On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that “close associates” of Donald Trump count on the Justice Department’s Jack Smith–led investigation into his handling of classified documents to outcome in an indictment—which, for these of you maintaining up at dwelling, would make him the very first president in US history to be indicted twice. (To be clear, he’s also the very first president in US history to be indicted as soon as.) And according to a new report, Trump’s personal legal group is creating just the identical prediction.
According to Rolling Stone, a number of attorneys representing Trump—as effectively as political advisers—have “bluntly informed him that they count on the Justice Division to charge him in the criminal investigation into his hoarding of extremely classified documents following the finish of his presidency,” according to two men and women familiar with the matter. Although reportedly insisting to the former guy that they think the probe is “bullshit,” these men and women have nonetheless apparently told him that “they would be shocked at this point if he wasn’t charged—particularly for alleged obstruction of justice—and have urged Trump to prepare for yet another historic fight.” As one particular of the sources place it to the outlet: “Looks like they’re going for it. Men and women close to the [former] president have discussed with him what we feel is going to occur quickly, and how he and absolutely everyone else desires to be prepared for it…it would be crazy not to.”
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Not surprisingly, Trump, in at least one particular of theses chats, has reacted “angrily,” asking, “What about Joe Biden?” (Classified documents had been located at a number of places applied by Biden, and shortly thereafter, Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland appointed a further particular counsel to investigate the matter. Documents had been also located at former vice president Mike Pence’s dwelling. An essential point that seems to elude the ex-president: Neither the president nor Pence refused to comply with a government request to retrieve the documents.) In April, Trump’s former lawyer basic Bill Barr mentioned in an interview that the classified-documents probe was the one particular Trump should really be “most concerned about.” In a further interview earlier this month, he told CBS News: “He wouldn’t get in problems, almost certainly, just for taking them…. The difficulty is what did he do soon after the government asked for them back and subpoenaed them. And if there’s any games becoming played there, he’s going to be quite exposed.”
Speaking of what Trump did soon after the government asked for him to return the documents—which they started requesting in May well 2021—here’s a new and intriguing report from The Washington Post:
Two of Donald Trump’s workers moved boxes of papers the day prior to FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida dwelling to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena—timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of feasible obstruction, according to men and women familiar with the matter…. On the evening of June two, the identical day the two workers moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Division and mentioned officials there had been welcome to go to Mar-a-Lago and choose up classified documents connected to the subpoena. [Senior Justice Department lawyer Jay] Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.
As aspect of that go to, Bratt and the agents had been invited to go to the storage area exactly where Trump aides mentioned boxes of documents from his time as president had been kept. Court papers filed by the Justice Division say the guests had been told by Trump’s lawyers that they could not open any of the boxes in the storage area or appear at their contents. When FBI agents secured a court order to search Mar-a-Lago two months later, they located additional than one hundred further classified documents, some in Trump’s workplace and some in the storage region.
According to the Post, Jack Smith’s group has also located proof that prior to Trump was subpoenaed—but effectively soon after the government had began asking for the documents to be returned—he performed a “dress rehearsal” for moving documents he didn’t want to give back. And, that he “at occasions kept classified documents in his workplace in a location exactly where they had been visible and from time to time showed them to other people,” according to men and women familiar with the matter. Prosecutors also reportedly mentioned in an August filing they had proof that “obstructive conduct” took location in response to the May well 2022 subpoena.
As has been the case with all of the several investigations into his conduct, Trump has denied all wrongdoing. In a statement, a spokesman told the Post: “This is practically nothing additional than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and protect against the American men and women from returning him to the White Residence.”
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The Supreme Court decides to make it less complicated to pollute wetlands
Which is quite a lot in character for the Court’s conservative majority. Per The New York Occasions:
The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to police millions of acres of wetlands, delivering a further setback to the agency’s potential to combat pollution. Writing for 5 justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. mentioned that the Clean Water Act does not permit the agency to regulate discharges into wetlands close to bodies of water unless they have “a continuous surface connection” to these waters.
The choice was a second main blow to the EPA’s authority and to the energy of administrative agencies normally. Final year, the court limited the EPA’s energy to address climate change under the Clean Air Act. Specialists in environmental law mentioned the choice would leave a lot of wetlands topic to pollution devoid of penalty, sharply undercutting the EPA’s authority to shield them beneath the Clean Water Act.
Patrick Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law College, told the Occasions that the choice is “a truly disastrous outcome for wetlands, which have turn into definitely essential for biodiversity preservation and flood handle.” In a surprise twist, Brett Kavanaugh sided with the Court’s liberal justices, writing in a concurring opinion that the choice will have “significant repercussions for water high quality and flood handle all through the United States.” In a separate concurring opinion, Elena Kagan noted that the Court restricted the EPA’s potential to regulate energy plant emissions final year beneath the identical apparent belief that it knows additional about the atmosphere than environmental authorities, writing: “There, the majority’s non-textualism barred the EPA from addressing climate adjust by curbing energy plant emissions in the most helpful way. Right here, that strategy prevents the EPA from maintaining our country’s waters clean by regulating adjacent wetlands. The vice in each situations is the identical: the Court’s appointment of itself as the national choice-maker on environmental policy.”
Ron DeSantis apparently pondering about taking a web page from Trump’s playbook on January six
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1661771915348914190
GOP lawmaker stands up for the underrepresented tiny guys
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1661805398452568074
Elsewhere!
The Head of the Republican Celebration Actually Mentioned a Default Could Bode “Very Well” for the GOP
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The Florida mom who sought to ban Amanda Gorman’s poem says she’s sorry for advertising the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
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Arizona Republicans Embrace QAnon With Quack COVID Hearing
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Steve Bannon’s trial in “We Make the Wall” scheme set for May well 2024
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