 boxes the Archives had retrieved were marked as ‘top secret’ – spurring security concerns.

The former president was at Trump Tower in New York City when his home was raided, his son Eric Trump told Fox News that night

Trump released a lengthy statement claiming he was ‘under siege’ and that federal agents broke into his safe

At the time, Trump’s spokesman Taylor Budowich said the records retrieving process was ‘normal and routine’ but was being ‘weaponized by anonymous, politically motivated government sources to peddle Fake News.’

Report details months-long effort to retrieve Trump documents

It follows a June visit by DOJ official Jay Bratt and two others to Mar-a-Lago to inquire about the documents

While the controversy between the former president and government record-keepers only gained steam earlier this year, a February 13 CNN report reveals that the National Archives knew as early as May 2021 that documents had been missing.

National Archives counsel Gary Stern reportedly first contacted an official in the White House who had been named the point-person for records-keeping matters.

Stern apparently reached out to one of Trump’s other lawyers after his efforts to get the records appeared to be slow-walked.

At the time of the February report, one person told CNN the matter had ‘not been fully resolved’ and the National Archives was still seeking more documents from Trump.

‘Former President Trump’s representatives have informed NARA that they are continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives,’ the Archives said in a statement.

Classified documents were among the 15 boxes Trump took, National Archives says

A week later, the National Archives confirmed an earlier Washington Post report that top secret documents were among the trove that Trump took to Mar-a-Lago with him.

The body said in a statement published on February 18 that it was ‘in communication’ with the DOJ on Trump-retrieved documents that were ‘marked as classified national security information.’

 In response to letters from the House Oversight Committee seeking more information on the matter, the Archives revealed the sensitive nature of the documents and added that social media and other online records from White House aides had not been properly stored.

The body said Trump aides had been warned about the matter previously.

DOJ summons grand jury in National Archives probe and grills Trump staffers

After months of silence, the Justice Department was revealed in May to be investigating whether Trump or others mishandled classified White House documents.

The DOJ convened a grand jury in the probe, the New York Times reported on May 12.

Prosecutors had subpoenaed the relevant documents from the National Archives, and CNN revealed they questioned Trump aides in April and May of this year.

Merrick Garland’s top officials sit down with Trump lawyers in Mar-a-Lago

Four top DOJ officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early June to speak with the former president’s attorneys about the documents, it was reported the day after the FBI raid.

In revealing the visit CNN noted how ‘rare’ in nature it was. 

The DOJ’s counterintelligence and export control section chief Jay Bratt was reportedly among the group who sat down with Trump’s lawyers.

Trump’s team had also shown the government officials where Trump were storing documents.

Investigators reportedly observed that some of the files there were marked as classified.

At one point the former president himself reportedly stopped in to say hello and ‘make small talk’ before leaving again.

Trump staffers padlock documents room in Mar-a-Lago

Days after the investigators’ visit, they reportedly sent a letter to Trump’s staff asking them to secure the room where they observed the documents being stored.

Aides padlocked the area, according to CNN.

Feds raid Mar-a-Lago on Monday morning

It was reported that the FBI’s operation at Mar-a-Lago occurred in the early hours of Monday morning.

The ex-president had been at Trump Tower in New York City at the time. His son Eric Trump told Fox he informed his father of the raid.

CNN reported that federal agents’ activity was exclusively kept to the portions of the club where Trump’s office and residence are.

The former president claimed he was a victim of political persecution in a statement that revealed the unannounced search to the public.

‘These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,’ Trump said through his Save America PAC.

‘I stood up to America ‘s bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped.’

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Trump suspected of violating Espionage Act, according to search warrant

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Federal law enforcement suspected former President Trump had violated the Espionage Act and other laws when it sought and obtained a search warrant for his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to court records unsealed Friday.

The unsealed warrant shows that investigators were authorized to seize any documents or records with classified markings or related to the “transmission of national defense information or classified material.”

The warrant also authorized the seizure of “any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records, or of any documents with classification markings.”

Investigators listed 33 items that they had seized from the property, including the executive order of clemency for longtime Trump ally Roger Stone and information regarding the “President of France.” The receipt also included entries such as “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents,” binders of photos and a handwritten note.

The inventory of documents seized during the search lays out 11 different sets of classified items seized during the search, including one set of documents as “various classified/TS/CSI documents,” meaning top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information. 

In other cases, authorities seized three items labeled confidential, three items rated secret and four top secret items. 

A spokesman for Trump, when asked for comment, pointed to a post from the former president on Truth Social, claiming that the records had been declassified.

“Number one, it was all declassified,” Trump wrote in the post. “Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request. They could have had it anytime they wanted—and that includes LONG ago.”

While the Justice Department had agreed to release the warrant itself and the receipt of the seized property, a law enforcement affidavit that typically accompanies warrant applications remains under seal. The affidavit likely contains information supporting investigators’ finding of probable cause to believe that there was evidence of criminal conduct in Mar-a-Lago.

The warrant lists three potential criminal violations that investigators suspected they would find evidence of in the search: concealment or removal of federal records, destruction or alteration of records in a federal investigation and transmitting defense information.

The most serious of the charges, the one involving destroying records in a federal investigation, carries a maximum possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Trump’s legal team filed a motion right at a federal judge’s 3 p.m. deadline indicating they would not oppose release of the warrant.

The release of the records comes after a week of growing demands for answers about the search of the former president’s Florida home. Under increasing pressure to provide some transparency and dispel various unfounded accusations from Trump and his allies, Attorney General Merrick Garland made his first public appearance since the search on Thursday, saying he personally made the decision to seek a warrant and that it was not done “lightly.”

On Thursday night, The Washington Post reported investigators had been concerned that Trump possessed highly sensitive documents containing information about nuclear weapons. It’s unclear if the FBI seized such records during its search and the documents unsealed Friday make no mention of nuclear weapons.

Prosecutors have brought charges under the Espionage Act in several high-profile cases in recent years, including against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and Edward Snowden, who has been living in Russia since shortly after he leaked a trove of information revealing National Security Agency surveillance programs in 2013.  

Chelsea Manning, a former Army soldier convicted of leaking a massive trove of government documents to WikiLeaks, was court-martialed under the law and sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013 before former President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.

The act was also used to prosecute Reality Winner, a defense contractor who was sentenced in 2018 to more than five years in prison for leaking information related to Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election. 

It remains unclear whether the Justice Department has seized evidence that would support charging Trump with any of the crimes, or if he faces an imminent threat of prosecution.  

The effort to obtain the remaining information stored at Mar-a-Lago follows a months-long effort by the Justice Department.

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Despite Trump’s claims that authorities could have had the documents “any time they wanted,” the extraordinary search of a former president’s home comes after authorities this spring subpoenaed various documents in Trump’s possession.

That move followed a January visit from authorities to Mar-a-Lago where they retrieved 15 different boxes of materials, including some that were labeled as classified.

—Updated at 5:17 p.m.

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WSJ News Exclusive | FBI Recovered Eleven Sets of Classified Documents in Trump Search, Inventory Shows

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FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France,” according to the three-page list. The list is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises which was granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.

Attorney General Merrick Garland in a briefing said the Department of Justice is asking a Florida judge to unseal the warrant FBI agents used to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

The list includes references to one set of documents marked as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. It also says agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents. The list didn’t provide any more details about the substance of the documents.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that the former president used his authority to declassify the material before he left office. While a president has the power to declassify documents, there are federal regulations that lay out a process for doing so.

Former President Donald Trump said FBI agents “raided” his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday and broke into a safe. The search was part of an investigation into his handling of classified information, said people familiar with the matter. Photo: Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/Shutterstock

“The Biden administration is in obvious damage control after their botched raid where they seized the President’s picture books, a ‘hand written note,’ and declassified documents,” said Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich. “This raid of President Trump’s home was not just unprecedented, but unnecessary.”

The search and seizure warrant, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, shows that FBI agents sought to search “the 45 Office,” as well as “all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by [the former president] and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.”

They didn’t seek access to search private guest rooms, such as those of Mar-a-Lago members, according to the document.

Photo: Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press

The former president and his team don’t have the affidavit, which would provide more detail about the FBI’s investigation, according to people familiar with the process. An affidavit would explain what evidence, including witnesses, the government had collected and describe why investigators believe that a crime may have been committed. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have asked for a more specific account of what was removed from Mar-a-Lago.

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The disclosure of the warrant and the inventory marks the culmination of an extraordinary week, which began last Friday at 12:12 p.m., when the judge signed off on the unprecedented warrant to search a former president’s home. Three days later, at 6:19 p.m., a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christina Bobb, signed a receipt for the items the FBI took that day.

To the Justice Department, the search was the result of a monthslong effort to get the classified documents remaining in Mr. Trump’s possession after at least two prior attempts. They were at first primarily interested in securing the documents, but pursued a criminal investigation as they began to doubt that Mr. Trump’s team was being forthright about the documents still in their possession, people familiar with the matter said.

To Mr. Trump’s allies, the search was a heavy-handed approach to obtaining documents they say Mr. Trump was willing to return and was in the process of negotiating the return. Mr. Trump, in a post on his social-media platform Thursday, said his representatives had been “cooperating fully” and added, “The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it.”

It is unclear how the investigation may progress and whether prosecutors are considering bringing any charges against Mr. Trump or others in connection with the investigation now that the documents have been recovered.

The warrant said investigators were seeking all records that could be evidence of violations of laws governing the gathering, transmitting or losing of classified information; the removal of official government records; and the destruction of records in a federal investigation.

The U.S. government has three main levels of classification. In ascending order, the levels are confidential, secret and top secret. They are designed to reflect how sensitive a document’s underlying contents are considered, meaning that a breach of a higher classification level could potentially cause more damage to national security.

SCI documents are typically reserved for military, civilians with special clearance, and contractor personnel who work in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, including those who are responsible for the security of a SCIF.

As the investigation progressed, someone familiar with the stored papers told investigators there may still be more sensitive documents on the premises beyond what they had already received in January and June, people familiar with the matter have said.

It is not known when the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago arrived there, during Mr. Trump’s presidency or as he left office.

Mr. Stone did not immediately respond for comment.

Mr. Trump, while in office, would regularly feud publicly with French President Emmanuel Macron over Twitter about various policy disagreements, particularly trade and Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement. Privately, Mr. Trump used to tell aides that he believed Mr. Macron to be a “leaker” and untrustworthy, according to several former officials. The French embassy did not immediately respond for comment.

—Vivian Salama and Dustin Volz contributed to this article.

Write to Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com, Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com

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FBI reportedly found top secret documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort – live

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The Washington Post broke the story last night that documents pertaining to nuclear weapons were among those the FBI investigators looked for at Mar-a-Lago.

Investigators arrived at the property on Monday after months of investigation into whether the former president unlawfully took papers from the White House, which he departed in January 2021. According to the Post, among the documents the FBI found were signals intelligence, which are intercepted phone or email communications that are among the most sensitive type of classified material.

The Post had few other details about the Mar-a-Lago search, but we may find out more this afternoon. Lawyer for the former president have until 3 pm eastern time today to tell a court whether he objects to unsealing the warrant allowing the search, which Trump said last night he would not do. It’s unclear when the document would then be released, but it may offer more insight into what the FBI expected to find at his Florida club.

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Donald Trump has put out yet another statement about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.

“Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything”, it begins, in apparent reference to reports that classified and top secret documents were found among his possessions.

The statement continues:

They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request. 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?

Yesterday, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer asked voters to keep his party in control of the upper chamber of Congress next year, and in return, they’ll pass bills to lower costs for elder and child care.

Those were priorities of party leaders and president Joe Biden, but they couldn’t find the support in Congress to enact them. Today, a House Democrat made a similar, although perhaps more controversial, plea. According to Bloomberg News, Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, would resurrect the party’s attempts to raise taxes on businesses and individuals:

TAXES: @RepRichardNeal says if Dems keep the House will look to raise corp and individual tax rates next year

— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) August 12, 2022

The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly pounced on his comments:

Vote. Them. Out. https://t.co/NxQ16UzEfw

— NRCC (@NRCC) August 12, 2022

Slate writer Jordan Weissman highlighted the opposition such proposals might get from other Democrats, such as Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema, who resisted several tax proposals over the past year. He tweeted the well-known moment when she nixed raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour with a thumbs down.

Back in the House of Representatives, Democrats are likely hours away from passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which would be a major win for the Biden administration.

They have a slim but workable majority in the chamber, and their members are believed to be ready to approve the bill. That doesn’t mean Republicans aren’t objecting vociferously to it. Indeed, rightwing congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado got her microphone turned off as she railed against the legislation, which is intended to lower health care costs and help cut into America’s carbon emissions:

Federal investigators found sensitive government documents in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club during their search there earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reports, including some marked top secret.

The article based on the search warrant obtained by the FBI and a list of property seized appears to confirm that the former president possessed documents in his private residence that normally require special handling and a formal government process before they can be declassified.

The FBI took about 20 boxes of items during the search on Monday, according to the Journal, including documents that were marked as top secret, secret and classified. They also found information about the “President of France” and Trump’s grant of clemency for Roger Stone, one of his allies.

Attorney general Merrick Garland said yesterday the justice department would move to release the documents allowing the search, which Trump’s attorneys must respond to by 3pm eastern time today. Trump has said he does not plan to object to the department’s motion.

Washington awaits more details on the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, while Democrats in the House of Representatives are on the verge of passing Joe Biden’s landmark climate change and healthcare plan. Meanwhile, author Salman Rushdie was attacked in upstate New York, and his condition at this time is unknown.

Here is a rundown of what has happened so far today:

  • House Republicans showed no signs of backing down in their support of Trump, holding a press conference where they accused the Biden administration of politicizing the FBI.

  • Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi meanwhile accused Republicans of “instigating assaults on law enforcement”.

  • China’s president Xi Jinping is considering a face-to-face visit with Biden amid soaring tensions over Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal reports.

  • Biden is potentially considering an early announcement of his 2024 re-election campaign to build on recent positive developments in his presidency, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, there are more signs that his approval rating is on the upswing.

China’s president Xi Jinping is making plans to potentially meet with Joe Biden in November, in what would be the first face-to-face encounter between the leaders since Biden took office last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Tensions between the United States and China have risen since House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan earlier this month, sparking the ire of Beijing, which considers the island a breakaway province.

While Biden has traveled regularly since taking office, Xi has not left China since January 2020 after the country adopted some of the strictest measures of any major economy to stop the spread of Covid-19. According to the Journal, his meeting with Biden could take either in Bangkok, Thailand or the Indonesian island of Bali, likely on the sidelines of one of two major summits being held in those locations. The White House declined to comment, according to the report, but an official said the two leaders did discuss an in-person meeting during a recent phone call.

Author Salman Rushdie has been attacked at an event in upstate New York, the Associated Press reports. Rushdie has been the subject of death threats from Iran since the 1980s.

The Guardian has started a live blog covering the attack, which you can read below.

Further evidence that things are looking up for Democrats: Joe Biden’s approval rating is above 40 percent for the first time since early June, per RealClearPolitics’ polling average:

Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned attacks by Donald Trump and other Republicans on the FBI following their search this week of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Speaking at a press conference before she was to preside over the House’s vote on her party’s landmark climate legislation, Pelosi reacted to the Thursday attack on an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio by a man who may have been present at the January 6 insurrection.

“You would think there would be an adult in the Republican room that would say just calm down, see what the facts are and let’s go for that instead of again instigating assaults on law enforcement,” Pelosi said.

Donald Trump is known to be mulling whether to announce another campaign for president at an early date, potentially before the November midterm election. Now, Reuters reports that Joe Biden’s advisers are also pushing him to make an early announcement that he’ll stand for office again in 2024.

According to the report, the rationale is that an earlier-than-usual announcement would allow Biden to build on what his advisers see as an increasingly favorable electoral landscape, with voters revolting against the supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade and Democrats in Congress having passed several notable pieces of legislation in recent weeks.

It would also quell speculation that Biden, whose approval ratings have plunged over the past year, won’t stand for re-election. A Biden announcement would however most likely come after the midterms, while Trump, in contrast, is weighing whether announcing his own bid before voters even go to the polls.

Here’s more from Reuters:

People involved in planning the president’s campaign told Reuters that an early announcement would be a smart step for Biden, sending a signal to political donors, potential rivals inside and outside the party, as well as the general public that Biden is no lame duck and that Democrats are unified behind his agenda, personality and leadership.

“The Republican campaign for president begins after the midterms and the president needs to make the announcement during the same time to satisfy concerns within the party,” one top Democratic official said.

The move also would outfit a vast and much-better-funded campaign operation designed to sell Biden’s agenda to the country than the White House alone could muster as their efforts to sell their legislative accomplishments over two years wilted under red-hot inflation and bitter partisanship.

Biden is having meetings with his political advisers, a source familiar with the president’s thinking said, and in those meetings he keeps stressing that the attention right now needs to be on the midterms, rather than the timing of any presidential campaign.

“There is no planned date or timeframe. As the president has said before, he fully expects to run for reelection,” that source said.

The White House and the Democratic National Committee declined to comment.

The Inflation Reduction Act is the Biden administration’s marquee plan to lower health care costs and fight climate change, but as Michael Sainato reports, it won’t tackle the high price of insulin in the United States – thanks to Republicans:

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Erin Connelly had to ration insulin while transitioning to a different health insurance plan. When Connelly heard the Biden administration was planning to cap the price of the life-saving drug, she was delighted. She was soon to be disappointed.

The prices of insulin has soared in the US in recent decades and is more than eight times higher in the US than in 32 comparable, high-income nations, according to a Rand Corporation study.

With an average list price of $98.70 per unit in the US, compared with $7.52 in the UK, US insulin sales account for nearly half the pharmaceutical industry’s insulin revenue, though the US makes up only about 15% of the global market.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have just offered some of the party’s first comments since last night’s report that Trump may have kept documents with details of nuclear weapons at Mar-a-Lago.

From the sounds of it, The Washington Post’s story hasn’t changed their view of the former president.

“President Donald Trump is Joe Biden’s most likeliest his political opponent in 2024 and this is less than 100 days from critical midterm elections. The FBI raid of President Trump is a complete abuse and overreach of its authority,” Elise Stefanik, the number-three House Republican, said at a press conference.

She and other lawmakers invoked old controversies such as the Hillary Clinton email scandal and Trump’s firing of FBI chief James Comey, as well as more recent matters such as Hunter Biden’s business dealings, to make the case that the bureau has a credibility issue.

“The American people are smart, and they have had enough. It is unfortunately why there is a fundamental lack of trust in these agencies, and the American people deserve answers,” Stefanik said. “A House Republican majority will leave no stone unturned when it comes to transparency and accountability into the brazen politicization of Joe Biden’s DOJ and FBI targeting their political opponents.”

As to the report regarding documents on nuclear weapons being found at Mar-a-Lago, Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, called on attorney general Merrick Garland to make public the rationale for the raid.

“I’m asking the same questions you are and if there are rational answers for it, then he needs to come to this committee, disclose what the classified information is, disclose what the national security threat is, so that we know,” Turner said.

“Release the documents now!”

That’s the closing line of Donald Trump’s statement released last night, in which he said his lawyers won’t oppose the justice department’s move to unseal the warrant and property receipt allowing the FBI to search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this week.

That would appear to clear the way for it to be made public via the courts, but bear in mind that Trump could just release the documents himself. Attorney general Merrick Garland said yesterday copies of both were left with his attorney by the federal agents who came to Mar-a-Lago.

Here’s the full statement:

Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years. My poll numbers are the strongest they have ever been, fundraising by the Republican Party is breaking all records, and midterm elections are fast approaching. This unprecedented political weaponization of law enforcement is inappropriate and highly unethical. The world is watching as our Country is being brought to a new low, not only on our border, crime, economy, energy, national security, and so much more, but also with respect to our sacred elections!

Release the documents now!

In another Trump-related affair, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on the latest development in the furor surrounding the Secret Service’s deletion of text messages around the time of the January 6 insurrection.

Top career officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) office of the inspector general (OIG) tried to alert Congress in April that Secret Service texts from the time of the January 6 Capitol attack had been erased, but their efforts were nixed by its leadership, documents show.

The officials inside the inspector general’s office – the chief watchdog for the Secret Service – prepared a memo that detailed how the Secret Service was resisting the oversight body’s review into January 6, and delayed informing it about the lost texts.

But after the memo was emailed to the DHS inspector general Joseph Cuffari’s chief of staff, its contents were never seen again, and the disclosure about the erased text messages was never included in Cuffari’s semi-annual report to Congress about oversight work.

Oliver Milman

Oliver Milman

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian’s Oliver Milman, former vice president Al Gore explains the historic nature of Democrats’ plan to fight climate change:
America’s passing of its first ever climate legislation will prove a pivotal moment in history that will help bring to an end the era of fossil fuels, according to Al Gore, the former US vice-president.

Joe Biden is poised to sign a huge $370bn package of clean energy spending, overcoming decades of American political rancor and inaction on the climate crisis. Gore said he was now sure the fossil fuel industry and its political backers will not be able to reverse the shift to a decarbonized world, even if Republicans are able to wrest back control of Congress or the White House.

“In crossing this threshold we have changed history and will never go backwards,” Gore told the Guardian in an interview. “I’m extremely optimistic that this will be a critical turning point in our struggle to confront the climate crisis.”

The Washington Post broke the story last night that documents pertaining to nuclear weapons were among those the FBI investigators looked for at Mar-a-Lago.

Investigators arrived at the property on Monday after months of investigation into whether the former president unlawfully took papers from the White House, which he departed in January 2021. According to the Post, among the documents the FBI found were signals intelligence, which are intercepted phone or email communications that are among the most sensitive type of classified material.

The Post had few other details about the Mar-a-Lago search, but we may find out more this afternoon. Lawyer for the former president have until 3 pm eastern time today to tell a court whether he objects to unsealing the warrant allowing the search, which Trump said last night he would not do. It’s unclear when the document would then be released, but it may offer more insight into what the FBI expected to find at his Florida club.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today, the House of Representatives is expected to approve Democrats’ plan to fight the climate crisis and lower healthcare costs, handing Joe Biden’s administration a historic victory. They do this as the actions of a certain former White House occupant hang over lawmakers, namely Donald Trump. It turns out that federal investigators were looking for documents pertaining to nuclear weapons when they searched his Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Here’s a rundown of what to expect today:

  • Trump said he would not oppose the justice department’s effort to release the warrant and property inventory from the Mar-a-Lago search, though it’s unclear when the documents would actually be made public.

  • The House will convene at 9am ET to consider the Inflation Reduction Act, and is expected to cast its final votes at around 3.30pm.

  • Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, holds a press conference at 9:30 am eastern time, providing a glimpse into how the GOP views the latest developments around the former president.

  • John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat, will return to the campaign trail for the first time since suffering a stroke.

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Report that FBI sought nuclear documents sharpens Trump showdown with Justice Department

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(CNN)A report that FBI agents searched for classified documents related to nuclear weapons at Donald Trump’s Florida resort could explain the urgency of the unprecedented operation at the home of an ex-President and takes his showdown with the Justice Department to a grave new level.

The account in The Washington Post could also undercut Republican lawmakers, who didn’t wait for details of the case before criticizing a search they claimed was more typical of a tyrannical state. The latest development also further ups the stakes of an escalating legal battle after Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday called the former commander-in-chief’s bluff and, in an unusual move, asked a court to unseal the search warrant and inventory of property taken from Trump’s home.

The details in the Post report came on yet another extraordinary day that reprised the chaos and recriminations of Trump’s presidency, and carved acrimonious new political divides ahead of the former President’s likely run for the White House.

The Post cited people familiar with the investigation as saying that federal agents were looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons, among other items, at Trump’s resort. The people did not describe the documents in detail nor whether they related to nuclear arms belonging to the US or another nation. CNN has not independently confirmed the report.

But if it turns out that Trump did take such material from the White House, it would raise the question of why a former president would need such closely guarded secrets after leaving office. The possibility that such material would be held at an unsecured facility, where guests come and go and where it would be potentially vulnerable to penetration by a foreign intelligence service, would alarm government officials.

In the intensifying legal battle over the search, Trump has until 3 p.m. ET on Friday to officially signal whether he will contest Garland’s move.

In a statement on his Truth Social network late Thursday, the former President said he would not oppose the release of documents related to the “unAmerican, unwarranted and unnecessary raid and break-in” of his home. He did not say exactly which documents he would be ready to see released. And the FBI search was not a break-in; it was legally authorized by a warrant approved by a judge who would have had to have found probable cause that a crime had been committed.

Garland’s gambit was a neat one.

Search warrants are generally kept under seal to protect the reputation of the person they apply to. But Trump himself broke news of the search, thereby shattering his own expectations of privacy, in order to orchestrate a political firestorm to discredit the investigation. And if Trump fought to keep the document sealed, he would look even more like he has something to hide.

“This is a pro move,” Phil Mudd, a former FBI and CIA official, said of Garland’s actions on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

“This is not the movement of a pawn. This is a movement of something between a rook and a queen.”

If Trump decided to contest the unsealing of the warrant — a step that could neutralize GOP claims that the ex-President is a target of political victimization — his lawyers would have to explain why in court. The judge in the case, who has received death threats and abuse on social media from Trump supporters, could still decide to support the Justice Department’s motion, even if the former President wants to keep the information secret.

“This is what it looks like when you see the rule of law fighting back against Trump’s lies,” Nick Akerman, a former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“I think it is extremely unlikely that Donald Trump is going to prevail here.”

Garland’s play is a clear attempt to push back on the fury from Republican officials over the unprecedented search warrant at the former President’s home. Lawmakers, media pundits and Trump supporters have unleashed unhinged claims that the US is now nothing more than a police state, with a Gestapo-like secret police, and has descended into tyranny.

In deciding to come before the cameras at the Justice Department, Garland did not just call Trump’s bluff and bow to pressure from Republican leaders who have demanded to know the justification for the search. He sought to protect his department and the judicial process as he insisted every step in the probe was taken with deliberation. His short appearance, in which he did not take questions, was scripted to rebut specific criticisms and the out-of-control conspiracy theories on the right.

“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy,” Garland said.

“Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor,” he said, implying that not even ex-presidents are shielded if there are suspicions that they have committed a crime. Garland also spoke out forcibly in defense of the FBI and Justice Department rank-and-file, calling them “dedicated, patriotic public servants,” as Trump’s lackeys portray the bureau as a politicized arm of Democratic chicanery.

The attorney general’s remarks, a dramatic Washington moment, were a sign of the extraordinary sensitivity and significance of the investigation into the former President. Generally, the FBI says little about ongoing probes unless someone is charged — a step that, if it happens, seems some ways away in this case.

An unsealed search warrant will not comprehensively establish whether the department’s move against Trump was justified or was an overreach. But Garland’s initiative does suggest firm confidence in any case the bureau is building against Trump. It also shows that the department, right from the top, stands behind the decision to press ahead with a search — in the obvious knowledge that it would trigger an extraordinary and vehement backlash from Trump.

The idea that the entire affair is just some politically motivated plot hatched by legal hacks — the essential Trump case against it — is much harder to believe after Garland’s appearance.

Trump’s decision

Trump’s lawyers have not yet responded to the DOJ’s motion.

The former President appears to have three options. He could release the search warrant and inventory of items that the FBI removed from his resort; he could accede to the department’s request that it is opened by the court; or he could oppose the release of the warrant to the public.

In a logical universe, the latter option would seem unlikely since the ex-President busted his own privacy by breaking news of the FBI search in a politicized screed on Monday night. And the Justice Department is essentially arguing in its filing to the court that the public’s interest in knowing what really led to the search is now greater than Trump’s interest in keeping the details under wraps. The public interest is arguably even greater in light of the Post’s reporting about nuclear documentation.

“For him to come back now and say, ‘I don’t want this’ would be very odd and bizarre,” said Jared Carter, a professor at Vermont Law School.

But Trump doesn’t play by normal rules. Given his lifelong record of exhausting every legal option to thwart accountability and the incapacity of judicial and political institutions to constrain him, a counter-intuitive legal strategy cannot be ruled out.

Whether the ex-President follows through with his pledge not to oppose the release of documents in the case is likely to become clearer on Friday.

Republicans shift the goalposts

The reporting about the FBI seeking nuclear documentation at Mar-a-Lago raises new questions for Republicans who have been attacking the bureau and the Justice Department over the search without any apparent knowledge of what it was about. In perhaps a telling sign of how Thursday night’s developments have scrambled the messaging of Trump’s usual defenders, the conservative House Freedom Caucus scuttled a planned news conference on the Mar-a-Lago search hours after the Post report on the nuclear documents was released.

Garland’s move earlier Thursday should have defused demands from Republicans for him to speak publicly about the search and to publish the warrant. But as soon as the attorney general stopped talking, key Republicans demanded more.

“What I am looking for is the predicate for the search,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement.

“Was the information provided to the judge sufficient and necessary to authorize a raid on the former president’s home within ninety days of the midterm election? I am urging, actually insisting, the DOJ and the FBI lay their cards on the table as to why this course of action was necessary,” the South Carolina Trump ally added.

While Garland asked for the unsealing of the search warrant, which could come with an inventory of documents taken from Trump’s residence, he did not ask for the unsealing of affidavits meant to show probable cause that a crime had been committed in support of the warrant application. So Graham made his appeal in the knowledge that he is asking for a step that would infringe longstanding Justice Department guidelines — and could undermine any criminal case that the FBI may eventually level against the former President.

Trump himself responded to Garland’s on-camera appearance with one of his characteristic “Witch Hunt” posts on his Truth Social media network.

It is impossible to verify statements from an ex-President who lied as a matter of course while in office. But several of Trump’s previous claims that he was suddenly targeted in a “raid” and a “siege” by FBI agents out of the blue were undermined by Thursday’s developments. CNN’s Evan Perez, Gabby Orr and Pamela Brown, for instance, reported that federal investigators served an earlier grand jury subpoena and took away documents from Mar-a-Lago in June. This seems to indicate that Monday’s search was a last resort and supports Garland’s contention that the FBI took steps to ensure the search caused as little disruption as possible.

But the attorney general is also trying a strategy that has perpetually failed with Trump — wielding facts and legal norms to shatter his wall of lies and falsehoods.

Some Trump allies have already floated another conspiracy theory — that the FBI planted documents in the ex-President’s residence.

Nearly two years after Trump lost the last election, the nation faces yet another exhausting challenge to the rule of law from the twice-impeached ex-President.

Facts and truth are once again the first casualties.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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Trump, Mar-a-Lago and Merrick Garland — five key questions answered

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There’s been a new and dramatic twist in the saga of former President Trump, Mar-a-Lago and the FBI. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday afternoon that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking to unseal two key documents: the search warrant that authorized agents to raid Trump’s Florida estate on Monday, and the inventory of what they found. 

Soon after Garland’s announcement, a judge set a 3 p.m. Friday deadline for a decision on whether the former president would oppose the request or accede to it. 

Here are five key questions — and their answers. 

What was sought and what was found? 

We don’t know but we soon might. 

The search was reportedly undertaken on the suspicion that Trump had classified material at Mar-a-Lago. But not even that has been officially confirmed — yet. 

This will change if Garland’s request to unseal documents is fulfilled.  

The list of material that agents took away from the property will be fascinating. It also seems likely to show, at least by implication, what kind of case the DOJ is looking at bringing against Trump. 

The dispute apparently has its genesis in efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to retrieve material that it believed Trump had wrongly taken with him at the end of his presidency.  

Earlier this year, the NARA said that it had found classified information among 15 boxes of material that it eventually got from Mar-a-Lago, and alerted the DOJ. 

One key element that remains unanswered is the nature and sensitivity of the material that was seized on Monday. 

If it turns out that seemingly innocuous documents have fallen prey to the government’s tendency toward overclassification, Garland and the DOJ will face even louder complaints about overreach. 

But it’s precisely because of that danger that many people assume there must be something more vital within the material.  

The unsealing of the documents seems designed, at least in part, to take the wind out of the sails of some of the wilder conspiracy theories doing the rounds. 

Can Biden maintain his silence? 

So far, yes. 

The president and his aides have been at pains to assert a wall of separation between the DOJ investigation and the White House. 

Officials told reporters on Thursday that they had not been informed in advance of Garland’s plans for a news conference. 

That is consistent with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s comments on Tuesday that the White House had learned about the search of Mar-a-Lago from news reports, “just like the American public did.” 

On that occasion, Jean-Pierre emphasized that Biden had always believed that “the Justice Department conducts its investigations independently.”  

Beyond the ethical questions, Biden has nothing to gain from commenting publicly on the legal developments.  

Any comment he could make would be parsed for signs that he was putting a thumb on the scales against Trump, suggesting the DOJ pursue a particular action, or both. 

All that being said, the president has a well-documented tendency to wander off-script, and it is 100 percent certain he will be asked about the latest developments as soon as reporters get the chance. 

Does the whole episode complicate life for Trump’s GOP rivals? 

Yes, unquestionably. 

One of the most striking developments right after Monday’s raid was the procession of potential challengers for the 2024 GOP nomination lining up behind Trump. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and former Vice President Mike Pence were among those who were critical of the law enforcement action, and implied or stated that the former president had been wronged. 

In one sense, they had little choice. The FBI raid has enraged huge swaths of Trump’s MAGA base and inflamed the talking heads of conservative media. Any failure to demonstrate support for the former president would have been duly noted. 

But these dynamics also copper-fasten Trump’s primacy within the GOP — even as he is in legal peril on several other fronts. Moreover, his would-be rivals have nailed their colors to his mast without knowing the strength or weakness of the evidence against him. 

There have been some dissenting voices. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), a onetime prosecutor, told SiriusXM the search of a safe at Mar-a-Lago was “fair game.”  

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) waited longer than many others in his party to make any public comment, and settled on insisting that the nation “deserves a thorough and immediate explanation” of what happened on Monday. 

Garland appears to be in the process of providing one. 

What does it all mean for Democrats? 

It’s too early to tell. 

A former president who might yet be the GOP nominee for a third time is in legal peril. On its face, that can’t be bad for Democrats. 

The potential problem is twofold.  

First, the raid appears to have fired up Trump’s supporters to an even higher pitch than normal. Whether the intensification of MAGA passions lasts, and whether it has any effect headed into November’s midterms, are impossible questions to answer at this point. 

One odd downside for Democrats is that they were enjoying their best stretch in months, and now they’ve lost the spotlight.  

Several key pieces of legislation have been passed or, in the case of the Inflation Reduction Act, are on the cusp of passing. U.S. forces killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. There are even some signs that inflation could be leveling off. 

Now, it’s all Trump all the time — again. 

Will the story fade? 

Not anytime soon. 

Garland’s Thursday move gave new life to a story that has dominated the week. The pressing Friday deadline for Trump’s legal team to decide their response ensures another cliffhanger. 

Trump calls for ‘immediate release’ of Mar-a-Lago search warrant, says lawyers won’t oppose DOJ move DOJ asks court to unseal Trump search warrant

Meanwhile, the story has so many intriguing unknowns that it won’t go away fast. The traditional media and the partisans of social media are spoiled for choice as to which loose thread they might pull on. 

In the medium term, the Mar-a-Lago drama also replenishes public interest in the other legal challenges Trump faces, from New York to Washington to Georgia. 

It’s a story that could run and run.

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Путин послал Медведева в Украину, и тот приехал

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Пушилин і Медведев смотрят друг на друга, фото с телеграм-канала последнего

Бывший президент России и нынешний зампредседателя Совета безопасности РФ Дмитрий Медведев посетил оккупированную часть Луганской области, где провел совещание по безопасности.

Источник: Медведев в Telegram

Прямая речь: “В четверг посетил “Луганскую народную республику”, где встретился с главами “ЛНР” Леонидом Пасечником и “ДНР” Денисом Пушилиным”.

Детали: По словам Медведева, он по поручению Путина провел совещание по безопасности на оккупированных Россией территориях востока Украины.

 

Медведев сообщил, что в совещании также приняли участие генеральный прокурор РФ Игорь Краснов, первый заместитель руководителя Администрации президента РФ Сергей Кириенко, глава МВД Владимир Колокольцев, глава Минстроя Ирек Файзуллин, директор ФСБ Александр Бортников, глава Следственного комитета Александр Бастрыкин.

Кроме того, рассказал Медведев, “особое внимание” на заседании уделили “гармонизации законодательств “ЛНР” и “ДНР” с законодательством РФ”.

 

Что предшествовало: В середине июня Медведев как-то размечтался, что Украины через два года уже не будет.

Темы: МедведевДонбассПутин

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Путин вызвал высших чиновников на Совбез после взрывов в Крыму | Капитал страны

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Президент РФ Владимир Путин провел совещание Совета безопасности после серии взрывов на главном аэродроме в Крыму. Он вызвал 12 высших чиновников и заслушал доклад министра обороны Сергея Шойгу.

Об этом сообщил Кремль. «У нас сегодня в повестке дня вопросы обеспечения безопасности в прямом смысле этого слова, на военном направлении», – заявил Путин. Участие в совещании приняли руководители Минобороны, МВД, ФСБ, СВР, главы Госдумы и Совфеда, глава МИД Сергей Лавров, бывший премьер Дмитрий Медведев и секретарь Совбеза Николай Патрушев.

Основным докладчиком Путин назначил Шойгу. Содержание его доклада не разглашается. Согласно версии Минобороны, взрывы на аэродроме Саки стали результатом нарушения мер противопожарной безопасности.

В результате взрывов на аэродроме под Саками повреждения получили более 60 многоквартирных домов, сообщил глава Крыма Сергей Аксенов. По его словам, по последним данным, из-за взрывов пострадали 14 человек, один остается в больнице. Кроме того, ранее власти Крыма сообщали об одном погибшем.

Украина официально не взяла на себя ответственность за удар, но неофициально распространила версии о диверсии партизан и работе спецназа. «Это [отвлечение внимания на оборону тыла] потенциально должно сократить количество российских сил на линии фронта», – заявил Бен Барри из британского Международного института стратегических исследований. Также западные эксперты считают, что у Украины могли появиться новые наступательные возможности.

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