Trump Watch

Shown below is a list of recent news stories reporting on probes of President Trump, his administration and businesses. The reports are listed in reverse chronological order, and are drawn primarily from news stories relating to investigations and the U.S. Congress of major claims of wrongdoing.

Note: Excerpts below are from the authors' words except for subheads and "Editor's notes" such as this. This segment of our near-daily summary of Trump Watch News and Commentary encompasses news stories that began in 2021. For material in 2020, kindly visit a link for it that will be posted soon here.

-- Andrew Kreig / Justice Integrity Project editor

2021-23

A crowd of Trump supporters surrounded a newly erected set of wooden gallows outside the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. "Hang Mike Pence!" members of the crowd shouted at times about the Republican Vice President who had announced that he could not comply with the president's call to block election certification that day. The wooden gallows near the Capitol Reflecting Pool was just one example of the racist and anti-Semitic imagery on display at the riot. The noose is a racist symbol of the lynching of Black Americans. (Photo by Shay Horse  via NurPhoto / Getty).

December

Dec. 1

Politico, New York court reinstates Trump’s gag orders in civil fraud case, Erica Orden, Dec. 1, 2023 (print ed.). The gag orders bar Trump and his lawyers from disparaging court staff. A New York state appeals court on Thursday reinstated the gag orders issued by the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial, lifting a pause on the orders that was put into effect earlier this month by one of the court’s judges.

In its two-page order, the appeals court didn’t explain its decision for reinstating the gag orders, which bar Trump and his lawyers from commenting on staff working for the trial judge, Justice Arthur Engoron.

The gag orders have been a central focus of the two-month trial, often eclipsing even the testimony. The initial gag order came just days into the trial, after Trump posted a disparaging social media message about the judge’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who sits alongside the judge on the bench. Engoron found that Trump subsequently violated the gag order twice, issuing him two fines totaling $15,000.

Washington Post, U.S. judge rejects Trump immunity claim in Jan. 6 criminal prosecution, Spencer S. Hsu and Rachel Weiner, Dec. 1, 2023. A federal judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for actions taken while he was president, setting a clock ticking on whether the Supreme Court will agree to allow him to face trial in Washington before the 2024 election.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, right, denied Trump’s request to toss out his four-count August indictment on charges of conspiring to defraud the federal government’s election process, to obstruct Congress’s certification of the vote on Jan. 6, 2021, and to disenfranchise American voters.

“Whatever immunities a sitting President may enjoy, the United States has only one Chief Executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” she wrote in the 48-page opinion. Trump “may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.”

Chutkan said no court or any other branch of government has ever accepted Trump’s contention that former presidents enjoy “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution.” Nor, she said, was there any basis for Trump’s argument that he could not be prosecuted for a crime unless he had been impeached and convicted for those actions while in office. It defied the Constitution’s “plain meaning, original understanding, and common sense,” she wrote.

Attorneys for Trump are expected to appeal immediately to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, potentially delaying Trump’s scheduled March 4 trial.

The decision by the judge, a 2014 appointee of President Barack Obama, was a defeat for Trump, whose defense has said it would raise similar immunity claims in four criminal prosecutions charged this year in which he has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

Washington Post, Trump lawyer: Georgia trial would have to wait if Trump wins in 2024, Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner, Dec. 1, 2023. An attorney for former president Donald Trump told an Atlanta area judge Friday that if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, his trial on charges that he illegally conspired to try to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia could not proceed until after he leaves the White House.

Steven Sadow, Trump’s lead counsel in the sprawling Fulton County racketeering case, objected to prosecutors requesting an August 2024 trial date. Sadow claimed that if Trump wins the Republican nomination and is required to be on trial in the weeks leading up to Election Day 2024, it would be “election interference.”

“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is in some form or fashion in a courtroom defending himself?” Sadow asked. “That would be the most effective election interference in the history of the United States, and I don’t think anyone would want to be in that position.”

Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor leading the case, strongly rejected Sadow’s claim.

“This trial does not constitute election interference. This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County,” Wade said. “I don’t think it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign.”

When Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee asked Sadow whether the proceedings could continue into 2025 if Trump wins the presidency — as Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has publicly suggested — Sadow argued that the trial would interfere with his client’s duties as president under the Supremacy Clause, which prohibits interfering with constitutional duties, and would have to be postponed until he is out of office.

The back and forth came as McAfee, who is overseeing the case, said it was too soon to set a trial date, pointing in part to the uncertain schedule of Trump’s other pending legal cases.

• Washington Post, Olympic swimmer Klete Keller avoids prison time for role in Jan. 6 riot, Dave Sheinin, Dec. 1, 2023.

Washington Post, McCarthy privately recounts terse phone call with Trump after ouster, Jacqueline Alemany and Leigh Ann Caldwell, Dec. 1, 2023 (print ed.). During the call, former president detailed the reasons he hadn’t intervened during the effort to remove McCarthy as speaker.

In the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), right, traveled down to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and threw a lifeline to the former president, who was under a cloud of controversy for provoking the historic assault.

The fence-mending session between the two Republican leaders ended with a photo op of the two men, grinning side by side in a gilded, frescoed room. The stunning turnabout of the House GOP leader, who had previously blamed Trump for the deadly attack, paved the way for the former president’s return to de facto leader of the Republican Party.

When the tables were turned almost three years later, however, Trump did not return the favor.

During a phone call with McCarthy weeks after his historic Oct. 3 removal as House speaker, Trump detailed the reasons he had declined to ask Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and other hard-right lawmakers to back off their campaign to oust the California Republican from his leadership position, according to people familiar with the exchange who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose a private conversation.

Washington Post, Trump co-defendant in Georgia who pleaded guilty could testify in other cases, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Amy Gardner, Dec. 1, 2023 (print ed.).  Prosecutors in Arizona and Nevada have reached out to Kenneth Chesebro, who helped organize pro-Trump electors in 2020.

Kenneth Chesebro, right, one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election-interference case, plans to meet with investigators in Arizona and Nevada, where similar probes are underway, according to three individuals with knowledge of the arrangements.

Chesebro, who pleaded guilty in the Georgia case to a single felony count of participating in a conspiracy to file false documents, had been charged primarily related to his 2020 role in organizing slates of pro-Trump electors. Those electors met and voted in seven states where Joe Biden had won — actions that they hoped would allow Congress to award those states’ electoral votes to Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.

As part of his pleading, Chesebro avoids prison time but must testify in the case. Separately, he has also been approached by prosecutors in Arizona and Nevada, who are investigating whether the Trump slates of electors who gathered in those states broke any laws, said the individuals, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss secret or sensitive proceedings. One said a grand jury is examining the Nevada case and that Chesebro is expected to testify in front of that panel. He plans to travel to the state this week.

New York Times, Lawyer Told Trump Defying Documents Subpoena Would Be a Crime, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, Dec. 1, 2023 (print ed.). Not long after federal prosecutors issued a subpoena last year for all the classified documents that former President Donald J. Trump took with him from the White House to his estate in southern Florida, one of his lawyers told him, in no uncertain terms, that it would be a crime if he did not comply with the demand, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The lawyer, Jennifer Little, this year related the account of her discussion with Mr. Trump to a grand jury overseen by the special counsel Jack Smith. She is one of several witnesses who prosecutors were told had advised Mr. Trump to cooperate.

Her sworn testimony that Mr. Trump was aware that disregarding the subpoena would be a criminal offense could serve as significant evidence of his consciousness of guilt if she ends up being called as a witness when the case eventually goes in front of a jury.

November

Nov. 30

Washington Post, Opinion: A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending, Robert Kagan, right, Nov. 30, 2023. There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. So why is everyone behaving like normal?

Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points.

The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence. The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.

For many months now, we have been living in a world of self-delusion, rich with imagined possibilities. Maybe it will be Ron DeSantis, or maybe Nikki Haley. Maybe the myriad indictments of Trump will doom him with Republican suburbanites. Such hopeful speculation has allowed us to drift along passively, conducting business as usual, taking no dramatic action to change course, in the hope and expectation that something will happen. Like people on a riverboat, we have long known there is a waterfall ahead but assume we will somehow find our way to shore before we go over the edge. But now the actions required to get us to shore are looking harder and harder, if not downright impossible.

The magical-thinking phase is ending. Barring some miracle, Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president. When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favor. Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present. Donors who find Trump distasteful have been free to spread their money around to help his competitors. Establishment Republicans have made no secret of their hope that Trump will be convicted and thus removed from the equation without their having to take a stand against him.

Robert Kagan, a Post Opinions contributing editor, is the author of “Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again,” which will be published by Knopf in May.

New York Times, 6 Takeaways From Liz Cheney’s Book Criticizing Trump and His ‘Enablers,’ Peter Baker, Nov. 30, 2023. The former Republican congresswoman’s memoir, to be published next week, is meant as a warning about returning Donald Trump to the presidency.

It was inevitable that Liz Cheney’s new memoir, right, would cause a splash. An outspoken Republican critic of former President Donald J. Trump in a party that he otherwise dominates, she has shown over the past three years that she is willing to say out loud what most other Republicans say only in private, if at all.

The memoir, Oath and Honor, arrives on bookshelves just as Mr. Trump is poised to reclaim the Republican presidential nomination in primaries beginning in a few weeks. It is meant as a five-alarm warning that returning him to power would endanger American democracy and a damning indictment of his “enablers” and “collaborators” in her own party.

But beyond its top-line arguments, the book offers a rare peek inside the Republican cloakroom at what Ms. Cheney, a former representative from Wyoming, heard from her colleagues about “the Orange Jesus,” as one wryly called Mr. Trump. Here are a half-dozen stories she tells in the book, a copy of which The New York Times obtained ahead of its publication on Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company.

Washington Post, Analysis: Why new Ariz. indictments are key in the fight against election subversion, Aaron Blake, right, Nov. 30, 2023. There has been no shortage of brazen Republican efforts to question and overturn election results since November 2020 — efforts that despite the failure and fallout from the 2020 episode involving Donald Trump have continued. But the late-2022 attempt in Cochise County, Ariz., was subtly among the most potentially pivotal.

Now it’s leading to consequences — a pair of indictments — that could prove significant.

After some local Republican officials balked at certifying election results in President Biden’s 2020 victory, the Cochise County officials went even further in Arizona’s 2022 election. They blew through a Nov. 28, 2022, deadline to certify the county’s election results.

They did so not because they alleged something amiss in that rural county’s votes but apparently in protest over how the much more populous Maricopa County was handling its votes. (To date, there is no evidence of malfeasance in that county, either, and lawsuits have repeatedly failed.) The Cochise County Board of Supervisors ultimately relented and certified the votes on Dec. 1, but only after a court order forced it to.

The county supervisors made their play even as it was obviously legally problematic.Go ahead, go for it, arrest me,’ ” Lake said.

It turns out those officials effectively gave Lake what she wanted.

Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Terry Thomas “Tom” Crosby have now been indicted. They are each charged with a pair of Class 5 felonies for allegedly conspiring to delay the canvass of their county’s votes.

While the indictments are merely the latest in a long line over efforts to overturn elections — federally, in Michigan, in Georgia and now in Arizona — the threat of prosecution in this case could serve as a significant deterrent.

Washington Post, U.S. stops helping Big Tech spot foreign meddling amid GOP legal threats, Naomi Nix and Cat Zakrzewski, Nov. 30, 2023. Anthony Faiola, Stefano Pitrelli and Louisa Loveluck, Nov. 30, 2023. The federal government has stopped warning Meta about foreign influence campaigns amid a legal campaign against the Biden administration’s communication with tech firms.

The U.S. federal government has stopped warning some social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, reversing a years-long approach to preventing Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics less than a year before the U.S. presidential elections, according to company officials.

Meta no longer receives notifications of global influence campaigns from the Biden administration, halting a prolonged partnership between the federal government and the world’s largest social media company, senior security officials said Wednesday. Federal agencies have also stopped communicating about political disinformation with Pinterest, according to the company.

The developments underscore the far-reaching impact of a conservative legal campaign against initiatives established to avoid a repeat of the 2016 election, when Russia manipulated social media in an attempt to sow chaos and swing the vote for Donald Trump.

For months, researchers in government and academia have warned that a barrage of lawsuits, congressional demands and online attacks are having a chilling effect on programs intended to combat health and election misinformation. But the shift in communications about foreign meddling signals how ongoing litigation and Republican probes in Congress are unwinding efforts once viewed as critical to protecting U.S. national security interests.

Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks

Ben Nimmo, chief of global threat intelligence for Meta, said government officials stopped communicating foreign election interference threats to the company in July.

That month, a federal judge limited the Biden administration’s communications with tech platforms in response to a lawsuit alleging such coordination ran afoul of the First Amendment by encouraging companies to remove falsehoods about covid-19 and the 2020 election. The decision included an exemption allowing the government to communicate with the companies about national security threats, specifically foreign interference in elections. The case, Missouri v. Biden, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has paused lower court restrictions while it reviews the matter.

New York Times, 6 Takeaways From Liz Cheney’s Book Criticizing Trump and His ‘Enablers,’ Peter Baker, Nov. 30, 2023. The former Republican congresswoman’s memoir, to be published next week, is meant as a warning about returning Donald Trump to the presidency.

It was inevitable that Liz Cheney’s new memoir would cause a splash. An outspoken Republican critic of former President Donald J. Trump in a party that he otherwise dominates, she has shown over the past three years that she is willing to say out loud what most other Republicans say only in private, if at all.

The memoir, Oath and Honor, arrives on bookshelves just as Mr. Trump is poised to reclaim the Republican presidential nomination in primaries beginning in a few weeks. It is meant as a five-alarm warning that returning him to power would endanger American democracy and a damning indictment of his “enablers” and “collaborators” in her own party.

But beyond its top-line arguments, the book offers a rare peek inside the Republican cloakroom at what Ms. Cheney, a former representative from Wyoming, heard from her colleagues about “the Orange Jesus,” as one wryly called Mr. Trump. Here are a half-dozen stories she tells in the book, a copy of which The New York Times obtained ahead of its publication on Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company.

New York Times, Trump’s Bankers Say His Exaggerated Net Worth Did Not Affect Loans, Jonah E. Bromwich and Kate Christobek, Nov. 30, 2023 (print ed.)  Bankers whom Donald J. Trump is accused of defrauding testified at his civil fraud trial this week that they did not rely on his embellished claims of wealth, lending support to the central plank of the former president’s defense.

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, sued Mr. Trump in 2022 for inflating his net worth on his annual financial statements to receive favorable loans from banks, notably including Deutsche Bank. Before the trial, the judge found that the statements were filled with examples of fraud; the trial will determine any consequences the former president may face.

Mr. Trump has protested the premise of the case, insisting that the banks did their own due diligence and that misstatements in the financial documents would not have affected the overall terms of the loans. It follows, his lawyers have argued, that the alleged fraud had no victim.

The bankers who testified this week supported that argument when asked about the loan process.

“We are expected to conduct some due diligence and verify the information provided, to the extent that is possible,” David Williams, a banker in the wealth management group at Deutsche Bank, said on Tuesday. He said repeatedly that the bank had performed that diligence and factored its own analysis into the relationship with Mr. Trump.

Nov. 29

Politico, Judge key to Jan. 6 cases warns US faces 'authoritarian' threat, Josh Gerstein, Nov. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Beryl Howell sees “time of testing” for nation as facts are denied and disputed. The judge who spearheaded the judiciary’s response to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, blamed that event on “big lies” and warned that the country is in danger of turning toward authoritarianism.

As the federal court in Washington that Judge Beryl Howell, right, once oversaw prepares for a historic trial of former President Donald Trump on charges of attempting to fraudulently overturn the results of the 2020 election, the jurist used a rare public speech Tuesday to lament that many of those convicted for their actions on Jan. 6 fell under the sway of falsehoods.

“My D.C. judicial colleagues and I regularly see the impact of big lies at the sentencing of hundreds, hundreds of individuals who have been convicted for offense conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, when they disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol,” said Howell, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Howell, who served as chief judge of the District Court from 2016 until March and remains on the bench there, also suggested that the dangers evident on the day of the Capitol riot have not passed — in part because some Americans have become unmoored from facts.

“We are having a very surprising and downright troubling moment in this country when the very importance of facts is dismissed, or ignored,” Howell told the annual gala of the Women’s White Collar Defense Association at a downtown hotel. “That’s very risky business for all of us in our democracy. ... The facts matter.”

Howell did not refer by name to Trump, who is currently the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination next year. She also made no mention of his trial set to open March 4 before one of her colleagues, Judge Tanya Chutkan.

However, Howell approvingly quoted Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson’s claim in her new book that the U.S. “is at a crossroads teetering on the brink of authoritarianism.” The judge also quoted and echoed Richardson’s warning that “Big lies are springboards for authoritarians.”

Howell received a “champion” award Tuesday night from the women lawyers group, which she urged to help preserve democratic traditions by calling attention to the facts at the center of their work.

Nov. 28

Washington Post, Trump lawyers seek to probe U.S. handling of 2020 election fraud claims, Spencer S. Hsu and Rachel Weiner, Nov. 28, 2023. New court filing seeks evidence to relitigate debunked claims that election was ‘stolen,’ investigate DOJ communications with Biden, Biden’s son, and Mike Pence.

Attorneys for Donald Trump have asked a federal judge in Washington to allow them to investigate several U.S. government agencies about their handling of investigations into him and allegations of voter fraud three years ago as the former president moves to defend himself from charges that he criminally conspired to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

In court papers filed Monday, Trump’s legal team sought permission to compel prosecutors to turn over information about the FBI, national security and election integrity units of the Justice Department, as well as the intelligence community and Department of Homeland Security’s response to foreign interference and other threats to the 2020 election, in what appeared to be an attempt to resuscitate his unfounded allegation that President Biden’s election victory was “stolen.”

Whether Trump genuinely believed that allegation may be a matter for trial, his lawyers wrote, but prosecutors cannot “suppress and withhold from President Trump information that supports this defense and related arguments regarding good faith and the absence of [his] criminal intent.” It was “certainly not criminal,” they added, “for President Trump to disagree with officials now favored by the prosecution and to rely instead on the independent judgment that the American people elected him to use while leading the country.”

Washington Post, Antagonism flares as red states try to dictate how blue cities are run, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Nov. 28, 2023 (print ed.). Despite long advocating small government and local control, Republican governors and legislators across a significant swath of the country are increasingly overriding the actions of Democratic cities — removing elected district attorneys or threatening to strip them of power, taking over election offices and otherwise limiting local independence.

State lawmakers proposed nearly 700 bills this year to circumscribe what cities and counties can do, according to Katie Belanger, lead consultant for the Local Solutions Support Center, a national organization focused in part on ending the overreach it calls “abusive state preemption.”

The group’s tracking mostly found “conservative state legislatures responding to or anticipating actions of progressive cities,” she said, with many bills designed to bolster state restrictions on police defunding, abortion, and LGBTQ and voting rights. As of mid-October, at least 92 had passed.

In Florida, for instance, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed sweeping measures that empower the state attorney general to pursue election-related crimes and that require cities and counties to suspend a local ordinance if someone sues alleging it is preempted by state law. He has removed two elected Democratic prosecutors in as many years, including one who pledged not to charge people seeking abortions or transgender care.

More clashes are expected. Louisiana Gov.-elect Jeff Landry takes office in January and has promised to confront the state’s largest city, New Orleans. He already has created a committee led by a local GOP political donor and businessman to address public safety and other issues there. He has threatened to withhold state funding for the city’s water infrastructure until the DA agrees to prosecute women who violate the state’s abortion ban by seeking the procedure.

Given the presidential campaign that lies ahead in 2024, Belanger is concerned about states passing election-related laws that affect local authorities.

“Election administration has been a target for abusive preemption in the past,” she said, “and as we go into an election year, that is a trend that will grow.”

The antagonisms between red states and blue cities are all the more notable because the urban areas in the crosshairs are mostly majority-minority, with many mayors and district attorneys of color.

Jonathan Braun, former President Donald J. Trump, and Mr. Braun’s wife pose for a picture on a golf course in front of palm trees. Mr. Trump is giving a thumbs up and wearing a red Make America Great Again hat, dark pants and a white polo shirt that says “President Donald Trump.”

Nov. 27

Washington Post, The Trump Trials: New Trump defense motions in D.C. case expected on Monday, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, Nov. 27, 2023 (print ed.). An appeals court in Washington could decide at any time whether to reimpose a limited gag order on Donald Trump in his federal election-obstruction case in D.C. The three-judge panel questioned prosecutors and defense lawyers last week about the issue, and the argument spilled over into Thanksgiving (more on this topic below).

Monday should see new Trump defense motions in the D.C. case — this time related to which witnesses he’d like to subpoena. Since his defense team argues this is a case of politically motivated, selective prosecution, we could see him seek permission from the court to subpoena Democrats and government figures he wants to put on the witness stand.

On Friday, a hearing is scheduled in the Fulton County, Ga., case, where the judge is expected to consider a raft of defense motions.

New York Times, Investigation: A Troubling Trump Pardon and a Link to the Kushners, Michael S. Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, Nov. 27, 2023 (print ed.). A commutation for a drug smuggler had broader implications than previously known, putting a new focus on how Donald Trump would use clemency powers.

Even amid the uproar over President Donald J. Trump’s freewheeling use of his pardon powers at the end of his term, one commutation stood out.

Jonathan Braun of New York had served just two and a half years of a decade-long sentence for running a massive marijuana ring, when Mr. Trump, at 12:51 a.m. on his last day in office, announced he would be freed.

Mr. Braun was, to say the least, an unusual candidate for clemency.

A Staten Islander with a history of violent threats, Mr. Braun had told a rabbi who owed him money: “I am going to make you bleed.” Mr. Braun’s family had told confidants they were willing to spend millions of dollars to get him out of prison.

At the time, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department and federal regulators, as well as New York state authorities, were still after him for his role in an entirely separate matter: his work as a predatory lender, making what judges later found were fraudulent and usurious loans to cash-strapped small businesses.

Nearly three years later, the consequences of Mr. Braun’s commutation are becoming clearer, raising new questions about how Mr. Trump intervened in criminal justice decisions and what he could do in a second term, when he would have the power to make good on his suggestions that he would free supporters convicted of storming the Capitol and possibly even to pardon himself if convicted of the federal charges he faces.

Just months after Mr. Trump freed him, Mr. Braun returned to working as a predatory lender, according to New York State’s attorney general. Two months ago, a New York state judge barred him from working in the industry. Weeks later, a federal judge, acting on a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, imposed a nationwide ban on him.

A New York Times investigation, drawing on documents and interviews with current and former officials, and others familiar with Mr. Braun’s case, found there were even greater ramifications stemming from the commutation than previously known and revealed new details about Mr. Braun’s history and how the commutation came about.

The commutation dealt a substantial blow to an ambitious criminal investigation being led by the Justice Department’s U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan aimed at punishing members of the predatory lending industry who hurt small businesses. Mr. Braun and prosecutors were in negotiations over a cooperation deal in which he would be let out of prison in exchange for flipping on industry insiders and potentially even wearing a wire. But the commutation instantly destroyed the government’s leverage on Mr. Braun.

The investigation into the industry, and Mr. Braun’s conduct, remains open but hampered by the lack of an insider.

At multiple levels, up to the president, the justice system appeared to fail more than once to take full account of Mr. Braun’s activities. After pleading guilty to drug charges in 2011, Mr. Braun agreed to cooperate in a continuing investigation, allowing him to stay out of prison but under supervision for nine years — a period he used to establish himself as a predatory lender, making violent threats to those who owed him money, court filings show.

Since returning to predatory lending after being freed, Mr. Braun is still engaging in deceptive business tactics, regulators and customer say.

In working to secure his release, Mr. Braun’s family used a connection to Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, to try to get the matter before Mr. Trump. Jared Kushner’s White House office drafted the language used in the news release to announce commutations for Mr. Braun and others.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Braun said he did not know how his commutation came about.

“I believe God made it happen for me because I’m a good person and I was treated unfairly,” he said, adding that his supporters tried “multiple paths” to get him out of prison but he had no idea which one succeeded.

New York Times, Here are some takeaways from the investigation into Jonathan Braun’s pardon, Michael S. Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, Nov. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Two days after Donald J. Trump left the White House, The New York Times published a story about how one of his last acts as president had been to commute the 10-year sentence of Jonathan Braun, a marijuana smuggler who had ongoing legal problems and a reputation for making violent threats.

In his final weeks in office, Mr. Trump had used his pardon power on behalf of a parade of loyalists, as well as scores of others who were not big political names. But few of them stood out like Mr. Braun, who was still under investigation by the Justice Department in an entirely different matter: for gouging small businesses through high-interest loans.

Mr. Braun was still under investigation by the Justice Department at the time of his pardon. Here are some key points about the case.

Nov. 25

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump DISQUALIFICATION Ruling had FATAL FLAW that can be FIXED NOW, Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok, Nov. 25-26, 2023. On the most recent edition of the Legal AF attorneys and anchors Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok debate what went wrong with the Colorado judge’s 102-page decision on which on the one hand found that Trump “engaged in insurrection and rebellion against” the Constitution, but then declared that the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause didn’t apply to “presidents.”

Nov. 24

New York Times, Johnson’s Release of Jan. 6 Video Feeds Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories, Luke Broadwater, Alan Feuer and Angelo Fichera, Nov. 24, 2023 (print ed.). Speaker Mike Johnson, right, fulfilled a demand of the far right, which has sought thousands of hours of footage to try to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to publicly release thousands of hours of Capitol security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, has fueled a renewed effort by Republican lawmakers and far-right activists to rewrite the history of the attack that day and exonerate the pro-Trump rioters who took part.

Mr. Johnson’s move last week to make the footage available — something the far right has long demanded — came as he tried to allay the anger of hard-line Republican lawmakers for working with Democrats to keep the government funded. Now, some of the same people who were irate about that decision are using the Jan. 6 video to circulate an array of false claims and conspiracy theories about the largest attack on the Capitol in centuries.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, was among the first lawmakers to post false information about the newly released videos. She claimed on the social media site X that surveillance video showed a rioter holding a law enforcement badge in his hand, suggesting that he was an undercover police officer “disguised as a Trump supporter” and the attack was an inside job.

But the item in the man’s hand in the screen grab she circulated appears, upon closer inspection, to have been a vape pen. And the man who is seen in that image, Kevin Lyons, was in fact a heating-and-cooling technician — not a police officer — who was later convicted at a public trial of multiple federal charges and sentenced to more than four years in prison.

Ms. Greene later edited her post to remove the false claim, but not before it had spread widely among Trump supporters.

Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, recirculated the same clip and false allegation that the man pictured had flashed a badge, adding that he looked forward to questioning Christopher S. Wray, the F.B.I. director, about the matter.

“How many of these guys are feds?” he asked in a separate post that included video of a violent clash between rioters and the police.

“Heads up,” former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was the top Republican on the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, responded to Mr. Lee. “A nutball conspiracy theorist appears to be posting from your account.”

Still others, such as Donald Trump Jr., have shared video of rioters walking through the Capitol hallways doing nothing violent, suggesting that those who entered the building were entirely peaceful. But other videos from that day show some of the same people at other moments storming the building and attacking police officers.

Nov. 23

New York Times, For Election Workers, Fentanyl-Laced Letters Signal a Challenging Year, Michael Wines, Nov. 23, 2023 (print ed.). As overheated rhetoric and threats rise, people in the United States are leaving election jobs in record numbers.

For the people who run elections at thousands of local offices nationwide, 2024 was never going to be an easy year. But the recent anonymous mailing of powder-filled envelopes to election offices in five states offers new hints of how hard it could be.

The letters, sent to offices in Washington State, Oregon, Nevada, California and Georgia this month, are under investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the F.B.I. Several of them appear to have been laced with fentanyl; at least two contained a vague message calling to “end elections now.”

The letters are a public indicator of what some election officials say is a fresh rise in threats to their safety and the functioning of the election system. And they presage the pressure-cooker environment that election officials will face next year in a contest for the White House that could chart the future course of American democracy.

“The system is going to be tested in every possible way, whether it’s voter registration, applications for ballots, poll workers, the mail, drop boxes, election results websites,” said Tammy Patrick, chief executive for programs at the National Association of Election Officials. “Every way in which our elections are administered is going to be tested somewhere, at some time, during 2024.”

Nov. 22

New York Times, Ignore Trump? Democrats Now Want Him Plastered All Over the News, Reid J. Epstein, Nov. 22, 2023 (print ed.). The former president has been relatively quiet, out of the headlines and off mainstream social media. Democrats are hoping that more attention on him can help turn around President Biden’s fortunes.

When Donald J. Trump left the White House, Democrats didn’t want to hear another word from him. President Biden dismissed him as “the former guy.” A party-wide consensus held that he was best left ignored.

Three years later, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign and Democratic officials across the party’s spectrum have landed on a new solution to his political slump:

More Trump.

Criticizing the news media for giving Mr. Trump a platform is out. Quietly pining for major networks to again broadcast live coverage of Trump campaign rallies is in.

Behind the improbable longing for the former president to gobble up political oxygen again is Democrats’ yearslong dependence on the Trump outrage machine. Since his ascent, Mr. Trump has been a one-man Democratic turnout operation, uniting an otherwise fractured opposition and fueling victories in three straight election cycles.

Now, Democrats worry that the fever of Trump fatigue has passed, and that some voters are softening toward a man they once loathed. Many others may simply be paying little attention, as Mr. Trump’s share of the daily national conversation has diminished, despite the occasional interruption of campaign-trail pronouncements like his recent vow to “root out” political opponents like “vermin.”

Nov. 21

Then-President Trump, center left, talks to Chief of Staff John Kelly at veterans gathering on May 29, 2017 (Washington Post photo by Matt McClain).

Washington Post, Many former Trump aides say he shouldn’t be president. Will it matter? Josh Dawsey, Nov. 21, 2023 (print ed.). Critics are grappling with how they can puncture Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2024, whether they should coordinate and whether their voices can affect the race.

John F. Kelly, the longest-serving chief of staff in President Donald Trump’s White House, watches Trump dominate the GOP primary with increasing despair.

“What’s going on in the country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he’s said the things he’s said and done the things he’s done?” Kelly said in a recent interview. “It’s beyond my comprehension he has the support he has.”

Kelly, a retired four-star general, said he didn’t know what to do — or what he could do — to help people see it his way.

“I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce. You had his attorney general Bill Barr come out, and not a half a day’s bounce. If anything, his numbers go up. It might even move the needle in the wrong direction. I think we’re in a dangerous zone in our country,” he said.

No president has ever attracted more public detractors who were formerly in his inner circle. They are closely watching his rise — cruising in the GOP nomination contest and, in most polls, tying or even leading President Biden in a general election matchup — with alarm. Among them are his former vice president, top military advisers, lawyers, some members of his Cabinet, economic advisers, press officials and campaign aides, some of whom are working for other candidates.

Among their reasons for opposing a second Trump term, they cite the 91 criminal charges against him, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, his false claims of election fraud, his incendiary rhetoric in office, his desire to weaponize the Justice Department, his chaotic management style, his likely personnel choices in a second term, and his affinity for dictators.

Interviews with 16 former Trump advisers — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their former boss — show they are grappling with how they can puncture Trump’s candidacy in 2024, whether they can or should coordinate with one another and whether their voices will even matter.

New York Times, Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Leanings, Michael C. Bender and Michael Gold, Nov. 21, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump is focusing his most vicious attacks on domestic political opponents, setting off fresh worries among autocracy experts.

Donald J. Trump rose to power with political campaigns that largely attacked external targets, including immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and from south of the United States-Mexico border.

But now, in his third presidential bid, some of his most vicious and debasing attacks have been leveled at domestic opponents.

During a Veterans Day speech, Mr. Trump used language that echoed authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, degrading his political adversaries as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”

“The threat from outside forces,” Mr. Trump said, “is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”

This turn inward has sounded new alarms among experts on autocracy who have long worried about Mr. Trump’s praise for foreign dictators and disdain for democratic ideals. They said the former president’s increasingly intensive focus on perceived internal enemies was a hallmark of dangerous totalitarian leaders.

Scholars, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are asking anew how much Mr. Trump resembles current strongmen abroad and how he compares to authoritarian leaders of the past. Perhaps most urgently, they are wondering whether his rhetorical turn into more fascist-sounding territory is just his latest public provocation of the left, an evolution in his beliefs or the dropping of a veil.

“There are echoes of fascist rhetoric, and they’re very precise,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University who studies fascism. “The overall strategy is an obvious one of dehumanizing people so that the public will not have as much of an outcry at the things that you want to do.”

Mr. Trump’s shift comes as he and his allies devise plans for a second term that would upend some of the long-held norms of American democracy and the rule of law.

These ambitions include using the Justice Department to take vengeance on his political rivals, plotting a vast expansion of presidential power and installing ideologically aligned lawyers in key positions to bless his contentious actions.

New York Times, Court Signals It Could Keep Trump Election Case Gag Order, but Narrow It, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Nov. 21, 2023 (print ed.). A federal appeals court panel is considering how to balance former President Trump’s free-speech rights against the need to protect people involved in the case.

A federal appeals court in Washington appeared to signal at a hearing on Monday that it would keep in place at least some version of the gag order placed on former President Donald J. Trump in the criminal case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

But a three-judge panel of the court left open the possibility of adjusting the terms of the order or even narrowing the scope of the people covered by it, including by potentially freeing Mr. Trump to attack Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal cases against him.

The trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, imposed the gag order in October in Federal District Court in Washington. It forbid Mr. Trump to publicly maligning any prosecutors, potential witnesses or court employees involved in the case.

But Judge Chutkan explicitly permitted Mr. Trump to criticize the Justice Department, President Biden and herself. She also allowed him to maintain that the prosecution itself was a partisan retaliation against him.

Mr. Trump swiftly appealed, with his lawyers arguing that the order was the “essence of censorship” and infringed on his First Amendment rights in the midst of a campaign — one in which he has repeatedly complained that the cases against him are political persecution. The appeals court has suspended the gag order while it weighs the challenge.

At the hearing, the three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pushed hard at the argument that Mr. Trump’s social media posts should enjoy absolute protection under the First Amendment as examples of “core political speech.” They questioned whether the posts could in fact be something very different: examples of “political speech aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process.”

The judges also suggested that a gag order could be imposed on Mr. Trump as a “prophylactic” measure of protecting people involved in the case from threats or acts of harassment that had not yet occurred. The panel cited a longstanding “dynamic,” reaching back to the 2020 election, in which Mr. Trump has mentioned certain people in his posts who later suffered intimidation from others.

“As this trial approaches, the atmosphere is going to be increasingly tense,” said Judge Brad Garcia. “Why does the district court have to wait and see, and wait for the threats to come, rather than taking a reasonable action in advance?”

Each of the three members of the appellate panel assigned to the case was nominated by a Democratic president: Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard were both Obama appointees, as was Judge Chutkan to the district court. Judge Garcia was appointed by President Biden.

D. John Sauer, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, countered that events three years ago were insufficient to meet the standard for gagging Mr. Trump now. He argued that it would be an impermissible “heckler’s veto” to bar Mr. Trump from speaking freely amid an election on the rationale that his remarks “might someday inspire some random third party” to make threats.

There are few legal guideposts directly on point to the issues raised by the Trump gag order fight. Past Supreme Court cases that have addressed gag orders have focused on lawyers or reporters, rather than defendants. And they have generally centered on keeping juries from being tainted by information about trials rather than on preventing threats and harassment that could jeopardize the integrity of the criminal justice process.

Complicating matters further, Mr. Trump has blurred the lines between his criminal cases and his presidential campaign, using court appearances to deliver political talking points and employing public remarks to assail his prosecutions.

The appellate judges appeared to be seeking a way to balance protecting the integrity of the election interference case and the people involved in it while preserving Mr. Trump’s rights to respond in public to denunciations by his political adversaries or critics. Some of them are likely to be witnesses against him in the case — such as former Vice President Mike Pence.

Underscoring the legal difficulties, the arguments ran far longer than the time they had been allotted. The plan had been that each side would get 20 minutes, but the panel kept grilling Mr. Sauer for nearly four times that. Its questioning of Cecil Vandevender, a lawyer working for Mr. Smith, went on for nearly an hour.

Nov. 20

Washington Post, Analysis: A judge says Trump incited insurrection. Other judges have come close, Aaron Blake, Nov. 20, 2023. The Colorado judge is the first to rule that Trump incited an insurrection. She is not the first to lay blame at his feet for Jan. 6.

The effort to get Donald Trump removed from the 2024 ballot over Jan. 6 has thus far failed to achieve its stated objective. But late Friday, it did notch a major victory: A judge ruled that while the former president can’t be disqualified, he did incite an insurrection.

A relatively low-level state court judge in Colorado issued the ruling, but it’s still a remarkable historic document.

And it has been a long time coming.

Denver District Judge Sarah B. Wallace’s ruling said that Trump’s conduct met the standard for disqualification under the 14th Amendment — that he “engaged in insurrection” — but that the amendment doesn’t apply to the president.

Wallace walked through the evidence for the first component of her finding in detail over 102 pages. She focused on the timeline of Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, 2021 — which she said showed that Trump desired this outcome. And she documented his history of promoting and legitimizing political violence — which she said helps prove he incited the riot.

Nov. 19

Philadelphia Inquirer, Opinion: Mike Davis wants to cage kids, put Trump enemies in a ‘gulag.’ He could be our next AG, Will Bunch, Nov. 19, 2023. Lawyer Mike Davis vows to punish Trump's enemies, migrants. No wonder Team Trump is eyeing him as attorney general in 2025.

American democracy was at a near-breaking point on Jan. 3, 2021, as then-president Donald Trump stepped up his efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump’s new plan was to install a fanatical ally named Jeffrey Clark — a virtually unknown Justice Department lawyer — as acting attorney general. Clark had drafted a letter with a blatantly false claim that Justice had found substantial voter fraud in Georgia — with similar letters planned for other key states — in a last-ditch effort to urge state legislatures to replace Biden electors before the Jan. 6 certification.

Trump’s dangerous scheme was thwarted — but only after all of the top career prosecutors in Justice, including the current acting AG Jeffrey Rosen, told the president they would resign en masse and go public with what was happening. “Within 24-48-72 hours, you could have hundreds and hundreds of resignations of the leadership of your entire Justice Department because of your actions,” Richard Donoghue, the acting assistant AG who was at that day’s contentious Oval Office meeting, recalled telling the 45th president. “What’s that going to say about you?”

Trump backed down, and — after a violent Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill failed to stop certification of Biden’s victory — slinked away from the White House in defeat.

Flash forward three years, and Trump is the overwhelming front-runner to again become the GOP presidential nominee in 2024, with early polls giving him a chance of defeating Biden in a rematch. And if he does indeed become America’s 47th president on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump seems to have two main goals: revenge against his political enemies, and creating a government teeming with fervent loyalists who won’t block his path the way those career government lawyers did in 2021.

That’s where Mike Davis comes in. Most folks, except for the most politically obsessed, have never heard of Davis, but it’s time for people to learn. The mid-40s-ish Davis takes the abstract warnings that U.S. democracy is on the line in the 2024 election and brings them to life.

Actually, there are two Mike Davises.

The first you might call “resumé Mike Davis,” with the Des Moines, Iowa, native hitting all the right marks for rapid advancement in today’s conservative legal movement. A member of the Federalist Society, Davis, right, worked as a consultant to boost the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, then became chief counsel for nominations to the GOP chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, fellow Iowan Chuck Grassley. He served Grassley during the contentious hearings over eventual Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the push by Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to pack the judiciary with right-wing judges. He now heads two ultraconservative efforts, the Article III Project and the internet Accountability Project.

On paper, it wouldn’t be a stretch for a Republican president to give someone like Davis a top post. But the attorney’s resume doesn’t tell you about the other Mike Davis — now a verbal pit bull for Trump and his MAGA movement, making increasingly outrageous statements seemingly aimed at getting the attention of the boss and his inner circle.

In late September, Davis appeared on a right-wing podcast, the Benny Johnson Show, and described what he might do given three weeks as an interim attorney general by a victorious Trump in 2025. He joked — perhaps — that the new president would have to grant him a pardon as he left town after what Davis described as “a reign of terror” during which he would “unleash hell on Washington, D.C.”

What came next was an agenda very much in line with Trump’s overheated rally rhetoric, the not-secret Project 2025 blueprint, and recent news leaks. Davis claimed he would demolish the “deep state” of career politicians, indict the current president “and every other scumball, sleazeball Biden,” and help to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

“We’re gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing — anchor babies, their parents, their grandparents,” Davis added. “We’re gonna put kids in cages. It’s gonna be glorious. We’re gonna detain a lot of people in the D.C. gulag and Gitmo.”

“There are a couple people you could put in positions like that, we talk about Mike Davis as attorney general,” Donald Trump Jr. said during his own podcast. “You almost have to, just put them in as interim even, just to send that shot across the bow to the swamp … let Mike Davis and Kash Patel to be like interim AG’s. Put Laura Loomer as press secretary for just a couple of days.”

That’s because Team Trump has coalesced around a worldview that its leader was denied implementing his radical vision — including enforcing the Big Lie of 2020 election fraud — in his first term because too many political functionaries from what it calls “the administrative state” stood in his way. That’s not wrong. In addition to the Jan. 3 revolt among the Justice Department, you had principled leaders like now-retired Gen. Mark Milley, then the Joint Chiefs chair, who stood in the way of improperly calling in troops on Jan. 6 to perhaps block the election certification.

Nov. 17

Washington Post, Gag order against Trump temporarily lifted in New York fraud trial, Shayna Jacobs, Nov. 17, 2023 (print ed.). An appellate judge on Thursday temporarily lifted a limited gag order issued against Donald Trump and his attorneys in the $250 million civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The temporary pause on the order allows Trump and his defense team to discuss the judge’s law clerk, pending further appellate review. The decision followed a hearing at the Appellate Division’s First Department before Judge David Friedman.

Friedman wrote after hearing arguments that the stay was being imposed in consideration of “constitutional and statutory rights at issue.”

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise argued that security concerns cited by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the fraud trial and issued the gag order against Trump on Oct. 3, are undermined because the judge allows news photographers to take pictures of his clerk.

“If I were concerned about my safety I wouldn’t be sitting there mugging for the camera repeatedly every time the cameras come in,” Kise argued to Friedman, noting that as Trump’s attorney for about a year, he has also received threats.

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Kise also said it is not proper to impose a speech prohibition “based on an audience’s reaction.” He said Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, had a right to free speech for campaign purposes.

Engoron imposed a gag order on the former president for making public comments about the clerk that he believed endangered the clerk’s safety. The order was issued after Trump posted a photo of the employee on social media that the judge said led to threats.

The judge has fined Trump twice for a total of $15,000 for violating the gag order.

Trump celebrated the appellate judge’s order on social media Thursday evening.

“Judge Arthur Engoron has just been overturned (stayed!) by the New York State Appellate Division (Appeals Court), for the 4th TIME (on the same case!),” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “His Ridiculous and Unconstitutional Gag Order, not allowing me to defend myself against him and his politically biased and out of control, Trump Hating Clerk, who is sinking him and his Court to new levels of LOW, is a disgrace.”

Trump’s attorneys were placed under a similar gag order barring them from referring to the court employee when making legal arguments about the fairness of the proceeding. Trump’s side has argued repeatedly that the law clerk is biased and that her role as a close adviser to Engoron poisons the lawsuit, which accuses Trump, his two adult sons, two other executives and his company of falsely inflating the values of assets on financial documents to get better terms from lenders and insurance firms. Trump denies wrongdoing.

Lisa Evans, an attorney arguing on behalf of Engoron, told the appeals court that the judge’s clerk is being inundated with messages that are causing concern after her phone number and other personal details were posted on social media by Trump supporters.

The lawyer said Trump does not have to make threats himself because his army of devotees are at the ready to do so, citing an attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband and Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection as proof. “It is inciting action on behalf of those individuals who are loyal to Mr. Trump … it’s not political speech,” Evans argued. She said many of the messages aimed at the law clerk are antisemitic.

Daniel Magy, an attorney for James’s office, argued that the gag orders are reasonable because they are so limited. “Any party can make a statement about the judge, any party can make a statement about the attorney general and Mr. Trump has made many statements about [James] online and in the press.”

The two sides are expected to file written arguments this month. It’s not clear when a full appellate panel will rule on the case.

The New York gag order is the second imposed on Trump by a judge that has been suspended while an appeals court considers the issue.

In Washington, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan barred Trump from making statements targeting witnesses, prosecutors or court staff involved with his upcoming trial on charges of conspiring to obstruct the results of the 2020 election. That gag order has been suspended while Trump’s legal team appeals Chutkan’s ruling.

A hearing in that appeal is scheduled for Monday.

Nov. 16

New York Times, Trump’s Truth Social Platform Could Struggle to Survive Without New Cash, Matthew Goldstein, Nov. 16, 2023. Former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company is running on fumes and could be at risk of folding if it doesn’t find new funds in a hurry.

In a regulatory filing this week, auditors for Trump Media & Technology Group expressed doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a “going concern” without new financing. The filing also made clear that Trump Media desperately needs to complete its long-delayed merger with a cash-rich shell company so that it can tap $300 million in cash, especially if its flagship online platform, Truth Social, has any chance of surviving.

The document, which offers the first detailed look at Trump Media’s finances, was filed with regulators as part of the company’s pending deal with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the publicly traded shell company it agreed to merge with in 2021.

If the transaction goes through, it could value Trump Media at $1 billion based on Digital World’s share price of $16.60. Yet, the rich valuation is no guarantee that the company, which largely relies on advertising revenue from Truth Social — and Truth Social itself — will be a viable business. Trump Media had little cash on hand by the end of June, and it has exhausted most of the $37 million in private financing it has raised since 2021, according to the filing.

“Contrary to the relentless mainstream media campaign peddling false information about Truth Social, we’ve given millions of Americans their voices back using technology operated at a fraction of the cost of the Big Tech platforms,” Shannon Devine, a spokeswoman for Truth Social, said in a statement. Ms. Devine added that “Truth Social continues to move forward toward completing its merger, which we believe will enable important new ventures for the company.”

Since its founding, Truth Social has been a personal megaphone for Mr. Trump, who uses the platform frequently to rail against his critics as he makes another run for president and confronts an array of criminal and civil lawsuits. The platform is popular with some of his most ardent supporters. But on any given day, much of the advertising on the platform comes from weight loss products, gold coins and “natural cures” for a variety of medical ailments.

During the first six months of this year, Trump Media took in just $2.3 million in advertising revenue, according to the filing.

“Truth Social is obviously not surviving on ad dollars,” said Shannon McGregor, a professor of journalism and media at the University of North Carolina who has studied social media platforms. “And the ads that are being sold are not robust or sustainable.”

The former president’s platform of choice remains a relative minnow in the social media universe. This year, the Truth Social app has been downloaded three million times, according to Sensor Tower, a data provider. By comparison Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has been downloaded 144 million times and Meta’s Threads has been downloaded 171 million times in the nearly five months since it debuted.

In all, Truth Social has been downloaded seven million times since its launch in early 2022, according to Sensor Tower.

Mr. Trump has 6.5 million followers on Truth Social, compared with the 87 million he had on Twitter when he was prohibited from posting on the platform after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Musk, after buying Twitter, let Mr. Trump return to the platform, but the former president has posted only one message on X.

Ms. McGregor said other social media platforms had tried to increase their audience reach by reaching deals with media personalities and influencers who bring with them a ready made group of followers.

If the merger is completed, Trump Media would have the cash on hand to retain the services of conservative media influencers. But Ms. McGregor said some people might be reluctant to join a platform that was so identified with Mr. Trump, whose political future remained uncertain.

“What is the future vision for a platform that is built on being a microphone for one person,” is the obvious question for any social media influencer who might be thinking of joining Truth Social, she said.

The glimmer of good news for Mr. Trump is that this week’s filing of the updated merger document is an indication the deal with Digital World is moving along after being held up for nearly two years because of a regulatory investigation.

The filing of a revised prospectus was one of the requirements Digital World had agreed to as part of an $18 million regulatory settlement it reached this summer with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement resolved an investigation into an allegation that Digital World had flouted securities rules governing special purpose acquisition companies by engaging in early merger talks with Trump Media before its I.P.O.

New York Times, Politics: How Trump and His Allies Plan to Wield Power in 2025, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage, Nov. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Donald J. Trump and his allies are already laying the groundwork for a possible second Trump presidency, forging plans for an even more extreme agenda than his first term.

Former President Donald J. Trump declared in the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign: “I am your retribution.” He later vowed to use the Justice Department to go after his political adversaries, starting with President Biden and his family.

Beneath these public threats is a series of plans by Mr. Trump and his allies that would upend core elements of American governance, democracy, foreign policy and the rule of law if he regained the White House.

Some of these themes trace back to the final period of Mr. Trump’s term in office. By that stage, his key advisers had learned how to more effectively wield power and Mr. Trump had fired officials who resisted some of his impulses and replaced them with loyalists. Then he lost the 2020 election and was cast out of power.

Since leaving office, Mr. Trump’s advisers and allies at a network of well-funded groups have advanced policies, created lists of potential personnel and started shaping new legal scaffolding — laying the groundwork for a second Trump presidency they hope will commence on Jan. 20, 2025.

In a vague statement, two top officials on Mr. Trump’s campaign have sought to distance his campaign team from some of the plans being developed by Mr. Trump’s outside allies, groups led by former senior Trump administration officials who remain in direct contact with him. The statement called news reports about the campaign’s personnel and policy intentions “purely speculative and theoretical.”

The plans described here generally derive from what Mr. Trump has trumpeted on the campaign trail, what has appeared on his campaign website and interviews with Trump advisers, including one who spoke with The New York Times at the request of the campaign.
Trump wants to use the Justice Department to take vengeance on his political adversaries.

If he wins another term, Mr. Trump has said he would use the Justice Department to have his adversaries investigated and charged with crimes, including saying in June that he would appoint “a real special prosecutor to go after” President Biden and his family. He later declared in an interview with Univision that he could, if someone challenged him politically, have that person indicted.

Allies of Mr. Trump have also been developing an intellectual blueprint to cast aside the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department investigatory independence from White House political direction.

Foreshadowing such a move, Mr. Trump had already violated norms in his 2016 campaign by promising to “lock up” his opponent, Hillary Clinton, over her use of a private email server. While president, he repeatedly told aides he wanted the Justice Department to indict his political enemies, including officials he had fired such as James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director. The Justice Department opened various such investigations but did not bring charges — infuriating Mr. Trump and leading to a split in 2020 with his attorney general, William P. Barr.

He intends to carry out an extreme immigration crackdown.

Mr. Trump is planning an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.

Bolstered by agents reassigned from other federal law enforcement agencies and state police and the National Guard, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement would carry out sweeping raids aimed at deporting millions of people each year. Military funds would be used to erect sprawling camps to hold undocumented detainees. A public-health emergency law would be invoked to shut down asylum requests by people arriving at the border. And the government would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents.
Trump has plans to use U.S. military force closer to home.

While in office, Mr. Trump mused about using the military to attack drug cartels in Mexico, an idea that would violate international law unless Mexico consented. That idea has since taken on broader Republican backing, and Mr. Trump intends to make the idea a reality if he returns to the Oval Office.

While the Posse Comitatus Act generally makes it illegal to use federal troops for domestic law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act to use troops to crack down on protesters after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, but was thwarted, and the idea remains salient among his advisers. Among other things, his top immigration adviser has said they would invoke the Insurrection Act at the southern border to use soldiers to intercept and detain undocumented migrants.
Trump and his allies want greater control over the federal bureaucracy and work force.

Mr. Trump and his backers want to increase presidential power over federal agencies, centralizing greater control over the entire machinery of government in the White House.

Nov. 15

New York Times, Trump Can Stay on G.O.P. Primary Ballot in Michigan, Judge Rules, Chris Cameron, Nov. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The state judge seemingly left the door open for a future 14th Amendment fight over Donald Trump’s eligibility for a general election.

A state judge in Michigan partly rejected an effort to disqualify former President Donald J. Trump from running for president in the state, ruling that Mr. Trump will remain on the ballot in the Republican primary, and that the state’s top elections official does not have the authority alone to exclude him from the ballot.

But the judge appeared to leave the door open for a future battle over Mr. Trump’s eligibility as a candidate in the general election, saying that the issue “is not ripe for adjudication at this time.”

The ruling notches a preliminary victory for Mr. Trump in a nationwide battle over his eligibility to run for president again, even as he faces a wave of legal scrutiny in other cases — including 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions.

Plaintiffs across the country have argued that Mr. Trump is ineligible to hold office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it, citing his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

New York Times, The Georgia prosecutor leading an election interference case against Donald Trump said it was likely to stretch into 2025, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Nov. 15, 2023 (print ed.). As the prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, discussed the case at a conference, her office sought an emergency protective order to prevent more leaks of discovery materials.

Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta district attorney leading an election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 14 of his allies, said on Tuesday that a trial would very likely “not conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”

She also defended the scope of the racketeering indictment she brought in August, noting that she had prosecuted far larger racketeering cases in her career. Defendants in such cases “got involved in the criminal enterprise,” she said. “They deserve to be charged. In fact, they earned it.”

Ms. Willis’s office charged Mr. Trump and 18 other defendants with participating in a criminal enterprise aimed at changing the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Four of the defendants have already taken plea deals, agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors.

The timing of a trial for the other defendants is not clear, since a trial date has not been set. But there is growing speculation that the district attorney will seek a summer start.

Ms. Willis’s comments, at a women’s conference held by The Washington Post, came as her office sought an emergency protective order banning the release of discovery materials in the Georgia case. On Monday, videos of private testimony from the defendants who have entered into plea agreements were leaked to several news outlets; Ms. Willis’s office said it did not leak the videos, which it had shared with defense lawyers.

Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court scheduled a hearing on the request for Wednesday.

In one of the videos, obtained by ABC News, Jenna Ellis, a former Trump campaign lawyer who pleaded guilty to a felony charge last month, said she was told in December 2020 by one of Mr. Trump’s longtime aides that he was refusing to leave the White House “under any circumstances” despite losing the election.

In another, first reported by The Post, Kenneth Chesebro, another lawyer who worked with the Trump campaign, disclosed to prosecutors that he met with the president in the White House in mid-December 2020. Mr. Chesebro also discussed a memo he had drafted shortly after the election saying that Jan. 6, 2021, was the “real deadline for settling a state’s electoral votes.”

In the weeks after Mr. Chesebro wrote the memo, the Trump administration deployed fake electoral voters in swing states as part of a plan to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the election results on Jan. 6.

At the conference on Tuesday, Ms. Willis was asked if it was surprising that the videos had been leaked.

“Surprising no, disappointing yes,” she said, adding that such statements — known as “proffers” — from defendants who had pleaded guilty helped prosecutors make their case against more prominent defendants “up the ladder.”

“The D.A. in Fulton County always wants to get to the top of the ladder,” she said, speaking in general terms, but also very likely alluding to Mr. Trump.

Steve Sadow, Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer in Georgia, dismissed the contents of the videos on Monday, saying that “the only salient fact to this nonsense line of inquiry is that President Trump left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, and returned to Mar-a-Lago.”

New York Times, Prosecutors asked an appeals court to approve a gag order imposed on the former president in his election meddling case, Alan Feuer, Nov. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The filing was the latest volley in the fight over whether the former president should be limited in what he can say about his trial on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

Prosecutors asked a federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday to give its approval to a gag order imposed on former President Donald J. Trump in his federal election interference case, saying that Mr. Trump’s “long history” of targeting his adversaries on social media has often led to dangers in the real world.

The gag order on Mr. Trump was suspended this month by the appeals court as it considers whether the trial judge in the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, was justified in imposing it in the first place. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments about the order next week.

In a 67-page filing, Cecil Vandevender, an assistant to Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the federal prosecutions of the former president, told the appeals court that Mr. Trump had received several warnings to curb his aggressive public statements. Still, Mr. Vandevender wrote, the former president has persistently sought to “malign” Mr. Smith and his family, and “target specific witnesses with attacks on their character and credibility.”

Mr. Trump’s attacks on those involved in the election interference case were “part of a pattern, stretching back years, in which people publicly targeted by the defendant are, as a result of the targeting, subject to harassment, threats and intimidation,” Mr. Vandevender wrote.

Nov. 14

Proof, Investigative Commentary: A Trump Attorney’s Shocking Proffer to Prosecutors Opens a Major New Front in the Federal January 6 Investigation: Members of Congress, Seth Abramson, left, Nov 13, 2023. A fired thirty-something traffic-court lawyer (shown above) brought on by the former President of the United States as a key player in his coup plot has just materially changed the stakes of feds’ January 6 probe.

The New York Times reports that there were twenty White House Christmas parties in December 2020. The largest of these parties, per the Times, were held on December 11, December 14, and December 16 of that year.

Why do these parties matter? Because ABC News had issued a bombshell report that includes details of the proffer Trump attorney Jenna Ellis—a fired traffic-court lawyer—made to prosecutors in Georgia, where she recently pleaded guilty to the felony of Aiding and Abetting False Statements.

According to Ellis, top Trump adviser Dan Scavino told her at one of the White House Christmas parties in December 2020 that hen-President Trump had no intention at all of leaving the White House—or of leaving the office of the presidency—in 2021, despite having by then lost all his legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election.

And why does what Scavino said to Ellis at a Christmas party matter? Because on December 21, 2020—just before Christmas Day, but almost certainly after all the major White House Christmas parties—Dan Scavino attended a key meeting in the Oval Office with then-President Trump and at least twelve far-right members of Congress.

Scavino has repeatedly risked federal imprisonment to avoid telling anyone what was said in that meeting. (DOJ later shocked Congress by refusing, without any explanation, to indict Scavino or another meeting attendee, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, for ignoring their valid January 6 federal subpoenas.)

Besides Mr. Trump and Mr. Scavino, the members of Congress known to have been at the White House for at least three hours on December 21 are (with asterisks added to mark any former members of Congress, and wedges added for then-members-elect):

Members of Congress (Past or Present) Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)* Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA)* Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)^ [video of Greene post-meeting here] Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)* Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)* [then Chief of Staff] Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ)* [retiring] “a handful of others [who] dialed in” [per Cassidy Hutchinson testimony] “possibly [people] from the White House Counsel’s office” [per Cassidy Hutchinson testimony] (emphasis added).

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Russia's invasion of legislatures around the world continues sowing chaos in governance, Wayne Madsen, Nov. 13, 2023. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has had monumental success in employing its influence operations, disinformation seeding, and other propaganda programs, which are aimed at co-opting members of legislatures and parliaments around the world, to embrace policies favored by Moscow.

These active measures include cutting off military and other aid to Ukraine, opposing Western sanctions against Russia, and supporting withdrawal from NATO and affiliated programs like the Partnership for Peace.

Astoundingly, Russia’s program of co-opting legislators and political parties has enjoyed its greatest successes in the United States and Canada. Russia exercises control over small but crucial blocs of U.S. Senators and Representatives, Canadian Members of Parliament, and even Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. There are well-established factual reports concerning Russian intelligence’s co-option of national elections in Western democracies, including the 2016 Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

New York Times, Federal Prosecutors Object to Trump Request for Broadcast of Election Trial, Alan Feuer, Nov. 14, 2023 (print ed.). The office of the special counsel said that televising the proceeding would create a “carnival atmosphere” and allow Donald Trump to divert attention from the charges. Federal prosecutors on Monday accused former President Donald J. Trump of trying to turn his trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election into “a media event” with a “carnival atmosphere” by backing calls to have it broadcast live on television.

Even though federal rules of criminal procedure forbid televising trials, Mr. Trump’s lawyers last week asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election subversion case, to agree to requests from news organizations to broadcast the proceedings.

Mr. Trump’s filing was short on legal arguments and relied instead on several dubious claims that he was being treated unfairly in the case and that only the transparency of a televised trial could cure the purported wrongs he had suffered.

But firing back on Monday, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, reminded Judge Chutkan that she had already vowed to treat Mr. Trump like any other criminal defendant. The prosecutors added that despite the former president’s references to “fairness,” he was actually trying to create a circuslike environment “from which he hopes to profit by distracting, like many fraud defendants try to do, from the charges against him.”

“The defendant’s response is a transparent effort to demand special treatment, try his case in the courtroom of public opinion and turn his trial into a media event,” the prosecutors wrote.
Several media organizations had first raised the issue of televising the trial, which is scheduled to start in March in Federal District Court in Washington.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers initially told the government that they did not intend to take a position, one way or the other, on whether the federal proceeding should be broadcast, but they changed their minds, submitting one of their most aggressive filings yet on Friday.

The government’s response to Mr. Trump, written by James I. Pearce, an assistant special counsel, was just as forceful. It accused the former president and his lawyers of crafting court filings “with the goal of gathering media coverage rather than lawful relief” and of using their statements in court “to wage a public relations campaign.”

Mr. Pearce pointed in particular to Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York, where he used his recent time on the witness stand to condemn the case as a “political witch hunt,” prompting the judge, as Mr. Pearce noted, to snap back, “This is not a political rally.”

New York Times, Donald Trump Jr. Says Family Properties Show His Father’s Brilliance, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and Kate Christobek, Nov. 14, 2023 (print ed.). In his second appearance in court, Donald Trump’s eldest son testified that the company’s assets were extremely valuable. A judge has found their values were inflated.

Donald J. Trump’s signature properties are at the heart of a sweeping civil fraud case accusing him of manipulating their values and his net worth. But to hear the former president’s eldest son tell it, those properties prove something far rosier: the brilliance of the Trump family business.

Trump Tower, Donald Trump Jr. declared on the witness stand Monday, is admired as “genius.” Mar-a-Lago is “one of the few American castles.” And 40 Wall Street, the family’s towering office building across from the New York Stock Exchange, has vaults that are “a mechanical work of art.”

In a return appearance at a trial that has featured a parade of Trumps on the stand as they fight for the future of their family business, the junior Mr. Trump testified in bursts of hyperbole and platitudes. His rhetoric sounded as though it had been ripped from the pages of an airline magazine or a travel brochure, and he saved the highest praise for the man who he said made it all happen: his father, a “visionary” who is “an artist with real estate” and “creates things that other people would never envision.”

Yet some of his high-flying claims clashed with present-day reality.

In recent years, the Trump Organization has shrunk, as the family name was scrubbed from some of the properties he extolled, taken off buildings in New York, Washington and, soon, Hawaii. Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street have also, at times, lost a number of tenants. Some of the former president’s properties struggled even to turn a profit.

Nov. 12

Forbes, Trump Compares Political Foes To ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day — Echoing Nazi Propaganda, Sara Dorn, Nov. 12, 2023. Former President Donald Trump pledged to eliminate political extremist groups that “lie, steal and cheat on elections,” calling them “vermin” during a speech Saturday and in a Truth Social post commemorating Veterans Day—echoing a term Nazis often used in antisemitic propaganda to dehumanize Jews, equating them to parasites who spread disease.

Trump made a “pledge” to “root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” in a Truth Social post Saturday “in honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day.”

Trump accused the groups of doing “anything possible to destroy America, and the American Dream,” adding that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.”

He repeated the phrasing at a rally in New Hampshire later Saturday, referring to “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” and declaring “the real threat is not from the radical right, the real threat is from the radical left.”

The former president’s incendiary rhetoric invokes a term frequently used by Nazis to dehumanize Jews, including a 1939 quote attributed to Hitler: “This vermin must be destroyed. The Jews are our sworn enemies,” he told the Czech foreign minister, according to historical accounts.

New York Times, In Veterans Day Speech, Trump Promises to ‘Root Out’ the Left, Michael Gold, Nov. 12, 2023 (print ed.). The former president said that threats from abroad were less concerning than liberal “threats from within” and that he was a “very proud election denier.”

Former President Donald J. Trump, on a day set aside to celebrate those who have defended the United States in uniform, promised to honor veterans in part by assailing what he portrayed as America’s greatest foe: the political left.

Using incendiary and dehumanizing language to refer to his opponents, Mr. Trump vowed to “root out” what he called “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” Mr. Trump said Saturday in a nearly two-hour Veterans Day address in Claremont, N.H.

Mr. Trump accused Democrats and President Biden of trying to roll back his efforts to expand veteran access to health care, causing soaring inflation, pushing the country to the brink of World War III, endangering the troops in Afghanistan and of lying and rigging elections.

He also promised to care for America’s veterans, reviving a hyperbolic claim that he made throughout his 2016 campaign that Democrats “treat the illegal aliens just pouring into our country better than they treat our veterans.”

And he said he would divert money currently earmarked “for the shelter and transport of illegal aliens” to instead provide shelter and treatment for homeless military veterans.

• Washington Post, Trump says on Univision he could weaponize FBI, DOJ against his enemies
• New York Times, Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans, Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Nov. 11

Washington Post, Trump says on Univision he could weaponize FBI, DOJ against his enemies, Maegan Vazquez, Nov. 11, 2023 (print ed.). During a sit-down interview with the Spanish television giant, the former president also defended migrant family separations at the border.

In an interview that aired Thursday night on Univision, former president Donald Trump indicated that if he’s elected in 2024, he may use the federal government to punish his critics and he defended his administration’s separation of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

During the interview on the Spanish-language TV network, journalist Enrique Acevedo asked Trump if he would weaponize the FBI and Justice Department on his opponents in the same way he claims federal law enforcement agencies have been weaponized against him.

“Yeah. If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump told Acevedo, according to excerpts of the interview.

“What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box,” the former president continued, adding, “You know, when you’re president and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election.”

“They have done something that allows the next party … if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election,” Trump continued.

Trump (shown above in a Georgia mug shot) faces 91 combined federal and state charges over alleged election interference, the mishandling of classified documents and falsifying business records. He has denied wrongdoing in each case. Despite his legal issues, the former president’s polling lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination has grown larger in recent months — and the general election is widely expected to be a rematch of the 2020 contest between Trump and President Biden.

The wide-ranging interview comes days after The Washington Post reported that Trump and his allies have been mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to retaliate against his opponents and allies turned critics should he win a second term.

New York Times, After Trump Testifies, Republicans Attack Judge in Civil Fraud Trial, Jonah E. Bromwich and Maggie Haberman, Nov. 11, 2023 (print ed.). Justice Arthur Engoron imposed a narrow gag order on Donald Trump, whose allies are going after the judge through official channels and online.

Representative Elise Stefanik, right, a member of the House Republican leadership and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, filed an ethics complaint Friday attacking the judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, the latest salvo in a right-wing war against the case.

Echoing the courtroom rhetoric of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the letter complains that the Democratic judge, Arthur F. Engoron, has been biased against the former president, who testified this week in New York State Supreme Court. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has accused Mr. Trump of fraudulent business practices, and in a pretrial ruling Justice Engoron agreed, validating the heart of her case.

The letter, to a judicial conduct commission, is unlikely to have any immediate repercussions in the trial, which will determine the consequences Mr. Trump and his company will face as a result of the fraud. But it represents the latest Republican attempt to tar Justice Engoron, and to meddle with Ms. James’s case. The judge has placed narrow gag orders on both the former president and his lawyers, but nothing bars Mr. Trump’s allies from their criticism.

They have taken up the effort with gusto.

“I filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement Friday.

Nov. 8

New York Times, Ivanka Trump to Testify in Fraud Suit Against Family Business, Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and Maggie Haberman, Nov. 8, 2023. The daughter of former President Trump has tried to distance herself from the Trump Organization and has hired her own lawyer.
Ivanka Trump on Wednesday will become the fourth member of her family to testify in a civil case brought by the New York attorney general, offering her own response to accusations of widespread fraud at the Trump Organization.

The attorney general, Letitia James, accused former President Donald J. Trump of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans from banks. Ms. Trump, whose testimony follows that of her father and adult brothers, is expected to be questioned about how the former president’s assets were valued.

Ms. Trump was initially a defendant like her father, brothers and the Trump Organization itself, but an appeals court dismissed the case against her. She sought to avoid taking the stand, but the court required her participation.

The testimony will mark Ms. Trump’s first appearance at a trial that threatens the future of a family business she once guided. Although she had been seen as the heir apparent to the family business, Ms. Trump followed her father to the White House, where she became embroiled in his polarizing presidency.

After her father’s election loss in 2020, Ms. Trump sought to distance herself from his company — and his mounting legal problems, which now include four criminal indictments. Ms. Trump also hired her own lawyer, separate from the legal team representing her family in Ms. James’s case, a move that rankled some in the former president’s camp, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

The last time Ms. Trump testified about her father — before a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — it was a major embarrassment for the former president. In the testimony, broadcast at a prime time congressional hearing, Ms. Trump acknowledged that her father had lost the 2020 election, prompting him to lash out at her for being “checked out” in the final days of his administration.

Though their relationship was strained for a time, the two have had something of a rapprochement and speak regularly, the person with knowledge said.

In the New York case, she will appear not as a top executive of the Trump Organization, but as a former employee with intimate knowledge of the company’s practices, albeit one with a highly personal connection to the case.

Ms. Trump played a central role in setting up some of the company’s relationships with financial institutions — particularly Deutsche Bank — and she is likely to be questioned about that, as well as her knowledge of the annual financial statements that are at the heart of the case.

Vicky Ward Investigates via Substack, "She's Got the Biggest Set of Balls In The Room, Vicky Ward, Nov. 7-8, 2023. What Will Trump's Former Heir-Apparent, Ivanka, Say in Court About The Family Business?

There’s fever-pitch speculation over what Ivanka Trump will say about the Trump Organization. Her father and her brothers are accused, civilly, of fraud. Scheduled to testify tomorrow, she’s there as a fact-witness. She was dismissed from the case earlier this year, for timing reasons (she left the organization in 2017, so the New York State appeals court ruled that the Attorney General’s suit was filed too late after that date to be applicable to her).

In case the lawyers are not up to speed, below is an excerpt from Kushner, Inc that details exactly what Ivanka did while she was employed at the Trump Organization. Even I had forgotten the details of the deals she negotiated with shady foreign partners. In fact, her work in the family business impressed her father so much that he believed she ought to be the one to ultimately lead it. His one time Organization senior advisor, Felix Sater told him: “She’s got the biggest set of balls in the room.”

Nov. 7

Civil fraud defendant Donald Trump, the former president shown at center, testified during the damages phase of his trial in New York's state court surrounded by his attorneys on Nov. 6, 2023 (New York Times photo by Jefferson Siegel).

New York Times, Trump Assails Judge and Acknowledges Role Valuing His Empire’s Property, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman, Nov. 7, 2023 (print ed.). The judge in the case sought to rein in the former president, who railed against him and New York’s attorney general from the stand before wrapping up for the day. Mr. Trump seemed to undercut efforts to distance himself from the property valuations at the heart of the case.

In testimony both ranting and rambling, former President Donald J. Trump said during his civil fraud trial on Monday that he was more of an expert than anyone on real estate and acknowledged helping assemble documents stating the value of his properties.

“I would look at them, I would see them, and I would maybe on occasion have some suggestions,” Mr. Trump said shortly after he took the stand in a Manhattan courtroom. His testimony, which lasted roughly four hours, contained repeated asides and complaints over the case, including about the attorney general who brought it and the judge who will decide it.

The financial statements by the Trump Organization — which a judge has already decided were filled with fraud — are a central element of the suit by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James. She has accused Mr. Trump and other defendants of manipulating the statements to defraud banks and insurers.

The judge in the case, Arthur F. Engoron, became frustrated as he repeatedly sought to rein in Mr. Trump, whose asides included proclaiming the proceeding as “a very unfair trial,” calling Ms. James “a political hack,” and an impassioned ode to his Scottish golf course.

At one point, Mr. Trump complained that the judge had “called me a fraud and he didn’t know anything about me.” Justice Engoron then suggested that Mr. Trump hadn’t read the order where he found him liable for fraud.

Mr. Trump began his afternoon testimony more subdued, but that soon changed. He said on the stand that the case made no sense because the banks were happy with the deals they struck with him, and he called the case a “disgrace.”

“It’s election interference, because you want to keep me in this courthouse all day long,” he said.

Although Mr. Trump acknowledged participating in valuations, he also testified at times that he did not intervene in such work, including for his Mar-a-Lago resort, which he believed was undervalued by the statements. He also sought to minimize the importance of the financial statements, saying that the bankers he used paid very little attention to them — and promised that the defense would bring in those bankers to say as much.

Mr. Trump — who told reporters after his testimony that the case should be immediately dismissed — was the third member of the family to testify in the case. His two oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, testified last week. His daughter Ivanka is expected on the stand on Wednesday.

Here’s what else to know:

• Mr. Trump’s lawyers have already appealed Justice Engoron’s ruling that the statements contained fraud, arguing that valuations are subjective and were in part the responsibility of others. What is left to be determined is any penalty Mr. Trump might have to pay and whether he will be banished from the world of New York real estate that made him famous.
• Justice Engoron chided Mr. Trump several times, asking him to keep his remarks short and at one point striking part of one monologue from the record. “This is not a political rally,” he told the former president. Read about the judge’s efforts.
• During the lunch break, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Alina Habba, criticized Justice Engoron for scolding Mr. Trump over his meandering answers. “The only thing they want are facts that are bad for Trump,” she said outside the courthouse. “That’s why he’s silencing him.”
• The case differs from other legal challenges facing the former president. It is a civil case, not criminal. There is no jury; the judge will determine the outcome. And although Mr. Trump and his sons could have asserted their Fifth Amendment rights against answering questions, doing so would have been risky: In a civil case, a jury or judge is allowed to make a negative assumption when a defendant declines to testify. Read about the differences.
• Since the trial began Oct. 2, the former president has been a fixture in and around the courtroom — including making statements that Justice Engoron said violated a gag order barring Mr. Trump from attacking court staff. Here’s a look at key moments in the trial.
• The judge in the case sought to rein in the former president, who railed against him and New York’s attorney general from the stand.
  Donald Trump seemed to undercut efforts to distance himself from the property valuations at the heart of the case.

Nov. 5

Washington Post, Trump and his allies are mapping out plans to use the government to punish opponents if he wins in 2024, Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett, Nov. 5, 2023 (print ed.). Advisers have also discussed deploying the military to quell potential unrest on Inauguration Day. Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.

Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.

In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.

“It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power. “It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”

Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.

The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

New York Times, Trump Leads Biden in 5 Critical States, Times/Siena Poll Finds, Shane Goldmacher, Nov. 5, 2023. Many voters said they trusted Donald Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base frays.

President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.

The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.

Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.

Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions. And while women still favored Mr. Biden, men preferred Mr. Trump by twice as large a margin, reversing the gender advantage that had fueled so many Democratic gains in recent years.

Black voters — long a bulwark for Democrats and for Mr. Biden — are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.

Add it all together, and Mr. Trump leads by 10 points in Nevada, six in Georgia, five in Arizona, five in Michigan and four in Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden held a 2-point edge in Wisconsin.

In a remarkable sign of a gradual racial realignment between the two parties, the more diverse the swing state, the farther Mr. Biden was behind, and he led only in the whitest of the six.

Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.

New York Times, Analysis: Here’s why President Biden is behind, and here’s how he could come back, Nate Cohn, Graphics by Alicia Parlapiano. Nov. 5, 2023. A polling deficit against Trump across six key states is mainly about younger, nonwhite and less engaged voters. Kamala Harris performs slightly better.

Four years ago, Joe Biden was the electability candidate — the broadly appealing, moderate Democrat from Scranton who promised to win the white working-class voters who elected Donald J. Trump.

There are few signs of that electoral strength today.

With one year to go until the election, there’s still plenty of time for the race to change. In contrast with four years ago, the poll finds a disengaged, disaffected and dissatisfied electorate, setting the stage for a potentially volatile campaign. Many voters only agonizingly support these two disliked candidates. Some will shift as the campaign gets underway. Others simply won’t vote at all.

The poll contains considerable evidence that it shouldn’t necessarily be daunting for Democrats to reassemble a coalition to defeat Mr. Trump, who remains every bit as unpopular as he was three years ago. But even if Mr. Trump remains eminently beatable, the poll also suggests it may nonetheless be quite challenging for Mr. Biden himself.

The survey finds that Mr. Biden enters his campaign as a badly weakened candidate, one running without the strengths on personal likability, temperament and character that were essential to his narrow victories in all six of these states in 2020. Long-festering vulnerabilities on his age, economic stewardship, and appeal to young, Black and Hispanic voters have grown severe enough to imperil his re-election chances.

On question after question, the public’s view of the president has plummeted over the course of his time in office. The deterioration in Mr. Biden’s standing is broad, spanning virtually every demographic group, yet it yields an especially deep blow to his electoral support among young, Black and Hispanic voters, with Mr. Trump obtaining previously unimaginable levels of support with them.
Based on New York Times/Siena College polls of 3,662 registered voters conducted Oct. 22 to Nov. 3 in six battleground states. The 2020 vote is based on how respondents say they voted in 2020, though margins are similar to The Times's estimates of the results. Numbers are rounded.
Why Biden Is Behind, and How He Could Come Back - The New York Times

Mr. Biden barely leads at all among nonwhite voters under 45, even though the same voters reported backing Mr. Biden by almost 40 points in the last election. As a result, the candidates are essentially tied among voters 18 to 29, a group that has reliably backed Democrats by a wide margin for two decades.

Just as strikingly, Mr. Trump has cut Mr. Biden’s lead among nonwhite voters in half, not only with staggering gains among the younger part of that group but with more modest gains among older voters as well. Overall, Mr. Trump earns more than 20 percent support among Black voters, a tally that would be unprecedented in the post-Civil Rights Act era.
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In contrast, Mr. Biden has retained the entirety of his support among older white voters, helping him stay relatively competitive in the older and predominantly white Northern battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, even as Mr. Trump builds a more comfortable lead in the more diverse Sun Belt states.

There’s no reason to assume that next November’s final election tallies will match the results of these surveys. But if they did, it could represent an epochal shift in American politics, one with the potential to reverberate for decades as young and nonwhite voters make up a growing share of the electorate. Many familiar patterns in American politics would be blurred. Racial and generational polarization would fade. It would be the culmination of a decade-long realignment of the electorate along the lines of Mr. Trump’s conservative populism, all while dashing Democratic hopes of assembling a progressive majority around a new generation of young and nonwhite voters.

While all of this raises the specter of catastrophe for Democrats, there is still plenty of time for the electorate’s preferences to gradually come back into alignment with the familiar demographic patterns of the last few decades. The poll suggests that it shouldn’t necessarily be difficult for Mr. Biden to reassemble his winning coalition — at least on paper. To win, he merely needs to reinvigorate voters from traditional Democratic constituencies, groups that the poll finds remain quite open to Democrats in a matchup against Mr. Trump.

In a hypothetical race without Mr. Biden, an unnamed generic Democrat leads Mr. Trump by eight points, 48 to 40 — a wider lead than the three-point edge held by an unnamed Democrat at this time in 2019.

Washington Post, The Trump Trials: Former president to testify at civil fraud trial in New York on Monday, Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett, Nov. 5, 2023.  The former president is scheduled to testify at his civil fraud trial in New York on Monday. And other trial news.

Trump — the man himself — is expected to take the witness stand on Monday in the civil fraud trial in New York against him and his family real estate business. He is accused of fraudulently inflating his property values to get better terms on loans and insurance. His son Eric said the former president is “fired up” to testify.

It will be interesting to see Trump’s demeanor on the stand given how contentious the trial has been thus far. Trump has derided the judge — and the judge imposed a gag order after the former president publicly criticized his law clerk.

Ivanka Trump is expected to testify on Wednesday.

This may be the only time Trump is actually is on the witness stand over the next year. Yes, he faces four criminal trials, but criminal defendants cannot be forced to testify.

Nov. 4

 New York Times, Trump Is Temporarily Free From Gag Order in Election Case, Alan Feuer, Nov. 4, 2023 (print ed.). A panel of a federal appeals court lifted the order for at least two weeks, freeing Donald Trump to say what he wants about prosecutors and witnesses.

An appeals court in Washington on Friday paused the gag order imposed on former President Donald J. Trump in the federal case accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election, temporarily freeing him to go back to attacking the prosecutors and witnesses involved in the proceeding.

In a brief order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the pause of about two weeks was needed to give it “sufficient opportunity” to decide whether to enact a longer freeze as the court considered the separate — and more important — issue of whether the gag order had been correctly imposed in the first place.

The panel’s ruling came in response to an emergency request to lift the order pending appeal that Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed on Thursday night. While the judges — all three of whom were appointed by Democrats — paused the gag order until at least Nov. 20 to permit additional papers to be filed, they wrote in their decision on Friday that the brief stay “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits” of Mr. Trump’s broader motion for a more sustained pause.

The gag order, which was put in place last month by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Federal District Court in Washington, has now been frozen, reinstated and frozen again. The protracted battle, with its back-and-forth filings and multiple reversals, has pitted two visions of Mr. Trump against each other.

Nov. 3

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Trump Asks Federal Appeals Court to Lift Gag Order in Election Case, Alan Feuer, Nov. 3, 2023. The former president argued that the order restricting what he can say about the case should not be in effect while he seeks to have it thrown out on appeal.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump filed an emergency request to a federal appeals court on Thursday seeking to lift the gag order imposed on him in the criminal case in which he stands accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

The lawyers asked the appeals court to keep the pause of the order in place until it reaches a final decision on whether the order should have been issued in the first place.

“No court in American history has imposed a gag order on a criminal defendant who is actively campaigning for public office — let alone the leading candidate for president of the United States,” the lawyers wrote in their 11th-hour petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“That centuries-long practice was broken,” the lawyers added, when a federal judge in Washington put the gag order in place last month, “muzzling President Trump’s core political speech during an historic presidential campaign.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked the appeals court to render a decision on their request for a stay by Nov. 10. They suggested that they would seek relief from the Supreme Court if the appellate judges denied their motion.

The gag order, imposed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, right, of Federal District Court in Washington, was issued against Mr. Trump on Oct. 16 to keep him from targeting members of the court staff, prosecutors working on the case and any people who might appear as witnesses in the proceeding.

It followed a relentless barrage of social media posts by Mr. Trump that threatened not only Judge Chutkan, but also the special counsel, Jack Smith, who is overseeing the two federal prosecutions of the former president.

Washington Post, FBI director pushes back sharply against critics in new interview, Devlin Barrett, Nov. 2, 2023 (print ed.). Devlin Barrett, Nov. 2, 2023 (print ed.). Christopher A. Wray, who has been increasingly under attack from congressional Republicans, said the people accusing the law enforcement agency of bias are themselves trying to gain a political advantage at the FBI’s expense.

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, right, who has been increasingly under attack from congressional Republicans, pushed back against his critics in a new interview, saying the people accusing the law enforcement agency of bias are themselves trying to gain a political advantage at the FBI’s expense.

“I have found almost invariably, the people screaming the loudest about the politicization of the FBI are themselves the most political, and more often than not, making claims of politicization to advance their own views or goals, and they often don’t know the facts or are choosing to ignore them,” Wray said in a Wednesday episode of the podcast “FBI Retired Case File Review.”

Wray pointed out, as he has before, that when President Donald Trump nominated him in 2017 to be the FBI director, not a single Republican senator voted against him. “It’s utterly bewildering to me that I or the FBI would be accused of bias against conservatives or any political party,” he said.

A number of Republican congressmen — particularly lawmakers loyal to Trump — have been on the warpath against the FBI, threatening to cut the agency’s funding and reduce its legal authority over what they claim is a pattern of politically motivated decision-making in cases involving elected officials and President Biden’s son Hunter.

That bad blood was evident Tuesday when Wray appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and was attacked by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) over the Hunter Biden investigation.

Eric Trump began testifying Thursday morning, immediately after his older brother left the stand New York Times photo by Hiroko Masuike). 

New York Times, 2 Trump Sons Testify in Fraud Case Aimed at Their Family Business, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Nov. 3, 2023 (print ed.). Eric Trump took the stand after his older brother, Donald Jr. They are accused along with former President Trump of inflating the value of business assets.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s two eldest sons took the stand in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday in a civil fraud case against them and their father that threatens the family empire.

On Thursday, Donald Trump Jr. was calm but defensive, seeking to blame accountants for errors on financial statements that a judge has already found were fraudulent. His younger brother Eric was more combative — he acknowledged his place at the center of the business, but denied involvement in the financial statements.

The trial will determine consequences for them and their father. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has asked that they be ousted from New York’s business world and for a $250 million penalty.

Ms. James’s lawyers on Thursday were able to expose seeming contradictions and inconsistencies in the testimony of both brothers.

The lawyers showed that Donald Trump Jr. had signed a letter to an accounting firm in which he said there were no misstatements on the financial documents, even after being alerted to errors by Forbes magazine. He dismissed the correspondence as a “cover your butt” letter.

Eric Trump — who also sought to blame the company’s outside accountants for errors — lost his temper after lengthy questioning about his knowledge of the company’s annual financial statements.

“We’re a major organization, a massive real estate organization,” he said, raising his voice and saying that it was obvious that the Trump Organization would have had such statements.

He continued to insist that he had no knowledge of them more than 10 years ago, despite evidence that suggested he was involved in conversations about them.

Their testimony — a full month into the trial — was the first by members of the Trump family. Ivanka Trump, who was a key part of the business before joining her father in the White House, may testify next week. Former President Donald J. Trump is expected on the stand on Monday.

Here’s what to know:

• Before the trial began last month, the judge found that Mr. Trump, his sons and the other defendants had artificially inflated the values of properties, including Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have appealed that ruling, arguing that valuations are subjective and were in part the responsibility of others.
• Donald Trump’s two eldest sons have both spent their careers working in the family business, and expanded their roles during their father’s presidency, with Eric Trump running the Trump Organization’s day-to-day operations. The two men have different roles and different personalities.
• The case differs from other legal challenges facing the former president. It is a civil case, not criminal. There is no jury; the judge overseeing the case will determine the outcome. And although Mr. Trump’s sons could have asserted their Fifth Amendment rights against answering questions, doing so would have been risky: In a civil case, a jury or judge is allowed to make a negative assumption when a defendant declines to testify. Read about the differences.
• Since the trial began Oct. 2, the former president has been a fixture in the courtroom and outside — including making statements that the judge in the case, Arthur F. Engoron, said violated a gag order barring Mr. Trump from attacking court staff. Here’s a look at key moments in the case so far.

 Nov. 2

Donald Trump Jr., center, said he had little involvement with the documents at the heart of the case, having left them to accountants (New York Times photo by Anna Watts on Nov. 1, 2023).

New York Times, Donald Trump Jr. Denies Responsibility for Company Business Statements, Jonah E. Bromwich and Kate Christobek, Nov. 2, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s son began the Trump family’s parade to the witness stand in the civil fraud case.

Donald Trump Jr. testified on Wednesday that he had no involvement in annual financial statements that his family’s business gave banks and insurers despite language in the statements themselves suggesting that he was partially responsible for them.

His contention, which came during the trial of a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general, capped an afternoon of otherwise unremarkable testimony from Mr. Trump, who is the first of his family members to testify about the case.

Asked whether he worked on one such statement, from 2017, Mr. Trump was clear: “I did not. The accountants worked on it. That’s what we pay them for.”

He soon clarified that his conversations with others at the company may have informed the financial statement. The attorney general, Letitia James, has said such papers were filled with fraud that helped the company, the Trump Organization, gain favorable treatment from lenders.

October

Oct. 31

Washington Post, Trump maintains lead in Iowa poll while Haley ties for second with DeSantis, Maegan Vazquez, Oct. 31, 2023 (print ed.). Former president Donald Trump maintains a commanding lead among Republicans running for president in 2024 in the first-in-the nation Iowa caucuses, while former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has pulled into a tie for second place with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a new poll finds.

With less than three months until the caucuses, the latest NBC News-Des Moines Register-Mediacom Iowa poll shows Trump’s lead among the crowded pack of primary candidates remains strong. Forty-three percent of likely caucus-goers pick Trump as their first-choice GOP presidential candidate. Haley and DeSantis both draw 16 percent support.

Despite Trump’s legal challenges and GOP candidates’ efforts over the last several months to set themselves as a viable alternative for the party, his support is nearly identical to his percentage in an August Iowa poll. DeSantis’s support has slipped three percentage points, and Haley’s support has grown by 10 percentage points, the poll finds.

Spurned by moderates and MAGA: How DeSantis’s coalition has deflated

In the new poll, Haley and DeSantis are followed by Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) with 7 percent. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie are both at 4 percent, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is at 3 percent, and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is at 1 percent.

Oct. 30

New York Times, Federal Judge Reinstates Gag Order on Trump in Election Case, Alan Feuer, Oct. 30, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that her order should stay in effect while the former president’s lawyers pursue an appeal.

A federal judge reinstated a gag order on former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday that had been temporarily placed on hold nine days earlier, reimposing restrictions on what Mr. Trump can say about witnesses and prosecutors in the case in which he stands accused of seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

In making her decision, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, right, also denied a request by Mr. Trump’s lawyers to freeze the gag order for what could have been a considerably longer period, saying it can remain in effect as a federal appeals court in Washington reviews it.

Judge Chutkan’s ruling about the order was posted publicly on PACER, the federal court database, late on Sunday, but her detailed order explaining her reasoning was not immediately available because of what appeared to be a glitch in the computer system.

The dispute about the gag order, which was initially put in place on Oct. 16 after several rounds of court filings and a hard-fought hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, has for weeks pitted two significant legal arguments against each other.

From the start, Mr. Trump’s lawyers, largely led by John F. Lauro, have argued that the order was not merely a violation of the former president’s First Amendment rights. Rather, the order “silenced” him at a critical moment: just as he has been shoring up his position as the Republican Party’s leading candidate for president in the 2024 election.

Federal prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, have countered that even though Mr. Trump is running for the country’s highest office, he does not have permission to issue public statements threatening or intimidating people involved in the election interference case, especially if those remarks might incite violence in those who read or hear them.

When she first imposed the gag order, Judge Chutkan sided with the government, acknowledging Mr. Trump’s First Amendment rights but saying that she intended to treat him like any other criminal defendant — even if he was running for president.

Mr. Trump’s constitutional rights could not permit him “to launch a pretrial smear campaign” against people involved in the case, she said, adding, “No other defendant would be allowed to do so, and I’m not going to allow it in this case.”

Soon after Judge Chutkan issued the gag order, Mr. Lauro began the process of appealing it. A few days later, he asked the judge to freeze the order until the appeals court made its own decision, saying that the ruling she had put in place was “breathtakingly overbroad” and “unconstitutionally vague.”

Washington Post, Hearings begin as Trump critics attempt to kick him off ballots, Patrick Marley, Oct. 30, 2023 (print ed.). Lawsuits in Colorado and Minnesota center on the 14th Amendment, which bars those who engage in an insurrection from running for office.

In two courtrooms 900 miles apart, judges next week will begin to weigh an unprecedented and historic question: Is former president Donald Trump eligible to run for office again given his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol?
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Starting on Monday in Denver, a week-long hearing featuring witnesses and legal scholars will explore whether Jan. 6 qualified as an insurrection, which could bar Trump from the ballot in Colorado. On Thursday, the Minnesota Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether an obscure part of the Constitution might keep Trump off the ballot there. In coming weeks, courts around the country might hold similar proceedings.

The legal strategy, pursued by an unusual mix of conservatives and liberals, is unlike any tried before against a candidate for president. Legal experts are deeply divided on the merit of the theory, but even its backers acknowledge they face stiff challenges.

Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).

Washington Post, The Trump Trials: Cannon Fodder, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, Oct. 30, 2023 (print ed.). What’s ahead. Judge Aileen M. Cannon, below right, is set to hold a hearing in Florida on Wednesday to discuss scheduling in Donald Trump’s classified-documents case. We will be there, looking for any signs of whether she thinks the current May 20 trial date is going to hold or be pushed back.

One key issue is how much time Trump and his legal team get to review the piles of secret evidence in the case. Trump’s lawyers have accused the government of being too slow to provide access to the full catalogue of classified papers, and insist they need more time to prepare.

Under the current schedule, both sides have until Friday to file their pretrial motions — arguments for what should be allowed or not allowed at trial.

And in New York, three of Trump’s adult children — Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka — are expected to be called as witnesses in the civil fraud trial against their father, Donald Jr. and Eric, and the family business. More on that trial below.

Now, a recap of what you may have missed.

New York Times, Opinion: Jenna Ellis Could Become a Star Witness Against Trump, Norman Eisen and Amy Lee Copeland, Oct. 30, 2023 (print ed.). (Mr. Eisen is a co-author of a Brookings report on the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney’s Trump investigation. Ms. Copeland is a criminal defense and appellate lawyer in Savannah, Ga.),

When Jenna Ellis last week became the most recent lawyer to join in an accelerating series of guilty pleas in the Fulton County, Ga., prosecution of Donald Trump and his co-conspirators, she offered a powerful repudiation of the “Big Lie” that could potentially cut the legs out from under Donald Trump’s defense, make her a star witness for prosecutors and a potent weapon against the former president’s political ambitions.

Ms. Ellis admitted that the allegations of election fraud she peddled as an advocate for the effort to overturn the 2020 election were false. Two other plea deals, from Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have been important, but Ms. Ellis is in a unique position to aid prosecutors in the Georgia case and possibly even the parallel federal one — as well as Mr. Trump’s opponents in the court of public opinion.

Ms. Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony count of aiding and abetting the false statements made by co-defendants (including Rudy Giuliani) to the Georgia Senate about supposed voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. These included that “10,315 or more dead people voted” in Georgia, “at least 96,000 mail-in ballots were counted” erroneously and “2,506 felons voted illegally.”

These lies were at the cutting edge of Mr. Trump’s assault on the election. Both the state and federal criminal prosecutions allege that Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators knowingly deployed falsehoods like these in their schemes to overturn the election.

Ms. Ellis emerged from her plea hearing as a likely star witness for prosecutors, starting with the one who secured her cooperation, the Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. Unlike Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, in pleading guilty Ms. Ellis spoke in detail about her “responsibilities as a lawyer.” Tearing up, she talked about the due diligence that “I did not do but should have done” and her “deep remorse for those failures of mine.” The judge, a tough former prosecutor, thanked her for sharing that and noted how unusual it was for a defendant to do so.

Trials are about the evidence and the law. But they are also theater, and the jury is the audience. In this case, the jury is not the only audience — the Georgia trials will be televised, so many Americans will also be tuned in. Ms. Ellis is poised to be a potent weapon against Mr. Trump in the courtroom and on TVs.

That is bad news for her former co-defendants — above all, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump. Ms. Ellis was most closely associated with Mr. Giuliani, appearing by his side in Georgia and across the country. If her court appearance last week is any indication, she will be a compelling guide to his alleged misconduct. She will also add to what is known about it; she and Mr. Giuliani undoubtedly had many conversations that are not yet public and that will inform the jury. And because Mr. Giuliani was the senior lawyer on the case, her pointed statement that she was misled by attorneys “with many more years of experience” hits him directly.

Ms. Ellis’s likely trial testimony will also hit Mr. Trump hard. She has now effectively repudiated his claims that he won the election — an argument that is expected to be a centerpiece of his trial defense. Coming from a formerly outspoken MAGA champion, her disagreement has the potential to resonate with jurors.

It also builds on substantial other evidence against the former president, which includes voluminous witness testimony collected by the House Jan. 6 committee indicating that many advisers told him the election was not stolen — and that in private he repeatedly admitted as much.

Meidas Touch Network, Judge HITS Trump with 9 PAGES of DOOM to MUZZLE his THREATS, Michael Popok, Oct. 30, 2023. We now have the actual 9 page written order from Judge Chutkan reimposing her gag order against Donald Trump and it’s worse than we thought for Trump. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains how Judge Chutkan has not only increase the likelihood that Donald Trump will lose in his efforts to appeal her gag order, but she also used an explosive racist recent social media post example of Donald Trump to prove a point that her gag order is appropriate and easily understood by all the parties.

Oct. 28

Former President Donald Trump on Oct. 25, 2023, with defense counsel Alina Habba, in New York court facing civil fraud charges for lying about his finances  (New York Times photo by Dave Sanders).

New York Times, Trump Ordered to Pay $10,000 in New Punishment for Breaking Gag Order, Jonah E. Bromwich and Kate Christobek, Oct. 26, 2023 (print ed.). Outside Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, the former president made comments to reporters that the judge found were an attack on a court employee.

A Manhattan judge briefly ordered Donald J. Trump to the witness stand on Wednesday after accusing him of breaking a gag order with critical comments that seemed aimed at a law clerk, and then fined him $10,000.

The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, who is presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, issued the punishment after finding that Mr. Trump earlier in the day had violated an order that prevents him from discussing court staff. Mr. Trump said that his comments had referred not to the clerk, whom he had previously attacked, but to his former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, a witness.

From the stand, Mr. Trump, wearing a navy suit and limiting the duration of his usual monologues, said that while he had not been speaking about the clerk, Allison Greenfield, he thought she was “maybe unfair, and I think she’s very biased against me.”

Mr. Trump left the stand after about three minutes. Justice Engoron said that he had not found the former president credible and levied the fine.

The episode was remarkable and wholly unexpected: While Mr. Trump has been voluble in his own defense outside the courtroom, he had not testified in open court in more than a decade, and as soon as he did, the judge found against him. For the former president, who is expected to testify later in the civil fraud trial and has been criminally indicted four other times, it was a harsh preview of what may await.

During a break in the proceedings on Wednesday, Mr. Trump had called Justice Engoron partisan — which is allowable under the order. But he continued, saying, “with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him. Perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

After the break, the judge said he was concerned that the overheated environment in the courtroom could result in real danger.

“I am very protective of my staff,” Justice Engoron said, adding, “I don’t want anyone to get killed.”

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, protested that the former president had been referring to Mr. Cohen, his former fixer, who was testifying for a second day. Mr. Trump did clearly refer to Mr. Cohen immediately after the initial comment, calling him a “discredited witness.”

The judge responded that the target of the comments had seemed clear to him and, after lunch, called the hearing.

Mr. Trump trotted to the witness stand and faced the courtroom for his brief questioning by the judge. Justice Engoron asked whether he had in the past referred to Ms. Greenfield as “partisan” and whether he always refers to Mr. Cohen as “Michael Cohen.” His lawyers, from the defense table, assured the judge that Mr. Trump has far more derogatory ways of referring to Mr. Cohen.

After Justice Engoron issued the fine, the trial resumed, with Mr. Trump’s lawyers prompting Mr. Cohen to admit that he had lied on past occasions. Soon, another of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Clifford S. Robert, called for an immediate verdict, given Mr. Cohen’s contradictions. Justice Engoron denied the request, and Mr. Trump slid his chair back and stormed out of the courtroom.

Oct. 27

New York Times, Prosecutors are pushing to reinstate a gag order on former President Trump in the federal election case, Oct. 27, 2023 (print ed.). In court filings, the special counsel’s office said the gag order was needed to keep the former president from making “harmful and prejudicial attacks” on people in the federal election case.

For much of this week, after a federal judge temporarily froze the gag order she imposed on him, former President Donald J. Trump has acted like a mischievous latchkey kid, making the most of his unsupervised stint.

At least three times in the past three days, he has attacked Jack Smith, the special counsel leading his federal prosecutions, as “deranged.” Twice, he has weighed in about testimony attributed to his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who could be a witness in the federal case accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

Each of Mr. Trump’s comments appeared to violate the gag order put in place less than two weeks ago to limit his ability to intimidate witnesses in the case, assail prosecutors or otherwise disrupt the proceeding. And after the former president was fined $10,000 on Wednesday for flouting a similar directive imposed on him by the judge presiding over a civil trial he is facing in New York, federal prosecutors asked that he face consequences for his remarks about the election interference case as well.

On Friday, the judge who imposed the federal order, Tanya S. Chutkan, put it on hold for a week to allow the special counsel’s office and lawyers for Mr. Trump to file more papers about whether she should set it aside for an even longer period as an appeals court considers its merits.

Former Trump attorneys Jenna Ellis, left, and Sidney Powell in 2020 (Associated Press photo by Jacquelyn Martin).

New York Times, Opinion: Trump’s Lawyers Should Have Known Better, Jesse Wegman, Oct. 28, 2023 (print ed.). In Fulton County, Ga., three of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers — Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis — have now pleaded guilty to crimes in service of Mr. Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election and stay in the White House.

All three have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the sprawling state RICO case against Mr. Trump. Two other Trump lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, still face criminal charges in the Georgia case. They, along with Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, right, have also been identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the related federal prosecution of Mr. Trump, which will probably benefit from the guilty pleas in Georgia.

The charges in the plea agreements vary, but the underlying story is the same: Fifty years after Watergate, the nation is once again confronted with a president who grossly abused the powers of his office, leading to criminal prosecutions. And once again, that abuse relied heavily on the involvement of lawyers. If Mr. Trump’s 2020 racket was “a coup in search of a legal theory,” as one federal judge put it, these lawyers provided the theory, and the phony facts to back it up. In doing so, they severely tarnished their profession.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary:Trump Gets OUTMANEUVERED by Federal Judge in BRILLIANT New Order, Michael Popok, Oct. 28, 2023. Judge Chutkan presiding over the DC election criminal case against Donald Trump has called his bluff.

Trump doesn’t want an unfiltered television feed of the actual trial to go to the American people, or does he?

Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on the judge’s decision today to have Donald Trump state his position on the record as to whether he wants his trial televised for the American people to make their decision before election day, or whether he wants to continue to hide in the shadows and cowardly attack prosecutors witnesses an judges on social media and in hallway statements to right wing media. Which is it?

Oct. 26

Former President Donald Trump on Oct. 25, 2023, with defense counsel Alina Habba, in New York court facing civil fraud charges for lying about his finances  (New York Times photo by Dave Sanders).

New York Times, Trump Ordered to Pay $10,000 in New Punishment for Breaking Gag Order, Jonah E. Bromwich and Kate Christobek, Oct. 26, 2023 (print ed.). Outside Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, the former president made comments to reporters that the judge found were an attack on a court employee.

A Manhattan judge briefly ordered Donald J. Trump to the witness stand on Wednesday after accusing him of breaking a gag order with critical comments that seemed aimed at a law clerk, and then fined him $10,000.

The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, who is presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, issued the punishment after finding that Mr. Trump earlier in the day had violated an order that prevents him from discussing court staff. Mr. Trump said that his comments had referred not to the clerk, whom he had previously attacked, but to his former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, a witness.

From the stand, Mr. Trump, wearing a navy suit and limiting the duration of his usual monologues, said that while he had not been speaking about the clerk, Allison Greenfield, he thought she was “maybe unfair, and I think she’s very biased against me.”

Mr. Trump left the stand after about three minutes. Justice Engoron said that he had not found the former president credible and levied the fine.

The episode was remarkable and wholly unexpected: While Mr. Trump has been voluble in his own defense outside the courtroom, he had not testified in open court in more than a decade, and as soon as he did, the judge found against him. For the former president, who is expected to testify later in the civil fraud trial and has been criminally indicted four other times, it was a harsh preview of what may await.

During a break in the proceedings on Wednesday, Mr. Trump had called Justice Engoron partisan — which is allowable under the order. But he continued, saying, “with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him. Perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

After the break, the judge said he was concerned that the overheated environment in the courtroom could result in real danger.

“I am very protective of my staff,” Justice Engoron said, adding, “I don’t want anyone to get killed.”

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, protested that the former president had been referring to Mr. Cohen, his former fixer, who was testifying for a second day. Mr. Trump did clearly refer to Mr. Cohen immediately after the initial comment, calling him a “discredited witness.”

The judge responded that the target of the comments had seemed clear to him and, after lunch, called the hearing.

Mr. Trump trotted to the witness stand and faced the courtroom for his brief questioning by the judge. Justice Engoron asked whether he had in the past referred to Ms. Greenfield as “partisan” and whether he always refers to Mr. Cohen as “Michael Cohen.” His lawyers, from the defense table, assured the judge that Mr. Trump has far more derogatory ways of referring to Mr. Cohen.

After Justice Engoron issued the fine, the trial resumed, with Mr. Trump’s lawyers prompting Mr. Cohen to admit that he had lied on past occasions. Soon, another of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Clifford S. Robert, called for an immediate verdict, given Mr. Cohen’s contradictions. Justice Engoron denied the request, and Mr. Trump slid his chair back and stormed out of the courtroom.

New York Times, Prosecutors are pushing to reinstate a gag order on former President Trump in the federal election case, Oct. 26, 2023. In court filings, the special counsel’s office said the gag order was needed to keep the former president from making “harmful and prejudicial attacks” on people in the federal election case.

For much of this week, after a federal judge temporarily froze the gag order she imposed on him, former President Donald J. Trump has acted like a mischievous latchkey kid, making the most of his unsupervised stint.

At least three times in the past three days, he has attacked Jack Smith, the special counsel leading his federal prosecutions, as “deranged.” Twice, he has weighed in about testimony attributed to his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who could be a witness in the federal case accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

Each of Mr. Trump’s comments appeared to violate the gag order put in place less than two weeks ago to limit his ability to intimidate witnesses in the case, assail prosecutors or otherwise disrupt the proceeding. And after the former president was fined $10,000 on Wednesday for flouting a similar directive imposed on him by the judge presiding over a civil trial he is facing in New York, federal prosecutors asked that he face consequences for his remarks about the election interference case as well.

On Friday, the judge who imposed the federal order, Tanya S. Chutkan, put it on hold for a week to allow the special counsel’s office and lawyers for Mr. Trump to file more papers about whether she should set it aside for an even longer period as an appeals court considers its merits.

New York Times, With Plea Deals in Georgia Trump Case, Fani Willis Is Building Momentum, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Oct. 26, 2023 (print ed.). The Fulton County district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump and his allies often uses her state’s racketeering law to pressure lower-rung defendants to cooperate.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., had no shortage of doubters when she brought an ambitious racketeering case in August against former president Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies. It was too broad, they said, and too complicated, with so many defendants and multiple, crisscrossing plot lines for jurors to follow.

But the power of Georgia’s racketeering statute in Ms. Willis’s hands has become apparent over the last six days. Her office is riding a wave of momentum that started with a guilty plea last Thursday from Sidney K. Powell, the pro-Trump lawyer who had promised in November 2020 to “release the kraken” by exposing election fraud, but never did.

Then, in rapid succession, came two more guilty pleas — and promises to cooperate with the prosecution and testify — from other Trump-aligned lawyers, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis. While Ms. Powell pleaded guilty only to misdemeanor charges, both Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Ellis accepted a felony charge as part of their plea agreements.

A fourth defendant, a Georgia bail bondsman named Scott Hall, pleaded guilty last month to five misdemeanor charges.

With Mr. Trump and 14 of his co-defendants still facing trial in the case, the question of the moment is who else will flip, and how soon. But the victories notched thus far by Ms. Willis and her team demonstrate the extraordinary legal danger that the Georgia case poses for the former president.

And the plea deals illustrate Ms. Willis’s methodology, wielding her state’s racketeering law to pressure smaller-fry defendants to roll over, take plea deals, and apply pressure to defendants higher up the pyramids of power.

The strategy is by no means unique to Ms. Willis. “This is how it works,” said Kay L. Levine, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta, referring to large-scale racketeering and conspiracy prosecutions. “People at the lower rungs are typically offered a good deal in order to help get the big fish at the top.”

Oct. 25

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

New York Times, Jenna Ellis, Former Trump Lawyer, Pleads Guilty in Georgia Election Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Oct. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Ms. Ellis agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progressed against the former president and 15 remaining defendants.

Jenna Ellis, right, a Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty, was closely involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of a deal with prosecutors in Georgia.

Addressing a judge in an Atlanta courtroom, she tearfully expressed regret for taking part in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

Ms. Ellis, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony. She is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the Georgia case, which charged Mr. Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor.

Ms. Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.

Prosecutors struck plea deals last week with Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the effort to deploy fake Trump electors in Georgia and other swing states, and Sidney Powell, an outspoken member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who spun wild conspiracy claims in the aftermath of the election.

The charges fall into several baskets. Several of the individual counts stem from false claims of election fraud that Giuliani and two other Trump lawyers made at legislative hearings in December 2020. Another batch of charges concerns a plan to vote for a false slate of pro-Trump electors. A third raft of charges accuses several Trump allies of conspiring to steal voter data and tamper with voting equipment in Coffee County, Ga.

Late last month, Scott Hall, a bail bondsman charged along with Ms. Powell with taking part in a breach of voting equipment and data at a rural Georgia county’s elections office, pleaded guilty in the case.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., obtained an indictment of the 19 defendants in August (shown above) on racketeering and other charges, alleging that they took part in a criminal enterprise that conspired to interfere with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Ms. Ellis, unlike the other defendants who have pleaded guilty, asked the court to let her give a statement. She cried as she rose from the defense table and said, “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously.”

She said that after Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, she believed that challenging the election results on his behalf should have been pursued in a “just and legal way.” But she said that she had relied on information provided by other lawyers, including some “with many more years of experience than I,” and failed to do her “due diligence” in checking the veracity of their claims.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges,” Ms. Ellis told Judge Scott McAfee, right, of Fulton County Superior Court. “I look back on this experience with deep remorse. For those failures of mine, your honor, I’ve taken responsibility already before the Colorado bar, who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.”

In March, Ms. Ellis admitted in a sworn statement in Colorado, her home state, that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts in several public claims that widespread voting fraud had occurred and had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat. Those admissions were part of an agreement Ms. Ellis made to accept public censure and settle disciplinary measures brought against her by state bar officials in Colorado.

Though she is still able to practice law in Colorado, the group that brought the original complaint against her, leading to the censure, said on Tuesday that new action would be coming.

“We do plan to file a new complaint in Colorado based on the guilty plea, so that the bar can assess the matter in light of her criminal conduct,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group.

Ms. Ellis’s new misgivings about Mr. Trump and his refusal to accept his election loss were evident before her plea on Tuesday.

Last month, on her Christian broadcasting radio show, she called Mr. Trump “a friend” and added, “I have great love and respect for him personally.” But she said on the show that she could not support him politically again, because he displayed a “malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

New York Times, Opinion: Trump’s Lawyers Are Going Down. Is He? David French, right, Oct. 26, 2023 (print ed.). The Ellis, Powell and Chesebro guilty pleas represent an advance for both the state election prosecution in Georgia and the federal election prosecution in Washington. While their guilty pleas came in the Georgia case (they’re not charged in the federal prosecution, though Powell and Chesebro have been identified as unindicted co-conspirators in that case), the information they disclose could be highly relevant to Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump.

Perhaps as important or even more important, the three attorneys’ admissions may prove culturally and politically helpful to those of us who are attempting to break the fever of conspiracy theories that surround the 2020 election and continue to empower Trump. At the same time, however, it’s far too soon to tell whether the prosecution has made real progress on Trump himself. The ultimate importance of the plea deals depends on the nature of the testimony from the lawyers, and we don’t yet know what they have said — or will say.

To understand the potential significance of these plea agreements, it’s necessary to understand the importance of Trump’s legal team to his criminal defense. As I’ve explained in various pieces and as the former federal prosecutor Ken White explained to me when I guest-hosted Ezra Klein’s podcast, proof of criminal intent is indispensable to the criminal cases against Trump, both in Georgia and in the federal election case. While the specific intent varies depending on the charge, each key claim requires proof of conscious wrongdoing, such as an intent to lie or the intent to have false votes cast.

One potential element of Trump’s intent defense in the federal case is that he was merely following the advice of lawyers. In other words, how could he possess criminal intent when he simply did what his lawyers told him to do? He’s not the one who is expected to know election laws. They are.

According to court precedent that governs the federal case, a defendant can use advice of counsel as a defense against claims of criminal intent if he can show that he “made full disclosure of all material facts to his attorney” before he received the advice and that “he relied in good faith on the counsel’s advice that his course of conduct was legal.”

There is a price, though, for presenting an advice-of-counsel defense. The defendant waives attorney-client privilege, opening up his oral and written communications with his lawyers to scrutiny by a judge and a jury. There is no question that a swarm of MAGA lawyers surrounded Trump at each step of the process, much as a cloud of dirt surrounds the character Pigpen in the “Peanuts” cartoons, but if the lawyers have admitted to engaging in criminal conduct, then that weakens his legal defense. This was no normal legal team, and their conduct was far outside the bounds of normal legal representation.

Apart from the implications of the advice-of-counsel defense, their criminal pleas, combined with their agreements to cooperate, may grant us greater visibility into Trump’s state of mind during the effort to overturn the election. The crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege prevents a criminal defendant from shielding his communications with his lawyers when those communications were in furtherance of a criminal scheme. If Ellis, Powell or Chesebro can testify that the lawyers were operating at Trump’s direction — as opposed to Trump following their advice — then that testimony could help rebut his intent defense.

If you think it’s crystal clear that the guilty pleas are terrible news for Trump — or represent that elusive “we have him now” moment that many Trump opponents have looked for since his moral corruption became clear — then it’s important to know that there’s a contrary view. National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, a respected former federal prosecutor, argued that Powell’s guilty plea, for example, was evidence that Willis’s case was “faltering” and that her RICO indictment “is a dud.”

“When prosecutors cut plea deals with cooperators early in the proceedings,” McCarthy writes, “they generally want the pleading defendants to admit guilt to the major charges in the indictment.” Powell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. Ellis and Chesebro each pleaded to a single felony charge, but they received punishment similar to Powell’s. McCarthy argues that Willis allowed Powell to plead guilty to a minor infraction “because minor infractions are all she’s got.” And in a piece published Tuesday afternoon, McCarthy argued that the Ellis guilty plea is more of a sign of the “absurdity” of Willis’s RICO charge than a sign that Willis is closing in on Trump, a notion he called “wishful thinking.”

There’s another theory regarding the light sentences for the three lawyers. When Powell and Chesebro sought speedy trials, they put the prosecution under pressure. As Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia defense attorney, wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), it was “extremely smart” to seek a quick trial. “They got the best deal,” Fleischman said, “because their lawyers picked the best strategy.”

As a general rule, when you’re evaluating complex litigation, it is best not to think in terms of legal breakthroughs (though breakthroughs can certainly occur) but in terms of legal trench warfare. Think of seizing ground from your opponent yard by yard rather than mile by mile, and the question at each stage isn’t so much who won and who lost but rather who advanced and who retreated. Willis has advanced, but it’s too soon to tell how far.

Politico, As Trump glowers, Michael Cohen takes the stand against him, Erica Orden, Oct. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Cohen,shown above left in a file photo, testified that Donald Trump directed him to “reverse engineer” the value of Trump’s assets to inflate Trump’s net worth.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime loyal aide turned vocal antagonist, took the witness stand Tuesday to testify against Trump in a $250 million civil fraud trial, telling the judge that the former president ordered Cohen to falsify financial documents.

In measured tones, Cohen testified that when he worked for Trump as his lawyer and fixer, Trump directed him to modify documents that represented Trump’s net worth so that they reflected the number Trump desired.

“I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected,” Cohen said, “and my responsibility, along with [former Trump Organization CFO] Allen Weisselberg, predominantly, was to reverse engineer the various different asset classes, increase those assets in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump had tasked us.”

As Cohen delivered that testimony, Trump, who was seated at the defense table, grew red in the face and shook his head. Trump didn’t look at Cohen as he entered the courtroom, but as Cohen spoke on the witness stand, Trump trained his eyes on him and either crossed his arms or leaned forward over the defense table.
Trump calls Michael Cohen ‘a proven liar’ ahead of testimony

Cohen didn’t look at his former boss as he testified, instead directing his attention entirely to the lawyer from the New York attorney general’s office who was questioning him.

Cohen is one of the central witnesses in Attorney General Tish James’ case against Trump, which accuses him, his adult sons and his business associates of inflating his net worth in order to obtain favorable terms from banks and insurers.

Cohen’s testimony Tuesday marks a fresh front in his efforts to take down Trump after years of defending him. That defense ended five years ago, when Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes that he and federal prosecutors said Trump directed him to commit, and Cohen began speaking publicly.

New York Times, Trump Files More Motions to Derail Federal Jan. 6 Case, Alan Feuer, Oct. 25, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s lawyers made a series of arguments seeking dismissal of the federal charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump fired off a barrage of new attacks on Monday night against the federal charges accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, filing nearly 100 pages of court papers seeking to have the case thrown out before it reaches a jury.

In four separate motions to dismiss — or limit the scope of — the case, Mr. Trump’s legal team made an array of arguments on legal and constitutional grounds, some of which strained the boundaries of credulity.

The lawyers claimed, largely citing news articles, that President Biden had pressured the Justice Department to pursue a “nakedly political” selective prosecution of Mr. Trump. They asserted that prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, had failed to prove any of the three conspiracy counts brought against the former president.

And they argued that under the principle of double jeopardy, Mr. Trump could not be tried on the election interference charges since he had already been acquitted by the Senate on many of the same accusations during his second impeachment.

The lawyers also tried to persuade Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, that the allegations against Mr. Trump, accusing him of wielding lies about election fraud in a vast campaign to pressure others to help him stay in power, were based on examples of “core political speech” and were therefore protected by the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment fully protects opinions and claims on widely disputed political and historical issues,” one of the lawyers, John F. Lauro, wrote, adding, “It confers the same protection on the same statements made in advocating for government officials to act on one’s views.”

Mr. Lauro’s free speech claims, developed in a 31-page brief filed to Judge Chutkan in Federal District Court in Washington, were some of the most substantial arguments he made on Monday night, and they essentially sought to rewrite the underlying narrative of Mr. Smith’s indictment.

Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the 2020 Election Inquiry

• Four charges for the former president. Former President Donald Trump was charged with four counts in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The indictment was filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington. Here are some key takeaways:
• The indictment portrayed an attack on American democracy. Smith framed his case against Trump as one that cuts to a key function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. By underscoring this theme, Smith cast his effort as an effort not just to hold Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.
• Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy charges. Smith put Trump at the heart of three conspiracies that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to obstruct Congress’s role in ratifying the Electoral College outcome. The special counsel argued that Trump knew that his claims about a stolen election were false, a point that, if proved, could be important to convincing a jury to convict him.
• Trump didn’t do it alone. The indictment lists six co-conspirators without naming or indicting them. Based on the descriptions provided, they match the profiles of Trump lawyers and advisers who were willing to argue increasingly outlandish conspiracy and legal theories to keep him in power. It’s unclear whether these co-conspirators will be indicted.
• Trump’s political power remains strong. Trump may be on trial in 2024 in three or four separate criminal cases, but so far the indictments appear not to have affected his standing with Republican voters. By a large margin, he remains his party’s front-runner in the presidential primaries.

Washington Post, Here’s who else was charged in the Georgia case, Holly Bailey, Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley and Jon Swaine, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman and Sidney Powell are among the 18 others, above, besides Trump who were indicted.

Washington Post, Analysis: Jenna Ellis’s tearful guilty plea should worry Rudy Giuliani, Aaron Blake, Oct. 25, 2023 (print ed.). For the third time in less than week, a lawyer who worked for Donald Trump has pleaded guilty in the Fulton County, Ga., election interference case. Jenna Ellis on Tuesday joined Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro in cutting a deal that will require her to testify truthfully about the other defendants, including presumably Trump himself.

Her centrality to the case, relative to the others, is debatable. Ellis often served more as a spokesperson than an actual practicing lawyer, though certain actions clearly involved legal strategizing and proximity to Trump. But her plea came with something the others did not: a tearful statement to the court that suggested she is prepared to cast blame up the chain. Whether and how much that includes Trump is a big question. But it would seem to be bad news for Rudy Giuliani and potentially, by extension, for Trump himself.

Ellis pleaded guilty to illegally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election loss of Trump in Georgia. Specifically, she admitted to aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony that will result in three to five years probation and other penalties. The deal cited false claims from Giuliani, her frequent traveling companion as they worked to overturn the election results, and a Trump campaign lawyer in Georgia, Ray Smith. Both were indicted alongside Trump, Ellis and the others.

Oct. 24

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

New York Times, Jenna Ellis, Former Trump Lawyer, Pleads Guilty in Georgia Election Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Oct. 24, 2023. Ms. Ellis agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progressed against the former president and 15 remaining defendants.

Jenna Ellis, right, a Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty, was closely involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of a deal with prosecutors in Georgia.

Addressing a judge in an Atlanta courtroom, she tearfully expressed regret for taking part in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

Ms. Ellis, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony. She is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the Georgia case, which charged Mr. Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor.

Ms. Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.

Prosecutors struck plea deals last week with Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the effort to deploy fake Trump electors in Georgia and other swing states, and Sidney Powell, an outspoken member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who spun wild conspiracy claims in the aftermath of the election.

The charges fall into several baskets. Several of the individual counts stem from false claims of election fraud that Giuliani and two other Trump lawyers made at legislative hearings in December 2020. Another batch of charges concerns a plan to vote for a false slate of pro-Trump electors. A third raft of charges accuses several Trump allies of conspiring to steal voter data and tamper with voting equipment in Coffee County, Ga.

Late last month, Scott Hall, a bail bondsman charged along with Ms. Powell with taking part in a breach of voting equipment and data at a rural Georgia county’s elections office, pleaded guilty in the case.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., obtained an indictment of the 19 defendants in August (shown above) on racketeering and other charges, alleging that they took part in a criminal enterprise that conspired to interfere with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Ms. Ellis, unlike the other defendants who have pleaded guilty, asked the court to let her give a statement. She cried as she rose from the defense table and said, “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously.”

She said that after Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, she believed that challenging the election results on his behalf should have been pursued in a “just and legal way.” But she said that she had relied on information provided by other lawyers, including some “with many more years of experience than I,” and failed to do her “due diligence” in checking the veracity of their claims.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges,” Ms. Ellis told Judge Scott McAfee, right, of Fulton County Superior Court. “I look back on this experience with deep remorse. For those failures of mine, your honor, I’ve taken responsibility already before the Colorado bar, who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.”

In March, Ms. Ellis admitted in a sworn statement in Colorado, her home state, that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts in several public claims that widespread voting fraud had occurred and had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat. Those admissions were part of an agreement Ms. Ellis made to accept public censure and settle disciplinary measures brought against her by state bar officials in Colorado.

Though she is still able to practice law in Colorado, the group that brought the original complaint against her, leading to the censure, said on Tuesday that new action would be coming.

“We do plan to file a new complaint in Colorado based on the guilty plea, so that the bar can assess the matter in light of her criminal conduct,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group.

Ms. Ellis’s new misgivings about Mr. Trump and his refusal to accept his election loss were evident before her plea on Tuesday.

Last month, on her Christian broadcasting radio show, she called Mr. Trump “a friend” and added, “I have great love and respect for him personally.” But she said on the show that she could not support him politically again, because he displayed a “malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

Politico, As Trump glowers, Michael Cohen takes the stand against him, Erica Orden, Oct. 24, 2023. Cohen,shown above left in a file photo, testified that Donald Trump directed him to “reverse engineer” the value of Trump’s assets to inflate Trump’s net worth.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime loyal aide turned vocal antagonist, took the witness stand Tuesday to testify against Trump in a $250 million civil fraud trial, telling the judge that the former president ordered Cohen to falsify financial documents.

In measured tones, Cohen testified that when he worked for Trump as his lawyer and fixer, Trump directed him to modify documents that represented Trump’s net worth so that they reflected the number Trump desired.

“I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected,” Cohen said, “and my responsibility, along with [former Trump Organization CFO] Allen Weisselberg, predominantly, was to reverse engineer the various different asset classes, increase those assets in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump had tasked us.”

As Cohen delivered that testimony, Trump, who was seated at the defense table, grew red in the face and shook his head. Trump didn’t look at Cohen as he entered the courtroom, but as Cohen spoke on the witness stand, Trump trained his eyes on him and either crossed his arms or leaned forward over the defense table.
Trump calls Michael Cohen ‘a proven liar’ ahead of testimony

Cohen didn’t look at his former boss as he testified, instead directing his attention entirely to the lawyer from the New York attorney general’s office who was questioning him.

Cohen is one of the central witnesses in Attorney General Tish James’ case against Trump, which accuses him, his adult sons and his business associates of inflating his net worth in order to obtain favorable terms from banks and insurers.

Cohen’s testimony Tuesday marks a fresh front in his efforts to take down Trump after years of defending him. That defense ended five years ago, when Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes that he and federal prosecutors said Trump directed him to commit, and Cohen began speaking publicly about his former boss as a coward and a “con man.”

Washington Post, Opinion: The Black prosecutors taking on Trump know what they’re up against, Paul Butler, right, Oct. 24, 2023 (print ed.). The former president pulls his racist tropes out of an old and deep American well.

Black prosecutors are having a moment in America.

Of the three prosecutors who have charged the former president of the United States with crimes this year, two of them — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani T. Willis — are African American. On top of that, Letitia James, New York’s Black attorney general, is pursuing a civil fraud case with the potential to crush the Trump Organization.

These are historic cases, and the race of the people bringing them shouldn’t matter — except it clearly matters to Donald Trump, who has lambasted them all using racist dog whistles.

To be sure, as my Post colleague Aaron Blake has catalogued, the former president harbors no love for any investigator or prosecutor focused on him. But Trump reserves a particularly race-inflected venom for the Black government lawyers who threaten his liberty and wealth.

He called Bragg a “Soros-backed animal” and James a “political animal.” Quite a word, that. His nickname for James is “peekaboo,” which rhymes with a racist slur.

Trump never stops with the tropes. He lied that Willis was in a relationship with an alleged gang member she is prosecuting. In an email after Trump’s indictment in Fulton County, his campaign said that Willis came from “a family steeped in hate” and highlighted the fact that her first name is Swahili. Trump repeatedly attacks Bragg, Willis and James as “racists.”

Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani hawking their false claims that they could prove election fraud caused Democratic nominee Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020.

Washington Post, Analysis: It’s actually worse to overturn an election you know your side lost, Philip Bump, Oct. 24, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump wanted to make something very clear over the weekend: Attorney Sidney Powell, who last week pleaded guilty to charges filed against her in Fulton County, Ga., was not his attorney.

It’s a dubious claim, one that deserves the skepticism we should always apply to flat statements of fact from the former president. Powell was introduced with others as “representing President Trump” and “representing the Trump campaign” during the Rudy-Giuliani-hair-dye news conference in November 2020 (shown above) and cited attorney-client protections in response to an inquiry from Axios a few months later. Reporting has indicated that Trump not only appreciated Powell’s efforts to elevate false claims about election fraud in the weeks after the election, but also considered appointing her as special counsel to conduct some sort of investigation.

What Powell did that was problematic for Trump was that she was embarrassing. Her performance at that news conference was bizarre. Her inability to present any evidence despite the friendly urgings of Fox News spurred the channel to publicly chastise her failure to do so. In November 2020, Giuliani distanced the campaign from her; yet less than a month later, Trump was flirting with that special counsel appointment.

Contrast that with Kenneth Chesebro, another Trump lawyer who entered a guilty plea last week in Fulton County.

Over the weekend, his attorney, Scott Grubman, appeared on MSNBC to discuss the termination of the case against his client. Host Katie Phang noted that Chesebro had at one point been described as the “architect” of the effort to introduce alternate slates of electors in states Trump lost. Grubman disputed that, but also wanted to make another point clear.

“Mr. Chesebro never believed in the ‘big lie,’” he said of the false claim that Trump won the 2020 contest. “If you ask Mr. Chesebro today who won the 2020 election, he would say ‘Joe Biden.’”

But note that what Chesebro was “trying to do from a legal standpoint,” per Grubman, was shift the results of the 2020 election in favor of someone that he thought lost.

That is … not good.

New York Times, If Trump Trial Isn’t Broadcast Live, a Plea to Record It for Posterity, Adam Liptak, Oct. 24, 2023 (print ed.). A request to broadcast one of Donald Trump’s federal trials made an intriguing argument, one rooted not in the news but in ensuring a historical record.

In a pair of filings this month, news organizations asked a federal judge in Washington to allow live television coverage of the trial of President Donald J. Trump on charges that he conspired to undermine the 2020 election. They face a distinctly uphill fight.

A federal rule of criminal procedure stands in their way, and the Supreme Court has long been wary of cameras in courtrooms, notably its own.

But one of the applications, from the corporate parent of NBC News, made an intriguing backup argument, one grounded in the text of a key roadblock to live television coverage: Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

If nothing else, the application said, Rule 53 allows the court to record the proceedings for posterity.

The rule prohibits “the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.” NBC’s application bears down on the last three words, making the case that audio and video of the trial may be distributed in ways other than by broadcast “from the courtroom.”

Oct. 23

Washington Post, Here’s who else was charged in the Georgia case, Holly Bailey, Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley and Jon Swaine, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman and Sidney Powell are among the 18 others, above, besides Trump who were indicted.

Washington Post, Weekly roundup: Highlights from the last week and what’s ahead in the Trump trials, Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett, Oct. 23, 2023 (print ed.). We are watching to see whether more dominoes fall in the Georgia election-obstruction case, after two last-minute guilty pleas leave the judge with decisions to make about when Donald Trump and his remaining co-defendants should go to trial.

• D.C.: Federal case on 2020 election
• Georgia: State case on 2020 election
• Florida: Federal classified documents case
• New York: State business fraud case

Former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro requested speedy trials that were supposed to get underway this week, but their plea deals scuttled that plan. (More on the guilty pleas later.)

We’re also watching for Trump to appeal the limited gag order issued last week in the former president’s D.C. election-obstruction case. (It’s on pause for now; again, more details later.) A long appeals fight could push back Trump’s scheduled March 4 trial date.

Washington Post, Opinion: Why Chesebro cut a deal and what it means for Trump, Jennifer Rubin, right, Oct. 23, 2023. Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro peppered now four-time-indicted former president Donald Trump with written advice as to how he might overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, knowing that no court had found evidence of fraud and that no state had withdrawn its delegates for Joe Biden.

On Friday, after previously rejecting a deal, Chesebro, right, pleaded guilty to one felony for conspiracy to submit a false document. In addition to accepting three to five years of probation and payment of restitution and a fine, he agreed to cooperate in other cases. This came after the plea on Thursday from former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, left, (of “release the Kraken” fame) to six misdemeanors; she, too, agreed to cooperate.

What became of Chesebro’s arrogant insistence he could not be prosecuted for giving “legal advice”? Simply put, Chesebro lost critical pretrial motions that made this defense practically impossible.

On Wednesday, Judge Scott McAfee “rejected Chesebro’s request to exclude from the trial key evidence in the case — memos in which Chesebro outlined how the Trump campaign could use Republican electors in states Biden won to help overturn the election,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “Chesebro argued they should be excluded because they are protected by attorney-client privilege. But in his ruling, the judge rejected that defense, saying the memos are not subject to protection because there is some basis to believe they were used in the commission of a crime.” (That finding echoed U.S. District Judge David Carter’s decision regarding lawyer John Eastman’s documents. Carter ruled that Eastman could not claim attorney-client privilege for emails he had sent to Trump since they likely constituted evidence of a crime.)

On Thursday, Chesebro stood at risk of having other arguments barred. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made four motions to prevent Chesebro from (among other things) advancing his planned defense. Chesebro wanted to argue that he lacked the requisite intent needed to convict because he believed his own legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could throw out electors for Joe Biden. He also wanted to put a legal expert on the stand to testify to the merits of his crackpot legal theory.

In an amicus brief before Chesebro’s plea deal, a slew of former Justice Department lawyers, a state attorney general, U.S. attorneys and a former governor offered support for Willis’s motions, explaining that “the Georgia legislature has made a firm policy determination that individuals are assumed to know the law ... and the Georgia courts have repeatedly and conclusively precluded defendants from introducing evidence of or arguing mistake of law to the jury.” Allowing Chesebro to argue he believed his own crackpot theories would violate that prohibition and confuse the jury.

Likewise, the authors of the brief supported Willis’s demand to exclude expert testimony on Chesebro’s behalf that would lend credence to his crackpot legal theories. Experts testify as to facts, not the law; the judge should decide the legal issues, they argued.

Oct. 16

The Guardian, Russian sources disappeared after Trump declassified ex-spy’s evidence, UK court told, Haroon Siddique, Oct. 16, 2023. Former MI6 officer’s witness statement criticises ‘reckless’ publication of testimony about ex-president’s Russia links.

Donald Trump’s decision to declassify evidence given by a former British spy about the former US president’s alleged links with Russia led to the disappearance of two Russian sources, according to a court document.

Christopher Steele, who used to run MI6’s Russia desk, compiled the notorious “Steele dossier” investigating Trump’s connections to Russia. In a witness statement released on Tuesday, Steele said publication of his testimony to the Mueller investigation on the matter, originally classified secret, was an “egregious and reckless act” that “served no purpose other than to expose me and Orbis [Steele’s company], our sources and our methods”.

Trump is attempting to sue Orbis Business Intelligence in England over the dossier, which alleged that he engaged in “perverted sexual behaviour” and paid bribes to Russian officials to further his business interests. The former president is claiming breach of his data protection rights and says the dossier’s claims against him were “false” and “phoney” and caused him reputational damage and distress.

In his witness statement, Steele said the decision to declassify his testimony, taken on Trump’s last day in office, resulted in several Russian sources being exposed and suffering “varying consequences”.

He said: “Two of the named Russian sources have not been seen or heard of since. The publication of this document did serious damage to the US government’s Russian operations and their ability to recruit new Russian sources. The claimant’s [Trump’s] actions in this regard were truly shocking and arguably constitute one of the most egregious breaches of intelligence rules and protocol by the US government in recent times.”

The statement was released a day after a hearing at the high court, the result of which will determine whether Trump can proceed with his case against Orbis, which Steele co-founded.

In his witness statement released on Monday, Trump said bringing the lawsuit against Orbis was “the only way that I can fully demonstrate the total inaccuracies of the personal data in the dossier”. The dossier was published by BuzzFeed in 2017 but Trump accepts Orbis was not legally responsible for this and is suing over the company’s dissemination of it to three individuals.

Orbis, which is seeking to have the claim struck out before it goes to trial, argues it has been brought too late and for the “illegitimate” purpose “of harassing Orbis and Mr Steele and pursuing longstanding grievances”.

In his witness statement, Steele suggested Trump’s discovery of Steele’s friendship with Trump’s daughter Ivanka had damaged their father-daughter relationship, “deepened his animus towards me, and [it] is one of the reasons for his vindictive and vexatious conduct towards me and Orbis”.

In his witness statement, Trump said Ivanka was “completely irrelevant” to the case, adding: “Any inference or allegation that Mr Steele makes about my relationship with my daughter is untrue and disgraceful.”

Orbis also argues that any damage to Trump was done by the BuzzFeed publication, for which it was not responsible, and highlights that Trump’s declassification of the Mueller investigation records led “to further public consideration of its [the dossier’s] contents”.

Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election made clear that the Trump campaign was “receptive” to offers of assistance from the Russians but it did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

The judge’s decision on whether Trump’s case against Orbis can go to trial will be made at a later date.

Oct. 16 

Washington Post, Live updates Judge Chutkan issues limited gag order for Trump in D.C. Jan. 6 case, Rachel Weiner, Perry Stein, Tom Jackman, Devlin Barrett and Spencer S. Hsu, Oct. 16, 2023. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said Monday she will impose a limited gag order on former president Donald Trump in advance of his election interference trial, as requested by prosecutors.

The gag order, she said in a ruling issued from the bench after a hearing, will prohibit all parties from statements “publicly targeting” special counsel Jack Smith, his staff, her staff or “any other court personnel.” Statements about the families of those individuals are “absolutely prohibited as well.”

Even before the order was issued, Trump’s lawyer John Lauro said they would appeal any such order, as it would affect important free speech principles, particularly for a leading candidate for president.

Trump “can argue that this prosecution is politically motivated,” the judge said, but he cannot disparage the prosecutor by calling him a thug or “vilify and implicitly encourage violence against public servants who are simply doing their jobs.”

She is also barring Trump and all parties from making statements about witnesses in the case.

We’ve entered a post-post-Cold War era that promises little of the prosperity, predictability and new possibilities of the post-Cold War epoch of the past 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There are many reasons for this, but none are more important than the work of four key leaders who have one thing in common: They each believe that their leadership is indispensable and are ready to go to extreme lengths to hold on to power as long as they can.

I am talking about Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The four of them — each in his own way — have created massive disruptions inside and outside their countries based on pure self-interest, rather than the interests of their people, and made it far harder for their nations to function normally in the present and to plan wisely for the future.

Oct. 7

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Commentary:With fall of Qevin, MAGA death rattle grinds on amid orgy of chaos and anarchy! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Oct. 7, 2023 (130:32 mins). Republican Party has no platform or unifying ideology and thus stands for absolutely nothing, leaving it a mere battlefield for rival gangs;

Democrats should ready a rapid maneuver to secure 6-8 GOP votes to install Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker on a reform program;

US public will not tolerate a Speaker who voted for Trump’s coup, enabled pedophiles, or supported white supremacy groups; Mobilize XIV Amendment NOW to stop Trump as Speaker of the House today and presidential candidate later;

Origins of Gaetz’s pseudo-reforms: single-subject spending bills are straight out of Confederate Constitution of 1861; Motion by a single member to oust Speaker recalls the practice of exploding the Polish parliament, when one disgruntled petty nobleman could veto a law or even send everyone home for a few years;

Models of extinction for political parties in US history:

For degenerate plutocratic Federalists, end came through New England secessionism after the 1815 Hartford Convention; Monroe enabled an Era of Good Feelings as Federalists collapsed and disappeared;

Whigs disintegrated after splitting over the odious Fugitive Slave Law in the Compromise of 1850 and losing the 1852 election with Winfield Scott;

Xenophobic Knownothings evaporated after losing the 1856 vote with Filmore over Douglas’ squatter sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska Act; The 1857 Dred Scott decision and the rise of the Republicans completed the rout;

MAGA GOP spreads chaos in House with Gaetz and the anti-Ukraine clique, in the Senate with Tuberville’s sabotage of miliary personnel, and in the Supreme Court with the corruption of Thomas, Alito, and others;

Voting rights, abortion, gun control, Ukraine, student loan debt, immigration, public health, minimum wage, the social safety net, public education, low-income housing, law and order: whatever your issue, real solutions must always include liquidating the Republican Party!

Breaking: How will RFK Jr. and Cornel West respond to Russia’s latest war crime, the massacre of Ukrainian civilians at Hroza? Will it be more appeasement?

Oct. 6

Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press). New York Times, Trump Is Said to Have Revealed Nuclear Submarine Secrets, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Oct. 6, 2023 (print ed.). Soon after leaving office, former President Trump is said to have shared information with an Australian businessman, a billionaire Mar-a-Lago member.

Shortly after he left office, former President Donald J. Trump shared apparently classified information about American nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman during an evening of conversation at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The businessman, Anthony Pratt, a billionaire member of Mar-a-Lago who runs one of the world’s largest cardboard companies, went on to share the sensitive details about the submarines with several others, the people said. Mr. Trump’s disclosures, they said, potentially endangered the U.S. nuclear fleet.

Federal prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, learned about Mr. Trump’s disclosures of the secrets to Mr. Pratt, which were first revealed by ABC News, and interviewed him as part of their investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, the people said.

According to another person familiar with the matter, Mr. Pratt is now among more than 80 people whom prosecutors have identified as possible witnesses who could testify against Mr. Trump at the classified documents trial, which is scheduled to start in May in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla.

Mr. Pratt’s name does not appear in the indictment accusing Mr. Trump of illegally holding on to nearly three dozen classified documents after he left office and then conspiring with two of his aides at Mar-a-Lago to obstruct the government’s attempts to get them back.

But the account that Mr. Trump discussed some of the country’s most sensitive nuclear secrets with him in a cavalier fashion could help prosecutors establish that the former president had a long habit of recklessly handling classified information.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Trump's treason, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 24 books and former Navy Intelligence officer, Oct. 6, 2023. House Republicans eye Speaker's chair for Trump. That's not the chair he should get!

According to ABC News, after leaving office, Donald Trump disclosed Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information (CNWDI) on the number of nuclear weapons carried by U.S. submarines, as well as acoustic intelligence information on how close U.S. submarines can approach Russian submarines without being detected.

As a former Integrated Undersea Surveillance System warfare specialist in the Navy, I can attest to the seriousness of Trump's damage to national security.

And here is a reminder of what fate has awaited such treasonous action in the past (a fate urged on in this case by Trump's one-time lawyer, Roy Cohn, shown in a later photo with Trump via Getty Images).

Oct. 5

New York Times, Trump Announces $45.5 Million Fund-Raising Haul, Tripling DeSantis, Shane Goldmacher, Oct. 5, 2023 (print ed.). The Trump campaign’s total, which cannot be independently verified until later this month, was built in part by an outpouring of money after his mug shot in Georgia was released.

Donald J. Trump’s campaign announced on Wednesday that it had raised $45.5 million from July through September, an enormous sum that tripled what his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, had revealed raising earlier in the day.

The Trump haul, which was built in part by an outpouring of money after his mug shot in Georgia became public following his fourth indictment, gives the former president a critical financial edge at the most important juncture of the campaign.

Mr. Trump’s campaign said that he entered October with $37.5 million on hand, $36 million of which was eligible to be spent on the 2024 primary race. Top aides to Mr. DeSantis’s campaign had said earlier on Wednesday that his operation had raised $15 million in the quarter and entered October with only $5 million on hand that could be spent in the primary.

The Trump campaign said in a statement that the figures were “a grave indication that Ron’s candidacy may not live to see the Iowa caucuses in January, or even the end of this month.”

Oct. 4

Washington Post, Judge issues gag order in fraud case after Trump assails judge’s staffer on social media, Shayna Jacobs and Mark Berman, Oct. 4, 2023 (print ed.). The judge overseeing a civil trial over alleged business fraud committed by Donald Trump and his company issued a gag order in the case Tuesday barring the former president from making public comments about his court staff.

The decision by Judge Arthur Engoron, right, announced about a day and a half into the trial, came soon after Trump posted on social media about a staffer for the judge and included a picture of the person.

Trump had already spent a significant amount of his time outside the courtroom lambasting officials in the case, repeatedly pillorying Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who brought the lawsuit.

Engoron’s decision amounted to a sharp rebuke of at least some of Trump’s commentary. The gag order applies to all parties involved in the case, though it appeared aimed primarily at Trump.

Speaking in court Tuesday afternoon, Engoron said he had issued a warning about such posts a day earlier. He addressed Trump’s behavior by saying “one of the defendants” had shared a “personally identifying post” about one of his staff members.

Engoron publicly announced his decision following multiple closed-door sessions with Trump and his lawyers as well as James and attorneys with her office. The judge said he had ordered the post deleted, and it appeared to be removed from Trump’s Truth Social site by Tuesday afternoon. Engoron also warned that violating the gag order would lead to “serious sanctions.”

During the midday closed-door meetings involving the judge, Trump’s campaign sent out an email focused on Engoron that sought to portray him as biased, calling him a “far-left Democrat judge.”

In Trump cases, experts say defendant’s rhetoric will be hard to police

Trump’s public response to the fraud lawsuit has continued his long-standing practice of responding to investigations and scrutiny by denigrating officials involved and castigating them by name, often in caustic, inflammatory and bitterly personal terms.

Trump’s tendency to comment on these cases in this manner has triggered a request for a gag order in one of them.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing a federal case accusing Trump of wrongdoing in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is weighing a request for a gag order brought by attorneys for Smith. Attorneys for Trump have previously told Chutkan that he is a presidential candidate who has a right to respond to criticism and his rivals on the campaign trail.

Prosecutors in Trump classified documents case are facing threats

In the New York case, the gag order came on what was otherwise a fairly routine day of legal testimony from an accountan

Trump sits in the courtroom, flanked by his attorneys. New York AG Letitia James (top left) looks on from the first row. (Associated Press

New York Times, As Trump’s Legal Woes Have Escalated, So Have His Violent Remarks, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Nehamas and Alyce McFadden, Oct. 4, 2023 (print ed.). Recent incendiary statements by the former president, including that shoplifters should be shot, come at a time when his supporters are already angry over his indictments.

Former President Donald J. Trump had a lot to say on the first day of the fraud trial against him and his company. Speaking to reporters at a Manhattan courthouse on Monday, he dismissed the judge as a “rogue” justice and said he did not “think the people of this country are going to stand for it.” And he focused on the official who filed the lawsuit against him, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.

“This is a disgrace,” he said, “and you ought to go after this attorney general.”

The remark urging people to “go after” a top elected official in New York, by a former president whose invective has become a familiar backdrop of American life, was part of a pattern of increasingly sharp language from Mr. Trump.

Days earlier, he told hundreds of Republican activists in California that shoplifters should be shot. Not long before that, he insinuated that the military general he personally appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be executed for treason.

Since he first became a political candidate in the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Trump has glorified violence, suggesting he wanted to hit a protester and offering to pay the legal fees if his supporters struck protesters at his rallies. But as Mr. Trump has been indicted four times in four jurisdictions in the last five months, and now faces a civil fraud trial in New York, his violent speech has escalated.

Axios, 1 big thing: Furious Trump faces judge, Zachary Basu, Oct. 2-3, 2023. A livid former President Trump attended the first day of his civil fraud trial today in New York, where he used every free moment as a chance to excoriate the judge who will determine the fate of his business empire.

Why it matters: Trump's palpable anger on social media and at the courthouse offered a sampling of how his combative rhetoric on the campaign trail could play out — and potentially backfire — in his legal defense.

Politically, Trump's grievance campaign in the wake of his four indictments has been a success — catapulting him to a 40-point lead over the rest of the GOP field.

Legally, the wisdom of provoking judges and prosecutors with endless claims of a "witch hunt" will now face a critical test — especially with Trump himself vowing to take the stand.

Driving the news: Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron — who ruled last week that Trump committed fraud by inflating his wealth and assets on financial records — will preside over a non-jury trial to determine damages in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Depending on the outcome of the trial, Trump could lose control of some of his flagship New York properties — striking at the heart of the real estate empire that vaulted him into the national and political spotlight.
Trump claimed outside the courtroom that he is the one who has been "defrauded," accusing Engoron of drastically undervaluing his properties and failing to account for the prestige of the Trump "brand."

Former President Donald Trump blasted prosecutors and the trial judge at his New York trial on civil fraud charges on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023 (Photo by Michael Santiago via Getty Images and Axios).

What they're saying: "This is a judge that should be disbarred. This is a judge that should be out of office. This is a judge that some people say could be charged criminally for what he's doing," an indignant Trump told reporters at the courthouse.

Between the lines: While this is a civil trial, Trump has made no such distinction when comparing the case brought by James to the 91 criminal charges he faces in New York, D.C., Florida and Georgia.

"It all comes down from the DOJ. They totally coordinate this in Washington," Trump baselessly declared, accusing James and other prosecutors of coming after him for political purposes.

Asked why he decided to attend the trial in person, Trump replied: "Because I want to watch this witch hunt myself."

What to watch: Engoron appears to have ignored Trump's incendiary rhetoric so far. But the former president may not be so lucky at his federal trial in D.C., where prosecutors have again called for a gag order in light of his threatening statements on social media.

 A judge could impose an array of punishments on Donald J. Trump, including a $250 million penalty and a prohibition on operating a business in New York (New York Times photo by Jefferson Siegel).

• New York Times, Trump’s Civil Trial Starts Today. It Will Spotlight What He’s Really Worth
• Washington Post, Trump attends his fraud trial in New York court

Oct. 2

New York Times, Trump’s Civil Trial Starts Today. It Will Spotlight What He’s Really Worth, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, Oct. 2, 2023. The judge in the New York case has already decided Donald Trump inflated his finances. Now, he will make rulings on Mr. Trump’s future as a businessman.

From his earliest days as a real estate developer to his renegade run for the White House, Donald J. Trump honed a very particular skill: the art of the boast.

“I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than if I’m worth $4 billion,” he once said, disputing his ranking on the Forbes billionaires list.

After decades of exaggerating with impunity, Mr. Trump will go on trial Monday, facing a lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, that accuses him of inflating his riches by billions of dollars and crossing the line into fraud. It will be the first of several government trials he will face in the coming year, a procession of high-stakes courtroom battles that coincide with his third White House run.

And it will be an avidly scrutinized spectacle that will lift the curtain on Mr. Trump’s reputation as a businessman, a core piece of his identity.

Ms. James’s civil case, separate from Mr. Trump’s four criminal indictments, accuses the former president, his adult sons and their family business of inflating the value of Mr. Trump’s assets to secure favorable loan terms from banks. Mr. Trump, who has denied wrongdoing, is expected to attend the opening day of the trial and eventually will be called to testify.

Before the trial even begins, Mr. Trump is losing. The New York State Supreme Court judge overseeing the case ruled last week that Mr. Trump had persistently committed fraud, deciding that no trial was needed to determine the veracity of the claims at the core of Ms. James’s lawsuit.

The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, right, also imposed a heavy punishment, stripping the Trumps of control over their signature New York properties — a move that could crush much of the business known as the Trump Organization.

• Washington Post, Live updates: Trump attends his fraud trial in New York court:

Oct. 1

Politico, Trump goes to trial in New York before a judge who just ruled he’s a fraud, Erica Orden, Oct. 1, 2023. The $250 million civil trial starts Monday — and Trump may be there in person.

Donald Trump is set to go to trial Monday in New York’s civil lawsuit accusing him of extensive business fraud — and while his formal courtroom adversary is the state attorney general’s office, he’ll also be facing off against the judge.

In some ways, the trial is the culmination of months of antagonism between the former president and Justice Arthur Engoron, right, a Democrat who was elected to his current post as a Manhattan trial judge in 2015. The outcome of the nonjury trial will be entirely up to Engoron, who will make his decision on the heels of a series of fierce disputes with Trump.

And in a surprise, Trump may attend the trial in person — a plan revealed by lawyers late last week. If Trump follows through and appears in court, he’ll be sitting just a few feet away from a man he has publicly derided as “deranged.”

Last week, Engoron delivered a ruling that may obliterate Trump’s family business. Engoron found Trump liable for widespread fraud and revoked the licenses for some of his flagship properties, including Trump Tower and the Trump International Hotel. The ruling paves the way for much of the trial to focus on the punishments Trump will now face. They could be severe: Attorney General Tish James is asking for $250 million and a ban on Trump running businesses in the state.

Trump and his lawyers — and even the attorney general’s office — were caught off guard by the sweep of Engoron’s pretrial ruling, and they have scrambled in recent days to determine what, exactly, it means for the future of Trump’s business.

In turn, Trump called the judge “unhinged” and a “political hack” who “must be stopped.”

New York Times, Opinion: One Reason the Trump Fever Won’t Break, David French, right, Oct. 1, 2023. The more I consider the challenge posed by Christian nationalism, the more I think most observers and critics are paying too much attention to the wrong group of Christian nationalists.

We mainly think of Christian nationalism as a theology or at least as a philosophy. In reality, the Christian nationalist movement that actually matters is rooted in emotion and ostensibly divine revelation, and it’s that emotional and spiritual movement that so stubbornly clings to Donald Trump.

Three related stories illustrate the challenge.

First, Katherine Stewart wrote a disturbing report for The New Republic about the latest iteration of the ReAwaken America Tour, a radical right-wing road show sponsored by Charisma News, a Pentecostal Christian publication. The tour has attracted national attention, including in The Times, and features a collection of the far right’s most notorious conspiracy theorists and Christian populists.

The rhetoric at these events, which often attract crowds of thousands, is unhinged. There, as Stewart reported, you’ll hear a pastor named Mark Burns declare, “This is a God nation, this is a Jesus nation, and you will never take my God and my gun out of this nation.” You’ll also hear him say, “I have come ready to declare war on Satan and every race-baiting Democrat that tries to destroy our way of life here in the United States of America.” You’ll hear the right-wing radio host Stew Peters call for “Nuremberg Trials 2.0” and death for Anthony Fauci and Hunter Biden. The same speaker taunted the Fulton County, Ga., prosecutor Fani Willis by shouting: “Big Fani. Big fat Fani. Big fat Black Fani Willis.”

The rhetoric at these events, which often attract crowds of thousands, is unhinged.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: MISSING Trump Co-Conspirator GETS CAUGHT and His Life is OVER, Michael Popok, Oct. 1, 2023. A Proud Boy who has been a fugitive from justice for over a month has been arrested by the FBI and will now be brought before a federal judge to be sentenced at least 14 years for his role in pepper spraying and attacking Capitol Police as they valiantly attempted to hold the line to protect democracy.

Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on the manhunt leading to the arrest this week of “Florida Man” Chris Worrell who will now face additional charges for running.

September

Sept. 30

President Biden congratulates outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley during the ceremony on Friday (AP photo by Alex Brandon).

Washington Post, Retiring Milley warns of ‘wannabe dictator’ in apparent jab at Trump, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Sept. 30, 2023 (print ed.). The outspoken general, who is retiring over than 40 years in the military, makes way for Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Joint Chiefs chairman who clashed with President Donald Trump but found new footing under President Biden, reiterated in his retirement speech Friday that the U.S. military is loyal to the Constitution above anything or anyone else.

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator,” Milley said in an apparent reference to Trump. He added that troops did not risk their lives to watch “this great experiment in democracy perish.”

Milley stepped aside Friday as his successor, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., was sworn in to the top military post in front of military personnel at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia on a day filled with ceremonial traditions. That included Milley inspecting the units lined up in a large field at the base, some in Revolutionary War uniforms, a military band playing the national anthem and the presentation of a retirement certificate. Brown will officially take over the post this weekend.

Biden, alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Vice President Harris, praised the general for providing advice that was steady and to the point. Biden also commended him for prioritizing American democracy above all. “When it comes to the Constitution, that is and always has been Mark’s North Star,” Biden said.

Milley’s sometimes-tumultuous four-year tenure as chairman capped a career that spanned more than four decades. His was one of the most consequential and polarizing tenures of any military leader in recent memory. Milley was atop the Pentagon during the Trump administration’s chaotic final months, the Biden administration’s frantic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ongoing effort to aid Ukraine as the Russian invasion draws close to the two-year mark.

To his frustrated critics, Milley often voiced his opinion on hot-button issues, notably defending a policy, implemented after the U.S. Capitol attack in 2021, that mandated military personnel to study domestic extremism. In one viral moment stemming from Republican attacks, he told members of Congress, “I want to understand White rage, and I’m White.”

Supporters lauded Milley for standing up to what they viewed as Trump’s dangerous ambitions. After the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, when Trump called for clearing demonstrators out of Lafayette Square near the White House, Milley initially walked alongside the resident and other top administration officials as they marched to a church for a photo opportunity.

New York Times, Prosecutors Reassert Need for Gag Order on Trump in Elections Case, Alan Feuer, Sept. 30, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors argued that the former president has continued to make threatening statements after their initial request to limit his public discussion of the case.

Federal prosecutors on Friday reasserted the need to impose a gag order on former President Donald J. Trump in the case accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

They said that even after they first asked a judge three weeks ago to limit his remarks, Mr. Trump has continued to wage “a sustained campaign of prejudicial public statements” against witnesses, prosecutors and others.

The prosecutors cited several threatening statements that Mr. Trump made since they initially asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case in Federal District Court in Washington, to impose the gag order. Their request was first filed under seal on Sept. 5 and a public version was released 10 days later. Judge Chutkan has yet to rule on the matter.

Since their request, prosecutors said in their filing on Friday night, Mr. Trump has continued to attack potential witnesses in the case like former Vice President Mike Pence — who, Mr. Trump wrote online, had lied about him and had gone to the “Dark Side.”

The filing noted that Mr. Trump had lashed out at another witness in the case, “the former attorney general” — an apparent reference to William P. Barr — saying he had not done his job after the election “because he was afraid of being impeached.”

Moreover, prosecutors cited a menacing message that Mr. Trump posted on his social media site last week about Gen. Mark A. Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs. After General Milley gave several interviews that were critical of Mr. Trump, the former president suggested that he had committed treason and that in the past he might have faced execution.

“No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed,” Molly Gaston, one of the prosecutors, wrote. “This defendant should not be, either.”

As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated — he is facing three other criminal indictments beyond the case in Washington — so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats have prompted protective measures, including increased security for many people involved in the cases against him.

In their filing, the prosecutors, who work for the special counsel, Jack Smith, pressed another issue, saying Mr. Trump may have violated the terms of his release in the election interference case by suggesting that he might have purchased a firearm on Monday during a campaign stop at a gun store in Summerville, S.C.

That day, prosecutors noted, Mr. Trump’s spokesman posted a video online of the former president handling a Glock pistol at the store. The spokesman said in the post that Mr. Trump had purchased it, but aides quickly denied that he had actually done so.

Former President Donald J. Trump is shown visiting a South Carolina gun shop on Sept. 25, 2023, and holding a Glock, which shows his face in an oval on the grip and says “Trump 45th” on the barrel (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).

Washington Post, Prosecutors cite Trump’s supposed gun purchase as possible crime, Spencer S. Hsu and Devlin Barrett, Sept. 30, 2023 (print ed.). A legal argument about whether to issue a gag order cites his recent interaction with a gun seller.

Federal prosecutors said in a Friday night filing that former president Donald Trump may have broken the law if he bought a handgun at a recent campaign stop in South Carolina.

“The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the court filing argues. “It would be a separate federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a gun while this felony indictment is pending.”

The prosecutors were referring to social media posts by the Trump campaign earlier this week, when a staffer posted a video of Trump — who is the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination— at the Palmetto State Armory, a gun store in Summerville, S.C.

The video “showed the defendant holding a Glock pistol with the defendant’s likeness etched into it. The defendant stated, ‘I’ve got to buy one,’ and posed for pictures,” the prosecutors’ filing states, noting that the staffer posted the video with a caption that said: “President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!”

The campaign staffer later deleted the post and retracted the claim, saying Trump did not purchase or take possession of the gun. The latter claim, prosecutors note in their filing, is “directly contradicted by the video showing the defendant possessing the pistol.”

Only further confusing the issue, Trump reposted a video of the interaction made by someone else, which had the caption: “MY PRESIDENT Trump just bought a Golden Glock before his rally in South Carolina after being arrested 4 TIMES in a year.”

The prosecutors raised the South Carolina incident in arguing that the judge in D.C. overseeing Trump’s pending federal charges of obstructing the 2020 election results should impose a gag order on the former president because of public statements he has made attacking prosecutors, the judge and potential witnesses. Those statements, prosecutors argue, could intimidate jurors or bias the pool of prospective jurors.

“The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others — whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own — feign retraction,” the prosecutors wrote.

The judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, has scheduled an Oct. 16 hearing for lawyers to debate the request for a limited gag order to stop Trump from spreading prejudicial pretrial publicity.

Prosecutors argued in court filings that just as Trump knowingly spouted lies that the 2020 election had been stolen in the hopes of undoing those results, the former president now is attempting to undermine confidence in the judicial system by pumping out near-daily “disparaging and inflammatory attacks” about potential jurors, witnesses, prosecutors and the judge.

World Crisis Radio, Weekly Strategic Commentary: MAGA faction sinks into abyss of collective insanity, with party extinction fast approaching! Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian and commentator, Sept. 30, 2023 (148:38 mins.). Trump horrifies nation with call to execute Gen. Milley for disloyalty to him; First session of Comer’s impeachment probe dissolves amid guffaws;

Biden speech at McCain Library is clarion call for the defense of constitutional democracy, with direct attacks on MAGA boss: ”Trump says the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever he wants as president”;

President sets new aggressive tone for coming year of campaigning; Biden now joins FDR as the two most pro-labor presidents in US history; At Milley’s retirement, Biden slams Tuberville’s ”outrageous” sabotage of military promotions; In farewell to arms, Milley joins in stressing Constitution as touchstone of American life, noting that American soldiers swear oath neither to a dictator nor to a ”wannabe dictator”;

Looming expropriation of fraudulent oligarch could have ramifications in many directions; Voters should brace for further tantrums;
As shutdown looms, 21 crazed House sectarians torpedo McCarthy’s short-term spending bill with 30% spending cuts, demanding even more killer austerity; Trump wants shutdown to promote chaos, paralyze courts, and smash the state;

MAGA on the wrong side of history: violent reactionary anarchists seek to roll back modern state into dark ages oligarchy, aborting process that began in Italy in 1300s; UAW President Fain starts long-overdue discussion of class as auto workers fight for labor rights;

Breaking: WaPo reports anti-McCarthy putsch plot by MAGA extremists to install Majority Whip Tom Emmer, seen as more likely to deliver killer cuts

The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Commentator: Confronting lies about Trump and Jan. 6th: My PBD podcast appearance, Steve Schmidt, Sept. 30, 2023. I appeared on the PBD podcast where we discussed how Donald Trump came to power, the con that he is not part of the establishment, & I confront lies and conspiracy theories on the January 6th insurrection. 

Sept. 29

New York Times, Biden Issues a Blistering Attack on Trump, Peter Baker, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). During an appearance in Arizona, President Biden portrayed former President Donald J. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy.

President Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year’s elections.

In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.

“This is a dangerous notion, this president is above the law, no limits on power,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Tempe, Ariz. “Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, the right to do whatever he wants as president, end of quote. I never heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Mr. Biden cited recent comments by Mr. Trump vowing “retribution” against his foes, accusing NBC News of “treason” and suggesting that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, might deserve to be put to death. The president also decried plans being developed by Mr. Trump’s allies to erode the independence of major agencies, wipe out much of the top ranks of civil service and make senior government officials personally loyal to him.

“Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,” Mr. Biden said. “This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.”

The gloves-off assault on Mr. Trump represented a marked shift for Mr. Biden, who has spent months mostly talking up the benefits of his policies while ignoring the race to choose a Republican nominee to challenge him.

But repeated speeches claiming credit for “Bidenomics” have not moved his anemic approval ratings, as many voters tell pollsters they worry about the 80-year-old president’s age.

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

Washington Post, The Trump Cases: First Trump co-defendant pleads guilty in Georgia election case, Holly Bailey, Amy Gardner and Isaac Stanley-Becker, Sept. 30, 2023 (print ed.). Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, was accused of playing a wide-ranging role in efforts to overturn former president Donald Trump’s Georgia defeat in 2020.

A defendant in the sweeping election-interference case against former president Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton County, Ga., became the first to plead guilty on Friday. He also agreed to testify against others.

Scott Hall, a 59-year-old bail bondsman who prosecutors alleged played a wide-ranging role in efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia, pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. The felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors because of Hall’s status as a first-time offender.

Hall, shown at left in court with his lawyer, at right, agreed to serve five years of probation and, importantly for the prosecution’s case, to testify “truthfully in this case and all further proceedings.” That could affect the fortunes of those with whom he is alleged to have interacted, including pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, whose own trial in the case is set to begin Oct. 23, as well as former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark.

One looming question in the case is how high into the Trump campaign’s hierarchy Hall’s reach extended — and whether the former president or Rudy Giuliani, another co-defendant who led efforts to prove that election fraud had tainted the race, ever interacted with him.

According to an email written by then-state GOP Chairman David Shafer, Hall was acting at the request of David Bossie, the Republican operative, onetime deputy Trump campaign manager, chairman of the conservative activist group Citizens United — and a relative of Hall’s. Bossie did not respond to requests for comment.

Hall’s plea was one of multiple victories logged Friday by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis. The other wins came when a judge denied efforts by Clark and three other co-defendants to move their cases to federal court. Willis launched the investigation into Trump and his allies in February 2021, shortly after the former president’s now-famous phone exhortation to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the Georgia result.

The sweeping indictment, filed in August, alleges that Trump and his co-defendants operated a vast criminal enterprise for the purpose of illegally reversing Trump’s defeat against Biden in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. All 19 defendants were charged with participating in a racketeering enterprise. Hall had faced six additional charges, including conspiracy to commit computer theft, related to the breach of voting equipment in remote Coffee County.

Prosecutors alleged in the 98-page indictment that Hall served as a linchpin of a secretive effort to access and copy Coffee County elections software, working alongside Powell, who allegedly retained the forensic data team that accompanied Hall and others on the trip. As part of his efforts to turn up evidence of voter fraud, Hall gained the ear of top officials not just in Georgia but also in Washington.

In the weeks after the election, Hall also held meetings or had phone conversations with leaders of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, according to people involved. Prosecutors say that on Jan. 2, 2021, he had a 63-minute phone call with Clark, whom prosecutors accused of plotting to delegitimize the vote in Georgia and other states and galvanize slates of contingent pro-Trump electors.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Prosecutors TIGHTEN THE SCREWS on Trump with SURPRISE MOVE, Michael Popok, Sept. 29, 2023. Big news out of Georgia today, with the Fulton County DA announcing PLEA DEALS being offered to Trump lawyers Sydney Powell and Ken Chesebro, AND the Judge, shown above, announcing the possibility that up to 6 MORE TRUMP CO CONSPIRATORS may be tried on 10/23!

Michael Popok of Legal AF explains why this just got bad real fast for Trump under either scenario.

New York Times, Opinion: Hail to the Fraudster in Chief, Paul Krugman, right, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). On Tuesday, Justice Arthur F. Engoron ruled in New York that Trump did, in fact, persistently commit fraud by overvaluing his assets, possibly by as much as $2.2 billion.

What’s remarkable about Engoron’s finding that Trump committed large-scale fraud (it’s now a ruling, not a mere accusation) is what it says about the man who became president and the voters who supported him.

Back in 2016, some observers warned conventional political analysts that they were underrating Trump’s chances because they didn’t appreciate how many Americans believed that he was a brilliant businessman — a belief based largely on his role on the reality TV show “The Apprentice.” What we now know is that the old joke was, in Trump’s case, the simple truth: He wasn’t a real business genius; he just played one on TV.

New York Times, As Donald Trump’s legal team faces more woes, the money is running short, Ben Protess, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald Trump’s team has found lawyers for others caught up in his prosecutions and has paid many of their legal bills. That arrangement may not be sustainable.

Mr. Trump’s political action committee, seeded with money he had raised with debunked claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, became the piggy bank for paying the bills, helping to knit together the interests of key figures in the investigations.

In an interview, Mr. Rowley said he was simply trying to help witnesses who did not have lawyers or did not know how to find one, and that he never sought to influence anyone’s testimony. And legal experts said the voice mail, while somewhat unusual, did not appear to cross any ethical lines.

But as Mr. Trump’s legal problems have expanded, the ad hoc system has come under intense strain with the PAC doling out financial lifelines to some aides and allies while shutting the door on others. It is now running short of money, possibly forcing Mr. Trump to decide how long to go on helping others as his own legal fees mount.

Prosecutors have also brought conflict-of-interest questions about some of the arrangements before the courts, and witnesses and co-defendants may begin to face decisions about how closely they want to lash their legal strategies to Mr. Trump’s.

After prosecutors questioned potential conflicts among the lawyers, one key witness in the classified documents case, Yuscil Taveras, replaced his lawyer, who was being paid by Mr. Trump’s PAC and also represented one of the former president’s co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta. Mr. Taveras is now represented by a federal public defender and is cooperating with prosecutors.

The federal judge in the documents case, Aileen M. Cannon, has scheduled hearings for next month to consider questions about potential conflicts involving lawyers for Mr. Nauta and for Mr. Trump’s other co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago.

New York Times, Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Effort to Delay Trial in Fraud Case, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump had sued Justice Arthur Engoron, aiming to push back a case that could begin as soon as Monday.

Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud trial over accusations that he inflated the value of his properties by billions of dollars could begin as soon as Monday after a New York appeals court rejected the former president’s attempt to delay it.

The appeals court, in a terse two-page order Thursday, effectively turned aside for now a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against the trial judge, Arthur F. Engoron. The lawsuit had sought to delay the trial, and ultimately throw out many of the accusations against the former president.

Thursday’s ruling came two days after Justice Engoron issued an order that struck a major blow to Mr. Trump, finding him liable for having committed fraud by persistently overvaluing his assets and stripping him of control over his New York properties.

Justice Engoron sided with the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who last year sued Mr. Trump, accusing him of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loan terms from banks.

New York Times, Trump’s Fraud Case May Cost Him Trump Tower and Other Properties, Rukmini Callimachi, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). If a judge’s ruling stands, Donald Trump could lose control over some of his most well-known New York real estate.

A New York judge put a spotlight on former President Donald J. Trump’s business empire this week, determining in a ruling that he had inflated the value of his properties by considerable sums to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance.

If the ruling stands, Mr. Trump could lose control over some of his most well-known New York real estate — an outcome the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, sought when she filed a lawsuit last year that accused him of fraud and called for the cancellation of his business certificates for any entities in the state that benefited from deceitful practices.

The ruling by the judge, Arthur F. Engoron of the New York State Supreme Court, came before a trial, largely to decide possible penalties, that could begin as early as Monday. Mr. Trump’s lawyers are likely to appeal.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers and a leading real estate expert have argued that Ms. James’ lawsuit does not properly factor in the Trump brand’s value or take into account the subjective nature of real estate valuations, with borrowers and lenders routinely offering differing estimates.

Nearly a dozen of the properties owned or partly controlled by Mr. Trump and his organization may be subject to Justice Engoron’s ruling. Here are the main ones that are vulnerable, as mentioned in the lawsuit.

Trump Tower and Mr. Trump’s triplex apartment, 725 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan
Trump Tower

Ms. James’s lawsuit claims that the Trump Organization, which is a collection of approximately 500 separate entities that operate for the benefit and under the control of Mr. Trump, used deceptive practices to come up with the highest possible value for Trump Tower.

• New York Times, Prosecutors said Donald Trump’s lawyers were trying to use an arcane law to delay the documents case trial, Sept. 28, 2023.

Sept. 27

New York Times, Judge Finds Trump Inflated Property Values, a Win for N.Y. Attorney General, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). The decision will simplify the path for Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused former President Trump of overvaluing his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.

A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, right, is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.

Ms. James has argued that Mr. Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.

Justice Engoron wrote that the documents in the case “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

The decision will not dissolve Mr. Trump’s entire company, but it sought to terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, though that will likely be fought over in coming months.

Justice Engoron’s decision narrows the issues that will be heard at trial, deciding that the core of Ms. James’s case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many claims against the former president.

In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump’s defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs. “In defendants’ world,” he wrote, “rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air.”

“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” he added.

The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500, noting that he had previously warned them that the arguments in question bordered on being frivolous.

Repeating them was “indefensible,” Justice Engoron wrote.

Mr. Trump still has an opportunity to delay the trial, or even gut the case. Mr. Trump has sued Justice Engoron himself, and an appeals court is expected to rule this week on his lawsuit. But if the appeals court rules against him, Mr. Trump will have to fight the remainder of the case at trial.

New York Times, Analysis: Ruling Against Trump Cuts to the Heart of His Identity, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, Sept. 28, 2023 (print ed.). The finding by a judge that Donald Trump committed fraud in valuing his properties undercut his narrative of the career that propelled him into politics.

Nearly every aspect of Donald J. Trump’s life and career has been under scrutiny from the justice system over the past several years, leaving him under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions and being held to account in a civil case for what a jury found to be sexual abuse that he committed decades ago.

But a ruling on Tuesday by a New York State judge that Mr. Trump had committed fraud by inflating the value of his real estate holdings went to the heart of the identity that made him a national figure and launched his political career.

By effectively branding him a cheat, the decision in the civil proceeding by Justice Arthur F. Engoron undermined Mr. Trump’s relentlessly promoted narrative of himself as a master of the business world, the persona that he used to enmesh himself in the fabric of popular culture and that eventually gave him the stature and resources to reach the White House.

The ruling was the latest remarkable development to test the resilience of Mr. Trump’s appeal as he seeks to win election again despite the weight of evidence against him in cases spanning his years as a New York developer, his 2016 campaign, his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of national security secrets after leaving office.

New York Times, Here are six takeaways from the judge’s ruling, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Sept. 28, 2023 (print ed.). Justice Arthur F. Engoron’s finding that the former president committed fraud has major implications for his businesses. But Mr. Trump still has cards left to play.

Washington Post, Prosecutors cite Trump’s supposed gun purchase as possible crime, Spencer S. Hsu and Devlin Barrett, Sept. 30, 2023 (print ed.). A legal argument about whether to issue a gag order cites his recent interaction with a gun seller.

Federal prosecutors said in a Friday night filing that former president Donald Trump may have broken the law if he bought a handgun at a recent campaign stop in South Carolina.

“The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the court filing argues. “It would be a separate federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a gun while this felony indictment is pending.”

The prosecutors were referring to social media posts by the Trump campaign earlier this week, when a staffer posted a video of Trump — who is the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination— at the Palmetto State Armory, a gun store in Summerville, S.C.

The video “showed the defendant holding a Glock pistol with the defendant’s likeness etched into it. The defendant stated, ‘I’ve got to buy one,’ and posed for pictures,” the prosecutors’ filing states, noting that the staffer posted the video with a caption that said: “President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!”

The campaign staffer later deleted the post and retracted the claim, saying Trump did not purchase or take possession of the gun. The latter claim, prosecutors note in their filing, is “directly contradicted by the video showing the defendant possessing the pistol.”

Only further confusing the issue, Trump reposted a video of the interaction made by someone else, which had the caption: “MY PRESIDENT Trump just bought a Golden Glock before his rally in South Carolina after being arrested 4 TIMES in a year.”

The prosecutors raised the South Carolina incident in arguing that the judge in D.C. overseeing Trump’s pending federal charges of obstructing the 2020 election results should impose a gag order on the former president because of public statements he has made attacking prosecutors, the judge and potential witnesses. Those statements, prosecutors argue, could intimidate jurors or bias the pool of prospective jurors.

“The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others — whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own — feign retraction,” the prosecutors wrote.

The judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, has scheduled an Oct. 16 hearing for lawyers to debate the request for a limited gag order to stop Trump from spreading prejudicial pretrial publicity.

Prosecutors argued in court filings that just as Trump knowingly spouted lies that the 2020 election had been stolen in the hopes of undoing those results, the former president now is attempting to undermine confidence in the judicial system by pumping out near-daily “disparaging and inflammatory attacks” about potential jurors, witnesses, prosecutors and the judge.

Sept. 29

New York Times, Biden Issues a Blistering Attack on Trump, Peter Baker, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). During an appearance in Arizona, President Biden portrayed former President Donald J. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy.

President Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year’s elections.

In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.

“This is a dangerous notion, this president is above the law, no limits on power,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Tempe, Ariz. “Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, the right to do whatever he wants as president, end of quote. I never heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Mr. Biden cited recent comments by Mr. Trump vowing “retribution” against his foes, accusing NBC News of “treason” and suggesting that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, might deserve to be put to death. The president also decried plans being developed by Mr. Trump’s allies to erode the independence of major agencies, wipe out much of the top ranks of civil service and make senior government officials personally loyal to him.

“Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,” Mr. Biden said. “This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.”

The gloves-off assault on Mr. Trump represented a marked shift for Mr. Biden, who has spent months mostly talking up the benefits of his policies while ignoring the race to choose a Republican nominee to challenge him.

But repeated speeches claiming credit for “Bidenomics” have not moved his anemic approval ratings, as many voters tell pollsters they worry about the 80-year-old president’s age.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Jack Smith Files BLISTERING REPLY Calling Out Trump’s Threats, Ben Meiselas, Sept. 29, 2023.
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the powerful reply brief filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the Washington DC federal criminal case before Judge Tanya Chutkan involving criminal defendant Donald Trump where the government is seeking a limited gag order of Donald Trump. 

Sept. 27

New York Times, Judge Finds Trump Inflated Property Values, a Win for N.Y. Attorney General, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). The decision will simplify the path for Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused former President Trump of overvaluing his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.

A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, right, is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.

Ms. James has argued that Mr. Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.

Justice Engoron wrote that the documents in the case “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

The decision will not dissolve Mr. Trump’s entire company, but it sought to terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, though that will likely be fought over in coming months.

Justice Engoron’s decision narrows the issues that will be heard at trial, deciding that the core of Ms. James’s case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many claims against the former president.

In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump’s defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs. “In defendants’ world,” he wrote, “rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air.”

“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” he added.

The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500, noting that he had previously warned them that the arguments in question bordered on being frivolous.

Repeating them was “indefensible,” Justice Engoron wrote.

Mr. Trump still has an opportunity to delay the trial, or even gut the case. Mr. Trump has sued Justice Engoron himself, and an appeals court is expected to rule this week on his lawsuit. But if the appeals court rules against him, Mr. Trump will have to fight the remainder of the case at trial.

New York Times, Former President Trump’s lawyers said a gag order in an election case would strip him of his First Amendment rights, Alan Feuer, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Lawyers representing former President Donald J. Trump against federal charges accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election offered an outraged response on Monday to the government’s request for a gag order, saying the attempt to “muzzle” him during his presidential campaign violated his free speech rights.

In a 25-page filing, the lawyers sought to turn the tables on the government, accusing the prosecutors in the case of using “inflammatory rhetoric” themselves in a way that “violated longstanding rules of prosecutorial ethics.”

“Following these efforts to poison President Trump’s defense, the prosecution now asks the court to take the extraordinary step of stripping President Trump of his First Amendment freedoms during the most important months of his campaign against President Biden,” one of the lawyers, Gregory M. Singer, wrote. “The court should reject this transparent gamesmanship.”

The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, came 10 days after prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case, to impose a narrow gag order on Mr. Trump. The order, they said, was meant to curb Mr. Trump’s “near-daily” barrage of threatening social media posts and to limit the effect his statements might have on witnesses in the case and on the potential jury pool for the trial. It is scheduled to take place in Washington starting in March.

The lawyers’ attempt to fight the request has now set up a showdown that will ultimately have to be resolved by Judge Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has herself experienced the impact of Mr. Trump’s menacing words.

One day after the former president wrote an online post in August saying, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU,” Judge Chutkan received a voice mail message in her chambers from a woman who threatened to kill her. (The woman, Abigail Jo Shry, has since been arrested.)

Gag orders limiting what trial participants can say outside of court are not uncommon, especially to constrain pretrial publicity in high-profile cases. But the request to gag Mr. Trump as he solidifies his position as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has injected a current of political tension into what was already a fraught legal battle.

That tension has only been heightened by the fact that Mr. Trump has placed the election interference case — and the three other criminal indictments he is facing — at the heart of his campaign.

His core political argument — that he is being persecuted, not prosecuted — may be protected in some ways by the First Amendment but has also put him on what could be a collision course with Judge Chutkan. Early in the case, she warned Mr. Trump that she would take measures to ensure the integrity of the proceedings and to keep him from intimidating witnesses or tainting potential jurors.

Former President Donald J. Trump is shown visiting a South Carolina gun shop on Sept. 25, 2023, and holding a Glock, which shows his face in an oval on the grip and says “Trump 45th” on the barrel (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).

New York Times, Former President Trump told a gun store he’d like to buy a Glock pistol, which is raising legal questions, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Officials have increasingly voiced concerns about threats of violence related to the former president’s trials, as he faces charges that would make it illegal for a store to sell him a firearm.

A spokesman for former President Donald J. Trump posted a video on Monday showing him at a gun shop in South Carolina, declaring that he had just bought a Glock pistol.

The post on X, formerly known as Twitter, included video of Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party’s nomination for president who is facing four criminal indictments. He looked over the dullish gold firearm, a special Trump edition Glock that depicts his likeness and says “Trump 45th,” as he visited the Palmetto State Armory outlet in Summerville, S.C. “I want to buy one,” he said twice in the video.

“President Trump buys a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!” his spokesman, Steven Cheung, wrote in his post. The video showed Mr. Trump among a small crowd of people and posing with a man holding the gun. A voice can be heard saying, “That’s a big seller.”

The statement immediately set off an uproar and prompted questions about whether such a purchase would be legal. Mr. Trump is under indictment on dozens of felony counts in two different cases related to his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election and to his possession of reams of classified documents after he left office.

There were also questions about whether the store could sell a firearm to Mr. Trump if people there knew that he was under indictment.

Federal prosecutors are asking a federal judge in the case that accuses Mr. Trump of breaking several laws in his efforts to stay in office to impose a limited gag order after he made repeated threats against prosecutors and witnesses in various cases against him. Mr. Trump’s lawyers were under a late-Monday-night deadline to respond to the government’s request for the order.

But within two hours of the initial post on social media, Mr. Cheung deleted his post, and issued a statement saying, “President Trump did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one.”

A man who answered a phone registered to the shop’s owner hung up when a reporter called. A salesperson at the Summerville location, who declined to give her name or answer additional questions, said Mr. Trump had not bought a gun.

• Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Directs House GOP to Shut Down Government and Blame Biden, Ben Meiselas

   

  

The late financier, sex trafficker of underage victims, companion and advisor to the powerful, and philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein is show in a collage with scenes from the island in the Caribbean he owned before his death in prison

Washington Post, JPMorgan agrees to $75 million settlement over ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Aaron Gregg, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). JPMorgan Chase will pay $75 million to resolve a lawsuit with the U.S. Virgin Islands alleging it facilitated disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

The banking giant admitted no wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement, a large portion of which will be distributed to charities. It also sets aside $10 million to support mental health services for Epstein’s survivors.
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“This settlement is a historic victory for survivors and for state enforcement, and it should sound the alarm on Wall Street about banks’ responsibilities under the law to detect and prevent human trafficking,” USVI attorney general Ariel Smith said in a statement.

Smith also said JPMorgan agreed to “implement and maintain meaningful anti-trafficking measures,” which includes a commitment to elevate and report suspicious activity in the future.

Sept. 25

 New York Times, As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.

At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.”

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.

And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.

As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.

Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.

In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.

New York Times, Analysis: The Wrecking-Ball Caucus: How the Far Right Brought Washington to Its Knees, Carl Hulse, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Far-right Republicans are sowing mass dysfunction, and spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment, a House coup and a military blockade.

When it comes to his view of the United States government, Representative Bob Good, a right-wing Republican who represents a Virginia district that was once the domain of Thomas Jefferson, doesn’t mince words.

“Most of what Congress does is not good for the American people,” Mr. Good declared in an interview off the House floor as the chamber descended into chaos last week. “Most of what we do as a Congress is totally unjustified.”

Though his harsh assessment is a minority opinion even among his Republican colleagues, it encapsulates the perspective that is animating the hard right on Capitol Hill and, increasingly, defining a historically dysfunctional moment in American politics.

With a disruptive government shutdown just days away, Washington is in the grip of an ultraconservative minority that sees the federal government as a threat to the republic, a dangerous monolith to be broken apart with little regard for the consequences. They have styled themselves as a wrecking crew aimed at the nation’s institutions on a variety of fronts.

They are eager to impeach the president and even oust their own speaker if he doesn’t accede to their every demand. They have refused to allow their own party to debate a Pentagon spending bill or approve routine military promotions — a striking posture given that unflinching support for the armed forces has long been a bedrock of Republican orthodoxy.

Defying the G.O.P.’s longstanding reputation as the party of law and order, they have pledged to handcuff the F.B.I. and throttle the Justice Department. Members of the party of Ronald Reagan refused to meet with a wartime ally, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, this week when he visited the Capitol and want to eliminate assistance to his country, a democratic nation under siege from an autocratic aggressor.

And they are unbowed by guardrails that in past decades forced consensus even in the most extreme of conflicts; this is the same bloc that balked at raising the debt ceiling in the spring to avert a federal debt default.

“There is a group of Republican members who seem to feel there is no limit at all as to how you can wreck the system,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “There are no boundaries, no forbidden zones. They go where relatively junior members have feared to tread in the past.”

• New York Times, Biden, Warning Trump Could ‘Destroy’ Democracy, Moves Past G.O.P. Primary
• New York Times, With a Huge Lead in the Polls, Trump Is in Rarified Territory

Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Vows to Ban All News Media That Doesn’t Praise Him, Brett Meiselas, Sept. 24-25, 2023. Donald Trump continues to tell us his fascist intentions should he be reelected. Will the mainstream media finally listen?

Donald Trump launched into his most overtly fascist assault on the First Amendment in a Sunday night tirade, promising that he will remove from the airwaves any news media that is not friendly towards him should he be reelected as president of the United States.

Trump specifically took aim at NBC News to make his point t (ironically, NBC is the network that employed and elevated Donald Trump during The Apprentice days, shown above in a publicity photo from the show), writing that the network “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.’”

Trump then made his intentions crystal clear:

“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”

Washington Post, As possible shutdown nears, a disconnect between political rhetoric and budget reality, Jeff Stein and Marianna Sotomayor, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Lawmakers in both parties have called for getting serious about the rising federal debt. The shutdown fight ignores its key drivers.

Time is running out for Congress to prevent a government shutdown, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tries to defuse the demands of ultraconservatives in the House who are demanding aggressive spending cuts.

When lawmakers return Tuesday, both the House and the Senate will try different tactics to fund the government past the fast-approaching deadline — each looking to jam their preferred legislation through the other chamber in a risky game of brinkmanship. Current spending laws expire on Sept. 30, so the government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 without action.

U.S. braces for costly government shutdown in eight days

In the House, the GOP majority failed several times last week to reach consensus on a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution. Most of the conference says they want to avert a shutdown, but a small group of far-right members who oppose a short-term extension have blocked that option. So Republicans will try to pass some separate bills that would fund the government for the full fiscal year.

The Senate will begin work on its own short-term spending bill on Tuesday, aiming to send it to the House by the weekend with hours to go before a shutdown starts — where it would probably have enough votes to pass, but only with support from Democrats, a red line for many in the GOP.

But while the far-right rebels in McCarthy’s caucus say the rising national debt is such a threat that it’s worth forcing the government to close down in pursuit of spending cuts, the uncomfortable fiscal reality is that most of what is driving federal borrowing to record levels isn’t even up for discussion this week.

Conservatives want to pare federal discretionary spending back to 2022 levels, which would mean cutting more than $100 billion from agency budgets each year.

That’s a lot of money, but hitting the goal would require severe cuts to a small portion of the federal budget — mostly programs that provide services like education, medical research and aid for families in poverty. The government’s biggest annual expense, though, and the main projected drivers of U.S. debt, are the retirement programs Medicare and Social Security. The United States spends more than $6 trillion every year. McCarthy’s caucus is tying itself in knots over how to make cuts from domestic discretionary spending, which accounts for less than one-sixth of that total.

Looking at it another way, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the annual federal deficit is expected to rise to nearly $3 trillion per year by next decade, up from roughly $2 trillion this year. If the conservatives in the House GOP get everything they’re seeking now, that number could drop to about $2.8 trillion per year.

“The people back in my district, they’re tired of the way this town works,” said Rep. Elijah Crane (R-Ariz.), who joined other conservatives in the last week to stymie McCarthy’s attempts to move spending bills. “They understand there’s no appetite to spend money we don’t have, and they expect me to do whatever I can to stop it, and to change how we do business. It’s not always the most comfortable thing.”

But the disconnect between the political rhetoric about the shutdown and the reality of the budget math underscores how little lawmakers are doing to try to rein in the long-term federal spending imbalance. Without a deal, the federal government will shut down, hurting economic growth and leading to the suspension of a wide range of essential public services.

Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Directs House GOP to Shut Down Government and Blame Biden, Ben Meiselas, Sept. 24-25, 2023. This is Trump’s second directive to compliant House Republicans via his social media posts

Donald Trump has issued his latest order to House Republicans: shut down and refuse to fund the United States government and then blame President Biden for the catastrophic fallout.

On September 20, Trump issued his first directive to compliant House MAGA Republicans, telling them that a “very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month” and “this is the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me.”

In his latest post, Trump orders the House GOP: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN.

Trump goes on to say that Republicans shouldn’t worry about the damage that will be caused to the country, as he claims President Biden will get blamed for it. Trump also tells House Republicans not to listen to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell if he wants to make a deal with Democrats, because Trump says McConnell is “weak” and “dumb.”

MAGA Republicans in the House continue to take their orders directly from Donald Trump and do whatever he says. They have followed his directives, bringing the country to the brink of a catastrophic shutdown.

New York Times, As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.

At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.”

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.

And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.

As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.

Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.

In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.

Washington Post, Opinion: Trump isn’t as strong as he looks — his GOP rivals are letting him win, E.J. Dionne Jr., Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). To understand why Donald Trump is once again skipping a Republican presidential debate, realize that the conventional way of looking at the GOP’s nomination contest has things largely backward. Trump’s standing in the polls is less about his strength than about the weakness of the rest of the field — and the traditional Republican Party.

Trump wants his foes to stay weak. By not showing up, he reduces them to squabbling bit players trying to bring each other down while the major contenders offer pale imitations of his own message and values.

Republican voters once open to someone other than the former president are concluding that if they’re going to get Trumpism, they might as well go with the guy who invented it. And they’re getting little useful advice from party leaders who — as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told his biographer McKay Coppins — see Trump as a disaster but are too timid to say so publicly.

It didn’t have to be like this, because the strength of Trump’s lock on the party is vastly exaggerated.

Sure, Trump has an unshakable base, those who would stick with him if he were indicted a dozen more times. But that hard core accounts for no more than about 35 percent of the Republican primary electorate. There really is (or was) room for someone else to break through.

But not one of them has inspired real excitement, and the politician who once seemed best placed to take Trump on, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has had a miserable year.

As a result, Trump has been able to combine his base with a fair share of the largest group of Republicans: those with a more or less positive view of the former president but willing to support someone else.

Not so long ago, such Republicans were flocking to others, particularly DeSantis. Trump seemed anything but inevitable at the beginning of 2023. Many in the party blamed him (and the candidates he backed) for its disappointing showing in the 2022 midterms.

Sept. 23

New York Times, Analysis: Request for Gag Order on Trump Raises Free Speech Dilemma, Charlie Savage, Sept. 23, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors are putting the prospect of political violence at the heart of their argument to limit Donald Trump’s statements about the election case.

The request by prosecutors that a judge impose a gag order on former President Donald J. Trump in the federal election-subversion case presents a thorny conflict between the scope of his First Amendment rights and fears that he could — intentionally or not — spur his supporters to violence.

There is little precedent for how the judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, should think about how to weigh strong constitutional protections for political speech against ensuring the functioning of the judicial process and the safety of the people participating in it.

It is one more example of the challenges of seeking to hold to account a norm-shattering former president who is being prosecuted in four cases as he makes another bid for the White House with a message that his opponents have weaponized the criminal justice system against him.

“Everything about these cases is making new law because there are so many gaps in the law,” said Paul F. Rothstein, a Georgetown University law professor and a criminal procedure specialist. “The system is held together by people doing the right thing according to tradition, and Trump doesn’t — he jumps into every gap.”

Citing threats inspired by the federal indictments of Mr. Trump, a recently unsealed motion by the special counsel, Jack Smith, has asked Judge Chutkan to order the former president to cease his near-daily habit of making “disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating” public statements about witnesses, the District of Columbia jury pool, the judge and prosecutors.

A proposed order drafted by Mr. Smith’s team would also bar Mr. Trump and his lawyers from making — or causing surrogates to make — public statements “regarding the identity, testimony or credibility of prospective witnesses.” It would allow Mr. Trump to say he denies the charges but “without further comment.”

Sept. 15

Washington Post, Trump’s Georgia trial won’t start in October, judge says, Holly Bailey, Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). A Georgia judge ruled Thursday that Donald Trump and 16 of his co-defendants won’t have to go to trial in October with two defendants who have sought a speedy trial, effectively denying an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s bid to try all 19 together in the sprawling criminal case alleging interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said in a Thursday order that he could move to sever additional cases but said for now that former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will stand trial beginning Oct. 23. He did not issue a trial date for Trump and 16 other associates, but he denied a bid by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and others seeking to pause proceedings while their efforts to move their cases to federal court play out.

McAfee wrote “that severing the remaining 17 co-defendants is simply a procedural and logistical inevitability.”

“Severance is an absolute necessity. Additional divisions of these 17 defendants may well be required,” the judge added. “That is a decision for another day once the many anticipated pretrial motions have been resolved and a realistic trial date approaches.”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), whose office is leading the case, has argued that separate trials would be a “logistical quagmire” for the court system, witnesses and anyone else involved in the case. Setting additional court dates will likely be a challenge for McAfee, given an avalanche of motions from the various defendants, each specific to their defense and schedule. Among the challenges: Trump does not want to be tried with anyone seeking a speedy trial and is expected to try to delay his proceedings until after the 2024 election. Meadows wants to stand trial alone, but only after he exhausts his appeals on his request to move his case to federal court.

McAfee presided over a motions hearing Thursday for Chesebro and Powell, the second in a series of what he has said would be weekly hearings to listen to arguments on dozens of pending motions in the overall case — including filings from Trump and several of his co-defendants seeking to dismiss charges. He repeatedly spoke of the scheduling challenges in the case, including plans for a likely expedited jury selection process for Chesebro and Powell so that opening statements in their trial can begin by early November.

Politico, Hunter Biden’s lawyer accuses House Republicans of ‘congressional manipulation,’ Betsy Woodruff Swan,Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The first son’s lawyer said House Republicans’ “improper interference” is more dangerous than Hunter Biden’s prior possession of a gun.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer said Thursday that prosecutors caved to House Republicans’ political pressure when they secured an indictment of the first son.

Just hours after a grand jury indicted Hunter Biden on charges related to gun possession, his top defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, sent a tranche of documents to three congressional committees. The materials were accompanied by a cover letter lambasting the three Republican committee chairs investigating the Biden family. POLITICO obtained the letter and is publishing it here, along with some of the materials. Those materials include a lengthy letter Lowell sent the Justice Department accusing whistleblowers of committing crimes by revealing protected information about the president’s son. Lawyers for those whistleblowers have long held that they scrupulously followed the law in making disclosures to Congress.

Lowell opened the letter by saying lawmakers were focused solely on trying “to move the needle of political support for the 2024 election” rather than conducting legitimate oversight. And he indicated he believes Hunter Biden’s indictment was the result of their pressure.

“Your blatant efforts achieved your goal as the U.S. Attorney in Delaware today filed gun charges against our client — charges that are unprecedented when not part of some other criminal conduct and have been found unconstitutional by a federal court of appeals — and who reversed his earlier decision that such charges were not warranted,” Lowell wrote. “Your improper interference now affecting a federal prosecutor is a much greater threat to society than the 11 days that Mr. Biden possessed an unloaded gun.”

The letter marks a major escalation in the fight between the president’s son and the Hill Republicans who have made him a focus of their recently announced impeachment inquiry targeting the president.

The letter also accuses the committee’s witnesses of violating “federal laws protecting grand jury and tax information,” and accuses Republicans of misusing their investigation “to dump wholesale protected tax information about Mr. Biden” into public view.

Politico, Prosecutors: No grounds for judge to recuse in federal case against Trump over 2020 election, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s lawyers contend Judge Tanya Chutkan should step aside due to prior comments.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s office on Thursday sharply rejected former President Donald Trump’s push for U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to step aside from the federal criminal case related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election.

In a 20-page filing, prosecutors said Trump had failed to show any bias by Chutkan against Trump, despite allusions she made to him in a pair of sentencing proceedings against Capitol riot defendants in 2021 and 2022. Rather, argued senior assistant special counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom, Trump “cherry-picks” from Chutkan’s quotes at those hearings to cast accurate and appropriate statements as inappropriate commentary.

Politico, 'They did it to me': Trump says Biden impeachment inquiry might be motivated by revenge, Kelly Garrity, Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). Trump told former Fox and NBC host Megyn Kelly that GOP attempts to indict Joe Biden could be next.

Former President Donald Trump has “no idea” whether Republicans will vote to impeach President Joe Biden.

But he does have a theory on what motivated House Republicans to launch a Biden impeachment inquiry: revenge.

“They did it to me,” Trump told former Fox and NBC host Megyn Kelly during an hourlong interview on SiriusXM radio that aired Thursday. “And had they not done it to me, I think, and nobody officially said this, but I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them.”

Democrats twice led the charge in impeaching Trump, first on charges of abusing his power and obstructing congressional investigations and later for “incitement of insurrection,” following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was acquitted by the Senate both times.

On Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the decision to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations of bribery and corruption. Some Republicans have said there is a lack of smoking-gun evidence linking Biden to money his son Hunter received from Ukraine and China.

In the interview with Kelly, Trump warned that attem

Sept. 14

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee hears motions from the attorneys in Atlanta on Wednesday. (Jason Getz / Pool / AFP/ Getty Images)

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Judge in Trump RICO Case make MOST IMPORTANT Order Yet, Michael Popok, Sept. 14, 2023. Georgia Judge McAfee just declared that Trump will not be going to trial in 2023 with his former attorneys Chesebro & Powell, and is most likely to go to in trial until late 2024, as he also ruled that the other 17 conconspirators will NOT be tried together but in groups of several in 2024, and rejected any effort by Meadows or others to delay their cases while they appeal their attempt to get to federal court.

Michael Popok of Legal AF explains why the Fulton County DA must change course, propose groups of trials and make sure Trump is in “group 1” in early 2024 before the election.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Hunter Biden STRIKES BACK with MASSIVE Lawsuit Against Trump Aide, Sept. 14, 2023. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on a new federal lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden in California against former Donald Trump aide for hacking and data manipulation.

Sept. 13

Politico, Owen Shroyer, InfoWars host and colleague of Alex Jones, gets 60 days for Jan. 6 misdemeanor, Kyle Cheney, Sept. 13, 2023 (print ed.). A judge on Tuesday sentenced InfoWars broadcaster Owen Shroyer — who shadowed his boss and ally Alex Jones onto Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021 — to 60 days in prison for breaching the restricted area.

U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly, right, handed down the sentence after contending that Shroyer, who never entered the Capitol building, played a role in “amping up” the mob at a sensitive moment during the riot. Shroyer’s foray onto Capitol grounds came even though Shroyer had been ordered to stay away from the area under a court-sanctioned agreement for disrupting a House impeachment hearing in 2019.

The sentence — half of the Justice Department’s call for 120 days in prison — closes a chapter in what all sides agreed was a “unique” prosecution stemming from the mob attack on the Capitol. Shroyer was facing only misdemeanor charges for his conduct that day and pleaded guilty to breaching restricted Capitol grounds earlier this year.

Prosecutors say Shroyer shadowed Jones from the Ellipse, where former President Donald Trump addressed supporters before urging them to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the Capitol. When they arrived, they witnessed the chaos that had begun unfolding at the building. Jones, who was trailed by a large throng of supporters, a security detail and other leaders of “Stop the Steal” groups, circled the Capitol and asked police for permission to exhort the crowd to deescalate the violence.

Jones has not been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, but prosecutors said Shroyer, using a megaphone, delivered chants that further fueled the riot after breaching the protected perimeter of Capitol grounds. They also noted in court filings that Jones and his large cohort continued to traverse the perimeter of the Capitol despite police signaling they wanted people to leave the area.

Shroyer is seeking to frame his criminal case as a national flashpoint for First Amendment speech. He addressed InfoWars viewers and reporters for an hour after his sentence, saying he intends to appeal his case — to the Supreme Court if necessary — and that he has become a “martyr for free speech.”

Shroyer pointed out that prosecutors, in seeking his 120-day jail term, focused heavily on his comments in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and his chants of “1776” on the day of the riot. He contended that he was in Washington in his capacity as an opinion journalist for InfoWars. In remarks to Kelly, Shroyer also argued that when he exhorted the crowd that day, he was trying to capture their attention so he could assist Jones in trying to redirect the mob away from the Capitol.

Kelly rejected that contention, saying his review of the video of Shroyer’s actions did not appear to show Shroyer making an attempt to play a deescalating role. After leaving the courthouse, Shroyer said their disagreement over that episode stemmed from Kelly’s lack of familiarity with managing large crowds.

Kelly also said he paid minimal attention to prosecutors’ arguments about Shroyer’s speech in the lead-up to Jan. 6. “There’s nothing wrong with the phrase ‘1776,’” Kelly said, adding that his main concern was Shroyer “amping up the crowd with a bullhorn.”

Kelly also said Shroyer’s role as a journalist — which he noted the Justice Department challenged — played no role in his ultimate sentence, saying the conduct Shroyer was charged with had nothing to do with his media role.

The case against Shroyer has been pending for more than two years and raised questions about whether Jones was under scrutiny as well. Shroyer and his attorney Norm Pattis — who also represents Jones — noted that Shroyer agreed to turn over his phone to prosecutors and sit for a proffer session after he was charged. They also noted that he agreed to plead guilty to the misdemeanor and be cooperative with the government after being assured it would result in a lenient recommendation from prosecutors.

Sept. 12

Washington Post, The team Jack Smith built to convict Trump, Perry Stein, Sept. 12, 2023 (print ed.). Maligned, praised and in the spotlight, these prosecutors are preparing to try Trump on federal charges in D.C. and Florida.

The federal investigations have led to indictments totaling 44 charges, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty. Trump also denies wrongdoing in Georgia, where he faces 13 state-level charges, and New York, where he faces 34 charges of falsifying business records in a state case related to hush money payments during the 2016 election campaign.

The Justice Department has been reluctant to disclose the names of individual prosecutors on Smith’s team, citing a rise in threats against them that has prompted extensive security precautions. That’s a departure from the practice of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who confirmed which prosecutors were investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign if reporters asked.

Still, as the Trump investigations have moved into the pretrial phase — and more documents that require prosecutors’ signatures are filed on public dockets — a clearer picture is starting to emerge.

Washington Post, Trump hearings expected in at least Florida and Georgia this week, Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett, Sept. 12, 2023 (print ed.). To help you keep track of the four — yes, four — pending criminal Trump trials, here is a guide to what comes next, followed by a recap of what happened last week.

Looking ahead:

In Georgia, where Trump and 18 co-defendants face state charges for trying to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, the judge schedules weekly hearings to review the many requests he is getting from defendants and prosecutors. At Thursday’s hearing, we may get more insight into when Trump will go on trial there.

Sometimes lawyers and judges decide to argue an issue under seal — meaning the public doesn’t get to see the particulars. One such fight erupted last week in D.C., where Trump faces federal charges of trying to block the election results. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to file court papers in the dispute this week.

The fight is related to Trump’s “daily extrajudicial statements,” prosecutors say. The term sounds cool, but they actually mean it in a bad way — that Trump is speaking out of school on his case, something the Justice Department has complained about before.

That’s not the only legal issue potentially being dealt with behind closed doors this week. Lawyers in the Florida indictment, which involves alleged mishandling of sensitive documents, are overdue for a sealed hearing on the classified evidence the government plans to present.

Sept. 10

Palmer Report, Analysis: Donald Trump just stepped in it, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 10, 2023. Any remotely savvy politician knows that attending a sporting event is a dicey proposition. If the crowd is going to be politically mixed, you’re going to get cheered, but you’re also going to get booed. If you don’t want the optics of everyone sharing footage of you getting booed, you have to limit yourself to specific sporting events where you know the voting demographics are going to heavily lean your way.

Donald Trump is an extraordinarily unsavvy politician. And he doesn’t appear to have any political advisers at this point who have any idea how anything works, or are willing to say “boo” to him about anything. So of course Trump decided to attend the college football game between Iowa and Iowa State on Saturday – and let’s just say it didn’t go well for him.

Various pieces of video footage show that while appearing at the game in Iowa, Donald Trump was subjected to a good amount of cheering and a good amount of booing. He was also subjected to multiple middle fingers from football fans who were situated nearby him.

This was all a strategically dumb move. Trump gained nothing by attending this game. If he were simply trying to show his face in the state of Iowa and get headlines about being in the state, there were plenty of smarter ways to do it.

Earlier this week there were headlines about the “Trump 2024 campaign” barely even existing in Iowa, with minimal infrastructure. Palmer Report pointed out at the time that Trump clearly isn’t running for anything, and is instead just going through the bare minimum motions so that his suckers will keep sending him quasi-campaign donations that he can use for his mounting legal bills.

Donald Trump’s decision to attend this weekend’s Iowa vs Iowa State college football game appears to have been an attempt at pushing back and demonstrating that he does have a presence in Iowa. But it was a lazy, simplistic, and poorly thought out move. All Trump did was help spawn endless viral posts on social media about him getting booed and flipped off. And it demonstrated that he really doesn’t have a serious political operation in Iowa, or else he could have been steered toward a less inept photo op.

Sept. 9

New York Times, Trump Investigations: Judge Denies Meadows’s Request to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). Moving the case would have given Mark Meadows, above, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald Trump.

Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.

Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.

Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.

The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.

However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones, right, of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.

The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.

“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”

A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.

In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.

A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.

In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.

The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.

Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.

But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.

The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”

Washington Post, Georgia special grand jury recommended charges for Lindsey Graham in Trump case, Holly Bailey, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). An Atlanta-area prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment against the Republican senator from South Carolina, shown above in a file photo.

An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Donald Trump and his allies agreed the former president should be indicted in the case and also recommended charges for one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — though a prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment for him in the case.

The recommendations were contained in a 26-page final report presented in January to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and made public by a judge Friday, Robert McBurney, shown below.

The report by the special grand jury, which was an investigative body and did not have the power to issue criminal indictments, largely echoed Willis’s theory of the case, recommending charges for Trump and numerous others alleging a sweeping criminal conspiracy to subvert Joe Biden’s legitimate election win in Georgia.

New York Times, Trump Name to Come Off Bronx Golf Course After Deal With Casino Bidder, Stefanos Chen and Dana Rubinstein, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). Bally’s Corporation will pay millions to operate the golf course, and hopes that removing the former president’s name from it will help its chances of winning a casino bid.

The sole bidder seeking to build a casino in the Bronx has moved one step closer to realizing its pitch, by buying out the multimillion-dollar lease on a public golf course operated by Donald J. Trump’s company.

The first order of business: removing the Trump name.

Bally’s Corporation, a large casino and entertainment company, has purchased the license to operate the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a 180-acre golf course that the city had tried, and failed, to wrest from the control of Mr. Trump’s company.

The price of the transaction, which required approval from the Parks Department and the New York City comptroller, has not been disclosed, but one person familiar with the deal said the company would pay at least tens of millions of dollars for the remainder of the contract, which is expected to expire in 2035. The deal, which was first reported by The New York Post, is scheduled to close on Tuesday.

The new operator is expected to change the name of the golf course to Bally’s Links, according to people familiar with the transfer, removing the giant Trump sign embossed in stone that greets commuters exiting the Whitestone Bridge.
Bally’s officials said in February that they would seek to strike out the name of the former president, whose association with the project might sour their chances of winning a license.

The change was welcome news to some elected officials. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, tried to terminate the Trump Organization’s lease of the public golf course, arguing that the city had the right to do so because the former president had engaged in criminal activity. The argument failed in court.
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“I am delighted that Trump’s name will no longer deface city parkland,” Brad Lander, the city comptroller, said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.

The proposal is expected to be one of at least 11 bids for up to three casino licenses in the New York City area.

New York Times, Trump Investigations: Judge Denies Meadows’s Request to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). Moving the case would have given Mark Meadows, above, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald Trump.

Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.

Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.

Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.

The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.

However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones, right, of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.

The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.

“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”

A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.

In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.

A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.

In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.

The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.

Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.

But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.

The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”

Sept. 8

Washington Post, Georgia special grand jury recommended charges for Lindsey Graham in Trump case, Holly Bailey, Sept. 8, 2023. An Atlanta-area prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment against the Republican senator from South Carolina, shown above in a file photo.

An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Donald Trump and his allies agreed the former president should be indicted in the case and also recommended charges for one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — though a prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment for him in the case.

The recommendations were contained in a 26-page final report presented in January to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and made public by a judge Friday.

The report by the special grand jury, which was an investigative body and did not have the power to issue criminal indictments, largely echoed Willis’s theory of the case, recommending charges for Trump and numerous others alleging a sweeping criminal conspiracy to subvert Joe Biden’s legitimate election win in Georgia.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Cleta Mitchell Skates, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right,), Sept. 8, 2023. While grand jurors expressed lukewarm support for charging three Senators -- David Purdue, Kelli Leoffler, and Lindsey Graham -- they expressed far more support for charging Cleta Mitchell, above, who nevertheless was not charged.

Judge McBurney has released the report from Fanni Willis’ special grand jury.

The grand jury recommended charges against a number of people who weren’t charged. Most attention has focused on the recommendations to charge David Purdue, left, Kelli Loeffler, and Lindsey Graham. I had always thought that Lindsey wouldn’t be charged because he is protected by Speech and Debate (a judgment that may be supported by the DC Circuit’s still-sealed partial reversal of Beryl Howell’s ruling permitting DOJ to access some Scott Perry records from his phone).

But it seemed there was less support for those charges, generally, than for others.

By wide margins, the grand jury voted to charge Cleta in conjunction with the January 2 call to Brad Raffensperger, the fake electors plot, and the RICO charge. But she — a prominent Georgian — was not charged.

Sept. 7

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee hears motions from the attorneys in Atlanta on Wednesday. (Jason Getz / Pool / AFP/ Getty Images)

Washington Post, Georgia prosecutors in Trump election case estimate four-month trial, Holly Bailey, Sept. 7, 2023 (print ed.). Such a timeline would force Donald Trump to spend a third of a year sitting in an Atlanta courtroom, possibly while also running for president and juggling three other criminal cases.

A trial involving former president Donald Trump and 18 others accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia will probably take four months, once a jury is selected, and feature testimony from more than 150 witnesses, prosecutors said in court Wednesday.

Such a timeline would force Trump to spend a third of a year sitting in an Atlanta courtroom with his co-defendants, possibly while running for president and juggling three other criminal cases, including federal charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election to stay in power.

The estimate came during a hearing over motions by two of the defendants — former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth J. Chesebro, right,  and Sidney Powell, below left — who have invoked their rights to a speedy trial. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the matter, granted those motions Wednesday, setting a joint trial date of Oct. 23 for Chesebro and Powell.

But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), whose office is leading the case, wants all 19 defendants to be tried at the same time starting on that date. Prosecutors on Wednesday reaffirmed that argument, insisting that separating the cases would mean months-long trials for each of the defendants involving the same witnesses and the same evidence — which they said would be burdensome to the court and parties involved.

“One trial or 19 trials, the evidence is exactly the same,” said Will Wooten, a deputy Fulton County district attorney. “The witnesses are exactly the same.”

McAfee did not reject a joint trial of Trump and his 18 co-defendants, but he peppered prosecutors with questions and appeared deeply skeptical that proceedings for all 19 could begin next month. He noted efforts by some of the defendants to move their cases to federal court and existing motions from Trump and others who have said they will not be ready for trial by late October.

“It just seems a bit unrealistic to think that we can handle all 19 in 40-something days. That’s my initial reaction,” McAfee said.

It was the first major hearing since a Fulton County grand jury last month approved a 41-count indictment charging Trump and 18 associates in what prosecutors allege was a vast criminal conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. It was the first time prosecutors had appeared before McAfee since he was assigned to oversee the case, and at times, they appeared unprepared for his intense questioning about scheduling issues in a sprawling case that is facing legal tests in both state and federal court.

McAfee has assumed the role of legal traffic cop in the sprawling racketeering case, tackling the logistical challenge of setting deadlines and trial dates for the 19 defendants who are already at odds over how and when they should be tried. McAfee, who was nominated to the bench this year, previously worked as a state inspector general and a federal and state prosecutor, including under Willis when she ran Fulton County’s complex trial division. He plans to hold a hearing every week to work through the mountain of motions that have already been filed or soon will be.

Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won a civil suit against him in 2022 in New York City on claims of sexual batery and defamation.

New York Times, Trump’s Next Defamation Trial Will Skip to What Damages He Should Pay, Benjamin Weiser, Sept. 7, 2023 (print ed.). E. Jean Carroll’s suit is scheduled for a January trial. The judge ruled she did not have to prove a second time that Donald J. Trump defamed her after she accused him of raping her.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the writer E. Jean Carroll, who won a recent defamation lawsuit against former President Donald J. Trump, doesn’t have to prove again that he defamed her in another lawsuit she has filed against him when it goes to trial in January.

She must show only what damages, if any, Mr. Trump must pay for comments he made in 2019 after she first publicly accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room decades ago. Mr. Trump called her accusation “totally false,” said he had never met Ms. Carroll and that he could not have raped her because “she’s not my type.”

Ms. Carroll, 79, won a separate defamation lawsuit in May based on comments Mr. Trump posted last October on his Truth Social website calling her claim a “complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.”

In that case, a Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump, 77, liable for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll and awarded her $2.02 million in damages for the attack. Jurors also awarded Ms. Carroll $2.98 million in damages for defamation.

The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court, said in his ruling Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s statements in 2019 were “substantially the same” as those that prompted the defamation award in May.

“The trial in this case shall be limited to the issue of damages only,” Judge Kaplan wrote.

Lawyers for Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump issued brief statements after the ruling was filed.

Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, said, “We look forward to trial limited to damages for the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made about our client E. Jean Carroll in 2019.”

Alina Habba, who represents Mr. Trump, said she was confident the earlier verdict “will be overturned on appeal, which will render this decision moot.”

Mr. Trump has also asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to delay the pending defamation trial, which is scheduled for Jan. 15, until an appeal by Mr. Trump related to the case is resolved.

Politico, Investigation: The Giuliani aide who ‘vanished,’ Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney, Sept. 7, 2023 (print ed.). Documents reviewed by Politico — and also in the hands of federal prosecutors — offer new details about Rudy Giuliani’s ill-fated efforts to reverse the 2020 election.

In December 2020, an adviser to Rudy Giuliani circulated a draft email addressed to the White House seeking “provisional” security clearances for the former mayor and members of his team as part of their work to keep Donald Trump in power.

The adviser, Katherine Friess, also helped Giuliani, right, woo potential donors to finance Trump’s effort to reverse the results of the election. She helped draft a “strategic communications plan” for a final push to keep Trump in office, a document that became a focus for Jan. 6 investigators and that called for placing paid ads on radio and TV alleging widespread voter fraud. At the same time, Friess warned other Trump aides that their claims about dead people voting in Georgia were weak — but Trump continued to trumpet those claims anyway.

Friess, a national security consultant with deep roots in Washington, kept a low profile, but in November and December 2020, she was Giuliani’s jack-of-all-trades. A host of emails and documents exchanged by Friess and other Giuliani aides have been turned over to special counsel Jack Smith, according to a person familiar with the investigation granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive material.

Dozens of those documents, which have been reviewed by POLITICO, add new detail to the public understanding of how Trump’s allies operated after Election Day — and how they grappled with obstacles both immense and quotidian.

Sept. 6Politico, Trump’s co-defendants are already starting to turn against him, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, Sept. 6, 2023 (print ed.). There’s a nascent courtroom strategy by some people close to Donald Trump: Heap blame on the former president.

As Donald Trump's four criminal cases march toward trials, some of his aides, allies and co-defendants are pointing fingers at the former president. | Dana Verkouteren/AP Photo

The finger-pointing among Donald Trump’s inner circle has begun.

And as his four criminal cases march toward trials, some of his aides, allies and co-defendants are pointing at the former president

Sept. 5

Washington Post, Ex-Proud Boys leader Tarrio receives 22 years, the longest Jan. 6 sentence yet, Tom Jackman and Spencer S. Hsu, Sept. 5, 2023. Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was found guilty in May of plotting to unleash political violence to prevent Congress from confirming the results of the 2020 election.

Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, described by a judge as “the ultimate leader” who “was motivated by revolutionary zeal” in organizing members of his far-right group to spark the breach of the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence yet among the hundreds convicted of disrupting the peaceful transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021.
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Tarrio, 39, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and obstructing the congressional proceeding meant to confirm the 2020 presidential election as part of a riot that U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly said broke America’s long democratic tradition of peaceful transfers of power. Tarrio was the last of five Proud Boys to be sentenced after all were convicted in May following a 15-week trial.

Tarrio, of Miami, was convicted even though he wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6. He had been arrested two days earlier for burning a “Black Lives Matter” flag torn down from a D.C. church during an earlier protest in the city following President Donald Trump’s defeat. He was banned from the city as a result.

But prosecutors said he had recruited people to join in a violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in power and messaged them “Don’t f---ing leave” as they led the storming of the building, causing the electoral vote count to stop for about six hours. Kelly cited that message Tuesday in ruling that Tarrio still had a leadership role on Jan. 6, even if he wasn’t in D.C. Tarrio denied planning an incursion into the Capitol and gave interviews after the riot saying he did not endorse that move by multiple Proud Boys, some of whom were among the first to enter the building.

Prosecutors asked for a 33-year sentence for Tarrio, one of the most high-profile defendants who have gone to trial in the Capitol attack. But they also asked for 20 years or more for each of Tarrio’s four co-defendants, and Kelly declined to impose such terms.

From left to right, Proud Boys members and Jan. 6 insurrectionists Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachery Rehl, Enrique Tarrio and Dominic Pezzola

The judge agreed that the convictions qualified for an enhanced terrorism penalty under federal law and increased the federal sentencing guidelines for Tarrio and his co-defendants: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. The judge, however, declined to sentence each defendant within the advisory ranges, saying repeatedly that “the terrorism adjustment overstates your role in the offense,” and that the Proud Boys did not have the intent to kill or cause mass casualties.

Tarrio apologized for his actions and those of the Proud Boys, saying the police officers who defended the Capitol, some of whom were in the audience Tuesday, “deserve nothing but praise, respect and to be honored as the heroes they are. I am extremely ashamed and disappointed they were caused grief and suffering.” He also said he had early doubts about whether the election was stolen but kept them to himself. “Every medium I turned to told me my anger was justified,” Tarrio said. “It wasn’t. … I do not think what happened that day was acceptable.”

As for Tarrio’s apology, the judge said: “I’m glad he’s sorry for what happened to the law enforcement officers that day. But I think we’re talking past each other in many ways. I don’t have any indication that he is remorseful for the actual things that he was convicted of. … There’s only so much that statement can go toward assuring me that deterrence is not warranted.”

In an orange jail coverall, Tarrio stood with both hands on a lectern and lowered his head briefly as the judge imposed the sentence, and his mother let out a sob in the gallery behind him. As he left the courtroom, he looked back at his family and supporters, held up two fingers, and blew a kiss with a smile.

As for Tarrio’s apology, the judge said: “I’m glad he’s sorry for what happened to the law enforcement officers that day. But I think we’re talking past each other in many ways. I don’t have any indication that he is remorseful for the actual things that he was convicted of. … There’s only so much that statement can go toward assuring me that deterrence is not warranted.”

In an orange jail coverall, Tarrio stood with both hands on a lectern and lowered his head briefly as the judge imposed the sentence, and his mother let out a sob in the gallery behind him. As he left the courtroom, he looked back at his family and supporters, held up two fingers, and blew a kiss with a smile.

After a trial lasting nearly five months, Tarrio and three of his top lieutenants were convicted in May of seditious conspiracy and five other felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and destruction of federal property. Tarrio didn’t testify in his own defense, but his lawyers argued that he hadn’t planned an incursion of the Capitol.

Sept. 2

Washington Post, Trump’s Truth Social facing a key funding deadline, Drew Harwell, Sept. 2, 2023. The ‘blank check’ ally of former president Donald Trump’s media start-up was once a stock-market star. It’s now days away from potential liquidation.

When former president Donald Trump’s media start-up announced in October 2021 that it planned to merge with a Miami-based company called Digital World Acquisition, the deal was an instant stock-market hit.

With the $300 million Digital World had already raised from investors, Trump Media & Technology Group, creator of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social, pledged then that the merger would create a tech titan worth $875 million at the start and, depending on the stock’s performance, up to $1.7 billion later.

All they needed was for the merger to close — a process that Digital World, in a July 2021 preliminary prospectus, estimated would happen within 12 to 18 months.

“Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!” Trump said in a Trump Media statement that month.

Now, almost two years later, the deal faces what could be a catastrophic threat. With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder vote for Tuesday to extend the deadline another year.

If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction.

For Digital World, it would signal the ultimate financial fall from grace for a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that turned its proximity to the former president into what was once one of the stock market’s hottest trades. Its share price, which peaked in its first hours at $175, has since fallen to about $14.

Digital World’s efforts to merge with Trump Media have been troubled almost from the start, beset by allegations that it began its conversations with the former president’s company before they were permitted under SPAC rules.

August

Aug. 31

Washington Post, Trump enters not guilty plea in Georgia election case, waives hearing, Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner, Aug. 31, 2023. The former president had been scheduled by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to be arraigned in Atlanta next Wednesday

Donald Trump entered a plea of not guilty to charges alleging he participated in a vast criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia and waived his right to an in-person arraignment hearing in the matter, according to a new court filing from his attorney in the Fulton County election interference case.

The written plea was filed Thursday by Steve Sadow, an Atlanta criminal defense attorney who was tapped Aug. 24 to lead the former president’s Georgia-based legal team. The filing means Trump won’t return to Atlanta on Wednesday, where Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the proceedings, has scheduled a series of arraignment hearings for Trump and the 18 co-defendants in the sprawling criminal racketeering case.

In the filing, titled “President Trump’s entry of plea of not guilty and enter of waiver of appearance at arraignment,” the former president stated that he was “freely and voluntarily” waiving his right to be present at his arraignment and have his charges read to him in open court.

Trump is facing 13 counts in the Georgia case, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents. The former president has denied any wrongdoing and has condemned the investigation, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), as a “political witch hunt.”

Trump surrendered last week at the Fulton County Jail, a notorious Atlanta lockup where he was booked and quickly released on a $200,000 bond that includes restrictions on his conduct, including provisions that bar him from intimidating witnesses or fellow co-defendants or making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community.”

Trump’s attorney has signaled he will vigorously challenge the charges against his client, who he has said should have never been charged in the case. Sadow has said he will file a motion to dismiss the charges and move to sever Trump’s case from other co-defendants, including former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who are seeking a speedy trial in the matter.

Separately Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) told reporters at a news conference that he would not call a special session of the General Assembly to seek to remove Willis from office, as several conservative lawmakers have requested. Kemp said his concerns about “highly charged indictments” during an election cycle “have been well-documented,” but his intervention would be improper and possibly even unconstitutional.

“We have a law in the state of Georgia that clearly outlines the legal steps that can be taken if constituents believe their local prosecutors are violating their oath by engaging in unethical or illegal behavior,” he said. “Up to this point I have not seen any evidence at that D.A. Willis’s actions or lack thereof warrant action by the Prosecuting Attorney Oversight Commission. But that will ultimately be a decision that the commission will make.”

Trump is expected to follow his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in seeking to move his case from state to federal court. Meadows spent more than four hours testifying on Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, who is considering Meadows’s petition to move his case to federal court, where he will then seek to dismiss charges.

In his testimony, Meadows sought to portray himself as Trump’s gatekeeper and depicted his involvement in efforts to question Joe Biden’s legitimate victory in Georgia as part of his duties as Trump’s top White House aide and senior adviser. His attorneys have argued that should qualify his case for federal removal since they say he was acting under the “color” of his federal position.

But prosecutors have argued Meadows’s post-election efforts, including a visit to a suburban Atlanta ballot processing center and arranging the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), violated the federal Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their official roles to influence an election. They say Meadows saw “no distinction” between his White House work and the Trump campaign and have pressed Jones to deny Meadows’s petition — an outcome which could have sweeping effect on other current and future removal requests in the case, including Trump’s expected petition.

New York Times, Trump Asks to Dismiss Suit as A.G. Says He Inflated Worth by $2.2 Billion, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). Before Donald J. Trump was indicted four times over, he was sued by New York’s attorney general, who said that for years the former president, his business and members of his family had fraudulently overvalued their assets by billions of dollars.

Before any of those criminal trials will take place, Mr. Trump is scheduled for a civil trial in New York in October. During the trial, the attorney general, Letitia James, will seek to bar him and three of his children from leading their family business, the Trump Organization, and to require him to pay a fine of around $250 million.

On Wednesday, Ms. James fired an opening salvo, arguing that a trial is not necessary to find that Mr. Trump and the other defendants inflated the value of their assets in annual financial statements, fraudulently obtaining favorable loans and insurance arrangements.

The fraud was so pervasive, she said in a court filing, that Mr. Trump had falsely boosted his net worth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion each year over the course of a decade.

Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, asked a judge to find, without a trial, that former President Trump had fraudulently overvalued his assets.
“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the court to determine that defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,” the filing said.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in their own motion, argued that the entire case should be thrown out, relying in large part on a recent appellate court decision that appeared as if it could significantly narrow the scope of the case because of a legal time limit. Mr. Trump had received most of the loans in question too long ago for the matter to be considered by a court, his lawyers argue.

New York Times, Trump, Under Oath, Says He Averted ‘Nuclear Holocaust,’ Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). During a deposition in his civil case, former President Trump offered a series of strange defenses, digressions and meandering explanations.

Under oath and under fire, Donald J. Trump sat for a seven-hour interview with the New York attorney general’s office in April, part of the civil fraud case against him and his company.

But as lawyers from the office grilled Mr. Trump on the inner-workings of his family business, which is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars, he responded with a series of meandering non sequiturs, political digressions and self-aggrandizing defenses.

Asked about his authority at the Trump Organization while he was in the White House, Mr. Trump responded that he considered the presidency “the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”

“I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” he explained, and then added: “And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”

Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination when initially questioned by the office last year, he answered questions from the attorney general, Letitia James, and her lawyers in the April deposition, a transcript of which was unsealed on Wednesday.

The transcript shows a combative Mr. Trump, who was named as a defendant in the case alongside his company and three of his children, at times barely allowing lawyers to get a word in. The former president frequently seems personally offended by the idea that his net worth is being questioned.

Mr. Trump is seeking to have the case thrown out. A judge could rule on that effort next month, but for now, the case appears headed to trial in early October.

Below are some of the highlights from the transcript of his deposition:

New York Times, Trump Could Clinch the Nomination Before the G.O.P. Knows if He’s a Felon, Reid J. Epstein, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). The federal election interference case — one of four involving Donald Trump — is set to start just before Super Tuesday and a cascade of primaries.

By the time Donald J. Trump is sitting at his federal trial on charges of criminally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, he may have already secured enough delegates to effectively clinch the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

The former president’s trial is scheduled to start March 4, by which point five states are expected to have held nominating contests. The next day, March 5, is Super Tuesday, when 15 states, including delegate-rich California and Texas, plan to hold votes that will determine if any Trump challenger has enough political oxygen to remain a viable alternative.

Primaries in Florida, Ohio and Illinois come two weeks later. Florida and Ohio will be the first winner-take-all contests, in which the top vote-getter statewide seizes all of the delegates rather than splitting them proportionally. Winner-take-all primaries have historically turbocharged the front-runner’s path to the presidential nomination. Mr. Trump’s federal trial, if it proceeds on its current timeline, won’t be close to finished by then.

The collision course between the Republican Party’s calendar and Mr. Trump’s trial schedule is emblematic of one of the most unusual nominating contests in American history. It is a Trump-dominated clash that will define not only the course of the 2024 presidential primary but potentially the future direction of the party in an eventual post-Trump era.

Palmer Report, Analysis, One and done, Bill Palmer, right, Aug. 31, 2023.  It’s now been a full week since Donald Trump’s fourth arrest. At this rate he might consider himself lucky that there hasn’t been a fifth one already. But it’s also been a full week since something else: Trump’s one and only tweet since leaving office.

Back when Trump was reinstated to Twitter, the owner of the platform publicly begged Trump to return. But it never did happen. Instead Trump continued to spend all day every day pandering to his niche base on his own niche social network. The ferocity with which Trump rants and raves on Truth Social, basically talking to no one, suggests that he’d love to be back on Twitter and have a real audience. But even his one tweet last week is now very much looking like a one-off.

We’ve heard all kinds of speculation about how Trump might have an exclusive contract with Truth Social. But even if so, that doesn’t come within a million miles of adequately explaining why he never returned to Twitter. Deals like that are made to be renegotiated or worked around. And really, what is Truth Social going to do to Trump in retaliation for returning to Twitter? Ban him from his own platform? Truth Social is such a niche failure that there would be no platform without Trump.

Instead, Trump’s failure to return to Twitter is probably the biggest giveaway that he’s not really running for anything. Twitter is a huge marketing and outreach opportunity for any political candidate. Trump in particular has shown an affinity, almost an addiction, to tweeting. It allowed him to speak directly to the general public in real time. And by declining to tweet, he’s throwing away that opportunity.

Is this because Trump is so senile? His incoherently embarrassing rambling on Truth Social is at least mitigated by the fact that so few people are on there reading it. If he were posting these same screeds on Twitter, the general public would see that his brain is now a bag of cats, and his faux-campaign would probably be closer to finished. So are Trump’s handlers trying to protect him from himself by giving him flimsy and misleading excuses about why he shouldn’t tweet?

If you think about it, the only two things Trump ever seemed to enjoy about politics were rallies and tweeting, and now his babysitters have managed to convince him to very rarely do either one of them. Instead they have him tucked away rambling on a failed social media platform that no one uses. Trump’s handlers seem to view him as being so far gone, they have to keep him in a box. And Trump, for his part, seems to be so far gone that his handlers can convince him of anything. Whatever reasons they’ve fed him for why he should do very few rallies and stay off Twitter, he’s swallowed it.

New York Times, Giuliani Is Liable for Defaming Georgia Election Workers, Judge Says, Alan Feuer, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling means that a defamation case against Rudy Giuliani, stemming from his role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election, can proceed to a trial.

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani, right, was liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by repeatedly declaring that they had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election.

The ruling by the judge, Beryl A. Howell, below left, in Federal District Court in Washington, means that the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the narrow question of how much, if any, damages he will have to pay the plaintiffs in the case.

A lawyer for Mr. Giuliani declined to comment.

Judge Howell’s decision came a little more than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that he had made false statements when he accused the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots while working at the State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections.

Mr. Giuliani later sought to explain that his stipulations were solely meant to get past a dispute with Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss about discovery evidence in the case and move toward dismissing the allegations outright. But Judge Howell, complaining that Mr. Giuliani’s stipulations “hold more holes than Swiss cheese,” took the proactive step of declaring him liable for “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims.”

Politico, Judge rejects Navarro’s ‘executive privilege’ claim for defying Jan. 6 committee, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling paves the way for Navarro’s trial to begin next week on contempt-of-Congress charges.

Peter Navarro, a former senior White House adviser to former President Donald Trump, failed to prove that Trump asserted executive privilege to block him from testifying to the House Jan. 6 select committee, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta keeps on track Navarro’s Sept. 5 contempt-of-Congress trial, where he will face jurors on two charges that he defied the committee’s subpoena for testimony and documents related to Navarro’s role in Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Navarro has long claimed that Trump asserted privilege to block him from appearing before the Jan. 6 select committee in early 2022 when the panel subpoenaed him. But Navarro has never produced direct evidence to back that claim and, more importantly, Trump and his attorneys have repeatedly declined to say whether Navarro was accurately reflecting their conversations.

Mehta cited Trump’s refusal to corroborate Navarro’s claims as the most compelling reason that he found Trump did not, in fact, seek to block Navarro’s testimony to the select committee.

“There was no formal invocation of executive privilege by [Trump] after personal consideration nor authorization to Mr. Navarro to invoke privilege on his behalf,” Mehta said.

Navarro’s trial, which is likely to be brief, will head to jury selection on Tuesday. Mehta’s ruling means the former Trump trade adviser will not be able to argue to the jury that he believed Trump asserted privilege and effectively blocked him from complying with aspects of the select committee’s subpoena.

In addition, Mehta noted that even if he had shown Trump asserted privilege, the select committee had indicated it planned to ask him questions about topics that did not touch on his communications with Trump and therefore wouldn’t be covered by any privilege assertion.

Old Goats, Commentary: She's The Boss,.Jonathan Alter, Aug. 30-31, 2023. Judge Chutkan and Trump’s approaching Day of Judgment.

John Lauro was in a predicament Monday that bodes well for the survival of the Republic.

Lauro is Donald Trump’s lead attorney in the most important trial the former president faces — the one that will resolve whether he is guilty of masterminding a coup against the government and people of the United States.

In federal court, Lauro began talking trash in a loud and aggressive manner. He sounded like he was on a cable show, not standing before the bar of justice.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who next year will become one of the most famous American jurists in American history (even though the trial will not be televised), brought Lauro up short. Twice, she told him to “turn down the temperature.” Lauro finally comprehended that in this courtroom—in front of this judge— properly “representing” Trump will mean more than channeling his indignation. So he complied.

But it was too late. Lauro had asked for a 2026 trial date—a ludicrous bid—and refused to show up this week with a more reasonable proposal. Bad move. With the trial date now scheduled for March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, Lauro is caught between his client — who wants him to pursue a noisy political case in court — and Judge Chutkan, who made it clear that any such strategy will blow up in the Orange Menace’s face.

Lauro knows he must do it Trump’s way or be fired, which means he’ll put on a blustery MAGA defense in front of a District of Columbia jury that isn’t likely to buy it.

And so in the course of a few days, the notion of the Republican Party nominating a convicted felon for president has gone from liberal fantasy to strong possibility.

While Trump’s attorneys will file various motions to delay, legal experts this week are predicting that these motions will be quickly adjudicated — often by Chutkan herself. And there is no provision in federal law for a higher court to overturn a trial date.

Trump’s best hope — a change of venue — doesn’t seem likely. Efforts by insurrectionists to avoid being tried in the District of Columbia have all failed. So prepare for some momentous history to unfold next spring. The Day of Judgment is nearly upon us.

Politico, Joe Biggs, Proud Boys leader, gets 17-year prison sentence for role in Jan. 6 attack, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 31, 2023.  Biggs is the first of four Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy to face sentencing.

Joseph Biggs, a Florida leader of the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to derail the peaceful transfer of power — the second-longest sentence of the hundreds handed down since the violent assault on the Capitol.

“That day broke our tradition of peacefully transferring power,” said U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly as he delivered his sentence. “The mob brought an entire branch of government to heel.”

Biggs is the first of four Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy to face sentencing. The others include Philadelphia Proud Boys leader Zachary Rehl, Seattle Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean and former national Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who will all be sentenced between Thursday and early next week.

A fifth member of the group, Dominic Pezzola, who was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other Jan. 6 felonies, faces sentencing on Friday. He smashed a Senate-wing window of the Capitol with a stolen police riot shield, triggering the mob’s breach of the building.

Kelly, an appointee of Donald Trump, applied a “terrorism” enhancement to Biggs’ sentence, a distinction that so far has only been applied to members of the Oath Keepers similarly convicted of seditious conspiracy. Kelly spoke at length about his decision to apply that label and how it compared to other, more stereotypical acts of terrorism that involve mass casualties or bombings.

“While blowing up a building in some city somewhere is a very bad act, the nature of the constitutional moment we were in that day is something that is so sensitive that it deserves a significant sentence,” Kelly said.

The sentence is an important marker in the fraught aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors, who had asked for a 33-year sentence for Biggs, said he and his co-conspirators were the driving force behind the violence that unfolded that day, facilitating breaches at multiple police lines and helping the crowd advance into the building itself. A jury convicted the five men of multiple conspiracies in June, after a four-month trial that recounted their actions in painstaking detail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough urged Kelly to severely punish Biggs as a way to deter others who might consider similar actions in the future aimed at disrupting the government. The fear and effect on society caused by Jan. 6 , he said, is “no different than the act of a spectacular bombing of a building.”

“There’s a reason why we will hold our collective breath as we approach future elections,” McCullough said. “We never gave it a second thought before Jan. 6. … They pushed us to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”

“It’s almost seductive in how tangible a future act like this could be,” the prosecutor added. “It doesn’t take the step of amassing bomb-making equipment to bring the United States government and our society to the brink of a constitutional crisis. It just takes slick propaganda and an environment where you encourage people to basically say, ‘It’s us against them,’ and we’re going to use force to achieve our political ends.”

Prosecutors say the group amassed a force of 200 hand-selected Proud Boys and marched them to the Capitol, where many of them skirmished with police or removed barriers intended to keep the crowd at bay. Nordean and Biggs were convicted of dismantling a black metal fence that was one of police’s last obstacles before the crowd reached the building.

Biggs, who didn’t take the stand during the trial, spoke for the first time about the charges as he pleaded with Kelly for a lenient sentence. He said he had withdrawn from politics and refused to engage in it with other Jan. 6 defendants detained at the D.C. jail where he’s been housed for more than two years. Biggs said he had always planned to quit the Proud Boys after Jan. 6 to focus on his daughter.

“I know that I have to be punished,” he said, but begged Kelly to allow him to “take my daughter to school one day and pick her up.”

The Proud Boys’ trajectory toward Jan. 6 became a major focus of the trial. The group, which had become infamous for street fighting with left-wing activists, had aligned itself with Trump, who famously told the group to “stand back and stand by” during a debate with rival Joe Biden.

Prosecutors say the group feared that if Trump lost the election, they would become marginalized and quickly embraced his false claims of election fraud. The group attended two pro-Trump marches in Washington, D.C., that were marred by street violence, including a Dec. 14 event in which four Proud Boys were stabbed outside a bar. That violence fueled the group’s fury at police in Washington, prosecutors said, which the members displayed openly on Jan. 6.

When Trump told supporters on Dec. 19, 2020 to amass in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, Tarrio and the Proud Boys leaders quickly responded and began assembling a new chapter that they described as a group of more disciplined and obedient men who would follow their orders. That group, which they dubbed the “Ministry of Self-Defense,” became the core of the group that descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Biggs’ attorney Norm Pattis argued that too harsh a sentence would erode trust in government and have a similarly perverse result: making Americans fearful of attending protests.

“I think we’re an ongoing threat to ourselves in this republic right now,” he said. “Just how, how we are in a situation where a presidential candidate, indicted four times by state and federal officials, is in a statistical dead heat with the incumbent. … The government’s suggestion that [Biggs] is some domestic threat, he’s going to go out and make things worse — you just can’t get much worse than that.”

Aug. 29

New York Times, Judge Sets Trial Date in March for Trump’s Federal Election Case, Alan Feuer and Glenn Thrush, Aug. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected efforts by Donald Trump’s legal team to postpone the trial until 2026.

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Monday for early March, rebuffing Mr. Trump’s proposal to push it off until 2026.

The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to start the trial on March 4 amounted to an early victory for prosecutors, who had asked for Jan. 2. But it potentially brought the proceeding into conflict with the three other trials that Mr. Trump is facing, underscoring the extraordinary complexities of his legal situation and the intersection of the prosecutions with his campaign to return to the White House.

The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on March 4 as well. Another case, in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, has been scheduled to go to trial on March 25.

And if the trial in Washington lasts more than 11 weeks, it could bump up against Mr. Trump’s other federal trial, on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. That trial is scheduled to begin in Florida in late May.

The March 4 date set by Judge Chutkan for the federal election case at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington is the day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states are scheduled to hold Republican primaries or caucuses.

Judge Chutkan said that while she understood Mr. Trump had both other trial dates scheduled next year and, at the same time, was running for the country’s highest office, she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date.

“Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,” Judge Chutkan said, adding that “there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.”

Mr. Trump has now been indicted by grand juries four times in four places — Washington, New York, Atlanta and Florida — and prosecutors have been jockeying for position. All of them are trying to find time for their trials not only in relation to one another, but also against the backdrop of Mr. Trump’s crowded calendar as the candidate leading the field for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

New York Times, Meadows Testifies in Bid to Move Georgia Trump Case to Federal Court, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Mr. Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, told a judge he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.

A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, right, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta.

Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically on the witness stand that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021. “My wife will tell you sometimes that I forget to take out the trash,” he told Judge Steve C. Jones of United States District Court.

At another point, he asked whether he was properly complying with the judge’s instructions, saying, “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

The effort to shift the case to federal court is the first major legal fight since the indictment of Mr. Trump, Mr. Meadows and 17 others was filed by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. The indictment charges Mr. Trump and his allies with interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the state. Mr. Meadows is one of several defendants in the case who are trying to move it to federal court; any decision on the issue by a judge could apply to all 19 defendants.Lawyers for Mark Meadows made their bid to a judge to move the Georgia case against Donald Trump and his allies to federal court, Aug. 28, 2023.

Washington Post, Meadows testifies in Atlanta; March trial date for Trump in D.C., Devlin Barrett, Maegan Vazquez, Perry Stein and Rachel Weiner, Aug. 29, 2023 (print ed.). U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s D.C. trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024.

At a separate hearing in Atlanta, Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump’s efforts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court. Trump is a front-runner in the Republican 2024 presidential contest, and the D.C. trial’s starting date is the day before the Super Tuesday primaries.

Here’s what to know

• Trump is the only person indicted in the D.C. case so far, but his indictment alleges he enlisted six unnamed conspirators in his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory and hang on to power.
• Trump is the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. He has been indicted in four cases — all while leading the Republican field in the 2024 presidential nomination race. He has denied wrongdoing in each case.
• Meadows, right, is one of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in a separate, state-level indictment related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Reporting from Atlanta: Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner:

Under questioning from his own attorney, Mark Meadows, left, repeatedly described the post-election atmosphere at the Trump White House as chaotic. He testified that because he was viewed as someone who had “the ear of the president,” he was deluged by phone calls and emails, including from people questioning the outcome of the 2020 election.

“It felt like my phone number was plastered on every bathroom wall in America,” Meadows said of the calls.

A small murmur spread through the courtroom when Mark Meadows walked in with his lawyers, given that he was not required to attend and it was unclear if he would. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did not attend the hearing. At least a half-dozen members of her prosecution team filed into the courtroom on the heels of the defense, and Meadows greeted several of them with a smile and a handshake.

As he testified, Mark Meadows repeatedly turned and faced toward the U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, who is presiding over the removal hearings, directing his answers to him. Jones has played an active role in Monday’s hearing — often interrupting Fulton County prosecutor Anna Cross to either tell Meadows he had not answered her question or to pose questions of his own.

Mark Meadows also said a large part of his job as White House chief of staff was setting up phone calls and managing the president’s calendar. He said he attended numerous meetings and listened in on many phone calls that were political in nature simply to end the conversations at the right time.

In one White House meeting between Donald Trump and Pennsylvania lawmakers cited in the indictment, Meadows disputed that he attended the meeting other than to inform three of the lawmakers that they had tested positive for the coronavirus and would have to leave without seeing the president.

Former Trump chief of staff Meadows repeatedly insisted in his testimony in Atlanta there was a “federal nexus” to all of his actions mentioned in the Georgia indictment. He defended his participation in meetings and phone calls described by prosecutors as part of a plot to subvert the 2020 election results because he said there was a federal interest in “free and fair elections.”

• Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail
• New York Times, Americans still put their trust in juries. Will Donald Trump’s trials break that faith? Aug. 28, 2023.
• New York Times, Lawyers for Mark Meadows made their bid to a judge to move the Georgia case against Donald Trump and his allies to federal court, Aug. 28, 2023.

Aug. 28

U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.

Associated Press, Trump trial set for March 4, 2024, in federal case charging him with plotting to overturn election, Eric Tucker, Lindsay Whitehurst, Michael Michael Kunzelman, Aug. 28, 2023. A judge on Monday set a March 4, 2024, trial date for Donald Trump in the federal case in Washington charging the former president with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, rejecting a defense request to push back the case by years.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rebuffed claims by Trump’s attorneys that an April 2026 trial date was necessary to account for the huge volume of evidence they say they are reviewing and to prepare for what they contend is a novel and unprecedented prosecution. But she agreed to postpone the trial slightly beyond the January 2024 date proposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution team.

“The public has a right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter,” Chutkan said.

If the current date holds, it would represent a setback to Trump’s efforts to push the case back until well after the 2024 presidential election, a contest in which he’s the early front-runner for the Republican nomination.

The March 2024 date would also ensure a blockbuster trial in the nation’s capital in the heat of the GOP presidential nominating calendar, forcing Trump to juggle campaign and courtroom appearances and coming the day before Super Tuesday — a crucial voting day when more than a dozen states will hold primaries and when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs.

“I want to note here that setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant’s personal or professional obligations,” Chutkan said.

Chutkan has so far appeared not only cool to Trump’s efforts to delay the case but also concerned by social media comments he’s made outside court. This month, she warned Trump’s legal team that there were limits on what he can say publicly about evidence in the investigation. She also reiterated her intention Monday for Trump to be “treated with no more or less deference than any defendant would be treated.”

The Washington case is one of four prosecutions Trump is facing. A March 4 trial would take place just weeks before a scheduled New York trial in a case charging him in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actress. Meanwhile in Atlanta on Monday, where Trump and 18 others were charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was arguing to try to get the charges against him transferred from state court to federal court.

The setting of the trial date came despite strong objections from Trump lawyer John Lauro. He said defense lawyers had received an enormous trove of records from Smith’s team — a prosecutor put the total at more than 12 million pages and files — and that the case concerned novel legal issues that would require significant time to sort out.

“This is one of the most unique cases from a legal perspective ever brought in the history of the United States. Ever,” Lauro said, calling it an “enormous, overwhelming task” to review such a “gargantuan” amount of evidence.

Prosecutor Molly Gaston countered that the public had an “exceedingly” strong interest in moving the case forward to trial and said that the crux of the evidence has long been well known to the defense. Trump, she noted , is accused of “attempting to overturn an election and disenfranchise millions.”

“There is an incredibly strong public interest in a jury’s full consideration of those claims in open court,” Gaston said.

Washington Post, Opinion: Eastman’s defense is shattered in state bar proceeding, Jennifer Rubin, right, Aug. 28, 2023. John Eastman, the lawyer allegedly at the center of the unprecedented and outrageous scheme to overthrow the 2020 election, faces criminal prosecution in Georgia and has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal case. And Eastman must defend a bar complaint in California that threatens to revoke his law license.

At a critical hearing last week in the California bar proceedings, designated legal expert Matthew A. Seligman submitted a 91-page report, which I have obtained from the state bar, that strips away any “colorable,” or legally plausible, defense that Eastman was acting in good faith in rendering advice to the now four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump.

This report has serious ramifications for Eastman’s professional licensure and his defense in Georgia. Moreover, his co-defendant and co-counsel in the alleged legal scheme, Kenneth Chesebro, who has employed many of the same excuses as Eastman, might be in serious jeopardy in his Oct. 23 trial. (Another lawyer, Sidney Powell, also requested a speedy trial.)

In his report, Seligman addressed whether “the legal positions advanced by Dr. John Eastman in relation to the counting of electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election” were reasonable.

If one follows Seligman’s legal and historical analysis, one must conclude Eastman and his legal cohorts (including co-defendant Chesebro) likely knew that their “advice” was beyond the pale

The significance of stripping away the legal plausibility of the cockamamie scheme to undermine our democracy cannot be overstated. Consider how Seligman’s conclusion shatters not only Eastman’s but also Trump’s most likely defenses.

Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 28, 2023 (print ed.). The former president is a defendant in four criminal cases and three civil cases — and they could all go to trial before the 2024 election.

Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.

The cases vary in their potential to interfere with Trump’s campaign. He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he’ll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.

On Monday, the schedule may crystallize further. That’s when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case on election fraud has signaled she will choose a trial date. If she opts for a trial in early 2024, as prosecutors have requested, Trump’s already packed courtroom calendar will get much more complicated.

Here’s a look at what we know about Trump’s upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January.

New York business fraud lawsuit: Trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, New York City Before his criminal trials begin in earnest, Trump and his business empire will go on trial in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Tish James. The lawsuit alleges a raft of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.

Aug. 27

At their debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates raise their hands in answer to whether they would support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee if he's convicted in his criminal cases (Debate photo by Win McNamee of Getty Images).

Washington Post, Opinion: Their hands don’t lie: Republican candidates trash the trial by jury, Ruth Marcus, right, Aug. 27, 2023 (print ed.). There were two surrenders this week — one by Donald Trump, and one to Donald Trump.

The second, by almost every Republican presidential candidate, was more important, more predictable and far more terrifying.

The signature moment of Wednesday’s debate was the raising of hands to pledge fealty to Trump over the rule of law, and if the ritual has become unsurprising at this point in Trump’s reign over the GOP, this particular manifestation bears noting.

Because the formulation put to the candidates — would you support Trump even if he were convicted by a jury? — was so stark, and the response so appalling. Every candidate on the stage — with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and, depending on how you interpret his hand gestures, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — effectively declared that a trial by jury is just another American institution that must yield to the demands of Trump.

Pause to consider the implications of this answer. To answer that you would support Trump notwithstanding a jury verdict — to shoot up your hand in the eager manner of Vivek Ramaswamy or to gauge the room like a calculating Ron DeSantis — is to say: I do not trust the judgment of the American people.

Going Deep with Russ Baker! Investigative Commentary: The Scary Truth About the GOP Candidates and Their Appeal, Russ Baker, right, founder of the investigative site Who, What W,hy and author of the best-selling Family of Secrets, Aug. 27, 2023. What the Fox debate revealed about hatred, fear and race.

Note: As I was preparing to publish the essay below, with its discussion of race and the GOP, a young white man attempted to enter the campus of a historically black college in Jacksonville, Florida, but was turned away by a security officer after refusing to identify himself. He then went to a nearby discount store, where he shot and killed three black employees. “This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated Black people,” said Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters.

It’s hard to contemplate what follows without considering the impact of GOP rhetoric on impressionable people like the perpetrator.

It’s been a few days now since the first GOP debate on August 23, and pretty much everyone has already weighed in with their performance assessment. The spectacle had an average of 12.8 million viewers, which, without their star, Trump, was a larger than expected audience.

Me, I’m still wrestling with a notion I couldn’t get out of my mind.

It struck me as emblematic of larger issues that, while discussed endlessly, never result in clarity: the kinds of people who want to lead us, how they present themselves — and what all this says about their voters and advocates.

Each contender seemed to be auditioning for the role of apex predator — although they sometimes inadvertently morphed, however briefly, into a different, less alarming guise.

New York Times, Trump Investigations: Donald Trump and His Co-Defendants in Georgia Are Already at Odds, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Some defendants have already sought to move the case to federal court, while others are seeking speedy or separate trials.

Even as former President Donald J. Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in one by one at an Atlanta jail this week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out.

They are already at odds over when they will have their day in court, but also, crucially, where. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines.

Five defendants have already sought to move the state case to federal court, citing their ties to the federal government. The first one to file — Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election — will make the argument for removal on Monday, in a hearing before a federal judge in Atlanta.

Federal officials charged with state crimes can move their cases to federal court if they can convince a judge that they are being charged for actions connected to their official duties, among other things.

In the Georgia case, the question of whether to change the venue — a legal maneuver known as removal — matters because it would affect the composition of a jury. If the case stays in Fulton County, Ga., the jury will come from a bastion of Democratic politics where Mr. Trump was trounced in 2020. If the case is removed to federal court, the jury will be drawn from a 10-county region of Georgia that is more suburban and rural — and somewhat more Trump-friendly. Because it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury, this modest advantage could prove to be a very big deal.

The coming fights over the proper venue for the case are only one strand of a complicated tangle of efforts being launched by a gaggle of defense lawyers now representing Mr. Trump and the 18 others named in the 98-page racketeering indictment. This week, the lawyers clogged both state and federal court dockets with motions that will also determine when the case begins.

Already, one defendant’s case is splitting off as a result. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, has asked for a speedy trial, and the presiding state judge has agreed to it. His trial is now set to begin on Oct. 23. Another defendant, Sidney Powell, filed a similar motion on Friday, and a third, John Eastman, also plans to invoke his right to an early trial, according to one of his lawyers.

Washington Post, Analysis: Trump’s Georgia case could get real — quickly, Aaron Blake, right, Aug. 27, 2023. Key defendants charting their own course could reveal the strength of the case against the former president.

Former president Donald Trump’s Georgia indictment occupies an unusual space among his four criminal cases.

For a start, it might be the most compelling case, by virtue of how many associates — 18 — were also charged in the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. There’s also the possibility that the proceedings could be televised. Finally, there is substantially more reason to believe that Trump won’t stand trial before the 2024 election in this case than there is in the three other cases.

Nonetheless, we are about to learn some significant things — and soon.

Already three key defendants have forced the issue in ways that could draw back the curtain on the strength of the case against Trump.

New York Times, These are the people who have been charged in the election inquiry in Georgia, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment Georgia prosecutors filed Aug. 14 in an election interference case targeting former President Donald J. Trump and his associates includes 41 criminal charges against 19 people who are accused of helping him seek to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

• New York Times, Why Are Trump’s Accused Co-Conspirators Smiling for Their Mug Shots? Aug. 26, 2023.
• New York Times, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Dept. official, was booked in the Georgia case, leaving two defendants left yet to surrender, Aug. 25, 2023.

Former President Donald J. Trump and several of his fellow defendants, in mug shots released by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta (Photos by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office).

New York Times, Donald Trump’s mug shot is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance, our critic writes, Vanessa Friedman, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.

As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.

“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”

In the photo, Mr. Trump is posed against a plain gray backdrop, just like the 11 of his fellow defendants whose mug shots were taken before him, including Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.

Aug. 26

World Crisis Radio, World Strategic Roundup and Activisim Recommendations: Twilight of Trump, Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Aug. 26, 2023 (129:41 mins.). In Atlanta, MAGA boss is arrested for fourth time as mindless corporate media keep raving that indictments only make him stronger! Three Trump co-defendants allege he ordered their misdeeds, foreshadowing flipping to come;

Activating Fourteenth Amendment ban on insurrectionists holding federal office rapidly gains prestigious bipartisan support from scholars and elected officials; Need legal action now by states to banish Don from ballot well before primary voting starts in January 2024;

Prigozhin ends as homicidal monster and his top staffers fall victim to assassination Putin’s secret police; Wagner mercenary units, Putin’s Foreign Legion, decapitated and in disarray; Prigozhin’s epitaph is statement admitting that there was no NATO threat to Russia on eve of February 2022 invasion -- an embarrassing fact for Mearsheimer, Chomsky, RFK Jr., Wagenknecht and other avid appeasers;

Ukrainian forces capture Robotyne on road to Melitopol and Sea of Azov, widening the breach in the first Russian defense line; Repeated strikes on Moscow and targets inside Russia; Debate on how many axes of attack are optimal;

BRICS may be viewed as a pressure group, a propaganda agency, a school of rhetoric, a brand of nostalgia, or a photo op, but they are incapable of joint action: no joint currency to challenge US dollar and no moral standing as they support the butcher of Ukraine who is making them starve;

GOP debate shows absolute depravity of this moribund party; 60 years since Martin Luther King’s ”I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial; Trump’s rogue’s gallery photo depicts cornered kingpin snarling into the abyss.

Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 26, 2023. The former president is a defendant in four criminal cases and three civil cases — and they could all go to trial before the 2024 election.

Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.

The cases vary in their potential to interfere with Trump’s campaign. He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he’ll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.

On Monday, the schedule may crystallize further. That’s when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case on election fraud has signaled she will choose a trial date. If she opts for a trial in early 2024, as prosecutors have requested, Trump’s already packed courtroom calendar will get much more complicated.

Here’s a look at what we know about Trump’s upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January.

New York business fraud lawsuit: Trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, New York City Before his criminal trials begin in earnest, Trump and his business empire will go on trial in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Tish James. The lawsuit alleges a raft of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.

• New York Times, Trump Is Booked at Atlanta Jail in Election Interference Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left 20 minutes later.

Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 26, 2023. The former president is a defendant in four criminal cases and three civil cases — and they could all go to trial before the 2024 election.

Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.

The cases vary in their potential to interfere with Trump’s campaign. He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he’ll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.

On Monday, the schedule may crystallize further. That’s when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case on election fraud has signaled she will choose a trial date. If she opts for a trial in early 2024, as prosecutors have requested, Trump’s already packed courtroom calendar will get much more complicated.

Here’s a look at what we know about Trump’s upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January.

New York business fraud lawsuit: Trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, New York City Before his criminal trials begin in earnest, Trump and his business empire will go on trial in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Tish James. The lawsuit alleges a raft of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.

• New York Times, Trump Is Booked at Atlanta Jail in Election Interference Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left 20 minutes later.

The Waiola Church in flames during the devastating fires on the island of Maui in Hawaii on Aug. 8, 2023 (Photo by Matthew Thayer of the Maui News via the Associated Press).

 Washington Post, Hawaii utility faces collapse as others delay on extreme weather risks, Evan Halper, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). One after another, utilities confront massive liabilities for wildfires. With the Maui fire, Hawaiian Electric faces potential insolvency, accused of being slow to respond to threats of extreme weather.

The multibillion-dollar liabilities faced by Hawaiian Electric for the deadly wildfire in Maui — compounded by Maui County’s lawsuit against the utility on Thursday — are reverberating through the electricity industry and is forcing a reckoning for power companies and their customers, nationwide.
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Hawaiian Electric, which serves nearly all of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents, is careening toward insolvency, much like Pacific Gas & Electric did in California in 2019. Investors in the company are scrambling to sell their shares, and bond rating agencies are downgrading the Hawaii utility’s ratings because of its role in potentially causing or contributing to the most deadly U.S. wildfire in a century.

It is a pattern playing out with frequency across the West, and likely to spread to other states as much of the electricity industry finds itself unable or unwilling to meet the growing challenge of adapting power systems to extreme weather. In Texas this week, the power grid is again on the brink, with officials urgently asking customers to reduce usage, even after upgrades were made in the wake of the electricity system’s collapse in winter storms in 2021 that left 200 people dead.

In Hawaiian Electric’s case, it did not power down its lines in advance of expected hurricane-force winds, a major focus of lawsuits filed against it by Maui County and other litigants.

“It is just crazymaking that we all know we will back in the same place in a year, talking about another city destroyed, by another utility using the same excuses, the same playbook and probably even the same faulty equipment from the 1980s,” said Jay Edelson, an attorney who recently helped secure Oregon wildfire victims a landmark verdict against the power company PacifiCorp. “Why do these companies keep making these decisions? I don’t understand what is going on in these boardrooms.”

Washington Post, Over 100 confirmed safe on Maui’s list of people missing after wildfire, Timothy Bella and Kyle Rempfer, Aug. 26, 2023. Maui County officials released a list of 388 people Thursday who are still “unaccounted for” after the devastating fires this month, as part of Hawaii’s efforts to “un-duplicate” people reported missing. Within a day of making the list public, at least 100 people were crossed off.

“They were reported to be safe and sound,” Steven Merrill, special agent in charge of the FBI Honolulu Division, said during a news conference Friday. “Again, we don’t take that for granted. We still understand that there’s hundreds more that we’re still looking for and we will not stop until we find those.”

The list of names released Thursday was “a subset of a larger list” that still needs to be vetted, Merrill added.

“The 388 names were names that we had more information on. That’s why we released that first,” Merrill said. “That being said, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that we still have hundreds of other names where we still need more information.”

The validated list of names from the FBI released Thursday night is the first of its kind for unaccounted people since the Aug. 8 disaster in Lahaina, the country’s most devastating wildfire in a century.

“We’re releasing this list of names today because we know that it will help with the investigation,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said in a news release. “We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed. This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.”

Before the validated list was released, the estimated number of unaccounted people had fluctuated this week in what Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) described as the FBI’s efforts to “un-duplicate” people reported missing.

After Maui County Mayor Richard T. Bissen said Monday that the number of missing was believed to be at around 850, Merrill estimated Tuesday that there were more than 1,000 in an unconfirmed list.

Merrill said that efforts to confirm those who are unaccounted for have been complicated due to a lack of detail in some reports and the wide array of lists of tracking the unaccounted-for individuals.

• Washington Post, Democrats and Republicans deeply divided on extreme weather, Post-UMD poll finds
• New York Times, Lahaina Inferno Began After Firefighters Departed a ‘Contained’ Scene

Washington Post, FIFA provisionally suspends Spanish soccer official Luis Rubiales, Victoria Bisset, Aug. 26, 2023.  FIFA on Saturday provisionally suspended the president of Spain’s soccer federation after he kissed a player following Spain’s World Cup final win over England.

The sport’s governing body said in a statement that Luis Rubiales, who has refused to resign despite international outrage over Sunday’s incident, would be barred from all football-related activities at a national and international level for an initial period of 90 days. The organization announced disciplinary action against Rubiales on Thursday.

Saturday’s decision also banned both Rubiales and the Spanish soccer federation, which has threatened legal action over the accusations, from contacting the player at the center of the allegations, Jenni Hermoso.

In statements released Friday, the midfielder said she “never consented to the kiss he gave me,” adding that she and her family had come under pressure to publicly support Rubiales.

Dozens of players on Spain’s women’s team have said they will refuse to play further matches until the Spanish federation, RFEF, removes the president from his post.

Rubiales also faced criticism for grabbing his crotch at the end of the World Cup final while Spain’s Queen Letizia and Princess Sofía, 16, stood nearby.

Threats To U.S. Democracy

At their debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates raise their hands in answer to whether they would support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee if he's convicted in his criminal cases (Debate photo by Win McNamee of Getty Images).

Washington Post, Opinion: Their hands don’t lie: Republican candidates trash the trial by jury, Ruth Marcus, right, Aug. 25, 2023. There were two surrenders this week — one by Donald Trump, and one to Donald Trump.

The second, by almost every Republican presidential candidate, was more important, more predictable and far more terrifying.

The signature moment of Wednesday’s debate was the raising of hands to pledge fealty to Trump over the rule of law, and if the ritual has become unsurprising at this point in Trump’s reign over the GOP, this particular manifestation bears noting.

Because the formulation put to the candidates — would you support Trump even if he were convicted by a jury? — was so stark, and the response so appalling. Every candidate on the stage — with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and, depending on how you interpret his hand gestures, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — effectively declared that a trial by jury is just another American institution that must yield to the demands of Trump.

Pause to consider the implications of this answer. To answer that you would support Trump notwithstanding a jury verdict — to shoot up your hand in the eager manner of Vivek Ramaswamy or to gauge the room like a calculating Ron DeSantis — is to say: I do not trust the judgment of the American people.

Washington Post, Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation, Naomi Nix and Sarah Ellison, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.).  Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.

An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference.

And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter. In a sign of Musk’s influence, Meta briefly considered a plan last year to ban all political advertising on Facebook. The company shelved it after Musk announced plans to transform rival Twitter into a haven for free speech, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.

The retrenchment comes just months ahead of the 2024 primaries, as GOP front-runner Donald Trump continues to rally supporters with false claims that election fraud drove his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Multiple investigations into the election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump now faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Still, YouTube, X and Meta have stopped labeling or removing posts that repeat Trump’s claims, even as voters increasingly get their news on social media.

Trump capitalized on those relaxed standards in his recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, hosted by X. The former president punctuated the conversation, which streamed Wednesday night during the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 campaign, with false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and that the Democrats had “cheated” to elect Biden.

On Thursday night, Trump posted on X for the first time since he was kicked off the site, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Musk reinstated his account in November. The former president posted his mug shot from Fulton County, Ga., where he was booked Thursday on charges connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “NEVER SURRENDER!” read the caption.

This combination of photos shows Republican presidential candidates, top row from left, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; bottom row from left, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former vice president Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson. (AP)

Associated Press, Republican candidates fight each other, and mostly line up behind Trump, at the first debate, Jill Colvin, Sara Burnett and Jonathan J. Cooper, Aug. 24, 2023. The Republican presidential candidates vying to be the leading alternative to front-runner Donald Trump fought — sometimes bitterly — over abortion rights, U.S. support for Ukraine and the type of experience needed to manage an expansive federal government during the first debate of the 2024 campaign.

But when it came to arguably the most consequential choice facing the party, virtually everyone on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night lined up behind Trump, who declined to participate, citing his commanding lead. Most said they would support Trump as their nominee even if he is convicted in a series of cases that range from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in making hush money payments to a porn actress and other women.

New York Times, These are the people who have been charged in the election inquiry in Georgia, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment Georgia prosecutors filed Aug. 14 in an election interference case targeting former President Donald J. Trump and his associates includes 41 criminal charges against 19 people who are accused of helping him seek to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

• New York Times, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Dept. official, was booked in the Georgia case, leaving two defendants left yet to surrender, Aug. 25, 2023.

Former President Donald J. Trump and several of his fellow defendants, in mug shots released by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta (Photos by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office).

New York Times, Donald Trump’s mug shot is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance, our critic writes, Vanessa Friedman, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.

As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.

“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”

In the photo, Mr. Trump is posed against a plain gray backdrop, just like the 11 of his fellow defendants whose mug shots were taken before him, including Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.

Aug. 25

At their debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates raise their hands in answer to whether they would support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee if he's convicted in his criminal cases (Debate photo by Win McNamee of Getty Images).

Washington Post, Opinion: Their hands don’t lie: Republican candidates trash the trial by jury, Ruth Marcus, right, Aug. 25, 2023. There were two surrenders this week — one by Donald Trump, and one to Donald Trump.

The second, by almost every Republican presidential candidate, was more important, more predictable and far more terrifying.

The signature moment of Wednesday’s debate was the raising of hands to pledge fealty to Trump over the rule of law, and if the ritual has become unsurprising at this point in Trump’s reign over the GOP, this particular manifestation bears noting.

Because the formulation put to the candidates — would you support Trump even if he were convicted by a jury? — was so stark, and the response so appalling. Every candidate on the stage — with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and, depending on how you interpret his hand gestures, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — effectively declared that a trial by jury is just another American institution that must yield to the demands of Trump.

Pause to consider the implications of this answer. To answer that you would support Trump notwithstanding a jury verdict — to shoot up your hand in the eager manner of Vivek Ramaswamy or to gauge the room like a calculating Ron DeSantis — is to say: I do not trust the judgment of the American people.

Washington Post, Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation, Naomi Nix and Sarah Ellison, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.).  Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.

An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference.

And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter. In a sign of Musk’s influence, Meta briefly considered a plan last year to ban all political advertising on Facebook. The company shelved it after Musk announced plans to transform rival Twitter into a haven for free speech, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.

The retrenchment comes just months ahead of the 2024 primaries, as GOP front-runner Donald Trump continues to rally supporters with false claims that election fraud drove his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Multiple investigations into the election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump now faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Still, YouTube, X and Meta have stopped labeling or removing posts that repeat Trump’s claims, even as voters increasingly get their news on social media.

Trump capitalized on those relaxed standards in his recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, hosted by X. The former president punctuated the conversation, which streamed Wednesday night during the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 campaign, with false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and that the Democrats had “cheated” to elect Biden.

On Thursday night, Trump posted on X for the first time since he was kicked off the site, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Musk reinstated his account in November. The former president posted his mug shot from Fulton County, Ga., where he was booked Thursday on charges connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “NEVER SURRENDER!” read the caption.

Aug. 24

This combination of photos shows Republican presidential candidates, top row from left, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; bottom row from left, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former vice president Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson. (AP)

Associated Press, Republican candidates fight each other, and mostly line up behind Trump, at the first debate, Jill Colvin, Sara Burnett and Jonathan J. Cooper, Aug. 24, 2023. The Republican presidential candidates vying to be the leading alternative to front-runner Donald Trump fought — sometimes bitterly — over abortion rights, U.S. support for Ukraine and the type of experience needed to manage an expansive federal government during the first debate of the 2024 campaign.

But when it came to arguably the most consequential choice facing the party, virtually everyone on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night lined up behind Trump, who declined to participate, citing his commanding lead. Most said they would support Trump as their nominee even if he is convicted in a series of cases that range from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in making hush money payments to a porn actress and other women.

New York Times, Witness in Trump Documents Case Changed Lawyers, and Then Testimony, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, Aug. 23, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors described the shift in a court filing that highlighted conflicts of interest in the overlapping legal representation of witnesses and defendants in the case.

An employee of former President Donald J. Trump changed his grand jury testimony in the documents case after the Justice Department raised questions about whether his lawyer had a conflict of interest in representing both the employee and a defendant in the case, prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday.

Aug. 24

New York Times, Trump Is Booked at Atlanta Jail in Election Interference Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 24, 2023. Former President Trump entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left 20 minutes later.

The former president arrived in a motorcade and entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left after 20 minutes. He later returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, and posted his mug shot.

The case is the fourth time criminal charges have been brought against former President Donald J. Trump this year, but Thursday was the first time that he was booked at a jail and had his mug shot taken.

Mr. Trump spent about 20 minutes at the Fulton County Jail, submitting to some of the routines of criminal defendant intake. He was fingerprinted and had his photo taken.

• New York Times, Donald Trump hired Steve Sadow, a veteran criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta who has taken on a number of high-profile cases, Aug. 24, 2023.
• New York Times, Fulton County officials released Donald Trump’s mug shot, the first taken in the four criminal cases he’s faced this year, Aug. 24, 2023.

Aug. 22

New York Times, Trump Dominates in New Iowa Poll, Anjali Huynh, Aug. 22, 2023 (print ed.). The survey suggests a remarkably stable G.O.P. race in the state less than five months before the caucuses.

Former President Donald J. Trump leads his closest rival by double digits in a poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers released Monday, a showing that demonstrates both his continued political dominance and the remarkable stability of the Republican race.

The survey, conducted by The Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom before and after Mr. Trump’s latest indictment in Georgia, found that 42 percent of Republican voters in the state planned to support Mr. Trump, who held a lead of 23 percentage points over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, with 19 percent support. In third place was Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, with 9 percent.

The findings, which come as Mr. Trump’s rivals have poured significantly more time and money into the state, were consistent with the results of a poll by The New York Times and Siena College released this month. That survey found Mr. Trump with 44 percent support among likely Iowa G.O.P. caucusgoers, Mr. DeSantis with 20 percent support and Mr. Scott with 9 percent. Other rivals who showed single-digit support in the Times/Siena poll have been unable to improve their positions, according to the poll released Monday.

The first-in-the-nation caucuses will take place on Jan. 15, 2023, the earliest nominating contest in Iowa since 2012, when it held the caucuses the first week of January. This year’s contest is seen as the best chance for Republicans to slow Mr. Trump on his way to the nomination.

Washington Post, In Trump cases, experts say defendant’s rhetoric will be hard to police, Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu and Isaac Arnsdorf, Aug. 22, 2023. Donald Trump’s advisers see a win-win scenario in pretrial skirmishes over what he can say about indictments.

At her first hearing overseeing the 2020 election obstruction case against former president Donald Trump, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan tried to draw a line in the sand: “I intend to keep politics out of this.”

Legal experts say that will be a tricky — perhaps impossible — task, especially in a criminal prosecution in which politicians or their aides are the alleged perpetrators, witnesses and victims, and the defendant is running for president.

On Monday, a state court judge in Atlanta issued strict limits on Trump’s public statements as conditions of his release on election-related charges there. But policing and enforcing those kinds of rules will be a challenge for judges in many jurisdictions, including Chutkan, who is presiding over the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington.

“It’s right and good that Judge Chutkan is making it clear that she’s not going to focus on politics. That’s a very no-nonsense federal judge thing to say,” said Kenneth White, a former federal prosecutor in California who specializes in free-speech issues. “But even if she’d like this to be completely divorced from politics, it can’t be. It’s steeped in politics.”

Aug. 21

Washington Post, Opinion: Trump’s kid-glove treatment highlights an unequal justice system, Jennifer Rubin, right, Aug. 21, 2023. Four-time indicted former president Donald Trump never tires of painting himself as a victim. He and his supporters claim there’s a two-tiered justice system. They have a point on that score, but not in the way they intend.

Trump is well-lawyered. He’s famous. And he’s White. In our system, that means he’s in a far better position than many defendants.

No one, for example, has seriously considered pretrial detention for Trump — or even electronic monitoring or asking him to relinquish his passport. He’s not getting the same treatment as everyone else.

A 2019 report from the Prison Policy Initiative found:

As of 2002 (the last time the government collected this data nationally), about 29% of people in local jails were unconvicted — that is, locked up while awaiting trial or another hearing. Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) of these detainees were people of color, with Black (43%) and Hispanic (19.6%) defendants especially overrepresented compared to their share of the total U.S. population. Since then, pretrial populations have more than doubled in size, and unconvicted defendants now make up about two-thirds (65%) of jail populations nationally.

Black defendants are more likely to be detained pretrial and be assessed higher bonds. Pretrial incarceration, which can go on for months given trial backlogs, can put defendants in physical danger, deprive children of a parent, send their families into financial collapse and increase pressure to strike a plea deal.

And let’s not sugarcoat the conditions defendants awaiting trial must endure. The Fulton County Jail, where Trump might spend just minutes during processing, is notorious for “overcrowding and detainee deaths.” A jail designed to hold 1,125 instead holds 2,500; more than 60 inmates have died between 2009 and 2022 — 15 last year alone. It has been described as smelly, cold, bug-infested, filthy and decrepit.

New York Times, Bail for Trump Set at $200,000 in Georgia Election Interference Case, Danny Hakim, Maggie Haberman and Richard Fausset
Aug. 22, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump will have to pay cash upon being booked in Atlanta, which was not the case in the three other criminal cases involving the former president. Former President Donald J. Trump’s bail was set at $200,000 on Monday in a sprawling racketeering case charging Mr. Trump and 18 associates with election interference in Georgia.

The move came as it became clear that Mr. Trump and the other defendants will be required to pay cash upon being booked in Atlanta, which was not the case in the three other criminal cases involving the former president.

Aug. 20

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

Proof, Investigative Commentary: The Trump Trials, Vol. 21: Does a New Georgia Statute Empower Georgia Republicans to End the RICO Case Against Donald Trump? Seth Abramson, left, Aug. 20, 2023. This Proof series—authored by a longtime criminal defense lawyer and leading Donald Trump biographer—unpacks recent events in the historic trials of the disgraced former president.

Introduction: In the State of Georgia, a new statute signed into law by the state’s Republican Party governor goes into effect in October 2023. The details of the statute are discussed in more detail here, but the upshot is that it allows an ostensibly nonpartisan but in fact political-appointee-filled, partisan “commission” (called the Prosecuting Attorneys Oversight Commission) to remove prosecutors for a series of pre-delineated reasons there’s already nationwide chatter the commission will ignore—instead using its new powers to eliminate prosecutors in Georgia who dare to go after powerful Republicans like Donald Trump (unsurprisingly, the commission will be largely, if not exclusively, comprised of Republicans appointed by fellow Republicans).

Some people are terrified that this new law—despite being signed by a man (Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp) who stood up to Trump after the 2020 presidential election—will be used to scuttle the sprawling Trump indictment just announced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. In fact, this fear has led to what is now the query most commonly posed to Proof: “Does this new statute empower Georgia Republicans to end the RICO case against Donald Trump?”

This article attempts to exhaustively answer that important—and timely—question.

Washington Post, Opinion: Why Trump’s Georgia case likely can’t be removed to federal court, Jennifer Rubin, right, Aug. 20, 2023. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows last week filed a petition to move Georgia’s racketeering case against him from state court in Fulton County to the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia. He was granted an evidentiary hearing on Aug. 28.

The removal request raises a host of issues regarding him and former president Donald Trump in the case alleging a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Meadows will need to produce evidence to justify removal at an Aug. 28 hearing.

While all 19 defendants, facing a total of 41 counts, are charged with state law violations, a federal statute allows a defendant in certain circumstances to “remove” the case to federal court. The reason behind the statute, according to an American Bar Association (ABA) article, was to “to protect those who worked for the federal government, whether directly or indirectly, in the event that they were sued or prosecuted for conduct performed while working in their capacity as a federal officer or working under the direct control and supervision of a federal officer.”

Why seek removal to federal court? In the case of Meadows (and perhaps other defendants), the motive might be nothing more than jury-shopping. Legal scholars Laurence H. Tribe, Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut explained in a recent Atlantic article that a defendant removing his case to federal court would “get a shot at a jury pool drawn from the entire Northern District of Georgia and not just from Fulton County, which is seated in purple-to-blue Atlanta.”

Defendants seeking removal to federal court might also think there could be an advantage in putting a state court prosecutor on unfamiliar turf in a federal courtroom, or they might prefer that the judge conduct the voir dire interview of prospective jurors (as is the case in federal court), not the attorneys (as is done in state court).

If Meadows thought he’d get a break in finding a more friendly judge, however, he might be disappointed. If Meadows succeeds in removing the case, state court Judge Scott F. McAfee, right, appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp just this year, would be out; seasoned U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, appointed by President Barack Obama, would be in. To the extent that the Trump gang thinks there are “Trump” judges and “Obama” judges, Meadows might have preferred to try his luck with McAfee.

In any event, Meadows’s effort to scramble into federal court might well fail.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump Co-Defendant RUINS HIS ENTIRE LIFE for Trump with Disastrous Decision, Aug. 20, 2023. Karen Friedman Agnifilo reports on the sordid ordeal of Donald Trump’s co-defendant in Fulton County, Georgia: Ken Cheseboro who ruined his life and reputation for Trump.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump Co-Defendant RUINS HIS ENTIRE LIFE for Trump with Disastrous Decision, Aug. 20, 2023. Karen Friedman Agnifilo reports on the sordid ordeal of Donald Trump’s co-defendant in Fulton County, Georgia: Ken Cheseboro who ruined his life and reputation for Trump.

Aug. 19

New York Times, How Many of Trump’s Trials Will Happen Before the Election? Benjamin Weiser, Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 19, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump is the target of four separate criminal indictments, but the prosecutions could drag on for months or even years.

Three different prosecutors want to put Donald J. Trump on trial in four different cities next year, all before Memorial Day and in the midst of his presidential campaign.

It will be nearly impossible to pull off.

A morass of delays, court backlogs and legal skirmishes awaits, interviews with nearly two dozen current and former prosecutors, judges, legal experts and people involved in the Trump cases show. Some experts predicted that only one or two trials will take place next year; one speculated that none of the four Trump cases will start before the election.

It would be virtually unheard of for any defendant to play a game of courthouse Twister like this, let alone one who is also the leading contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency. And between the extensive legal arguments that must take place before a trial can begin — not to mention that the trials themselves could last weeks or months — there are simply not enough boxes on the calendar to squeeze in all the former president’s trials.

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump now facing INDICTMENT in ANOTHER State, Dina Sayegh Doll, Aug. 20, 2023. Trump could soon be facing charges in another state - this time in Arizona - for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Dina Sayegh Doll reports.

Aug. 18

New York Times, Lawyers for Donald Trump are seeking to delay the Jan. 6 trial until April 2026, Alan Feuer, Aug. 18, 2023 (print ed.). The lawyers said the extraordinary delay was needed given the historic nature of the case and the volume of discovery materials they will have to sort through in the coming months.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a judge on Thursday to reject the government’s proposal to take Mr. Trump to trial in early January on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election and to instead push back the proceeding until April 2026 — nearly a year and a half after the 2024 election.

The lawyers said the extraordinary delay was needed because of the historic nature of the case and the extraordinary volume of discovery evidence they will have to sort through — as much as 8.5 terabytes of materials, totaling over 11.5 million pages, they wrote in a filing to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the case.

In a bit of legal showmanship, Gregory M. Singer, the lawyer who wrote the brief, included a graph that showed how 11.5 million pages of documents stacked atop one another would result in a “tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky.”

That, Mr. Singer pointed out, was “taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare.”

 Aug. 17

New York Times, ‘Biased.’ ‘Corrupt.’ ‘Deranged.’ Trump’s Taunts Test Limits of Release, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, Aug. 17, 2023 (print ed.). Some lawyers have said that if former President Trump were an ordinary citizen issuing these attacks, he would be in jail by now. The question is whether he will face similar consequences.

Just days ago, the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of seeking to subvert the 2020 election admonished him against violating the conditions of his release put in place at his arraignment — including by making “inflammatory statements” that could be construed as possibly intimidating witnesses or other people involved in the case.

But Mr. Trump immediately tested that warning by posting a string of messages on his social media website, Truth Social, that largely amplified others criticizing the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan.

In one post, written by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, the lawyer Mike Davis, a large photo of Judge Chutkan accompanied text that falsely claimed she had “openly admitted she’s running election interference against Trump.” In two other posts, Mr. Trump wrote, “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR.”

After eight years of pushing back at a number of institutions in the United States, Mr. Trump is now probing the limits of what the criminal justice system will tolerate and the lines that Judge Chutkan sought to lay out about what he can — and cannot — say about the election interference case she is overseeing. He has waged a similarly defiant campaign against others involved in criminal cases against him, denouncing Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal indictments against him, as “deranged”; casting Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., as “corrupt”; and even singling out witnesses.

Some lawyers have said that if Mr. Trump were an ordinary citizen issuing these attacks, he would be in jail by now. The question is whether Mr. Trump will face consequences for this kind of behavior ahead of a trial.

“He is absolutely in my view testing the judge and testing the limits, almost daring and taunting her,” said Karen Agnifilo, who has a three-decade legal career, including as the chief assistant in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Ms. Agnifilo added that Mr. Trump is so far benefiting from his status as a candidate for office, facing fewer repercussions from the judges in the cases than other vocal defendants might.

So far, Judge Chutkan has merely warned Mr. Trump against making “inflammatory statements” about the case or people involved with it, saying she would do what she needed to keep him from intimidating witnesses or tainting potential jurors.

She has also told Mr. Trump’s lawyers that she may be forced to agree with the government’s proposal to go to trial sooner than they like as a way to protect the jury pool.

Aug. 16

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

Politico, Why the new charges against Trump are different, Erica Orden, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). The Georgia case sweeps more broadly than prior indictments — and for the first time, some of the charges carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence.

At the start of the week, Donald Trump faced 78 felony counts across three criminal prosecutions. Then, near midnight on Monday in Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis added a fourth case with 13 more.

In some ways, the new charges resemble the old. Like special counsel Jack Smith, Willis has accused Trump of orchestrating a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. And like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Willis has accused Trump of falsifying documents, albeit very different types of documents and for very different reasons.

Beyond the similarities, though, the Georgia case stands apart. In terms of the sheer scope of wrongdoing it alleges, the 98-page indictment sweeps far more broadly than any of the previous indictments against Trump. And for the first time, a panoply of high-ranking aides, attorneys and allies have been named as co-defendants alongside Trump.

Some of the charges entail automatic prison time under the Georgia criminal code. For instance, if convicted of conspiring to solicit a public official to violate the oath of office, Trump would face a minimum one-year mandatory prison sentence. (Willis alleges Trump committed that crime by pressuring the speaker of the Georgia House to call a special session to appoint fake electors.) The crime of first-degree forgery similarly carries a mandatory prison sentence of at least one year.

The prospect of mandatory prison time is a first among Trump’s criminal cases. In his other cases, some charges — like allegedly falsifying business records in his New York hush money case — are unlikely to result in any prison time for a first-time offender. Other, more serious charges — like Trump’s alleged violations of the Espionage Act and his alleged obstruction of justice in his federal case involving classified documents — typically result in significant prison sentences, but federal judges have discretion.

Washington Post, Here’s who else was charged in the Georgia case, Holly Bailey, Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley and Jon Swaine, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman and Sidney Powell are among the 18 others who were indicted.

Former president Donald Trump was not the only person criminally charged in the Atlanta area in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Eighteen of his close allies and supporters were also charged in a sprawling anti-racketeering case.

Here are the others:

Rudy Giuliani. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; three counts of false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

Giuliani served as Trump’s personal attorney and was central to efforts by the Trump team to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in several battleground states, including Georgia, by promoting unsupported claims of vast election fraud. He continued to do so even as many state and federal officials — including William P. Barr, Trump’s attorney general — disputed those claims. Giuliani’s December 2020 appearances before the Georgia legislature, where he peddled disproved conspiracy theories of voter fraud, and his role in organizing an alternate slate of Trump electors have drawn scrutiny from Fulton County prosecutors.

Mark Meadows. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff in 2020, played a key role in efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia. In the chaotic weeks after Election Day, Meadows often organized and sat in on Trump’s phone calls with Georgia state officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), as Trump pressured them to reverse Biden’s victory in the state. Meadows, right, communicated with Trump allies, including Giuliani, as they pushed election conspiracy theories and plotted ways to keep Trump in office. Meadows took a particular interest in Georgia, making a surprise December 2020 visit to a ballot-counting center outside Atlanta — an incident Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) cited when she sought to subpoena Meadows to appear before the special-purpose grand jury. Meadows unsuccessfully fought his subpoena before appearing before the panel in November

John Eastman. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents; filing false documents.

Eastman, right, a conservative attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, played a key role in developing an outlandish legal strategy to try to help Trump stay in power by using the vice president’s ceremonial role overseeing the election certification proceeding. Eastman and Giuliani met with Georgia state senators in December 2020 and urged them to disregard the election results. Eastman told senators that the Republican-controlled legislature could appoint a pro-Trump slate of electors and then the president of the U.S. Senate — at the time, Vice President Mike Pence — could determine whether that slate should be counted in Congress’s certification of the election rather than the Biden electors. He also falsely asserted, without evidence, that Trump lost Georgia in part because 66,000 underage people and 2,500 felons had voted in the state that year. A New Mexico judge ordered Eastman to appear before the investigative grand jury last year.

Kenneth Chesebro. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Chesebro, right, an appellate attorney who studied under and worked with Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, was the first to suggest that alternate Trump electors could be recognized on Jan. 6, 2021. He first shared the strategy with a friend representing the Trump campaign in Wisconsin before connecting with Eastman, Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn and Giuliani to coordinate across six more swing states, including Georgia. He was subpoenaed by the special-purpose grand jury and has argued that his communications with the Trump campaign were protected by attorney-client privilege, although he was never paid for his work.

Sidney Powell. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft; conspiracy to commit computer trespass; conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy; conspiracy to defraud the state. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, was one of Trump’s more extreme allies in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results, voicing a series of baseless conspiracy theories including that voting machines had been rigged for Biden. In Georgia, she alleged Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Raffensperger, the secretary of state, were taking payoffs as part of that scheme — a claim that unsettled some Trump allies and led to her exit from Trump’s official post-election legal team. Still, Powell kept filing lawsuits alleging fraud across the battleground states, including in Georgia, and she remained in Trump’s orbit. At a White House meeting in December 2020, Trump considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election — an event that has drawn the scrutiny of Fulton County prosecutors investigating Powell’s efforts to undermine the Georgia vote. A subpoena request for Powell also suggested prosecutors are looking into what role she might have played in an alleged breach of election data in Coffee County, Ga.

Washington Post, What the indictment means, what happens next, Amber Phillips, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). What’s the maximum sentence if he’s convicted? Will he pose for a mug shot?

Trump is charged with a crime — racketeering — that carries up to 20 years in prison. Trump has been charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO in legal circles. A federal version of the law was originally designed to prosecute mob bosses who were leading complex criminal enterprises. Georgia’s version, which is one of the most expansive in the country, allows prosecutors to weave together several alleged crimes — in this case, conspiracy to defraud the state, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, computer theft and dozens of others — into one charge that carries up to 20 years in prison.

New York Times, Why Pardons in Georgia Are Especially Hard to Get, Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Felons must wait five years to seek a pardon, and it does not come from the governor: They must appeal to a five-member board

Donald J. Trump has raised the idea in the past that as president he could pardon himself from federal crimes. While no president has ever pardoned himself, there is little restriction on the presidential pardon authority laid out in the Constitution.

But in the Georgia case, Mr. Trump would have no such power if he is re-elected, because a president’s pardons apply only to federal crimes.

Beyond that, getting a pardon in Georgia is not just a matter of persuading a governor to grant clemency. People convicted of state crimes are eligible to apply for pardons only five years after they have completed serving their sentences. Even then, it’s not the governor who decides but the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

And while criminals can ask the parole board to commute sentences right away, the board “will consider a commutation of a sentence imposed in other than death cases only when substantial evidence is submitted” showing “that the sentence is either excessive, illegal, unconstitutional or void” and that “such action would be in the best interests of society and the inmate.

Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani hawking their false claims that they could prove election fraud caused Democratic nominee Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020.

Proof: Exclusive Report: An Annotated List of the 30 As-Yet Unindicted Georgia Co-Conspirators in the Just-Released Trump Indictment in Fulton County, Seth Abramson, left, Aug. 15-16, 2023. The 98-page indictment just announced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis contains 30 unnamed co-conspirators identified by number. Proof reveals, for the first time, who these people are.

Introduction: “Open-source intelligence” (OSINT)—that is, reliable public records, including major-media reporting and government reports—allows us to identify nearly all of the thirty Donald Trump co-conspirators Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis declined to indict (or name) in her recent 98-page indictment of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, below right, Mike Roman and eleven less-well-known individuals.

Note that Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, and Chesebro together comprise four of the seven individuals identified explicitly or implicitly in the recent indictment Jack Smith brought in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel. The three other Trump-affiliated persons listed above are facing indictment—thus, a last-chance opportunity to cooperate with both state and federal prosecutors and investigators—for the very first time.)

Some of these thirty individuals will likely be indicted at some point in the future, either in the State of Georgia or elsewhere. But others may not have been indicted or even named because they’re currently cooperating individuals or have done enough to indicate that they one day might be that prosecutors are holding off on indicting them.

What is clear, however, is that these names could matter just as much as the names of the nineteen individuals who were indicted as Trump’s Georgia co-conspirators.

Why?

(1) First, because thirty is more than nineteen.

(2) Second, because some of the thirty unindicted co-conspirators may well have been selected for non-indictment because they’re already cooperating.

(3) Third, because by definition some of the thirty unindicted co-conspirators may have been more tangential to the Georgia Conspiracy, which means—for a few of them—they were more central to other components of Trump’s post-election crimes.

(4) Fourth, these thirty unindicted individuals are as or more interesting than the nineteen for the simple reason that they remain an unknown—a mystery. And it seems everyone loves a mystery.

Indeed, given how many coup foot-soldiers and coup plotters have now been indicted, the idea that the list of infamous individuals not yet indicted or listed as unindicted co-conspirators—men and women like Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Cleta Mitchell, Ginni Thomas, Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ali Alexander, Alex Jones, Christina Bobb, Kash Patel, Cindy Chafian, Bianca Gracia, Garrett Ziegler, Michael Flynn, Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Scott Perry, Tommy Tuberville, Louie Gohmert, and others—are all going to go unindicted (even as some surely will, as some surely didn’t commit any identifiable crime for all their unethical conduct) has now become a non-starter.

There simply can be no doubt that many, many more indictments—both superseding and otherwise—are yet to come. The list of unindicted but now-identified Trump co-conspirators below is certainly a great place to start in imagining what direction the January 6 investigation(s) might head in next.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who taught digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Washington Post, Analysis: 4 things revealed by Trump’s latest indictment, Aaron Blake, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment features 41 counts — 13 against Trump — and charges against Trump-aligned lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The core of the indictment, a racketeering charge, implicates all 19 defendants.

That brings the total number of criminal charges this year against the runaway front-runner in the GOP presidential primary to 91.

The indictment is Trump’s second involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the second to be brought outside federal court. Trump was charged on the federal level in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of his broader efforts on the election front. Smith’s probe into Trump’s refusal to return classified documents also brought an indictment.

You can read the full indictment here.

Aug. 15

Washington Post, Trump charged in Georgia election probe, Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner, Aug. 15, 2023. In fourth indictment, former president is accused of crimes related to effort to overturn 2020 results. Donald Trump’s charges include violating the state’s racketeering act and soliciting a public officer to violate their oath. The historic indictment follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis.

New York Times, Trump Indicted in Georgia; Has 10 Days to Turn Himself In; Is Accused of Leading Push to Reverse 2020 Vote, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 15, 2023. Former President Donald J. Trump has 10 days to turn himself in to face accusations that he and 18 other people orchestrated a “criminal enterprise” to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and subvert the will of voters — sweeping charges by a local prosecutor that invoked a law associated with taking down mobsters.

The 41-count indictment also brings charges against some of Mr. Trump’s most prominent advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, his former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff at the time of the election.

All 19 defendants — a wide-ranging group that includes a former senior Justice Department official, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and lawyers who were part of the “elite strike force team” who amplified Mr. Trump’s claims — were charged under the state’s racketeering statute, which was originally designed to dismantle organized crime groups.

Mr. Trump and the other defendants, prosecutors wrote, “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

Mr. Trump, who is currently leading in polls among the Republican candidates for president in 2024, has now been indicted in four separate criminal investigations since April, including a federal indictment earlier this month over his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 race.

The prosecutor bringing the Georgia case, District Attorney Fani T. Willis of Fulton County, said she would be seeking a trial date within the next six months — timing that would only add to Mr. Trump’s complicated legal calendar and raise the prospect of that he could face four criminal trials in the midst of his campaign to regain the presidency.

Here’s what to know:

The indictment laid out eight ways the defendants were accused of obstructing the election, including by lying to the Georgia state legislature, creating fake pro-Trump electors, and soliciting Vice President Mike Pence. Read the annotated indictment.

The indictment spells out 161 separate actions that prosecutors say the defendants took to further a criminal conspiracy, including events like Mr. Giuliani’s false testimony about election fraud to Georgia lawmakers in early December and Mr. Trump’s telephone call to the Georgia secretary of state in early January urging him to “find 11,780 votes.”. Read about the 19 defendants and the charges they face.

Mr. Trump continued to denounce the indictment on Tuesday, saying in a post on his social media platform that he would hold a news conference next Monday and release an “Irrefutable” report that would somehow prove his false claims of election fraud in Georgia.

Although the Georgia case covers some of the same ground as the federal indictment unsealed earlier this month, there are crucial differences between state and federal charges. Even if Mr. Trump were to regain the presidency, the prosecutors in Georgia would not report to him, nor would he have the power to attempt to pardon himself if convicted.

Aug. 12

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

New York Times, Trump Election Interference Case to Go to Grand Jury in Georgia Early Next Week, Richard Fausset, Aug. 12, 2023. Atlanta-area prosecutors have indicated that they will go before a grand jury early next week to present the results of their investigation into election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, raising the possibility that within days Mr. Trump could face a fourth criminal indictment.

On Saturday, two witnesses who have received subpoenas to testify before the grand jury — Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, and George Chidi, an independent journalist — revealed that they had received notices to appear before the grand jury on Tuesday.
ImageDonald J. Trump in a blue suit among a crowd of people, some of whom are taking pictures with their phones.

A state-level indictment of Mr. Trump in Georgia would follow closely on the heels of a federal indictment, unveiled this month, that is also related to the former president’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But unlike with federal convictions, Mr. Trump, if re-elected president, could not attempt to pardon himself if convicted of state crimes in Georgia.

Moreover, while the federal case brought by the special counsel Jack Smith names only Mr. Trump, details have surfaced suggesting that a Georgia indictment could name numerous people, some of them well known and powerful, who played roles in the multipronged effort to help Mr. Trump overturn his narrow 2020 election loss in the state.

Mr. Chidi informed The New York Times on Saturday that he had received the notice to appear. Mr. Duncan on Saturday told CNN, where he is an on-air contributor, that he had received the notice to appear.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has spent two-and-a-half years investigating whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in the state. Other investigations of the former president have resulted in indictments in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C.

In New York, Mr. Trump was indicted in April on state charges stemming from his alleged role in paying hush money to a porn star. In June, he was indicted in Miami in a federal case related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents; the federal indictment regarding election interference came on Aug. 1.

Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty in those cases.

Washington Post, Newly appointed Judge Scott McAfee gets Trump criminal case in Georgia, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Aug. 15, 2023. One of the newest judges on the Fulton County Superior Court bench, Scott McAfee, has been assigned the sprawling racketeering case that charges former president Donald Trump and 18 allies with scheming to undo Trump’s 2020 election defeat in Georgia and elsewhere.

McAfee, a lifelong Georgian who lives in Atlanta, was nominated to fill a vacancy on the bench earlier this year by Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who had previously praised McAfee as “a tough prosecutor” who could “bring those to justice who break the law.”

Though McAfee was assigned the case soon after the indictment was handed up on Monday evening, it could be transferred to a different judge later in the process.

McAfee has worked off and on in the public realm for more than a decade, including eight years as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Justice Department in the Northern District of Georgia, where he prosecuted drug trafficking organizations, fraud and illegal firearms possession, according to a March 2021 news release from Kemp’s office. McAfee also worked on the state level as an assistant district attorney in Fulton County, where he handled many felony cases, from armed robbery to murder, the news release said.

Before he became a judge, McAfee served as the Georgia inspector general under Kemp, investigating claims of fraud, waste and abuse in the executive branch of state government.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, right (Photo via Superior Court of Fulton County).

Here are the specific charges Trump faces in Georgia

As a judge, he has previously allowed video of court proceedings to air online, including on a YouTube channel that bears his name and title. He speaks to attorneys and defendants with a hint of a Southern drawl, the channel shows, and an American flag stands behind his chair on an elevated bench.

A father of two, McAfee earned his law degree from the University of Georgia. He plays the cello and majored in music as an undergraduate at Emory University in Atlanta.

McAfee is running for election to a full four-year term in 2024, according to his campaign website. Judicial elections in Georgia are nonpartisan. McAfee’s priorities include clearing a backlog of cases that piled up during the pandemic and holding violent offenders accountable.

“I look forward to continuing my service as your Fulton Superior Court Judge, delivering timely justice for all,” his website said.

Palmer Report, Analysis: Donald Trump unhinged late night meltdown after getting indicted in Fulton County, Bill Palmer, Aug. 15, 2023.  Donald Trump should be accustomed to getting criminally indicted by now. Tonight he got hit with his fourth indictment (fifth if you count superseding indictments). At about 1:30 in the morning, Trump awoke from his stupor and proceeded to erupt on social media.

Trump isn’t exactly taking the news well: “So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people Indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney.” Trump added that it all “Sounds Rigged to me!”

Make no mistake, this is a statement of surrender by Donald Trump. If he had any idea how to fight these charges, he’d be focused on that. By skipping straight to the whining and gibberish, Trump is admitting that he has no idea how to survive this.

New York Times, Two Months in Georgia: How Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Vote, Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, Aug. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The Georgia case offers a vivid reminder of the extraordinary lengths former President Trump and his allies went to in the Southern state to reverse the election.

When President Donald J. Trump’s eldest son took the stage outside the Georgia Republican Party headquarters two days after the 2020 election, he likened what lay ahead to mortal combat.

“Americans need to know this is not a banana republic!” Donald Trump Jr. shouted, claiming that Georgia and other swing states had been overrun by wild electoral shenanigans. He described tens of thousands of ballots that had “magically” shown up around the country, all marked for Joseph R. Biden Jr., and others dumped by Democratic officials into “one big box” so their authenticity could not be verified.

Mr. Trump told his father’s supporters at the news conference — who broke into chants of “Stop the steal!” and “Fraud! Fraud!” — that “the number one thing that Donald Trump can do in this election is fight each and every one of these battles, to the death!”

Over the two months that followed, a vast effort unfolded on behalf of the lame-duck president to overturn the election results in swing states across the country. But perhaps nowhere were there as many attempts to intervene as in Georgia, where Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, is now poised to bring an indictment for a series of brazen moves made on behalf of Mr. Trump in the state after his loss and for lies that the president and his allies circulated about the election there.

• New York Times, A grand jury in Georgia could decide within days about a Trump indictment. Here’s what to know

New York Times, Prosecutors Object to Trump’s Proposal to Discuss Evidence at Mar-a-Lago, Alan Feuer, Aug. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The arguments in the classified documents case stem from the government’s attempts to put a protective order in place governing the handling of a trove of discovery materials.

The federal prosecutors overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump objected on Monday to his proposal to discuss highly sensitive discovery evidence at a secure location at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.

Last week, Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is presiding over the case, to let the former president discuss the classified discovery evidence in the “secure facility” that he once used for such materials when he was in office. That facility, the lawyers said, was “at or near his residence,” an apparent reference to Mar-a-Lago, which is in West Palm Beach.

But in their own filing to Judge Cannon, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, said that Mr. Trump was seeking “special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive” by requesting to discuss the classified material at home.

“In essence,” one of the prosecutors, Jay I. Bratt, wrote, “he is asking to be the only defendant ever in a case involving classified information (at least to the government’s knowledge) who would be able to discuss classified information in a private residence.”

Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Bratt went on, was especially unsuited to house discussions about classified material given that it is a social club with “more than 25 guest rooms, two ballrooms, a spa, a gift store, exercise facilities, office space, and an outdoor pool and patio.”

Moreover, Mr. Bratt wrote, “the Mar-a-Lago club had hundreds of members and was staffed by more than 150 full-time, part-time and temporary employees” who, from January 2021 to August 2022, worked at or attended “more than 50 social events, including weddings, movie premieres and fund-raisers that together drew tens of thousands of guests.”

Prosecutors want Judge Cannon to force Mr. Trump to discuss and review the classified discovery evidence in one of the SCIFs — or secure compartmented information facilities — run by the federal courts in Florida.

The dueling arguments over using Mr. Trump’s secure facility at Mar-a-Lago stem from the government’s attempts to put a protective order in place governing the handling of a trove of classified discovery materials that prosecutors are legally bound to turn over to Mr. Trump’s lawyers as part of the prosecution.

Those materials, the prosecutors noted in their filing to Judge Cannon, include far more than the 32 sensitive national security documents that Mr. Trump has been charged with taking with him after he left office. They also include what the government described as classified emails “about highly classified briefings given to then-President Trump” and “classified witness statements about then-President Trump’s knowledge about classified information.”

In their filing, prosecutors also reasserted their belief that one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta, his personal aide, should have only limited access to the classified discovery materials. That is despite Mr. Nauta also being charged with the former president and a third defendant — Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago — with conspiring to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve the documents from Mr. Trump.

The prosecutors want Judge Cannon to impose a restriction that only Mr. Nauta’s lawyers can have free rein over the classified discovery, but can ask on a case-by-case basis to show it to him. They argued that Mr. Nauta should not be permitted to look at the materials without limitations because he no longer has a security clearance and has “not established that he has a need to know the sensitive information in the classified documents.”

The prosecutors are likely to request similar restrictions for Mr. De Oliveira.

This latest round of arguments about the protective order in the classified documents case came just days after the judge in the other federal case that Mr. Trump is facing — the one accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election — also imposed a protective order over the handling of discovery materials.

In that case, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, barred Mr. Trump and his lawyers from sharing or publicly commenting on any evidence, like witness interviews or grand jury testimony, that was designated as sensitive. Judge Chutkan also cautioned Mr. Trump against making any “inflammatory statements” about the case that might be construed as an attempt to intimidate witnesses or taint potential jurors.

Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).

Palmer Report, Analysis: Jack Smith fires back at Donald Trump, Bill Palmer, right, Aug. 15, 2023. Because Donald Trump is going on federal criminal trial for having stolen classified documents, some of the evidence in the case against him is naturally classified. Like all defendants, he and his attorneys have a right to view that classified evidence to some degree, as part of the discovery process. But now Trump is whining about him and his attorneys having to travel to a secure location to view it.

To that end, Trump made a court filing requesting that a secure SCIF be installed at his Mar-a-Lago home. Trump doesn’t actually need this, and it’s pretty obviously just an attempt on his part at furthering his delusion that he’s somehow still in office. As part of his unhinged fantasies, he can tell himself that the new SCIF at Mar-a-Lago is there because he’s still the President of the United States.

But Jack Smith is having none of it. He’s firing back with a court filing accusing Trump of seeking “special treatment” and plainly stating that there’s “no need” for a SCIF to be installed. There’s no way to know what this idiot judge Cannon will do with these kinds of rulings. But keep in mind that her ability to help Trump is very narrow and limited. Even if she improperly orders that a SCIF be installed in Trump’s home, it’s not going to magically help him in any real way. The fact that Trump is reduced to these kinds of pointless sideshow battles simply means he has no strategy for actually winning his criminal trials.

Washington Post, The judge in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal case declined to remove himself from the proceedings, Shayna Jacobs, Aug. 15, 2023 (print ed.). A judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal indictment for allegedly falsifying business records on Monday rejected arguments from the former president’s legal team that he should recuse himself and said he would continue to preside over the state court case.

In an 11-page ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said it would not be in the public interest for him to step down from the case, which involves hush money payments during the 2016 campaign and was the first of three criminal indictments filed against Trump since March.

Trump’s lawyers said Merchan should be disqualified from overseeing the case based on a $15 donation he made to Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020 and two $10 donations he made to political organizations that oppose Republicans.

Trump’s lawyers also argued that Merchan’s adult daughter stood to potentially profit from decisions in the case because she heads a digital marketing agency that is hired by Democratic candidates and organizations that strongly oppose Trump.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his prosecution team said Merchan should not recuse himself, saying there was no actual stain on his ability to be impartial.

 Aug. 14

Associated Press, Indictment returned in Georgia as grand jury wraps up Trump election probe, Kate Brumback, Aug. 14, 2023. A grand jury in Georgia that has been investigating former President Donald Trump over his efforts to undo the 2020 election results in that state has returned an indictment, though it was not immediately clear against whom.

There was no immediate confirmation from Fulton County prosecutors about who was charged and for what, but the existence of indictments became apparent around 9 p.m. when the judge who for months has been presiding over the grand jury investigation was presented by clerk’s office officials with a set of papers in a courtroom packed with reporters anticipating news.

Inside the courthouse, cameras offered live feeds of the movements of the judge and other county officials, but no one offered clarity as to when an indictment might be released.

The grand jury heard from witnesses into the evening Monday in the election subversion investigation into Donald Trump, a long day of testimony punctuated by the mysterious and brief appearance on a county website of a list of criminal charges against the former president that prosecutors later disavowed.

Prosecutors in Fulton County presented evidence to the grand jury as they pushed toward a likely indictment, summoning multiple former state officials including the ex-lieutenant governor as witnesses.

But the process hit an unexpected snag in the middle of the day, when Reuters reported on a document listing criminal charges to be brought against Trump, including state racketeering counts, conspiracy to commit false statements and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.

Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said the filing was taken down quickly. A spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the report of charges being filed was “inaccurate,” but declined to comment further on a kerfuffle that the Trump legal team rapidly jumped on to attack the integrity of the investigation.

The office of the Fulton County courts clerk later released a statement that seemed to only raise more questions, calling the posted document “fictitious,” but failing to explain how it got on the court’s website. The clerk’s office said documents without official case numbers “are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such.” But the document that appeared online did have a case number on it.

Asked about the “fictitious” document Monday evening, the courts clerk, Che Alexander, said: “I mean, I don’t know what else to say, like, grace … I don’t know, I haven’t seen an indictment, right, so I don’t have anything.” On the question of whether the website had been hacked, she said, “I can’t speak to that.”

Trump and his allies, who have characterized the investigation as politically motivated, immediately seized on the apparent error to claim that the process was rigged. Trump’s campaign aimed to fundraise off it, sending out an email with the since-deleted document embedded.

“The Grand Jury testimony has not even FINISHED – but it’s clear the District Attorney has already decided how this case will end,” Trump wrote in the email, which included links to give money to his campaign. “This is an absolute DISGRACE.”

Trump’s legal team said it was not a “simple administrative mistake.” Rather it was “emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception,” said lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg.

It was unclear why the list was posted while grand jurors were still hearing from witnesses in the sprawling investigation into actions taken by Trump and others in their efforts to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. It was also unclear whether grand jurors were aware that the filing was posted online. They still would need to vote on charges, so the counts listed in the posting may or may not ultimately be brought against Trump.

Newsweek, Fulton County Responds to Trump Charging Document, Andrew Stanton, Aug. 14, 2023. Fulton County responded to a document appearing to show a list of potential charges facing former President Donald Trump.

Reuters reported on Monday that the Fulton County District Attorney's office uploaded, then removed a document showing several charges Trump could possibly face in the investigation into his alleged attempts at overturning the 2020 presidential results. The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts responded to the report in a statement first reported by Atlanta News First's Brandon Keefe.

"The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts has learned of a fictitious document that has been circulated online and reported by various media outlets related to The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury," the statement reads.

New York Times, How Trump Benefits From an Indictment Effect, Jonathan Swan, Ruth Igielnik, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 14, 2023 (print ed.). In polling, fund-raising and conservative media, former President Trump has turned criminal charges into political assets.

Early on March 18, former President Donald J. Trump hit send on a social media post saying he would be “arrested on Tuesday of next week.”

“Protest,” he wrote on his Truth Social website. “Take our nation back!”

Mr. Trump’s prediction was based on media reports, according to his lawyers, and his timing was off by two weeks.

Yet the statement set in motion events that profoundly altered the course of the Republican nominating contest. Donors sent checks. Fox News changed its tune. The party apparatus rushed to defend Mr. Trump. And the polls went up — and up.

These series of falling dominoes — call it the indictment effect — can be measured in ways that reveal much about the state of the Republican Party. To examine the phenomenon, The New York Times reviewed national and early state polls, interviewed Republican primary voters, examined federal campaign finance records, analyzed hundreds of party emails, scrutinized the shifts in conservative media coverage and talked to operatives inside the campaigns of Mr. Trump’s rivals.

Aug. 13

Emptywheel, Analysis: Alberto Gonzales Lectures Jack Goldsmith about Perception versus Reality in a Democracy, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), right, Aug. 13, 2023. I never, never imagined I’d see the day when Alberto Gonzales would school Jack Goldsmith on how to defend democracy.

Once upon a time, remember, it fell to Goldsmith to school Gonzales that the President (or Vice President) could not simply unilaterally authorize torture and surveillance programs that violate the law by engaging in cynical word games.

But now, Goldsmith is the one befuddled by word games and Gonzales, right, is the one reminding that rule of law must operate in the realm of truth, not propaganda.

In a widely circulated NYT op-ed last week, Goldmith warned that democracy may suffer from the January 6 indictment of Donald Trump because of the perceived unfairness (Goldsmith doesn’t say, perceived by whom?) of the treatment of Trump.

Rather than parroting perceptions, in his op-ed, Gonzales corrects a core misperception by pointing out a key difference between Hillary’s treatment and Trump’s: Hillary cooperated.

By contrast, Goldsmith simply ignores the backstory to virtually every single perceived claim in his op-ed.

To argue that 300 of Trump’s supporters should be charged and he should not is simply obscene. American democracy, American rule of law, is no doubt in great peril and the prosecutions of Donald Trump for the damage he did to both will further test them. But those of us who want to preserve democracy and rule of law have an ethical obligation not just to parrot the manufactured grievances of the demagogue attempting to end it, absolving ourselves of any moral responsibility to sort through these claims, but instead to insist on truth as best as we can discern it.

Aug. 12

  Trump counsel John Lauro, left, and Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith

Washington Post, Trump’s free speech must be limited to protect trial, witnesses, judge says, Spencer S. Hsu and Tom Jackman, Aug. 12, 2023 (print ed.). The U.S. judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution for allegedly criminally conspiring to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory said that while every American has a First Amendment right to free speech, it is “not absolute” and that even the former president’s campaign statements must yield to protecting the integrity of the judicial process.

In her first hearing over Trump’s federal case in D.C., U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, right, said that “the fact that he is running a political campaign” will have no bearing on her decisions and “must yield to the orderly administration of justice.”

“If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, then that’s how it’s going to be,” Chutkan said Friday, repeatedly warning the former president and his defense about limits on what he can potentially reveal about government evidence in the case. “To the extent your client wants to make statements on the internet, they have to always yield to witness security and witness safety.”

“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case,” the judge said after the 90-minute hearing, “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”

Palmer Report, Analysis: Judge Chutkan pretty much just told Donald Trump that it’s all over for him, Bill Palmer, right, Aug. 12, 2023. Judge Chutkan just told Trump that the more he runs his mouth, the more urgency she’ll show in getting the case to trial. As I’ve said, at this point he can’t do anything to help himself. His antics can only serve to make his life much, much worse for him.

Trump’s only “strategy” at this point is to somehow magically delay this trial until after the election – an essentially impossible goal to begin with – and now he’s being told that his antics will only result in an even swifter trial. He now has no strategy whatsoever.

The judge also said she doesn’t care that Trump wants to run for office, and that it won’t be a factor in her decision making.

I know some of you were hoping the judge would wave a magic wand and send Trump through a trap door into a holding cell. But I did try to warn you that it’s not how things work – and not how they would work with any defendant.

Consequences for misbehaving criminal defendants are incremental, but they are absolutely real. Trump just got hit with a protective order and a swift trial timeline. If he wants to run his mouth more, he’ll get hit with more consequences.

The kicker is that Trump can’t even get anywhere by complaining about what the judge just did to him. “The judge said the more I run my mouth the quicker we’ll go to trial, that’s so unfair!” If he’s looking to play victim to his base, that’s not much of a talking point.

Keep in mind that after the judge warned Trump to shut up on the E. Jean Carroll case, he did indeed shut up (until immediately after the trial, at which point he mistakenly thought he could get away with it). So there is precedent for Trump backing down in these situations.

In fact there’s a lot of precedent for Trump backing down under threat. In spite of the media portraying him as always doing whatever he wants and always getting away with it, that’s truly never how he’s operated in the political realm.

Aug. 11

Washington Post, Opinion: DeSantis’s ‘slitting throats’ rhetoric repels moderates he might need, George F. Will, Aug. 11, 2023. Disclosure: The columnist’s wife, Mari Will, is an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.).

Ron DeSantis is eager to become president — to sit, as it were, in Lincoln’s chair — so he can start “slitting throats.” Washington, formerly The Swamp, will be The Abattoir.

Perhaps the folks at the New Hampshire barbecue had a delicious frisson of danger — the thrill of proximity to a roughneck — when DeSantis said that in taking on “these deep state people” he will “start slitting throats on Day One.” But try to name a president who talked that way. Maybe Richard Nixon on the tapes he assumed would never become public — a discouraging precedent.

Florida’s Republican governor has a penchant for advertising his toughness — something truly tough people need not, and do not, do. There are, for example, his startlingly many references to kneecapping. In a tweet he boasted that “We have kneecapped ESG” — environmental, social and corporate governance investment criteria — “in the state of Florida.” President Biden “is deliberately trying to kneecap our domestic energy production.” “We kneecap [local police departments] with our clemency power.” Florida Democrats seeking a special legislative session devoted to gun violence would “kneecap” law-abiding citizens. He said that whoever leaked the draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was trying “to kneecap a potential majority” of the justices.

If DeSantis wonders why polls show that he has regressed in his costly competition with Donald Trump, he might rethink his evident decision to leapfrog the former president on the spectrum of loutishness. What comes after the promise of throat-slitting? A Corleone-style vow to put the severed heads of horses in the beds of the woke?

Inhibitions on verbal coarseness perish in contemporary American culture, which Twitter shapes and reflects. Polls indicate that since the DeSantis campaign’s stumbling start in a technologically botched Twitter event, his public exposure has coincided with a widening of the gap between his support among Republicans and Trump’s. This is probably not coincidental.

Washington Post, GOP lawmaker warns of ‘civil war’ at fundraiser for indicted Trump electors, Amy B Wang and Patrick Marley, Aug. 12, 2023 (print ed.). Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock (R) warned supporters at a recent fundraiser at his home that a “civil war” would break out or that people would get shot if the government continued to target conservatives, according to audio of the event obtained by the Messenger, which first reported the remarks.

Maddock, whose wife was one of 16 “fake electors” charged with felony crimes in Michigan last month, told the crowd that it had been a “difficult” time for them recently. The event — billed as the “Free The 16 Electors Poolside Party!” — was held at the Maddocks’ home to raise legal defense funds for the fake electors, according to a copy of the invitation.

“If the government continues to weaponize these departments against conservatives, and the citizens and the taxpayers, what’s going to happen to this country? Does anyone have any idea, if this doesn’t stop?” Maddock is heard asking in the recording.

His question prompted several responses from the audience, each one waved off by Maddock as not the answer he had in mind.

“Someone’s going to get so pissed off, they’re going to shoot someone,” Maddock continued, according to the recording. “Or we’re going have a civil war or some sort of revolution. That’s where this is going. And when that happens, we’re going to get squashed.”

Many Republicans — including former president Donald Trump — have accused Democrats of “weaponizing” the government for handing down consequences to those who tried to overturn 2020 election results or who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, in which a pro-Trump mob sought to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Maddock’s rhetoric, however, was especially inflammatory. His wife, Meshawn Maddock, is one of 16 Republicans who were charged with forgery and other felonies last month by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, the first and so far only criminal prosecution against Trump electors. At the fundraiser, Matt Maddock compared prosecuting Trump electors to Nazis’ attempts to subdue Jewish people before leading them into gas chambers during the Holocaust.

“They want to make damn sure that anyone who questions the election or disputes the election in 2024 is threatened by what they’re doing to our electors and other people throughout this nation — that you will not say anything,” Matt Maddock told the crowd. “You are going to shut the eff up and you are going to walk into that gas chamber. That’s what they want, because that’s what’s coming for us.”

According to documents from Nessel’s office, the 16 fake electors charged last month not only falsely declared duly elected status, but they also falsely claimed they had “convened and organized in the State Capitol” — the location where such proceedings must legally be held — despite meeting at state GOP headquarters instead.

Aug. 10

Proof, Investigative Report: DOJ and the NYT Say the First January 6 Coup Memo Was Written in November 2020. They’re Wrong, Seth Abramson, Aug. 10-11, 2023. The first coup memo appeared in October 2020—and this “October Memo” informed the November and December 2020 Chesebro memos and John Eastman’s December memos. How do we know? From the men themselves.

On November 18, 2020, the New York Times reports, attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote a memo about the possible use of alternate electors by the 2020 Trump presidential campaign in Wisconsin. On December 6, 2020, Attorney Chesebro wrote a far broader memo about such electors potentially being a key to Donald Trump remaining in the Oval Office.

Three days later—on December 9, 2020—Chesebro wrote yet another such memo. By the end of the month, Chesebro’s fellow Trump legal adviser, John Eastman, had spilled an enormous amount of words both in writing and in in-person discussions pushing precisely the same ideas that Chesebro had earlier articulated. Both Chesebro (Co-Conspirator 5 in the Trump January 6 indictment) and Eastman (Co-Conspirator 2 in that indictment) now face the prospect of significant legal jeopardy for their various “coup memos,” even as the authors of other documents deemed coup memos appear not the be on Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s radar at all.

The New York Times Wades In

In a series of recent reports by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and now book-published Trump biographer Maggie Haberman, the Times tells readers that the three Chesebro memos mentioned atop this Proof report were the “earliest” indications from within Trumpworld that a so-called “fake elector” plot was afoot.

That is untrue.

Moreover, this inaccuracy could be damaging to the current prosecution of Trump by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel, as these Times reports, so lauded and repeated by other major-media outlets, have had the following key effects:

• Cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that the “fake elector” plot was wholly a post-election one;
• cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that the plot emerged from the fringes of Trumpworld and slowly moved toward its center; and
• cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that individuals with enormous power and cultural capital within Trumpworld were in no way involved in the plot when they may well have been.

And more broadly—given that Attorney Smith and his team have so far, at least in public filings, focused almost exclusively on the “fake elector” plot and (in more recent days) Trump’s possible fundraising crimes while ignoring the extension of his conspiracy to the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and the use of Sidney Powell and her agents to advance (via false federal affidavits regarding supposed foreign election interference that Jason Funes told Congress resulted from “blackmail” and “force[d]” testimony) the pro-martial-law plot known as the Waldron Plot—the recent New York Times reporting gives federal investigators no foothold whatsoever to understand this video of one of the architects of January 6, top Trump adviser and convicted criminal Steve Bannon.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy in print: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Aug. 9

Politico, Special counsel obtained search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 9, 2023. Twitter’s initial resistance to complying with the warrant resulted in a federal judge holding the company in contempt and levying a $350,000 fine.

Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, earlier this year, according to newly revealed court documents.

Twitter’s initial resistance to complying with the Jan. 17 warrant resulted in a federal judge holding the company, now called X, in contempt and levying a $350,000 fine. A federal court of appeals upheld that fine last month in a sealed opinion. On Wednesday, the court unsealed a redacted version of that opinion, revealing details of the secret court battle for the first time.

“Although Twitter ultimately complied with the warrant, the company did not fully produce the requested information until three days after a court-ordered deadline,” according to the 34-page opinion by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. “The district court thus held Twitter in contempt and imposed a $350,000 sanction for its delay.”

It’s unclear what Smith was seeking from Trump’s account. Trump used the account actively in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, promoting false claims of election fraud, calling his supporters to Washington to “stop the steal” and mounting attacks on his rivals. Obtaining data from Twitter might have revealed patterns about Trump’s use of the account, whether others had access to it and whether there were any draft statements that were unsent.

The existence of the warrant shows that prosecutors acquired access to the inner workings of what was once the most powerful megaphone in American politics and perhaps on the world stage. Trump was banned from Twitter just days after Jan. 6, after the company found his tweets to be in violation of its terms. Elon Musk, right, who took over Twitter last year, restored Trump’s access, but the former president has not yet tweeted from the account since his return.

Twitter’s fight with Smith’s team was rooted in prosecutors’ decision to serve the warrant along with a “nondisclosure order” that prohibited Twitter from notifying Trump — or anyone else — about the warrant’s existence.

Aug. 8

Washington Post, There were doubts about alternate electors across seven states and within the Trump campaign, Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Josh Dawsey, Aug. 8, 2023 (print ed.). Six weeks after the 2020 election, senior campaign officials for Donald Trump called a group of loyal Pennsylvania Republicans to walk them through how they would convene two days later to cast the state electoral votes for the sitting president.

There was a problem: Joe Biden had already been declared the certified winner in Pennsylvania. So a number of the Republicans on the Dec. 12 conference call, who had volunteered to serve as Trump electors if he won the state, said they were uncomfortable portraying themselves as legitimate electors, according to a federal indictment filed against Trump last week accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

The campaign officials, led by lawyer Rudy Giuliani, told the electors they were meeting on a contingency basis only, the indictment says. After the call, campaign officials circulated language to add to the Pennsylvania elector certificates to be submitted to Washington asserting that the votes were intended to count only if Trump prevailed in litigation in the state.

Campaign officials urged one another to keep this new language under wraps so that other states would not copy it. “If it gets out we changed the language for PA it could snowball,” one campaign official wrote, according to the indictment.

The allegation that campaign officials sought to prevent electors in other states from learning about the language used in Pennsylvania is a key new revelation in the four-count, 45-page federal indictment, which accuses Trump of a sprawling effort to “retain power” illegally with the help of six co-conspirators.

Trump’s defenders have long insisted that the elector scheme was legal because the slates met as mere placeholders, to be activated only if the campaign won in court. Prosecutors now charge that Trump, Giuliani and others intended all along to use the electors to falsely claim the outcome of the election was in doubt, facilitating an effort to obstruct the certification of Biden’s victory in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

• Read the indictment here.

Politico, John Eastman, awaiting potential indictment, asks judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 8, 2023. The lawyer who advised Donald Trump in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 is known as “co-conspirator 2" in the special counsel’s newest case.

Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump’s last-ditch efforts to subvert the 2020 election, is asking a California judge to postpone disbarment proceedings lodged against him, saying he’s increasingly concerned he’s about to be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith.

“[R]ecent developments in the investigation have renewed and intensified [Eastman’s] concerns that the federal government might bring charges against him,” his attorneys Randall Miller and Zachary Mayer wrote in an Aug. 4 filing posted to the court’s public docket on Monday.

Miller said the growing concern about criminal charges might prompt Eastman to assert his Fifth Amendment rights during disbarment proceedings. The Fifth Amendment generally allows people to refuse to provide testimony that could be used against them. But invoking the Fifth Amendment in the disbarment proceedings would jeopardize Eastman’s ability to defend his law license, his lawyers wrote.

“[Eastman] requests that the Court exercise its discretion to stay the State Bar’s disciplinary proceeding against him pending resolution of a parallel criminal investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Jack Smith and any trial or other proceedings that may result from that investigation,” Miller and Mayer wrote.

Bar discipline authorities have charged Eastman with multiple violations of professional rules and ethics — as well as the law — in his effort to upend the certified results of the 2020 election. Eastman’s bar discipline trial began in June — and he had even testified for several hours without asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. But it was postponed to late August after the proceedings ran longer than the initially anticipated two weeks.

New York Times, Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn 2020 Election, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Luke Broadwater, Aug. 8, 2023.  A lawyer allied with Donald Trump first detailed a plot to use fake electors to subvert President Biden’s win in a memo uncovered in last week’s indictment.

A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.

The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end.

But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”

The memo had been a missing link in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

While that basic plan itself was already known, the memo provides new details about how it originated and was discussed behind the scenes. Among those details is Mr. Chesebro’s proposed “messaging” strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Mr. Biden was declared the winner. The campaign would present that step as “a routine measure that is necessary to ensure” that the correct electoral slate could be counted by Congress if courts or legislatures later concluded that Mr. Trump had actually won the states.

But the indictment portrayed the Dec. 6 memo as a “sharp departure” from that proposal, becoming what prosecutors say was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”

“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Mr. Chesebro wrote. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”
FRAUDULENT ELECTORS
Read the previously unreported memo from Dec. 6, 2020.

It was not the first time Mr. Chesebro had raised the notion of creating alternate electors. In November, he had suggested doing so in Wisconsin, although for a different reason: to safeguard Mr. Trump’s rights in case he later won a court battle and was declared that state’s certified winner by Jan. 6, as had happened with Hawaii in 1960.

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

New York Times, Georgia Grand Jury Is Likely to Hear Trump Case Next Week, Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, Aug. 8, 2023. The Georgia investigation may be the most expansive legal challenge yet to the efforts that former President Trump took to stay in power after the 2020 election.

The fourth criminal case involving Donald J. Trump is likely to come to a head next week, with the district attorney in Atlanta expected to take the findings from her election interference investigation to a grand jury.

The Georgia investigation may be the most expansive legal challenge yet to the efforts that Mr. Trump and his advisers undertook to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election. Nearly 20 people are known to have been told that they could face charges as a result of the investigation, which Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has pursued for two and a half years.

Ms. Willis has signaled that she would seek indictments from a grand jury in the first half of August. In a letter to local officials in May, she laid out plans for most of her staff to work remotely during the first three weeks of August amid heightened security concerns. Security barriers were recently erected in front of the downtown Atlanta courthouse, and at lunchtime on Tuesday, 16 law enforcement vehicles were parked around the perimeter.

On Tuesday afternoon, two witnesses who received subpoenas to appear before the Fulton County grand jury said in interviews that they had not received notices instructing them to testify within the next 48 hours, a sign that the case will not get to the jury until next week.

Earlier this month, Mr. Trump was indicted in a federal case brought by the special counsel Jack Smith, in an investigation also related to election interference that listed a number of unindicted co-conspirators. The Georgia inquiry, elements of which overlap with the federal case, involves not just the former president, but an array of his aides and advisers at the time of the 2020 election, several of whom are expected to face charges.

If Mr. Trump were to be convicted in a federal prosecution, he could theoretically pardon himself if he were re-elected president. But presidents do not hold such sway in state matters. Moreover, Georgia law makes pardons possible only five years after the completion of a sentence. Getting a sentence commuted requires the approval of a state panel.

New York Times, Donald Trump has settled on a political defense: “I’m being indicted for you,” Nick Corasaniti and Trip Gabriel, Aug. 8, 2023. The former president, who has made his 2024 campaign principally about his own personal grievances, is attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him

As lawyers for Donald J. Trump float various legal arguments to defend him in court against an onslaught of criminal charges, the former president has settled on a political defense: “I’m being indicted for you.”

In speeches, social media posts and ads, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declared the prosecutions a political witch hunt, and he has cast himself as a martyr who is taking hits from Democrats and the government on their behalf.

“They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,” Mr. Trump told the crowd at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”

In two previous campaigns, 2016 and 2020, Mr. Trump presented himself to voters as an insurgent candidate who understood their grievances and promised to fight for them. Now, however, Mr. Trump has made his 2024 race principally about his own personal grievances — attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him. He continues to argue, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and to present it as a theft also against his voters. The legal jeopardy he now faces from multiple indictments, he tells followers, is the sort of persecution that they, too, could suffer.

New York Times, Former N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Bernard Kerik Interviewed by Jan. 6 Prosecutors, Alan Feuer, Aug. 8, 2023. Mr. Kerik, a close ally of the pro-Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, was asked about Mr. Trump’s fund-raising efforts and attempts to investigate fraud in the 2020 election.

Prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith are pressing forward with their investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, asking at least one witness this week about fund-raising efforts by Mr. Trump’s political action committee.

The witness, Bernard B. Kerik, sat for a voluntary interview on Monday with prosecutors in what is known as a proffer session. A former New York City police commissioner, Mr. Kerik was instrumental in helping Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York and one of Mr. Trump’s chief lawyers after the election, investigate claims of fraud in the vote results.

Mr. Kerik’s interview was first reported by Politico.

Mr. Kerik also told prosecutors that if Save America had provided money to Mr. Giuliani’s team, it might have more accurately vetted the claims of fraud, Mr. Parlatore said.
Proffer sessions are based on an agreement between prosecutors and people who are subjects of criminal investigations. The subjects agree to provide useful information, sometimes to tell their side of events, to stave off potential charges or to avoid testifying under subpoena before a grand jury. In exchange, prosecutors agree not to use those statements against them in future criminal proceedings unless it is determined they were lying.

Mr. Giuliani sat for his own proffer session over two days in June and was asked several questions about a key aspect of Mr. Smith’s investigation: a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were actually won by President Biden. Prosecutors were said to have focused specifically on the role played in that effort by John Eastman, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump about ways to stay in office after his defeat.

Among the questions prosecutors asked Mr. Kerik were several related to Mr. Trump’s main postelection fund-raising entity, Save America PAC. The special counsel’s office has been drilling down for months into whether the political action committee raised millions of dollars on claims that there was widespread fraud in the election, but ultimately earmarked the money for things other than investigating those claims.

Mr. Kerik told prosecutors that the team Mr. Giuliani had assembled to look into the allegations of fraud received no money from Save America PAC, even though it was one of the chief groups assigned the task of hunting down evidence that the election had been marred by cheating, Mr. Kerik’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said on Tuesday.

  Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Opinion: The Prosecution of Trump May Have Terrible Consequences, Jack Goldsmith (Harvard Law School professor and former George W. Bush administration assistant attorney general and special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense, Aug. 8, 2023. 

It may be satisfying now to see Special Counsel Jack Smith indict former President Donald Trump for his reprehensible and possibly criminal actions in connection with the 2020 presidential election. But the prosecution, which might be justified, reflects a tragic choice that will compound the harms to the nation from Mr. Trump’s many transgressions.

Washington Post, Judge asks prosecutors to justify use of 2 grand juries in Trump documents case, Perry Stein, Aug. 8, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Monday asked federal prosecutors to explain the use of grand juries in Florida and Washington in the classified documents case against Donald Trump even though charges were filed in South Florida.

Cannon, the federal judge in South Florida assigned to the case, posed the question in a court filing Monday and told federal prosecutors to respond by Aug. 22.

Donald Trump has been indicted in three cases and is under investigation in one other. The Washington Post is keeping track of where each Trump investigation stands. Here is a breakdown of all 78 charges Trump faces.

“The response shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district,” Cannon wrote.

Trump and two aides — Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — were charged this summer in a 42-count indictment that accuses the former president of improperly retaining 32 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence and private club, and seeking to thwart government attempts to retrieve them.

Prosecutors first charged Trump and Nauta in June and added charges in a July superseding indictment. De Oliveira was first charged in the superseding indictment.

For many months, Justice Department prosecutors had questioned witnesses in the Florida case before a federal grand jury in Washington. The secret proceedings yielded much of the evidence at the crux of the case. But in May, the grand jury activity appeared to continue at a federal courthouse in Miami. Ultimately, prosecutors filed charges in a West Palm Beach courthouse — a courthouse in the same district as Miami and the area where Mar-a-Lago is located.

Prosecutors said in a court filing last week that they continued to use the grand jury in Washington after they initially charged Trump in June to investigate alleged instances of obstructing the investigation. The focus of the July superseding indictment was on obstruction, alleging that all defendants tried to delete security footage that the government wanted as evidence in the case.

“The grand jury in this district and a grand jury in the District of Columbia continued to investigate further obstructive activity, and a superseding indictment was returned on July 27, 2023,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.

Prosecutors included that revelation in a motion asking the judge to consider holding a hearing to determine whether Nauta’s attorney has too many conflicts of interest to provide his client with adequate legal advice.

The government lawyers said Stanley Woodward — the Nauta attorney — has represented at least seven other clients whom prosecutors have interviewed about Trump’s alleged efforts to keep classified documents in defiance of the government’s demand they be returned. Two of Woodward’s clients could be called as government witnesses in the trial, the filing by the government said.

If that happens, Woodward may need to cross-examine his other clients as part of defending Nauta, said the prosecutors leading the Justice Department investigation.

The requested hearing — known as a Garcia hearing — is fairly common in legal proceedings. At the hearing, prosecutors said Cannon should inform Nauta and the two witnesses, whose names have not been made public, of their legal rights and the potential conflicts their attorney poses. Lawyers are generally required to flag to a judge any potential conflicts of interest they encounter.

Cannon said Nauta’s lawyers are expected to respond to the judge’s question about the two grand jury locations and the prosecutors’ request for the Garcia hearing.

Trump also has pending civil matters including a lawsuit in New York brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist who in 2019 accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.

Aug. 7

New York Times, Trump Calls for Judge’s Recusal as His Lawyer Deems Effort to Overturn Election ‘Aspirational,’ Luke Broadwater and Maggie Astor, Aug. 7, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump spent the weekend on the attack on Truth Social while his lawyer, John F. Lauro, ran through a gantlet of interviews Sunday morning.

Appearing on five television networks Sunday morning, a lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump argued that his actions in the effort to overturn the 2020 election fell short of crimes and were merely “aspirational.”

The remarks from his lawyer, John F. Lauro, came as Mr. Trump was blanketing his social media platform, Truth Social, with posts suggesting that his legal team was going to seek the recusal of Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing the case, and try to move his trial out of Washington.

With his client facing charges carrying decades in prison after a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Trump for his role in trying to overturn the election, his third criminal case this year, Mr. Lauro appeared in interviews on CNN, ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS. He endeavored to defend Mr. Trump, including against evidence that, as president, he pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject legitimate votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in favor of false electors pledged to Mr. Trump.

“What President Trump didn’t do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything,” Mr. Lauro said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He asked him in an aspirational way.”

Mr. Lauro used the same defense on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when asked about Mr. Trump’s now-infamous call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. During that call, President Trump pressured Mr. Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” to win the state and suggested that Mr. Raffensperger could face criminal repercussions if he did not.

“That was an aspirational ask,” Mr. Lauro said.

His portrayal of Mr. Trump’s approach is at odds with two key moments in the indictment.

In one, prosecutors say that on Jan. 5, 2021, Mr. Trump met alone with Mr. Pence, who refused to do what Mr. Trump wanted. When that happened, the indictment says, “the defendant grew frustrated and told the Vice President that the defendant would have to publicly criticize him.”

Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, then alerted the head of Mr. Pence’s Secret Service detail, prosecutors said.

That same day, after The Times reported that Mr. Pence had indeed told Mr. Trump that he lacked the authority to do what Mr. Trump wanted, the president issued a public statement calling the report “fake news.” According to the indictment, Mr. Trump also falsely asserted: “The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.”

Aug. 6

New York Times, Trump’s Legal Team Is Enmeshed in a Tangle of Possible Conflicts, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 6, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump’s cast of lawyers is marked by a web of overlapping interests encompassing witnesses, co-defendants and potential targets.

M. Evan Corcoran, right, a lawyer who accompanied former President Donald J. Trump to court this week for his arraignment on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election, has given crucial evidence in Mr. Trump’s other federal case — the one accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents.

Another lawyer close to Mr. Trump, Boris Epshteyn, sat for an interview with prosecutors this spring and could be one of the former president’s co-conspirators in the election tampering case.

And Mr. Epshteyn’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, is defending Mr. Trump against both the documents and election case indictments.

The legal team that Mr. Trump has assembled to represent him in the twin prosecutions by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is marked by a tangled web of potential conflicts and overlapping interests — so much so that Mr. Smith’s office has started asking questions.

While it is not uncommon for lawyers in complex matters — like large mob cases or financial inquiries — to wear many hats or to play competing roles, the Gordian knot of intertwined imperatives in the Trump investigations is particularly intricate and insular.

Some of the lawyers involved in the cases are representing both charged defendants and uncharged witnesses. At least one could eventually become a defendant, and another could end up as a witness in one case and Mr. Trump’s defender in a different one.

All of that sits atop another thorny fact: Many of the lawyers are being paid by Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, which has itself been under government scrutiny for months. Some of the witnesses those lawyers represent work for the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s company, but their legal defense has not been arranged by the company, but rather by Mr. Trump’s own legal team, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Although clients might choose to stick with their lawyers despite a conflict, just this week, prosecutors under Mr. Smith sent up a warning flare about these issues. They asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the documents case, to conduct a hearing “regarding potential conflicts” arising from the complex client list of one lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr.

Mr. Woodward represents Walt Nauta, Mr. Trump’s personal aide and one of his co-defendants in the documents case. Mr. Woodward has also worked for at least three witnesses in the broader inquiry who could be called to testify at trial.

Washington Post, Analysis: Trump indictments add to pressure on government funding bills, Paul Kane, Aug. 6, 2023 (print ed.). A government shutdown looms as far-right lawmakers vow to slash funding for Justice Department investigations into Donald Trump.

Congress is already off to a slow start on its annual work on funding federal agencies. Only one of 12 bills has been approved by the House, and not one has been through the Senate.

This means the best-case scenario is for Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill ahead of the Sept. 30 fiscal-year deadline to keep agencies running on their current budgets while lawmakers try to hash out their mess.

But House Republicans are governed by a small band of far-right conservatives who traditionally hate such short-term continuing resolutions, as the measures are known on Capitol Hill. And the most recent charges against former president Donald Trump have angered those lawmakers, some of whom are threatening to block any bill that provides funding to the Justice Department unless they get to chisel away at money that in any way contributes to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.

Aug. 5

Emptywheel, Analysis: Protective Order: Who Is the Victim of Trump's 18 USC 241 Charge? Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 5, 2023. One interesting question raised by Trump's threats against those prosecuting him is whether Joe Biden is included among the victims of the 18 USC 241 count charged against Trump.

Yesterday, one day after Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya warned Trump not to engage in witness tampering, he posted first a video claiming that the prosecutors who are prosecuting him — none of whom Joe Biden appointed — were Biden’s accomplices in an attempt to win the election. He followed that with a tweet threatening, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

Shortly thereafter, two prosecutors who were career prosecutors in the Trump Administration before they came to report to Merrick Garland, Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom, filed a motion for a protective order. While the ostensible goal of the motion was to accelerate the process of sharing discovery in a way that won’t end up in a tweet somewhere, they did use it to alert Judge Tanya Chutkan of Trump’s tweet.

The Government’s proposed order is consistent with other such orders commonly used in this District and is not overly restrictive. It allows the defendant prompt and effective use of discovery materials in connection with his defense, including by showing discovery materials to witnesses who also agree to abide by the order’s terms.

All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public. Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.

Contrary to the claims of Trump and dozens of lawyers who haven’t read the indictment, it’s really not about his First Amendment right to lie, which is undoubtedly why he’s staging an early attempt to make this about his ongoing First Amendment right to lie.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Protection Racket: Donald Trump Thinks He's More Special Than Steve Bannon, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 5, 2023. Donald Trump thinks he is so much more special than Steve Bannon, he needs a more special protective order than his former aide.

As you no doubt know, Trump and his January 6 prosecutors had a bit of a spat about the protective order governing evidence in the case. The timeline goes like this.

Aug. 4

Emptywheel, Analysis: Trump's Family Is Not in His Prosecution, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), Aug. 4, 2023. Yesterday, three arraignments in, Trump remains unattended by any family members in his criminal prosecutions. But even more striking, Trump is alone in his indictments, without any of the key roles played, including by his daughter and most trusted advisor, laid out in the overt act

U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces the first indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.

New York Times, Analysis: How Jack Smith Structured the Trump Election Indictment to Reduce Risks, Charlie Savage, Aug. 5, 2023 (print ed.). The special counsel layered varied charges atop the same facts, while sidestepping a free-speech question by not charging incitement.

In accusing former President Donald J. Trump of conspiring to subvert American democracy, the special counsel, Jack Smith, charged the same story three different ways. The charges are novel applications of criminal laws to unprecedented circumstances, heightening legal risks, but Mr. Smith’s tactic gives him multiple paths in obtaining and upholding a guilty verdict.

“Especially in a case like this, you want to have multiple charges that are applicable or provable with the same evidence, so that if on appeal you lose one, you still have the conviction,” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor.

That structure in the indictment is only one of several strategic choices by Mr. Smith — including what facts and potential charges he chose to include or omit — that may foreshadow and shape how an eventual trial of Mr. Trump will play out.

The four charges rely on three criminal statutes: a count of conspiring to defraud the government, another of conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and two counts related to corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding. Applying each to Mr. Trump’s actions raises various complexities, according to a range of criminal law experts.

At the same time, the indictment hints at how Mr. Smith is trying to sidestep legal pitfalls and potential defenses. He began with an unusual preamble that reads like an opening statement at trial, acknowledging that Mr. Trump had a right to challenge the election results in court and even to lie about them, but drawing a distinction with the defendant’s pursuit of “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”

While the indictment is sprawling in laying out a case against Mr. Trump, it brings a selective lens on the multifaceted efforts by the former president and his associates to overturn the 2020 election.

“The strength of the indictment is that it is very narrowly written,” said Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor and former public defender. “The government is not attempting to prove too much, but rather it went for low-hanging fruit.”

For one, Mr. Smith said little about the violent events of Jan. 6, leaving out vast amounts of evidence in the report by a House committee that separately investigated the matter. He focused more on a brazen plan to recruit false slates of electors from swing states and a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

Aug. 3

New York Times, Former President Trump is set to appear in court in Washington on Thursday, where he is expected to plead not guilty, Glenn Thrush, Aug. 3, 2023. The former president’s appearance before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya on election subversion charges comes about six weeks after his arraignment over sensitive documents.

Former President Donald J. Trump is expected to appear at 4 p.m. on Thursday in the U.S. federal courthouse at the foot of Capitol Hill, the site of a yearslong government effort to hold accountable those who tried to subvert democracy.

Mr. Trump’s appearance before Moxila A. Upadhyaya, a federal magistrate judge, comes about six weeks after his arraignment in Miami on charges of mishandling government documents after he left the White House and seeking to block investigators.

His second federal indictment is likely to follow a cadence similar to his first.

The former president will fly down on his private jet from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. He is expected to arrive between 3 and 4 p.m., at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse, the venue for dozens of trials stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for security inside federal courthouses, will escort him to an area where he will be booked for a third time this year. (He was arraigned in New York in the spring in connection with a hush-money payment to a pornographic actress before the 2016 election.)

The sheriff in Fulton County, Ga., where another potential indictment connected to Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election looms, has suggested that if Mr. Trump is charged, he will be processed like anybody else, mug shot and all. That will not happen on Thursday: The marshals did not photograph Mr. Trump in Miami, and they will not take his picture in Washington, according to a law enforcement official involved in the planning.

• Read the indictment here.

New York Times, Analysis: In 2024 Race, Trump Is Also Trying to Outrun Prosecutions, Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein, Aug. 3, 2023. Former President Trump has long understood the stakes: The courts may decide his cases, but only voters can decide whether to return him to power.

The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on charges of conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election ensures that a federal jury will determine whether he is held accountable for his elaborate, drawn-out and unprecedented attempt to negate a vote of the American people and cling to power.

But it is tens of millions of voters who may deliver the ultimate verdict.

For months now, as prosecutors pursued criminal charges against him in multiple jurisdictions, Mr. Trump has intertwined his legal defenses with his electoral arguments. He has called on Republicans to rally behind him to send a message to prosecutors. He has made clear that if he recaptures the White House, he will use his powers to ensure his personal freedom by shutting down prosecutions still underway.

In effect, he is both running for president and trying to outrun the law enforcement officials seeking to convict him.

That dynamic has transformed the stakes of this election in ways that may not always be clear. Behind the debates over inflation, “wokeness” and the border, the 2024 election is at its core about the fundamental tenets of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power, the independence of the nation’s justice system, the meaning of political free speech and the principle that no one is above the law.

Washington Post, Michigan Republicans charged in connection with 2020 voting machine tampering, Patrick Marley and Aaron Schaffer, Aug. 2, 2023 (print ed.). A Michigan grand jury charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.

A Michigan prosecutor charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general Tuesday as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.

Special prosecutor D.J. Hilson since last year has been looking into efforts by a group of conservatives to persuade election clerks to give them voting machines as they attempted to prove the 2020 presidential election had been wrongly called for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The group never turned up any proof, and courts in dozens of cases across the country ruled that the election was properly decided.

Former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno (R) was charged with improper possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine, conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine, according to Hilson. Former state representative Daire Rendon (R) was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine and using false pretenses with the intent to defraud, he said. Both were arraigned Tuesday and released.

Politico, ‘Everything has fallen off a cliff': Battleground state GOPs nosedive in Trump era, Adam Wren, Zach Montellaro, Holly Otterbein, Lisa Kashinsky and Natalie Allison, Aug.3, 2023 (print ed.). State Republican parties across the country are struggling. Can they recover? Does it matter?

Former President Donald Trump and Michigan Republican attorney general candidate Matt DePerno standing behind Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo as she speaks at a podium during a rally.

Perhaps no state provides as great a microcosm of the current political moment as Michigan, where the state party has been caught in infighting between Kristina Karamo, the party’s new chair, and Matt DePerno, the GOP’s 2022 attorney general candidate

Michigan’s Republican party is broke. Minnesota’s was, until recently, down to $53.81 in the bank. And in Colorado, the GOP is facing eviction from its office this month because it can’t make rent.

Around the nation, state Republican party apparatuses — once bastions of competency that helped produce statehouse takeovers — have become shells of their former machines amid infighting and a lack of organization.

Current and former officials at the heart of the matter blame twin forces for it: The rise of insurgent pro-Donald Trump activists capturing party leadership posts, combined with the ever-rising influence of super PACs.

“It shouldn’t surprise anybody that real people with real money — the big donors who have historically funded the party apparatus — don’t want to invest in these clowns who have taken over and subsumed the Republican Party,” said Jeff Timmer, the former executive director of the once-vaunted Michigan GOP and a senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

Among some state GOP officials, the mood is grim. One Michigan Republican operative, who was granted anonymity because he wasn’t authorized by the state party to comment, said of that state party: “They’re just in as bad a place as a political party can be. They’re broke…Their chair can’t even admit she lost a race. It’s defunct.”

The demise of the GOP state parties could have a profound impact on the 2024 election. Operatives fear that hollowed out outfits in key battlegrounds could leave the party vulnerable, especially as Democrats are focusing more on state legislative races. Traditionally, state parties perform the basic blocking and tackling of politics, from get out the vote programs to building data in municipal elections.

But not all Republicans are concerned. In fact, some argue that modern politics in the age of super PAC make state parties relics of the past.

New York Times, Trump Indictment Leaves Unnamed ‘Co-Conspirators’ With Tough Choices, Alan Feuer, Luke Broadwater and Ben Protess, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). The special counsel’s decision not to charge six people said to have played critical roles in the effort to keep Donald Trump in office seemed to give them a chance to cooperate with prosecutors. Some appear to be unwilling.

By the time Jack Smith, the special counsel (shown above in a file photo), was brought in to oversee the investigation of former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the inquiry had already focused for months on a group of lawyers close to Mr. Trump.

Many showed up as subjects of interest in a seemingly unending flurry of subpoenas issued by a grand jury sitting in the case. Some were household names, others less familiar. Among them were Rudolph W. Giuliani, right, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

On Tuesday, most of these same lawyers showed up again — albeit unnamed — as Mr. Trump’s co-conspirators in a federal indictment accusing him of a wide-ranging plot to remain in office despite having lost the election.

The appearance of the lawyers at the center of the case suggests how important prosecutors judged them to be to the conspiracy to execute what one federal judge who considered some of the evidence called “a coup in search of a legal theory.”

New York Times, Trump Election Charges Set Up Clash of Lies Versus Free Speech, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump over his efforts to retain power accuses him of conspiracies built on knowing falsehoods. His supporters say he is protected by the First Amendment.

Running through the indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election was a consistent theme: He is an inveterate and knowing liar.

The indictment laid out how, in the two months after Election Day, Mr. Trump “spread lies” about widespread election fraud even though he “knew that they were false.”

Mr. Trump “deliberately disregarded the truth” and relentlessly disseminated them anyway at a “prolific” pace, the indictment continued, “to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

Of course, Mr. Trump has never been known for fealty to truth.

Throughout his careers in business and politics, he has sought to bend reality to his own needs, with lies ranging from relatively small ones, like claiming he was of Swedish and not German descent when trying to rent to Jewish tenants in New York City, to proclaiming that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

If you repeat something enough, he has told confidants over time, people will believe it.

By and large, this trait has served him well, helping him bluster and bluff his way through bankruptcies and then to the White House and through crises once he was there: personal scandals, two impeachments and a special counsel’s investigation when he was in office.

But now he is being held to account in a way he never has been before for what a new special counsel, Jack Smith, is asserting was a campaign of falsehoods that undermined the foundations of democracy.

Already, Mr. Trump’s lawyers and allies are setting out the early stages of a legal strategy to counter the accusations, saying that Mr. Trump’s First Amendment rights are under attack. They say Mr. Trump had every right to express views about election fraud that they say he believed, and still believes, to be true, and that the actions he took or proposed after the election were based on legal advice.

New York Times, Former Vice President Mike Pence has an extraordinary role in a criminal case against his onetime boss and current rival, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Astor and Luke Broadwater, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). Mike Pence, shown above left in a file photo, is playing an extraordinary role in a historic criminal case against his onetime benefactor and current rival, whose angry supporters once threatened Mr. Pence’s life.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s remarkable transformation from Donald J. Trump’s most loyal lieutenant to an indispensable, if reluctant, witness for his prosecution became clear this week, when he emerged as perhaps the central character in a stinging indictment accusing the former president of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

From a tense Christmas Day phone call between the two men to the fresh revelation that Mr. Pence kept “contemporaneous notes” on the tumultuous period leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, the indictment detailed Mr. Pence’s efforts to block his former boss’s schemes and laid bare the rupture in their relationship.

“You’re too honest,” Mr. Trump berated Mr. Pence as he refused to go along with the election plot, according to the indictment.

Yet Mr. Pence has been loath to embrace the role of Trump antagonist, even as he has repeatedly suggested that Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 vote is disqualifying. He casts Mr. Trump as more a victim of unfortunate circumstances than the mastermind of an election-stealing conspiracy.

The bipartisan U.S. House Jan. 6 insurrection investigating committee opened its hearings on June 9, 2022 (Photo by Win McNamee via Getty Images).

New York Times, Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work, Luke Broadwater, Aug.3, 2023 (print ed.). The special House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol created the road map for the charges against the former president.

In taking the monumental step of charging a former president with attempting to steal an American election, Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel, relied on an extraordinary narrative, but one the country knew well.

For a year and a half, the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol introduced Americans to a sprawling cast of characters and laid out in painstaking detail the many ways in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. In doing so, it provided a road map of sorts for the 45-page indictment Mr. Smith released on Tuesday.

“In a lot of ways, the committee’s work provided this path,” said Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 panel. “The committee served as educating the country about what the former president did, and this is finally accountability. The congressional committee wasn’t going to be able to bring accountability; that was in the hands of the Department of Justice.”

Mr. Smith’s document — while far slimmer than the 845-page tome produced by the House investigative committee — contained a narrative that was nearly identical: An out-of-control president, refusing to leave office, was willing to lie and harm the country’s democracy in an attempt to stay in power.

With televised hearings drawing millions of viewers, the panel introduced the public to little-known lawyers who plotted with Mr. Trump to keep him in power, dramatic moments of conflict within the Oval Office and concepts like the “fake electors” scheme carried out across multiple states to try to reverse the election outcome. Its final report laid out specific criminal charges that a prosecutor could bring against the former president.

New York Times, Analysis: For the court of public opinion, Donald Trump is relying on a “whataboutism” defense, Peter Baker, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). As the former president faces multiple criminal indictments, he and his defenders try to shift attention by pointing to President Biden’s son Hunter.

Former President Donald J. Trump now faces 78 felony counts in three different criminal cases, not to mention a slew of civil lawsuits and trials alleging all sorts of wrongdoing. At least in the court of public opinion, though, his defense can be boiled down to three words.

What about Hunter?

From Mr. Trump’s team to conservative media to the Republican Party leadership, the reaction to the latest blockbuster indictment accusing the former president of nothing short of trying to subvert democracy focused not on the evidence against him so much as the foibles and scandals of President Biden’s son.

The real outrage, Mr. Trump’s defenders maintained, is Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings. The Justice Department, they claimed, is only going after the former president to cover up for the current president. Mr. Trump is a victim persecuted by his enemies, so the argument goes, while Hunter Biden is a one-man crime wave who personifies the Washington swamp.

The wave of whataboutism from Trump world crested with this week’s indictment but has been building for months, a way of shifting attention from the former president’s kaleidoscopic legal troubles. The strategy provides the former president’s hard-core base a narrative to embrace that absolves him of any misconduct while muddying the waters enough to cause at least some independents and swing voters to throw up their hands out of a sense that, well, they all do it.

New York Times, Cardinals Superfan Is Charged With Joining Jan. 6 Capitol Attack, Eduardo Medina, Aug. 3, 2023. Daniel Donnelly Jr. wears an all-red outfit in appearances at the team’s stadium in St. Louis. Prosecutors say he was in similar attire when he used a shield to help rioters on Jan. 6.

A St. Louis Cardinals superfan known as Rally Runner was charged on Wednesday with joining a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, where, wearing his signature red face paint, he used a riot shield to push against police officers to help other rioters advance, the Justice Department said.

The man, Daniel Donnelly Jr., 43, of St. Louis, was charged with one count of civil disorder, a felony, and several misdemeanor offenses, including disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds and theft of government property, the federal agency said in a news release.

Daniel Donnelly Jr. wears a red “Keep America Great” hat and red face paint (Photo via U.S. Department of Justice).

A staunch supporter of the Cardinals, Mr. Donnelly in recent years became something of a mascot of the Major League Baseball team as he ran laps outside Busch Stadium, wearing all-red attire and face paint and believing that his jogs would generate more runs for the team.

New York Times, Opinion: What Makes Jack Smith’s New Trump Indictment So Smart, Randall D. Eliason (right, a former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia), Aug.3, 2023 (print ed.). This is the indictment that those who were horrified by the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been waiting for. The catalog of misdeeds that Donald Trump is accused of is extensive, some reflected in other prosecutions over classified documents and hush-money payments or in civil lawsuits.

But this case — a sitting U.S. president’s assault on democracy — is by far the most consequential. And from the looks of this indictment, the prosecution’s case is going to be thorough and relentless.

The charging decisions in the indictment reflect smart lawyering by the special counsel Jack Smith and his team. The beauty of this indictment is that it provides three legal frameworks that prosecutors can use to tell the same fulsome story.

It will allow prosecutors to put on a compelling case that will hold Mr. Trump fully accountable for the multipronged effort to overturn the election. At the same time, it avoids legal and political pitfalls that could have delayed or derailed the prosecution.

Aug. 2

New York Times, Here’s a guide to the details of the indictment, and the new information released by prosecutors, German Lopez and Ian Prasad Philbrick, Aug. 2, 2023.  The two previous indictments of Donald Trump focused on his personal conduct, one involving a sex scandal and the other his handling of classified documents. Yesterday’s indictment is different. It involves arguably the most central issue in a democracy: an attempt to subvert an American election.

“At the core of the United States of America vs. Donald J. Trump is no less than the viability of the system constructed” by the founders, our colleague Peter Baker, The Times’s chief White House correspondent, wrote. “Can a sitting president spread lies about an election and try to employ his government’s power to overturn the will of the voters without consequence?”

In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain the details of the indictment and focus on the new information that prosecutors released yesterday.
The charges

The new indictment lays out a scheme that, by now, is widely known: Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election results were rigged and tried to rally federal officials, state lawmakers and his supporters, including rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn his loss to President Biden.

The bipartisan U.S. House Jan. 6 insurrection investigating committee opened its hearings on June 9, 2022 (Photo by Win McNamee via Getty Images).

New York Times, Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work, Luke Broadwater, Aug. 2, 2023. The special House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol created the road map for the charges against the former president.

In taking the monumental step of charging a former president with attempting to steal an American election, Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel, relied on an extraordinary narrative, but one the country knew well.

For a year and a half, the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol introduced Americans to a sprawling cast of characters and laid out in painstaking detail the many ways in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. In doing so, it provided a road map of sorts for the 45-page indictment Mr. Smith released on Tuesday.

“In a lot of ways, the committee’s work provided this path,” said Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 panel. “The committee served as educating the country about what the former president did, and this is finally accountability. The congressional committee wasn’t going to be able to bring accountability; that was in the hands of the Department of Justice.”

Mr. Smith’s document — while far slimmer than the 845-page tome produced by the House investigative committee — contained a narrative that was nearly identical: An out-of-control president, refusing to leave office, was willing to lie and harm the country’s democracy in an attempt to stay in power.

With televised hearings drawing millions of viewers, the panel introduced the public to little-known lawyers who plotted with Mr. Trump to keep him in power, dramatic moments of conflict within the Oval Office and concepts like the “fake electors” scheme carried out across multiple states to try to reverse the election outcome. Its final report laid out specific criminal charges that a prosecutor could bring against the former president.

New York Times, Opinion: What Makes Jack Smith’s New Trump Indictment So Smart, Randall D. Eliason (right, a former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia), Aug. 2, 2023. This is the indictment that those who were horrified by the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been waiting for. The catalog of misdeeds that Donald Trump is accused of is extensive, some reflected in other prosecutions over classified documents and hush-money payments or in civil lawsuits.

But this case — a sitting U.S. president’s assault on democracy — is by far the most consequential. And from the looks of this indictment, the prosecution’s case is going to be thorough and relentless.

The charging decisions in the indictment reflect smart lawyering by the special counsel Jack Smith and his team. The beauty of this indictment is that it provides three legal frameworks that prosecutors can use to tell the same fulsome story.

It will allow prosecutors to put on a compelling case that will hold Mr. Trump fully accountable for the multipronged effort to overturn the election. At the same time, it avoids legal and political pitfalls that could have delayed or derailed the prosecution.

Associated Press, In Jan. 6 cases, 1 judge stands out as the toughest punisher, Michael Kunzelman and Alanna Durkin Richer, June 12, 2022. An Ohio couple climbed through a broken window of the U.S. Capitol and livestreamed a video of themselves inside. A Texas mortgage broker posed for a selfie in front of rioters breaching the building. An Indiana hair salon owner celebrated on Facebook a day after she joined the pro-Donald Trump mob.

Federal prosecutors did not seek prison time for any of them after they pleaded guilty to petty offenses for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

The judge had other ideas.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan (right, assigned to handle the federal indictment of Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023) put them all behind bars, describing it as the appropriate punishment for their participation in the riot that halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, sent lawmakers running for their lives and left dozens of police officers beaten and bloodied.

As the number of people sentenced for crimes in the insurrection nears 200, an Associated Press analysis of sentencing data shows that some judges are divided over how to punish the rioters, particularly for the low-level misdemeanors arising from the attack.

“We’re asking judges to do what they think is right, and they don’t agree on what’s right,” said Greg Hunter, a lawyer defending several Jan. 6 defendants.

A House committee that held it first public hearing on Thursday cast a wide net in its investigation of the insurrection, examining how President Trump and his allies tried to undermine the election results. So far, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has focused primarily on the hundreds of Trump supporters who broke through police barricades, shattered windows, attacked officers and stormed into the Capitol.

Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington’s federal trial court, which is handling the more than 800 cases brought so far in the largest prosecution in Justice Department history.

Chutkan has handed out tougher sentences than the department was seeking in seven cases, matched its requests in four others and sent all 11 riot defendants who have come before her behind bars. In the four cases in which prosecutors did not seek jail time, Chutkan gave terms ranging from 14 days to 45 days.

New York Times, Opinion: What Trump Knew and What Trump Did, David French, right, Aug. 2, 2023. At last. The federal criminal justice system is going to legal war against one of the most dishonest, malicious and damaging conspiracies in the history of the United States. Tuesday’s indictment of Donald Trump, brought by the special counsel Jack Smith’s office, is the culmination of a comprehensive effort to bring justice to those who attempted to overthrow the results of an American presidential election.

In the weeks after the 2020 election, the legal system was in a defensive crouch, repelling an onslaught of patently frivolous claims designed to reverse the election results. In the months and years since the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, the legal system has switched from defense to offense. With all deliberate speed, prosecutors first brought charges against Trump’s foot soldiers, the men and women who breached the Capitol. Next, prosecutors pursued the organizers of Trumpist right-wing militias, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who had engaged in a seditious conspiracy to keep Trump in the White House.

And now, Smith is pursuing Trump himself — along with six yet unnamed co-conspirators — alleging criminal schemes that reached the highest level of American government. This is the case that, if successful, can once and for all strip Trump of any pretense of good faith or good will. But make no mistake, the outcome of this case is uncertain for exactly the reason it’s so important: So very much of the case depends on Trump’s state of mind.

At the risk of oversimplifying an indictment that contains four distinct counts — conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights — it can be broken down into two indispensable components. First, it will be necessary to prove what Trump knew. Second, it will be necessary to prove what he did. Let’s take, for example, the first count of the indictment: 18 U.S.C. Section 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States. The statute is designed to criminalize any interference or obstruction of a “lawful governmental function” by “deceit, craft or trickery.”

Aug. 1

New York Times, JAN. 6 RIOT ‘FUELED BY LIES,’ INDICTMENT SAYS; Trump Faces 4 Counts in His Push to Overturn 2020 Election, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 1, 2023.

Donald Trump is accused of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S., a conspiracy to threaten others’ rights and the obstruction of a proceeding before Congress.
The charges are the first to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency.

Washington Post, DEVELOPING: Jan. 6 grand jury probing efforts to overturn 2020 election issues indictment, Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, Aug. 1, 2023. Trump indicted on four counts, including obstruction and conspiracy. Indictment is the first to emerge from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the underpinnings of the Jan. 6 riot and the campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.

A grand jury investigating the efforts of former president Donald Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election has returned an indictment, though the document remained under seal and it was not immediately clear who was charged, or with what alleged crimes.

Reporters observed a prosecutor with special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the foreperson of a grand jury that has been active for many months examining the events surrounding Jan. 6 deliver the indictment Tuesday evening to a magistrate judge in federal court in Washington, D.C.

• Read the indictment here.

That grand jury panel gathered Tuesday, and left the courthouse in the afternoon.

The indictment could mark a major new phase in Smith’s investigation of the former president and his aides and allies, coming nearly two months after Trump and his longtime valet were indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents and scheming to prevent government officials from retrieving them.

Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, denies all wrongdoing related to the 2020 election as well. He announced on social media on July 18 that his lawyers had been told he was a target in the election-focused probe.

Smith, shown above, was tapped in November to take charge of the both high-profile investigations, after Trump launched his 2024 presidential election campaign and Attorney General Merrick Garland — an appointee of President Biden — concluded that an independent prosecutor should oversee the probes.

Indictment is the first to emerge from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the underpinnings of the Jan. 6 riot and the campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.
A state grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is also considering whether to file broad charges against Trump and his lawyers, advocates, and aides over their efforts to undo the 2020 election results. A decision on that front is expected in August, although previous plans to announce a charging decision have been delayed. Michigan and Arizona are also investigating aspects of the efforts to block Biden’s victory in their states.

Washington Post, Michigan Republicans charged in connection with 2020 voting machine tampering, Patrick Marley and Aaron Schaffer, Aug. 1, 2023. A Michigan grand jury charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.

A Michigan prosecutor charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general Tuesday as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.

Special prosecutor D.J. Hilson since last year has been looking into efforts by a group of conservatives to persuade election clerks to give them voting machines as they attempted to prove the 2020 presidential election had been wrongly called for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The group never turned up any proof, and courts in dozens of cases across the country ruled that the election was properly decided.

Former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno (R) was charged with improper possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine, conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine, according to Hilson. Former state representative Daire Rendon (R) was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine and using false pretenses with the intent to defraud, he said. Both were arraigned Tuesday and released.

July

July 31

New York Times, Trump Crushing DeSantis and G.O.P. Rivals, Times/Siena Poll Finds, Shane Goldmacher, July 31, 2023. Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis and others across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.

Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.

Mr. Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group and region and in every ideological wing of the party, the survey found, as Republican voters waved away concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy. He led by wide margins among men and women, younger and older voters, moderates and conservatives, those who went to college and those who didn’t, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas.

The poll shows that some of Mr. DeSantis’s central campaign arguments — that he is more electable than Mr. Trump, and that he would govern more effectively — have so far failed to break through. Even Republicans motivated by the type of issues that have fueled Mr. DeSantis’s rise, such as fighting “radical woke ideology,” favored the former president.

Overall, Mr. Trump led Mr. DeSantis 54 percent to 17 percent. No other candidate topped 3 percent support in the poll.

Below those lopsided top-line figures were other ominous signs for Mr. DeSantis. He performed his weakest among some of the Republican Party’s biggest and most influential constituencies. He earned only 9 percent support among voters at least 65 years old and 13 percent of those without a college degree. Republicans who described themselves as “very conservative” favored Mr. Trump by a 50-point margin, 65 percent to 15 percent.

New York Times, Analysis: This is why former President Trump is so hard to beat, Nate Cohn, July 31, 2023. In the half century of modern presidential primaries, no candidate who led his or her nearest rival by at least 20 points at this stage has ever lost a party nomination.

Today, Donald J. Trump’s lead over Ron DeSantis is nearly twice as large: 37 points, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of the likely Republican primary electorate released Monday morning.

But even if it might be a mistake to call Mr. Trump “inevitable,” the Times/Siena data suggests that he commands a seemingly unshakable base of loyal supporters, representing more than one-third of the Republican electorate. Alone, their support is not enough for Mr. Trump to win the primary. But it is large enough to make him extremely hard to defeat — perhaps every bit as hard as the historical record suggests.

Here’s what we know about the depth of the support — and opposition — to Mr. Trump from our poll, and why it’s so hard to beat the former president.
The MAGA base, defined

It’s populist. It’s conservative. It’s blue collar. It’s convinced the nation is on the verge of catastrophe. And it’s exceptionally loyal to Donald Trump.

As defined here, members of Mr. Trump’s MAGA base represent 37 percent of the Republican electorate. They “strongly” support him in the Republican primary and have a “very favorable” view of him.

Of course, there’s still plenty of time left before the Iowa caucuses in January. The candidates haven’t even set foot on a debate stage. And while no candidate has ever lost a nomination with so much support, no candidate with so much support has faced so many criminal indictments and investigations, either.

New York Times, Ron DeSantis invoked Donald Trump’s legal trouble, suggesting he might step up his attacks on his rival, Nicholas Nehamas, July 31, 2023 (print ed.). Ron DeSantis’s remarks to a voter in New Hampshire suggest he may step up his attacks against the man who leads him in national polls by a wide margin.

Two days after former President Donald J. Trump used a demeaning nickname to describe Ron DeSantis to a packed hall of Iowa Republican activists, Mr. DeSantis pointedly invoked the federal indictment against his chief rival, saying that if Mr. Trump had “drained the swamp like he promised,” then he probably “wouldn’t be in the mess that he’s in right now.”

Speaking to reporters on Sunday after a campaign event in New Hampshire, Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, added that Mr. Trump’s use of “juvenile insults” served as a reminder of “why there are so many millions of voters who will never vote for him going forward.”

Mr. DeSantis has generally not used Mr. Trump’s legal troubles against him, and has instead focused on criticizing the Biden administration for what he terms the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement.

But as Mr. DeSantis seeks to reset his ailing campaign by cutting staff and organizing more informal events in the face of a fund-raising shortfall, his comments suggest he may be taking a less timid approach against the man who leads him in national polls by a wide margin. Even allies have said that his campaign has lacked a coherent message about why voters should choose him over Mr. Trump.

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

Washington Post, Atlanta braces for possible indictments for Trump and his allies in 2020 election investigation, Holly Bailey, July 31, 2023. It is one of several investigations into attempts to reverse Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. A charging decision is expected during the first three weeks of August.

For more than two years, people here and across the country have watched and waited for clues that the high-profile Georgia investigation into whether former president Donald Trump and his allies broke the law in their attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state was winding to an end.

That speculation hit fever pitch in recent days with the installation of orange security barriers near the main entrance of the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta. It was the most visible sign yet of the looming charging decision in a case that has ensnared not only Trump but several high-profile Republicans who could either face charges or stand witness in a potential trial unlike anything seen before in this Southern metropolis.

It is one of several investigations into attempts to reverse Trump’s loss in 2020, including a sprawling Justice Department probe overseen by special counsel Jack Smith that has sparked its own intensifying waiting game in recent days. Smith and his team have interviewed or sought information from several witnesses also key to the Georgia investigation. Trump has said he received a letter from the Justice Department saying he could face criminal charges for his efforts after the election that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

While the pace of Smith’s investigation has been unpredictable, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis took the unusual step of publicly telegraphing that she plans to announce a charging decision in the Georgia case during the first three weeks of August, a period that opens Monday.

“The work is accomplished,” Willis (D) told Atlanta’s WXIA-TV Saturday. “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”

In Atlanta, local, state and federal law enforcement officials have been privately meeting for months to plan enhanced security measures in anticipation of that announcement. anticipation of that announcement.

All eyes are now on two criminal grand jury panels sworn in on July 11 — one group that meets on Mondays and Tuesdays, the other that meets on Thursdays and Fridays. One of the panels will probably decide whether charges should be filed in the closely watched election interference case — a decision that could put Trump, who is now under indictment in two other criminal cases, in even more legal peril.

 Carlos De Oliveira, center, made his first court appearance here on Monday morning, July 31, in Miami (Associated Press photo). 

Washington Post, Carlos De Oliveira makes first court appearance in Trump documents case, Shayna Jacobs and Perry Stein, July 31, 2023.  Carlos De Oliveira — the second person charged alongside Donald Trump in a case involving the alleged hoarding of sensitive government materials at Mar-a-Lago — made his first court appearance here on Monday morning and was released on a personal surety bond, with an arraignment scheduled for Aug. 10.

Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres read De Oliveira the charges against him and informed him of his legal rights. De Oliveira did not have an attorney who is accredited to practice in Florida, so he was unable to enter a plea before the judge. His Washington, D.C.-based attorney, John Irving, was in court with him.

Trump and his longtime valet, Waltine “Walt” Nauta, were charged in the case last month and face additional counts in the indictment that charged De Oliveira. Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges. They could also be arraigned on the new charges at the hearing scheduled for Fort Pierce, Fla., on Aug. 10, though prosecutors have said they will not object if a judge allows Trump and Nauta to waive their appearance.

Torres imposed the same conditions of release on De Oliveira as were set for Trump and Nauta, prohibiting De Oliveira from speaking to witnesses about the facts of the investigation. Torres imposed the same conditions of release on De Oliveira as were set for Trump and Nauta, prohibiting De Oliveira from speaking to witnesses about the facts of the investigation.

Outside the courthouse, Irving told reporters he looked forward to seeing the government’s evidence against his client. “Unfortunately the Justice Department decided to file these charges against Mr. De Oliveira," he said, "and now they have to put their money where their mouth is.”

Here’s what else to know about De Oliveira and the charges against him:

The 56-year-old Floridian has worked at Mar-a-Lago for more than a decade and was promoted to be the estate’s property manager in January 2022. In the early years of his employment, he impressed Trump by redoing ornate metalwork on the door at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar with his work.

Carlos De Oliveira's journey from failed witness to Trump's co-defendant

De Oliveira was charged with four crimes, including one count of making false statements and representations when he denied to the FBI any involvement in or knowledge of the moving of boxes at Mar-a-Lago that contained classified material.

Palmer Report, Analysis: No wonder Donald Trump’s campaign is broke, Bill Palmer, right, July 31, 2023. Recent quarterly fundraising numbers revealed that President Joe Biden raised about twice as much money for his 2024 campaign as Donald Trump did.

These numbers weren’t surprising. Not that many people want to give money to someone’s “campaign” when they know the money is just going to be spent on his legal costs and they know he’s going to prison anyway. Some superfans are going to give money to Trump’s fake 2024 campaign anyway, out of symbolism or spite. But any potential Trump donor who’s thinking in pragmatic terms is going to simply hang onto their money.

The whole thing creates a catch-22 for Trump. Not enough people are donating to his campaign because they know it’s not real, so there isn’t enough money in the pot to begin with. Then Trump keeps raiding the piggy bank to pay for his legal costs, and pretty soon it’s empty. That point was always going to arrive eventually, and it looks like it’s arriving now.

Trump’s “Save America” PAC is so short on money, it recently had to request a $60 million refund from another Trump related PAC, according to the New York Times. It goes to show how politicians like Trump tend to shuffle money around from entity to entity for their own purposes. But if there’s not enough money coming in to begin with, and Trump is bleeding it all dry with his legal costs, then it doesn’t do much good to shuffle money around. At some point there just aren’t the funds.

So here we are fifteen months out from the 2024 election, and Donald Trump’s campaign fundraising apparatus is already running out of money. It goes to show that you can’t just pretend to run for President as a way of paying your legal bills, and expect enough people to get on board to keep things afloat. This whole thing was a transparent house of cards, and it’s starting to tumble from a financial standpoint already.

This also proves once and for all that Donald Trump’s base cannot magically save him. If Trump’s base were large enough and willing enough, his 2024 election coffers would be overflowing with money. Instead he’s only managed to raise a hilariously small amount of money for a supposed “frontrunner,” and it doesn’t even appear to be enough to cover his legal bills.

If things are looking bad for Trump now, consider that he’s days away from being criminally indicted for January 6th, and he’ll likely go on trial for that in federal court in Washington DC this year. We’re talking about Trump being tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison while it’s still 2023. In the eyes of donors, Trump is already having trouble selling himself as a viable candidate. That’s not going to get easier when he’s sent to prison.

July 28

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Trump Faces Major New Charges in Documents Case, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, July 28, 2023 (print ed.). The office of the special counsel accused the former president of seeking to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago. The manager of the property, Carlos De Oliveira, was also named as a new defendant.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday added major accusations to an indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with mishandling classified documents after he left office, presenting evidence that he told the property manager of Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, that he wanted security camera footage there to be deleted.

The new accusations were revealed in a superseding indictment that named the property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, as a new defendant in the case. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Miami on Monday.

The original indictment filed last month in the Southern District of Florida accused Mr. Trump of violating the Espionage Act by illegally holding on to 31 classified documents containing national defense information after he left office. It also charged Mr. Trump and Walt Nauta, right, one of his personal aides, with a conspiracy to obstruct the government’s repeated attempts to reclaim the classified material.

The revised indictment added three serious charges against Mr. Trump: attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence”; inducing someone else to do so; and a new count under the Espionage Act related to a classified national security document that he showed to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.

The updated indictment was released on the same day that Mr. Trump’s lawyers met in Washington with prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to discuss a so-called target letter that Mr. Trump received this month suggesting that he might soon face an indictment in a case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It served as a powerful reminder that the documents investigation is ongoing, and could continue to yield additional evidence, new counts and even new defendants.

Prosecutors under Mr. Smith had been investigating Mr. De Oliveira for months, concerned, among other things, by his communications with an information technology expert at Mar-a-Lago, Yuscil Taveras, who oversaw the surveillance camera footage at the property.

That footage was central to Mr. Smith’s investigation into whether Mr. Nauta, at Mr. Trump’s request, had moved boxes in and out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to avoid complying with a federal subpoena for all classified documents in the former president’s possession. Many of those movements were caught on the surveillance camera footage.

The revised indictment said that in late June of last year, shortly after the government demanded the surveillance footage as part of its inquiry, Mr. Trump called Mr. De Oliveira and they spoke for 24 minutes.

Two days later, the indictment said, Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira “went to the security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors, walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out surveillance cameras.”

The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.

New York Times, The Trump Classified Documents Indictment, Annotated, Charlie Savage, Updated July 27, 2023. The Justice Department on Thursday released an updated version of an indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with 40 criminal counts. They relate to Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive government documents after he left office and his refusal to return them, even after being subpoenaed for all remaining records in his possession that were marked as classified. The indictment supersedes one released June 8, adding three criminal charges for Mr. Trump and naming an additional defendant.

Federal prosecutors said former President Trump told the property manager that he wanted security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago to be deleted.

A Times investigation went inside Mar-a-Lago, where thousands partied near secret files.

July 22

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

New York Times, Trial in Trump Documents Case Is Set for May 2024, Alan Feuer, July 22, 2023 (print ed.). The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of illegally retaining dozens of classified documents set a trial date on Friday for May 2024, taking a middle position between the government’s request to go to trial in December and Mr. Trump’s desire to push the proceeding until after the 2024 election.

In her order, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, right, said the trial was to be held in her home courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., a coastal city two-and-a-half hours north of Miami that will draw its jury pool from several counties that Mr. Trump won handily in his two previous presidential campaigns.

Judge Cannon also laid out a calendar of hearings, throughout the remainder of this year and into next year, including those concerning the handling of the classified material at the heart of the case.

The scheduling order came after a contentious hearing on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce where prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, and lawyers for Mr. Trump sparred over when to hold the trial.

Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Donald Trump’s request to delay the trial until after the election but pushed the start date past the prosecutors’ request.

The timing of the proceeding is more important in this case than in most criminal matters because Mr. Trump is now the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination and his legal obligations to be in court will intersect with his campaign schedule.

Indeed, the date Judge Cannon chose to start the trial — May 20, 2024 — is one day before the primary in the key swing state of Georgia. But it falls after the bulk of the primary race contests will have already taken place.

• Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Judge Cannon Makes MAJOR RULING on Trump Criminal Trial Date, July 21, 2023. Legal AF hosts Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok report together on the major ruling by Judge Aileen Cannon setting a trial date in the federal criminal case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Washington Post, Before Jan. 6, Mark Meadows joked about Trump’s election claims, Josh Dawsey, Carol D. Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany, July 23, 2023 (print ed.). In a text, Meadows wrote that his own son was unable to find more than a handful of votes potentially cast in the name of dead voters, people familiar with message say.

Mark Meadows joked about the baseless claim that large numbers of votes were fraudulently cast in the names of dead people in the days before the then-White House chief of staff participated in a phone call in which then-President Trump alleged there were close to 5,000 dead voters in Georgia and urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the 2020 election there.

In a text message that has been scrutinized by federal prosecutors, Meadows wrote to a White House lawyer that his son, Atlanta-area attorney Blake Meadows, had been probing possible fraud and had found only a handful of possible votes cast in dead voters’ names, far short of what Trump was alleging. The lawyer teasingly responded that perhaps Meadows’s son could locate the thousands of votes Trump would need to win the election. The text was described by multiple people familiar with the exchange.

The jocular text message, which has not been previously reported, is one of many exchanges from the time in which Trump aides and other Republican officials expressed deep skepticism or even openly mocked the election claims being made publicly by Trump, according to people familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the criminal investigation.

July 21

New York Times, Collision in Court: Trump Grand Jury Proceedings Delay a Jan. 6 Verdict, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, July 21, 2023. A defense lawyer was late. A judge grew irked and hauled the prosecutor out. The events reflect some issues that stem from Donald Trump’s crowded legal calendar.

For several months, Federal District Court in Washington has been ground zero for the Justice Department’s various attempts to deal with the legacy of former President Donald J. Trump.

The courthouse, which sits on Constitution Avenue, is where hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have been prosecuted. It is where a grand jury investigated Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, a case in which charges were ultimately brought in Florida. And it is where a separate grand jury continues to examine the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in a case in which Mr. Trump was recently told that he could soon face an indictment.

On Thursday, two of these legal proceedings collided in an unusual spectacle, as a federal judge hauled the prosecutor leading the election interference investigation out of a grand jury proceeding and summoned him into his courtroom. The judge, Trevor N. McFadden, was apparently upset that the prosecutor, Thomas P. Windom, had kept a lawyer representing a witness in front of the grand jury from appearing on time for the reading of a verdict for a Jan. 6 defendant whom the lawyer was also representing.

While the incident came to an end quickly and seemed to have resulted in little more than a public display of tension, it nonetheless reflected the complexities that have ensued from Mr. Trump’s crowded legal calendar.

The former president has now been indicted in Florida in the classified documents case and in New York City on charges involving hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. He could soon be charged twice more — in Washington and Georgia — in connection with his efforts to tamper with the 2020 election. All of this, unfolding even as Mr. Trump runs again for office, has put enormous strain on everyone involved — from the courts to the lawyers involved in the various legal efforts surrounding him.

New York Times, SPAC Tied to Trump’s Media Company Will Pay $18 Million to Regulators, Matthew Goldstein, July 21, 2023 (print ed.). Digital World will pay a penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle an investigation into its planned merger with Trump Media & Technology Group.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that it had reached a settlement with the cash-rich shell company that planned to merge with former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company, potentially paving the way for the much-delayed deal to proceed.

Under the settlement, Digital World Acquisition Corp. will pay a penalty of $18 million and revise some of its corporate filings to comply with federal securities laws. The S.E.C. was investigating whether Digital World had flouted merger laws governing special purpose acquisition companies.

The S.E.C. charged Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, with misleading investors with its disclosures.

“These disclosure failures are particularly problematic because investors focus on factors such as the SPAC’s management team and potential merger targets when making financial decisions,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement.

Digital World had announced a tentative settlement in a regulatory filing this month.

But many hurdles remain for Digital World to complete its merger with Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, a Twitter-like platform that has become the former president’s primary megaphone to reach his supporters on the internet.

Digital World, which had raised $300 million from investors in a September 2021 initial public offering, is facing a Sept. 8 deadline to complete its deal with Trump Media or will be forced to liquidate and return the cash. This week, the SPAC announced plans to seek shareholder approval to extend that deadline, but Trump Media has not yet signaled it is willing to keep the pending deal alive beyond Sept. 8.

Soon after Digital World and Trump Media announced a deal to merge in October 2021, the S.E.C. opened an investigation into whether preliminary merger discussions between the two parties had violated federal securities laws.

Shell companies are set up to raise money from investors and then find a company to buy, but they are not allowed to hold serious merger discussions before they go public. Such companies have a limited time — usually two years — to complete a merger before they are required to return the cash they raised to investors.

Last month, federal prosecutors in New York charged three men — two brothers and a former Digital World board member — with taking part in a scheme that generated $22 million in illicit trading profits ahead of the proposed merger.

July 20

New York Times, Analysis: Trump’s Legal Woes Mount as Trial Dates and Campaign Calendar Collide, Charlie Savage, July 20, 2023. Former President Trump is facing a tangle of criminal and civil trials that will overlap with next year’s presidential primaries.

As former President Donald J. Trump campaigns for the White House while multiple criminal prosecutions against him play out, at least one thing is clear: Under the laws of physics, he cannot be in two places at once.

Generally, criminal defendants must be present in the courtroom during their trials. Not only will that force Mr. Trump to step away from the campaign trail, possibly for weeks at a time, but the judges overseeing his trials must also jostle for position in sequencing dates. The collision course is raising extraordinary — and unprecedented — questions about the logistical, legal and political challenges of various trials unfolding against the backdrop of a presidential campaign.

“The courts will have to decide how to balance the public interest in having expeditious trials against Trump’s interest and the public interest in his being able to campaign so that the democratic process works,” said Bruce Green, a Fordham University professor and former prosecutor. “That’s a type of complexity that courts have never had to deal with before.”

More broadly, the complications make plain another reality: Mr. Trump’s troubles are entangling the campaign with the courts to a degree the nation has never experienced before and raising tensions around the ideal of keeping the justice system separate from politics.

Mr. Trump and his allies have signaled that they intend to try to turn his overlapping legal woes into a referendum on the criminal justice system, by seeking to cast it as a politically weaponized tool of Democrats.

Already, Mr. Trump is facing a state trial on civil fraud accusations in New York in October. Another trial on whether he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll is set to open on Jan. 15 — the same day as the Iowa caucuses. On Jan. 29, a trial begins in yet another lawsuit, this one accusing Mr. Trump, his company and three of his children of using the family name to entice vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.

Because those cases are civil, Mr. Trump could choose not to attend the trials, just as he shunned an earlier lawsuit by Ms. Carroll, in which a jury found him liable of sexual abuse.

New York Times, Analysis: Quick to Mock MAGA, Biden Stays Silent on Trump Indictments, Reid J. Epstein, July 20, 2023. Former  President Trump is facing a tangle of criminal and civil trials that will overlap with next year’s presidential primaries. The president has taken swipes at Republicans, including a video playfully featuring Marjorie Taylor Greene as a narrator, but he and his allies are avoiding one target: his predecessor’s legal woes.

For months, President Biden has appeared to delight in needling Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies, trying at every turn to make MAGA and ultra-MAGA a shorthand for the entire party.

This week, Mr. Biden cheekily highlighted a video in which Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia derisively ticks through his first-term accomplishments and likens him — not positively — to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “I approve this message,” the president commented on the video, which was viewed more than 43 million times in 24 hours.

Mr. Biden recently did a victory lap when Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama promoted local spending in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which Mr. Tuberville had voted against.

And his campaign took a shot at Mr. Trump for not visiting Wisconsin during his current presidential bid, accusing him of a “failure to deliver on his promised American manufacturing boom.”

New York Times, A Year of Upheaval on Abortion’s Front Lines, Kate Kelly and Marisa Schwartz Taylor, July 20, 2023. A Supreme Court decision created a 50-state patchwork of differing abortion laws. Volunteers and groups have tried to fill the gaps in health care and support.

The year since the Supreme Court rescinded a constitutional right to abortion by reversing the landmark Roe v. Wade decision has been a time of fear and retrenchment for groups that provide abortion services and support abortion rights. It has been a period of elation and opportunity for those who oppose them. And it has produced widespread confusion as organizations across the ideological spectrum scramble to keep up with legal, political and social fallout from the court decision.

The first few months after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health “just felt like the Wild, Wild West,” said Maren Hurley, who works as an abortion doula in North Carolina.

Ms. Hurley’s state, which provided abortion access up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, saw an influx of patients from states with tighter restrictions for much of that first year. But as of July 1, access was rolled back to 12 weeks in most cases as part of a new state law.

Groups that provided funding for abortions in Alabama and Louisiana, where the procedure is mostly illegal now, have had to change their approach. Providers of telehealth services and medication abortion have felt obligated to restrict their client base to roughly half the states in America or fewer at any given time.

Hey Jane, which prescribes abortion medications that can be delivered to homes, has grown busier. Indigenous Women Rising, which provides abortion services to Native women across the country, has doubled its abortion budget to help women travel to states where abortion remains accessible. Private pilots established Elevated Access, which provides free flights to out-of-state abortion seekers.

Washington Post, Opinion: 2024 won’t be a Trump-Biden replay. You can thank Gen Z for that, Celinda Lake and Mac Heller, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). Every year, 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes.

It’s easy to envision the 2024 presidential election becoming the third straight contest in which a veteran Democrat goes up against Donald Trump. Once again, the Democrat wins the popular vote but swing states are tighter. Could go either way — and has, right?

But things are very different this time, and here’s why: The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.

Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.

Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.

And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic Party strategist, was one of two lead pollsters for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Mac Heller is a documentary film producer, most recently of “Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook.”

Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, center, at federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, left, on April 25 in New York City (Associated Press photo by Seth Wineg).

Disclosures in the E. Jean Carroll rape lawsuit echoed Trump's words in "Hollywood Access" videotape, reported upon above, that arose during the 2016 presidential campaign. Shown Then: The front page of a 2016 New York Daily News edition contrasts with Trump's claimed innocence in the Carroll case.

Politico, Trump loses bid for new trial in E. Jean Carroll case, Erica Orden, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). A jury’s verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation should stand, a federal judge ruled.

A federal judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid for a new trial two months after a jury found that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll.

In his motion for a new trial, Trump argued that because the jury found him liable for sexual abuse but not rape, which is what Carroll originally alleged, the jury award of $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse claim was excessive.

He also argued that the jury award of $2.7 million in compensatory damages for the defamation claim should be reduced, largely because he disputed the testimony of an expert witness on which it was based. And Trump said an additional punitive damages award of $228,000 violated his constitutional right to due process.

Carroll, shown in a 1990s file photo, alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. She testified during the trial that he penetrated her with his fingers, but she said she couldn’t be certain that he had inserted his penis because he was pressed up against her in a way that blocked her view.

In a 59-page decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, left, wrote that “the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.”

He said that the former president’s argument “therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury’s verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump.”

“The jury in this case did not reach ‘a seriously erroneous result,’” he wrote. “Its verdict is not ‘a miscarriage of justice.’”

Separate from his motion for a new trial, Trump is also contesting the verdict before a federal appeals court. That appeal remains pending.

Carroll, meanwhile, has a separate defamation lawsuit pending against Trump. The trial over that lawsuit is scheduled for January 2024.

On Wednesday, a lawyer for Carroll, Robbie Kaplan, said, “Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her” at trial. She added that Carroll “also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable” at next year’s trial.

New York Times, Trump Hush Money Case Will Remain in New York State Court, Judge Rules, Jonah E. Bromwich, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump had sought to move the first criminal case against him to federal court, but a judge put an end to the effort.

A judge on Wednesday denied former President Donald J. Trump’s request to move the Manhattan criminal case against him from state to federal court.

The federal judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, had signaled in a hearing last month that he was predisposed against moving the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, right. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have charged Mr. Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had argued the case should be heard in federal court because it related to conduct he engaged in while president.

But in the order Judge Hellerstein issued Wednesday, he echoed his contention at the hearing that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had failed to show that the behavior at issue — reimbursements to Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the hush money payment — was somehow related to the office of the presidency.

Judge Hellerstein wrote that the evidence overwhelmingly suggested that the matter involved something personal to the president: “a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”

“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts,” he concluded in the order. “It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”

 More On Assaults On Democracy

Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.

Proof via Substack, The Trump Trials, Vol. 17, Investigative Commentary: The Disconcerting News We Got on the Day of the Trump Target Letter That No One Is Talking About, Seth Abramson, July 19-20, 2023. This new Proof series—authored by a longtime criminal defense attorney and leading Trump biographer—will unpack recent events in the historic trials of disgraced former president Donald Trump.

Attorneys like me—and really just anyone who believes in the rule of law and in equal justice under law—were pleased to see the recent breaking news: Donald Trump has received a target letter from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel.

But The Trump Trials series at Proof must call two disconcerting additional pieces of information to the attention of readers—both of which came to us along with what in other circumstances would have been unsullied good news and to which (and perhaps this is a third item of concern) major media seems not to have paid as much attention at all:

1. No one but Trump received a target letter over the weekend. As those who have been following the January 6 research at Proof will be well aware, the list of those with potential legal liability for the events of January 6 is extraordinarily long. Given that common prosecutorial strategy is to charge the kingpin last (for many reasons, including that you can often get lower-level malfeasors to “flip” on their bosses), it is truly bizarre that at this point only Trump has been informed that he is in imminent danger of being indicted and arrested. It raises the specter of a Robert Mueller-style disaster, in which DOJ artificially restricts its investigation of known malfeasance to the point that almost none of the guilty parties are ultimately touched by the investigation.
2. So how can such a dismal potential near future provide us with the glimmer of hope we all need today? Because it raises the prospect of Smith filing superseding indictments down the line. But if no Trump co-conspirators are charged, and if Trump is charged with only a small fraction of what we know for certain he did, very few will consider that justice.

Washington Post, Analysis: ‘Fake elector’ charges show how Trump’s allies played with fire, Aaron Blake, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). The Michigan indictments reinforce the evidence that at least some of those involved knew this wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up When Michigan Republicans were planning in late 2020 to submit a slate of electors who supported Donald Trump — despite Trump having lost the state by nearly three points — then-state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox thought better of it.

“I was very uncomfortable with that, as per my lawyers’ opinion,” Cox told the congressional Jan. 6 committee last year.

So she said she proposed an alternative: Instead of submitting the electors as if Trump had won, the party would sign a document merely offering the electors as a contingency in case the courts somehow awarded Michigan to Trump.

Those involved did not adopt Cox’s plan. The courts didn’t overturn Michigan’s result. And now the 16 people who signed a document falsely claiming they were duly elected have been indicted.

Michigan on Tuesday became the first state to charge so-called “fake” Trump electors. The 16 electors who signed that document are each charged with eight felonies, including forgery.

• Washington Post, Opinion: Michigan indicts alleged plotters in fake elector scheme. Here’s what it means, Jennifer Rubin

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The world must coordinate a defense to attacks against representative democracy, Wayne Madsen, left, July 19-20, 2023. Part 3 in our series.

In our previous two articles, we reported on the coordinated attacks on national legislatures by far-right forces that were encouraged by an unholy alliance of fascist-rule nations like Russia; “libertarian” high-tech billionaires, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk; and white nationalist, Nazi, and like-minded political groups in the United States, Germany, Canada, Brazil, and other nations.

The attacks on the legislatures of Germany, the United States, Canada, and Brazil were preceded by a few less-known assaults by far-right forces on the legislatures of Macedonia and South Korea.

It is clear that the far right has a particular disdain for representative democratic institutions. The present collection of Nazi and fascist malcontents and chaos agents, all aided and abetted by troll farms in Russia, follow in a long line of similar pathetic dregs of society who helped enable the fascist dictatorships of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Falangist Spain, and other tinpot regimes around the world. A common thread that runs through all the far-right assaults on parliamentary government is the lack of initial action or response from law enforcement. Police agencies, many of which are rife with far-right officers and other personnel, are in dire need of vetting and purging. The same applies to the military, particularly in the United States, Brazil, and Germany.

Previous Series Segments:

• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary:The international Plot to attack democratic legislatures, Wayne Madsen
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Democracy under siege: the coordinated attacks on the national legislatures of the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, Wayne Madsen

New York Times, Republicans Shrug at Latest Possible Trump Indictment, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). News of a case related to Jan. 6 brought a muddled response from some of Donald Trump’s 2024 rivals, and familiar attacks on President Biden.

The indictments of Donald J. Trump — past and pending — are becoming the background music of the 2024 presidential campaign: always there, shaping the mood, yet not fully the focus.

Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has become so flattened that Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday that he was facing a possible third indictment this year, this time over his involvement in the events that led to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, drew shrugs from some quarters of his party and a muddled response from his rivals.

At one Republican congressional fund-raising lunch on Tuesday in Washington, the news of a likely third Trump indictment went entirely unmentioned, an attendee said. Some opposing campaigns’ strategists all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s allies quickly resumed their now-customary defensive positions.

Two and half years ago, the deadly riot that left the nation’s seat of government defiled had threatened to forever tarnish Mr. Trump’s political legacy. His supporters had stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of his defeat, stoked by their leader who had urged them to “fight like hell.” Even long-loyal Republicans broke with him as shattered glass littered the Capitol complex.

Video still from a police body camera filed by the FBI allegedly shows Federico G. Klein physically engaging with police at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

Washington Post, Former Trump State Dept. appointee guilty in Jan. 6 tunnel assaults, Spencer S. Hsu and  Tom Jackman, July 20, 2023. Former Trump appointee Federico Klein found guilty in Jan. 6 tunnel assaults on police.

A former political appointee of former president Donald Trump was found guilty Thursday of joining assaults on police on Jan. 6, 2021, that included one of the most prolonged attacks on officers by rioters in a tunnel at the Lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol.

Federico G. Klein, a State Department appointee with a top-secret clearance, was convicted on all counts, including 10 felony charges involving six violent confrontations with multiple law enforcement officers and obstruction of the electoral vote count, after a week-long bench trial before U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden. A co-defendant, Steven Cappuccio, was convicted of six felony counts, but McFadden acquitted him of the obstruction charge and a misdemeanor, ruling that Cappuccio was not politically savvy enough to intend to stop the electoral vote count.

Klein and Cappuccio separately made their way to the Lower West Terrace, where their victims were. One included D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges, who in one of the day’s most harrowing events was recorded on camera being pinned to a metal door frame by the mob with Klein’s help, while Cappuccio ripped away his baton and gas mask while yelling, “How you like me now, f-----r!”

A third co-defendant, Christopher Joseph Quaglin, was found guilty on 14 other counts on the first day of trial last week after admitting to stipulated facts. Klein and Cappuccio were charged with 21 counts overall, including eight counts of assaulting police, robbery, rioting and obstruction of an official proceeding (Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election result).

“No police officer,” McFadden said, “should have had to endure these attacks without provocation.” He pointed to specific video evidence presented during the trial to reject Klein’s claims that he acted unintentionally.

All three men and four other co-defendants previously convicted and sentenced were active parts of a mob that pushed, shoved, struck, punched and sprayed police, prosecutors said. At times they used officers’ own weapons against them, including batons, riot shields and chemical spray, prosecutors said. Video clips showed officers vomiting and screaming in pain from assaults, while others testified about being tackled into the crowd and being kicked repeatedly in the helmet.

“There are many violent offenses in this case because the defendants were relentless in their attacks on officers and their attempts to enter the building,” federal prosecutor Ashley Akers said in an opening statement.

Klein, 42, served in the Marine Reserves in Iraq before working on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and gaining a mid-level State Department appointment. Prosecutors said he, Cappuccio and Quaglin independently made their way to the Lower West Terrace, where police dug in against the mob that afternoon unaware that other Capitol entrances were already breached.

Prosecutors specifically accused Klein of using a stolen police riot shield to smash up against one officer repeatedly, as another rioter reached over the shield to grab the officer’s baton.

“You can’t stop this!” Klein told other officers while pushing against them, wearing an olive-green coat and red ball cap. Klein also wedged a riot shield between doors police were trying to shut, prosecutors said.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) shakes hands with Daniel Hodges, a D.C. police officer, at a hearing for the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Testifying for the government, Hodges described the confrontation with Klein and Cappuccio, as he was pinned against a door frame in a passageway police were defending to prevent rioters from reentering the building. Rioters used stolen police shields to press against officers, shouting “Heave! Ho!” to time their surges. Video footage showed Cappuccio yanking away Hodges’s mask while his arms are immobilized, pulling it off his head and punching him in the face.

Washington Post, Former Trump aide at D.C. courthouse for grand jury appearance, Spencer S. Hsu, Josh Dawsey and Jacqueline Alemany, July 20, 2023. An aide to Donald Trump was at a federal courthouse in Washington D.C. on Thursday for a grand jury appearance that is part of an investigation of the former president, as the Justice Department moves toward deciding whether to criminally charge Trump in connection with his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.

William Russell served in the White House as a special assistant and the deputy director of presidential advance operations and continued to work as a personal aide for Trump after Trump left office in January, 2021. Russell was asked to appear Thursday after making prior grand jury appearances, according to people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy rules.

A data expert who worked with the Trump campaign on the 2020 election also was scheduled to appear before a grand jury at the courthouse, two people familiar with the matter said.

A Justice Department team led by special counsel Jack Smith has been examining efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election including the events that led up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

July 19

Associated Press, Michigan charges 16 fake electors for Donald Trump with election law and forgery felonies, Joey Cappelletti, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges Tuesday against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, accusing them of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all 16 people would face eight criminal charges, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

The group includes the head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in Michigan, Kathy Berden, as well as the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock, and Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot.

In seven battleground states, including Michigan, supporters of Trump signed certificates that falsely stated he won their states, not Biden. The fake certificates were ignored, but the attempt has been subject to investigations, including by the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement.

The 16 individuals are set to appear for arraignment in Ingham County at a date provided to each by the court, according to Nessel’s office.

Phone and email messages seeking comment Tuesday from several of the people charged were not immediately returned.

One of those charged, John Haggard, 82, of Charlevoix, told The Detroit News on Tuesday that he he didn’t believe he did anything wrong.

“Did I do anything illegal? No,” Haggard said.

GOP state Sen. Ed McBroom, who chaired a GOP-led Senate panel to investigate Michigan’s 2020 presidential election that found no wrongdoing, said he previously spoke with one of the fake electors. It was clear, McBroom said, that the effort was organized by “people who put themselves in a position of authority and posing themselves as the ones who knew what they were doing.”

“They were wrong,” McBroom told The Associated Press. “And other people followed them when they shouldn’t have.”

Berden and Mayra Rodriguez, a Michigan lawyer who was also charged Tuesday, were both questioned by congressional investigators as part of the U.S. House panel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In January of last year, Nessel asked federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the 16 Republicans.

“Obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy,” she said at the time.

Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome.

False Electoral College certificates were also submitted declaring Trump the winner of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Investigations are underway in some other states that submitted fake electors, but not all.

A Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election has agreed to immunity deals with at least eight fake electors. And Arizona’s Democratic attorney general is in the very early stages of a probe. Nevada’s attorney general, also a Democrat, has said he won’t bring charges, while Wisconsin has no active investigation and the attorney general has deferred to the U.S. Justice Department.

There is no apparent investigation in Pennsylvania and former Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is now governor, said he didn’t believe there was evidence the actions of the fake electors met the legal standards for forgery.

A group of other Trump allies in Michigan, including former GOP attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, are facing potential criminal charges related to attempts to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.

According to documents released last year by Nessel’s office, five vote tabulators were taken from Roscommon and Missaukee counties in northern Michigan, and Barry County in western Michigan. The tabulators were subsequently broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.

A grand jury was convened in March at the request of a special prosecutor to consider indictments, according to court records. The special prosecutor, D.J. Hilson, wrote in May in a court document that “a charging decision is ready to be made.”

• New York Times, Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

New York Times, Trump Says He’s a Target in Special Counsel’s Investigation Into Jan. 6, Maggie Haberman, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). It would be the second time the special counsel has notified Donald Trump that he is likely to face indictment, this time in connection with the Capitol riot.

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday that he recently received a so-called target letter from the special counsel Jack Smith in connection with the criminal investigation into his efforts to hold onto power after he lost the 2020 election, a sign that he is likely to be indicted in the case.

It would be the second time Mr. Smith has notified Mr. Trump that he is a target in a federal investigation. The first, in June, was in connection to the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of national defense material after he left office and his alleged obstruction of efforts to retrieve it.

“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Mr. Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, after a news inquiry into whether he had been told he is a target.

A person close to Mr. Trump confirmed he had received the letter.

It is not clear what specific aspect of Mr. Smith’s investigation into the efforts to obstruct the transfer of power that Mr. Trump may be indicted in.

Washington Post, Opinion: 2024 won’t be a Trump-Biden replay. You can thank Gen Z for that, Celinda Lake and Mac Heller, July 19, 2023. Every year, 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes.

It’s easy to envision the 2024 presidential election becoming the third straight contest in which a veteran Democrat goes up against Donald Trump. Once again, the Democrat wins the popular vote but swing states are tighter. Could go either way — and has, right?

But things are very different this time, and here’s why: The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.

Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.

Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.

And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic Party strategist, was one of two lead pollsters for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Mac Heller is a documentary film producer, most recently of “Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook.”

Washington Post, Judge seems skeptical of Trump desire to delay documents trial until after 2024 election, Perry Stein and Mark Berman, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents appeared skeptical Tuesday about the former president’s request that it be delayed until after the 2024 election, though she also appeared wary of prosecutors’ request to begin the proceedings this year.

During a hearing in federal court, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, right, did not set any new date for the trial, saying she would consider both sides’ arguments and make a decision on the timing “promptly.”

The hearing marked the first time that lawyers on both sides of the case appeared before Cannon, with federal prosecutors and the former president’s defense attorneys gathering in a courthouse about an hour north of downtown West Palm Beach.

Trump was not in court for the hearing Tuesday afternoon, which had been expected to focus on administrative procedures regarding classified materials and the disagreement between the two sides about when the trial should begin. Federal prosecutors have argued for starting a trial in December, while Trump’s attorneys lobbied for scheduling it after next year’s election, since Trump is running for president again.

Trump says he received a target letter in federal Jan. 6 investigation

The hearing also took place amid a backdrop of churning legal tumult for Trump, who is already facing criminal charges in Manhattan, a civil trial in New York related to fraud allegations and another civil case accusing him of defamation. A district attorney in the Atlanta area is also investigating whether Trump and his allies broke the law in their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state, with charging decisions expected there next month.

And on Tuesday morning, hours before the hearing in Fort Pierce, Trump announced on social media that he had received a letter identifying him as a target of the long-running federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Such a letter does not guarantee that charges will be brought, but it does suggest investigators have gathered enough evidence to link the recipient to a crime.

In his social media post about the target letter, he assailed special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor leading that investigation along with the separate case focusing on Trump’s handling of classified materials.
Special counsel Jack Smith makes a statement in Washington on June 9. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)

Last month, the investigation involving the classified materials led to charges against Trump and a longtime aide, Waltine “Walt” Nauta. The two men were charged in a 38-count indictment that accused the former president of improperly retaining 31 classified documents at his Florida residence and enlisting his aide to help him secretly keep some of the materials despite government efforts to have them returned.

Both Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty during court appearances before magistrate judges in Miami.

Much of the attention going into Tuesday’s hearing was on Cannon, who Trump named to the bench in 2020. She had previously drawn intense scrutiny for intervening last year in the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified materials, agreeing with his request to order an outside review of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, his residence and private club. A federal appeals court panel later overturned her decision.

Trump says he was asked if he wishes to appear before grand jury

While the hearing in Fort Pierce was largely expected to focus on the nuts and bolts of conducting a criminal case based so heavily on classified government materials, an early point of contention between prosecutors and the defense has been over when the trial will begin. A day before the hearing, Cannon directed the two sides to come to court prepared to discuss that topic.

Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination next year, and his attorneys have contended that holding the trial before the election is complete could impact its outcome, along with his ability to get a fair trial.

Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, center, at federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, left, on April 25 in New York City (Associated Press photo by Seth Wineg).

Disclosures in the E. Jean Carroll rape lawsuit echoed Trump's words in "Hollywood Access" videotape, reported upon above, that arose during the 2016 presidential campaign. Shown Then: The front page of a 2016 New York Daily News edition contrasts with Trump's claimed innocence in the Carroll case.

Politico, Trump loses bid for new trial in E. Jean Carroll case, Erica Orden, July 19, 2023. A jury’s verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation should stand, a federal judge ruled.

A federal judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid for a new trial two months after a jury found that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll.

In his motion for a new trial, Trump argued that because the jury found him liable for sexual abuse but not rape, which is what Carroll originally alleged, the jury award of $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse claim was excessive.

He also argued that the jury award of $2.7 million in compensatory damages for the defamation claim should be reduced, largely because he disputed the testimony of an expert witness on which it was based. And Trump said an additional punitive damages award of $228,000 violated his constitutional right to due process.

Carroll, shown in a 1990s file photo, alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. She testified during the trial that he penetrated her with his fingers, but she said she couldn’t be certain that he had inserted his penis because he was pressed up against her in a way that blocked her view.

In a 59-page decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, left, wrote that “the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.”

He said that the former president’s argument “therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury’s verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump.”

“The jury in this case did not reach ‘a seriously erroneous result,’” he wrote. “Its verdict is not ‘a miscarriage of justice.’”

Separate from his motion for a new trial, Trump is also contesting the verdict before a federal appeals court. That appeal remains pending.

Carroll, meanwhile, has a separate defamation lawsuit pending against Trump. The trial over that lawsuit is scheduled for January 2024.

On Wednesday, a lawyer for Carroll, Robbie Kaplan, said, “Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her” at trial. She added that Carroll “also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable” at next year’s trial.

New York Times, Trump Hush Money Case Will Remain in New York State Court, Judge Rules, Jonah E. Bromwich, July 19, 2023. Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump had sought to move the first criminal case against him to federal court, but a judge put an end to the effort.

A judge on Wednesday denied former President Donald J. Trump’s request to move the Manhattan criminal case against him from state to federal court.

The federal judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, had signaled in a hearing last month that he was predisposed against moving the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have charged Mr. Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had argued the case should be heard in federal court because it related to conduct he engaged in while president.

But in the order Judge Hellerstein issued Wednesday, he echoed his contention at the hearing that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had failed to show that the behavior at issue — reimbursements to Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the hush money payment — was somehow related to the office of the presidency.

Judge Hellerstein wrote that the evidence overwhelmingly suggested that the matter involved something personal to the president: “a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”

“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts,” he concluded in the order. “It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”

More On Assaults On Democracy

Washington Post, Analysis: ‘Fake elector’ charges show how Trump’s allies played with fire, Aaron Blake, July 19, 2023. The Michigan indictments reinforce the evidence that at least some of those involved knew this wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up When Michigan Republicans were planning in late 2020 to submit a slate of electors who supported Donald Trump — despite Trump having lost the state by nearly three points — then-state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox thought better of it.

“I was very uncomfortable with that, as per my lawyers’ opinion,” Cox told the congressional Jan. 6 committee last year.

So she said she proposed an alternative: Instead of submitting the electors as if Trump had won, the party would sign a document merely offering the electors as a contingency in case the courts somehow awarded Michigan to Trump.

Those involved did not adopt Cox’s plan. The courts didn’t overturn Michigan’s result. And now the 16 people who signed a document falsely claiming they were duly elected have been indicted.

Michigan on Tuesday became the first state to charge so-called “fake” Trump electors. The 16 electors who signed that document are each charged with eight felonies, including forgery.

Washington Post, Opinion: Michigan indicts alleged plotters in fake elector scheme. Here’s what it means, Jennifer Rubin, right, July 19, 2023. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, in a stunning development, on Tuesday filed eight criminal charges against the 16 Republicans in her state who submitted a phony slate of electors in hopes of flipping the state from Joe Biden to Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The charges include forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery, each carrying a potential penalty of five to 14 years in prison.

Nessel’s charges are the first criminal cases involving the phony elector scheme that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot aimed at stopping the peaceful transfer of power to the 2020 election winner, Biden. The Michigan attorney general did not reach beyond the state to indict Trump or his aides for engineering the scheme. But in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating Trump’s attempts to compel state officials to “find” enough votes to flip the state to his column and then enlist a set of fake electors; she has signaled that she will bring charges in August.

After a magistrate in Ingham County, Mich., signed off on the charges Tuesday, Nessel released a video explaining her action. The 16 defendants and/or their attorneys were then notified and defendants given a week to turn themselves in or face arrest.

Nessel’s move, ahead of possible Jan. 6-related indictments by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, was a bold one, but also reflected considerable restraint. She left Smith plenty of latitude to proceed against Trump, his lawyers and top aides.

In that sense, Nessel struck a balance between prosecuting possible violations of state law and avoiding interfering with a federal investigation. She had previously attempted to refer the Michigan electors’ case to the Justice Department, but in the absence of federal action, she proceeded on her own. Nessel did not coordinate with either Smith or other state attorneys general before filing her case. Her closely guarded move might have taken Smith by surprise.

The allegations detailed in Nessel’s affidavit are compelling: The Republican fake electors met clandestinely at the GOP headquarters, were not allowed to take in their phones and took an oath of secrecy. The Republicans falsely attested that they had met in the legislature and were “duly organized” and that they had proceeded in “the manner provided by law.” That phony slate was then submitted to the U.S. Senate and to the National Archives.

All of this followed a Nov. 20, 2020, meeting at the White House where Trump invited Michigan Republican legislators to discuss overturning the election results. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield issued a statement after the meeting: “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors.” The phony electors had other ideas.

A model prosecution memo recently released by Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. policy on law, rights and security, described how Trump and his cronies organized Republicans in battleground states that Biden had won, including Michigan, “to sign and submit false certificates claiming that they were the authorized to cast votes, on behalf of their respective states, in the Electoral College for Donald Trump.”

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary:The international Plot to attack democratic legislatures, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 23 books and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer and NSA analyst, July 17-18, 2023. Current law enforcement and judicial investigations in the United States, Brazil, Germany, and other countries point to a coordinated effort by far-right political parties and politicians – backed by anti-democratic dictatorships in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and – to a lesser extent, China -- to physically attack legislatures in order to bring about fascist rule. The threat to democratic legislatures has not been this severe since the 1930s, which saw a Nazi-led arson attack on the German Reichstag in Berlin in 1933 and the siege by fascists of the French National Assembly in Paris in 1934.

The analysis being undertaken by WMR will present the links between the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Congress, the January 2, 2022 arson attack on the South African Parliament, and the January 8, 2023 attack on the Brazilian Congress had more in common than occurring during the month of January. These attacks were closely linked to a vast network of fascist movements backed by far-right political operatives within the U.S. Republican Party and similar parties and organizations in North and South America and Europe.

The arson attack on the South African Parliament had similarities to the 1933 Reichstag fire. Although a mentally ill black man, Zandile Christmas Mafe, was charged with the arson and later confessed to the crime, it turned out that he had links to far-right South Africans who supported the parole of Janusz Waluś, the convicted Polish assassin in 1993 of Chris Hani, the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

WMR will also point to far-right attacks on the Macedonian Parliament in 2017 and the South Korean National Assembly in 2019 that may have served as rightist dry runs on future attacks in Washington, Cape Town, and Brasilia. We will also address failed attempts by the far-right to attack legislatures in Germany, Canada, and New Zealand.

Shadowy dark money, the sources for which include Russian oligarchs, anti-democracy and “libertarian” billionaires, and right-wing foundations, has supported groups targeting democratic legislatures that are also known as the “peoples’ houses.”

The international nature of the fascist movement to neuter legislatures centers around the activities of Donald Trump propagandist and accelerationist agitator Steve Bannon and other fascist apparatchiks, including Brazilian Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro’s fingerprints are found on both the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the January 8 insurrection in Brasilia this past January 8th. Acceleration is a term applied to far-right movements that are attempting to bring about fascist rule through civil strife. The accelerationist blueprint includes attacks on legislatures. Accelerationist rhetoric often invokes such historical events as the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the British House of Parliament in London and assassinating King James I, the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, and the February 27, 1933 Nazi-backed arson attack on the Reichstag in Berlin.

The network of far-right anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and other right-wingers responsible for the failed attempt to storm the Reichstag would continue to advocate for the storming of legislatures. In fact, there had already been a successful security breach of a legislature, that of Michigan in Lansing. On May 1, 2020, several armed protesters, some brandishing semi-automatic weapons, occupied the Senate and the House of Representatives. The gun-wielding protesters attempted to intimidate lawmakers who were debating Covid lockdown measures in the state. The protest was led by Michigan United for Liberty, a group that was connected to several other far-right organizations in the United States. Among those who occupied the legislature in Lansing were individuals later arrested and convicted in a plot to kidnap and assassinate Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and seize control of the state government.

There were links between the Reichsbürger coup plotters and the QAnon movement in the United States, the Russian government, anti-vaxx zealots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had stoked up the German far-right, including members of AfD and Generation Identity, in an August 29, 2020 speech at the Victory Column in Berlin. Kennedy Jr.’s speech was just hours prior to the attempted storming of the Reichstag building.  Kennedy, who shamelessly attempted to invoke the spirit of the famed 1963 West Berlin speech of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, said to the delight of the German far-right that “today Berlin is again the front against totalitarianism.” He added that the “surveillance state,” “5G phone networks,” and Covid-19 lockdowns were part of some diabolical international grand conspiracy. Recently, Kennedy claimed that Covid-19 had been genetically-engineered to spare Jews and Chinese, more pabulum for the global far-right conspiracists.

Kennedy’s current vanity campaign to capture the Democratic presidential nomination is not only supported by Bannon and his global network of fascists, including Chinese expat multi-billionaire Guo Wengui, currently in jail in New York awaiting trial on federal fraud charges, but also wealthy high-tech figures like Twitter and PayPal investor David Sacks, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. Sacks, like far-rightist Twitter owner Elon Musk, is a native of apartheid-era South Africa.

Those who fear the world stands on the same precipice of a worldwide fascist takeover have a reason for such concern. Not since the 1930s has there been a coordinated attempt by fascists to attack the instruments of democracy. Their first target has always been the chief symbol of democracy, legislatures elected by popular suffrage.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Democracy under siege: the coordinated attacks on the national legislatures of the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, Wayne Madsen, left, July 18, 2023. Under siege: the coordinated attacks on the national legislatures of the U.S., Canada, and Brazil -- Second in our Series of Democracy Under Attack.

The international support expressed for the various sieges of national legislatures was predictable. Russian state media was quick to point to the weakness of American democracy demonstrated by the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Of course, if the tables had been turned and it was the Russian State Duma that was under siege, Russian security would have dealt a deadly blow to the protesters. And as evidence of the double dealing of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, he condemned the decision by Twitter to suspend Donald Trump’s account in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, citing the danger of government censorship but failing to state that Trump’s suspension was the decision of a private company and not a government agency.

The support for the January 6th insurrection by non-state actors like Olavo de Carvalho, the Virginia-based far-right political guru of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro; far-right Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhironovsky, a booster of Vladimir Putin; and New York-based billionaire Chinese expat Guo Wengui pointed to the foreign support for the insurrectionist. Guo’s financial support for Trump’s far-right ideologist Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast added fuel to the fire, particularly after Bannon, on January 5, 2021, told his followers that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

The presence of Brazilian Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro in Washington on January 6 was all the more suspicious given the fact that his father, the Brazilian president, had voiced support for the Capitol siege because, as he stated, there were “a lot of fraud reports about the U.S. election.” Jair Bolsonaro would cite similar fraud in the Brazilian election that saw him lose to leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the October 30, 2022 election.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The world must coordinate a defense to attacks against representative democracy, Wayne Madsen, left, July 19, 2023. Part 3 in our series.

In our previous two articles, we reported on the coordinated attacks on national legislatures by far-right forces that were encouraged by an unholy alliance of fascist-rule nations like Russia; “libertarian” high-tech billionaires, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk; and white nationalist, Nazi, and like-minded political groups in the United States, Germany, Canada, Brazil, and other nations.

The attacks on the legislatures of Germany, the United States, Canada, and Brazil were preceded by a few less-known assaults by far-right forces on the legislatures of Macedonia and South Korea.

It is clear that the far right has a particular disdain for representative democratic institutions. The present collection of Nazi and fascist malcontents and chaos agents, all aided and abetted by troll farms in Russia, follow in a long line of similar pathetic dregs of society who helped enable the fascist dictatorships of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Falangist Spain, and other tinpot regimes around the world. A common thread that runs through all the far-right assaults on parliamentary government is the lack of initial action or response from law enforcement. Police agencies, many of which are rife with far-right officers and other personnel, are in dire need of vetting and purging. The same applies to the military, particularly in the United States, Brazil, and Germany.

Palmer Report, Analysis: So who else is getting indicted for January 6th alongside Donald Trump? Bill Palmer, July 19, 2023. Donald Trump has now revealed that on Sunday, he received a target letter from Jack Smith regarding January 6th. It’s possible that other people also simultaneously received target letters, but if that’s the case, none of them have gone public with it yet. Given how quick Republicans are to whine about these things and play the victim, you’d think anyone else who received a target letter over the weekend would have announced as much by now.

So does this mean Trump is the only one getting indicted? Probably not. Over the past few months various major media outlets have reported that people like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, and numerous others were all being examined by Jack Smith’s grand jury.

It’s not realistic to expect that Jack Smith has concluded that there’s enough evidence to indict Donald Trump but none of his alleged co-conspirators. Nor is it realistic to think that they’ve all flipped on Trump. So at least some other people – probably a lot of other people – are probably also getting indicted by Jack Smith for January 6th. But it may not happen all at once.

 New York Times, Target Letter to Trump Raises Possibility of Obstruction and Fraud Charges, Charlie Savage, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). A person briefed on the matter said the letter cited three statutes that could be applied in a prosecution of former President Trump.

In the two and a half years since a mob laid siege to the Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, a wealth of evidence has emerged about Donald J. Trump’s bid to stay in power after the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump and his allies peddled spurious claims of voter fraud, pressured officials in states he narrowly lost and recruited false slates of electors in those states. He urged Vice President Mike Pence to delay certification of Mr. Biden’s win. And he called on a huge crowd of his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell.”

Now, Mr. Trump appears almost certain to face criminal charges for some of his efforts to remain in office. On Tuesday, he disclosed on social media that federal prosecutors had sent him a so-called target letter, suggesting that he could soon be indicted in the investigation into the events that culminated in the riot.

Mr. Trump did not say what criminal charges, if any, the special counsel, Jack Smith, had specified in issuing the letter.

New York Times, Republicans Shrug at Latest Possible Trump Indictment, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, July 19, 2023. News of a case related to Jan. 6 brought a muddled response from some of Donald Trump’s 2024 rivals, and familiar attacks on President Biden.

The indictments of Donald J. Trump — past and pending — are becoming the background music of the 2024 presidential campaign: always there, shaping the mood, yet not fully the focus.

Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has become so flattened that Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday that he was facing a possible third indictment this year, this time over his involvement in the events that led to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, drew shrugs from some quarters of his party and a muddled response from his rivals.

At one Republican congressional fund-raising lunch on Tuesday in Washington, the news of a likely third Trump indictment went entirely unmentioned, an attendee said. Some opposing campaigns’ strategists all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s allies quickly resumed their now-customary defensive positions.

Two and half years ago, the deadly riot that left the nation’s seat of government defiled had threatened to forever tarnish Mr. Trump’s political legacy. His supporters had stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of his defeat, stoked by their leader who had urged them to “fight like hell.” Even long-loyal Republicans broke with him as shattered glass littered the Capitol complex.

July 18

Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper, shown in a file photo at right with then-President Trump, has published a harsh assessment of Trump's willingness to break law and other norms to retain power and punish his perceived opponents.

New York Times, Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, July 18, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

July 14

Washington Post, Arizona escalates probe into alleged efforts to swing 2020 election for Trump, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, July 14, 2023 (print ed.). Arizona’s top prosecutor is ramping up a criminal investigation into alleged attempts by Republicans to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state by signing and transmitting paperwork falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

This is one of several investigations into attempts to overturn the election results. There is a federal criminal probe being led by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to examine the sprawling efforts in several states intended to reverse Trump’s loss.

Smith’s team has interviewed and subpoenaed about a dozen Arizonans. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has spent more than two years investigating efforts by Trump and others to overturn his narrow loss in the state, and she is expected to announce a charging decision this summer.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.

It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.

 Insurrectionist and former police chief Alan Hostetter (Orange County Register photo by Paul Bersebach via Associated Press).

Washington Post, Former police chief convicted of felonies after defending himself with false Jan. 6 claims, Rachel Weiner and Spencer S. Hsu, July 14, 2023 (print ed.). Defendant aired conspiracy theories about the election, the police and the Justice Department in court.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Alan Hostetter and Russell Taylor were shoulder to shoulder in the battle they had predicted would come if the 2020 presidential election results unseating President Donald Trump were not discarded.

Under a photograph of the men taken during the riot and posted on Instagram, Hostetter wrote: “We are just getting started.” Hostetter had driven to D.C. while Taylor flew, so they could carry weapons with them to the Capitol, including bear spray, hatchets, knives and stun batons.

But last week, the two squared off in a federal courtroom, with Taylor admitting from the witness box that what they had cast as a patriotic cause was a criminal conspiracy to keep Congress from doing its work. Hostetter, acting as his own attorney, was accusing his former friend of taking part in a much broader conspiracy orchestrated by the federal government.

A police chief turned yoga instructor who helped organize a “brigade” of Californians on Jan. 6, Hostetter was convicted Thursday of four felonies — conspiring to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding, and trespassing and engaging in disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.

“No reasonable citizen of this country, much less one with two decades of experience in law enforcement, could have believed it was lawful to use mob violence to impede a joint session of Congress,” U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in court. “Belief that your actions are for a greater good doesn’t negate consciousness of wrongdoing.”

Hostetter is one of several Jan. 6 defendants to represent himself, using the public platform to insist without evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that the Capitol riot was a distraction instigated by federal agents. Both false claims have been amplified by Trump himself in recent months. Experts say the convictions of Hostetter and other rioters are probably deterring political violence even as most Republicans continue to support Trump and his falsehoods related to the justice system.

Lamberth interrupted Hostetter’s closing argument to say he had watched video of a hearing in Pennsylvania in late 2020 at which Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani failed to present any evidence of election fraud. “I was so dumbfounded that the lawyer representing the president would make such a poor presentation,” Lamberth said, adding he was also “dumbfounded because I had known” Giuliani “in my previous life.” Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, was an assistant U.S. attorney when Giuliani was in Justice Department leadership.

“Citizens can make up their minds on politics or other bases,” he said. “Courts have got to have evidence.”

Washington Post, Man sentenced to 7 years in Jan. 6 assaults that forced an officer to retire, Tom Jackman, July 14, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors sought a 15-year term for Kyle Fitzsimons, shown above, whose attack on one officer forced him into medical retirement.

The bloodied face of Kyle Fitzsimons, a butcher from Maine who repeatedly attacked police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, became one of the more memorable images of the insurrection. A federal judge supplied the last line of the caption for that image Thursday, ordering Fitzsimons to spend more than seven years in prison.

Fitzsimons, 39, wearing a butcher’s coat with “Kyle” embroidered on the chest and wielding an unstrung archery bow, twice charged into the phalanx of officers protecting the upper West Terrace tunnel on the afternoon of Jan. 6, at one point grabbing the shield strap and wrenching the shoulder of Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell. The officer testified that the pain was so bad he considered using his gun to shoot Fitzsimons before he was freed. He suffered a partially torn rotator cuff and labrum, and was forced to take a medical retirement.

Video also captured Fitzsimons hurling his bow like a spear into the crowd of officers, striking one in the head, and also being involved in a tussle with D.C. Police Sgt. Phuson Nguyen, during which the officer’s gas mask was dislodged and another rioter then poured chemical spray into Nguyen’s face before the mask snapped shut. Nguyen testified that he got knocked down at the same time, and “I thought that was it for me. I thought that’s where I’m going to die.”

Officers recall battling thundering mob in Jan. 6 trial of Maine man

Pushed back from the tunnel, Fitzsimons can be seen on video gathering himself, and then simply running back into the police lines again, fists flailing. During these attacks, Fitzsimons was hit from behind by a crutch being swung by another rioter, surveillance video showed, opening up the bloody head wound which later required staples to close. Fitzsimons’s trial attorney, Natasha Taylor-Smith, said the gory photo made Fitzsimons “the poster boy for Jan. 6.”

Gonell attended the sentencing hearing, and told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the terror he experienced that day facing a relentless mob, and the shoulder injury which still bothers him. Then he pulled out a badge and showed it to the judge. “Kyle Fitzsimons is the reason I have this retirement badge,” Gonell said. “I did not want this. I wanted to earn it. I had seven years left to retirement, and he robbed that from me.” Gonell said he is still fighting with the government over a $21,000 bill for his shoulder surgery.

Prosecutors argued that the injury to Gonell merited an increase in his possible sentence, and also asked Contreras to add more time because Fitzsimons’s actions in obstructing a congressional proceeding amounted to a terrorist act. The government requested a sentence of more than 15 years, noting that rioter Peter Schwartz recently received a 14-year term.

But Contreras rejected the government’s proposed sentencing enhancements, and set the guideline range at roughly 10 to 12½ years in prison. Then the judge said he felt the advisory sentencing guidelines “possibly overstate the seriousness of the offense,” and that other defendants who had assaulted police had received sentences of less than 10 years.

As of early June, Contreras had handled 19 Jan. 6-related sentencings and gone below the government’s recommendation in every one, according to a Washington Post database.

Before Jan. 6, Fitzsimons openly disputed the results of the 2020 election and in December 2020, he posted a request on the “Lebanon Maine Truth Seekers” Facebook page trying to organize a caravan to D.C. on Jan. 6, the page’s administrator said. He got no takers.

July 13

Politico, Justice Department appeals Jan. 6 prison sentences for Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, July 13, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors are dissatisfied with the severity of the sentences handed down by the federal judge overseeing the case.

The Justice Department on Wednesday appealed the sentences handed down to seven members of the Oath Keepers — including founder Stewart Rhodes — for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a signal that prosecutors are not satisfied with the severity of the jail terms delivered by the federal judge overseeing the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison — the harshest sentence for any Jan. 6 defendant — reflecting his leadership of what Mehta, left, characterized as a dangerous criminal conspiracy aimed at violently derailing the transfer of presidential power.

Nevertheless, the sentence for the Yale Law School graduate and disbarred attorney was seven years shorter than the 25-year prison term prosecutors recommended and four years below an agreed-upon “guidelines range” based upon Rhodes’ conduct.

In a series of filings, prosecutors also signaled they were appealing the sentences — all delivered by Mehta, an appointee of President Barack Obama — of several other defendants convicted for their own role in Rhodes’ alleged conspiracy.

Many of Rhodes’ coconspirators faced sentences that similarly fell below the guidelines ranges for their conduct — in some cases by several orders of magnitude. Among those who, like Rhodes, were convicted of seditious conspiracy:

• Florida Oath Keeper leader Kelly Meggs received a 12-year term; DOJ sought 21 years.
• Roberto Minuta of New York was sentenced to 4.5 years; DOJ sought 17 years.
• Joseph Hackett of Florida received a 3.5-year sentence; DOJ sought 12 years.
• Ed Vallejo of Arizona received a 3-year sentence; DOJ sought 17 years.
• David Moerschel of Florida was sentenced to three years: DOJ sought 10 years.

DOJ also appealed the conviction of two Oath Keepers acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of conspiring to obstruct Congress:

Jessica Watkins of Ohio, who was sentenced to 8.5 years in jail; DOJ sought 18 years.
Kenneth Harrelson of Florida, who was sentenced to 4 years; DOJ sought 15.

The sentences reflected the fact that Mehta viewed Rhodes as the key driver of the conspiracies. During sentencing hearings, several of the defendants similarly pointed to Rhodes, claiming they were manipulated and ginned up by him to participate in the attack on the Capitol.

Dozens of Oath Keepers, many of whom were performing security details for speakers at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, would later join the mob and lead one of the early surges into the building. Once inside, the group split up, with half heading toward the Senate and the other half toward the House. Three Oath Keepers who joined them pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and cooperated with prosecutors.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. The court filings are bare-bones, noting the government’s objection to the sentences but not providing a rationale, which is likely to come in formal briefs filed in the coming months.

The government’s appeals will go to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, located just blocks from the Capitol and in the same federal courthouse where the trials were held. They’re likely to be considered in tandem with appeals filed by the same defendants challenging both their convictions and their sentences.

New York Times, House Republicans Criticize F.B.I. Director During a Contentious Hearing, Adam Goldman and Glenn Thrush, July 13, 2023 (print ed.). Stoked by former President Trump, congressional Republicans have been trying to undermine the F.B.I.’s legitimacy with the public.

Republicans bombarded Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, on Wednesday with criticisms about his role in investigating former President Donald J. Trump, efforts to address extremist violence and the bureau’s electronic surveillance practices during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Committee Republicans, led by the chairman, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, treated Mr. Wray as if he were a hostile witness — repeatedly interrupting his attempts to answer their rapid-fire queries with shouted rebuttals. Most sought to portray the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, and Mr. Wray, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, as a political tool of the Democrats.

Time and again, Mr. Wray, a registered Republican, rejected accusations that he had sought to shield President Biden or his son, Hunter Biden, or that he had targeted Mr. Trump. The F.B.I.’s search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate last August as agents sought to recover sensitive documents from his time in office, Mr. Wray added, was lawful, restrained and prompted by a court order.

“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Mr. Wray said, responding to Representative Harriet M. Hageman, a Wyoming Republican who unseated Liz Cheney last year, as she claimed that he had perpetuated a “two-tiered” system of justice. In earlier questioning, he flatly denied that the bureau was being weaponized.
“The F.B.I. does not and has no interest in protecting anyone politically,” he said when another committee Republican asked if he was “protecting” the Bidens.

The five-hour session produced little in the way of new information. Mr. Wray, who has adopted a cautious approach in previous congressional testimony, repeatedly refused to answer questions about open investigations but at times was visibly annoyed. Still, the hearing highlighted a political reorientation of sorts for Republicans. In decades past, they defended the bureau as a bulwark of law and order, but are now seeking to erode public confidence in the agency’s impartiality, stoked by Mr. Trump’s anger and mistakes the F.B.I. made while investigating him.

U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Poof! How Jack Smith Made 800,000 Pages into 4,500, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), July 13, 2023. Amid the argument that DOJ has already packaged up almost all of the unclassified evidence needed to defend the stolen document case, DOJ has hinted there might be another grand jury.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Jay Bratt to Chris Kise: You Already Made that Frivolous Presidential Records Act Argument, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), July 13, 2023.
In a filing rebutting Trump's claim to need an indefinite delay of his trial, Jay Bratt reminded Chris Kise that he already made the frivolous Presidential Records Act argument he claims he needs more time to make.

Ilene Proctor International Public Relations, Commentary: Donald Trump: A Life Spent Failing Upwards, Ilene Proctor, right, July 13, 2023. Or, How Americans learned to Live and Love/Hate Trump’s Suck-cesspool Policies.

How does this bloviating whale of a male always seem to fail upwards?

Trump has an amazing capacity for not only evading responsibility but then surviving and triumphing. Despite decades of various crimes, how does he not succumb to the mountain-high criminal indictments, arrests, and investigations that would mess with any mere mortal but ironically only makes Trump more popular among his followers?

Perhaps it is his mind over anything that matters that shelters the man from what should be the inevitable payoff for all his crimes. The power of his narcissism and sociopathy only strengthens him. His charisma intoxicates his cult and elected enablers to maintain the lie that it's all just political mumbo jumbo toward the Republicans' leading presidential candidate and likely nominee. Helping not hurting his resolve to win the presidency again is his belief that the GOP-led legislatures will continue to pass laws undermining voting rights, giving impetus to a proven loser that he doesn't have to actually win to regain power.

Trump’s a gifted grifter that plays a kind of a crypto spiritualism scheme. He figured out in 2016 that he could mish mash his political doomsday kibble of sex/marriage/white/male/Christian theocracy, guns, Obama/racial animus, hysteria, paranoia, and COVID fears that his grass route supporters need mixed with some well-chosen hate groups that would meld together and respond with resound every time he took to his political pulpit, where he would proclaim that all protesters were orchestrated by RINOS and liberal devils to destroy him.

July 12

New York Times, Trump Lawyers Seek Indefinite Postponement of Documents Trial, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, July 12, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s legal team argued in a court filing that no trial date should be set until all “substantive motions” in the case were resolved, setting up an early key decision by Judge Aileen M. Cannon.

judge on Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided.

The written filing — submitted 30 minutes before its deadline of midnight on Tuesday — presents a significant early test for Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who is overseeing the case. If granted, it could have the effect of pushing Mr. Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign in which he is now the Republican front-runner or even past the 2024 election.

While timing is important in any criminal matter, it could be hugely consequential in Mr. Trump’s case, in which he stands accused of illegally holding on to 31 classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.

There could be complications of a sort never before presented to a court if Mr. Trump is a candidate in the last legs of a presidential campaign and a federal criminal defendant on trial at the same time. If the trial is pushed back until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter entirely.

Some of the former president’s advisers have been blunt in private conversations that he is looking to winning the election as a solution to his legal problems. And the request for an open-ended delay to the trial of Mr. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, a personal aide, presents a high-stakes question for Judge Cannon, who came into the case already under scrutiny for making decisions favorable to the former president in the early phases of the investigation.

Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won a jury verdict that he sexually attacked her three decades ago.

New York Times, Presidency Doesn’t Shield Trump From Carroll’s Suit, Benjamin Weiser, Justice Dept. Says, July 12, 2023 (print ed.). In a reversal, the department said it could no longer argue that Donald Trump was acting in his official capacity when he insulted E. Jean Carroll.

The Justice Department said Tuesday that it would no longer argue that President Donald J. Trump’s derogatory statements about E. Jean Carroll in 2019 were made as part of his official duties as president — a reversal that gives new momentum to her case.

Ms. Carroll, 79, who won $5 million in damages in a trial accusing Mr. Trump of sexual abuse in the 1990s and defamation after he left the White House in January 2021, now is trying to push forward a separate lawsuit over comments that he made while president. That case has been mired in appeals. If a judge ultimately finds that those earlier comments were part of Mr. Trump’s official duties, that case would most likely be dismissed.

The Justice Department had taken the position, first during the Trump administration and later under President Biden, that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity when he called Ms. Carroll a liar and denied her accusation that he had raped her nearly 30 years ago in a Manhattan department store dressing room.

But the department said in a court filing Tuesday that new evidence had surfaced since Mr. Trump, 77, left office — including in the recent civil trial in which a Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll decades ago.

 July 11

Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Grand jurors who will consider Trump charges to be selected Tuesday, Bill Rankin and Jeremy Redmon, July 11, 2023 (print ed.). The selection of two Fulton County grand juries will be made Tuesday, with one of the panels expected to decide whether to hand up an indictment for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election.

One set of jurors is likely to be asked to bring formal charges against former President Donald Trump and other well-known political and legal figures. In a letter to county officials almost two months ago, District Attorney Fani Willis indicated the indictment could be obtained at some point between July 31 and Aug. 18.

The selection of two Fulton County grand juries will be made Tuesday, with one of the panels expected to decide whether to hand up an indictment for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election.

One set of jurors is likely to be asked to bring formal charges against former President Donald Trump and other well-known political and legal figures. In a letter to county officials almost two months ago, District Attorney Fani Willis indicated the indictment could be obtained at some point between July 31 and Aug. 18.

Willis began her investigation shortly after hearing the leaked Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to defeat Joe Biden in Georgia. She later convened a special purpose grand jury which examined evidence and heard testimony over an almost eight-month period. Its final report, only part of which has been made public, recommended multiple people be indicted for alleged crimes.

Ray and Robyn Epps in an undisclosed location last year (New York Times photo by Alan Feuer).

New York Times, The Case That Could Be Fox’s Next Dominion, Jeremy W. Peters and Alan Feuer, July 11, 2023 (print ed.). Tucker Carlson repeatedly endorsed a conspiracy theory about an Arizona man, who may sue Fox News for defamation. Legal experts say it would be a viable case.

Robyn Epps, on the left, is wearing a coral-colored T-shirt with a flower in the middle. Ray Epps is wearing a white shirt. Behind them is a mobile home.

Of all the distortions and paranoia that Tucker Carlson promoted on his since-canceled Fox News program, one looms large: a conspiracy theory that an Arizona man working as a covert government agent incited the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to sabotage and discredit former President Donald J. Trump and his political movement.

What’s known about the man — a two-time Trump voter named Ray Epps — is that he took part in demonstrations in Washington that day and the night before. He was captured on camera urging a crowd to march with him and enter the Capitol. But at other points, he pleads for calm once it becomes clear the situation is turning violent. He can be seen moving past a line of Capitol Police at the barricades, but never actually goes inside the Capitol.

Federal prosecutors have not charged Mr. Epps with a crime, focusing instead on the more than 1,000 other demonstrators who acted violently or were trespassing in the Capitol. The Justice Department’s sprawling investigation into the attack remains open, however, and Mr. Epps could still be indicted.

Yet for more than 18 months, Mr. Carlson insisted that the lack of charges against Mr. Epps could mean only one thing: that he was being protected because he was a secret government agent. There was “no rational explanation,” Mr. Carlson told his audience, why this “mysterious figure” who “helped stage-manage the insurrection” had not been charged.

He repeated Mr. Epps’s name over and over — in nearly 20 episodes — imprinting it on the minds of his viewers.

Mr. Epps was in the Marine Corps but said in his deposition before the Jan. 6 committee that he had otherwise never worked on behalf of any government agency. He and his wife, Robyn, have fled Arizona and are in hiding in another state, having sold their wedding venue business and ranch after receiving death threats from people who appeared to believe the conspiracy theory. And his legal jeopardy is far from over given that prosecutors are still unsealing new cases in connection with Jan. 6.

Now lawyers representing Mr. Epps and his wife are proceeding with plans to sue Fox News for defamation. “We informed Fox in March that if they did not issue a formal on-air apology that we would pursue all available avenues to protect the Eppses’ rights,” said Michael Teter, a lawyer for Mr. Epps who sent the network a cease-and-desist letter asking for an on-air apology and a retraction. After Mr. Teter did not hear from Fox about his request, he began to prepare the suit. “That remains our intent.”

Mr. Epps declined to comment on his potential suit. A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Carlson also declined to comment. But he continues to push the false notion that the Jan. 6 attack was staged by anti-Trump elements inside the government. On a podcast last week, Mr. Carlson claimed that the riot “was not an insurrection” and that the crowd that day was “filled with federal agents.”

July 4

Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani leads a news conference at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC on Nov. 19, 2020. At left above is attorney Sidney Powell and above right is Jenna Ellis, whom the Trump White House announced earlier as among its lawyers.

Palmer Report, Opinion: It’s a bad day to be Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, or John Eastman, Bill Palmer, right, July 4, 2023. DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith has already criminally indicted Donald Trump and his co-conspirator Walt Nauta in the Espionage Act probe. Smith is also investigating Trump for his 2020 election crimes, and that probe is expected to cast a much wider net. We’re now starting to see just how wide.

Over the past week various tidbits in the media have suggested that Jack Smith is closing in on the attorneys who helped Trump pretend the 2020 election was stolen. This culminated in the news that Smith had done a proffer interview with Rudy Giuliani, one of the attorneys who fraudulently led that charge.

Now the Wall Street Journal says that Jack Smith’s team spent that interview asking Rudy Giuliani not only about Trump, but also about the other attorneys. That list includes Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, and John Eastman. Some of the names on this list are exactly who we’d have expected.

It now very much appears that most or all of these attorneys will end up criminally indicted for their roles in Trump’s 2020 election plot. It would also be a good guess that one or more ends up flipping on the others. Everyone knows how this works. The first to flip gets the most lenient deal, sometimes even immunity. At that point everyone else is screwed and pretty much has to flip as well, but their testimony is less useful, so they get less leniency. Given that Giuliani is already in there doing a proffer session – a prelude to a cooperating plea deal – the others will at least have to strongly consider trying to hurry up and cut a deal first.

In any case we now have confirmation of a number of Jack Smith’s targets. Of course this only represents one aspect of his investigation. Other reports have pointed to Smith investigating the fake electors for their roles in the 2020 plot, and of course Donald Trump himself. At this point we’re just waiting for plea deals to be announced and/or indictments to happen.

June

June 29 

New York Times, Court Throws Out New York’s Civil Case Against Ivanka Trump, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, June 29, 2023 (print ed.). The decision could mean that claims against Donald J. Trump and his company might also be limited.

A New York appeals court on Tuesday dismissed the New York attorney general’s civil case against Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and potentially limited the case against the former president and his family business, which is set to go to trial in October.

Last year, the attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his company and three of his adult children, including Ms. Trump, left, accusing them of fraudulently overvaluing the former president’s assets by billions of dollars to receive favorable loans.

On Tuesday, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan said in a unanimous ruling that Ms. James’s claims against Ms. Trump should be dismissed because the attorney general missed a deadline for filing the case against her. Ms. Trump was no longer a part of the Trump Organization after 2016, the ruling noted.

The appeals court effectively left it to the State Supreme Court judge presiding over the case to determine whether the claims against the other defendants — including Mr. Trump, his company and his two adult sons — should be limited.

Ms. James’s case rests on the company’s annual financial statements, which she says contained inflated numbers. The company continued to use those statements until at least 2021, she said. And Mr. Trump’s name was on the documents, even after he ascended to the White House.

In January, the State Supreme Court judge, Arthur F. Engoron, denied Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, saying that some arguments that the former president’s lawyers made were “borderline frivolous.” But Mr. Trump appealed, resulting in the decision on Tuesday.

Based on the appeals court’s ruling, it’s possible that Justice Engoron may have to limit claims related to two of the bigger transactions cited in the complaint: a hotel deal in Chicago and the purchase of a golf resort in Florida.

The ruling represented a rare legal victory that could strengthen Mr. Trump’s hand heading into the civil trial scheduled for Oct. 2 — and as he seeks the presidency again. Mr. Trump and his family business had endured a punishing series of losses in civil and criminal cases, and the appeals court’s decision might embolden him in any potential settlement talks.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, said in a statement that the decision represented “the first step toward ending a case that should have never been filed.”

“The correct application of the law will now limit appropriately the previously unlimited reach of the attorney general,” he said. “We remain confident that once all the real facts are known, there will be no doubt President Trump has built an extraordinarily successful business empire.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. James, Delaney Kempner, said that the office had sued Mr. Trump and his company “after uncovering extensive financial fraud that continues to this day.”

“There is a mountain of evidence that shows Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for significant economic gain,” she said. “Those facts haven’t changed.”

Ms. James’s lawsuit was filed last year on Sept. 21 against Mr. Trump, his business, Ms. Trump and his two adult sons.

It accuses the former president of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of his assets, and says that he violated state criminal laws and, “plausibly,” federal laws. The case lays out detailed accusations of how Mr. Trump’s annual financial statements overstated the worth of nearly all of his best-known properties — from Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street in Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago in Florida — to get better terms from the lenders and insurers.

The suit seeks $250 million that the attorney general contends the Trumps made through deception, and asks a judge to essentially bar the former president from doing business in New York if he is found liable at trial. Justice Engoron has already appointed a monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s business transactions.

Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in an interview last year, he answered Ms. James’s questions in a deposition in April.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers could argue at trial that the financial statements included disclaimers, and that the values were unaudited estimates. They could also argue that setting property values is subjective, more of an art than a science, and that the lenders and insurers were hardly victims.

“The transactions at the center of this case were wildly profitable for the banks and for the Trump entities,” Mr. Kise said in a statement issued after his deposition in April. Mr. Kise contended that once the facts were revealed, “everyone will scoff at the notion any fraud took place.”

June 28

Washington Post, It’s not just Mar-a-Lago: Trump charges highlight his New Jersey life at Bedminster, Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey and Spencer S. Hsu, June 28, 2023 (print ed.). Two of the most vivid scenes in the former president’s indictment take place at his Bedminster golf club, which has not been searched by the FBI.

The 49-page indictment against Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice is largely focused on how boxes of sensitive documents ended up crammed into the nooks, crannies and even a chandelier-adorned bathroom of Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

But two of the indictment’s most vivid scenes took place about 1,200 miles to the north.

Prosecutors accuse Trump of showing off classified documents to employees and others not authorized to see them — not once, but twice at his sprawling golf club on the rural plains of New Jersey.

According to the indictment, Trump bragged in July 2021 about a sensitive military plan with two of his staffers, as well as the writer and publisher of a forthcoming book, The Chief's Chief, from his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, during a session at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

In an audio recording of the session near the club’s pool, Trump can be heard acknowledging the secrecy of the documents to the group — who included communications staffers Liz Harrington and Margo Martin, according to people familiar with the matter, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the criminal case.

“See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t,” Trump tells the group on the recording, which was obtained this week by The Washington Post. “Isn’t that interesting? It’s so cool.”

Washington Post, Judge suggests he’s unlikely to move Trump’s New York criminal case to federal court, Shayna Jacobs, June 28, 2023 (print ed.). A federal judge suggested Tuesday he is likely to rule against Donald Trump’s effort to have the criminal case accusing him of falsifying business records moved from state court to federal court.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein did not rule on the matter but offered what he called his present takeaways at the end of a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, acknowledging conclusions that work against Trump.

Trump’s lawyers have sought to have the case involving $130,000 paid to an adult film actress in 2016 moved to federal court because they say the payment was related to his duties as president and because it involves federal legal questions. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office says the case belongs in state court and a personal issue that mostly preceded Trump becoming president in 2017.

Hellerstein said Tuesday it was clear to him that Trump’s record-keeping in connection with a $130,000 payment made on his behalf in 2016 was a personal matter, not one having to do with his presidency.

Longtime Trump adviser and lawyer Michael Cohen, who is now a key witness against him in the district attorney’s case, was acting as a representative of Trump privately when he arranged to pay Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual affair with Trump years earlier, the judge said.

Hellerstein also noted that the state court is equipped to handle the matter.

“There is no reason to believe that an equal measure of justice couldn’t be rendered by the state court,” he said.

The judge said to expect his official ruling in about two weeks.

 Trump was indicted in New York Supreme Court in late March on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the payment to Daniels. Prosecutors said Trump purposely concealed the nature of reimbursement payments to Cohen by claiming they were routine legal fees.

Raw Story, Ex-staffer describes Trump fantasizing about sex with Ivanka, Adam Nichols, June 28, 2023. Ex-staffer describes Trump fantasizing about sex with Ivanka (shown together in a 1990s file photo).

Former President Donald Trump made sexual comments about his daughter Ivanka that were so lewd he was rebuked by his Chief of Staff, former Trump official Miles Taylor writes in a new book.

The comments are used by Taylor, right, to highlight almost daily instances of sexism in the Trump White House that were so bad one senior female official told the writer, “This is not a healthy workplace for women.”

"Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump's breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led (former Chief of Staff) John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter," Taylor writes.

"Afterward, Kelly retold that story to me in visible disgust. Trump, he said, was 'a very, very evil man.'"
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The details contained in the upcoming new book, “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump,” were outlined in an exclusive interview with Newsweek Wednesday.

Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security who admitted to anonymously writing a 2018 op-ed in the New York Times titled “"I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” said, "There still are quite a few female leaders from the Trump administration who have held their tongues about the unequal treatment they faced in the administration at best, and the absolute naked sexism they experienced with the hands of Donald Trump at worst."

He said “undisguised sexism” was aimed at everybody from lowly staff members to cabinet secretaries.

He remembered Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s former secretary of homeland security, being called “sweetie” and “honey” and having her makeup critiqued by the president.

Taylor said, at one point, Nielsen whispered to him, "Trust me, this is not a healthy workplace for women.”

And Taylor said senior counselor Kellyanne Conway called Trump a “misogynistic bully," a comment that she denied making when contacted by Newsweek.

"He's a pervert, he's difficult to deal with," Taylor told Newsweek. "This is still the same man and, incredibly, we're considering electing him to the presidency again."

He added, “He's setting a very vile tone within the Republican Party, and in a sense has normalized pretty derisive views towards women in general.”

Trump was found liable of sexual abuse in a recent civil trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.

New York Times, Can DeSantis Break Trump’s Hold on New Hampshire? Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher, June 28, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump is looking to the state as an early chance to clear a crowded field, while Ron DeSantis’s camp is banking on winnowing the Republican race to two.

Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are set to hold dueling events on Tuesday in New Hampshire, but from vastly different political positions: one as the dominant front-runner in the state, the other still seeking his footing.

Strategists for both campaigns agree that the state will play a starring role in deciding who leads the Republican Party into the 2024 election against President Biden.

Mr. Trump sees the first primary contest in New Hampshire as an early chance to clear the crowded field of rivals. And members of Team DeSantis — some of whom watched from losing sidelines, as Mr. Trump romped through the Granite State in 2016 on his way to the nomination — hope New Hampshire will be the primary that winnows the Republican field to two.

“Iowa’s cornfields used to be where campaigns were killed off, and now New Hampshire is where campaigns go to die,” said Jeff Roe, who runs Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down. Mr. Roe retains agonizing memories from 2016, when he ran the presidential campaign of the last man standing against Mr. Trump: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

June 27

New York Times, Audio Undercuts Trump’s Assertion He Did Not Have Classified Document, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). A recording of a meeting in 2021 in which former President Trump described a sensitive document in front of him appears to contradict his defense.

An audio recording of former President Donald J. Trump in 2021 discussing what he called a “highly confidential” document about Iran that he acknowledged he could not declassify because he was out of office appears to contradict his recent assertion that the material he was referring to was simply news clippings.

Portions of a transcript of the two-minute recording of Mr. Trump were cited by federal prosecutors in the indictment of Mr. Trump on charges that he had put national security secrets at risk by mishandling classified documents after leaving office and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

The recording captured his conversation in July 2021 with a publisher and writer working on a memoir by Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows. In it, Mr. Trump discussed what he described as a “secret” plan regarding Iran drawn up by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Defense Department. Mr. Trump was citing the document in rebutting an account that General Milley feared having to keep him from manufacturing a crisis with Iran in the period after Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid in late 2020.

The audio, which is likely to feature as evidence in Mr. Trump’s trial in the documents case, was played for the first time in public on Monday by CNN and was also obtained by The New York Times.

New York Times, Court Throws Out New York’s Civil Case Against Ivanka Trump, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, June 27, 2023. The decision could mean that claims against Donald J. Trump and his company might also be limited.

A New York appeals court on Tuesday dismissed the New York attorney general’s civil case against Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and potentially limited the case against the former president and his family business, which is set to go to trial in October.

Last year, the attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his company and three of his adult children, including Ms. Trump, accusing them of fraudulently overvaluing the former president’s assets by billions of dollars to receive favorable loans.

On Tuesday, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan said in a unanimous ruling that Ms. James’s claims against Ms. Trump should be dismissed because the attorney general missed a deadline for filing the case against her. Ms. Trump was no longer a part of the Trump Organization after 2016, the ruling noted.

The appeals court effectively left it to the State Supreme Court judge presiding over the case to determine whether the claims against the other defendants — including Mr. Trump, his company and his two adult sons — should be limited.

Ms. James’s case rests on the company’s annual financial statements, which she says contained inflated numbers. The company continued to use those statements until at least 2021, she said. And Mr. Trump’s name was on the documents, even after he ascended to the White House.

In January, the State Supreme Court judge, Arthur F. Engoron, denied Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, saying that some arguments that the former president’s lawyers made were “borderline frivolous.” But Mr. Trump appealed, resulting in the decision on Tuesday.

Based on the appeals court’s ruling, it’s possible that Justice Engoron may have to limit claims related to two of the bigger transactions cited in the complaint: a hotel deal in Chicago and the purchase of a golf resort in Florida.

The ruling represented a rare legal victory that could strengthen Mr. Trump’s hand heading into the civil trial scheduled for Oct. 2 — and as he seeks the presidency again. Mr. Trump and his family business had endured a punishing series of losses in civil and criminal cases, and the appeals court’s decision might embolden him in any potential settlement talks.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, said in a statement that the decision represented “the first step toward ending a case that should have never been filed.”

“The correct application of the law will now limit appropriately the previously unlimited reach of the attorney general,” he said. “We remain confident that once all the real facts are known, there will be no doubt President Trump has built an extraordinarily successful business empire.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. James, Delaney Kempner, said that the office had sued Mr. Trump and his company “after uncovering extensive financial fraud that continues to this day.”

“There is a mountain of evidence that shows Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for significant economic gain,” she said. “Those facts haven’t changed.”

Ms. James’s lawsuit was filed last year on Sept. 21 against Mr. Trump, his business, Ms. Trump and his two adult sons.

It accuses the former president of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of his assets, and says that he violated state criminal laws and, “plausibly,” federal laws. The case lays out detailed accusations of how Mr. Trump’s annual financial statements overstated the worth of nearly all of his best-known properties — from Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street in Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago in Florida — to get better terms from the lenders and insurers.

The suit seeks $250 million that the attorney general contends the Trumps made through deception, and asks a judge to essentially bar the former president from doing business in New York if he is found liable at trial. Justice Engoron has already appointed a monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s business transactions.

Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in an interview last year, he answered Ms. James’s questions in a deposition in April.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers could argue at trial that the financial statements included disclaimers, and that the values were unaudited estimates. They could also argue that setting property values is subjective, more of an art than a science, and that the lenders and insurers were hardly victims.

“The transactions at the center of this case were wildly profitable for the banks and for the Trump entities,” Mr. Kise said in a statement issued after his deposition in April. Mr. Kise contended that once the facts were revealed, “everyone will scoff at the notion any fraud took place.”

Insurrectionists riot at the U.S. Capitol to keep Donald Trump in office on Jan. 6, 2021 despite his defeat in the U.S. presidential election in November (Photo via Shutterstock).

New York Times, Senate Report Details Jan. 6 Intelligence and Law Enforcement Failures, Luke Broadwater, June 27, 2023. Democrats released a scathing report detailing how federal officials missed, downplayed or failed to act on multiple threats of violence.

Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday released a scathing report that detailed how the F.B.I., the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies repeatedly ignored, downplayed or failed to share warnings of violence before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The 106-page report, entitled “Planned in Plain Sight,” highlighted and added to evidence already uncovered by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee, news reporting and other congressional work to provide the most comprehensive picture to date of a cascading set of security and intelligence failures that culminated in the deadliest assault on the Capitol in centuries.

Aides said Senate staff obtained thousands of additional documents from federal law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department, before drafting the report. It includes multiple calls for armed violence, calls to occupy federal buildings including the Capitol and some of the clearest threats the F.B.I. received but did little about — including a warning that the far-right group the Proud Boys was planning to kill people in Washington.

“Our intelligence agencies completely dropped the ball,” said Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He added: “Despite a multitude of tips and other intelligence warnings of violence on Jan. 6, the report showed that these agencies repeatedly — repeatedly — downplayed the threat level and failed to share the intelligence they had with law enforcement partners.”

The report determined the F.B.I.’s monitoring of social media threats was “degraded mere days before the attack,” because the bureau changed contracts for third-party social media monitoring. The committee obtained internal emails showing that F.B.I. officials were “surprised” by the timing of the contract change and “lamented the negative effect it would have on their monitoring capabilities in the lead-up to Jan. 6.”

But the investigation made clear that monitoring was not the only issue. It faulted the F.B.I. for failing to act on an array of dire warnings.

On Jan. 3, 2021, the F.B.I. became aware of multiple posts calling for armed violence, such as a Parler user who said, ”Come armed.” On Jan. 4, Justice Department leaders noted multiple concerning posts, including calls to “occupy federal buildings,” discussions of “invading the capitol building” and individuals arming themselves “to engage in political violence.”

Still, the report highlighted interviews with two F.B.I. leaders who said they were unaware that Congress could come under siege.

“If everybody knew and all the public knew that they were going to storm Congress, I don’t know why one person didn’t tell us,” Jennifer Moore, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. Washington Field Office’s intelligence division, told the Senate investigators. FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican and Federlist Society member, is shown at right.

New York Times, Judge Denies Request to Seal Witness List in Trump Documents Case, Alan Feuer, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). The order by Judge Aileen Cannon means the identities of some or all of the Justice Department’s 84 potential witnesses in the case against the former president could become public.

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of illegally holding on to sensitive national security documents denied on Monday the government’s request to keep secret a list of witnesses with whom Mr. Trump has been barred from discussing his case.

The ruling by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, in the Southern District of Florida, means that some or all of the list of 84 witnesses could at some point become public, offering further details about the shape and scope of the case that the special counsel Jack Smith has brought against Mr. Trump.

The government’s request to keep the names of the witnesses secret “does not offer a particularized basis to justify sealing the list from public view,” Judge Cannon wrote in her brief order. “It does not explain why partial sealing, redaction or means other than sealing are unavailable or unsatisfactory, and it does not specify the duration of any proposed seal.”

One of the conditions that a federal magistrate judge placed on Mr. Trump when he walked free from his arraignment this month was a provision prohibiting him from discussing the facts in his indictment with any witnesses in the case. The indictment accused Mr. Trump of willfully retaining 31 individual national security documents and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.

While the identities of the witnesses remain unknown, many of them are believed to be aides and advisers close to Mr. Trump — among them, several who work or worked with him at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida. As part of the conditions the magistrate judge imposed, Mr. Trump was also barred from discussing the case with his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, who remains his personal aide.

In a separate order issued on Monday, Judge Cannon asked Mr. Trump’s legal team to respond by July 6 to Mr. Smith’s request to delay the start of the trial until Dec. 11.

Judge Cannon also scheduled a hearing for July 14 for the parties to discuss how to handle the significant amount of highly sensitive material involved in the case under a law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act. That hearing will be conducted mostly, if not entirely, under seal.

Washington Post, Analysis: How Trump convinced his base that his indictments were aimed at them, Philip Bump, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). Visitors to Donald Trump’s campaign website are immediately implicated in his current legal travails.

“They’re not after me,” text in the primary image on the site reads. “They’re after you … I’m just standing in their way!”

As though attribution were needed, the quote is sourced to Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States.

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This idea that Trump faces a legal threat as a proxy for his base of support was offered explicitly during Trump’s speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition over the weekend.

“Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage,” Trump said. “I’m being indicted for you, and I believe the you is more than 200 million people that love our country.”

That phrasing is dripping with hyperbole. Trump’s federal indictment came at the hands of an experienced federal prosecutor who is in no realistic way a “radical-left Democrat,” much less any of the other (contradictory) categories offered. Trump’s implication that his base of support numbers 200 million is heavily inflated.

Those exaggerations have a purpose. Two hundred million Americans is more than three-quarters of the adult population, but it’s also obviously more than half of the country, bolstering Trump’s long-standing claim that he is leading a “silent majority” (despite earning less than a majority of the vote in the 2016 primaries, 2016 election and 2020 election). His framing of his opponents as politically opposed to that base — using vaguely defined pejoratives very familiar to supporters who remember the Cold War — is also familiar in a terrain littered with “Republicans in name only.”

Everyone agrees with him and anyone who doesn’t is a traitor. Simple enough.

 New York Times, Justice Dept. asking about 2020 fraud claims as well as fake electors, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results is advancing on multiple tracks, people familiar with the matter said.

The Justice Department’s investigation of efforts by Donald Trump and his advisers to overturn the 2020 election results is barreling forward on multiple tracks, according to people familiar with the matter, with prosecutors focused on ads and fundraising pitches claiming election fraud as well as plans for “fake electors” that would swing the election to the incumbent president.

Each track poses potential legal peril for those under scrutiny, but also raises tricky questions about where the line should be drawn between political activity, legal advocacy and criminal conspiracy.

A key area of interest is the conduct of a handful of lawyers who sought to turn Trump’s defeat into victory by trying to convince state, local, federal and judicial authorities that Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was illegitimate or tainted by fraud.

Investigators have sought to determine to what degree these lawyers — particularly Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Kurt Olsen and Kenneth Chesebro, as well as then-Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark — were following specific instructions from Trump or others, and what those instructions were, according to the people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has extensively questioned multiple witnesses about the lawyers’ actions related to fake electors — pro-Trump substitutes offered up as potential replacements for electors in swing states that Biden won.

Trump’s allies have argued that there was nothing criminal about preparing alternate electors in case state legislators blocked Biden slates.

Giuliani, Ellis, Clark, Eastman, Chesebro and Olsen or their representatives either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment Monday.

Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor who was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November, charged Trump this month with 37 counts alleging that he willfully retained classified documents at his Florida residence after leaving the White House and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them.

June 26

Palmer Report, Analysis: Jack Smith has flipped someone who was at the Willard Hotel for January 6th, Bill Palmer, June 26, 2023. One of the key aspects of Donald Trump’s 2020 election overthrow plot was his “command center” ahead of January 6th at the Willard Hotel.

Name any disreputable Trump political adviser, and the odds are that they were in that Willard Hotel room. But the whole thing hasn’t gotten a ton of media coverage, mostly because no one who was inside that room has spilled the beans about what was really going on – until now.

The DOJ criminally indicted Owen Shroyer for January 6th-related crimes a year and a half ago, and has been attempting to flip him ever since. Just days ago Shroyer finally cut a cooperating plea deal. This immediately jumped out at us because Shroyer is Alex Jones’ top sidekick. But our friends at MeidasTouch are now pointing out that this runs deeper. Shroyer was at the Willard Hotel ahead of January 6th, meaning he’s given up everything that went on at the “command center” while he was there.

This is bad news for everyone who was in the room at this “command center.” It was a mix of Donald Trump’s top political advisers and actual members of the Oath Keepers, to give you an idea of just how much criminality might have been taking place in that room. Jack Smith and the DOJ now have their “in” when it comes to the Willard Hotel plot. It’s bad news for Donald Trump and any number of his political allies.

New York Times, As Legal Fees Mount, Trump Steers Donations Into PAC That Has Covered Them, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, June 26, 2023 (print ed.). A previously unnoticed change in Donald Trump’s online fund-raising appeals allows him to divert a sizable chunk to a group that has spent millions on his legal fees.

Facing multiple intensifying investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees.

The change, which went unannounced except in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises fresh questions about how Mr. Trump is paying for his mounting legal bills — which could run into millions of dollars — as he prepares for at least two criminal trials, and whether his PAC, Save America, is facing a financial crunch.

When Mr. Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his campaign, and a penny went to Save America.

But internet archival records show that sometime in February or March, he adjusted that split. Now his campaign’s share has been reduced to 90 percent of donations, and 10 percent goes to Save America.

New York Times, In a pitch to evangelicals, Donald Trump cast himself as Christian crusader who helped end Roe v. Wade, Neil Vigdor, June 26, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump told an evangelical gathering that no president had done more for Christians than he did.

One year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, former President Donald J. Trump reminded a gathering of evangelical activists in the nation’s capital how he had shaped the court’s conservative supermajority that ended nearly 50 years of constitutional protections for abortion.

Appearing at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gala in Washington on Saturday night, he cited his appointment of three of the six justices who voted to strike down the law as a capstone of his presidency. And he cast himself as an unflinching crusader for the Christian right in a meandering speech that lasted nearly 90 minutes.

“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have,” he said, adding, “I got it done, and nobody thought it was even a possibility.”

It was the eighth appearance by Mr. Trump in front of the group, whose support he is seeking to consolidate in a crowded G.OP. competition for the 2024 nomination, though he is the front-runner in the field. He said that Republican voters were skeptical of claims by some of his rivals that they were stronger opponents of abortion, and suggested that the skepticism had arisen on the campaign trail.

June 25

2016 Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during their third debate in 2016 at a time they were accusing each other of being a "puppet" following many weeks in which Trump and his allies led rallies chanting "lock her up" regarding Clinton.

Washington Post, Fact Checker Analysis: Why wasn’t Hillary Clinton also indicted, Trump asks. Here’s why, Glenn Kessler, June 25, 2023 (print ed.). Since the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has referred often to Hillary Clinton’s emails, but the references have increased in urgency and frequency as he continues to deploy them in response to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his own handling of classified documents. He has posted comments on Truth Social at least seven times in the last three weeks, both before and after he was indicted on federal criminal charges that he repeatedly broke the law by hiding classified documents in his home.

Why wouldn’t “Deranged Jack Smith” look at “Hillary’s 33,000 emails that she deleted and acid washed,” he wrote in a post on June 13 and again on June 16. “CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND WASN’T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED! ONLY TRUMP - THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!” he posted on June 5. Trump’s allies have echoed the comparisons in hundreds of social media postings as they suggest there is a two-tiered justice system.

In a speech at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club the evening of his arraignment, Trump was more expansive, making many false claims about materials found on the private email server Clinton maintained as secretary of state. As usual, Trump mixes partial facts and invented assertions into a stew of false equivalence. Let’s try to untangle it.

June 24

New York Times, Prosecutors Seek to Delay Donald Trump’s Documents Trial to December, Glenn Thrush, June 24, 2023 (print ed. ). The special counsel argued that the August date set by the judge did not allow enough time to deal with the complications of classified evidence, but still proposed a relatively speedy timetable.

Jack Smith, the special counsel (shown above), has asked a federal judge to move back the start of the trial of former President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case from August to Dec. 11, according to a Justice Department filing made public late Friday.

The Justice Department proposal still calls for a relatively speedy timetable; Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s earlier ruling set the initial trial date at Aug. 14, but it was considered something of an administrative place holder, with both sides anticipating significant procedural delays.

In their filing, prosecutors said the additional time would be needed to obtain security clearances for defense lawyers and deal with the procedures around classified evidence. It would also give defense lawyers more time to review the volumes of materials prosecutors have turned over to them, the filing said.

Mr. Smith and his team argued in the filing that the trial should still be fast-tracked despite its enormous political implications, because it “involves straightforward theories of liability, and does not present novel questions of fact or law,” nor is it particularly “unusual or complex” from a legal perspective.

New York Times, Former Trump Campaign Official in Talks to Cooperate in Jan. 6 Inquiry, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, June 24, 2023 (print ed.). Michael Roman, a top official in former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign, is in discussions with the office of the special counsel Jack Smith that could soon lead to Mr. Roman, right, voluntarily answering questions about a plan to create slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to a person familiar with the matter.

If Mr. Roman ends up giving the interview — known as a proffer — to prosecutors working for Mr. Smith, it would be the first known instance of cooperation by someone with direct knowledge of the so-called fake elector plan. That plan has long been at the center of Mr. Smith’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The talks with Mr. Roman, who served as Mr. Trump’s director of Election Day operations, were the latest indication that Mr. Smith is actively pressing forward with his election interference investigation even as attention has been focused on the other case in his portfolio: the recent indictment of Mr. Trump in Florida on charges of illegally keeping hold of classified documents and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.

In the past few weeks, several witnesses with connections to the fake elector plan have appeared in front of a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington that is investigating the ways in which Mr. Trump and his allies sought to reverse his defeat to Mr. Biden. Among them was Gary Michael Brown, Mr. Roman’s onetime deputy, who was questioned in front of the grand jury on Thursday.

The office of the special counsel is negotiating with Michael Roman, who was closely involved in the efforts to create slates of pro-Trump electors in states won in 2020 by Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her three decades ago, with her civil suit scheduled on trial in New York City.

New York Times, Is There a Price That Keeps Trump Quiet? E. Jean Carroll May Find Out, Benjamin Weiser, June 24, 2023 (print ed.). The writer’s lawyers are going after former President Trump again for defamation. But is there an award high enough to keep him from saying what he wants to?

How much money must E. Jean Carroll win to stop Donald J. Trump from talking about her?

A Manhattan jury last month ordered the former president to pay $3 million in damages for defaming Ms. Carroll when he said her accusation that he had raped her decades earlier was a lie. The next day, Mr. Trump appeared on CNN, and again accused Ms. Carroll of making up her story and for good measure called her a “wack job.”

Now, Ms. Carroll is seeking millions of dollars more to stop the river of invective.

Forbes magazine says Mr. Trump is worth $2.5 billion, but his actual wealth is in much dispute — he has said his net worth fluctuates with his mood. As he seeks the presidency again, he has used his legal troubles, which include state and federal indictments, to raise money by tearing into prosecutors and plaintiffs.

Mr. Trump became a celebrity and then the nation’s chief executive largely through the power of an untrammeled tongue, creating fascination even among opponents with his unpredictable and cruel verbal assaults. He is also famous for his love of money, bragging about his fortune and flaunting its gilded prizes.

Ms. Carroll and her lawyers are trying to win a jury award that would bring his competing desires into economic equilibrium. But is there any amount of money that could persuade the former president to keep her name out of his mouth?

June 23

 New York Times, If Donald Trump’s trial is held in Fort Pierce, Fla., the jury would be drawn largely from counties he won in 2020, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, June 23, 2023 (print ed.). If Judge Aileen Cannon sticks to her initial decision to hold the trial in Fort Pierce, Fla., the jury would be drawn largely from counties that Donald Trump won handily in his previous campaigns.

When Judge Aileen M. Cannon, left, assumed control of the case stemming from former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment for putting national security secrets at risk, she set the stage for the trial to be held with a regional jury pool made up mostly of counties that Mr. Trump won handily in his two previous campaigns.

She signaled that the trial would take place in the federal courthouse where she normally sits, in Fort Pierce, at the northern end of the Southern District of Florida. The region that feeds potential jurors to that courthouse is made up of one swing county and four others that are ruby red in their political leanings and that Mr. Trump won by substantial margins in both 2016 and 2020.

She left open the possibility that the trial could be moved — and political leanings are not necessarily indicative of how a jury will decide — but the fact that the trial is expected to draw jurors who live in places that tilt Republican has caught the attention of Mr. Trump’s allies and veterans of Florida courts.

“For years, it’s been a very conservative venue for plaintiffs’ lawyers,” said John Morgan, a trial lawyer who founded a large personal injury firm. Describing the various counties that feed into Fort Pierce, he said, “It is solid, solid Trump country.”

In Okeechobee County, a rural county where just over 16,000 people voted in the 2020 election, Mr. Trump won 71.5 percent of the vote, according to the county’s election tally. In Highlands County, a rural area where more than 52,000 people voted in that election, Mr. Trump won with 66.8 percent of the vote.

In Martin County, where more than 98,000 people voted, Mr. Trump got 61.8 percent of the vote. In Indian River County, which contains Vero Beach and where more than 97,000 votes were cast, Mr. Trump got 60.2 percent of the vote.

Only St. Lucie County, where about 172,000 votes were cast, is a swing district. Mr. Trump eked out a victory there over President Biden in 2020 with 50.4 percent of the ballots cast, the data shows, and also won the county narrowly in 2016.

Dave Aronberg, an outgoing Florida state attorney in Palm Beach County, said he could recall few major or politically sensitive cases in the Fort Pierce courthouse. He agreed that the Fort Pierce counties provide a “much more conservative jury pool,” although he suggested that a number of prospective jurors could be drawn from St. Lucie, which is more politically diverse.

Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, disclosed in an order on Tuesday that the trial and all the hearings connected to it would likely be held in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles north of Miami along the east coast of Florida.

• New York Times, Judge in Trump Documents Case Sets Tentative Trial Date as Soon as August, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage, June 21, 2023 (print ed.). The judge set an aggressive schedule for moving the case forward, though the proceedings are likely to be delayed by pretrial clashes.

Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).

Palmer Report, Analysis: Turns out the DOJ knew what it was doing with Bedminster, Bill Palmer, right, June 23, 2023. Ever since the DOJ had the FBI search Donald Trump’s primary residence at Mar-a-Lago last year, folks on social media have been frantically yelling “what about Bedminster?”

It’s been frankly a little surreal. Were people under the impression that the DOJ simply forgot that Trump had a secondary residence? All along I’ve tried to point out the obvious: the DOJ surely followed every possible investigative angle regarding Bedminster as well, and if there was anything to find, it happened a long time ago. The fact that it wasn’t made public at the time was just standard procedure. After all, we wouldn’t have even found out the FBI had gone into Mar-a-Lago if Trump hadn’t blabbed about it at the time.

Sure enough, the Guardian is reporting today that the DOJ turned its focus to Bedminster almost immediately after the Mar-a-Lago search and seizure operation. This dates back to even before Jack Smith was on the case.

In other words, the DOJ didn’t naively or obliviously forget that Bedminster existed. There was never any chance of that. It was all over Bedminster from the start. In fact at least one of the incriminating recordings of Trump that will be used at trial was recorded at Bedminster. So it’s clear that a ton of investigative work was done on that front. And it was never as simple as the endless “search Bedminster!” tweets that we’ve had to put up with for the past nine months. Simply sending in the FBI to search the place wouldn’t have produced the incriminating recording of Trump.

As for the question of whether there are or were any classified documents at Bedminster, keep in mind that there was obviously more than enough evidence to get a search warrant for the place. So there’s a good chance the Feds already searched Bedminster, and it simply wasn’t made public.

This also points to at least the possibility that Jack Smith could end up bringing a separate criminal case against Donald Trump in federal court in New Jersey. We’ll see. But at this point it’s abundantly clear that all those frantic “what about Bedminster” tweets were for naught. The DOJ was always several steps ahead of such tweets, not behind. Then again, that was fairly self evident to begin with. In spite of what some of the most useless social media pundits would have you believe, the DOJ are not a bunch of naive oblivious idiots. They’ve been all over Bedminster since before anyone thought to start frantically tweeting about Bedminster.

June 22

Washington Post, Opinion: Trump has it all wrong: He needs someone else to be president, Jennifer Rubin, right, June 22, 2023. Defeated former president Donald Trump has it all wrong. He apparently thought he could avoid prosecution by running for president; instead, he forced languid Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint firebrand special counsel Jack Smith, who, unlike Garland, had no qualms about moving expeditiously against Trump.

But Trump still doesn’t get it: To protect himself from prosecution and possible federal incarceration, the last thing he should want is to win the presidency. Trump, his supporters and the media have become infatuated with the myth of “self-pardon.” Until recently, the word was not used, which gives you a hint that the concept is flawed.

“The Constitution specifically bars the president from using the pardon power to prevent his own impeachment and removal,” Laurence H. Tribe, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen wrote in The Post in 2017. “It adds that any official removed through impeachment remains fully subject to criminal prosecution. That provision would make no sense if the president could pardon himself.”

New York Times, Few of Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Defend Justice Dept. Independence, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman, June 22, 2023 (print ed.). The evolution of the Republican Party under the influence of former President Trump calls into question a post-Watergate norm.

Donald J. Trump has promised that if he wins back the presidency he will appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family.

But he’s not the only Republican running for president who appears to be abandoning a long-established norm in Washington — presidents keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and prosecutions.

Mr. Trump, who leads the G.O.P. field by around 30 percentage points in public national polls, wields such powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in such Justice Department decisions.

After Mr. Trump’s vow to direct the Justice Department to appoint a “real” prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, The New York Times asked each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should respect when it comes to White House interference with federal law enforcement decisions.

June 20

Washington Post, Investigation: FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year, Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, June 20, 2023 (print ed.). In the Justice Department’s investigation of Jan. 6, key officials also quashed an early plan for a task force focused on people in Donald Trump’s orbit.

Hours after he was sworn in as attorney general, Merrick Garland, right, and his deputies gathered in a wood-paneled conference room in the Justice Department for a private briefing on the investigation he had promised to make his highest priority: bringing to justice those responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the two months since the siege, federal agents had conducted 709 searches, charged 278 rioters and identified 885 likely suspects, said Michael R. Sherwin, then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, ticking through a slide presentation. Garland and some of his deputies nodded approvingly at the stats, and the new attorney general called the progress “remarkable,” according to people in the room.

Sherwin’s office, with the help of the FBI, was responsible for prosecuting all crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 attack. He had made headlines the day after by refusing to rule out the possibility that President Donald Trump himself could be culpable. “We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building,” Sherwin said in response to a reporter’s question about Trump. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”

But according to a copy of the briefing document, absent from Sherwin’s 11-page presentation to Garland on March 11, 2021, was any reference to Trump or his advisers — those who did not go to the Capitol riot but orchestrated events that led to it.

A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.

A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace. Garland and the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, charted a cautious course aimed at restoring public trust in the department while some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him, The Post found.

In November, after Trump announced he was again running for president, making him a potential 2024 rival to President Biden, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

On June 8, in a separate investigation that was also turned over to the special counsel, Smith secured a grand jury indictment against the former president for mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Trump was charged with 31 counts of violating a part of the Espionage Act, as well as six counts arising from alleged efforts to mislead federal investigators.

The effort to investigate Trump over classified records has had its own obstacles, including FBI agents who resisted raiding the former president’s home. But the discovery of top-secret documents in Trump’s possession triggered an urgent national security investigation that laid out a well-defined legal path for prosecutors, compared with the unprecedented task of building a case against Trump for trying to steal the election.

Washington Post, Hunter Biden reaches tentative deal to plead guilty on gun and tax charges, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, June 20, 2023. The president’s son would get about two years probation and enter a diversion program, people familiar with the negotiations said

The agreement, which must be approved by a judge, would involve the president’s son pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and a charge of illegal weapons possession related to lying about drug use on a handgun purchase form.

President Biden’s son Hunter has reached a tentative agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would likely keep him out of jail, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

Any proposed plea deal would have to be approved by a federal judge, and it was not immediately clear what day Hunter Biden, 53, might appear in court to enter his guilty plea.

The agreement caps an investigation that was opened in 2018 during the Trump administration, and has generated intense interest and criticism since 2020 from Republican politicians who accused the Biden administration of reluctance to pursue the case. The terms of the proposed deal — negotiated with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, left, a holdover from President Donald Trump’s administration — are likely to face similar scrutiny.

The court papers indicate the younger Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018. The combined tax liability is roughly $1.2 million over those years, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe details of the agreement that are not yet public. Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, these people said. Biden’s representatives have said he previously paid back the IRS what he owed.

Additionally, Biden plans to admit to illegally possessing a weapon following his 2018 purchase of a handgun. As part of that admission, he expects to be entered in a diversion program, a less punitive form of sentence typically applied to people with substance abuse problems. In all, prosecutors would recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions. If Biden successfully meets the conditions of the diversion program, the gun charge would be removed from his record at the end of that period, the people said.

New York Times, Hunter Biden Investigation: Republicans, Claiming Double Standard, Vow to Keep Investigating Bidens, Kayla Guo, June 20, 2023. Congressional Republicans accused President Biden of orchestrating a lenient penalty for his son, while Democrats argued that bringing any charges reflected the Justice Department’s independence.

Congressional Republicans on Tuesday blasted the plea deal Hunter Biden reached with the Justice Department, accusing President Biden of orchestrating a lenient penalty for his son and promising to intensify their investigations of the Biden family.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the agreement, in which Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay taxes on time and could avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge, “continues to show the two-tier system in America.”

He and many other Republicans drew a contrast between the charges against Mr. Biden and the 37-count indictment the Justice Department unsealed this month against former President Donald J. Trump on charges that he mishandled highly classified national security documents and lied to and obstructed investigators looking into the matter.

“If you are the president’s leading political opponent, D.O.J. tries to literally put in you jail and give you prison time,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol. “If you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal.”

Mr. Trump is accused of willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and engaging in a conspiracy to obstruct justice — far more serious crimes than the ones for which the younger Mr. Biden was scrutinized.

Leading Democrats argued that bringing any charges at all against the president’s son reflected the independence of the Justice Department, noting that the United States attorney who led the investigation into Hunter Biden, David C. Weiss, was appointed by Mr. Trump.

“This development reflects the Justice Department’s continued institutional independence in following the evidence of actual crimes and enforcing the rule of law even in the face of constant criticism and heckling by my G.O.P. colleagues who think that the system of justice should only follow their partisan wishes,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

Still, Mr. McCarthy said the deal should only “enhance” congressional Republicans’ investigation into the Bidens.

Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the Oversight Committee undertaking that inquiry, said he would do just that in a statement calling the charges against Hunter Biden a “slap on the wrist.”

New York Times, Judge in Trump Documents Case Sets Tentative Trial Date as Soon as August, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage, June 20, 2023. The judge set an aggressive schedule for moving the case forward, though the proceedings are likely to be delayed by pretrial clashes.

The federal judge presiding over the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump in the classified documents case set an aggressive schedule on Tuesday, ordering a trial to begin as soon as Aug. 14.

While the timeline set by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, is likely to be delayed by extensive pretrial litigation — including over how to handle classified material — its brisk pace suggests that she is seeking to avoid any criticism for dragging her feet or for slow-walking the proceeding. In each of four other criminal trials she has overseen that were identified in a New York Times review, she has initially set a relatively quick trial date and later pushed it back.

The early moves by Judge Cannon, a relatively inexperienced jurist who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, are being particularly closely watched. She disrupted the documents investigation last year with several rulings favorable to the former president before a conservative appeals court overturned her, saying that she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.

Brandon L. Van Grack, a former federal prosecutor who has worked on complex criminal matters involving national security, said the trial date was “unlikely to hold” considering that the process of turning over classified evidence to the defense in discovery had not yet begun. Still, he said, Judge Cannon appeared to be showing that she intended to do what she could to push the case to trial quickly.

Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).

New York Times, How Classified Evidence Could Complicate the Documents Case, Charlie Savage, June 20, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors and defense lawyers appear to be preparing for a pretrial fight over showing sensitive evidence to the jury and the public.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump have told the judge overseeing his documents case that they have started the process of obtaining security clearances, the first step of what is likely to be a major fight over classified evidence before his trial.

Mr. Trump is facing 31 counts of unauthorized retention of national security secrets under the Espionage Act, along with accusations that he obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve sensitive files — including by defying a subpoena.

Here is a closer look at the tricky legal issues raised by the role of classified evidence in the case.

The Espionage Act is a World War I-era law that makes it a crime to mishandle national security secrets. To prove that Mr. Trump violated the charged provision of the act, prosecutors must show that he possessed, without authorization, closely held information “relating to the national defense” that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary, and that he failed to return it to the government.

Each of the 31 counts is based on a different sensitive document the F.B.I. found in its court-authorized search of Mr. Trump’s club and estate, Mar-a-Lago. As described in the indictment, they include 21 marked “top secret,” nine marked “secret” and one without a classification stamp that contained restricted information about “military contingency planning.”
What is ‘graymail’?

It is a threat by a defendant to reveal classified information during a trial in the hope of forcing the government to drop a criminal charge. While the government could choose to declassify such information so that it could be freely discussed in open court, security officials may see that as too risky. But the Constitution gives defendants a right to a public trial and the public a right to see trials.

Joshua L. Dratel, a defense lawyer with a security clearance who has handled terrorism cases involving classified evidence, said defense and intelligence officials often did not want to give up information for prosecutors to use in pursuing a case.

“It’s routine, if not invariable, that you’ll get a plea offer in a case in which the government says, ‘If we have to provide classified discovery to you, this offer is no longer on the table,’ and those can be very attractive plea offers,” Mr. Dratel said. “That’s because there is a tremendous tension between intelligence agencies and prosecutors that defense lawyers can exploit.”

Mr. Trump, however, is not expected to accept any plea deal.

June 18

Washington Post, Opinion: As Trump is arrested, Republicans honor the insurrectionists, Dana Milbank, right, June 18, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump could not have asked for a nicer arraignment-day celebration.

During the very same hour in which the former president surrendered to federal authorities in Miami, his Republican allies in the House were, in their most visible and official way yet, embracing as heroes and martyrs the people who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in hopes of overturning Trump’s election defeat.

In the Capitol complex, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), with sidekick Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and four other far-right lawmakers, held a “hearing” that honored participants in the riot, family members of Jan. 6 rioters and organizers of the attempted overthrow of the 2020 vote.

Technically, Gaetz couldn’t call such a hearing, because he isn’t a committee chairman. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to win back the support of extremists such as Gaetz, let it happen anyway.

Gaetz did his all to make the proceedings look official. There were congressional seals on his nameplate and on the big screen behind him. A meeting room in the Capitol visitor center was arranged to appear like a committee room, with lawmakers facing the witnesses. Gaetz advertised the “field hearing” as part of how “the 118th Congress is investigating the weaponization of the federal government.”

He impersonated a chairman — “you are recognized,” “thank you for your testimony,” “I’ll recognize myself [for] questions,” “her time has expired” — and the others played along (“Thank you for the opportunity to testify,” “I yield back”). Gaetz said testimony could be used “for the official record [of the] House” or for “work in the Judiciary Committee, upon which I serve, or the Oversight Committee.” C-SPAN carried the proceedings live.

June 16

Washington Post, Trump rejected lawyers’ efforts to avoid classified documents indictment, Josh Dawsey and Jacqueline Alemany, June 16, 2023 (print ed.). The former president was not interested in attempting to negotiate a settlement in the classified documents investigation.

One of Donald Trump’s new attorneys proposed an idea in the fall of 2022: The former president’s team could try to arrange a settlement with the Justice Department.The attorney, Christopher Kise, wanted to quietly approach Justice to see if he could negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges, hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting a former president. Kise would hopefully “take the temperature down,” he told others, by promising a professional approach and the return of all documents.

But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors, three people briefed on the matter said. A special counsel was appointed months later.

Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida who was paid $3 million upfront to join Trump’s team last year, declined to comment.

That quiet entreaty last fall was one of many occasions when lawyers and advisers sought to get Trump to take a more cooperative stance in a bid to avoid what happened Friday. The Justice Department unsealed an indictment including more than three dozen criminal counts against Trump for allegedly keeping and hiding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

Trump, 77, now faces the most legally perilous moment of his life playing out in a federal court — charges that could bring decades in prison. He pleaded not guilty in Miami on Tuesday and vowed to fight the charges.

“President Trump has consistently been in full compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which is the only law that applies to Presidents and their records,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “In the course of negotiations over the return of the documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know.’ Sadly, the weaponized DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted an unnecessary and unconstitutional raid on the President’s home in order to inflict maximum political damage on the leading presidential candidate.”

The PRA is not the only law applying to presidents and federal documents, as evidenced by the charges filed against Trump.

nce the National Archives first asked for the return of presidential documents in Trump’s possession in February 2021 and until a grand jury issued its indictment this month, Trump was repeatedly stubborn and eschewed opportunities to avoid criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the case, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details. They note that Trump was not charged for any documents he returned voluntarily.

Interviews with seven Trump advisers with knowledge of the probe indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some of his longest-serving advisers warned of peril and some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them.

When Trump returned 15 boxes early last year — leaving at least 64 more at Mar-a-Lago — he told his own advisers to put out statements to the National Archives and to the public that “everything” had been returned, The Washington Post has previously reported. But he quietly kept more than 100 classified documents.

Later, facing a grand jury subpoena, the indictment alleges the former president worked quietly with an aide to move boxes without telling his own lawyers, leading to a false attestation that every document had been returned.

“It was a totally unforced error,” said one person close to Trump who has been part of dozens of discussions about the documents. “We didn’t have to be here.”

Trump time and again rejected the advice from lawyers and advisers who urge