the *DON* JONES INDEX…
		GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 8/7/23... 15,033.93 7/31/23... 15,027.26
	6/27/13… 15,000.00
*(THE DOW* JONES INDEX: 8/7/23... 35,065.62; 7/31/23... 35,405.29; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)**

LESSON for August 6th, 2023 – “Trump Three-Threets!”

As feared, or expected, circumstances have overtaken our musings on the Hollywood strike and tactics available to both studios and the writers, actors and such on the picket line – a déjà vu all over all over as Jack Smith has indicted Djonald UnLucky for the third time this year.

We call Ol’ 45 “unlucky” because the Federal prosecution, drawing from a separate judicial pool from that which gifted Trump with one of his own in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Federal judges are chosen by an (allegedly) impartial lottery, and it has been Djonald’s UnLuck to have drawn Judge Tanya Chutkin, an Obama-appointed harridan already notorious for handing out long sentences... sometimes even longer than those which the prosecutors have ask for... against the hapless bums and stooges as constitute the majority of the One Six insurrectionists arrested and tried. And against the occasional Proud Boy or cop knocker... she has been absolutely vicious.

Judge Tanya’s task will be to administer justice on the 45 page, 130 paragraph, four count indictment that Jack nimbly and quickly released to the press and public on Wednesday, commanding the attention and the presence of the former President at the Prettyman Federal court house on Friday. There, the same old same old same old took place... Trump being released without bail, without handcuffs and mugshots – thereupon flying back to Bedminster to sup with Foxies (we have been unable to determine whether the main course was chicken).

The other six defendants: former New York Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, attorney John Eastman, conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, fake elector maven Kenneth Chesebro and an unnamed “political consultant” were to be processed separately – presumably to minimize distractions.

Those who know, and those who profess to know agree with the know-nothing that this Third Indictment is the most serious to date, and will remain so even when the state of Georgia gets around to trying to try Trump for badgering State AG Raffensperger to “find him” the necessary votes to overturn the will of the people and secure its sixteen Presidential electorals for himself, He’d still have needed another 58 electors, but it would be obvious to chimp or child that Team Trump was working on the ballot counters in other states... six at last count, although only Michigan shows any inclination to prosecute the matter, as yet.

The media have boiled down the Third Indictment (see Attachment One) to, essentially, four quarters... 1) conspiracy to defraud the government, 2) conspiracy against the right to vote, 3) conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and 4) obstruction of an official proceeding. (In other words, January 6^th... from the attempt to pressure Vice President Pence into refusing to confirm the election up to and including the armed attack on the Capitol.

The accusation of obtruction is the most serious, being only a hair’s breadth short of Treason... which charge would bring the possibility of a death penalty for guilty verdict, as would complicate the election next November, even if Judge Chutkin... already taking unfriendly fire as a stooge of the White House, the AyGee and liberal mafia in Congress, in the Justice Department, the judiciary, the media, and the deviant pizza parlours where pedophile liberals congregate... were to block enhancement of the charges.

Had Smith swung for the fences and indicted the Exile for treason, putting the case on the fast track so that either the defendant... as opposed to his former Vice... would be sent to the gallows before he could be elected and pardon himself (in which case, whomsoever he selected as his own Vice... failed Arizona candidate and Republican activist Kari Lake, or loyal umbrella-holder Walt Nauta... even Don Junior!)... would presumably assume the trappings and obligations of office. A slightly slower track and Trump, on the gallows, would be able to pardon himself to song, Confederate flag waving and hallelujahs from the religious right.

The interstitial interval between election and assumption should, in this scenario, prove critical.

The Charges

Donald Trump was criminally indicted for a third time on Aug. 1 as a Washington grand jury voted to prosecute the former President on four counts related to his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election and his role in the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol. (Time, August 1^st, Attachment Two). “The prosecution sets up yet another complicated and explosive legal battle as Trump vies for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. “

Rachel Weiner of the New York Times further explained the four charges as follows – parsing the letter and the language of the indictment to mean 1) conspiring to defraud the United States, 2) conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, 3) obstructing a congressional proceeding and 4) conspiracy against rights in connection with what prosecutors allege was a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. (August 2^nd, Attachment Two)

Conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government: Conspiracy is a catchall crime covering any scheme between two or more people to break federal law or defraud the U.S. government. Conspiracies don’t need to be successful to be criminal, and perpetrators can be held responsible if they join the conspiracy at any stage.

In this case, prosecutors allege Trump conspired with six others to “overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election.” The co-conspirators are not named — nor are they charged — but five of the six descriptions match attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Cheseboro and Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. The sixth is described as a political consultant.

Obstruction of an official proceeding: Trump, wrote Weiner, “is also charged with a substantive obstruction count for attempting to block Congress from confirming Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. The same charge is the most common felony charge used against rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has split on how to define this crime, but a majority of judges who have weighed in agree that at least some conduct at the Capitol counts as illegal obstruction.”

Technically, each conviction could be sentenced with consecutive terms, leading to decades-long sentences; in practice, federal sentences are almost never as high as the maximum possible penalty. Defendants who plead guilty get credit for acceptance of responsibility. Judges also consider criminal history and the personal characteristics of each defendant, including age and health.

There are no mandatory minimum sentences for any of these crimes.

Also on Tuesday, Lloyd Nelson of the liberal GUK wisecracked: Trump once led chants of “lock her up”. Now he’s a perpetual defendant. (Italics added, Attachment Four) “At this rate, he stands to be the first nominee out on personal recognizance on four separate indictments, in four different jurisdictions. Possible indictment in Georgia looms. The 2024 election will be one for the ages. Regardless of the outcome, the US may never be the same.”

As the week wore on, the nameless co-conspirators gradually attracted enough attention to merit nomenclature by a variety of media sources. The Washington Post (Attachment Five) named five of the six and offered up biographies, encapsulated as follows...

Rudy Giuliani: Giuliani served as Trump’s personal attorney and was central to efforts by the Trump team to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

John Eastman: Eastman, a conservative attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, crafted a legal strategy that involved creating slates of pro-Trump electors in states that Joe Biden won.

Sidney Powell: Powell came to the Republican National Committee after the 2020 election with the baseless claim that voting machines had been hacked to rig the election for Biden. (and) kept filing lawsuits claiming election fraud and airing those allegations on Fox News. In a White House meeting in December 2020, Trump considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election.

Jeffrey Clark: Clark was a mid-level Justice Department official friendly to Trump’s views on the election — so much so that Trump considered installing him as acting attorney general. Clark proposed sending a letter to officials in key states that said the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve.

Kenneth Chesebro: Chesebro was the first to suggest that slates of pro-Trump electors could organize in states that he lost and be recognized by Congress on Jan. 6, (saying) “We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted.”

“A political consultant”: the indictment alleges that this person sent Co-Conspirator 1 — Giuliani — an email identifying lawyers in the six swing states who could assist in the phony elector effort.

Brian Bennet from Time (August 2^nd, Attachment Six) provides his own (or Time’s) take on the co-conspirators, and asks: Why did Trump turn to them? And answers: “Most of Trump’s own campaign staff, as well as members of his administration, refused to go along with his effort to deny the election loss and remain in the White House, the indictment alleges.”

A few shards of information, or mis- or dis- include Giuliani’s telling thousands of Trump supporters on the National Mall that “trial by combat” was needed to settle the outcome; Eastman is identified as “a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas;” Trump privately saying that Powell “sounded crazy”; Clark, after one of Trump’s deputy White House counsels warned that if Trump tried to stay in office, there would be “riots” in major U.S. cities saying “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act,”;” Chesebro proposed ““sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes,” and Political Consultant Number Six gave Giuliani names of lawyers in six states who might help with the effort to put together slates of false electors.

And, on August third, Al Jazeera cited Jack Smith’s contention that the Republican master conspirator and co-conspirators “attempted to obstruct “a bedrock function” of democracy and sought to reverse his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.”

Beyond the courtroom, poll watchers and interested citizens wondering how the indictments on 2020 will effect 2024 have a gaseous charcuterie of opinions... more than a few somewhat slanted by partisanship.

“The Trump years numbed the country to the word “unprecedented,” amid the constant reverberations of history being made. From the day Trump took office as the only person ever elected to the presidency with zero government or military experience, around every corner came norm-breaking and precedent-smashing.”

Republicans cite “indictment fatigue,” hoping to plant the idea that voters don’t much care about it and have already accepted that Trump is a bad dude who doesn’t play by the rules. It’s going to be “Old News!” on the socials and “Witch Hunt!”. “Trump’s past two indictments,” Elliott contends, suggest this one (and probably the upcoming Georgia Number Four) may, perversely, benefit him as well. “The aftermath of those charges—totaling at least 78 felony allegations and counting—brought a fundraising boon and a polling surge . That’s right: the self-described billionaire will collect millions in donations from his fans who see the real estate mogul as a victim of a weaponized Justice Department. His best days of fundraising have been his worst ones legally.”

“Trump could still return to power facing federal charges and, in turn, dodge accountability for any of his alleged misdeeds. (This is why, Elliott suggests, “the state-based cases, where Trump will lack pardon powers, may be the real places to watch.”)

If Djonald UnAshamed can campaign from prison, be elected and pardon himelf of the Federal charges, could he remain in prison on the state raps... past, present and probably future... and govern the country?

Surprisingly, the liberal Guardian U.K. (August 2^nd, Attachment Nine) turned over the soapbox to attorney John Lauro, who called the indictment “an attack on free speech and political advocacy”, and to Trump himself, posting on Truth Social...

“This unprecedented indictment of a former (highly successful!) president and the leading candidate, by far, in both the Republican party and the 2024 general election, has awoken the world to the corruption, scandal, and failure that has taken place in the United States for the past three years.”

The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, wagged his tail, barked and begged for a bacon treat after calling the indictment an attempt “to distract from news” about Republican allegations of corruption involving Hunter Biden, the president’s son. Most legitimate challengers, DeSantis on down, waffled but Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman with no standing in the polls and nothing to lose, said Trump’s presidential bid was “driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills”.

In a memorable line from her ruling against Trump in a previous One Six scuffle, district judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender nominated by Barack Obama (who will likely get this matter in her court down the road a ways) wrote: “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”

On the other hand, Mediate’s Caleb Howe reported that Fox Host Jesse Watters claimed the Trump Indictment was coordinated to take the heat off Biden. (Attachment Ten) What heat? Hunter heat!

Elliott to the contrary, Watters said that Trump is the most likely to win in 2024, and after pardoning himself will have no choice but to seek revenge if elected a second time.

“Don’t you think for a second he’s not gonna unleash hell on all of his political enemies,” said Watters. “This is only the beginning of politicians putting other politicians and their families in prison. Sad we had to go down this road but this is where we are and now we have to finish it.”

And David Propper from the New York Post proposed a proper beatdown of the cowardly “Republican contenders for the 2024 presidential nomination (who) took former President Donald Trump to task for his third indictment in four months while hailing the heroes who remained MAGA to the core – even at the expense of their own campaigns. (Attachment Eleven)

Vice President Pence affirmed his pivot to the Never Trump faction (being hanged will do that to you) and tweeted: “Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any one man’s career.” Nikki Haley declined to react one way or the other, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who has occasionally mentioned that a Trump candidacy might not be the best idea for down-ballot elephants, stayed true the cause, expressing his concern about Biden’s Justice Department and “its immense power used against political opponents,” and the ever-escalting Vivek declared, once again, that the real cause “was systematic & pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it. If you tell people they can’t speak, that’s when they scream. If you tell people they can’t scream, that’s when they tear things down.”

The Five Thirty Eight polling group summoned all of its pundits and priests to prognosticate and pronounce on the effects of Indictment Three on the 2024 campaign. Most agreed that the government would seem to have a strong case: “(t)he indictment lists over 100 different pieces of evidence and shares them across the four counts against Trump,” poited out data analyst G. Elliott Morris. “Honestly, more than anything, I’m really just shocked at the extent of the efforts by Trump and his co-conspirators to submit those alternative slates of electors to Congress, and reading the evidence in one document hits differently than it did when we were all watching these events play out over two or three months in real time.”

“Well, it’s important to remember that an indictment is, by definition, one-sided and not reflective of what will be presented at trial, where Trump’s attorneys will be able to defend him,” noted Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior reporter. “And I wouldn’t expect this to be a slam-dunk case for prosecutors. They face a couple of significant hurdles, one of which is that, for some of these charges, they need to prove Trump’s intent. And it can be difficult to establish definitively what was happening in another person’s mind.” (Especially a mind like Djonald’s... some of the darkest whispers on the darkest corners of the Dark Web believe that the only thing he has to do win acquittal is plead insanity. Might not the issue whether Trump can campaign and, if elected, govern from Arkham Asylum as opposed to a state or Federal prison? – DJI)

As to 2024, senior elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley contends that “there’s clearly a potential difference between how all this affects public opinion within the confines of the GOP presidential primary and how it could matter in a general election if Trump wins the Republican nomination.”

“Let’s be real,” advises senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich, “ I would be surprised if Trump doesn’t wrap up the primary by Super Tuesday (which is March 5 this cycle) even if, according to law professor and Obama advisor Laurence Tribe: “The crimes indicted are an order of magnitude beyond anything that has been committed against this country by any American citizen, let alone a former president.”

Criminal indictments against Trump have become so frequent that they can begin to feel normal. But they are anything but. “He is fundamentally saying that he is the law and that anything which brings a law to bear against him undermines what he perceives as America,” Tribe said.

While the energy nad hoopla is focused on the Prettyman Courthouse, Nik Popli reminds America that the first two trials are inching through the system. (August 2, Attachment Fourteen)

In the other investigation run by Jack Smith’s team, federal prosecutors have accused Trump of violating the Espionage Act by illegally holding on to 31 classified documents containing national defense information after he left the White House in January 2021. “Prosecutors also charged Trump and two others with a conspiracy to obstruct the government’s repeated attempts to reclaim the classified material from his Mar-a-Lago resort.”

Trump will stand trial in the classified documents case on May 20, 2024 in Fort Pierce, Florida. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has a history of issuing rulings that are favorable to Trump.

Under New York law, falsifying business records is usually a misdemeanor but it can become a felony when there is an “intent to defraud” that includes an intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal” another crime. Prosecutors will have to prove that Trump is guilty of maintaining false business records with the intent to hide a $130,000 payment in the days before the 2016 election to cover up an alleged 2006 affair. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges, has said that the alleged scheme was intended to cover up violations of New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to illegally promote a candidate.

As the first Republican debate nears... with Trump still undecided on whether or not to participate (or perhaps worried that Georgia might lower the axe on Debate Night), the former President and his enemies... within and without the Republican Party... are waging a proxy war through their media of choice.

The left-wing GUK dismissed pro-Trump coverage during the indictments as ‘political germ warfare’ and citing some of the usual suspects. (August 3, Attachment Fifteen) These included...

Rightwing TV channel Newsmax, which has drained some of Fox News’s audience in recent months, brought on Rudy Giuliani, an unnamed co-conspirator in Tuesday’s indictment, who railed for seven minutes about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Biden being a “crooked president”.

Jesse Watters, above, on Fox News’s The Five show, which Watters co-hosts – raising the germ warfare analogy anlisting a panel including Alina Habba, a former Trump attorney who now works for Trump’s political action committee and Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law.

In the wake of the 2020 election Trump “did exactly what you would want a president to do”, Lara Trump said.

“He upheld and defended the constitution of the United States by trying to ensure that we indeed had a free and fair election. That was his whole goal, that’s what he wanted to ensure was going on,” she said.

One America News Network pivoted to Hunter Biden – always a source of interest among right-wing news – with an OANN correspondent pushing an emerging conspiracy theory that the Trump indictment was timed to coincide with Biden Jr’s tax charges trial.

And a senior editor of the Blaze website suggested that the Republican-led House should force a government shutdown – which could see about 800,000 federal employees furloughed or forced to work without pay – in the hope that the case against Trump would collapse.

While the right was floating its conspiracy theories, the left was emoting and gloating.

Fox News was shocked... shocked!... when former D.C. Metropolitan police officer and CNN analyst Michael Fanone claimed Tuesday’s federal indictment of former President Donald Trump in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot made him feel the exact same way he felt when the U.S. military “killed Osama bin Laden.” (Attachment Sixteen)

The former officer continued, saying, “Absolutely. Osama bin Laden was a terrorist who committed a horrific act against the American people and against our republic. And I believe that Donald Trump is a terrorist who committed horrific acts against the American people.”

And the Huffington Post did a little AI editing to create a Trumptastic horror movie with doctored voices and AI/CGI wizardry which (in its own way, predicts the future of the “post-truth” journalism.

“This is not your country anymore,” Laura Ingraham “declares”.

“The legal equivalent of a French guillotine,” former Trump adviser Stephen Miller “says”.

Too bad that all the latenite comedian/talkshowhosts are off the air. Might be able to see it on TikTok here... if the Chinese aren’t offended.

It’s unclear yet when the One Six case will go to trial, but Jack Smith said his office will seek speedy proceedings.

“I must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, in a court of law,” Smith said in a press conference on Tuesday.

Trump is looking at a complicated calendar for 2024. The former president’s trial in New York on criminal charges over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels will begin in March 2024. His criminal trial in Florida for retaining national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago property and obstructing the justice department’s efforts to retrieve them will take place in May 2024. The Iowa caucuses, the opening salvo in the Republican race for the 2024 presidential nomination, are scheduled to take place in January. (GUK, Attachment Eighteen)

And the WashPost (August 2^nd, Attachment Nineteen) determined that the four things that “stand out” from the most recent indictment are...

1. The indictment argues that Trump knew the ‘big lie’ was a lie

2. It lists six unnamed co-conspirators who have not been charged (yet).

3. The case argues that the conspirators worked to create the illusion of uncertainty, and

4. The reaction from Republicans to the case was muted

One might disagree in that some Republicans were quite vocal...

Indictment Number Three “follows an investigation that stretched almost eight months by Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose team had interviewed dozens of prominent figures in Trump’s orbit, including former Vice President Mike Pence, over Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6,” according to Eric Cortellessa and Nik Popli of Time (Attachment Twenty)

Smith’s investigators were aided by anonymous gifters (or, MAGA might say, “rats”) who leaked “private phone calls in the days before the Jan. 6 attack between Trump and Pence, who took “contemporaneous notes” of the conversations, according to the indictment. In one of them, Trump allegedly told the former Vice President he was “too honest" after Pence said he didn’t have the authority to unilaterally reject the election results.”

The indictment says Trump attorney John Eastman also pressured Pence to subvert the Electoral College certification. After a senior aide warned that such a maneuver would galvanize riots in the streets, Eastman allegedly argued that “there had previously been points in the nation’s history where violence was necessary to protect the republic.”

Pence responded to the indictment on Tuesday with a statement, saying in part: “On January 6th, Former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will.”

In a Truth Social post published shortly before the DOJ announced the charges, Trump called the indictment “fake” and accused Smith of trying to “interfere” with the 2024 election. “Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago?” he wrote. “Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign.”

“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the Trump campaign said in a statement on Tuesday. “President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from highly accomplished attorneys.”

Later in the week, several more opinionators opined that perhaps Trump’s best chance of avoiding prison would be to lay the blame on his former attorneys, claiming their incompetence gestated the One Six and he was just a clueless boy passing through the chaos.

At the heart of Trump’s response to the charges, said the Timesters, “has been to gin up a sense of collective grievance among the MAGA faithful.”

“(S)ome former federal prosecutors think Trump’s delay efforts are likely to work. Years-long delays are common in most white-collar criminal cases, and it will be even harder to expedite the high-stakes and unprecedented prosecutions of a former President who is also the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Now, it appears that Trump’s latest strategy is to blame some of those “highly accomplished” attorneys for his own misadventures. But, like the janitor at Mar-a-Lago taking the fall for the documents fiasco, Djonald needs a scapegoat – and his current lawyer knows just who to finger.

“Barely hours after Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday for engaging in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to overturn U.S. democracy, his defense lawyer, John Lauro, went on Fox News and telegraphed his coming strategy. (WashPost, Attachment Twenty One) Lauro said prosecutors cannot prove Trump truly “believed” he’d lost his 2020 presidential reelection, ensuring a not-guilty verdict.

That’s gotten lots of attention, most of it appropriately dismissive. But Lauro also slipped another assertion into his appearance that merits more worry: He declared that Trump merely acted on what he thought was reasonable advice from his lawyer, John Eastman.

“He had advice of counsel, a very detailed memorandum from a constitutional expert,” Lauro said of Trump and Eastman. But, after departing Fox, Lauro repeated this on NBC’s “Today” show, insisting Trump is “entitled” to “trust advice of counsel.”

“This suggests that an “advice of counsel” argument will be central to Trump’s defense,” according to Gerg Sargent of the Post. “Two of the indictment’s charges are that Trump obstructed the official proceeding of the electoral count and entered into a conspiracy to do so. But the obstruction charge requires proving “corrupt intent,” which could be undermined by the claim that he acted on his lawyers’ advice.

Eastman’s theory that Pence had the power to halt the electoral count was utterly baseless. But Matthew Seligman, an election law expert at the Stris and Maher firm, points out that Trump’s lawyers can argue that Trump, who isn’t exactly a legal mastermind, had no reason to doubt what he was being told.

“Prosecutors will need to argue that Trump could not have relied on Eastman’s advice in good faith, because his theories were so outlandish,” Seligman told Sargent.

Trump’s argument could open the door to one juror concluding that, even if those theories were crazy, Trump grasped at them in desperation but in good faith.

“Clearly Trump knew Eastman’s theory was baloney,” Sargent concludes. “But the rub is getting 12 jurors to agree — not to mention, perhaps, five Supreme Court justices.”

Jack Smith’s task, most unbiased stalwarts of the communications bedrock believe, will be to smash through the former President’s bodyguard of lies with... oh... a Jewish space laser?

“The attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday. “As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election”

But Associated Press reporters David Klepper and Ali Swenson surmised (August 3^rd, Attachment Twenty Two) that, instead of convincing his followers about the seriousness of the charges, “Tuesday’s indictment is being held up as proof of a conspiracy to take down the Republican ex-president and a continuation of the effort by Democrats, the media and the so-called deep state to interfere with the nation’s elections.

“Much of the misinformation about the indictments has originated with Trump, who instead of trying to minimize his legal jeopardy has made it a centerpiece of his campaign, framing it as an assault on democracy, freedom and his own followers.”

Those followers, hashing and rehashing the particulars on social media, contend that the entire roster of indictments “were timed to distract from news about the Biden family,” and have dealt with the the law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judge involved in the case. On X, photos of Smith circulated with the text “The face of pure evil.” Some posts called him a “hit man” or a “legal terrorist.”

Others dug into the biography of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and called into question her fairness, noting that she was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and was a partner at a law firm that once employed Hunter Biden.

“Do you know Judge Chutkan who will preside over the new Trump indictment worked with Hunter Biden?? It’s all a con,” posted Sebastian Gorka, a former national security aide under Trump.

Both Chutkan and Hunter Biden worked at the firm of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, but no evidence has come to light suggesting they worked closely together. Boies Schiller Flexner is a large, well-known firm with 13 offices in three countries and more than 170 attorneys listed on its website. The firm did not immediately respond to questions seeking comment.

With Chutkin... a former public defender and was one of the first U.S. judges to reject his executive privilege claims to withhold Jan. 6 White House records... “Donald Trump’s legal troubles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack come near full circle,” contend Spencer Hsu and Tom Jackman of the WashPost. (Attachment Twenty Three)

The Posties cite Trumps involvement in “more than 4,000 lawsuits over the course of his half-century in real estate, entertainment and politics,” dating from his refusing to rent out apartments to blacks, in the company of his father back in the ‘70s through his connections with the Jersey Mob in Atlantic City, his fraudulent Trump University scam and, of course, his two impeachments.

In Chutkin, he faces “a trained dancer raised in Kingston, Jamaica (who) graduated from George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School before working in private practice with two Washington firms and serving 11 years with the D.C. Public Defender Service. She then joined the Boies Schiller Flexner (where she knew, or did not know, Hunter Biden), and the Federal Bench – specializing in dealing out justice to the Jan. 6^th insurrectionists. “Through mid-June, Chutkan sentenced every one of the 31 defendants to have come before her to at least some jail or prison time. She has exceeded prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations nine times and granted them 14 times, while court-wide, judges have sentenced below government recommendation about 80 percent of the time.”

His Thursday arraignment engendered some chippiness, with The Donald “irked” that US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadyaha referred to him as “Mr. Trump” rather than “Mr. President”. (New York Post, August 4^th, Attachment Twenty Four)

The usual suspects mouthed their usual partisan rants of approval or outrage... none more outrageous than the defendant himself:

“CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT I HAD TO FLY TO A FILTHY, DIRTY, FALLING APART, & VERY UNSAFE WASHINGTON, D.C., TODAY, & THAT I WAS THEN ARRESTED BY MY POLITICAL OPPONENT, WHO IS LOSING BADLY TO ME IN THE POLLS, CROOKED JOE BIDEN, IT WAS A VERY GOOD DAY!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Jack Smith’s investigative efforts and the unwanted testimony they elicited from “insiders” (whose loyalty to Trump was probably about equal to his loyalty to them) “now sits at the heart of the federal indictment brought against Trump.” WashPost, August 2^nd, Attachment Twenty Five)

The indictment references at least nine administration officials, among others, who told Trump that the election was not stolen or that his schemes to remain in the White House were untenable.

Posties Derek Hawkins and Tyler Remmel reported that the indictment references “at least nine administration officials, among others, who told Trump that the election was not stolen or that his schemes to remain in the White House were untenable.”

All nine are anonymous, but those who have gone on the record... now, perhaps in future testimony or (at least in the case of Vice President Pence) on the debate stage also include BillBarr the Barbarian, telling the beaten candidate that rumours of a “vote dump” in Michigan were just that... rumours... acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen who attempted to disabuse the President that there were not “205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvana, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Pennsylvania’s now-notorious Brad Raffsnsperger.

A couple of other Post reporters... Devlin Barrett and Josh Dawsey... contend that the former president’s intent — and whether he knew he was lying about election fraud — are “key issues for prosecutors.”

This will require squirming into Trump’s head where... among the dust bunnies and Burger King wrappers... might answer a long-debated aspect of the former president’s mind-set: “How much, or if, he believes his own false claims.”

Summoning up more attorneys (August 2, Attachment Twenty Six), one referemced the “metaphysical question of whether it’s even possible for Donald Trump to believe that he lost the election, or lost anything else, for that matter,” another ventured: “Sometimes people have an incredible capacity to believe their own nonsense,” and eight White House advisors, “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said they believed at the time, and still do, that Trump had convinced himself that he won.”

“He is going to keep saying the election was rigged and stolen because he believes it,” one adviser said. “They are never going to get him to say he was lying, because he still believes it.”

BillBar the Barbarian... Trump’s attorney general during the stormy seas of his final year... “was similarly useful in dealing with the fruits of that probe, including intervening to suggest a reduced punishment for Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone after the latter was convicted of lying to Congress.”

He also spilt the potato juice on his role (and Trump’s) in clearing out 1200 Lafayette Square protesters, leading to the photo shoot replayed on campaign commercials well into November.

Now the legal wrangling begins, as Post associate editor Ruth Marcus contends, listing the presumed claims we can expect to hear ahead of trial (Attachment Tweny Nine);

“Argument #1: The statutes governing conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding (Counts Two and Three) don’t apply here, because that prohibition only covers destruction of evidence and other forms of evidence tampering.” Under relevant law. 18 U.S.C. 1512(c), the provision, the Supreme Court said in a 1995 decision, “serves as a catchall, prohibiting persons from endeavoring to influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice.”

Argument #2: Trump lacked the requisite intent to break the law or to act corruptly, because he believed that he won the election and was only taking steps to vindicate his rights as the supposedly victorious candidate. Trump had every right — whether he was lying or merely deluded — to argue that he had won. He just didn’t have the right to use illegal means to effectuate that victory. As Randall Eliason, a former federal public corruption prosecutor, has explained, “If I honestly believe a bank had cheated me and owes me money, that doesn’t mean I can rob the bank to get my money back.”

Argument #3: Trump relied on advice of counsel in pursuing his quest to remain in office.

Trump “had advice of counsel, a very detailed memorandum from a constitutional expert,” his new lawyer, John Lauro, told Fox News, referring to John Eastman, a former Chapman University law professor who was pressing outlandish arguments about Pence’s authority not to certify the election results and who is referred to in the indictment as co-conspirator 2.

Marcus sides with Trump’s former attorney general, William P. Barr, on this one: “I don’t think that dog is going to hunt.” To get the issue before jurors, Trump will have to show that he relied in good faith on his lawyers’ advice. Even if jurors buy that, however, “it would not knock out all the charges against Trump, just the parts of those — such as the slates of phony electors and the Pence certification — where Eastman’s advice played a central role.”

Argument #4: The federal civil rights statute under which Trump is accused of conspiring to interfere with the right to vote does not cover the conduct at issue here.

The Reconstruction-era law, 18 U.S.C. 241, originally used against groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, prohibits conspiracies “to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” The indictment alleges that Trump and co-conspirators sought to interfere with “the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”

As the Justice Department manual on election law offenses explains, Section 241 has been used to prosecute efforts to steal votes by hacking voting machines, to destroy voter registration applications and to keep people from getting rides to the polls by jamming telephone lines.

“Earlier this year, a federal judge in New York upheld the use of Section 241 in a case involving a far-right activist’s effort to mislead Twitter users into thinking they could cast their votes for Hillary Clinton by posting hashtags on Twitter or Facebook or texting her name to a specific phone.” Still, Trump could argue that prosecutors are using Section 241 far beyond its original, intended purpose. Preventing the vote from being certified is different, or so they could argue, from stopping people from casting ballots. “What Trump did, though reprehensible, bears no relation to what the statute covers,” the conservative, but Trump-nixing National Review, nonetheless editorialized.

An experienced federal judge, Tanya Chutkan, is overseeing the case. If she rejects Trump’s arguments, his hopes lie in an acquittal or eventual success on appeal. But that is a long way down the road, and almost certainly after the next election.

(Want more? The Post added a breakdown of all 78 charges Trump faces)

Trump himself and through his Republican and rightwing commentators and some of those contending with him for the Presidency lined up to condemn prosecution, disclosed the liberal GUK (August 4, Attachment Thirty)

The Faithful (to the cause, not the man)...

A handful of Republicans, though competing with Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, fired off statements as the ex-president left the courthouse and returned to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy posted a video message filmed outside the federal courthouse calling the January 6 indictment “politicized persecution.” He earlier vowed to pardon Trump if elected.

Fox News host Jesse Watters downplayed Trump’s January 6 charges on air while applauding Trump for his “calm demeanor” during the arraignment, according to Mediaite. “By this January 6th indictment, we’re kind of tired of it,” Watters said on Thursday evening.

Ron DeSantis, his own campaign floundering, nonetheless called for ending the “weaponization of government, replac(ing) the FBI director, and ensur(ing) a single standard of justice for all Americans”.

Outrage after DeSantis says he’d ‘start slitting throats’ if elected president

And family guy Erik sent out a fundraising email with language calling the city “the belly of the beast”, according to NBC News. His campaign pulled in nearly $4m after his first arraignment in March and considerably less but still more than $1m after his arraignment in June, according to the New York Times.

Those denialists denying the denier-in-chief included the former vice-president Mike Pence – whom Trump allegedly called “too honest” after he refused to reject electoral votes according to the indictment – used the arraignment was fodder for his own campaign, including to sell merch. “[A]nyone who puts himself over the constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said in a statement.

Among the orthodox applauders of Indictment Three were US Capitol police officer, Sgt Aquilino Gonell, who stated: “Our democracy is worth fighting for. Not prosecuting is far riskier than having no consequences for the alleged power grab attempts. Justice and the rule of law must win for our democracy to survive.”

Dozens of Democrats following Adam Schiff of California signed a letter urging the district court to publicly broadcast the trial proceedings “for the sake of our democracy.”.

But Trump, like Caesar, has less to fear from the donkeys than from his own Senators, Congressmen, even his personal aides. (WashPost, August 5, Attachment Thirty One)

“At least seven currently serving advisers to former president Donald Trump took actions that are mentioned prominently in one of his three criminal indictments or have been interviewed by prosecutors,” Posties Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dewey numbered, potentially setting up “uncomfortable situations in which they are working for his 2024 presidential bid while also serving as witnesses at one of his upcoming trials.”

There are the known (aide Walt Nauta, White House counsel Donald McGahn, senior campaign adviser Susie Wiles, advisor Jason Miller, lawyer Evan Corcoran and Mar-a-Lago janitor Carlos deOliveira) and those in shadows... campaign aides Liz Harrington, Margo Marti PAC man Taylor Budowich, campaign adviser and lawyer Boris Epshteynn... even Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee – a longtime Trump ally who would be responsible for helping Trump win the White House should he become the party’s nominee, could be forced to take the witness stand along with 83 other potential witnesses; many obsessed with saving their own skins.

“This is secret information,” Trump said at a meeting, the recording of which, taken during a meeting with writers helping prepare former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ book, seeming to acknowledge that he knew he had secret documents. “As president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

“Now we have a problem,” Harrington said, laughing.

“Some of Trump’s current advisers have faced pointed questioning from Smith’s prosecutors, who appeared to believe they have not been forthcoming when questioned about Trump’s actions in the two federal cases, according to two people familiar with the matter... some even confessed to their Big Boss that “the prosecutors were hostile to them.”

Imagine!

Before Indictment Three, US News and World Report circulated round and round, scooping up reactions to the pending process (Attachment Thirty Two). Many refused to comment, but among those who did were...

Jack Smith, special prosecutor: (see above)

Merrick Garland, attorney general:

“Mr. Smith and his team are experienced, principled career agents, prosecutors have followed the facts and the law wherever they may lead.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence, 2024 GOP contender:

“Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”

"I will have more to say about the government’s case after reviewing the indictment. The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions.”

"Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 2024 GOP contender:

“As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans. While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment. I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts. Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality. One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses – I will end the weaponization of the federal government.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, 2024 GOP contender:

“The corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: eliminate Trump. This is un-American & I commit to pardoning Trump for this indictment. Donald Trump isn’t the cause of what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic & pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it. If you tell people they can’t speak, that’s when they scream. If you tell people they can’t scream, that’s when they tear things down. If we fail to admit the truth, Jan 6 will just be a preview of far worse to come & I don’t want to see us get there.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, 2024 GOP contender:

“This is another sad day for America with a former President being charged criminally for obstructing the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. January 6 is a day that calls for accountability for those responsible. I have always said that Donald Trump is morally responsible for the attack on our democracy. Now, our system of Justice will determine whether he is criminally responsible. The latest indictment reaffirms my earlier call that Donald Trump should step away from the campaign for the good of the country. If not, the voters must choose a different path.”

Chuck Schumer, Senate majority leader/Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader:

“The insurrection on January 6, 2021 was one of the saddest and most infamous days in American history, personally orchestrated by Donald Trump and fueled by his insidious Big Lie in an attempt to undermine the 2020 election. In a deadly effort to overturn the will of the American people and block the peaceful transition of power, our nation’s Capitol – the very symbol and home of American patriotism and democracy – fell under attack to thousands of vicious and violent rioters.”

“The third indictment of Donald Trump illustrates in shocking detail that the violence of January 6th was the culmination of a months-long criminal plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the will of the American people. This indictment is the most serious and most consequential thus far and will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the United States, is above the law. The legal process must continue to move forward without any outside interference.”

Rep. Steve Scalise, House majority leader:

“Biden’s DOJ is cutting sweetheart deals for Hunter to cover for the Biden Family’s influence peddling schemes while at the same time trying to persecute his leading political opponent. It’s an outrageous abuse of power.”

Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker:

“The charges alleged in this indictment are very serious, and they must play out through the legal process, peacefully and without any outside interference. Like every criminal defendant, the former President is innocent until proven guilty. Our Founders made clear that, in the United States of America, no one is above the law – not even the former President of the United States.”

"Through the meticulous and patriotic work of the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, evidence was uncovered about the sinister plot to overturn the presidential election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power, which culminated in deadly insurrection.”

"As this case proceeds through the courts, justice must be done according to the facts and the law."

Rep. Elise Stefanik, Republican conference chair:

“President Trump had every right under the First Amendment to correctly raise concerns about election integrity in 2020. Despite the DOJ’s illegal attempt to interfere in the 2024 election on behalf of Joe Biden, President Trump continues to skyrocket in the polls and will defeat Joe Biden and be sworn in as President of the United States in January 2025.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Jan. 6 committee member:

“On the 1/6 Committee, we uncovered proof that Donald Trump not only knew what was happening at the Capitol, but encouraged it. He is a cancer on our democracy. Today is the beginning of Justice. Nobody is above the law; least of all a president who swore an oath to defend it.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican:

“This isn't just an indictment against President Trump, but against all his supporters and the fundamental rights of Americans. If an innocent former president can be targeted, then no American is truly safe. President Trump is just standing in the way.”

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican:

“When you drain The Swamp, The Swamp fights back. President Trump did nothing wrong!”

Rep. Joaquin Castro, Texas Democrat:

“I’m glad to see that Donald Trump has been indicted for his role in trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 Presidential Election and for stoking the failed coup of January 6, 2021. If he gets away with it others will try the same in the years ahead. The world is watching.”

Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican:

“DOJ unveils the latest effort to stop Trump from running against Biden – totally unprecedented in American history.”

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law:

“Today's charges matter beyond the fact that a former president is accused. Donald Trump and his co-conspirators tried to overthrow American democracy. They wanted to negate the votes of millions of Americans. They did this using phony claims of voter fraud and rigged elections. These conspiracy theories are still being used to justify changes to voting and election law all over the country. Donald Trump will stand trial. The Big Lie will be on trial too.”

Reed Galen and Rick Wilson, co-founders of The Lincoln Project:

“The nation needs to wake up to the very real threat that Trump will win the presidency. He IS the Republican nominee. He IS leading in the polls against Joe Biden. The MAGA GOP is a cult that no longer cares about the rule of law and wants to send Trump back to the White House. No indictment is going to stop his campaign.”

Marilyn Carpinteyro, Common Cause interim co-president

"No American is above the law – not even former presidents. The charges that a federal grand jury leveled today against former President Donald Trump are profoundly serious and must go to trial. The charges themselves are unprecedented, but so are the events that led to them.”

Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director:

“More than two years ago, shortly after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the ACLU called for a special counsel to investigate President Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 election. Today, a grand jury indicted the former president in D.C. for just that, after Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed to conduct the investigation. All defendants are innocent until proven guilty, but no person is above the law. If the former president is found guilty, he must be held accountable.”

Peanuts on the street... in or out of their shells... reacted to Indictment Three more or less as they greeted One and Two... the partisan Right condemning the “witch hunt” (perhaps as a distraction from the all-important issue of Hunter Biden’s sex videos), the partisan Left finding themselves applauding law and order, at least selectively, and the muddled middle conflicted or unconcerned,

The liberal Guardian U.K. took a jaunt down to Iowa, where the first of the Republican primaries will be held, and found some MAGAnauts, propped up by the primary polls, nonetheless worried about November and the prospect of four more years of Joe Biden.

Neil Shaffer, Chair of the GOP in rural Cresco told the GUKster liberals that he was true red for Trump but “not t enthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Trump presidential campaign.” (August 6, Attachment Thirty Three)

“Why is Trump doing so well? Because people feel like they are piling on him. If this is the Democrats’ effort to make him look bad, it hasn’t. It’s probably going to make him the [Republican] nominee and, honestly,” Shaffer fantasized, “he may win the general election again. And then whose fault would it be?”

“Fault” is not the sort of word one applies to superheroes – but, then again, it might seem that Trump is playing into a Democratic plot to gift him with the nomination, and then smoosh him in November. “With Trump likely to spend a good part of the next year in one courtroom or another, after being indicted in New York, Florida and Washington on an array of charges and with more expected in Georgia before long, his supporters are more than willing to believe it is a plot to keep their man out of the White House,” opined the Guardian’s Chris McGreal.

“Democrats are gonna keep riding [Trump’s] ass and bringing shit up against him. They don’t quit. They just don’t like him because he’s draining the swamp, and they don’t like that,” said Tom Schatz, a dairy and corn farmer who, like many Iowans, has been following the election and indictment news on right wing radio. On the day of Trump’s arraignment, Buck Sexton, a former CIA analyst on AM 600 WMT in Iowa, was energetically telling his listeners, without irony, that the prosecutions “undermined confidence in the electoral system.”

For a while, polls put DeSantis ahead of Trump in a primary matchup. Shaffer said his county party was split, although at the time he still thought Trump would win because his supporters had more energy and commitment.

“Now I think it’s even more so. When I speak up for DeSantis at our Republican monthly meeting, these people wearing their Trump hats don’t want to hear it. It’s such a foregone conclusion. Trump is going to get the nomination easily, whether he’s in a jail cell or in the courtroom.”

“I feel like he could be running from prison and it’ll still be a tight race with Joe Biden. That’s what scares me,” said Howard county’s Democratic party chair Laura Hubka, a US navy veteran and ultrasound technologist.

Hubka blames the Democratic national leadership, which has been accused of overly focusing on parts of the country where a majority of the residents have a college education, unlike rural Iowa.

“They need to get some balls, be more bold. I also feel like they just are writing off the rural counties,” she said.

But Hubka is still there, campaigning and waiting to see what happens if Trump goes to prison. She bought a gun before the last election because of so many threats from Trump supporters.

“I was really very scared that I was going to get shot or hurt. It’s calmed down a bit in that sense. But who knows what happens if he gets thrown in jail,” she said.

The die-hard, kill-easy Trump fanatics in Atlanta’s purpling Marietta Country have encountered resistance from Democrats, even amidst their own neighborhoods and... yes... families. (WashPost, August 6, Attachment Thirty Four)

Landscaper Jerry Ramsey, 79, sees the 45-page indictment as “just another effort to tear down the country he, a Vietnam vet, had worked so hard to defend.

“They just dream stuff up,” he said. “They just keep coming after him.”

Ramsey woke up and, as he did almost every morning, turned on “Fox & Friends,” the popular show that starts the morning for many Republicans. On this Thursday, Trump was flying to D.C. from his Bedminster, N.J., estate. Sitting in his red armchair, Ramsey was already decked out for the day in his Trump 2024 hat and rubber Trump bracelets.

When conservative commentator Mark Levin appeared on screen, Ramsey picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

“This indictment is crap!” Levin bellowed. “They went after him before he was elected, they went after him when he was elected, they went after him during the four years of his presidency, and they’re going after him now.”

“He gets so excited!” said Ramsey’s wife, Carolyn, who was sitting across from him.

When conservative commentator Mark Levin appeared on screen, Ramsey picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

“He gets so excited!” said Ramsey’s wife, Carolyn, who was sitting across from him.

When conservative commentator Mark Levin appeared on screen, Ramsey picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

“He gets so excited!” said Ramsey’s wife, Carolyn, who was sitting across from him.

When conservative commentator Mark Levin appeared on screen, Ramsey picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

“He gets so excited!” said Ramsey’s wife, Carolyn, who was sitting across from him.

He had listened to Trump’s speech on the Mall that day and even walked toward the Capitol with the angry crowd. But he was feeling cold and tired, he said, so instead of joining the protesters at the steps of the Capitol, he went to Starbucks. His memory of that day is of a peaceful protest.

“I didn’t see any violence,” he said. To Ramsey, it was inconceivable that his fellow Trump supporters would have ransacked the Capitol, so he blamed the violence on shadowy outside groups.

Two of those shadowy insiders are Jenny Peterson, 55, who listens to NPR and says:: “It’s important to me as a mom that my 16- and 14-year-old will see this one thing happen,” when someone who has committed crimes in plain sight “is held accountable”, and Tamara Stevens who, like scores of women in their suburban neighborhood, they rushed to volunteer for Jon Ossoff, who they believed could be a small but significant check on Trump’s power.

That night, while defrosting fish for supper and watching NewsHour, William P. Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, was talking about his unfitness for the presidency. Peterson looked at Barr with disgust, thinking of all the moments when he had protected Trump.

“What did you do about it?” she yelled at the television.

For Capitol workers who were on the front lines on Jan. 6^th, some have been irretrievably traumatized and incapable of life beyond “that harrowing moment when they barricaded themselves in offices as hundreds of Trump loyalists roamed the complex looking for lawmakers to intimidate—or worse.” (Time, Attachment Thirty Five)

And then came Indictment Day, and a 911 call suggesting there was an active shooter in the Hart Senate Office Building and what has become an all-too-familiar routine kicked in.

“I had to silence my cell phone, blockade my office door, and keep the staffers here calm,” a Democratic chief of staff who refused to give his name said. The echo of Jan. 6, 2021, was almost too precise.

“I hate it here,” one junior staffer messaged his friends as the threat was ongoing.

“This s— doesn’t get any easier,” a Republican chief of staff messaged me back on a secure app.

One of the most under-appreciated background stories since Jan. 6, 2021, has been the slow-boiling mental health crisis plaguing Capitol Hill staffers—and not the ones you’d think. Mid-career staffers and younger aides have never not known active-shooter drills in their schools. Learning to hide in classrooms was simply part of the curriculum, and now simply the way they go about their lives. “Always be ready to run,” a House intern texted me, along with a picture of the sneakers she keeps under her desk.

By the time the all-clear message went across the Capitol complex, the nerves had frayed. Capitol Police said it was likely a “bogus” call, but nonetheless went door to door through all of the Senate office buildings just to be sure. Police then escorted staffers from the building, again just to be sure. There was no indication of shots fired, injuries, or an ongoing threat, but that is little consolation to the professionals on the Hill who had to relive their Jan. 6 experiences during a week when many are already struggling to put the trauma behind them.

Time has summoned up some metrics that are at the ready. “In the year that followed the Jan. 6 riots, 135 officers had left the 2,000-person Capitol Police force; a year earlier, that number stood at 80. In 2017, there were fewer than 4,000 threats made against Congress. In 2021, that number skyrocketed to 9,600.”

That’s why so many of the best and brightest don’t want to log a few years on Capitol Hill. The drag on mental health isn’t remotely worth it.

The WashPost’s Philip Bump (Attachment Thirty Six) reported that Donald Trump spent the hours after his indictment on Tuesday “ensconced in the safest space he could muster. He was at his private club in Bedminster, N.J., and dining with two of his most important supporters: the CEO and the president of Fox News.”

In that moment of unusual turmoil, it was Fox News and Trump, breaking bread after the same instability that has defined the Fox-Trump relationship since Election Day 2020, the tug-of-war over their shared audience. “In the immediate aftermath of the election, Fox embraced the reality of Trump’s loss, only to see the then-president savage their coverage and stars, sending some of his most die-hard backers to fringe-right networks, blasting Fox News for what he presented as inappropriately generous coverage of the governor. He encouraged his supporters to look elsewhere for news.

“It was Fox News that reportedly sought Tuesday’s dinner,” Bump revealed. “Trump has been flirting with skipping the first presidential debate, something that’s very much in keeping with his indifference to debating but also serves as leverage on Fox, the channel that’s hosting the engagement. Fox News is aware that a Trumpless debate would be a far less compelling one, and not only for Trump supporters.”

Fox itself appears to be seekin peace as its purported savior, DeSantis, talks crazier and crazier and slides lower and lower in the polls.

“The latest indictment of former President Trump threatens to destroy the First Amendment and give the federal government the unprecedented power to criminalize political lies,” constitutional law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley warned Saturday. (Attachment Thirty Seven)

"In order to secure convictions for this, Special Counsel Jack Smith would need to bulldoze through not just the First Amendment but also existing case law holding that even false statements are protected," Turley moonlighted in an op-ed for The Hill.

Specifically, Turley said Smith’s charges assert that Trump knew the statements he made about the 2020 election were false and said if Trump does believe he won, "the indictment collapses."

In an effort to show Trump knew he lost legitimately, the indictment explains that many people advised him that he lost. Turley said Trump sought out people who said he won but that he is allowed to do this.

Turley also warned that successfully charging Trump in this way sets up the "dangerous" precedent of giving the government the power to determine what’s true and what isn’t.

"There is no limiting principle to this indictment," Turley wrote in The Hill. "The government would choose between which politicians are lying and which are lying without cause."

Turley added that even if Judge Tanya Chutkan supports Smith’s case, "the Supreme Court would likely balk at the criminalization of false political speech."

The foreign media have been watching Indictment Three with fascination (and not a little concern.

The German outlet dw.com (August 3, Attachment Thirty Eight) agreed with most American media that charges “could have a major impact on the Republican candidate's reelection campaign, and they're significantly more serious than those in the past, which included indictments for falsifying business records in New York and withholding top-secret documents in Florida.”

They also acknowledged that there's a core of Trump supporters whose minds won't be changed by anything. “In fact, Trump might even be able to shrewdly use the trial to raise money for his campaign. He could then, in turn, use those funds to help cover his legal fees. One could even say that the indictment could actually help him among this group.”

The big question, asked the Germans, “is whether or not the trials will be finished before the elections. The court dates are set for March and May of 2024, which is right around the time members of the two major parties vote for candidates in the primaries.”

The proceedings will be highly complex, and Herr Drumpf “will do everything in his power to delay the verdict until the elections are over.” Like the Americans, dw.com predicts that the Indictee will plead ignorance and deny intent to really overthrow the government and hang Mike Pence – they doubt the ability of the victor to pardon himelf, but say the final decision would be up to the Supreme Court.

The French declare that Trump's legal troubles have, heretofore, thrust the United States into “uncharted territory”, but the latest charges from special counsel Jack Smith are in “a different league.”

"The indictments of Trump are truly historic in the sense that no US president or former president before Trump has been indicted, much less charged with spreading lies regarding an election," Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond told France 24 (Attachment Thirty Nine). Another law professor, Richard Hasen from UCLA, calls “this indictment and prosecution”: (let alone the other two, perhaps three) the most important ever handed down to safeguard American (thus, world) democracy.

"It's not hyperbole to say that the conduct of this prosecution will greatly influence whether the US remains a thriving democracy after 2024."

"What we haven't had before is a person so powerful that they can bend the Constitution to the point of breaking," historian Jon Meacham said on MSNBC. "(Trump) put fundamentally his own appetite, his own ambition, ahead of everything else."

And over on the other side, the August 2^nd Daily Beast made America happy that the Trump indictment has Team Putin shaking in their boots. (Attachment Forty)

During his morning show Full Contact, decorated state TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was aghast about the charges. “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it in my entire life! In America, they are currently attempting to destroy Trump—and to do it unbelievably fast!,” he said. “This sort of a thing never happened in American history!”

Solovyov’s guest, Russian pundit Dmitry Evstafiev, wholeheartedly agreed, concluding that the prospect of future negotiations between Moscow and the U.S. government have now been crushed—and even going so far as to suggest that the indictment could lead to all-out war with the U.S.

“These aren’t the elites or society with whom you can negotiate! I’m starting to lean towards your point of view that a big war is becoming almost inevitable,” he said.

And in a sequel, the Beastlies’ David Rothkopf opined that: “Trump and Putin need each other more than ever...” drawing from more leaky Russians like Olga Skabeeva, host of the state TV show 60 Minutes, whose guest Alexander Gusev, a contributor to the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry magazine, also predicted that election-related conflicts, including the growing collection of indictments against Trump, will trigger a civil war in the United States. (Attachment Forty One)

Gusev’s solution was simple: “For us, it’s very important to get the support of the global south, to create an anti-Western, an anti-American coalition”—to which Skabeeva replied, “Let’s bear in mind that we’ve started doing that already.”

Maybe it’s time to bring back Prigozhin and his Afrika Korps?

And further over, in China, called the new Indictment “...only the latest development in Trump’s legal battles. It follows an indictment against him in June for illegally retaining reams of documents with highly classified intelligence and obstructing attempts by US government officials to retrieve them.” (South China Morning Post, Attachment Forty Two)

The Chinese also mentioned E. Jean Carroll’s civil case which will not land the former President in prison, but may also interrupt his campaigning and fundraising (Carroll’s lawyers have already won $5M and are now seeking an additional $10M).

Some of the American conservative media are espousing the same “dark and sinister rhetoric” as are the Russians.

CNN, waxing blue, alleged that “millions of Americans are immersed in a twisted world where language used to describe autocrats is being applied to America’s democratic institutions,” in updating an article by Oliver Darcy which first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter – now Attachment Forty Three.

“The draconian rhetoric, once reserved for the likes of tyrants and dictators, has become commonplace in right-wing media when referring to President Joe Biden and the elected government he leads. The dark and sinister language, normalized on mainstream conservative platforms such as Fox News, has been on full display this week during coverage of Donald Trump’s third indictment.

“The Biden White House is referred to as the “Biden regime.” Federal law enforcement are referred to as the “Gestapo” and Biden’s “personal police force.”

More comic puns proliferate, but there little comedy when talk of imprisoning Democratic politicians — and even their families — in acts of revenge is par for the course. “Even floating the outright execution of Biden, as Charlie Kirk recently did, is accepted in the warped world of MAGA Media, where the audience has been programmed through years of conditioning to welcome such vile rhetoric into their homes.”

“The extreme vernacular often flies under the radar, drawing eye rolls from those outside this alternate universe and receiving little media attention,” admits Mr. Darcy. “But it shouldn’t. Language carries with it serious consequences.”

(As witness the latest Jack Smith/Trump kerfluffel... whether or not Djonald UnSettled was speaking of political or physical vengeance when he promised to “come after” his millions of enemies.)

This language moves beyond mere demonization because it suggests a need for violent resistance,” Charlie Sykes, a former conservative talk-radio host and an editor-at-large of The Bulwark, told Darcy on Thursday. “It’s language that undermines the integrity, the democratic institutions, and the justice system itself. And there’s a constant escalation without much concern where this leads or who might act on the idea that our opponents aren’t just wrong — but evil, dangerous, and illegitimate.”

“One does not argue, debate or disagree with the Gestapo.” Sykes admonished, “You go to war with them.”

“At the very least, Darcy responded, “the poison pumped into the national discourse has maimed America’s shared sense of democratic principles and contributed to profound polarization, dividing neighbors, friends, and families.”

And... three reporters from the WashPost surmised (August Fourth, Attachment Forty Four)... the Secret Service?

“If convicted in any of the three criminal cases he is facing, Donald Trump may be able to influence whether he goes to prison and what his stay there looks like under a law that allows former U.S. presidents to keep Secret Service protection for life,” some current and former U.S. officials told the Posties.

Could Trump face prison? “Theoretically, yes and practically, no,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former top federal prosecutor and counsel to then-FBI Director James B. Comey. Rosenberg served briefly as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in the Trump administration and notably said the president had “condoned police misconduct” in remarking to officers in Long Island that they need not protect suspects’ heads when loading them in to police vehicles.

As an alternative to incarceration, Rosenburg floated alternate sanctions... “Probation, fines, community service and home confinement are all alternatives.”

There are worse places to serve out home confinement than the White House.

Current and former agents suggested that Trump’s detail would coordinate their protection work with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure there was no conflict about duties or about how they would handle emergencies, as well as the former president’s routine movements in a prison — “such as heading to exercise or meals” (or in the showers). The Secret Service, they said, “would maintain a bubble around Trump in any case, keeping him at a distance from other inmates.”

For how long?

“After entering a not-guilty plea in Miami federal court on June 13, Trump claimed he was being threatened with “400 years in prison,” adding up the statutory maximum penalty for the 37 counts against him. The charges he faces in D.C. related to his alleged efforts to stay in power despite losing the election could add additional decades, based on that math.”

“Judges almost never apply maximum penalties to first offenders and rarely stack sentences rather than let them run concurrently,” the Post Three stated, citing unnamed Specialists who predicted a first offender like Djonald might face a range of anything from 51 to 63 months on the low end — about five years — to 17½ to 22 years on the high end — or about 20 years, given Trump’s alleged leadership role and abuse of trust.

And the hostility already brewing between the Indictee and Judge Chutkin does not bode will for Djonald ReChained.

In the only case of an American president or vice president to be convicted of a crime, U.S. prosecutors involved in the federal bribery prosecution that led to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew’s resignation in 1973 said prison time never became an issue — because he entered a plea deal. That would seem to be off the table according to Trump himself, who promised no deals. “I’ll never leave.”

One potential restriction that a judge or jury may place upon Djonald UnMuzzled is... well... muzzling. Specifically, compelling him to stop tweeting threatening tweets on Twitter (or “X”) via Truth Social. Or at least confining himself to nice topics.

A separate WashPost article (8/5, Attachment Forty Five) detailed the Justice Department’s insistence that the Federal Court “impose firm rules on Donald Trump and his attorneys as they review materials during the discovery process for his trial, citing, in part, the former president’s history of revealing details about cases on social media.”

“The government’s proposed agreement — called a protective order — dictates that Trump and his lawyers not disclose any of the materials they receive during the discovery process to people who are not authorized by the court to have knowledge of the materials.”

Or stockpiled in his Mar-a-Lago crapper for some light reading while expunging his burgers and KFC.

Prosecutors said that while the agreement is not stricter than ones in standard criminal cases, it is particularly important in this case because Trump has posted about judges, lawyers and witnesses involved in the multiple ongoing cases in which he is a defendant.

One of his Truth Social postings has also earned him a potential terrorism charge, inasmuch as he referred to the then-pending indictment by threatening: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

“If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details — or, for example, grand jury transcripts — obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case,” reads the filing, signed by special counsel Jack Smith. Judge Chutkan ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond by 5 PM today,

The Trump campaign has already called the media post harmless political speech... and aimed at the former president’s political critics in the Republican Party, not trial witnesses and denied the post was a call to violence.

“The Truth post cited is the definition of political speech, and was in response to the RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs,” the statement said, referring to Club for Growth and the politically active and deep-pocketed network funded by the billionaire industrialist Charles Koch (aka a helluva lot of money looking for a pocket to dwell in).

GUK, not unexpectedly, saw Nazi assassins, Wagner mercenaries and new Chinese diseases behind the posting... 8/5, Attachment Forty Six... and cited a hearing in New York in April, where Stormy judge Juan M Merchan told Trump to not make comments “likely to incite violence or civil unrest” after the former president took to Truth Social and alluded to potential “death and destruction” if he was charged with a crime.

(This afternoon, Team Trump “complied” with minutes to go before 5 PM, but essentially told Jack Smith and Judges Upadhyaya and Chutken to go stuff it because political speech is protected by the First Amendment. There will be lawyers. – DJI)

House Democrats have launched another big, white balloon at Team Trump... one which may backfire and explode in their faces... a proposal that the New York trial, at least, be televised. (WashPost, 8/4/, Attachment Forty Seven)

About three dozen raunchy donkeys, led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), are calling for televising the federal trials of former president Donald Trump on charges related to the 2020 election and the retention of classified documents.

In a letter to Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, who oversees the administration of federal courts, the lawmakers argued that the move would bolster public acceptance of the outcome.

A lawyer for Trump has also suggested that they would like the expected trial on 2020 election-related charges to be televised.

Last month, after Trump revealed that he had received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith, Trump attorney John Lauro said he would welcome additional transparency.

“I would hope that the Department of Justice would join in that effort so that we can take the curtain away and all Americans can see what’s happening,” Lauro told Fox News.

Opponents to cameras in the courtroom argue that they can be disruptive, intimidate witnesses and cause judges and jurors to lose their relative anonymity.

Jordan Singer, a law professor at New England Law in Boston, said the Judicial Conference has been wary of cameras for fear they could influence the behavior of people in the courtroom and that the media might use snippets of the proceedings taken out of context.

“Allowing video in the Trump cases increases both of these risks substantially,” Singer said in an email. “The Judicial Conference does not want a solemn criminal proceeding to be turned into a circus, inside or outside the courtroom. Or if a circus atmosphere is inevitable, at least they don’t want to contribute to it.”

The key word here is “contribute”... tho’ Lauro would not say so, his client would relish the opportunity to raise more funds, maybe even by space on the televising network (like Fox) to peddle his merch. Maybe even Mike Pence could buy a spot or two to sell his new gear featuring the slogan “too honest”.

House members who signed the letter included Democrats Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, who chaired the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as Reps. Jamie B. Raskin (Md.) and Zoe Lofgren (Calif.).

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), another of the signers, said in a tweet that the “American people have a right to know what is said in cases that concern us all,” adding that it’s “in everyone’s best interest to know the truth.”

Connolly has previously introduced legislation that would allow Supreme Court proceedings to be televised.

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment about the prospect of televised proceedings.

“Here’s what we’ve learned from the past five days,” Aaron Blake of the WashPost counted down on Friday (Attachment Forty Eight).

1. No candidate can escape the specter of Jan. 6. (Tru,p has signaled he is going to make all of this very uncomfortable for the GOP in 2024 by using it to re-litigate the 2020 election and his false claims that it was “stolen” from him.)

2. Trump may be losing control of the clock. “Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment appears built for speed. For a start, he charged Trump solo. If he charges Trump’s alleged co-conspirators, it will apparently be separately. And he kept the indictment narrowly focused on four charges, one count each. Then Smith announced at a news conference that “my office will seek a speedy trial.”

3. Ron DeSantis is running out of ideas. July was not a good month for the Florida governor. “He has gone from trailing Trump by nearly 30 points in the Republican primary to trailing by nearly 40 points. He’s now competing just to be in second place in states like Iowa and South Carolina, after polling close to Trump as recently as February, before he was officially running.” Hence the multiple campaign shake-ups.

4. Trump’s woes have not helped Biden. A New York Times/Siena College poll showed Trump and Biden tied at 43 percent in a prospective matchup, despite most recent quality polls giving Biden a small edge.

5. Republicans won’t desert (or vouch for) Trump. There has been little in the way of a merit-based defense of Trump after this latest indictment, as was the case after the previous two. And relatively few Republicans have actually gone to bat for him in any significant way — at least compared with the way they did when the federal government searched Mar-a-Lago a year ago.

Also on Saturday, GUK reported that a follower of the former US president could be seen outside court waving a giant flag. “Trump or death,” it declared, not far from the halls of Congress where lethal violence erupted on January 6,2021. (Attachment Forty Nine)

Whereas a whiff of criminality or scandal used to be career ending for politician... (“President Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate; Vice-President Spiro Agnew quit after being charged with bribery, tax evasion and conspiracy; Gary Hart’s presidential campaign collapsed due to allegations of an extramarital affair; Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress after a series of sexting scandals,”)... Trump has “shattered the laws of the political physics.”

Far from destroying his prospects, many observers believe, the latest and arguably most serious indictment for his alleged role in undermining American democracy will likely fuel a march toward the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist and cofounder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “Every time he’s indicted or under the spotlight, his numbers go up with Republican voters.

But most party leaders have stayed silent and fallen into line, apparently terrified of alienating Trump’s fervent support base in what critics describe as political cowardice. The handful of dissenters, like former Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have either retired or been ousted.

Wilson’s advice to Democrats for the presumed November showdown is simple: “They should say over and over again: this is a choice between economic growth and steady leadership in the world and at home or backing a criminal.”

Finally, Time published a list of key dates to look forward to between now and election 2024. (Attachment Fifty)

Aug. 10, 2023: Arraignment in Florida in classified documents case

Trump will be arraigned in Fort Pierce, Fla. after the Justice Department charged him in a superseding indictment with three additional felonies related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

Aug. 10, 2023: Hearing in Georgia

A judge in Cobb County, Ga. will consider a petition from Trump’s lawyers after they filed a motion to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her probe into Trump's alleged efforts to overturn Georgia's presidential election results.

Aug. 23, 2023: First GOP presidential primary debate

Although Trump will qualify for the debate, he has signaled that he might not participate in the televised affair and questioned his need to Fox the stage with candidates who lag behind him in the polls.

Aug. 28, 2023: First hearing in Jan. 6 case

Trump will appear in federal court in Washington, D.C. for a hearing before Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will set the trial date in the Jan. 6 case.

Sept. 27, 2023: Second GOP presidential primary debate

Oct. 2, 2023: Trial in Trump Organization civil fraud suit

Start of civil trial in the $250 million lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing Trump and the Trump Organization of manipulating property valuations to get tax breaks and better terms on loans and insurance policies.

Jan. 15, 2024: Trial in E. Jean Carroll civil defamation suit

Start of civil trial in writer E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation suit accusing Trump of defaming her in June 2019 when he denied having raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, claiming she was not his "type."

Jan. 15, 2024: Iowa Republican caucuses

Jan. 29, 2024: Trial in pyramid scheme class-action suit

Start of trial in class-action lawsuit accusing Trump and his company of promoting a get-rich-quick scheme that conned victims into forking over money.

Feb. 6, 2024: Nevada Republican primary

Feb. 27, 2024: Michigan Republican primary

March 5, 2024: Super Tuesday primaries

March 25, 2024: Trial in New York state criminal hush-money case

Start of criminal trial in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case accusing Trump of falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election.

May 14, 2024: Pretrial hearing in classified documents case

Start of a pretrial hearing in the classified documents case to address remaining issues about classified evidence or other matters related to the trial.

May 20, 2024: Trial in classified documents case

Start of criminal trial in Special Counsel Smith’s case accusing Trump of hoarding classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

July 15-18, 2024: Republican National Convention

Nov. 5, 2024: Election Day

OUR MERGED TIMELINES: TUESDAY NIGHT through THURSDAY TWILIGHT

(Our sources range from the good old, gray old New York Times to the Guardian U.K. on the left, the Fox and the New York Post on the right and the allegedly “centrist” CNN. Some of the chronology might be off due to the tendency of some reporters to parse their reportings by the hour – still and all, they are in reasonable order... GUK’s two timelines both adjusted to EST.)

TUESDAY, August 1st

1600

BREAKING NEWS 23 hour(s) ago from timeline c. 3PM, Wednesday

Trump indicted on charges out of Special Counsel probe into Jan. 6

FIRST ON FOX: Former President Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Fox News Digital has learned.

This is the second federal indictment the former president faces out of Smith’s investigation. Trump, who leads the 2024 GOP presidential primary field, has already pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to his alleged improper retention of classified records from his presidency.

Those charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements. Trump was charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of that probe last week.

1700

23 hour(s) ago

Trump says indictment by 'deranged' Jack Smith intended to 'interfere' with the 2024 election

"I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M." Trump wrote. "Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long?"

He added: "Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!"

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie - Fox

23 hour(s) ago

Chris Christie tells Trump to 'sell Trump Tower' to help cover reported $40M in legal fees

GOP presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told former President Trump to "sell Trump Tower" to offset some of his legal fees rather than dip into campaign funds.

"The fact is when you look at just his campaign filing yesterday… most of the money that middle class Americans have given to him, he spent on his own legal fees. I mean this guy’s a billionaire, and how about go down the street – maybe just sells Trump Tower and pay for his legal fees that way," Christie said Tuesday.

"Or maybe sell the plane, he could do that, or one of the golf courses. But instead, he’s taking $25, $50, $100 from everyday Americans who believe they’re giving it to him to help elect him president, and he’s paying his legal fees. And one of the most astonishing ones yesterday was $108,000 for Melania’s stylist, and they called that political strategy consulting," he added.

Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

DEVELOPING STORY – 23 hours ago

Trump indictment lists six unnamed co-conspirators

The Tuesday indictment against former President Donald Trump on charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot includes six unnamed co-conspirators.

Those co-conspirators, the indictment says on pages three and four, include four attorneys, one Justice Department official and one political consultant.

According to the indictment, Trump "did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government."

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

23 hour(s) ago

Jim Jordan: 'When you drain The Swamp, The Swamp fights back'

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, reacted to former President Trump's Tuesday indictment by saying the Washington, D.C. "swamp" was fighting back against GOP efforts to tame it.

"When you drain The Swamp, The Swamp fights back. President Trump did nothing wrong!" Jordan tweeted once news of the indictment broke.

Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary committee, is currently leading his own probe into the DOJ investigation of Hunter Biden.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

1800

22 hour(s) ago

Vivek Ramaswamy rips 'un-American' Trump indictment, reaffirms commitment to pardon former president

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy slammed the Tuesday indictment of former President Donald Trump as "un-American" and reiterated his promise to pardon the former president should he win the White House next year.

“The corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: eliminate Trump. This is un-American & I commit to pardoning Trump for this indictment," Ramswamy said following the indictment.

"Donald Trump isn’t responsible for what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic & pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it," he said.

"If you tell people they can’t speak, that’s when they scream. If you tell people they can’t scream, that’s when they tear things down. If we fail to admit the truth, Jan 6 will just be a preview of far worse to come & I don’t want to see us get there," he added.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

22 hour(s) ago

DeSantis calls for law enforcement reforms after Trump January 6 indictment

Republican presidential candidate Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida called for law enforcement reform after his opponent, former President Trump, was indicted late Tuesday afternoon.

After the announcement, DeSantis announced that he would "end the weaponization of government" and push for law enforcement reforms if elected to the White House.

"As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans," DeSantis tweeted.

"While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment. I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts," he continued. "Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality."

Fox News' Houston Keene contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

22 hour(s) ago

WATCH: Special Counsel Jack Smith press conference following Trump indictment

Special Counsel Jack Smith held a press conference following his Tuesday indictment of former President Donald Trump.

Trump was charged with four counts out of Smith's investigation into Jan. 6 and 2020 election interference.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

22 hour(s) ago

DOJ's Jack Smith says Jan 6 ‘fueled by lies’ from Trump, praises ‘heroes’ who defended Capitol

Special Counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot was "fueled by lies" from former President Donald Trump, who he charged today with "conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding."

Smith made a public statement shortly after the federal indictment against Trump was unsealed Tuesday afternoon, and encouraged "everyone to read it in full."

"The attack on our nation's Capitol on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy," Smith said Tuesday. "Described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies — lies by the defendant — targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election."

Smith added, though, that the indictment "is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law."

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

22 hour(s) ago

Greg Gutfeld: If the left isn't careful, they will re-elect Trump

The co-hosts of Fox News' "The Five" weigh in on former President Donald Trump's reaction to his indictment in Special Counsel Jack Smith's January 6 probe.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

1900

21 hour(s) ago

DC judge assigned to Trump Jan. 6 case labeled 'toughest punisher' in Capitol riot cases

The federal judge in Washington, D.C. assigned to preside over the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for charges related to the Capitol riot is notorious for issuing tougher sentences to other Jan. 6 defendants than what the Justice Department requested, and put every one of them behind bars.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was assigned to oversee the case involving Trump, who on Tuesday was indicted on four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

Chutkan, a former assistant public defender before her appointment by President Barack Obama, has handled several cases involving individuals who entered the Capitol on January 6.

Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

21 hour(s) ago

Top Democrat lawmakers say Trump Jan. 6 indictment is 'the most serious and the most consequential'

Top Democrat lawmakers called the latest indictment of former President Donald Trump resulting from Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe into the Capitol riot "the most serious and most consequential thus far."

On Tuesday, Trump was indicted on four federal charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. issued a joint statement Tuesday evening, saying the indictment details "a months-long criminal plot led by the former president to defy democracy."

"The insurrection on January 6, 2021 was one of the saddest and most infamous days in American history, personally orchestrated by Donald Trump and fueled by his insidious Big Lie in an attempt to undermine the 2020 election," the lawmakers stated.

Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

21 hour(s) ago

Read the full Trump indictment

Read the full text of Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment of former President Donald Trump here.

Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges related to the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

21 hour(s) ago

Trump's 2024 GOP rivals weigh in on former president's January 6 probe indictment

Donald Trump's rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination are weighing in on Tuesday's blockbuster announcement that the former president's been indicted in the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

One of the first to release a statement was former CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a long-shot for the nomination and a very vocal GOP Trump critic.

"Let me be crystal clear: Trump's presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills. Furthermore, his denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he's unfit for office," Hurd charged.

Fox News' Paul Steinhauser and Andrew Murray contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

2000

20 hour(s) ago

Trump indictment is a 'terribly tragic day' and shows speech is now 'criminalized': Trump attorney

Former president Donald Trump’s attorney slammed special counsel Jack Smith Tuesday for indicting his client in the January 6 probe, saying it’s a "terribly tragic day."

John Lauro said the 45-page indictment shows that political speech has been "criminalized."

"Joe Biden's running against Donald Trump and losing currently. And now we have [the] Justice Department indicting President Trump for actions that he took as the executive, as the chief executive of the United States with respect to public policy matters," he explained on "Special Report." "So now we have the criminalization and the weaponization of public policy and political speech by one political party over another."

Fox News' Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

20 hour(s) ago

Trump indictment won't fulfill Democrat ineligibility bedtime story, Smith 'stretched law': Experts

Former President Donald Trump's latest four-count indictment relating to the 2020 election's aftermath will not come close to fulfilling Democrats' dreams of prohibiting the Republican front-runner from attaining high office again, a top law professor told Fox News.

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley's analysis was essentially seconded by another legal expert, former New York federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, who noted he had himself successfully prosecuted a "seditious conspiracy" case and said the Trump investigation gets nowhere close to that threshold.

Fox News correspondent David Spunt reported on "The Five" that Trump had been indicted on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Turley told "The Five" that special counsel Jack Smith might be "yielding to his weakness" with the indictment.

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

2100

19 hour(s) ago

Pence comes out swinging at Trump following Jan 6 indictment: 'Should never be president'

Former Vice President Mike Pence didn't parse words when reacting to former President Donald Trump's indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday.

In a statement released following Trump's indictment on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Pence accused Trump of putting himself over the Constitution, and said a Trump candidacy would serve as a distraction from President Biden's "disastrous" record.

"Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States," Pence said. "I will have more to say about the government’s case after reviewing the indictment."

"The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions. As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter," he said.

Pence declared the country was "more important than one man," and that the Constitutionwas "more important than any one man’s career."

"On January 6th, former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will," he said.

"As your president, I will not yield an inch in defending America, our people, or our values, and I promise you: I will do so in a way consistent with my oath to the Constitution and the character and decency of the American people. We will restore a threshold of integrity and civility in public life so we can bring real solutions to the challenges plaguing our nation," he added.

Trump was indicted on four federal charges out of the probe, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

Fox News' Brooke Singman, Brandon Gillespie, and Andrew Murray contributed to this report

Posted by Adam Sabes, Fox

WEDNESDAY

0200

· 12h ago 0240

Trump charged over attempts to stay in power despite election loss

· 12h ago 0240

Indictment says Trump knowingly 'spread lies'

0300

· 11h ago 0340

Trump summoned to court on Thursday

0400

· 10h ago 0440 GUK

Trump's legal calendar before the 2024 election

0500

12h ago05.24 EDT GUK

Trump charged over attempts to stay in power despite election loss

Donald Trump has been indicted with several crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a frenzied attempt to stay in power.

The indictment, filed in federal district court in Washington, charges Trump with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

In short (and avoiding legalese) the charges relate to Trump’s alleged effort to deny the American people their democratic right to choose their own leader.

Donald Trump faces four charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election.

· 9h ago 0540

Americans digest latest charges against Trump ahead of court appearance

12h ago 05.42 EDT

Indictment says Trump knowingly 'spread lies'

The case against Trump was announced last night by special counsel Jack Smith. He is a federal prosecutor – a government lawyer who is tasked with prosecuting criminal cases.

When announcing the charges, Smith encourages everyone to read in full the 45-page indictment. The document is written in quite a straightforward, readable way, and it packs a punch, calling Trump a liar.

You can read it in full here, but here are parts of the introduction:

“The Defendant [Trump] lost the 2020 presidential election. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day … the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”

(Note: “outcome-determinative” means that the alleged election fraud was so big that it would have changed the outcome of the election ie mean Trump had won)

0600

10 hour(s) ago

Latest Trump indictment draws cheers from leftists on social media: 'Popping the champagne'

Leftists across social media celebrated the third indictment leveled against former President Donald Trump this week, with many marking the date "Trump indictment day."

"Happy #TrumpIndictment Day! Waiting for Jack Smith to drop in for victory drinks. I’ve already started popping the champagne," former MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance cheered with a photo of himself celebrating with a drink in a restaurant.

"Happy 3rd Indictment Day to all who celebrate! #TrumpIndictment," YouTuber Sarah O’Connell tweeted.

Blue Amp Strategies CEO Cliff Schecter wrote, "Ok said this was the one thing that would get me to break my Tweetless Tuesday. Happy pending indictment 112th Trump indictment everyone!"

10 hour(s) ago

Republicans react to 'shameful' indictment of Trump: 'Outrageous abuse of power'

Republicans on Capitol Hill are rallying in defense of former President Donald Trump after Special Counsel Jack Smith hit him with a third indictment this week.

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York told Fox News Digital that Smith's indictment against Trump marks "yet another dark day in America as Joe Biden continues to weaponize his corrupt Department of Justice against his leading political opponent Donald J. Trump."

"Less than 24 hours ago, Congress heard testimony from Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner that Joe Biden joined Hunter’s business calls over 20 times," Stefanik said. "This directly contradicts Biden’s lie that he never discussed business with his son.

Other Republicans defending Trump include Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia; Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma; Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas; Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and several others.

Posted by Anders Hagstrom Fox

11h ago06.07 EDT

Trump summoned to court on Thursday

The former president has been summoned to appear before a federal magistrate judge in Washington DC on Thursday.

Things are moving relatively fast. Jack Smith, the special counsel, said he would seek a “speedy trial”, and stressed that Trump was entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Trump is expected to be arraigned – a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant – at the DC district court before magistrate judge Moxila A Upadhyaya.

11h ago06.19 EDT

For those just waking up, here is our most recent news story:

Donald Trump to appear in court over attempt to overturn 2020 US election

11h ago06.29 EDT

A reader has sent in a couple of questions that I’m sure are on everyone’s mind:

1.) “Will he go to jail”

2.) “Will he run in 2024”

The answer to the first one is “possibly” and the second is “still very likely”.

Trump faces charges that have maximum jail sentences of many, many years.

There is even a scenario in which Trump both goes to jail and runs in 2024 (and even wins!).

University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard L. Hasen, told CNN that there is no constitutional rule that bars “anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency”.

“How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question,” Hasen said.

· 8h ago 0640

Trump lawyer argues January 6 indictment criminalizes speech

0700

9 hour(s) ago

Trump lashes out at indictment, says it reveals 'corruption, scandal & failure' in US

Former President Donald Trump lashed out once again against the third indictment leveled agaisnt him earlier this week.

Trump took to social media to thank his supporters for rallying to his defense, and he went on to argue that the indictment reveals to the world that "corruption, scandal and failure" has riddled the U.S.

"THANK YOU TO EVERYONE!!! I HAVE NEVER HAD SO MUCH SUPPORT ON ANYTHING BEFORE. THIS UNPRECEDENTED INDICTMENT OF A FORMER (HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL!) PRESIDENT, & THE LEADING CANDIDATE, BY FAR, IN BOTH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE 2024 GENERAL ELECTION, HAS AWOKEN THE WORLD TO THE CORRUPTION, SCANDAL, & FAILURE THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS," Trump wrote. "AMERICA IS A NATION IN DECLINE, BUT WE WILL MAKE IT GREAT AGAIN, GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!"

Posted by Anders Hagstrom Fox

10h ago07.15 EDT

The Trump campaign's response to the indictment is here. An extract below:

These un-American witch hunts will fail and President Trump will be re-elected to the White House so he can save our Country from the abuse, incompetence, and corruption that is running through the veins of our Country at levels never seen before.

10h ago07.32 EDT

Trump's legal calendar before the 2024 election

Trump has quite the legal calendar ahead of him, while also seeking to run for president in the 2024 election.

Here is a rundown of all his legal dates alongside the political calendar. As you can see, it’s going to be impossible to untangle the two.

9h ago07.53 EDT

Léonie Chao-Fong

Here are some key takeaways from the latest indictment:

Donald Trump’s January 6 indictment: six key takeaways

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9h ago08.06 EDT

It’s just gone 8 am in Washington DC.

I’m going to hand over now to the US politics live blogger, Chris Stein, who will guide you through the rest of the day.

9h ago08.31 EDT

Americans digest latest charges against Trump ahead of court appearance

Good morning from Washington DC. Tomorrow, Donald Trump will appear at the federal courthouse here to answer the indictment filed against him by special prosecutor Jack Smith, accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, allegations with few to no peers in American history. This will be his third court appearance this year, the first being in Manhattan to answer charges related to falsifying business records, and the second occurring in Miami, where Smith indicted over allegedly hoarding government documents at Mar-a-Lago.

While the indictment filed yesterday is historic, it was a long time coming, and likely will have done little to change the immediate political dynamics surrounding Trump. He remains a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and polls have recently shown him far and away the frontrunner in the race. He also maintains a dedicated following among GOP voters, to the extent that many rival candidates are hesitant to criticize him directly. We’ll see if any signs emerge of those trends shifting today.

Here’s what else is happening:

· The White House is fuming after ratings agency Fitch downgraded US debt from its highest mark. The agency cited the country’s finances, as well as its repeated bouts of fiscal brinksmanship.

· Who is the sixth co-conspirator? Smith’s indictment against Trump name six people who helped Trump in his alleged plot. Five of these are clearly identifiable based on what we know about the events leading up to January 6, but one, described as a political consultant, is not. Expect lots of digging by the press into who this might be.

· Trump, meanwhile, is doing his usual thing on Truth social, the platform that has become his mouthpiece after getting banned from Twitter following January 6.

6h ago 0840

Concerns over January 6 played a role in Fitch downgrade of US debt

8h ago08.52 EDT

This is now the third indictment Donald Trump has faced this year alone, but historians who spoke to the Washington Post say this one is more serious than the rest.

“Just as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall showed the weakness in the former Soviet Union, the mob on January 6 trying to use force to overturn the will of voters shocked the world and showed our democracy’s weakness,” Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Post.

Here’s more from their story on the indictment’s historical significance:

Historians and legal scholars say the new indictment, brought by federal special prosecutor Jack Smith, is fundamentally more consequential than the earlier ones, which related to hush money paid to an adult-film actress and the mishandling of classified documents.

While those are serious allegations, Tuesday’s indictment accuses a former president of the United States with attempting to subvert the democracy upon which the nation rests. And with Trump again running for the White House, the charges he faces pose an extraordinary test to the rule of law, experts say.

“This gets right to the question of how elections work, how power is transferred peacefully,” said Jon Grinspan, a curator of political history at the National Museum of American History. “This is really a question about the functioning of American democracy.”

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University legal scholar, said, “The crimes indicted are an order of magnitude beyond anything that has been committed against this country by any American citizen, let alone a former president.”

“This is essentially an indictment for an attempt to overturn the Republic and its most crucial process of preserving democratic governance, the process of peaceful and lawful transition of power,” said Tribe, who taught Barack Obama and advised his presidential campaign and administration.

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8h ago09.17 EDT

As the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports, reactions to Trump’s indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election have thus far fallen mostly along partisan lines:

While Democrats and progressives welcomed Donald Trump’s federal indictment on four charges relating to his attempted election subversion, the former president’s chief rival for the 2024 Republican nomination rallied to his defense.

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is a distant second to Trump in primary polling, swiftly issued a statement that notably did not mention Trump by name.

“As president,” DeSantis said, “I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans.”

DeSantis, who has indicated he will pardon Trump if elected, said he had not seen the indictment handed down by the special counsel, Jack Smith, regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020. Nonetheless, DeSantis complained that the charges were brought in Washington DC, a Democratic city.

DeSantis leads Republican support for Trump after election subversion charges

5h ago 0940

Special counsel concerned lawyer for Trump co-defendant has conflict of interest

8h ago09.42 EDT

Trump lawyer argues January 6 indictment criminalizes speech

Donald Trump’s attorney John Lauro appeared on NBC’s Today show, and gave a few hints of the former president’s legal strategy in defending against the indictment he faces for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Lauro first indicated that he objects to special counsel Jack Smith’s push to hold the trial in 90 days, calling it “absurd”:

Smith made a similar attempt with the charges he filed against Trump over the Mar-a-Lago documents, but a federal judge has now pushed that trial to May 2024.

Lauro also indicated that he planned to argue Smith was putting Trump on trial over his speech, which would go against the first amendment:

1000

6 hour(s) ago

Chris Christie reacts to Trump indictment, says Trump 'violated his oath' to Constitution

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie says former President Donald Trump "violated his oath" to the U.S. Constitution with his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Christie made the statement Tuesday night on Twitter, condemning Trump's actions following the 2020 election night as a "disgrace."

"The events around the White House from election night forward are a stain on our country’s history & a disgrace to the people who participated. This disgrace falls the most on Donald Trump. He swore an oath to the Constitution, violated his oath & brought shame to his presidency."

Christie is one of several Republicans who have blasted Trump in the wake of Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment against him.

7h ago10.06 EDT

Reporters managed to track down attorney general Merrick Garland somewhere to ask him about the latest indictment against Donald Trump.

Publicly, Garland has taken a hands-off approach to the work of Jack Smith, the special counsel he appointed to investigate the former president. As you can see from the clip below, his response to questions from the press amounts to one long “no comment”:

7h ago10.31 EDT

Donald Trump’s legal troubles are not the only thing happening in the world of American politics. The Guardian’s Mary Yang reports that a prominent Democratic challenger to Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination is, surprise, surprise, being funded by a Republican:

A Super Pac affiliated with Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist running for president as a Democrat, owes half its cash to a longtime Republican mega-donor and Trump backer, according to campaign finance reports filed on Monday.

The group, American Values 2024, reported receiving $5m from Timothy Mellon, a wealthy businessman from Wyoming, according to NBC News and Politico. It registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in April, days before Kennedy officially launched his campaign, according to FEC records.

Mellon, 81, is the grandson of Andrew Mellon, a former US treasury secretary who made his fortune in banking. The Texas Tribune reported that Mellon, a top donor to Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election effort, supported controversial immigration laws and was responsible for 98% of the contributions to the Texas governor Greg Abbott’s fund to build a border wall. Mellon, who twice gave $10m to the Trump-aligned America First Action Super Pac in 2020, also used racist stereotypes to describe Black people in an autobiography he self-published in 2015.

4h ago 1040

Obama warned Biden of Trump's continued strength - report

6h ago10.52 EDT

Concerns over January 6 played a role in Fitch downgrade of US debt

Credit agency Fitch’s surprise downgrade of US debt from its top rating yesterday was motivated in part by concerns over the January 6 insurrection, Reuters reports.

“It was something that we highlighted because it just is a reflection of the deterioration in governance, it’s one of many,” senior director at Fitch Ratings Richard Francis told Reuters in an interview.

“You have the debt ceiling, you have Jan. 6. Clearly, if you look at polarization with both parties ... the Democrats have gone further left and Republicans further right, so the middle is kind of falling apart basically.”

Fitch now rates US debt at AA+ rather than its top AAA level. The Biden administration is unhappy with the downgrade, which Treasury secretary Janet Yellen called “arbitrary and based on outdated data.”

Fitch is the second of the three major ratings agencies to downgrade US debt. In 2011, S&P downgraded the US from its top level rating after a protracted standoff over raising the debt ceiling.

1100

5 hour(s) ago

DeSantis suggests Trump can't get fair trial in DC, vows to defang 'weaponized' agencies

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to defang federal agencies like the Justice Department after Special Counsel Jack Smith handed down a third indictment against former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis made the comments during a Wednesday interview with Fox News host Harris Faulkner, saying Trump's indictment was evidence that agencies are heavily biased against Republicans.

"One of the reasons I'm running for president, Harris, is to reconstitutionalize the federal government," DeSantis said. "These agencies that have become weaponized, the FBI, the DOJ, against political opponents--that's a result of them not being held constitutionally accountable."

"The reality is a D.C. jury would indict a ham sandwich and convict a ham sandwich if it was a Republcian ham sandwich," he continued. "I think Republicans need to be able to remove cases out of D.C. I think the juries are stacked; I think they're gonna want to convict people they disagree with."

Posted by Anders Hagstrom Fox

6h ago11.09 EDT

Here’s more from Reuters on Fitch’s surprise decision to downgrade the US debt rating yesterday, citing factors that polarized economists and investors:

The rating agency Fitch downgraded the US government’s top credit rating on Tuesday, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors.

Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills. It is the second major rating agency after Standard & Poor’s to strip the US of its triple-A rating.

Fitch had first flagged the possibility of a downgrade in May amid the US debt ceiling negotiations, then maintained that position in June after the crisis was resolved, saying it intended to resolve the review in the third quarter of this year.

5h ago11.50 EDT

The House of Representatives is home to some of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress, and in the wake of his indictment on charges related to the January 6 insurrection, several lawmakers are reiterating their support for the former president.

Such as Jim Banks, who may soon be headed to represent Indiana in the Senate:

Dan Meuser adopted the “weaponization” allegation Trump has repeatedly leveled against the Biden administration:

Mike Bost keeps his message simple:

In an interview with CNN, a Washington DC police officer who was assaulted on January 6 Foxd his thoughts on Donald Trump’s indictment over the attack:

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5h ago12.11 EDT

In an interview with Fox News, Florida governor Ron DeSantis called for Donald Trump’s trial over the January 6 insurrection and effort to overturn the 2020 election to be moved out of Washington DC:

The US capital city is deeply Democratic, and during his presidency, Trump rarely ventured into its streets, except to visit his hotel.

Polls show that DeSantis is Trump’s strongest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, but his campaign is going much worse than expected.

5h ago12.27 EDT

Special counsel concerned lawyer for Trump co-defendant has conflict of interest

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that special counsel Jack Smith is concerned that Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, has a conflict of interest:

Smith indicted Nauta alongside Trump on charges related to hiding classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago and working the keep them out of the hands of government archivists. Nauta was arraigned in Florida last month in proceedings that were delayed because he struggled to find a lawyer:

2h ago 1240

US Capitol offices evacuated after threatening phone call

2h ago 1240

Pence says Trump surrounded himself with 'crackpot lawyers' as he tried to overturn election

4 hr 40 min ago 1244

Fact check: The indictment lays out 21 lies Trump made about the 2020 election

From CNN's Daniel Dale

Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol was “fueled by lies” told by former President Donald Trump. The indictment of Trump on four new federal criminal charges, all related to the former president’s effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, lays out some of those lies. Here is an abbreviated list:

1. The lie: Fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election, that Trump “had actually won,” and that the election was “stolen.” (Pages 1 and 40-41 of the indictment)

Trump’s claim of a stolen election whose winner was determined by massive fraud was (and continues to be) his overarching lie about the election. The indictment asserts that Trump knew as early as 2020 that his narrative was false – and had been told as such by numerous senior officials in his administration and allies outside the federal government – but persisted in deploying it anyway, including on January 6 itself.

2. The lie: Fake pro-Trump Electoral College electors in seven states were legitimate electors. (Pages 5 and 26)

The indictment alleges that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators “organized” the phony slates of electors and then “caused” the slates to be transmitted to Vice President Mike Pence and other government officials to try to get them counted on January 6, the day Congress met to count the electoral votes.

3. The lie: The Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have affected the outcome of the election. (Pages 6 and 27)

Attorney General William Barr and other top Justice Department officials had told Trump that his claims of major fraud had proved to be untrue. But the indictment alleges that Trump still sought to have the Justice Department “make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving the Defendant’s lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the Defendant’s.”

4. The lie: Pence had the power to reject Biden’s electoral votes. (Pages 6, 32-38)

Pence had repeatedly and correctly told Trump that he did not have the constitutional or legal right to send electoral votes back to the states as Trump wanted. The indictment notes that Trump nonetheless repeatedly declared that Pence could do so – first in private conversations and White House meetings, then in tweets on January 5 and January 6, then in Trump’s January 6 speech in Washington at a rally before the riot – in which Trump, angry at Pence, allegedly inserted the false claim into his prepared text even after advisors had managed to temporarily get it removed.

Read the full list here.

2h ago

Trump will not have mugshot taken in Thursday arraignment - report

4h ago12.50 EDT

Senator and Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott highlighted his presence on the “weaponization” bandwagon in response to Donald Trump’s latest indictment

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3 hr 14 min ago 1310

Trump en route to Washington, DC, for federal arraignment

From CNN staff

Former President Donald Trump's plane has departed Newark, New Jersey, and he is headed to Washington, DC, to be arraigned on charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

As part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged on Tuesday with: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

What to expect later today: After arriving at the US District Court this afternoon, Trump will be placed under arrest, processed and likely arraigned in court.

Because Trump has already been processed in the federal system for his arrest in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, his booking today is likely to be streamlined.

Trump is expected to plead not guilty and to be released pending trial.

This is Trump's third arrest in four months. Smith charged Trump in the classified documents probe in June, and a Manhattan grand jury charged the former president for business fraud in March. Trump, who is running for president in 2024, pleaded not guilty in both cases.

4h ago13.13 EDT

The day so far:

Donald Trump is expected to appear in court at 4pm eastern time tomorrow in Washington DC to answer the indictment brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith over attempting to overturn the 2020 election. So far today, we’ve gotten hints of the former president’s potential defense strategy from his lawyer, heard various Republicans reaffirm their allegiance to him and suspicion of the justice department, and learned Smith has concerns about an attorney hired to represent one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case.

That’s not all that’s been happening:

· Why did Fitch downgrade the US’s debt from its highest rating? The January 6 insurrection was among the reasons.

· Robert F Kennedy Jr is running as Democrat for president, but is being bankrolled by a Republican.

· Reporters managed to track down Merrick Garland somewhere that wasn’t the justice department headquarters, but he still had little to say about the new charges against Trump.

4h ago13.31 EDT

Obama warned Biden of Trump's continued strength - report

Barack Obama warned Joe Biden that Donald Trump would be a formidable election opponent, even with his legal troubles, the Washington Post reports.

The warning came over lunch at the White House between the current president and Obama, whom Biden served under as vice-president from 2009 to 2017. Among the factors Obama cited as helping Trump were “an intensely loyal following, a Trump-friendly conservative media ecosystem and a polarized country”, the Post reports.

Here’s more from the Post’s report:

At the lunch, held in late June in the White House residence, Obama promised to do all he could to help the president get reelected, according to two people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversation.

That commitment was a welcome gesture for the White House at a time when Biden is eager to lock down promises of help from top Democrats, among whom Obama is easily the biggest star, for what is likely to be a hard-fought reelection race. The contents of the private conversation have not been previously reported.

Obama was visiting the White House for what Biden aides described as a regular catch-up between the two men who served in the White House together for eight years. During their lunch, Obama made it clear his concerns were not about Biden’s political abilities, but rather a recognition of Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party, according to the people.

Recent polling suggests Trump has a significant lead over his GOP rivals and that he and Biden are essentially tied in a hypothetical rematch.

The White House said there was no specific agenda for the June 27 meeting, and people briefed on the conversation said the two presidents discussed a range of political, policy and personal matters, including updates about their families.

4 hr 50 min ago 1334

What the security presence is like outside the federal courthouse where Trump will be arraigned today

Washington Metropolitan Police talk as they patrol the area outside the E. Barrett Prettyman US Federal Courthouse on Thursday. Julio Cortez/AP

A few hours before former President Donald Trump's arraignment Thursday, the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, is teeming with security measures but not yet any large public gatherings.

Around 11 a.m. ET — about 5 hours before Trump is expected to arrive — the scene was not as hectic outside the courthouse as before Trump's other proceedings in Florida and New York, CNN's Shimon Prokupecz reports.

Few protesters, either in favor or opposed to the former president, have materialized, Prokupecz said. "By this point in all the other arraignments, we have seen a fair number of people gather," he said.

Prokupecz was reporting from the side of the courthouse where Trump is expected to arrive around 4 p.m. ET. This is where security efforts are particularly concentrated.

Members of the US Marshals Service, Secret Service agents, DC police and federal law enforcement can be seen milling around the security barriers outside the building. Snow plows are lined up outside the metal barriers as another impediment to anyone potentially trying to cross the line, though it isn't clear if they will ultimately be moved into a different position when the former president's motorcade arrives.

Prokupecz said security appears tighter than it was at Trump's Florida arraignment: "They're not taking any chances."

Law enforcement officials involved in the preparation for Trump’s court appearance have told CNN they are monitoring for potential threats, protests and online chatter – as well as coordinating with one another on security plans for the former president's hearing.

DC’s Metropolitan Police Department will be leading security in the district while US Secret Service oversees the protection of the former president and the US Marshals Service runs security inside the courthouse.

3 hr 38 min ago 1336

Trump will face his 3rd arrest in 4 months. Here's what we expect to unfold in the DC courthouse today

From CNN's Tierney Sneed, Holmes Lybrand, Hannah Rabinowitz and Katelyn Polantz

Former President Donald Trump is set to have his initial appearance in federal court in Washington, DC, after being indicted in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Trump is flying to Washington before heading to US District Court for his 4 p.m. ET appearance. He is expected to speak after the appearance, before he departs to return to Bedminster, New Jersey.

The former president is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya. Handling the case going forward will be federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

After arriving at the courthouse, Trump is expected to be placed under arrest, processed and likely arraigned in court. Because Trump has already been processed in the federal system for his arrest in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, his booking today is likely to be streamlined.

Trump is expected to plead not guilty and to be released pending trial. He has been charged with four counts:

· Conspiracy to defraud the United States

· Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding

· Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding

· Conspiracy against rights

Law enforcement officials are monitoring for potential threats, protests and online chatter as well as coordinating with one another on security plans. DC’s Metropolitan Police Department will be leading security in the district, while US Secret Service oversees protection of the former president, and the US Marshals Service runs security inside the courthouse.

4h ago13.41 EDT

See link above for the GUK video report of how Democrats and Republicans reacted to Donald Trump’s latest federal indictment on charges relating to his alleged attempted election subversion.

3 hr 43 min ago 1341

Talking point that Trump faces a two-tiered justice system is disingenuous, CNN legal analyst says

Following the latest indictment of Donald Trump, the former president's allies immediately began defending him and repeatedly said that he is facing a "two-tiered justice system" — a claim CNN's chief legal analyst Laura Coates said is disingenuous.

"It's an interesting talking point — I have been a prosecutor. I will be the first to tell you, yes, when it comes to the justice system, there's a divide between the haves and have-nots," Coates noted, however; she went on to say that you can walk into any courthouse in America and see that those with extraordinary means have a very different experience than those who do not.

"The conflation of this notion of this two-tiered justice system is only applicable if your person is the one who is now going to be held to account, is just not a fair or accurate assessment of it," Coates said.

She added, "I think it's really disingenuous to have a talking point that suggests that this is a continuation of what the rest of the nation's been talking about" with regard to injustices within the justice system.

Coates then acknowledged that despite the claim not aligning with the reality of what most people face in the country, it is still a valuable talking point and "it has legs."

3h ago13.54 EDT

A lawyer for John Eastman, one of the co-conspirators named in Tuesday’s indictment of Donald Trump, said he would decline a plea deal if offered one by federal prosecutors.

In a statement, Harvey Silverglate said Eastman has not and will not be engaged in plea bargaining in the case with state or federal prosecutors.

With respect to questions as to whether Dr. Eastman is involved in plea bargaining, the answer is no. But if he were invited to plea bargain with either state or federal prosecutors, he would decline. The fact is, if Dr. Eastman is indicted, he will go to trial. If convicted, he will appeal. The Eastman legal team is confident of its legal position in this matter.

The statement claimed the indictment relies on a “misleading presentation of the record to contrive criminal charges against Presidential candidate Trump and to cast ominous aspersions on his close advisors.”

4 hr 41 min ago 1343

While DC courthouse hunkers down for Trump to arrive, judges are sentencing January 6 defendants

From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz and Casey Gannon

As the federal court in Washington, DC, hunkered down for Donald Trump’s expected appearance later today, a sentencing hearing was underway this morning for a man charged in connection with the January 6 insurrection.

District Judge Randolph Moss addressed Trump’s appearance as he began the hearing for Jeffrey Grace, a Proud Boy from Washington state who pleaded guilty to illegally entering and remaining in the US Capitol building with his son on January 6, 2021.

“Nothing that is going on in the courthouse will have any bearings on what I decide today,” Moss said. Later on, the judge sentenced Grace to 75 days behind bars.

Moss urged lawyers for both the government and Grace not to rush through the proceeding in an effort to leave the courthouse before Trump arrives.

“I recognize that other things happening in the courthouse today are garnering public attention,” Moss said to the attorneys, adding that Grace’s sentencing is his “sole focus.”

There are several additional proceedings for Capitol riot defendants scheduled to take place in the courthouse Thursday, including a father and son from South Carolina accused of breaching the Capitol and a Florida man who, according to prosecutors, texted someone on January 6: “Loved every minute of it dude.”

While Judge Amit Mehta did not say anything about the Trump-related court proceedings at the courthouse during the sentencing of the Florida man, Richard Escalera, he called the attack on the US Capitol a “dark day in the nation’s history.”

Mehta also said there “continues to be concerns” to this day.

Mehta sentenced Escalera to seven days of incarceration and two years of probation.

The judge has presided over several January 6 cases, including several of the Oath Keepers. During Thursday’s hearing, he said he has tried to stay consistent among the sentences he has imposed.

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3 hour(s) ago

Ted Cruz says Trump indictment 'straight out election interference'

Sen. Ted Cruz , R-Texas, said Wednesday that former President Trump's indictment was an attempt by Democrats to boost their chances in the 2024 election.

“It is not subtle, and it's not complicated. This is straight out election interference by the Biden Department of Justice," Cruz said on the Wednesday episode of his podcast, "Verdict with Ted Cruz."

“My biggest sentiment was that it was thoroughly underwhelming. There's very little there there," he said about contents of the indictment itself.

“This is a political indictment, brought by a political prosecutor, working for a political attorney general working for a political president, who does not want to risk losing to Donald Trump in November of 2024," he added.

3h ago14.09 EDT

A powerful Democrat senator has called Samuel Alito’s public expression of opposition to US supreme court ethics reform “unwise and unwelcome”, rejecting the conservative justice’s contention that Congress cannot implement such measures.

“Justice Alito is providing speculative public commentary on a bill that is still going through the legislative process,” said Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and the chair of the Senate judiciary committee.

He added in a statement:

Let’s be clear: Justice Alito is not the 101st member of the United States Senate. His intervention … is unwise and unwelcome.

Last week, Alito spoke to the Wall Street Journal, often an outlet for his views and complaints. Discussing Washington scandals about rightwing justices taking gifts from donors with business before the court – most notably over Clarence Thomas’s links to Harlan Crow and Alito’s own fishing trip with Paul Singer – Alito said: “I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year.”

Saying he was defending himself because “nobody else is going to do this”, the George W Bush-appointed conservative, 73, said: “Congress did not create the supreme court.

I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the constitution gives them the authority to regulate the supreme court – period.

Durbin, who with Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has sought to pilot ethics reform in response to the Thomas and Alito scandals, rejected Alito’s position.

“The ethical conduct of supreme court justices is a serious matter within this committee’s jurisdiction,” he said.

3 hr 14 min ago 1410

Trump en route to Washington, DC, for federal arraignment

From CNN staff

Former President Donald Trump's plane has departed Newark, New Jersey, and he is headed to Washington, DC, to be arraigned on charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

What to expect later today: After arriving at the US District Court this afternoon, Trump will be placed under arrest, processed and likely arraigned in court.

Because Trump has already been processed in the federal system for his arrest in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, his booking today is likely to be streamlined.

Trump is expected to plead not guilty and to be released pending trial.

3h ago14.26 EDT

Donald Trump had a private dinner with Fox News executives shortly after learning that he would be indicted a third time, according to a New York Times report.

The two-hour dinner between Trump, Fox News president Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, was held in a private dining room at the former president’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the paper said, citing sources.

During the dinner, the Fox executives lobbied Trump to attend the first Republican presidential primary debate later this month, the report said. The event will be hosted by Fox News with the Republican national committee in Milwaukee.

The Fox executives made a soft appeal for Mr. Trump to attend the debate, two of the people familiar with the dinner said, telling the former president that he excels on the center stage and that it presents an opportunity for him to show off his debate skills.

According to the paper, Trump told the Fox executives he had not yet made a decision and would keep an open mind.

2 hr 52 min ago 1432

As he heads to Washington, Trump criticizes judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case

From CNN's Kaitlan Collins

As he headed to Washington, DC, for a court appearance, former President Trump claimed both the venue and judge overseeing the latest case against him are "UNFAIR."

"Biden and his family steal Millions and Millions of Dollars, including BRIBES from foreign countries, and I’m headed to D.C. to be ARRESTED for protesting a CROOKED ELECTION. UNFAIR VENUE, UNFAIR JUDGE. We are a Nation in Decline. MAGA!!!" Trump posted on Truth Social.

Trump is expected to publicly address the new charges, stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, after he leaves court Thursday, according to a person familiar with the schedule.

The former president is set to appear before a Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya this afternoon. Handling the case going forward will be federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Chutkan has repeatedly spoken out in very strong terms against the efforts to overturn the election and disrupt the transfer of power. Though she was randomly appointed to oversee the special counsel’s criminal case, she is no stranger to January 6, 2021, litigation.

In November 2021, Chutkan forcefully rejected Trump’s attempts to block the House select committee investigating January 6 from accessing more than 700 pages of records from his White House.

Earlier, Trump posted on Truth Social: “I NEED ONE MORE INDICTMENT TO ENSURE MY ELECTION!”

CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz and Marshall Cohen contributed reporting to this post.

9m ago 1440

Messages suggest top Trump adviser could be 'co-conspirator 6' in indictment - report

2 hr 46 min ago 1438

Pence campaign selling "Too Honest" merchandise in reference to Trump indictment

From CNN's Kyung Lah

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign is selling T-shirts and hats branded with "Too Honest," referencing a phrase Donald Trump allegedly uttered to Pence when he refused to go along with the former president’s request to reject electoral votes and change the outcome of the 2020 election.

According to the federal indictment, in one conversation on January 1, 2021, Trump told Pence he was “too honest” when the vice president said he lacked the authority to change the results.

After Trump was indicted earlier this week, Pence said that "anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president," and added that Trump "was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers who kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear."

2h ago14.49 EDT

Trump will not have mugshot taken in Thursday arraignment - report

When Donald Trump appears at a federal courthouse on Thursday afternoon to answer the indictment brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, he will not be formally arrested or have his mugshot taken, Bloomberg News reports.

Citing US Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade, Bloomberg said his appearance in Washington DC will be similar to one he made in June in Miami, where he pled not guilty to charges Smith filed over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Here’s more on what we can expect tomorrow, from Bloomberg:

The 4 p.m. hearing at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse is likely to be short, but it’s an important step in kicking off the latest case brought by Special Prosecutor John L. “Jack” Smith. Trump is expected to be arraigned in person — which means he’ll enter an initial plea to the charges — though the court has yet to announce specific details about the hearing.

Before that, Trump will be processed by the court, which will be similar to the former president’s experience in Florida after he was indicted in June over his handling of classified documents, US Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade said.

Wade confirmed that Trump:

— will have his fingerprints taken digitally

— will be required to provide his social security number, date of birth, address, and other personal information

— won’t have photograph taken, since he’s already easily recognizable and there are already many photographs available

Trump won’t be placed under arrest, according to Wade. In accepting the indictment Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya issued a summons for his appearance, not an arrest warrant.

The former president will then head into the courtroom for his appearance. The summons was issued by Upadhyaya, so the expectation is he’ll appear before her, but the case has been assigned to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. The court hasn’t put the hearing on the public calendar to confirm whose courtroom he’ll go to.

During the hearing, Trump’s lawyers will likely do most, if not all, of the talking. The government didn’t ask to put Trump in pretrial custody while the Florida case proceeds, and there’s no expectation they’ll ask for that now. If prosecutors want the judge to impose any conditions on his release, however, they could make those requests, and Trump’s lawyers would have a chance to raise objections.

Separately, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has released a terse statement about what Washingtonians can expect when the former president goes to court tomorrow:

1 hr 2 hr? 28 min ago 1456

Trump lands at Reagan National Airport ahead of federal arraignment in DC

From CNN staff

Donald Trump's plane has landed at Reagan National Airport in Virginia and the former president will soon head to a Washington, DC, federal courthouse to be arraigned on charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

After arriving at the courthouse, Trump will be placed under arrest, processed and likely arraigned in court.

1500

2h ago15.08 EDT

Pence says Trump surrounded himself with 'crackpot lawyers' as he tried to overturn election

Mike Pence kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech condemning former boss Donald Trump ’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

Pence reiterated that criticism today when asked about the indictment filed by Jack Smith:

It’s not exactly a winning message, at least not yet. Polls currently have Pence with single-digit support among Republican voters.

2h ago15.26 EDT

US Capitol offices evacuated after threatening phone call

Frightening scenes played out at the US Capitol a few minutes ago, when police evacuated Senate office buildings in response to a threatening phone call that was reportedly a hoax.

US Capitol police say they dispatched officers after receiving warnings of a possible active shooter:

Politico reports the Washington DC police department, which helps secure the Capitol complex, said the call appeared to be a ruse:

It’s currently the Congress’s August recess, and most lawmakers are away from the Capitol, though staff are still working. Reporters at the scene saw people being led out from the Senate office buildings by police with their hands in the air:

1h ago15.52 EDT

Donald Trump is a known TV watcher, particularly of Fox News, the right-leaning network that he has had an on again, off again relationship with ever since his first campaign for the White House.

One has to wonder if Trump caught this interview aired today with his former vice-president Mike Pence. Speaking to Fox, Pence condemned the ex-president for hiring “crackpot lawyers” as he sought a way to reverse his election loss in 2020:

The hint that Trump may have can be found on Truth social, where about 10 minutes ago, he posted the following:

I feel badly for Mike Pence, who is attracting no crowds, enthusiasm, or loyalty from people who, as a member of the Trump Administration, should be loving him. He didn’t fight against Election Fraud, which we will now be easily able to prove based on the most recent Fake Indictment & information which will have to be made available to us, finally - a really BIG deal. The V.P. had power that Mike didn’t understand, but after the Election, the RINOS & Dems changed the law, taking that power away!

Trump’s claims of election fraud have been rejected by almost every judge they have appeared before.

1600

51m ago16.22 EDT

Republican senator Ted Cruz tore into the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s case related to his efforts to overturn the election, claiming she would be “relentlessly hostile” to the former president.

The latest criminal case against Trump will be overseen by the US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has developed a record of handing down some of the longest criminal sentences against defendants charged with storming the Capitol in the January 6 attack, beyond prosecutors’ recommendations.

In 2021, Chutkan was the judge who rejected Trump’s attempt to block the House January 6 select committee investigating the Capitol riot from gaining access to presidential records. “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president,” she wrote at the time.

Chutkan “has a reputation for being far left, even by DC district court standards”, Cruz said in an episode on his podcast on Wednesday. He added:

We can anticipate a judge who is going to be relentlessly hostile to Donald Trump who is going to bend over backwards for the Biden DOJ, and who is going to make ruling, after ruling, after ruling against Trump.

Cruz – along with every other Republican senator at the time – voted for Chutkan’s confirmation in 2014.

30m ago16.43 EDT

Federal prosecutors requested a hearing to inform Donald Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, about his lead lawyer’s potential conflicts of interest stemming from his defense work for at least three witnesses that could testify against Nauta and the former president in the classified documents case.

The prosecutors made the request to US district court judge Aileen Cannon on Wednesday, explaining that Nauta’s lead lawyer, Stanley Woodward, represents two key Trump employees and formerly advised the Mar-a-Lago IT director, Yuscil Taveras, who is cooperating in the case.

Prosecutors wrote in the 11-page court filing:

All three of these witnesses may be witnesses for the government at trial, raising the possibility that Mr Woodward might be in the position of cross-examining past or current clients.

At issue is Woodward’s prior representation of Taveras during the grand jury investigation earlier this year, when prosecutors concluded that Taveras had evidence that incriminated Nauta and had enough of his own legal exposure to warrant sending him a target letter.

After Trump and Nauta were indicted in the classified documents case on 8 June, Taveras changed lawyers and swapped out Woodward, whose legal bills were being paid by Trump’s political action committee Save America, and retained a new lawyer on 5 July.

In the weeks that followed, Taveras decided to Fox more evidence with prosecutors about how Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira had asked him to delete surveillance footage – details that resulted last week in a superseding indictment against Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira.

1700

9m ago17.04 EDT

Messages suggest top Trump adviser could be 'co-conspirator 6' in indictment - report

Donald Trump’s latest indictment lists six unnamed co-conspirators alleged to have helped the former president in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

The former president’s six co-conspirators were not charged in the indictment.

These include a justice department official, probably the then assistant attorney general Jeff Clark (“Co-Conspirator 4”), as well as four Republican lawyers, seemingly including Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani (“Co-Conspirator 1”); the law professor John Eastman (“Co-Conspirator 2”), who concocted the false theory that the vice-president had the authority to intervene in the electoral vote counting ceremony; Ken Chesebro (“Co-Conspirator 5”), an author of the fake electors scheme; and the quack pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell (“Co-Conspirator 3”).

Also listed is an unidentified “Co-Conspirator 6”. The indictment describes the person as a “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding”.

An email sent by Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s campaign adviser and legal counsel, matches the description of an email that the indictment attributed to one of six unnamed co-conspirators, according to a New York Times report.

The email, sent on 7 December 2020, from Epshteyn to Giuliani and Giuliani’s son, Andrew, had the subject line “Attorneys for Electors Memo”, the paper writes. The email states: “Dear Mayor, as discussed, below are the attorneys I would recommend for the memo on choosing electors,” and goes on to identify lawyers in seven states.

The indictment states that Co-conspirator 1 “spoke with Co-conspirator 6 regarding attorneys who could assist in the fraudulent elector effort in the targeted states” and received an email from Co-conspirator 6 “identifying attorneys in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” Those are the seven states in the email that Epshteyn sent to Giuliani, the paper writes.

Epshteyn has been one of Trump’s closest advisers in recent years, with more knowledge about the former president’s legal entanglements than perhaps anyone else.

He was interviewed in April by special counsel prosecutors investigating Trump’s retention of classified-marked documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.

THURSDAY

0700

10 hour(s) ago 0700

Trump's court appearance will be 'short' and 'choreographed': Andy McCarthy

Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy said Wednesday that Donald Trump's appearance in federal court in Washington, D.C., at 4 p.m. ET will be short and appear "choreographed."

"Because there's been an indictment, this will be an arraignment, which means it's a proceeding before the court in which the former president will be asked to enter a plea to the indictment that was just filed yesterday," McCarthy said.

"He'll obviously enter a plea of not guilty. It'll be choreographed in the sense that because of the security concerns, the Secret Service will have collaborated with the court personnel and the other agencies involved in the case to make sure that the former president is ushered into the court," he added.

"It'll be short. He'll enter a plea. Bail will not be an issue in this case."

McCarthy discussed Trump's court appearance with former FBI special agent Nicole Parker and former DOJ official Tom Dupree on "Your World" with Neil Cavuto.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

10 hour(s) ago 0700

Legal experts slam Jack Smith for bringing 'lousy' case against Trump: 'Disinformation indictment'

Legal experts are criticizing special counsel Jack Smith for his latest indictment against Donald Trump for accusing the former president of spreading disinformation and other activities protected by the First Amendment.

Trump was indicted out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation related to 2020 election interference and the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, and is facing charges such as conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

"The most jarring thing about this indictment is it basically just accuses him of disinformation — this is a disinformation indictment," said legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a Fox News contributor.

"It said [Trump] was spreading falsehoods, that [he] was undermining integrity of the election — that is all part of the First Amendment," Turley said. "And I think that courts will look skeptically."

Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Fox News contributor, told Fox News Digital that Smith brought "a lousy case."

"I think all the counts have significant legal problems, and that’s even before you get to the complex problems of trying to prove Trump’s intent," McCarthy said.

But not every legal expert says Smith's case is weak. Laurence Tribe, professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard University, told Fox News Digital that Smith has brought an "airtight" indictment against the former president.

"The factual details, if true as claimed, leave Trump with no legitimate legal defenses," Tribe said. "And the sources for all the damning direct quotations, including those by Mr. Trump himself, are all individuals he hand-picked for their loyalty to him — they have no conceivable motive to lie. And there’s no chance they’re misremembering anything so stark."

Tribe told Fox News Digital that Trump’s "only hope to avoid conviction" on this latest set of charges is "to get someone installed as president who would pardon him or get the Justice Department to drop the case."

Fox news' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

10 hour(s) ago 0700

Pence rejects Trump lawyer's suggestion he could have 'paused' 2020 electoral vote certification

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday rejected the notion by former President Donald Trump's then-attorney John Eastman that he could have "paused" the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021, referring to him as a "crackpot" lawyer.

Pence made the comments during an appearance on Fox News' "The Story," telling host Martha MacCallum that he did his duty as vice president according to the Constitution by not bowing to calls for him to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

"I was confident as a student of American history that those founders would have never vested the vice president or anyone else with unilateral authority to decide what Electoral College votes to count and which not to count. I was clear on that throughout. I was clear with President Trump throughout all the way up to the morning of January 6th," Pence said.

"But let's let's be clear on this point. It wasn't just that he asked for a pause. The president specifically asked me — and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me — to literally reject votes, which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House of Representatives. And literally chaos would have ensued," he added.

Fox News' Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

10 hour(s) ago 0700

Mike Pence's secret notes revealed in Jack Smith's Trump indictment

Then-Vice President Mike Pence took "contemporaneous notes" of his conversations with Donald Trump in the days before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment of the former president revealed Tuesday.

Pence's previously unreported notes are presented as evidence against Trump, who faces four federal charges related to his actions after the 2020 presidential election and unproven claims the election was stolen. Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

The indictment cites several phone calls between Trump and Pence in late December 2020 and early January 2021 in which Trump allegedly made "knowingly false" claims about the election and pressured his vice president to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory. Pence recounted some of these conversations in his memoir, "So Help Me God."

Pence's notes recount how Trump told him the "Justice Department [was] finding major infractions" in the election, a claim the special counsel calls false.

During a meeting on Jan. 3, 2021, Trump allegedly said "Bottom line-won every state by 100,000s of votes" and "We son every state." Citing Pence's notes, the indictment also claims Trump asked, "What about 205,000 votes more in PA than voters?" — a claim his senior Department of Justice officials had debunked as early as the day before, the indictment alleges.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

10 hour(s) ago 0700

Trump to appear in federal court after being charged with crimes related to Jan 6

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C., Thursday afternoon after being indicted on charges that stem from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, faces four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

The former president is expected to travel from Bedminster, New Jersey, to Washington, D.C., on Thursday. He was ordered to appear in federal court for a 4 p.m. arraignment.

Those charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements. Trump was charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of that probe last week.

Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face federal criminal charges.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

0800

9 hour(s) ago 0800

Latest Trump indictment draws cheers from leftists on social media: 'Popping the champagne'

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest indictment against former President Donald Trump was a cause for celebration for many left-wing Twitter users on Tuesday.

"Happy 3rd Indictment Day to all who celebrate! #TrumpIndictment," YouTuber Sarah O’Connell tweeted.

Blue Amp Strategies CEO Cliff Schecter wrote, "Ok said this was the one thing that would get me to break my Tweetless Tuesday. Happy pending indictment 112th Trump indictment everyone!"

Journalist Sophia A. Nelson said, "This is a good day for the Republic, it shows the checks and balances work. We will be okay as long as the institutions hold."

"RT if you agree that Jack Smith is an American hero," political strategist Rachel Bitecofer commented.

Celebrity hair stylist Elgin Charles agreed, "Jack Smith is a true American hero."

Fox News' Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

9 hour(s) ago 0800

Eric Trump says father will 'fight like hell' against special counsel's indictment

Trump Organization vice president Eric Trump pledged his father Donald will "fight like hell" against Special Counsel Jack Smith's latest indictment.

Smith indicted former President Trump Tuesday on four charges – conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding, as well as a post-Civil War law intended to blunt Ku Klux Klan intimidation of newly-freed slaves; conspiracy against rights.

"We've dealt with this nonsense from the very beginning. We dealt with it with all the impeachments," Eric Trump, who also serves as president of Trump Winery in Virginia, told Fox News on Wednesday.

"We dealt with the slanderous Russia lies the [allegations] that we were colluding with the Kremlin [and] that we had secret servers in the basement of Trump Tower."

The younger Trump told "Jesse Watters Primetime" that allegations from the Washington, D.C. establishment have been "lie after lie" intended to weaken him and his populist movement.

"They've slandered him from day-one," he said, collectively calling Smith and other detractors "desperate."

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

9 hour(s) ago 0800

'View' co-host bets audience member that Trump 'will go to jail'

"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin bet an audience member, CNN's Elie Honig, on Wednesday that Donald Trump would go to jail following his latest indictment related to Jan. 6.

At the end of "The View" on Wednesday, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin was recommending some books and included one of Honig's books, "Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It," and pointed to the CNN legal analyst in the audience.

"I picked this book, it came out in January 2023 but one of the most common questions I get, we talk about a lot on this show, how do people like Trump or how do the rich and powerful seem to get away with it? There doesn’t seem to be the same accountability that the average Joe has, and this book explains the methodology of why it’s tough to nail these people down. And he profiles, I mean he predicts a lot of what we’re seeing with Donald Trump but Harry Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. It’s a must read when you try to figure out how people weaponize the legal system to help them," Griffin said.

Co-host Joy Behar turned to Honig and asked him if he thinks Trump would go to jail.

"No," he said. "Sorry, but no. Doesn't mean he won't be convicted, but I don't believe he'll go to jail, certainly not before the election, if you're counting on that."

Hostin chimed in and said, "I'll take that bet, Elie."

"Ok, I know you have one with Alyssa, I'll double on it," he responded.

Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

9 hour(s) ago 0800

CNN analyst's comparison of Trump indictment to killing bin Laden leaves anchor taken aback

Former D.C. Metropolitan police officer and CNN analyst Michael Fanone claimed Tuesday’s federal indictment of former President Donald Trump in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot made him feel the exact same way he felt when the U.S. military "killed Osama bin Laden."

Fanone, who was present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and who has testified before the U.S. House select committee investigating the riot that day, told CNN host Laura Coates on Tuesday he believed that Trump’s actions surrounding the event were "absolutely" comparable to bin Laden’s terror attack against the U.S. on 9/11.

"When I first learned about the indictment, I had a long conversation with a friend of mine, Ryan Reilly, and I told him how proud I felt to be an American at that moment. Much in the way that I did when I learned that our military had killed Osama bin Laden. I just felt incredibly proud," Fanone said.

HIs words seemed to perturb Coates, who paused and admitted to the former law enforcement officer that his statement was an "eyebrow-raising" one.

Fox News' Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

9 hour(s) ago 0800

DeSantis blasted by critics, Trump world over indictment response: 'Not a wartime conservative'

Supporters of former President Donald Trump and other conservatives lashed out at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for what they said was an underwhelming response to news of the latest indictment against Trump and said it shows he's the wrong pick for 2024.

"As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans," DeSantis tweeted shortly after news broke Tuesday that Trump had been indicted on charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

"While I’ve seen reports, I have not read the indictment. I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts. Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality. One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses — I will end the weaponization of the federal government."

The DeSantis tweet calling for an end to the weaponization of government was seen over 4 million times and "ratioed" mostly by Trump supporters and surrogates. They accused the Florida Republican of not speaking out forcefully enough against the specific targeting of Trump, not mentioning him by name and not promising a pardon.

"It makes me really sad that the best, most based governor in America decided to base his entire presidential campaign on not knowing what time it is," Federalist CEO Sean Davis tweeted. "Robotically reciting ‘I will enact reforms’ is not how you respond when a corrupt government announces that it plans to throw its opposition in prison for the crime of opposition."

"Not a wartime conservative," political commentator Jack Posobiec tweeted.

"YOUR TOP POLITICAL OPPONENT IS BEING UNJUSTLY PERSECUTED," Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner tweeted. "Agree to pardon him! This is a sham and you know it. But you hope you benefit from it. SHAME ON TEAM DESANTIS!"

Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

9 hour(s) ago 0800

Jonathan Turley concerned about 'chilling' new Trump charges: 'When is the price too high?'

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley warned the latest indictment of former President Donald Trump has "chilling" implications for free speech in America. On "The Brian Kilmeade Show" on Wednesday, Turley explained that the Constitution protects Trump's ability to claim the 2020 election was stolen, even if he knew his claim was false.

"The burden is on the prosecution. And the question is, how do you actually prove this? What the indictment says is lots of people told Trump that the election wasn't stolen and that the challenge, the certification was invalid. Well, fine. I was one of those people saying that. But he had other people saying the opposite. He had attorneys, not a small number saying, ‘No, you can make these challenges. So the election was stolen. There is this evidence.’ Millions of Americans believe that. And so it's a weird indictment," Turley said.

"What concerns me here is that the implications of this filing for free speech are quite chilling. And those people celebrating this indictment are dismissing that, and they shouldn't. ... When is the price too high?"

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

0900

8 hour(s) ago 0900

Pence comes out swinging at Trump following Jan 6 indictment: 'Should never be president'

Former Vice President Mike Pence did not parse words when reacting to former President Trump's indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday.

Pence declared the country was "more important than one man," and that the Constitution was "more important than any one man’s career."

"On January 6th, former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will," he said.

Fox News' Brandon Gillespie and Andrew Murray contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

8 hour(s) ago 0900

Jack Smith 'should be indicted for stupidity' after latest Trump charges: legal analyst

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought four new 2020-election-related charges against former President Donald Trump earlier Tuesday, should be "indicted for stupidity" according to one legal analyst.

Gregg Jarrett told Fox News that the 45-page indictment of Trump, in which Smith lays out charges including one count better known for being used against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1870s, is an "amateurish joke."

Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights – the latter of which was drafted to counteract intimidation of recently freed slaves newly protected by the 14th and 15th Amendments.

"This indictment strikes me as an amateurish joke, frankly," Jarrett said. "Jack Smith as special counsel should be indicted for stupidity – It's that bad."

Jarrett told "Hannity" that Smith has a "disreputable habit" of charging "politically driven prosecutions."

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

1000

7 hour(s) ago 1000

Trump accuses Biden DOJ of strategy to drain campaign funds for legal defense before election

Donald Trump on Thursday accused the Biden administration of bringing up criminal charges against him to drain funds from his 2024 presidential campaign.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the Department of Justice has forced him "to spend large amounts of time & money" on his legal defense instead of his campaign.

"Look, it’s not my fault that my political opponent in the Democrat Party, Crooked Joe Biden, has told his Attorney General to charge the leading (by far!) Republican Nominee & former President of the United States, me, with as many crimes as can be concocted so that he is forced to spend large amounts of time & money to defend himself," Trump said. "The Dems don’t want to run against me or they would not be doing this unprecedented weaponization of “Justice.” BUT SOON, IN 2024, IT WILL BE OUR TURN. MAGA!"

Campaign finance documents show Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, burned through at least $42.8 million this year, much of it used to cover costs related to his mounting legal peril. The former president has $31.8 million cash on hand.

Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

7 hour(s) ago 1000

Trump says he's 'never had so much support' as critics rip latest indictment

Former President Donald Trump boasted that he’s "never had so much support" the morning after he was indicted by a grand jury on federal charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

It’s the second federal indictment brought against Trump in investigations led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who also probed the former president’s removal and possession of classified documents from the White House.

"Thank you to everyone!!! I have never had so much support on anything before," Trump wrote in an all-caps message on his Truth Social app.

"This unprecedented indictment of a former (highly successful!) president, & the leading candidate, by far, in both the Republican Party and the 2024 general election, has awoken the world to the corruption, scandal, & failure that has taken place in the United States for the past three years," the former president said.

"America is a nation in decline, but we will make it great again, greater than ever before. I love you all!!!"

Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

1100

6 hour(s) ago 1100

New Trump charges hammered by former FBI official: 'Thought I was reading a NY Times op-ed'

On "Fox & Friends First" on Wednesday, former Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker sounded off on the "extraordinary" indictment against Trump, arguing it read more like an "op-ed or political manifesto."

"This is an extraordinary indictment. When I read it, I thought I was reading a New York Times op-ed or a political manifesto. Where's the beef? There is nothing in there that goes beyond opinion, talking, expressing things," Swecker said.

"And I'm not defending President Trump because I think he did a lot of things that were ill-advised and unwise, probably against his lawyers' advice," he continued. "But these charges are conspiracy charges. That means there are other people involved. And I think there are six or seven lawyers that are... unnamed or not named, but they are unnamed co-conspirators. And it is alleging basically that Trump provided some sort of disinformation campaign, that he knew that the election was not stolen, that there was not enough fraud to have stolen the election. And yet he went forward with all of these actions and tried to get the election overturned in a lot of different ways. But those charges are extraordinary.

"I don't think I've ever seen an indictment like this in my 40-plus years in this business. So, it'll be interesting to see. I know he does not have a favorable judge. He has an unfavorable judge. We'll see. I think this case could get thrown out if it really were an objective Constitution-adhering judge, you would see this case thrown out very early in the process."

Fox News' Madeline Coggins contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

6 hour(s) ago 1100

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley breaks silence on Trump indictment

Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks to guests during a campaign stop at Wildwood Smokehouse on July 29, 2023 in Iowa City, Iowa. Yesterday Haley joined 12 other GOP presidential contenders at the Republican Party of Iowa 2023 Lincoln Dinner. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley explained Thursday why she did not release a statement after her 2024 rival Donald Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury.

Speaking on a New Hampshire talk radio station, Haley reportedly said she kept silent "because like most Americans, I'm tired of talking about it. We should be talking about the security threat posed by China." Haley's comments were reported by NH Journal.

Several other GOP hopefuls weighed in this week on the blockbuster announcement that former President Trump had been indicted in the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

One of the first to release a statement was former CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a long-shot for the nomination and a very vocal GOP Trump critic.

Former Vice President Mike Pence also issued a statement highly critical of Trump, writing that "today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, pledged to "end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans," without mentioning Trump by name.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said he also was concerned about the "weaponization" of the Justice Department. Vivek Ramaswamy went further by committing to pardon Trump.

Fox News' Andrew Murray and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

1200

5 hour(s) ago 1200

Republican voter tells 'Fox & Friends' that Trump is being 'victimized'

A diverse panel of voters weighed in on the latest indictment against former President Donald Trump on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning.

"It just seems like an ex-boyfriend seeking revenge in court and just slamming their spouse," said Republican voter Lydia Dominguez, an Air Force veteran and former Democrat from Las Vegas. "All these different charges, it's just overwhelming. I'm over it. They just need to move on."

Republican voter Moses Sanchez of Arizona said he thinks "most people aren't paying attention to the specifics" of the charges against Trump.

"I think the average American couldn't tell you the difference between the third indictment, the second indictment — which indictment is this? I think a lot of people are just checked out," Sanchez said. "Clearly [Trump] has calcified his support during this time and during this indictment and a lot of voters feel like he is being attacked by the mainstream media and he's being victimized."

Bernadette Wright, an independent from Georgia, agreed with the others that the timing of the indictment is "strange."

"It's taking over all of the election news," said Wright. "He has gotten so big that it's gotten out of control."

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

5 hour(s) ago 1200

Levin warns Trump indictment is part of 'passive revolution' by Democrats

Former Reagan Justice Department chief of staff Mark Levin warned the current DOJ's legal pursuit and indictment of former President Donald Trump is another step in the "unraveling" of America at the hands of Democrats.

Levin, host of "Life, Liberty & Levin" on Fox News, said Wednesday he is praying that his premonitions are wrong, but asserted the Democratic Party is intentionally creating a "combustible situation" among the populace, even beyond its indictment of a former president on charges that could land Trump in prison for hundreds of years.

"You see what's going on. You see we're unraveling… The Democrat Party is destroying our schools, it's destroying parental rights, it's destroying the nuclear family, it's destroying people of faith. It's gone after the Catholic Church. The Democrat Party is promoting censorship in all of its departments and agencies. It's destroying our traditions," Levin said.

Levin said President Biden's claim his administration is building a "bottom up; middle out" society is anything but true, instead contending the behavior of the president and Democratic Party is that of a "passive revolution" that is nonviolent but radically transforms longstanding institutions to control all aspects of life and repress political opposition.

"It's the kind of revolution that Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist, and even [Soviet leader Vladimir] Lenin talked about, where they take over the institutions of government, they take over the institutions of the culture and they impose their will."

"We now have a government that's banning household products from light bulbs to automobiles in order to control your life. We have a government that is destroying your lifestyle; driving up the cost of energy. It's going to get worse before it gets better."

He said of Trump's latest indictment that nothing like this has happened since 1776, and said all of the prosecutors charging or potentially preparing to charge Trump are politically opposed to him.

"They will use any tool they can. They don't care about free speech. They don't care about the Bill of Rights. They don't care about attorney-client privilege… This is a Democrat Party that is power-hungry, and they see an opportunity right now to monopolize the government and politics forevermore."

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

5 hours ago 1220

Trump en route to Washington

By Samuel Chamberlain

Former President Donald Trump's motorcade is pulling out of his golf club in Bedminster, NJ, and is en route to Newark Liberty International Airport for the short flight to the nation's capital.

The 45th president's arraignment is set for 4 p.m. in DC federal court.

5 hours ago 1220

Trump claims he is being arrested for challenging a 'rigged and stolen' election, says "I am being arrested for you"

By Post Staff

Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to lash out at his charges regarding his role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

"I AM NOW GOING TO WASHINGTON, D.C., TO BE ARRESTED FOR HAVING CHALLENGED A CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN ELECTION," the former president wrote on his social media site.

Trump went on to call the indictment a "GREAT HONOR" and claim "I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU."

Trump, 77, was indicted by a grand jury on four counts including conspiracy to defraud the United States for his claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false," the indictment read.

5 hours ago 1220

Read the entire 45-page Trump indictment over his alleged attempts to overturn 2020 election

By Patrick Reilly

Special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment against former President Donald Trump charges the 45th commander-in-chief with conspiring with six others for months to knowingly spread lies that there had been widespread election fraud.

The indictment, the third criminal case against Trump, alleges that his unfounded claims that he had, in fact, actually defeated former Vice President President Joe Biden culminated in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway — 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,” the indictment claims.

Could Trump run for office if convicted, and could he pardon himself if elected?

1300

BREAKING NEWS4 hour(s) ago 1300

Former President Trump departs Bedminster to travel to Washington, D.C. for hearing

Former President Donald Trump has left his residence in Bedminster, New Jersey, to appear in court in Washington, D.C., Thursday afternoon.

Trump announced his departure on Truth Social shortly before he left.

"I AM NOW GOING TO WASHINGTON, D.C., TO BE ARRESTED FOR HAVING CHALLENGED A CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN ELECTION. IT IS A GREAT HONOR, BECAUSE I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!," Trump wrote.

The former president faces four felony charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the days leading up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

The charges are conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was assigned to oversee the case. Chutkan is notorious for issuing tougher sentences to other Jan. 6 defendants than what the Justice Department requested, and put every one of them behind bars.

Trump is expected to plead not guilty.

Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

4 hour(s) ago 1300

Christie says GOP rivals are 'unwilling' to attack Trump, 'auditioning' for his next administration

President Donald Trump will deliver the keynote address at tomorrow evening's "Patriot Gala" dinner. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie accused some of his 2024 competitors of being "unwilling" to attack former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race.

Christie suggested on a podcast released Thursday that his opponents were not running for the White House but were instead "auditioning" for a role in the next Trump administration.

“In the end, I think that some of them are unwilling to do it because they don’t think it’s politically smart, some of them are auditioning for a potential Trump administration, and I think some of them just aren’t able to do it,” Christie told host Kara Swisher. “They just physically aren’t equipped to be able to be in that combat.”

Christie said Trump is "morally responsible" for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but hesitated to say whether Trump was criminally liable. The podcast was recorded before special counsel Jack Smith unveiled a federal grand jury indictment against Trump on Tuesday.

Other Trump rivals have stood by the former president and accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Department of Justice against a potential 2024 opponent.

Vivek Ramaswamy went to the courthouse where Trump will attend a hearing on Thursday and demanded that the government "tell us the truth about what's really driving this flurry of prosecutions, with trial dates set during the height of the upcoming election."

"That’s why I sued the DOJ this week to tell us exactly what Biden told Garland & what Garland told Jack Smith about the Trump indictments. That’s why I was in Nashville yesterday to demand the release of the transgender school shooter’s manifesto. That’s why I’ve pledged to release the state action files about what the government tells tech companies to suppress. We *can* handle the TRUTH," Ramaswamy said.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo 1300

4 hours ago 1320

New York Trump fan brings mock presidential limo to DC courthouse

By Caitlin Doornbos

James Robinson, of Long Island, drove five hours to Washington in his decked-out Donald Trump limousine – complete with a presidential seal on its doors – to cheer on the former commander-in-chief.

“It's important because it’s showing support for the president,” he told The Post. “I mean, I'm local, I can make it, I was able to take the day off of work. You know, a lot of people, I understand, can’t take off work.”

Throughout Thursday morning, Robinson and two other members of the “Setauket Patriots” group cruised around the courthouse just blocks from the Capitol, playing pro-Trump recordings on a loudspeaker.

Some passersby took photos and waved at the vehicle, while others yelled profanities.

During a midmorning stop at a local restaurant that doubles as a MAGA hangout, an unidentified counter-protester stuck a miniature handmade “Black Lives Matter” sign on the limo's front passenger window, while another person rushed up to bicker with the group.

“All lives matter,” Robinson told the unknown man. “Your life matters.”

4 hours ago 1320

Former President Donald Trump alleges the Bidens stole 'millions and millions of dollars,' took foreign bribes

By Post Staff

"Biden and his family steal Millions and Millions of Dollars," Trump wrote before going on to allege that the Bidens took bribes from "foreign countries."

Trump raged that he is being arrested for "protesting a CROOKED ELECTION," once again repeating his claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

The ex-president further slammed his charges by saying, "UNFAIR VENUE, UNFAIR JUDGE."

Trump ended his missive by claiming the US is "a nation in decline."

4 hours ago 1320

Trump arrives at Newark Airport

By Samuel Chamberlain

After a 40-minute trip from Bedminster, former President Donald Trump has arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport and boarded Trump Force One.

He will soon fly less than an hour to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in northern Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

4 hours ago 1320

Mike Pence shames Trump with 'Too Honest' merch

By Ryan King

Former Vice President Mike Pence's White House campaign is throwing shade at his old boss Donald Trump with some pointed merchandise.

The former Indiana governor is selling hats and T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase "Too Honest."

Trump had "berated" Pence on New Year’s Day 2021 over the veep's insistence that he lacked the authority to reject electoral votes cast for Joe Biden in battleground states.

At one point, the 45th president told Pence, "You’re too honest," according to both the recent indictment and Pence's own memoir.

Pence, 64, testified before a federal grand jury earlier this year and his notes were cited in the 45-page charging document against Trump.

4 hours ago 1320

Anti-Trump protester arrested at Florida arraignment re-emerges in DC

By Ryan King

An anti-Donald Trump protester who was arrested for hopping in front of the former president's motorcade following his June arraignment in Florida is back.

Domenic Santana wore his signature black-and-white prison stripes again outside the federal courthouse in the nation's capital Thursday, clamoring for Trump to become an inmate.

"I'm here to let the world know that Donald Trump is a con artist, that he should've been locked up a long time ago, that he shouldn't have left New York to go to the White House," Santana, the former owner of Asbury Park's legendary Stone Pony rock club, told a reporter Thursday, adding that he has no plans to get cuffed this time.

4 hours ago 1320

Bikin' Biden goes on yet another ride, largely ignores press while shouting he won't follow Trump's arraignment

By Ryan King

Joe couldn’t resist the media forever.

President Biden largely ignored his press pool while taking another leisurely bike ride Thursday morning, shouting a one-word answer to a CNN photographer who asked if he would be following his predecessor’s arraignment on federal charges in connection with the aftermath of the 2020 election.

“Mr. President, will you be following the arraignment today, sir?” asked cameraman Jay McMichael as the commander-in-chief cycled toward him along a path in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

“No,” the 80-year-old Biden answered as he pedaled by.

1400

BREAKING NEWS3 hour(s) ago 1400

Trump Force One departs New Jersey en route to DC

Former President Donald Trump's plane has departed New Jersey en route to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va.

Trump will then travel into Washington, D.C., where he will appear in federal court for a 4 p.m. ET hearing.

He was indicted Wednesday on charges that stem from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

He faces four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie

3 hour(s) ago 1400

Lindsey Graham goes off on 'night and day' difference between Trump, Hunter Biden cases

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., described the "night and day" difference in how the Justice Department and FBI have handled former President Trump's legal cases versus Hunter Biden's. He told Sean Hannity that Americans have a "right to be mad" about the double standard, adding "there are no rules" when it comes to going after Trump.

"It's night and day. So Hunter Biden gets a plea deal that nobody in your audience would get. Millions of dollars of unpaid taxes, he's not going to jail, illegal possession of a gun, he gets a diversion opportunity never to go to jail. Hidden in the plea deal is a promise never to prosecute based on all the financial dealings you've been talking about," Graham said.

"When it comes to Donald Trump, they make up lies. They push to a court, a dossier that's absolutely Russian disinformation. They manipulate the stream of evidence, and nothing happens. So if you're sitting at home and you're mad, you have a right to be mad. When it comes to Donald Trump, there are no rules. Destroy him, destroy his family. When it comes to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, they get away with almost everything. If you want to change that, we better win in 2024."

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

3 hour(s) ago 1400

Trump lashes out en route to D.C., says trial and judge will be 'UNFAIR'

Former President Donald Trump lashed out against his arrest Thursday as he traveled to Washington, D.C., to appear in federal court.

Trump, who faces a federal grand jury indictment for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, took to Truth Social to call both the venue and the judge overseeing his case "UNFAIR."

"Biden and his family steal Millions and Millions of Dollars, including BRIBES from foreign countries, and I’m headed to D.C. to be ARRESTED for protesting a CROOKED ELECTION," Trump wrote. "UNFAIR VENUE, UNFAIR JUDGE. We are a Nation in Decline. MAGA!!!"

The judge assigned to Trump's case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, has a reputation for being tough on Jan. 6 riot defendants.

The Associated Press called her the "toughest punisher" and reported that she has "consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington’s federal trial court." The Justice Department has brought more than 800 cases so far, marking the largest prosecution in the department's history.

In seven cases, Chutkan even handed out tougher sentences than what DOJ was seeking. She matched the prosecution's requests in four others and sent all 11 riot defendants who have come before her behind bars, the outlet notes.

In four cases in which DOJ did not seek jail time, Chutkan gave prison sentences ranging from 14 days to 45 days.

Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

Fox: Posted by Chris Pandolfo

New York Times, 2:03 p.m. ET3 hours ago

3 hours ago

Ben Protess

Here’s what to expect from Trump’s court appearance.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s arraignment on a four-count federal indictment on Thursday will mark a momentous and once unimaginable turn in Mr. Trump’s long public life. And yet his appearance in a public courtroom in Washington should be a relatively routine affair.

Arraignments typically last an hour or less and cover a few mundane topics. They are by now familiar to Mr. Trump, who has already been arraigned once each in state and federal court in the past four months.

After he arrives at the courthouse, Mr. Trump will be booked and fingerprinted, all part of the behind-the-scenes process of being a criminal defendant at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse, the venue for dozens of trials stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Once in court, Mr. Trump will hear the charges against him, which center on his effort to overturn the 2020 election results. Moxila A. Upadhyaya, the federal magistrate judge overseeing the arraignment, will then ask for his plea. Mr. Trump, or one of the lawyers acting on his behalf, will almost certainly respond “not guilty.”

Judge Upadhyaya, who will soon hand off the case to a trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, will also probably ask prosecutors to present any conditions for Mr. Trump’s release. The prosecutors — working for the special counsel, Jack Smith — might attach few if any strings. When Mr. Trump was indicted in June, accused of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s investigation, Mr. Smith requested no bail and no restrictions on Mr. Trump’s travel, reflecting his status as the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

At some arraignments, judges set a preliminary calendar for the case. The schedule could have far-reaching implications, with Mr. Trump already facing two other criminal trials next year, in the thick of the 2024 race. (In addition to the documents case, the Manhattan district attorney brought charges against Mr. Trump in March, accusing him of trying to cover up a potential sex scandal with a porn star before the 2016 election.)

But because the magistrate judge, not Judge Chutkan, is presiding over the arraignment, those more consequential matters will probably have to wait.

Although arraignments are typically low-key proceedings, nothing about Mr. Trump and his legal woes is ever fully devoid of drama. It remains unclear whether any of his lawyers or advisers, who have been publicly attacking the indictment the last two days, will air their grievances at the arraignment or save their concerns for Judge Chutkan’s courtroom.

If the proceeding goes as planned, it should conclude around 5 p.m., at which point Mr. Trump is expected to return to his private jet, which will take him back to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.

New York Times, 2:15 p.m. ET3 hours ago

3 hours ago

Reid Epstein

President Biden has said very little about the various charges against Trump. When he was asked by the White House press pool Thursday if he would be following the arraignment, Biden, while zooming past on his bike, replied, “No.”

New York Times, 2:17 p.m. ET3 hours ago

3 hours ago

Andrew Fischer

Trump’s fund-raising surged after each of his first two indictments.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s legal challenges have proven to be lucrative fund-raising opportunities. His first two indictments and court appearances have been followed by steep increases in online donations to his committees.

Trump Fund-Raising Surges From Indictments

Online donations to Donald J. Trump, by day

Note: Fund-raising totals include money raised for Donald J. Trump For President 2024 and Trump Save America J.F.C. via WinRed.

Source: Federal Election Commission

By Andrew Fischer

Mr. Trump appears to be looking to capitalize on his third indictment, which was announced on Tuesday. By Wednesday, he had already sent out emails urging supporters to stand with him by making contributions and purchasing merchandise.

A quarter of Mr. Trump’s online fund-raising this year occurred in the weeks around his first indictment. Contributions around the second indictment were not nearly as substantial, and it remains to be seen whether donors stick with Mr. Trump as his legal troubles have multiplied.

3 hours ago 1420

Stoic Trump enters motorcade en route to courthouse for arraignment

By Ryan King

A grim-faced Donald Trump disembarked his Boeing 757 at Reagan National Airport Thursday afternoon and entered a black SUV en route to the Washington, DC, federal courthouse where he will be arraigned.

The 77-year-old gave a quick wave to the cameras as he walked down the staircase off his so-called Trump Force One as the wind rustled his hair and red tie.

He mouthed "Thank you" before getting into the SUV.

The former president's plane landed at the airfield in Arlington, Virginia, just outside the nation's capital, and the motorcade will take him to E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, where he is expected to plead not guilty to the four-count indictment over his attempts to allegedly overturn the 2020 presidential election.

3 hours ago 1420

Trump haters dance to 'Happy' outside DC court

By Steven Nelson

Anti-Donald Trump protesters celebrated his looming third arrest and arraignment outside DC's federal district court on Thursday.

Activists danced to the song "Happy" by Pharrell Williams with longtime antiwar Code Pink protester Medea Benjamin holding a sign that advocated "Trump 2024... Prison."

An apparent Trump supporter could be heard bellowing, "No, I'm not happy — very unhappy," in a video tweeted by journalist Andrew Leyden.

3 hours ago 1420

Trump supporters protest Kamala Harris visit to Wisconsin

By Steven Nelson

As former President Donald Trump traveled to DC to face charges for allegedly trying to overturn his narrow 2020 losses in swing states, Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted by pro-Trump protesters in one of those states.

As Harris arrived at a technology manufacturing facility in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., near the Illinois border, her motorcade "passed a dozen or so pro-Trump demonstrators with a flag and signs complaining about U.S.-Mexico border management and 'Bidenomics failed America' on approach to facility," according to a pool report from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journalist.

Trump lost in Wisconsin by 20,682 ballots after narrowly carrying the state in 2016.

3 hours ago 1420

Trump plane arrives at Reagan Airport for former president's arraignment

By Ryan King

Former President Donald Trump's airplane touched down at Reagan National Airport.

He will soon depart his Boeing 757 and take a motorcade to the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse for his 4 p.m. arraignment.

Trump is expected to plead not guilty to all four felony counts lodged against him related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

3 hours ago 1420

Donald Trump Jr. warns father's indictment won't 'end well' for 'our civilization'

By Ryan King

Donald Trump Jr. panned the indictment of his father, starkly warning that it won't end well.

"Each one of these things, I think only solidifies that to the American people just how far we have fallen as a country, just how corrupt the Biden administration and their weaponized form of government is," Trump Jr. told NewsMax Thursday.

"And hopefully that wakes up people because, you know, this doesn't end well, for our country, for our civilization."

The former first son joked that it was like "at this point it's like Taco Tuesday" with these legal predicaments for his father.

"It's a regular occurrence, usually happens right after you know actual criminal stuff is found on Hunter and/or Joe Biden," he said.

Trump Jr. also revealed that he had a phone call with his father after news broke of his new four-count indictment.

He described the 77-year-old former president as being in good spirits despite the specter of a possible conviction, underscoring that the Trump family is "probably built a little different" and has tougher skin in these sorts of situations.

"I mean, we're really living in crazy times. I spoke to my father the other day, right after it was announced and honestly, he's doing great. We were laughing about things."

3 hours ago 1420

GOP senator says Trump 'victim' of 'weaponization,' vows to block Biden DOJ picks

By Steven Nelson

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) called former President Donald Trump a "victim" of a "weaponized" Justice Department Thursday and doubled down on a pledge to block President Biden's Justice Department appointees in protest.

“Donald Trump is merely the latest victim of a Department of Justice that cares more about politics than law enforcement," Vance said in a press release as Trump traveled to a federal courthouse in DC for his arraignment on charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.

"[Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s department harasses Christians for pro-life advocacy, but allows hardened criminals to walk our streets unpunished," Vance added. "This must stop, and I will do everything in my ability to ensure it does.

"Starting today, I will hold all Department of Justice nominations," Vance added. "If Merrick Garland wants to use these officials to harass Joe Biden’s political opponents, we will grind his department to a halt.”

Vance previously threatened to hold up DOJ nominees in June when Trump faced an initial indictment in Miami for allegedly mishandling classified records. He blocked unanimous consent on a DOJ nominee last week.

3 hours ago 1420

Dozens of Trump supporters, anti-Trump artist gather outside courthouse

By Caitlin Doornbos

Roughly 40 demonstrators had arrived at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse by noon – the vast majority of whom were supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Not far from the commotion, artist Tim Smith from Gettysburg, Pa., quietly sketched the scene on a large canvas, the back of which read “LOSER” in the style of Trump campaign signs.

“I think everyone's just done with it,” Smith said when asked why he thought there were so few anti-Trump demonstrators. “I think, especially on the left, people are seeing actual actions happen. They're seeing accountability is happening, and so they're more apt to just stay home and watch on the TV or on their news feeds. And the right is probably a little scared s---less to come here, because last time, you know, they're here for Trump and bunch of them went to prison."

Smith's work – to be titled “The Kraken” – features a large octopus stretching its tentacles around scenes of Trump campaign events, court hearings and government buildings. In a corner, Rudy Giuliani’s sweaty, grimacing face is prominent.

On the top, Trump is depicted as Jesus Christ on the cross with a crown of thorns.

The mural’s title and theme were inspired by post-election texts from Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, telling Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows to “Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”

3 hours ago 1420

Trump Force One wheels up to DC

By Samuel Chamberlain

Former President Donald Trump's airplane has taken off from Newark Liberty International Airport. His arraignment is scheduled to begin in less than two hours.

New York Times, 2:23 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Benjamin Protess

Before Trump appears in court, he will have to be booked and fingerprinted. Secret Service agents will accompany him at all times.

New York Times, 2:28 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Glenn Thrush

No mug shot, but Trump’s fingerprints will be taken at the courthouse.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s second federal arraignment this year is expected to follow a rhythm similar to his first: He will be fingerprinted but not have his mug shot taken.

As happened before his arraignment in Miami on charges of mishandling government documents, the U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for security inside federal courthouses, will escort him to a booking area.

Like last time, they will not take his picture, according to a law enforcement official involved in the planning. But federal rules dictate that an accused person be reprocessed in each jurisdiction in which he or she faces charges, so Mr. Trump will have to be fingerprinted for a second time using an electronic scanning device. He is also expected to answer a series of intake questions that include personal details, such as his age.

Mr. Trump also did not have a mug shot taken when he was arraigned earlier this year in New York on state charges in connection with a hush-money payment to a pornographic actress before the 2016 election. But his campaign did immediately start selling shirts with a pretend booking photo.

A genuine booking photo could still be in Mr. Trump’s future. 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.

New York Times, 2:29 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Benjamin Protess

This is becoming a familiar routine for Trump. It will be his third arraignment in four months. In March, he was indicted in Manhattan on charges related to covering up a potential sex scandal with a porn star, and in June, he was indicted in Miami on charges of mishandling classified records and obstructing the government’s investigation.

New York Times, 2:32 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Alan Feuer

Trump will appear in Federal District Court in Washington this afternoon after receiving a summons. He is not being “arrested,” as he recently claimed on his social media platform.

New York Times, 2:39 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Alan Feuer

With his hearing today, Trump will finally make an appearance in the courthouse where hundreds of his followers have been prosecuted on various charges connected to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His name has been invoked in countless trials and proceedings for other rioters. Now he will take center stage himself.

New York Times, 2:40 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Kayla Guo

A couple hundred members of the news media are set up under overcast skies outside the federal courthouse where Trump will soon be arraigned. A few dozen of his supporters and opponents are also here lapping up the attention. Outnumbering them, though, are ordinary tourists who happened to be sightseeing nearby when they stumbled upon the historic scene.

New York Times, 2:40 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Alan Feuer

Perhaps for security reasons, Trump’s court appearance has not been listed in any of the usual places. There is no entry for it on the public docket connected to his case, and it is not mentioned on the courthouse’s daily calendar of hearings.

New York Times, 2:41 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Benjamin Protess

Trump’s court appearance should last less than an hour, barring some unforeseen fireworks. He will hear the charges against him and plead not guilty.

New York Times, 2:42 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Anushka Patil

Who is the judge handling Trump’s initial court appearance?

Former President Donald J. Trump’s court appearance in Washington on Thursday, his first since he was indicted in the 2020 elections case, will be presided over by Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya.

Any trial over Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power despite his electoral loss will be overseen by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan. But magistrate judges like Judge Upadhyaya handle many preliminary proceedings for criminal cases, including arraignments, which Mr. Trump’s appearance on Thursday is expected to be. (He is expected to enter a “not guilty” plea, as he did in two previous arraignments this year.)

Judge Upadhyaya was appointed last year, and has handled proceedings for several Jan. 6 defendants at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington.

Before being appointed to the bench, she was a complex commercial litigation lawyer and a law clerk for judges on the United States District Court in Washington and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The law firm where she eventually became a partner, Venable L.L.P., described her experience with the federal and state court systems as “second to none.”

Judge Upadhyaya was born in Gujarat, India, and raised in Missouri before she attended American University’s Washington College of Law. Her biography on the Federal District Court’s website includes an audio clip demonstrating the correct pronunciation of her name.

She donated at least $2,550 to political candidates, all Democrats, in the decade before her judicial appointment, according to OpenSecrets.

New York Times, 2:43 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Alan Feuer

Normally, proceedings at the federal courthouse in Washington are open to the public and easy to access. Today’s proceeding for Trump will be a little different given the security concerns and the army of reporters who have descended on the building. There will be no way to watch or listen remotely.

New York Times, 2:47 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Benjamin Protess

At the arraignment, prosecutors will also tell the judge what, if any, conditions they want for Trump’s release. At his last arraignment in Miami, they didn’t seek any conditions, and at the moment, there’s no reason to think that will change today.

New York Times, 2:48 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Jonathan Weisman

Campaigning between trial dates: The 2024 presidential race will look like no other before it.

With Donald J. Trump’s expected not-guilty plea Thursday on charges that he criminally attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the campaign of 2024, as we know it, may effectively end.

The former president’s rivals — a half dozen or so — will still be on the hustings in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. And later, if Mr. Trump wins the Republican nomination, both he and President Biden will still swing into battleground states and blare ads on cable in an attempt to sway voters, who will ultimately decide whether Mr. Trump returns to power.

But Mr. Trump’s stunning pileup of criminal indictments and civil cases has ensured that the outcomes of the trials may have more bearing on the 2024 election results than the agitprop of American politics: the rallies, advertising blitzes, dueling party conventions and presidential debates.

Mr. Trump’s open deliberation about skipping the first primary debate, a pillar of American campaigns, is perhaps the first bit of evidence.

“This day is all the more tragic and regrettable because the former president has cynically chosen to inflict this embarrassing spectacle on the nation — and a spectacle it will be,” J. Michael Luttig wrote, a retired conservative appeals court judge, wrote after Mr. Trump’s most recent indictment. He added, “For the first time in history, an American president will be on criminal trial in multiple venues — federal and state — during a presidential campaign in which he will be the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party.”

At this point, it is getting harder to see how the other contenders for the Republican nomination can dislodge Mr. Trump from the lead. Seventeen percent of voters who prefer him over Mr. Biden think either that he has committed serious federal crimes or that he threatened democracy with his actions after the 2020 election, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.

A far larger 71 percent of Republicans say the former president has not committed serious crimes, the same percentage who say Republicans need to stand behind Mr. Trump through his legal trials.

“I hate to use his words, because I do think he’s kind of silly sometimes, but it is a witch hunt,” said Lynette Dashner, 54, of Concord, Calif. “The Democratic Party has been going after Donald Trump since the get go.”

The Biden campaign has promised the president will campaign for re-election, making no mention of Mr. Trump’s legal trials and travails. That may be so, but will people be listening amid the Trump-centered barrage? After Thursday’s arraignment will come the countdown to another possible indictment in the coming weeks from a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., considering charges that would stem from Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.

A civil fraud trial brought by Attorney General Letitia James of New York is expected to begin in October. A second defamation suit against Mr. Trump, brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who already secured Mr. Trump’s liability for sexually assaulting her, is set to begin Jan. 15.

A six-year-old federal lawsuit accusing Mr. Trump and his family of promoting a pyramid scheme is set for trial Jan. 29. The felony case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, connected to hush money paid to a pornographic film actress just before the 2016 election, is set for trial March 25.

Two months later — and less than two months before the Republican convention in Milwaukee — Mr. Trump is set to stand trial in Florida on federal charges that he mishandled highly classified national security documents, then obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

His trial date for the charges surrounding efforts to cling to power after his election loss has not been set.

New York Times, 2:51 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Charlie Savage

Inside the courthouse, there are more security officers and U.S. marshals than usual pacing the halls and blocking a stairway that is normally accessible. Most reporters, including me, are in two overflow rooms where we can watch a closed-circuit video feed, and a small subset — 15, chosen by lottery, with no outlet allowed more than one — have been taken into the courtroom. My colleague Glenn Thrush is one of them; we can see them in the back two rows on the left side, from the judge’s vantage point.

New York Times, 2:55 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Alan Feuer

The prosecutors likely to appear in court across from Trump today are Thomas P. Windom, J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston. Windom was brought in from Maryland in late 2021 to look at Trump’s role in election interference. Cooney has been working on related investigations into Trump’s fund-raising, and Gaston is said to be the prosecutor who handed the indictment to a magistrate judge on Tuesday.

New York Times, 2:56 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Alan Feuer

It’s not clear whether the special counsel, Jack Smith, will join his team in the courtroom today, but he was in the room when Trump was arraigned in Miami in June in a separate case related to his handling of classified documents.

1500

BREAKING NEWS2 hour(s) ago 1500

Trump Force One arrives at DC airport ahead of federal court hearing

Former President Donald Trump's plane has arrived at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.

He will travel into Washington, D.C., where he will appear in federal court for a 4 p.m. ET hearing.

He was indicted Wednesday on charges that stem from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

He faces four federal charges , including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie

2 hour(s) ago 1500

Pence starts fundraising off Trump indictment fallout: 'Too honest'

Former Vice President Mike Pence has started fundraising off of his former running mate’s latest indictment.

The top of Pence’s 2024 campaign online store advertises hats and shirts with the words “Too Honest” across the front, a reference to revelations in the 45-page indictment that alleges former President Trump tried to overturn his 2020 loss. Both the baseball cap and t-shirt are selling for $30 each, according to the site.

A section of that indictment describes a call between Trump and Pence on New Year’s Day in 2021, when Pence rejected the legal theory that he as vice president had the authority to reject or return certain states’ electoral college ballots.

“You’re too honest,” Trump told Pence according to the indictment. Pence also recalled the exchange in his memoir, “So Help Me God,” released last November.

Pence sharply criticized Trump after the indictment came down on Tuesday. “Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” he said in a statement posted online.

Fox: Posted by Liz Elkind

New York Times, 3:01 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Glenn Thrush

Here are the prosecutors who will lead the case against Trump.

Thomas P. Windom is a veteran prosecutor known for a successful case against members of a white supremacist cell in Maryland.Credit...

While former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment in Florida over his retention of classified documents came at relative warp speed for the Justice Department, the criminal inquiry into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election was slower to unfold.

But that investigation accelerated quickly after the appointment last November of a special counsel, Jack Smith, who has overseen a small team of veteran prosecutors inherited, for the most part, from an existing investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that had been based in the United States attorney’s office in Washington.

A central player has been Thomas P. Windom, a veteran prosecutor known for a successful case against members of a white supremacist cell in Maryland. He was quietly brought on in late 2021 — nearly a year before Mr. Smith’s appointment — when it was clear the inquiry would inevitably lead to Mr. Trump.

Working under the close supervision of aides to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Mr. Windom began to methodically seek information about the roles played by some of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman, with a mandate to go as high up the chain of command as the evidence warranted.

He continued in that role after Mr. Smith’s appointment and has become a familiar figure at a federal courthouse that has been the venue for dozens of cases concerning the Capitol riot, including Mr. Trump’s. (A little too familiar to some: Last month, a federal judge hauled Mr. Windom out of a Trump-related proceeding, upset that he had prevented a lawyer representing a witness in front of a grand jury from appearing in his courtroom.)

Another key player — and someone Mr. Smith knew from his days as chief of the department’s public corruption unit — is J.P. Cooney, a veteran of the public corruption division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.

Mr. Cooney, in particular, is known for his aggressive approach. He unsuccessfully prosecuted two Democrats — Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Gregory B. Craig, a White House counsel during the Obama administration — and investigated Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, whom Mr. Trump vilified for the bureau’s investigation into ties between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. (Mr. McCabe was never prosecuted.)

In early 2021, Mr. Cooney pressed federal law enforcement officials to turn their attention to people in Mr. Trump’s orbit, including his flamboyant political adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., according to The Washington Post. He would eventually work on the successful prosecutions of Mr. Stone and another Trump adviser, Stephen K. Bannon.

He joined Mr. Windom’s team in mid-2022, then moved into Mr. Smith’s office late last year.

The assistant U.S. attorney in federal court on Tuesday, when a grand jury handed up a four-count indictment against Mr. Trump, was Molly Gaston, who has worked closely with Mr. Cooney on the Stone and McCabe cases.

New York Times, 3:02 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Maggie Haberman

Trump is traveling without any family members, as has been typical of these indictment motorcades.

New York Times, 3:03 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Kayla Guo

Trump’s detractors arrived at the courthouse in a celebratory mood. Nadine Seiler, wearing a T-shirt reading “Trump Indicted,” said she was so giddy that she had hardly been able to work since the news came out.

“America likes to go around the world pointing fingers at everybody, telling us about democracy and telling us about human rights,” Seiler, who is from Trinidad, said. “I’m so glad that America is finally, finally making a step toward living up to her ideals of accountability for everyone. No one is above the law.”

New York Times, 3:07 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Jonathan Swan

Trump just got off his plane at Reagan National Airport. I’m in the motorcade following him with more than a dozen other reporters.

New York Times, 3:10 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Charlie Savage

Trump’s appearance is taking place on the same day as some regular proceedings. Waiting to go through security this morning, I was standing behind Jeffrey Grace of Oregon, who was here for his sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge arising from the Jan. 6 riot. He and his lawyer told me that they had asked for him to be sentenced to time served (he was held for one day in Oregon for this offense), and that prosecutors had asked for six months. The court docketing system shows that Judge Randolph D. Moss sentenced him to 75 days of incarceration and 12 months of supervised release.

New York Times, 3:12 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Maggie Haberman and William K. Rashbaum

A new lawyer, John Lauro, is joining Trump’s team for the latest case.

Mr. Lauro, who has not represented Mr. Trump in his previous two indictments, and Todd Blanche, who has, will be at the defense table in the courtroom, aides to Mr. Trump said. Earlier in the day, Mr. Lauro filed a notice of appearance in the case.

He is joining Mr. Trump’s defense team strictly to focus on the indictment stemming from Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election, aides said. But he brings deep experience with white-collar criminal cases and a measured and unflappable nature, according to people who have worked with him.

Christopher M. Kise — a member of the Trump legal team who has worked with Mr. Lauro before — described him as a “tenacious lawyer with an eye for critical details and masterful at cross-examination.” Mr. Kise, who is working on other cases, said the Trump team was “privileged to have him.”

Among Mr. Lauro’s highest-profile cases was a 2007 defense of Tim Donaghy, a former N.B.A. referee who pleaded guilty to betting on games and taking payoffs from gamblers.

Mr. Blanche is representing Mr. Trump in the two other cases in which he has been indicted: the state case in Manhattan related to hush money payments to a porn star during the 2016 race, and the federal indictment in Miami accusing Mr. Trump of retaining reams of national defense information after his presidency and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve the material.

Mr. Blanche, who went to law school while working as a paralegal in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and then served as a prosecutor there for nine years, has also represented other high-profile clients. They include Igor Fruman, a former associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani, who worked for Mr. Trump during the 2020 election. Mr. Fruman pleaded guilty in a campaign finance case and was connected to Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to find “dirt” against President Biden and his son Hunter.

Mr. Blanche also represented Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016, in a successful fight to get a New York case against him dismissed. Mr. Manafort had also been charged federally, and his lawyers argued that it was essentially double jeopardy to charge him at the state level, too. Mr. Manafort is among those who recommended Mr. Blanche to Mr. Trump, a person close to the former president said.

Mr. Kise, who is working with Mr. Blanche on the federal documents case, said he has been “honored” to work with him and that he has “an exceptional legal mind and a compelling courtroom presence.”

New York Times, 3:16 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Kayla Guo

Tom Goodman, a New Yorker whose shirt declared “ULTRA EXTREME MAGA,” said he had come to Washington to “support the boss in what some people would call enemy territory.” Standing outside the courthouse, he called the indictment a “sham.” He added that Trump had such a “proven track record” of putting America first that there was little, if anything, he could do to shake Goodman’s support.

New York Times, 3:16 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Jonathan Swan

Here’s Boris Epshteyn, who is part of Trump’s traveling party. Epshteyn has not been indicted by Jack Smith, but his private communications indicate that he could be the unnamed co-conspirator 6, as we reported Wednesday. He remains in Trump’s inner circle and played a significant role in trying to help him overturn the 2020 election.

New York Times, 3:22 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Charlie Savage

The room has light blue-gray carpet, four rows of wooden pew-style seating for the gallery, wood paneling and marble facing on the wall behind the dais. Here is a photograph of Judge Boasberg that shows some of the room. (While Judge Boasberg has presided over the grand jury investigating Trump, a magistrate judge, Moxila A. Upadhyaya, will preside over the arraignment.)

2 hours ago 1520

Jan. 6 first responders spotted at courthouse ahead of Trump arraignment

By Ryan King

Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn and retired Sgt. Aquilino Gonell were spotted entering the federal courthouse ahead of former President Donald Trump's expected arraignment.

Both responded to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and have been outspoken critics of Trump.

Dunn waved to the cameras as he headed inside.

Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, another first responder to the riot, was also expected to head toward the courthouse ahead of the arraignment, NBC reported.

All three recounted physical and emotional injuries from the riot, with Gonell ultimately opting to retire. They also participated in the House Jan. 6 Committee investigation.

2 hours ago 1520

Ex-Trump attorney says federal prosecutors may have ignored ‘exculpatory’ evidence in Jan. 6 case

By Josh Christenson

Special counsel Jack Smith may have ignored “exculpatory” evidence his office received before indicting former President Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, according to a former Trump attorney.

Tim Parlatore, who left the former president’s legal team in May, confirmed to The Post that federal prosecutors had apparently not consulted what he called “absolutely exculpatory” records as part of their Jan. 6 investigation.

The records included sworn affidavits from Trump allies who believed the 2020 election had been fraudulent and were seeking to substantiate proof of any illegal voting activity, CBS News first reported.

Parlatore said he turned over the records on July 23 following a separate inquiry into his client, former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a friend of the 77-year-old former president whose communications had previously been withheld by the Trump campaign.

But one of Smith’s prosecutors asked for the documents two days after the indictment dropped, according to an Aug. 2 email reviewed by The Post.

“They bear directly on the essential element of whether Rudy Giuliani, and therefore Donald Trump, knew that their claims of election fraud were false,” Parlatore told CBS.

“Good-faith reliance upon claims of fraud, even if they later turn out to be false, is very different from pushing fraud claims that you know to be false at the time.”

A spokesman for Smith’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

2 hours ago 1520

Nearly half of Republicans may ditch Trump if he's convicted of a felony: poll

By Ryan King

Some 45% of Republicans say they don't intend on voting for former President Donald Trump if he's "convicted of a felony crime by a jury," a new poll found.

Thirty-five percent of respondents indicated they would, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday — the day Trump faces his third arraignment in four months, this time for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Other respondents said they were unsure.

Those figures ticked up when GOP voters were asked about Trump getting hit with prison time. Roughly 52% of Republican voters indicated they wouldn't back him if he were "currently serving time in prison" while 28% would.

Still, the GOP voters largely appeared sympathetic to the 77-year-old former president, who has denied wrongdoing and blasted each of his three indictments as a "witch hunt."

Seventy-five percent of respondents felt that the charges against Trump were "politically motivated," per the poll. Additionally, 66% deemed the accusations against him in the latest indictment "not believable."

The poll surveyed 1,005 US adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

2 hours ago 1520

Ex-Trump aide John Bolton calls Trump cases 'a modified form of Russian roulette'

By Steven Nelson

Donald Trump's former White House national security adviser John Bolton warned Thursday that the two federal cases against Trump are "a modified form of Russian roulette."

Bolton, who is now a vocal Trump critic, said he believes that bringing charges against Trump is "the right thing to do" and that he wants trials to happen before the November 2024 election — but cautioned that his former boss could come out on top.

"I think it's the right thing to do, but it is a modified form of Russian roulette," Bolton said on CNN as Trump was placed under arrest inside DC's federal district court.

"If Trump is convicted in one or both of the federal cases, I think that will turn things upside down. I think he could be denied the Republican nomination, he'd certainly lose the election," Bolton went on.

"But if he is acquitted, or a hung jury results, which I think would be understood by most people as being the equivalent of acquittal, I think he would get the Republican nomination and he could quite possibly win the election on the back of that."

Bolton likened failed prosecutions to Trump's two Senate impeachment trials, which resulted in acquittals due to overwhelming Republican support.

"The impeachment efforts against Trump failed twice to convict him and what was the consequence of the failure? Emboldening and empowering Trump. Acquittals here would be even more devastating," Bolton said.

2 hours ago 1520

Trump shares old video of Ron DeSantis complimenting his record en route to courthouse

By Patrick Reilly

Former President Donald Trump posted an edited clip of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis praising him on Thursday as his motorcade made its way to the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, where he will be arraigned on his latest indictment.

"THANK YOU!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social.

The minute-long clip is a compilation of DeSantis, Trump's most formidable opponent in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, thanking Trump for everything he had done while in office.

"Even his worst critic would say he is somebody determined to keep the promises he made," DeSantis says in the video.

Despite Trump's legal troubles, he has maintained a dominant lead in the polls. According to the latest data from FiveThirtyEight, Trump is ahead of DeSantis 53.5% to 15.6%

2 hours ago 1520

Trump arrives at courthouse for indictment on alleged efforts to overturn 2020 election

By Ryan King

Former President Donald Trump has arrived at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, where he is expected to plead not guilty to the four-count indictment over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

He will also likely be arraigned on the indictment which was announced Tuesday and marks his third spate of charges in four months.

2 hours ago 1520

Trump campaign fundraises with 'Never Surrender' shirt as motorcade enters DC

By Steven Nelson

Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign blasted out an email fundraising appeal as the former president's motorcade traversed DC traffic en route to his arraignment in federal court in Washington.

"Even with Crooked Joe’s corrupt DOJ ARRAIGNING President Trump in federal court *TWICE* now, our movement has only grown STRONGER and even more UNITED!" the fundraising email said.

"And what better way to SHOW the radical Left and the Deep State thugs just how UNBREAKABLE we truly are than to wear your very own “NEVER SURRENDER” T-Shirt."

A link directs supporters to a webpage entry form for a "FREE" shirt that's available for a donation of the contributor's choice.

Trump has turned his two prior criminal arraignments into major fundraising events. His campaign raised $6.6 million in six days after federal charges were brought in Miami in June for his alleged mishandling of classified records — after raising $10 million in five days in March and April after he was indicted in New York on state charges linked to 2016 hush money payments.

New York Times, 3:22 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Charlie Savage

The hearing will take place in the courtroom normally used by the district court’s chief judge, James E. Boasberg. The reason is technical, court staff said: It was already wired in a way that allowed for a closed-circuit video feed to be easily routed to spillover rooms for the news media and the public.

New York Times, 3:30 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting from Washington

What happens if Trump is elected while facing charges? Or after he’s convicted?

Despite multiple criminal indictments, former President Donald J. Trump is still the front-runner for the Republican nomination.

If former President Donald J. Trump wins the presidency even as criminal charges against him still loom, a series of extraordinary complications would ensue.

The indictment on Tuesday over his attempts to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election added to the mounting legal peril that Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party, faces as he campaigns for a second term in the White House.

Mr. Trump currently faces three criminal cases: The federal case brought in Washington this week by the special counsel, Jack Smith; a separate federal case brought by Mr. Smith in Florida accusing Mr. Trump of mishandling national security secrets; and a case in New York State Court accusing him of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn star.

Were Mr. Trump to be elected again and a federal case still be pending on Inauguration Day, he could simply use his power as president to force the Justice Department to drop the matter, as he has suggested he might do.

(It is not yet clear when a trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election will start. The classified documents case has a trial date set for May, although that could be pushed back.)

The Constitution does not give presidents supervisory authority over state prosecutors, so Mr. Trump would not be able to simply call off the case in New York, which is scheduled for trial in March. Nor would that approach work for a potential case in Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, has indicated she is nearing a decision on charges in her own election-interference investigation.

But Mr. Trump could essentially try to hit pause on any state charges. In the past, the Justice Department has taken the position that a criminal legal proceeding against a president while he is in office would be unconstitutional because it would interfere with his ability to perform his duties.

There is, however, no definitive Supreme Court ruling on the matter because the issue has never arisen before. In 1997, the Court allowed a federal lawsuit against President Bill Clinton to proceed while he was in office — but that was a civil case, not a criminal one.

Things would get even more complicated if Mr. Trump were to be convicted in one or more cases and still win the 2024 election.

For a conviction in a federal case, he would most likely move to pardon himself, a power Mr. Trump claimed in 2018 that he had the “absolute right” to wield.

It is not clear whether a self-pardon would be legitimate. But no text in the Constitution bars a president from doing so, and the issue has never been tested in court.

In 1974, the Justice Department did issue a terse legal opinion stating that President Richard Nixon did not appear to have the authority to pardon himself “under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.”

But the opinion did not explain what transformed that principle into an unwritten limit on the power the Constitution bestows on presidents, and legal experts have disagreed on that question.

And Mr. Trump would almost certainly use his control of the Justice Department to ensure that it reverses its position.

If the Justice Department opted not to challenge a self-pardon, it is not clear who else would have legal standing to pursue the matter.

Again, a state case would be different. A self-pardon is not an option because the Constitution does not empower a president to forgive state offenses; that is a power wielded by governors.

If Mr. Trump were unable to secure a governor’s pardon, he could seek a federal court order delaying any incarceration — or requiring his release from prison — while he is the sitting president, on constitutional grounds.

Yet another possibility: If Mr. Trump were incarcerated upon the start of his second term, he could be removed from office under the 25th Amendment as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

That section of the 25th Amendment requires the vice president and a majority of the president’s cabinet to determine he is unable to serve.

Among the questions that possibility would raise is who qualifies as a cabinet member if the Senate has not confirmed any new political appointees by Mr. Trump. But perhaps as important, it would also require Mr. Trump’s running mate — a person who would have agreed to join the campaign of a candidate facing multiple indictments — to sign off on his removal from power.

New York Times, 3:30 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Kayla Guo

A mini rock concert has broken out among Trump’s opponents on the steps outside the courthouse. The primary lyric is cursing white supremacy.

New York Times, 3:33 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Alan Feuer

Earlier today, one of Trump’s lawyers, John F. Lauro, filed a notice that he would appear in the case. Just now, his other lawyer, Todd Blanche, filed what’s known as a motion for admission pro hac vice. That’s how lawyers who aren’t licensed to practice in a given district are allowed to represent clients there.

New York Times, 3:35 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Jonathan Swan

The Trump team handed this reading material to the reporters traveling with his motorcade. It synthesizes their theme: trying to portray the indictments as part of a sinister scheme by Democrats to cover up for President Biden and his son Hunter.

New York Times, 3:36 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Benjamin Protess

Blanche, who left his law firm partnership to lead Trump’s defense, is serving as the former president’s lawyer in his two other criminal cases as well. Blanche also represents Boris Epshteyn, a Trump adviser whose conduct has come under scrutiny from federal investigators.

New York Times, 3:42 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Charlie Savage

In an unusual move on an unusual day, the district court’s chief judge, James E. Boasberg, has entered the courtroom and is apparently going to watch the proceedings as a spectator. As noted earlier, he presides over the grand jury that investigated Trump, and this is normally his courtroom, but a magistrate judge will be in his seat today.

New York Times, 3:45 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Benjamin Protess

We might not learn anything today about the timing of Trump’s trial, but once the schedule is set, it could have far-reaching implications. Trump is already facing two other criminal trials next year, in the thick of the 2024 presidential race, and the trial calendar in federal court in Washington is quite backlogged.

New York Times, 3:51 p.m. ET59 minutes ago

59 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The prosecutors have entered the courtroom. Jack Smith is sitting not at the counsel table but on a pew-like bench between it and the public gallery. Thomas P. Windom and Molly Gaston are at the table.

New York Times, 3:51 p.m. ET59 minutes ago

59 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Trump who played a central role in the dispute that led to his indictment over hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, has entered the room and is sitting at the bench behind the defense table, which remains empty for now.

New York Times, 3:52 p.m. ET58 minutes ago

58 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump is entering the room.

New York Times, 3:55 p.m. ET55 minutes ago

55 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Here are the charges Trump is facing.

The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday leveled four criminal counts against him over his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election.

Those charges are conspiracy to violate civil rights, conspiracy to defraud the government, the corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to carry out such obstruction. Here is a closer look at those charges, and their potential punishments.

Conspiracy to violate rights

Conspiracy to violate rights is Section 241 of Title 18, the portion of the United States Code that concerns federal criminal offenses. A conviction on this charge is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Congress enacted what is now Section 241 after the Civil War to go after white Americans in the South, including members of the Ku Klux Klan, who used terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved African Americans from voting. But in a series of cases in the 20th century, the Supreme Court upheld an expanded use of the statute to election-fraud conspiracies, like ballot-box stuffing.

In invoking the statute, the indictment frames Mr. Trump’s conduct as “a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”

Essentially, Mr. Smith accused Mr. Trump of trying to rig the outcome of the election.

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified,” the indictment said.

The indictment cites five means by which Mr. Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators sought to reverse the results of the election, including pushing state legislators and election officials to award electoral votes won by his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., to him instead.

“On the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the defendant,” the indictment said.

The indictment said that involved the recruitment of fake electors in swing states Mr. Biden won, trying to wield the power of the Justice Department to fuel lies about election conspiracy, and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to delay the certification of the election or reject legitimate electors.

And when all that failed, the indictment said, Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators “exploited” the violent disruption of the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, by “redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”

The indictment, which recounts each of those episodes in detail, relies on the same basic facts for the other counts against Mr. Trump.

Conspiracy to defraud the United States

Conspiracy to defraud the United States involves Section 371. Any conviction on this charge is also punishable by up to five years in prison.

This charge has long been seen as a possible result of the investigation. In March 2022, for example, a federal judge ruled that emails belonging to John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump in his efforts to remain in power, qualified for an exemption from attorney-client privilege because they most likely involved a Section 371 offense.

And the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 recommended in its final report in December 2022 that the Justice Department charge Mr. Trump and others with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to commit that crime

Both of the closely related third and fourth counts are provisions of Section 1512. Any conviction under that statute is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors have used this law to charge hundreds of people who participated in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, accusing them of obstructing the joint session of Congress to certify Mr. Biden’s victory.

In April, a federal appeals court upheld the viability of applying that charge in relation to the Capitol attack. But using it against Mr. Trump may raise different issues, because he did not personally participate in the riot.

New York Times, 3:55 p.m. ET56 minutes ago

56 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump ambled in and sat down at the defense table. He messed with some papers in front of him and is now sitting, hands clasped. His lawyers, John F. Lauro and Todd Blanche, have sat down on either side of him.

New York Times, 3:56 p.m. ET54 minutes ago

54 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro is whispering something into Trump’s ear behind his hand. Blanche has gotten up and is talking with Windom — one of the prosecutors — and another person at the center of the room. They are flipping through papers.

New York Times, 3:57 p.m. ET53 minutes ago

53 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Blanche returned to the defense table, and Lauro got up to lean over him and look at the papers. Trump is sitting impassively next to them but not taking part, instead looking around left and right.

New York Times, 3:59 p.m. ET51 minutes ago

51 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s 2024 campaign, is standing in the corner behind the defense table area, along with some men who may be Trump’s Secret Service detail based on their pins.

1600

BREAKING NEWS1 hour(s) ago 1600

Trump arrives at DC courthouse for hearing on federal charges

Former President Donald Trump has arrived at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. to face federal charges stemming from the DOJ investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump arrived by motorcade from Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport after flying from New Jersey earlier in the afternoon.

Trump's hearing is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. ET. He faces four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie

1 hour(s) ago 1600

Trump’s lawyer slams 2020 indictment as ‘election interference’

A lawyer for former President Donald Trump claimed that the three indictments against him amount to “election interference.”

Speaking to reporters outside of the Washington, DC courthouse on Thursday afternoon, Alina Habba repeated suggestions by several Trump allies that the timing of his indictments were made to distract from negative media attention on the Biden family.

“This is not a coincidence. This is election interference at its finest against the leading candidate right now for president for either party,” Habba said. “President Trump is under siege in a way that we have never seen before. President Trump and his legal team and everyone on his team will continue to fight. Not for him, but for the American people.”

She would not say directly whether she thought the case should move forward before or after the next presidential election, but said, “I think that every court needs to look at this as a whole.”

“It's not about the Jan. 6 case. It's about the fact that in the matter of a couple of months, we have seen them try and tie up – and me as an attorney, I've never seen this – tie up one individual… who's running a campaign, in a campaign, running for office for president, so that he is in court in depositions and distract him so that he won't properly run for 2024. And frankly, it's not going to work,” Habba said.

Fox: Posted by Liz Elkind Fox

1 hour(s) ago 1600

Trump to plead 'not guilty' to charges stemming from special counsel's Jan. 6 probe

Former President Donald Trump will plead "not guilty" on Thursday to four federal charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Trump traveled from his resort in Bedminster, N.J., Thursday to Washington D.C. His first court appearance took place at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan presided over the proceedings. Chutkan, a former assistant public defender before her appointment to the bench by President Barack Obama, has handled several cases involving individuals who entered the Capitol on January 6.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., praised “the rule of law” on Thursday just before former President Donald Trump arrived at a Washington, DC courthouse for his arraignment on charges related to the 2020 election.

“The reality is that there was an elaborate plot that the Trump administration had to try to overturn a legitimate election, and we in this country need to hold election sacred,” Khanna said in a video for The Hill.

“We can’t have politicians, after the fact, trying to nullify what the voters say. And so I’m glad that the rule of law will be upheld.”

The top two Congressional Democrats previous said that Tuesday’s charges were the gravest brought against Trump so far.

“The third indictment of Mr. Trump illustrates in shocking detail that the violence of that day was the culmination of a months-long criminal plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the will of the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. “This indictment is the most serious and most consequential thus far and will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the United States, is above the law.

Fox: Posted by Liz Elkind Fox

1 hour(s) ago 1600

Protesters gather outside DC courthouse as Trump faces federal charges related to January 6

Protesters gathered outside the Washington, D.C. federal courthouse as former President Donald Trump was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.

Trump is facing charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

He was already charged in a previous federal indictment stemming from Smith's investigation, and has pleaded not guilty to 37 counts relating to his alleged improper retention of classified records.

Eric Lamar, who was outside the courthouse protesting Trump, told Fox News Digital that the former president "for the first time he will be held accountable for his criminal acts before and during January 6."

Another person told Fox News Digital that he has been to every arraignment for the former president and predicts that his support will only increase.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

New York Times, 4:00 p.m. ET50 minutes ago

50 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, said something to Trump, who nodded. Trump clasped, unclasped and re-clasped his hands. About 20 feet away is Jack Smith, the special counsel, talking to another man and not looking at the former president.

New York Times, 4:07 p.m. ET43 minutes ago

43 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Everyone is waiting for the magistrate judge. Trump is conferring with John F. Lauro, his lawyer, gesturing with his hands as he says something and then clasping them again. Lauro is leaning close, resting on an elbow and covering his mouth with his hand. Trump looks left, looks right, looks forward and waits.

New York Times, 4:08 p.m. ET42 minutes ago

42 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

It is somewhat unexpected that Evan Corcoran is attending the arraignment. He provided crucial evidence against Trump in the first federal indictment, over the classified documents, though even after doing so, he continued to advise on the case in Washington.

New York Times, 4:09 p.m. ET41 minutes ago

41 minutes ago

Luke Broadwater

The crowd outside the courthouse has grown and now outnumbers the hundreds of members of the news media here.

New York Times, 4:10 p.m. ET40 minutes ago

40 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump appeared to stare at Jack Smith for several moments. Now he is leaning forward and appears to be staring at the prosecutors sitting at their table across from him.

49 min(s) ago 1611

Trump pleads 'not guilty' to charges stemming from special counsel's Jan. 6 probe

Former President Donald Trump pleaded "not guilty" on Thursday to four federal charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump traveled from his resort in Bedminster, N.J., Thursday to Washington D.C. His first court appearance took place at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

New York Times, 4:12 p.m. ET38 minutes ago

38 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump came into the room at 3:51 p.m., so he has now been waiting 20 minutes.

New York Times, 4:12 p.m. ET38 minutes ago

38 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Corcoran was brought into Trump’s world by Boris Epshteyn, an adviser who is traveling with the former president today.

New York Times, 4:13 p.m. ET37 minutes ago

37 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Trump has done everything he can do to try to make these indictments roll out on his own terms. But now he’s at the mercy of prosecutors and the judge.

New York Times, 4:14 p.m. ET36 minutes ago

36 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, yawns and rubs his chin. Trump picks up a paper and discusses it with another lawyer, John F. Lauro, who again hides his mouth behind his hands like a football coach calling in the next play, trying to thwart lip readers. The special counsel, Jack Smith, sits impassively. A line of U.S. marshals blocks the door, shoulder to shoulder.

New York Times, 4:15 p.m. ET34 minutes ago

34 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

A reporter tries to come up with yet another descriptive way to convey that nothing is happening yet.

New York Times, 4:16 p.m. ET34 minutes ago

34 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Privately, people who have spoken with Trump recently have described him as angrier than they recall seeing him in the past. This indictment is different than the others: a true bill stating in no uncertain terms that he lost the 2020 election.

New York Times, 4:16 p.m. ET34 minutes ago

34 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The gavel just banged. Trump stood with his lawyers and everyone else at the “all rise” order, then sat back down.

New York Times, 4:17 p.m. ET32 minutes ago

32 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

A prosecutor, Thomas P. Windom, introduced himself and a fellow prosecutor, Molly Gaston. He identified the other woman at the prosecutors’ table as “F.B.I. Special Agent Garner.”

New York Times, 4:18 p.m. ET32 minutes ago

32 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The defense lawyer John F. Lauro introduced himself and Todd Blanche, and said “President Trump” was present.

New York Times, 4:18 p.m. ET31 minutes ago

31 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The magistrate judge, Moxila A. Upadhyaya, just warned people not to record anything in the courtroom or media overflow rooms.

New York Times, 4:19 p.m. ET31 minutes ago

31 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

Generally, an F.B.I. agent who appears with prosecutors in the courtroom is the case agent on the investigation. We will see if that’s the case with Agent Garner.

New York Times, 4:20 p.m. ET30 minutes ago

30 minutes ago

Neil Vigdor

The legal issues with Ron DeSantis’s push to move cases away from Washington, D.C.

Legal experts say that an idea floated by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida about transferring criminal cases out of Washington, D.C., is a flawed concept.

Mr. DeSantis made the unusual suggestion in the moments after his rival, former President Donald J. Trump, was indicted on Tuesday for trying to overturn the 2020 election, writing on Twitter that “we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, D.C. to their home districts.” (Both men call Florida home.)

“It’s going to be hard to square with the Constitution,” said Elizabeth Earle Beske, an associate law professor at American University in Washington, D.C.

Several scholars and lawyers noted that the Constitution says that trials “shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed.” The federal rules of criminal procedure further specify that the proceedings be held in the district of the alleged offense.

Defendants can already seek a change of venue for their cases under the current law, the experts pointed out, but the bar is high: They must demonstrate to the court that they cannot otherwise obtain a fair and impartial trial.

Mr. DeSantis, in echoing Mr. Trump’s “swamp” pejorative for Washington, seemed to suggest that his rival could not get a fair trial in the nation’s capital. Bryan Griffin, a campaign spokesman for Mr. DeSantis who went to Harvard Law School and previously practiced law, said in an email that the governor’s idea for moving cases had merit.

“Congress can certainly change the rules of criminal procedure to allow defendants to change venues out of D.C. for politically charged cases,” he said.

But that premise was challenged by David B. Rivkin Jr., who served in the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and practices appellate and constitutional law in Washington.

“I think it’s extremely unfortunate to characterize the D.C. jury pool in this fashion,” he said. “Whatever you think about the U.S. government, the notion that means that people who live in the district can be accused of being part of the swamp, to me, is neither fair nor appropriate.”

Arthur Hellman, a law professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, suggested that Mr. DeSantis had “not thought that through completely.”

“Criminal venue was so important to the framers,” of the Constitution, he said.

New York Times, 4:20 p.m. ET29 minutes ago

29 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump stands to be sworn in. Upadhyaya greets him and informs him that they are here to deal with the indictment. She gives him a roadmap: First she will advise him of the counts and the associated penalties. Then she will inform him of his rights and government responsibilities. Then she will arraign him. Then she will deal with any conditions of release.

an hour ago 1620

Trump's release conditions revealed as next hearing date set —will come 5 days after first GOP debate

By Ryan King

The next hearing in the 2020 election case against former President Donald Trump is set for Aug. 28.

A trial date will be scheduled during that hearing, according to Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya, who oversaw the arraignment Thursday.

That hearing is just five days after the first GOP debate, which is slated for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. Trump has dangled the prospect of skipping the crowded verbal bout.

After pleading not guilty, Trump is expected to be released on personal recognizance or signature bond.

Conditions for the 77-year-old's release include requirements that he can't communicate with individuals known to be a witness in the case unless he goes through an attorney.

He must also not violate federal or state law, sign an appearance bond and appear in court when told.

an hour ago 1620

Rep. Elise Stefanik laments Trump arraignment as 'chilling chapter' for Biden's DOJ

By Ryan King

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) decried former President Donald Trump's latest indictment.

“The unconstitutional and unprecedented arrest of President Donald J. Trump is truly a chilling chapter in Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against his leading political opponent who is beating Biden in many independent polls," Stefanik said in a statement.

"President Trump had every right under the First Amendment to correctly raise concerns about election integrity in 2020,” she added, echoing criticisms from many Trump supporters.

Notably, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to evade First Amendment concerns by harping on alleged procedural efforts by Trump to subvert the 2020 election.

Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

Stefanik endorsed Trump's 2024 reelection bid last November.

"President Trump will defeat these charges in court, defeat Joe Biden at the ballot box on November 5, 2024, will be sworn in as President of the United States of America in January 2025 and we will Save America!” she added.

an hour ago 1620

Trump sends fundraising email to supporters while in courthouse: 'My last email before the arraignment'

By Patrick Reilly

Former President Donald Trump sent a fundraising email to his supporters asking for donations moments before he was arraigned in federal court in Washington, DC, on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

"It sounds like a chapter you’d read out of an old history book on the Soviet Union or Maoist China …But sadly, it’s taking place right here in America," the email said about the latest federal indictment against him.

The subject line read "My last email before the arraignment."

Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP presidential race, said he is not losing any hope "even as I now stare down a threat of 561 YEARS in prison as an innocent man."

Trump's political action committee has reportedly spent north of $40 million in donations on the former president's legal fees in 2023 alone.

an hour ago 1620

Trump pleads not guilty to federal Jan. 6 indictment

By Josh Christenson

Former President Donald Trump was arraigned in Washington, DC, federal court Thursday for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Trump, 77, surrendered to law enforcement and pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment from the Justice Department for disrupting the peaceful transfer of power with his “stolen” election claims that culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building by hundreds of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

Special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president with conspiracy to defraud the US government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

The indictment states Trump made “knowingly false” claims about the 2020 election and unlawfully pressured former Vice President Mike Pence and various state officials to reject President Biden’s victory.

Trump and Smith reportedly exchanged glances inside the courtroom on Thursday — and the former president gazed backward a few times at the roughly 100 spectators and reporters allotted seats for the hearing.

READ MORE

an hour ago 1620

Here are the notable Trump allies tagging along for his court date

By Ryan King

Former President Donald Trump was flanked by an entourage of his closest confidants ahead of his expected arraignment Thursday.

While departing the so-called Trump Force One at Reagan National Airport, his personal valet Walt Nauta and attorney Todd Blanche were seen exiting the Boeing 757.

Nauta notably pleaded not guilty to six federal counts levied against him by Special Counsel Jack Smith for the Mar-a-Lago document case back in June. Blanche, who helped Trump navigate the document case, was widely expected to attend the court hearing along with fellow attorney John Lauro.

Other advisers spotted include senior strategists Susie Wiles, Boris Epshteyn and Chris LaCivita.

Trump's former senior advisor Boris Epshteyn, left, and senior strategist Chris LaCivita.

Longtime adviser Jason Miller, who appears to have been referenced in the four-count indictment against Trump, 77, was also seen near Reagan National Airport, where the former commander in chief's plane touched down.

an hour ago 1620

Most Americans say Biden White House ethics ‘not good’ or ‘poor,’ poll shows

By Josh Christenson

It’s not just Hunter.

Most Americans believe the Biden administration’s ethical standards are “not good” or “poor,” according to a new national poll released Thursday.

A majority of US adults (55%) surveyed by Gallup throughout July gave top White House officials a negative ethics rating — the lowest of any administration in recent history with the exception of former President Donald Trump.

The poll showed 42% of respondents gave the Biden administration a positive ethics rating, with 34% calling the current standards “good” and 8% calling them “excellent.”

Trump officials had the lowest ethics ratings of any presidential administration on record, with only 38% giving an “excellent” or “good” rating.

an hour ago 1620

Jack Smith and Trump reportedly 'exchanged looks' inside courtroom at ex-president's arraignment

By Ryan King

Both special counsel Jack Smith and former President Donald Trump have entered the courtroom for the 77-year-old's arraignment, according to multiple reports.

Trump was reportedly seen quietly chatting with his lawyer in the courtroom.

Smith also attended the former commander in chief's arraignment in Miami for the 37- (now 40-) count indictment over alleged hoarding of national security documents.

The two men are said to be seated roughly 15 feet away from each other and exchanged looks.

Ahead of the hearing lawyers were seen signing various paperwork.

an hour ago 1620

Trump 'checking out the audience' inside courtroom

By Steven Nelson

Donald Trump looked around the DC courtroom at the 100 or so spectators as the former president awaited Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya on Thursday — seated not far from special counsel Jack Smith, whom he has bashed as a "rabid wolf."

"More so today than in Manhattan court or Miami federal court.... Trump is checking out the audience. Looking around the room. And at the spectators," tweeted CBS journalist Scott MacFarlane.

Journalists in the courtroom are not allowed to use electronics such as cellphones, but the courthouse, located at the base of Capitol Hill, set up a special media room nearby to allow for more rapid filing.

A journalist for The Post was among the few chosen by lottery to sit in the courtroom.

New York Times, 4:21 p.m. ET29 minutes ago

29 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Judge Upadhyaya asks Trump his name, and Trump stands up and starts walking toward her. She advises him that he can sit and talk into the microphone. She asks his name again, and he says, “Yes, your honor, Donald J. Trump, John.” She asks his age and he says 77. She asks if he is on drugs today, and he says he is not.

New York Times, 4:21 p.m. ET28 minutes ago

28 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

The question about a defendant using drugs is standard operating procedure and not specific to Trump.

New York Times, 4:24 p.m. ET26 minutes ago

26 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya is reading the charges and explaining the possible maximum sentences for each one. Count 1, Section 341, conspiracy to defraud the United States, carries a maximum of five years in prison. Counts 2 and 3, the Section 1512 charges, corrupt obstruction of a proceeding and conspiracy, carry penalties of up to 20 years. Count 4, Section 241, conspiracy against rights, carries a term of up to 10 years, she says.

New York Times, 4:25 p.m. ET25 minutes ago

25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump returns to his chair and sits down.

New York Times, 4:25 p.m. ET25 minutes ago

25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

“Not guilty,” Trump says to Counts 1 through 4.

New York Times, 4:25 p.m. ET25 minutes ago

25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya says Trump has a right to remain silent and asks Trump if he understands. He says yes. She tells the government it has responsibilities, like sharing evidence with the defendant. Windom says he understands.

New York Times, 4:26 p.m. ET24 minutes ago

24 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

It can’t be stressed enough that Trump values projecting strength, and these indictments and arraignments are events he spent a lifetime avoiding before his presidency.

New York Times, 4:26 p.m. ET23 minutes ago

23 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

In response to a question from Judge Upadhyaya, Windom confirms that the government is not seeking to detain Trump.

New York Times, 4:27 p.m. ET23 minutes ago

23 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Windom tells the judge that the parties have agreed that, as a condition of release, Trump must not violate federal or state law, must appear in court as directed and must sign an appearance bond. He must not communicate with anyone he knows to be a witness, except through his lawyers or in the presence of his lawyers.

New York Times, 4:28 p.m. ET22 minutes ago

22 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro says this accurately states the defense’s understanding of the conditions of release.

New York Times, 4:28 p.m. ET22 minutes ago

22 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

The order imposed on Trump not to communicate with any witnesses in the case is the same one imposed on him in the documents case.

New York Times, 4:27 p.m. ET22 minutes ago

22 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

It is no surprise that the government did not seek to detain Trump on the charges he faces. He was not detained after his arraignment in Florida either.

New York Times, 4:29 p.m. ET21 minutes ago

21 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya is now warning Trump against violating the conditions of release and tells him to listen carefully. If he fails to comply, a warrant may be issued for his arrest, the conditions of release may be revoked, and he may be held pending trial and receive a longer sentence. He could also be charged with contempt of court.

BREAKING NEWS25 min(s) ago approx 1630

Trump departs DC courthouse after ‘not guilty’ plea in Jan. 6 case

Former President Trump departed the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. after pleading "not guilty" on Thursday to four federal charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump traveled from his resort in Bedminster, N.J., Thursday to Washington D.C. His first court appearance took place at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

New York Times, 4:30 p.m. ET20 minutes ago

20 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya asks if Trump is prepared to comply with the conditions, and he nods and says yes.

New York Times, 4:30 p.m. ET20 minutes ago

20 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump is signing the document outlining his conditions of release, after being sworn in again. Upadhyaya set a court date and said Trump must appear unless the district judge relieves him of that responsibility.

New York Times, 4:31 p.m. ET19 minutes ago

19 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump is leaning forward in his chair watching the judge as she looks though the document with the assistance of a clerk. The judge says she is confirming that the conditions are as stated on the record.

29 min(s) ago 1631

John Bolton says Jack Smith has 'strong case' on Trump, warns an acquittal could be 'devastating'

Special Counsel Jack Smith has built a “strong case” against former President Donald Trump, his own ex-National Security Advisor said just after he entered a Washington, DC courthouse for his arraignment.

However, he warned that Trump’s political fate likely hinges on the outcome – and said a “not guilty” verdict would be “devastating.”

“I think this indictment lays out a pretty strong case,” Bolton said on CNN. “I think it was right to bring the [classified] documents case, I think it's important to have both of these cases brought to trial before the election, as far in advance of the election as possible. But I want to underline what we're doing. I think it's the right thing to do, but it is a modified form of Russian roulette.”

Bolton is one of several former Trump officials to have turned against the former president after Jan. 6.He explained, “If Trump is convicted in one or both of the federal cases, I think that will turn things upside down. I think he could be denied the Republican nomination. He'd certainly lose the election.”

“But the risk is real… the impeachment efforts against Trump failed twice to convict him, and what it what was the consequence of the failure? Emboldening and empowering Trump. Acquittals here would be even more devastating.”

Fox: Posted by Liz Elkind Fox

New York Times, 4:32 p.m. ET18 minutes ago

18 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Judge Upadhyaya signed the document outlining the conditions of release and told the lawyers they would all receive copies.

New York Times, 4:32 p.m. ET18 minutes ago

18 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

It’s also no surprise that prosecutors did not require Trump to surrender his passport or attach any other serious condition to his release. The same thing happened in the Florida case.

New York Times, 4:34 p.m. ET16 minutes ago

16 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya says she has consulted with the district judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, and they will set the first hearing with her now. She offers three dates and will give the lawyers an opportunity to consult their calendars and Trump. The options are Aug. 21, Aug. 22 or Aug. 28, all at 10 a.m.

New York Times, 4:34 p.m. ET15 minutes ago

15 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

The first two dates are just before the first Republican primary debate, Aug. 23, which Trump has not yet said if he is attending.

BREAKING NEWS25 min(s) ago approx 1635 Trump departs DC courthouse after ‘not guilty’ plea in Jan. 6 case

Trump traveled from his resort in Bedminster, N.J., Thursday to Washington D.C. His first court appearance took place at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Fox: Posted by Brandon Gillespie Fox

New York Times, 4:35 p.m. ET15 minutes ago

15 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

On behalf of the prosecution, Windom said the government was available all three dates but requested the soonest date, Aug. 21. On behalf of the defense, Blanche requested Aug. 28. Judge Upadhyaya set the hearing for Aug. 28.

New York Times, 4:35 p.m. ET14 minutes ago

14 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya said Judge Chutkan was willing to waive Trump’s appearance at the first hearing if he wants.

New York Times, 4:36 p.m. ET14 minutes ago

14 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

It cannot be stressed enough how much of Trump’s time in the next 15 months could be spent being required, as a criminal defendant, to be present in courtrooms in Miami, Washington, New York and possibly Georgia.

New York Times, 4:37 p.m. ET13 minutes ago

13 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya ordered the government to file a brief seven days from today, setting forth a proposal for a trial date and an estimate of how long it expects to take to make its case. Within seven days of that, Trump’s lawyers are required to file their own proposal for a trial date and estimate of how long it will take.

New York Times, 4:37 p.m. ET13 minutes ago

13 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

A central component of the defense strategy will be to delay the proceedings as much as possible. So, when given options for court dates, it can be assumed that Trump will always opt for the later one.

New York Times, 4:38 p.m. ET12 minutes ago

12 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump’s lawyer John F. Lauro says there may be massive amounts of discovery. To have time to prepare, he says, the defense needs from the government an estimate of the volume of discovery — such as documents and electronic files — and, most importantly the degree to which they have exculpatory information on behalf of Trump.

New York Times, 4:39 p.m. ET10 minutes ago

10 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro requests that the government be required to give the defense, within two or three days, an understanding of the scope of discovery.

New York Times, 4:39 p.m. ET10 minutes ago

10 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

To give a sense of the crowded calendar Trump’s legal team will face, they may need to be in Fort Pierce, Fla., for a hearing in the classified documents case on Aug. 25, then turn around and be in Washington on Aug. 28.

New York Times, 4:40 p.m. ET10 minutes ago

10 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Windom says the government is prepared, as soon as a protective order is issued, to produce a substantive volume of discovery, including discovery it is not yet required to turn over. As a general matter, he says, this case — like any other — would benefit from normal order, including a speedy trial.

New York Times, 4:40 p.m. ET9 minutes ago

9 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

And let’s not forget that Trump might be indicted in Georgia later this month as well.

New York Times, 4:41 p.m. ET9 minutes ago

9 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

The legal calendar has become intertwined with the political calendar in a way that could prove challenging for Trump, although he is currently leading the Republican primary field by some 30 points.

New York Times, 4:44 p.m. ET5 minutes ago

5 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

Here, again, the Trump defense team will do whatever it can to delay. The longer the trial is delayed, the better chance there is that it won’t conflict with the election.

38 minutes ago 1642

Trump leaves DC federal courthouse after pleading not guilty to Jan. 6 charges

By Patrick Reilly

Former President Donald Trump has left the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, after he was arraigned on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

The 45th president, 77, pleaded not guilty to the four counts during the hearing, which lasted just 27 minutes, according to CNN. The next hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 28 at 10 a.m., although Trump may not be required to appear in person.

“I will also note, Mr. Trump, that to the extent you are not able to attend as a result of your schedule, I have consulted with Judge Chutkan and she is willing to waive your appearance,” Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya said.

New York Times, 4:43 p.m. ET7 minutes ago

7 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump said something and Upadhyaya asked if he had a question. He shook his head and said no. His lawyer John F. Lauro then stood to talk about the Speedy Trial Act, which calls for federal cases to go to trial within 70 days of indictment. He said that for the government to suggest the case could be tried within the scope of that act was somewhat absurd given the volume of what they have to go through.

New York Times, 4:44 p.m. ET6 minutes ago

6 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro says the government has had years to investigate the matter, and the defense lawyers are going to need a little time to fairly represent their client.

New York Times, 4:45 p.m. ET5 minutes ago

5 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Judge Upadhyaya directs Lauro to make a written filing before Judge Chutkan regarding the Speedy Trial Act, and tells the government it will have five days to respond.

New York Times, 4:46 p.m. ET4 minutes ago

4 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

It bears repeating that Trump’s advisers are blunt privately that their goal is for Trump to win the election in part so that the cases can be disappeared by the Trump Justice Department.

New York Times, 4:46 p.m. ET4 minutes ago

4 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Judge Upadhyaya thanked Trump, who said, “Thank you, your honor.” On the “all rise” command, he stood up. His lawyer Todd Blanche put his arm on Trump’s back and guided him away from the table. Trump walked out the door, followed by his lawyers.

New York Times, 4:46 p.m. ET3 minutes ago

3 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

As expected, Trump’s court appearance was a relatively routine proceeding. The judge read him his rights and explained the charges against him. He pleaded not guilty. The judge also outlined the conditions of his release and set the next court date. The whole thing lasted roughly 30 minutes, gavel to gavel.

New York Times, 4:47 p.m. ET3 minutes ago

3 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Trump is expected to talk to reporters before he boards his plane back to New Jersey. Unlike after his first two indictments, he won’t deliver rally-style remarks later.

The federal indictment unveiled on Tuesday charges former President Donald J. Trump with four crimes related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

New York Times, 4:48 p.m. ET2 minutes ago

2 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

Here’s what to expect in the coming days given what just took place. The special counsel’s office has been asked to file court papers within a week proposing a trial date. Trump’s lawyers will most likely file a scheduling motion of their own, proposing delays to what’s known as the speedy trial clock. The government will almost certainly file a proposed protective order over discovery evidence so the disclosure of materials can begin. Then the parties will meet on Aug. 28.

1700

From Fox

Former President Trump's plane departed Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport after he pleaded "not guilty" on Thursday to four federal charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump traveled from his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday to Washington D.C. His first court appearance took place at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Posted by Brandon Gillespie

20 minutes ago 1700

Trump blasts arraignment over Jan. 6 as 'persecution of a political opponent'

By Patrick Reilly

Former President Donald Trump blasted the indictment against him as "persecution of a political opponent" not long after pleading not guilty to charges he tried to overturn the 2020 election.

"This is a very sad day for America. And it was also very sad driving through Washington, DC, and seeing the filth and the decay and all of the broken buildings and walls of the graffiti. This is not the place that I left, it's a very sad thing to see it," he told reporters before boarding his so-called Trump Force One at Reagan National Airport.

"When you look at what's happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in America. This is the persecution of the person that's leading by very very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot," he continued.

"So, you can't beat him you persecute him or you prosecute them. We can't let this happen in America. Thank you very much."

Trump 77, pleaded not guilty to four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

a minute ago 1719

Trump departs Reagan Airport

By Ryan King

Former President Donald Trump departed Reagan National Airport en route back to his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.

Trump's Boeing 757 was spotted wheels up from the Arlington, Virginia, airfield that's just outside of the nation's capital at around 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

The so-called Trump Force One took not long after the 77-year-old pleaded not guilty to the four-count indictment against him for his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election.

His next hearing in this case is slated for Aug. 28.

Our Lesson: July Thirty First through August Sixth, 2023

Monday, July 31, 2023

Dow: 35,559.43

It’s the night of the Super Corn Moon – first of two full moons in August.

A New York Times political poll finds Trump pulling farther and farther away from Saint Ron and the rest of the Republican also-rans, and in a dead heat with President Joe for November, 2024... in or out of jail.

The Evil Empires continue performing their perfidy. Chinese hackers are blamed for installing malware in American power and water systems. Russia and Ukraine swap missile and drone attacks with Bad Vlad concentrating his fire on civilian targets.

The weather – or something – is driving Americans crazy: an angry trucker rams six migrants at North Carolina WalMart, angry fangirl throws water at Cardi B who throws her microphone back (and is arrested for same) while the weekend’s mass shootings hit 57 in Chicago, 20 in Indiana, more in Lansing, Michigan. 418 for the year to date v. 259 in 2022 amidst the ongoing heat (Phoenix has now gone 128 days without rain. But in Memphis, police stop a wannabe anti-Semitic school shooter by shooting him dead.

Barbenheimer rules the box office for a second straight weekend; weird kids and celebrities mourn the death of Pee Wee Herman.

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Dow: 35,650.38

It’s a Rescue Dog Day afternoon... and the 87^th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Olympics.

As rumours swell about a looming One Six indictment... confirmed by sundown... former President Trump is now juggling four criminal and numerous civil cases as well as his campaign and switching money between the two. He catches a bad break when Obama appointee Tanya Chutkin is appointed One Six judge... she is known for her harsh verdict against clueless Capitol rioters. GOP points out Hunter Biden again as his former business partner Devon Archer testifies Biden’s son exploited “the illusion of access” to the Presdent to rack up money for himself.

Bad guys in court include crazy cult mom Lori Vallow, sentenced to life and declaiming that she is speaking to her murdered children in the Beyond; Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, sentenced to death – no comments; Gilgo Beach mass murderer appears in court as his wife divorces him and says her children’s lives are ruined, and the legacy of the Carlee Russell case is that state legislatures are climbing over one another to enact tough new laws against fake kidnapping report. But can they legislate retroactivity?

Police chiefs in crisis: Alfredo Ramirez shoots himself in Miami (and lives), Warner Robbins, GA head cop George Johnson arrested for pedophilia.

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Dow: 35,282.52

Jack Smith issues Djonald UnLucky’s third Indictment... four charges, six co-defendants, one hundred and thirty counts, seventy five pages, 55 years on tap. (Attachment One). Trump already merging his judicial and campaign fundraising efforts while Feds plan a low key arrest... no handcuffs, mugshots, hopefully no riots outside.

Janet Yellin squawks and flaps her wings, but Fitch downgrades the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+, making it harder to borrow money as the American debt reaches a trillion over the ceiling and the markets crash. Politicians scuffle over service cuts v. tax increases.

Krimes are Kool as temperatures are not: thieves pull off a $16M jewel heist at the Paris Piaget store, anti-gay mob attacks dancers at gas station, stabbing one to death, clumsy truck of nacho cheese sauce over turns on highway (as Doritos’ toxic nacho cheese chips are recalled) and a woman fights her way to freedom out of a concrete cell in Oregon.

Pope Frank (86) celebrates National Youth Day in Portugal.

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Dow: 35,235.18

Former President Trump flies to Washington for a soft arrest... no handcuffs, no mugshots, no bail... then flies back to Bedminister NJ spouting insules, imprecations and conspiracy theories all the while (See above).

Global gas and grain prices soar as Saudis raise the price of oil and refineries close due to heat and the Russians destroy forty million tons of Ukraine grain destined for starving Africa and Putin’s African summit collapse – Kenya says the dictator stabbed them in the back.

US evacuates embassy in Niger after coup and evacuates everybody from anarchic Haiti as the undeterred Kenyans propose to lead an international task force to sort things out.

Pills pulled include Ozempic and Mounjaro for causing “stomach paralysis” and the Tydeny birth control medications for just being useless.

Friday, August 4, 2023

Dow: 35,095.62

Pundits and pirates, pollsters, politicians and the media crawl over one another to explain the Third Indictment (which replicatd the first two and will be continued... later). After an episode of whining in the rain, Djonald UnImprisoned flies off to Alabama to raise money and curse the government – but allowing that the Fourth Indictment will seal his victory.

Social media influencer Kal Cehat sets off riots in NYC by promising to hand out free videogames. Many of the rioters come armed and ready for arson and looting, so Cehat is hauled off to jail.

More of the same old inflicted on Don Jones (the weather... hot), the economy (hotter, too – unemployment drop to 3.5% has the Fed sharpening knives for interest rate hikes) and the war (Ukrainian drones strike Russian ships in the Black Sea). President Joe warns Bad Vlad not to provide NoKo with weapons of mass destruction and deploys troops to protect commercial shipping from Iranian pirates.

Going into the weekend, “Barbie” has 900,000 Tik Tok views, and a box office gross of $900,000 - but the Mega Millions lotto has a prize of $1.5 billion for next Tuesday. The mob, meanwhile, is bedazzled by the prospect of a bear in a Chinese zoo really being a man in a bear suit.

Saturday, August 5, 2023

Dow: (Closed)

Former President Trump declares he’ll “come after” accusers and the Department of Justice warns him not to intimidate any witnesses (most of whom are skulking about the White House already).

Diplomacy falls on its face when the Chinese and Saudis hold a summit on the Ukraine war with forty other nations... but not Russia. The Writers’ Guild talks collapse and the strike goes on – so Don Jones is preparing for a season of reruns, reality shows and infomercials.

Maybe it’s the heat, but weird, violent incidents are everywhere... a 77 year old road rager beats an 85 year old man to death for “brushing” his car, a SoCal judge, Jeffrey Ferguson, murders his wife (but gets bail, since he’s a judge), a New York homophobe stabs a professional dancer to death for dancing in the street, a golfer’s celebratory hole-in-one photograph is used by cops to arrest him on an old, cold case killing.

Russian dissident Victor Navalny predicts he’ll get another 18 years added to his sentence for disrespecting the government. He gets 19,

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Dow: (Closed)

Sporty Saturday sparkes a Swedish disappointment – disputed penalty kick kicks America out of the World Cup. In better news, youngsters Coco Gauff triumphs and qualifies for the U.S. Open while gymnast Simone Biler returns from two years’ medical leave to qualify for the 2024 Olympics.

And in a further demonstration of girl power, “Barbie” tops the billion box office mark, making director Greta Gerwig the first female to break through that cash ceiling.

Trump indictment contributors and coroners hit the Sunday talk circuit: latest attorney John Lauro says the indictment is President Joe’s plot to steal the 2024 election and any mistakes are to be blamed on Trump’s older attorneys, sub one-percent candidate Gov. John@ Burgum gets his fifteen minutes (more like three) pledging to fight Mexican migrants and Chinese drugs... asked about America, ghosts Trump and boasts about all the money he made in the private sector.

Djonald MisDirecting tells harried K-Mac to “do something” about Hunter Biden as Jack Smith tells his attorneys to muzzle the Exile before he starts another riot. MAGAmen heckle Mike Pence.

Better than average job and wage gain, coupled with a stellar week for women (Tauresi, Gauff, Biles and, of course, Barbi) minus a distressing spike in Americans buying foreign (ie Chinese) things and running up debts to result in the third straight week of a small gain for the Don.

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

See a further explanation of categories here…

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS			SCORE		OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS
INCOME	(24%)	6/17/13 & 1/1/22	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	LAST WEEK	THIS WEEK
Wages (hrly. Per cap)	9%	1350 points	8/7/23	+0.45%	8/23	1,444.97	1,451.49	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages 28.83 .96
Median Inc. (yearly)	4%	600	8/7/23	+0.03%	8/21/23	609.67	609.84	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 35,940 951 961
Unempl. (BLS – in mi)	4%	600	8/7/23	- 2.86%	8/23	633.65	651.75	http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/ 3.6 3.5
Official (DC – in mi)	2%	300	8/7/23	nc	8/21/23	266.86	266.86	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 5,967 nc nc*
Unofficl. (DC – in mi)	2%	300	8/7/23	- 0.50%	8/21/23	325.84	327.46	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 9.934 877 828
Workforce Particip. Number Percent	2%	300	8/7/23	+0.034% +0.017%	8/21/23	305.35	305.40	In 163,374 438 494 Out 99,864 864 864 Total: 263,302 358 http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 62.08
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	2/27/23	nc (5 mos.)	8/23	151.19	151.19	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.60 nc

OUTGO	15%
Total Inflation	7%	1050	5/22/23	+0.2%	8/23	985.95	985.95	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.2
Food	2%	300	5/22/23	+0.1%	8/23	277.66	277.66	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.1
Gasoline	2%	300	5/22/23	+1.0%	8/23	255.40	255.40	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +1.0
Medical Costs	2%	300	5/22/23	nc	8/23	296.97	296.97	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm nc
Shelter	2%	300	5/22/23	+0.4%	8/23	274.37	274.37	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.4
WEALTH	6%
*Dow* Jones Index	2%	300	8/7/23	-1.21%	8/21/23	289.99	286.48	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 35,065.62
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	5/1/23	-3.26% +3.56%	8/23	130.20 301.09	130.20 301.09	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M): 4.16 Valuations (K): 410.2
Debt (Personal)	2%	300	8/7/23	+0.029%	8/21/23	275.93	275.85	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 73,409 432 453

NATIONAL	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	8/7/23	+0.06%	8/21/23	396.97	397.22	debtclock.org/ 4,722 725 728
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	8/7/23	+0.11%	8/21/23	325.53	325.17	debtclock.org/ 6,286 295 302
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	8/7/23	+0.05%	8/21/23	412.71	412.52	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 32,610 669 684 (The debt ceiling... now kicked forward to 1/1/25... had been 31.4. Of late, there have been rumblings and mutterings from Congress, that it should be addressed sooner… like now?)
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	8/7/23	+0.16%	8/21/23	396.68	396.03	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 101,396 588 755

GLOBAL	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	8/7/23	+5.03%	8/21/23	345.58	328.20	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,240 234 617
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	5/22/23	-0.76%	8/23	153.48	153.48	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 247.1
Imports (bl.)	1%	150	5/22/23	+0.315%	8/23	172.26	172.26	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 316.1*
Trade Deficit (bl.)	1%	150	5/22/23	+8.12%	8/23	287.16	287.16	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 69.0

SOCIAL INDICES (40%)
ACTS of MAN	12%							455
World Affairs	3%	450	8/7/23	-0.1%	8/21/23	451.70	451.25	Pope Francis (86) celebrates World Youth Day in Portugal. Killer floods strike China, typhoon hits Japan. Canada PM Justin Trudeau and wife divorcing.
War and terrorism	2%	300	8/7/23	+0.1%	8/21/23	291.31	291.60	Suicide bomber kills 55 in Pakistan. US evacutes embassy in Niger due to civil war... Putin’s Africa summit a dismal failure and a maddened Mad Vlad bombs Ukrainian blood transfusion center to retaliate for attacks on ships in the Black Sea.
Politics	3%	450	8/7/23	+0.1%	8/21/23	478.58	479.06	Sec State Blinken warns Russia not to use the Black Sea for blackmail as the Marines are deployed to protect U.S. shipping from Iranian pirates. Senate pressured to name 8/1 Gold Star Children’s Day.
Economics	3%	450	8/7/23	-0.1%	8/21/23	430.47	430.04	Unemployment down (bad, says Fed) and USA credit rating downgraded despite 187,000 new jobs added. Freight company Yellow goes bankrupt. Global grain prices rise as Russia destroys 40M tons. DoorDash makes record profits, but stocks are down due to Fed and heat.
Crime	1%	150	8/7/23	-0.2%	8/21/23	253.01	252.50	Social media hoax sparks NYC riots. $16M jewel heist at Paris Piaget store. AI scammers want you to say “yes” on their telemarketing and seize your bank account but the FCC is cracking down on auto warranty robocall fraudsters. Two US sailors sell out their country for $5,000 from Chinese spies. SoCal Judge Jeffrey Ferguson murders wife, gets bail.
ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	8/7/23	+0.1	8/21/23	403.92	404.32	Coast to coast Heat Dome swelling and heating stuff up, but Phoenix finally drops into comfortable 100s and the monsoon season is on its way; rest of the country (and the world) either swelters or drowns or... from New York City to Montana, gasps and coughs as the smoke from 1,000 active wildfires wafts on.
Disasters	3%	450	8/7/23	-0.1%	8/21/23	435.04	434.60	Daredevil climber mounts 68 story building in Hong Kong. The Devil wins this one. Out of control car on 42^nd St, NYC, rams ten. Woman fights off serial rapist to escape concrete cell in Oregon. Trains, planes and automobiles dealing with the usual trouble... add the ships at sea - American boaters killed in Long Beach, Ca. and Italy, and a school bus crash that injures 30, 7 critically, in Idaho.
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX			(15%)
Science, Tech, Educ.	4%	600	8/7/23	+0.1	8/21/23	632.87	633.50	Kids going back to school - spending up from 117 to 135B ($890 per kid, helped out by tax free days in some states. President Joe reverses Trump, sending Space Command to Colorado instead of Alabama (retribution for Sen. Tuberville’s military meddling?).
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	8/7/23	+0.6	8/21/23	614.23	617.92	Wonderfun week for women as Greta Gerwig@ becomes first billion dollar baby for directing “Barbie”, Simone Biles and Coco Gauff qualify for Olympics and the U.S. Open and, despite losing by an inch, American soccer women draw new attention to the sport (as might translate to better pay?). Then again, fat singer Lizzo accused of fat shaming her fat dancers.
Health	4%	600	8/7/23	-0.3%	8/21/23	472.50	471.08	Researhers say one (alcoholic) drink a day KILLs you as hydrators die of “water intoxication”. Toxic Doritos nacho chips recalled. Ozempic and Mounjaro accused of causing “stomach paralysis”. Plague creeping back, up 12%. Typhus, too. And, in Florida, leprosy. Hyundai and Kia recall 92,000 cars that catch fire, Tesla accused of having bad steering systems,
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	8/7/23	+0.2%	8/21/23	470.11	471.05	Pittsburgh synagogue shooter gets death. NYC stabber of gay dancer arrested and will face trial, as will the 75 year old road rager who beat an 85 year old to death and a cold case ace as hole in one photo exposes killer golfer to justice for an old murder.
MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX					(7%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	8/7/23	+0.1%	8/21/23	502.29	502.79	US World Cuppers tie Portugal 0-0 to advance to the knockout round where they are knocked out by Sweden on a disputed penalty kick in a Girl Power week... WNBA’s Diane Taurasi gets 10,000th point. Taylor Swift ends tour w/ $155M revenues, gives a million to her road crew, Beyonce concert interrupted by severe weather. Conference between Hollywood talent and suits collapses. RIP: Actors Paul (Pee Wee Harman) Reubens, Angus (“Euphoria”) Cloud and Mark (Breaking Bad”) Margolis.
Misc. incidents	4%	450	8/7/23	-0.3%	8/21/23	485.25	483.79	Barbie’s billion beaten by 1.5 B lotto jackpot, still open. Bad animals: 20 year old attacked by Cougar in Olympic National Park. Wolves from Mexico prowl the Southwest without green cards – cattlemen enraged. And then, of course, the sharks – two friends, surfers, bitten on different days by (presumably) different sharks in the 101° sharkbite capital of America... Volusia County, Florida,

The Don Jones Index for the week of July 31st through August 6th, 2023 was UP 6.67 points

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

ATTACHMENT ONE – From the New York Times

The Trump Jan. 6 Indictment, Annotated

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on four criminal counts over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. We annotated the indictment to help you better understand the charges.

By Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman Aug. 1, 2023

The Justice Department unveiled an indictment on Tuesday charging former President Donald J. Trump with four criminal counts. They relate to Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.

1 count

Conspiracy to defraud the United States

The charge against Mr. Trump details the various methods he and co-conspirators used to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

2 counts

Related to efforts to obstruct the vote certification proceedings

Mr. Trump faces two charges involving the vote certification proceedings at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: one of obstructing that process and one of conspiring to do so.

1 count

Conspiracy to violate civil rights

Related to Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse election results in states with close elections in 2020.

The New York Times annotated the document.

Download the full PDF

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ATTACHMENT TWO – From the Washington Post

HERE ARE THE FOUR JAN. 6 CHARGES AGAINST TRUMP AND WHAT THEY MEAN

By Rachel Weiner Updated August 2, 2023 at 12:51 p.m. EDT|Published August 1, 2023 at 6:38 p.m. EDT

Former president Donald Trump has been charged with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing a congressional proceeding and conspiracy against rights in connection with what prosecutors allege was a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Here’s what that means.

What are the charges?

Trump Jan. 6 indictment

The indictment says Trump attempted to overturn the election results in myriad ways: by pushing state officials in certain swing states that broke for Biden to ignore the results and take steps to make Trump the winner; by organizing slates of “fake electors” who falsely certified that Trump had won seven states; by pushing the Justice Department to endorse the false claims of election fraud; by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to change the election results; and by exploiting the violent riot on Jan. 6 to try to keep lawmakers from confirming of Biden’s victory.

Jack Smith announces new Trump indictment

Prosecutors will have to prove deceit was used to undermine or interfere with the work of the federal government. The indictment repeatedly says that Trump knew his fraud claims were false, having been told by campaign staff, White House officials and state government representatives that there was no evidence for them. He is specifically accused of lying to the Georgia secretary of state about supposed ballot tampering after being told by the Justice Department that it never happened. Giuliani is accused of lying to the crowd at Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, falsely claiming that five state legislatures had written “begging” for a review of their election results. Giuliani is also accused of telling the Arizona House speaker there was enough evidence of fraud to justify switching the state’s votes from Biden to Trump; eight days later Giuliani allegedly admitted, “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.” And multiple conspirators are accused of falsely reassuring people involved in the fake electors scheme that the certificates claiming Trump won those states would only be used if litigation succeeded in changing the results.

Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding: For the same conduct used to charge him with conspiracy, Trump is charged specifically with conspiring to obstruct the congressional confirmation of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. Included as evidence is that Trump in his speech that morning “directed the crowd in front of him to go to the Capitol as a means to obstruct the certification and pressure the Vice President to fraudulently obstruct the certification.”

Obstruction of an official proceeding: Trump is also charged with a substantive obstruction count for attempting to block Congress from confirming Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. The same charge is the most common felony charge used against rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has split on how to define this crime, but a majority of judges who have weighed in agree that at least some conduct at the Capitol counts as illegal obstruction.

The dissenting judge, Gregory Katsas, argued that the crime had to include tampering with documents. Prosecutors allege Trump committed the crime in part by orchestrating the creation of fake election certificates and trying to get Congress to accept them, as well as by pressuring the Justice Department to send out a letter falsely claiming there were problems with the vote in Georgia or other states.

Conspiracy against rights: This charge criminalizes any joint effort to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” people to stop them from enjoying their constitutional or federal rights. It was passed after the Civil War, when White vigilante groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were terrorizing Black southerners who sought to vote or otherwise enjoy their rights under the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. Its use was limited for many decades by Supreme Court decisions, but prosecutors brought the charge in the 20th century in cases involving racist attacks on civil rights activists and ballot-box stuffing. It was also used against a Nixon aide who authorized the burglary of a psychiatrist’s office after the Pentagon Papers leak. Here, prosecutors argue Trump conspired to stop people from exercising “the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.” They must prove that was Trump’s intent.

What kind of sentence does he face?

Conspiracy to defraud the government is punishable by up to five years in prison. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstructing an official proceeding are both punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The civil rights law carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison — unless the crime involves murder, rape or kidnapping (successful or attempted), in which case the maximum punishment is the death penalty. Prosecutors are not arguing that Trump’s actions led to any of the deaths that occurred during or after the Jan. 6 attack.

There are no mandatory minimum sentences for any of these crimes.

ATTACHMENT THREE – From the Guardian UK

FINALLY, 30 MONTHS AFTER LEAVING OFFICE IN DISGRACE, TRUMP MUST FACE THE MUSIC

The latest indictments – for trying to overturn the 2020 election – mean a reckoning for the man who led chants of ‘lock her up’

Lloyd Green Tue 1 Aug 2023 18.43 EDT

Amid the Hollywood writers’ strike, Jack Smith, the special counsel, delivered a jolt of real-life drama. Late Tuesday afternoon, he dropped a four-count, 45-page conspiracy indictment on Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Six other unnamed conspirators also appear in the text. The charges go to the heart of our constitutional system.

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment charges. “So for more than two months following election day … the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election that he had actually won. These claims were false, and Defendant knew that they were false.”

If convicted, the 77-year-old former president could face years in jail and possibly die in prison. But let us not get ahead of ourselves.

In the interim, he towers over the Republican field with the support of a majority of the party’s voters. College grad or blue-collar, it makes little difference. The Republican party belongs to him. He did not fade after two earlier indictments. Rather, his grip on the Republican party tightens. He has pledged to run even if convicted and from behind bars.

Cloaked in the aura of seeming inevitability, Trump holds a 37-point lead over Ron DeSantis, his closest rival. With a half-year to go before the first nominating contest, Florida’s thuggish and humorless governor has burned through millions of dollars. His campaign reset resembles a cry for help. He is down to 17 points in the polls and falling.

When you’re a presidential candidate who is forced to fire people for posting Nazi-symbols, it doesn’t inspire confidence. Likewise, if you’re busy looking for slavery’s upside or dangling the possibility of appointing RFK Jr as head of the FDA or CDC, national politics is not where you belong.

Past candidates have bounced back from edges of the abyss. Here, the late John McCain’s run in 2008 comes to mind. After squandering an early lead, he demonstrated under-appreciated tenacity. But DeSantis is no McCain. He is not fun. Rather, “mean”, “petty” and “dull” are the words that best do justice to the latest iteration of Florida Man.

All that having been said, obstacles in the form of nearly-endless legal proceedings will likely complicate Trump’s political path and life. Just days before Tuesday’s indictment, the government leveled new and serious allegations against him in the already pending documents case.

According to federal prosecutors, Trump and two aides schemed to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance video in a bid to stymie Smith’s investigation. To say the least, it’s not a good look.

“It seems like you know you’re committing a crime if you’re having an employee delete security camera footage,” declared Will Hurd, the ex-Texas congressman and long-shot Republican contender. Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and federal prosecutor, branded Trump a “one-man crime wave.”

Reality check: Christie is at low-single digits; Hurd is at a fraction of a percent. As the song goes, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

By contrast, the rest of the Republican field remains studiously quiet. DeSantis refuses to say whether Trump’s indictments disqualify him from running, and does not rule out issuing a pardon.

The latest indictment adds to Trump’s considerable legal woes. Between the race for the Republican presidential nod and his considerable troubles, Trump’s dance card is looking full. His legal bills are already straining the resources of his Save America political action committee. He is spending more than he rakes in. He is still two months away from a full-blown trial in a nine-figure action.

In October, the New York attorney general’s $250m civil suit against the Trump Organization and Trump individually begins. On 15 January 2024, Iowa Republicans will caucus, and the second E Jean Carroll defamation case commences.

Then come the criminal cases against the backdrop of nomination season. Next March, Trump is slated to be tried in Manhattan in connection with alleged hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, the adult film star. Two months later, in late May, he is scheduled to go on trial in Florida for his alleged mishandling of government documents. Expect Melania Trump to be a no-show at both trials.

Whether Trump is convicted and how his base reacts are the tests of his staying power. At the moment, Tim Scott, South Carolina’s junior senator, is receiving well-deserved attention. He is sober and measured, in stark contrast to Trump and DeSantis. He is also a people person.

Still, Scott’s appeal beyond the Republican donor class appears limited. In his home state, he barely cracks double-digits, running fourth. In Iowa, he is running a distant third. Practically speaking, he represents a real threat to DeSantis but is a logical running mate for the former guy. A Trump conviction might shake things up but that is no certainty.

Trump once led chants of “lock her up”. Now he’s a perpetual defendant. Beyond that, each time he speaks, he provides prosecutors with fresh targets. Discipline is not his strong suit.

Trump is set to be arraigned on Thursday. At this rate, he stands to be the first nominee out on personal recognizance on four separate indictments, in four different jurisdictions. Possible indictment in Georgia looms. The 2024 election will be one for the ages. Regardless of the outcome, the US may never be the same.

· Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 199

ATTACHMENT FOUR – From the New York Times

A conviction on this charge would be punishable by up to five years in prison. Congress enacted this statute after the Civil War to go after white Southerners, including members of the Ku Klux Klan, who used terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved African Americans from voting. But in a series of 20th-century cases, the Supreme Court upheld an expanded application of the statute to election fraud conspiracies, like ballot box stuffing. Essentially, Mr. Trump, who baselessly said Mr. Biden's narrow victories in swing states like Georgia and Arizona were rigged, is himself accused of trying to rig the electoral outcome in those states in his favor.

— Charlie Savage

Produced by Charlie Smart and Molly Cook Escobar

Our Coverage of the Capitol Riot and its Fallout

The Events on Jan. 6

· Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.

· A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a New York Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.

· Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.

· Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.

Inquiries and Other Developments

· Donald Trump’s Indictment: The former president was indicted on Aug. 1 after a sprawling federal investigation into his attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency. The indictment accused him of defrauding the United States, obstructing an official government proceeding, depriving people of a civil right and obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.

· Senate Report: Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a scathing report that detailed how the F.B.I., the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies repeatedly ignored, downplayed or failed to Fox warnings of violence before the Jan. 6 attack.

· Oath Keepers Trial: Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right militia, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges for the role he played in helping to mobilize the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol.

· Proud Boys Trial: Four members of the Proud Boys, including their former leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to keep Trump in power after his election defeat.

ATTACHMENT FIVE – From the WashPost

HERE ARE THE TRUMP CO-CONSPIRATORS DESCRIBED IN THE DOJ INDICTMENT

By Holly Bailey, Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, Rachel Weiner, Amy B Wang and Isaac Arnsdorf

Updated August 1, 2023 at 11:30 p.m. EDT|Published August 1, 2023 at 7:03 p.m. EDT

6. A political consultant

In criminally charging former president Donald Trump for his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss, federal prosecutors allege that Trump enlisted six co-conspirators to “assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.”

The co-conspirators were not charged on Tuesday and are not named in the indictment, but five of them can be identified using the detailed descriptions provided by prosecutors. Here’s what we know about them:

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani during a news conference in November 2020. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post)

The indictment describes “Co-Conspirator 1” as an attorney “who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies” that Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign would not pursue. Giuliani served as Trump’s personal attorney and was central to efforts by the Trump team to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

A former federal prosecutor and celebrated New York mayor who was regarded as a national hero in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Giuliani spearheaded bogus legal challenges in key battleground states, including Michigan and Georgia, 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 own attorney general — disputed those claims.

Among other things, the indictment says that Trump turned to this co-conspirator to echo false claims of election fraud when his own advisers told him that he had lost the vote count and that both knew they were making false claims as they sought to “impair, obstruct and defeat” the 2020 election results, including by putting pressure on Republican lawmakers in key battleground states.

How the 2020 election landed Rudy Giuliani in legal jeopardy

The indictment alleges this co-conspirator privately acknowledged he had no proof for the claims he was making. “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories,” he allegedly told one Arizona lawmaker who demanded proof of illegal votes in that state, according to the indictment.

These claims prompted concern from Trump campaign staffers, according to the indictment. When the co-conspirator claimed Pennsylvania had counted more absentee ballots than it had sent out, a campaign staffer sent an internal email saying the claim was “just wrong” and “there’s no way to defend it,” according to the indictment.

Ted Goodman, political adviser and spokesman for Giuliani, said in a statement that the indictment criminalizes the act of “daring to ask questions about the 2020 election results.”

“Every fact Mayor Rudy Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good faith basis President Donald Trump had for the actions he took during the two-month period charged in the indictment,” Goodman said.

John Eastman

“Co-Conspirator 2” was an attorney “who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election,” according to the indictment.

Eastman, a conservative attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, crafted a legal strategy that involved creating slates of pro-Trump electors in states that Joe Biden won. He also falsely asserted, without evidence, that Trump lost Georgia in part because 66,000 underage people and 2,500 convicted felons had voted in the state that year.

Some of those allegations surfaced in a lawsuit Trump filed to overturn the Georgia results. The indictment says this co-conspirator acknowledged in an email that he and Trump had “been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by experts) has been inaccurate.” But the claims remained in the lawsuit. The indictment also details phone calls the co-conspirator made to state officials and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, in which he “falsely represented” that the alternate electors’ votes would only be used if ongoing litigation changed a state’s results. Even as he made those claims, this co-conspirator wrote a memo suggesting Vice President Mike Pence could throw out votes in states with disputed electoral slates and gavel “Trump as re-elected,” according to the indictment.

Charles Burnham, Eastman’s lawyer, said in a statement Tuesday night that the indictment “relies on a misleading presentation of the record to contrive criminal charges against Presidential candidate Trump and to cast ominous aspersions on his close advisors.” Burnham said Eastman is not involved with plea bargaining.

“[I]f he were invited to plea bargain with either state or federal prosecutors, he would decline. The fact is, if Dr. Eastman is indicted, he will go to trial. If convicted, he will appeal,” Burnham said. “The Eastman legal team is confident of its legal position in this matter.”

Sidney Powell

The indictment describes “Co-Conspirator 3” as an attorney whose baseless accusations Trump “embraced and publicly amplified,” even though he privately acknowledged to others that the unfounded claims of election fraud sounded “crazy.”

A former federal prosecutor, Powell became a defense attorney and conservative commentator critical of the Justice Department after representing a banker in the Enron scandal. She represented former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn when he withdrew a guilty plea after admitting he lied to the FBI.

Powell came to the Republican National Committee after the 2020 election with the baseless claim that voting machines had been hacked to rig the election for Biden. After she aired those falsehoods at a poorly received news conference, the Trump campaign distanced itself from her. But she kept filing lawsuits claiming election fraud and airing those allegations on Fox News. In a White House meeting in December 2020, Trump considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election, an action mentioned in Tuesday’s indictment though Powell was not formally named in the document. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, Powell continued to pursue voting machine data and raise money off election falsehoods. She has since been sanctioned for misconduct and repeatedly sued for defamation.

Powell told the House Jan. 6 committee that she did not read or review all the declarations she presented as alleged evidence of election fraud and argued through an attorney that “no reasonable person” would take her claims as fact. She has said in depositions that she still believes her fraud claims will one day be proved true. An attorney for Powell declined to comment.

Jeffrey Clark

“Co-Conspirator 4” is described in the indictment as a Justice Department official who focused on civil matters and worked with Trump to “use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

Clark was a mid-level Justice Department official friendly to Trump’s views on the election — so much so that Trump considered installing him as acting attorney general. Several former senior Justice Department officials testified about a bizarre effort by Clark to volunteer himself and the Justice Department as advocates for Trump’s bogus claims of massive voter fraud during the election. Clark proposed sending a letter to officials in key states that said the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve, according to hearing testimony from the House Jan. 6 Committee.

Clark’s actions led to a dramatic confrontation at the White House on Jan. 3, 2021 — detailed in Tuesday’s indictment — when senior Justice Department officials told Trump they would resign — and many other senior officials would also quit — if the president appointed Clark in place of acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, who was refusing to legitimize the fraud claims. Clark has denied that he devised a plan to replace his boss, the attorney general, and said all of his communications after the election were lawful.

The indictment details how other Justice Department and White House attorneys had rejected Trump’s claims of election fraud, and the deputy White House Counsel warned this co-conspirator that if Trump refused to leave office there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” According to the indictment, the co-conspirator responded, “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

Clark did not respond to a request for comment.

Kenneth Chesebro

The indictment states that “Co-Conspirator 5” was an attorney who “assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

An appellate attorney who had studied under and worked with Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, Chesebro was the first to suggest that slates of pro-Trump electors could organize in states that he lost and be recognized by Congress on Jan. 6. He first Foxd the strategy with a friend representing the Trump campaign in Wisconsin before connecting with Eastman, Giuliani and Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn to coordinate across six more swing states.

The indictment says this co-conspirator subsequently spoke to an Arizona attorney identified by the Trump campaign as someone who could assist with the alternate elector plan in that state. “His idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc) have our electors send in their votes (even though the votes aren’t legal under federal law — because they’re not signed by the Governor); so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6,” the unidentified attorney wrote in email after the call, according to the indictment. “Kind of wild/creative … We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted.”

Chesebro has argued that his communications with the Trump campaign were protected by attorney-client privilege, although he was never paid for his work. He did not respond to a request for comment.

A political consultant

“Co-Conspirator 6” is described in the indictment as a “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” Specifically, the indictment alleges that this person sent Co-Conspirator 1 — Giuliani — an email identifying lawyers in the six swing states who could assist in the phony elector effort. It claims the person participated in a conference call about the effort in Pennsylvania and circulated language for that state’s certificate. On the night of Jan. 6, this co-conspirator looked for senators’ phone numbers for Giuliani to call in an attempt to further delay certifying the electoral votes, according to the indictment. The identity of the sixth conspirator remains unclear.

Amy Gardner, Tom Jackman, Spencer S. Hsu and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT SIX – From Time

HERE'S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE ALLEGED TRUMP CO-CONSPIRATORS IN THE JAN. 6 INDICTMENT

BY BRIAN BENNETT AUGUST 2, 2023 1:48 PM EDT

Donald Trump tried to overturn Joe Biden’s win and stay in power with the help of six co-conspirators, Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith alleged on Tuesday as he charged the former President with four crimes.

The Aug. 1 indictment against Trump describes actions Trump allegedly took to lie about the level of fraud in the election, pressure officials to reverse his loss, bring slates of fraudulent electors to Congress and disrupt the certification of the results in the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.

But he didn’t do it alone, the indictment states. He allegedly had help from a core group of outside lawyers, a political consultant and one mid-level Justice Department official. Smith did not name the alleged co-conspirators, though he provided plenty of clues.

Why did Trump turn to them? Most of Trump’s own campaign staff, as well as members of his administration, refused to go along with his effort to deny the election loss and remain in the White House, the indictment alleges. Indeed, people at various levels in the federal government told Trump his claims of election fraud were false, including Vice President Mike Pence, top Department of Justice leaders, the director of national intelligence, officials with the Department of Homeland Security, and senior White House lawyers, as well as senior members of his campaign staff, and Republican state officials and legislators.

Here’s what we know about the six co-conspirators' identities based on publicly available information.

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani capitalized on his national name recognition as a famous former New York mayor and former federal prosecutor to spread false claims of election fraud.

While not named in the indictment, Giuliani is likely “co-conspirator 1” who is described as an attorney who was “willing to spread knowingly false claims” and “pursue strategies” to overturn the election results that Trump’s own campaign staff would not pursue.

Crucially, the indictment alleges that this co-conspirator knew the claims of election fraud weren’t backed up by evidence. At one point, “co-conspirator 1” told an Arizona lawmaker pushing for proof of election fraud in that state that, “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.” Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers described this conversation with Giuliani while testifying before a House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol last year.

Giuliani was a central player in Trump’s effort to overturn the election results and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. On Jan. 6, 2021, as lawmakers prepared to certify the election results, Giuliani told thousands of Trump supporters on the National Mall that “trial by combat” was needed to settle the outcome. Giuliani has described his actions as part of his work representing Trump and asking questions about the 2020 election results.

John Eastman

The conservative lawyer John Eastman promoted the discredited legal theory that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to overturn the certified election results, and is likely the person described as “co-conspirator 2” in the indictment.

Eastman is the founding director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In the weeks after the 2020 election, Eastman distributed memos to Trump’s circle laying out a strategy for the Vice President to refuse to accept slates of electors from states Biden had won and reverse Biden’s electoral victory.

The indictment describes “co-conspirator 2” as an attorney who “devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role in overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.” It goes on to say that co-conspirator 2 acknowledged in an email that some of the allegations put forward in a Georgia lawsuit to reverse Biden’s win in the state were “inaccurate.”

One memo co-conspirator 2 wrote suggested Pence, holding the gavel in the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, could toss votes from states with disputed slates of electors and declare Trump “as re-elected.” Pence didn’t have the authority to do this and refused. Eastman has denied wrongdoing.

Sidney Powell

Sidney Powell is a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who spread baseless allegations on Fox News and other conservative outlets that voting machines had been hacked in the 2020 election. Powell is likely the “co-conspirator 3” described in the indictment as an attorney whose claims of election fraud Trump “embraced and amplified” in public but in private acknowledged sounded “crazy.”

The indictment describes a White House meeting in December 2020 where Trump considers naming “co-conspirator 3” to be a special counsel to investigate the election. When he testified to the House Jan. 6 Committee, Trump’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said he was “vehemently opposed” to Sydney Powell being named a special counsel. “I didn’t think she should be appointed to anything,” Cipollone told the Jan. 6 Committee.

Jeffrey Clark

Jeffrey Clark was a mid-level official overseeing the Justice Department’s civil division when Donald Trump considered promoting him to acting attorney general in the weeks after the 2020 election. According to testimony from Trump Justice Department officials to the House Jan. 6 Committee, Clark went around his bosses to communicate directly with Trump and had proposed sending a letter to state officials saying the department was concerned about the election results and instructing them to send alternate elector slates to Washington.

Clark is likely the person described in the indictment as “co-conspirator 4”, a Justice Department official working with Trump to “use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

The indictment against Trump describes a heated meeting in the White House on Jan. 3, 2021, when senior Justice Department officials told Trump they would resign if he named Clark to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who was refusing to back up Trump’s fraud claims.

In a chilling episode in the indictment, one of Trump’s deputy White House counsels warned that if Trump tried to stay in office, there would be “riots” in major U.S. cities. In response, “co-conspirator 4” says, “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 authorizes the president to deploy the military to put down civil disorder and rebellion. Clark pleaded the Fifth Amendment to many questions he was asked by the House Jan. 6 Committee.

Kenneth Chesebro

Kenneth Chesebro is an experienced appellate attorney who promoted within Trump’s circle the unfounded idea that slates of pro-Trump electors from states Trump lost could be sent to Washington and be certified on Jan. 6.

In the indictment, “co-conspirator 5” is described as an attorney who assisted in “devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” The indictment says an Arizona attorney described a proposal from “co-conspirator 5” as “wild/creative” that would involve “sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes.”

“Political Consultant”

The identity of “co-conspirator 6” is the most unclear. The indictment describes this co-conspirator as a “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

After Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building, this co-conspirator helped Giuliani look for phone numbers of senators to call in an effort to delay the certification of electoral votes even more, the indictment states. The indictment also claims the person gave Giuliani names of lawyers in six states who might help with the effort to put together slates of false electors.

Various outside political consultants were in communication with Trump during the period after the election, but the indictment does not provide enough information to identify the person described as a co-conspirator.

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – From Al Jazeera

TRUMP’S INDICTMENT: WHO ARE THE SIX CO-CONSPIRATORS IN 2020 ELECTION PROBE?

Six unnamed people have been identified as ‘co-conspirators’ over alleged efforts to help the former US president remain in power following his loss in the 2020 election.

Published On 3 Aug 20233 Aug 2023

Former United States President Donald Trump has been criminally indicted for plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to cling on to power.

His third criminal indictment since March, filed on Tuesday by Special Counsel Jack Smith, detailed how the Republican attempted to obstruct “a bedrock function” of democracy and sought to reverse his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Five key takeaways from Trump’s indictment over US election defeat

Jack Smith, Tanya Chutkan: Key players in Trump’s January 6 indictment

Trump indictment tracker: Where do cases against former US president stand?

While Smith placed the blame for the violent assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 squarely on Trump’s shoulders, prosecutors alleged that he did not act alone.

Six alleged accomplices were identified as “co-conspirators” by the US Department of Justice for assisting Trump with everything from fomenting the crowd that stormed the seat of the United States Congress to intimidating state legislators and spreading false claims of supposed electoral fraud.

These accomplices have yet to be named as they have not been formally charged. However, the detailed description in the indictment regarding their involvement made it possible to identify some of the likely suspects.

Here is what you need to know about the possible accomplices and their alleged involvement:

Rudy Giuliani

The former New York mayor, presidential candidate and member of the former president’s legal team has admitted to being involved in the litigation.

His actions match those attributed to “Co-conspirator 1”, described in the indictment as “an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the defendant’s 2020 reelection campaign attorneys would not”.

He is alleged to have played a prominent role in spreading unfounded claims of election fraud in the aftermath of the election when he held rallies in key battleground states that Trump lost.

After the indictment was released, Giuliani posted a 185-minute live video on the social media platform X – formerly known as Twitter – calling the charges a “nothingburger” and defending his rallies under the First Amendment right to free speech.

John Eastman

Law professor John Eastman was identified as the second co-conspirator for allegedly attempting to provide a legal basis for Trump’s claim of electoral fraud by manipulating the count of electors to the Electoral College.

According to the indictment, he “devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election”.

He is also thought to have suggested pressuring former Vice President Michael Pence into either disrupting or delaying the certification process.

Eastman’s lawyer Charles Burnham said the indictment used a “misleading presentation of the record to contrive criminal charges against Presidential candidate Trump and to cast ominous aspersions on his close advisors”.

Sidney Powell

Trump’s political adviser Sidney Powell, or “Co-conspirator 3”, is alleged to have spread disinformation, claiming “massive election fraud”.

She is described in the indictment as “an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant [Trump] privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy'”, yet “embraced and publicly amplified”.

The former federal prosecutor is best known for the catchphrase “release the Kraken”, widely Foxd after appearing on Twitter. The reference to the 1981 movie The Clash of the Titans, in which Zeus gives the order to release a mythical sea monster, was used to signal an election fraud conspiracy on social media.

In testimony to the congressional committee examining the January 6 riot, Powell said “no reasonable person” would view her many claims of election fraud as fact.

Jeffrey Clark

“Co-conspirator 4” is described by prosecutors as a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer who tried to “use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud”.

Former senior Justice Department officials testified about efforts by Clark to support Trump’s bogus claims of voter fraud, including a proposal to send a letter to officials in key states saying the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote.

His actions led to a confrontation at the White House on January 3, 2021, when senior Justice Department officials told Trump they would resign if he appointed Clark to replace attorney-general Jeffrey Rosen, who was refusing to back the fraud claims.

Kenneth Chesebro

“Co-conspirator 5” was a lawyer who “assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding”.

He is alleged to have devised a plan to send in fake electoral votes to Pence so that an objection could be raised in Congress that such votes should be counted.

While there are no records of Chesebro ever being paid for his work, he has argued that his communications with the Trump campaign were protected by attorney-client privilege.

Unnamed political consultant

The identity of the sixth co-conspirator remains unclear. They are described in the indictment as a “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding”.

The person is said to have participated in a conference call about the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Pennsylvania.

On the night of January 6, they looked for senators’ phone numbers for Giuliani to call to delay certifying the electoral votes.

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – From Time

THE TRUMP INDICTMENT HISTORY WILL REMEMBER

BY PHILIP ELLIOTT

The criminal indictment of ex-President Donald Trump for his alleged attempts to subvert democracy and incite the Jan. 6, 2021, melee in Washington has been a long time coming. Now that it’s here, two-and-a-half years after a mob listened to Trump, marched about a mile eastward, and ransacked the U.S. Capitol in service of his lies about a stolen 2020 election, it hits a little different than the charges previously brought against Trump.

A federal grand jury on Tuesday charged Trump with an alleged conspiracy to defraud the United States, a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and a conspiracy against voting rights. The charges are a remarkable escalation of the legal troubles chasing Trump during what he hopes is a brief return to civilian life. Trump, who is running for President again in 2024 and is the runaway front-runner in the Republican field, could face years in prison if convicted. Now Trump has made history once again, becoming a thrice-indicted ex-Commander in Chief. Well, at least if the normal rules of political gravity still matter. History is being made, but not all history is good.

It was a day a lot of the folks who experienced the attack in Washington on Jan. 6 had been seeking for a long time. The wall-to-wall coverage on cable, the constant refreshes of social-media sites, and even the text chains around Capitol Hill all reflected an anxiety that this may be a false start. It will be similar when Trump is due in court on Thursday in D.C.

Politicos of both parties in D.C. watched in horror more than two years ago as a riot descended on Capitol Hill, the mob raiding offices, menacing lawmakers, and fighting hand-to-hand combat with police. The top leadership of both chambers followed evacuation protocols to make sure their branch of government wouldn’t be decapitated. Vice President Mike Pence was pinned down and forced to hide at a loading dock while White House aides unsuccessfully lobbied Trump to direct his legion of followers to stop terrorizing democracy. Partisanship fades when Hill staffers talk about that day, even if many of their bosses have publicly retreated from prior criticism of Trump and sought to shade the painful facts.

The Trump years numbed the country to the word “unprecedented,” amid the constant reverberations of history being made. From the day Trump took office as the only person ever elected to the presidency with zero government or military experience, around every corner came norm-breaking and precedent-smashing. His tweets broke the fourth wall, he was the only President impeached twice, became the first in 150 years to refuse to attend his successor’s inauguration, and his Administration paid so little heed to laws prohibiting politicking on the government dime that he held the Republican convention on the South Lawn of the White House.

Trump’s team has already started telling allies on the Hill that these latest indictments will not matter at all for his reelection hopes. Republicans cite “indictment fatigue,” hoping to plant the idea that voters don’t much care about it and have already accepted that Trump is a bad dude who doesn’t play by the rules. It’s going to be “Old News!” on the socials and “Witch Hunt!” in the hallways. The messaging leaves responsible conservatives squeamish, but they’ll still carry it for fear of being branded insufficiently MAGA, and thus vulnerable in a primary from someone who wears the red hat proudly.

Trump’s past two indictments suggest this one may, perversely, benefit him as well. The aftermath of those charges—totaling at least 78 felony allegations and counting—brought a fundraising boon and a polling surge . That’s right: the self-described billionaire will collect millions in donations from his fans who see the real estate mogul as a victim of a weaponized Justice Department. His best days of fundraising have been his worst ones legally.

It’s worth taking a beat to appreciate how casually we all blew through the phrase “past two indictments” in the previous paragraph. And the fact that a former President now accused of a “conspiracy to defraud the United States” remains the frontrunner for the Republican Party’s re-nomination next year. A thrice-indicted, convicted sexual abuser, alleged election interferer and wealth fabulist is on course to coast to the general election, past capable governors, investors, ambassadors, and even his own former Vice President. Trump could still return to power facing federal charges and, in turn, dodge accountability for any of his alleged misdeeds. (This is why the state-based cases, where Trump will lack pardon powers, may be the real places to watch.)

But that doesn’t mean the next year-plus will be easy for Trump. His troubles are as epic as they are history-making—and, maybe, incompatible with his campaign schedule. Trump is due in court in October to answer a $250 million civil lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General on allegations the Trumps falsified business records. He is scheduled to begin a New York County criminal trial in March of next year on 34 charges that he falsified Trump Organization business records to pay off a porn star. A federal judge ruled on July 19 the case in Manhattan should continue there, and not be moved into the federal track. Trump was arraigned last month on charges he had classified documents at his Florida vacation club and defied subpoenas to return them, a case also brought by special counsel Smith. He pleaded not guilty to 37 charges. Another three were added last week. A trial date could start in May in Florida.

And, as of Tuesday, he could be facing criminal charges in a D.C. federal court on charges linked to Jan. 6.

On top of all of this, Trump faces potential criminal charges of election tampering in Georgia for a call asking the state’s balloting chief to change the winner; an indictment has been considered imminent in a county-based case since February, and a new grand jury was seated last week. A decision, it seems, is imminent.

Yet, somehow, there remains a better-than-even-odds chance he squirms out of any consequences, which would leave a lot of the witnesses to the chaos of Jan. 6 deeply skeptical about the evenhandedness of the criminal justice system if not dejected and cynical. After all, a high-wattage series of congressional hearings last year into Trump’s conduct surrounding the riot resulted in a collective shrug, and two impeachment trials—one of which was also about Jan. 6—failed to deliver convictions.

Those earlier indictments cut some parts of Trump’s clout down to size. But those haven’t yet been enough to take him down, because Presidents stand like giants. That may be changing, as instead of standing with Sequoia-like titans like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the Trump sapling is being cut into a stump. With this latest indictment, which is a federal criminal probe that goes beyond fibbing on tax forms and mishandling spycraft files and includes a bodycount, Trump has few chances to rise to his predecessor’s heights, at least beyond a shady corner of his partisan bonfire. It’s why Tuesday’s indictment is not like the earlier ones: it may be the one cited in the first line of future history books. He may well dodge jail time, but even the one-time most-powerful person on the planet cannot escape the accountability of historians.

ATTACHMENT NINE – From the Guardian UK
DONALD TRUMP TO APPEAR IN COURT OVER ATTEMPT TO OVERTURN 2020 US ELECTION

Former US president, who faces four conspiracy and obstruction counts, will have bail conditions set on Thursday

· Donald Trump charged – live updates

· Trump’s January 6 indictment – key takeaways

Jon Henley and David Smith and Martin Pengelly Wed 2 Aug 2023 14.49 EDT

Donald Trump is due to appear in court on Thursday after federal prosecutors indicted the former US president for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, Democrats welcoming the criminal charges as Republicans rallied behind him.

Prosecutors in Washington will outline the four conspiracy and obstruction counts and a judge will set bail conditions in the latest criminal case involving the ex-president, weeks after he was charged with putting government secrets at risk.

In Trump’s third appearance in a courtroom as a criminal defendant, the magistrate judge Moxila Upadhyaya will set a schedule for pre-trial motions and discovery. Both sides are likely later to file motions seeking to shape what evidence and legal arguments will be permitted at trial, which could be many months away.

The former president stands accused of “obstructing a bedrock function of the US government – the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election”.

In a possible preview of Trump’s defence, his lawyer John Lauro called the indictment “an attack on free speech and political advocacy”, implying Trump’s lies about election fraud were protected under the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Lauro told CNN the indictment was “an effort to not only criminalise, but also to censor free speech”.

Trump’s lies fueled a deadly riot by supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. The long-awaited charges are the first related to actions taken by an American president in office – and set up a collision course between the justice system and a potentially volatile election in November next year.

Many Republicans – elected officials and voters – have unashamedly backed Trump, seeking to portray the charges against him as a politically motivated prosecution and a Democratic plot to derail his re-election bid.

That pattern largely held after Tuesday’s indictment, which was brought by the special counsel Jack Smith and filed in federal district court in Washington.

Trump set the tone on his Truth Social platform: “This unprecedented indictment of a former (highly successful!) president and the leading candidate, by far, in both the Republican party and the 2024 general election, has awoken the world to the corruption, scandal, and failure that has taken place in the United States for the past three years.”

The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, called the indictment an attempt “to distract from news” about Republican allegations of corruption involving Hunter Biden, the president’s son, “and attack the frontrunner” to face Joe Biden next year.

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, Trump’s leading rival for the nomination, said he had not read the indictment but vowed to “end the weaponisation of the federal government”.

DeSantis did not mention Trump by name but promised to “ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans”, adding: “One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicisation of the rule of law.”

The latest charges mean Trump has been impeached twice, arrested twice and indicted three times: over attempted election subversion, hush-money payments to a porn actor, and the alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Despite the charges – and the prospect of more, over alleged election subversion in Georgia – Trump leads Republican polling by more than 30 points. Nothing prevents criminal defendants from campaigning or taking office if they are convicted.

Strategists said that while the indictments could help Trump win the Republican nomination, they could prove less helpful in next year’s election, when he will have to win over moderates and independents.

Republican condemnation of Trump was rare. Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, said Trump’s presidential bid was “driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills”.

Hurd added: “Furthermore, his denial of the 2020 election results and actions on 6 January show he’s unfit for office.” If Republicans “make the upcoming election about Trump, we are giving Joe Biden another four years in the White House”, he said.

Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, who refused to bow to pressure not to certify the election results and fled the mob at the Capitol, said the latest indictment was “an important reminder anyone who puts himself over the constitution should never be president of the United States”, adding that Trump’s candidacy meant “more distractions”.

The indictment listed several conversations in which Trump attempted to persuade Pence to delay certification or reject presidential electors. In one call, on 1 January 2021, Trump told Pence: “You’re too honest.”

Most Republicans, however, backed the former president. The South Carolina senator Tim Scott claimed that “Biden’s justice department” was “hunting Republicans, while protecting Democrats”.

Byron Donalds of Florida, a hard-right Trump ally in the US House, said Trump was the victim of “selective use of … the federal government” while prosecutors “concoct sweetheart deals for Hunter [Biden], Hillary [Clinton] and the rest of the Democrat darlings”.

Democratic reactions reflected the deep divide in US politics. Nancy Pelosi, a former House speaker who oversaw Trump’s impeachments, said the charges outlined “a sinister plot”.

The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, said the indictment “illustrates in shocking detail … a months-long criminal plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the will of the American people”.

Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the latest charges “the most significant [Trump] has yet faced because they address the most serious offense he committed: trying to block the peaceful transfer of power and keep himself in office”.

The case was assigned to the district judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender nominated by Barack Obama.

Chutkan has handed down prison sentences in January 6 riot cases harsher than prosecutors recommended. She ruled against Trump in a separate January 6 case, refusing his request to block the release of documents to a House committee investigating the attack.

In a memorable line from her ruling, Chutkan wrote: “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”

ATTACHMENT TEN – From Mediaite

‘COINCIDENCE OR COVER-UP?’ FOX HOST CLAIMS TRUMP INDICTMENT ‘COORDINATED TO TAKE THE HEAT OFF BIDEN’ IN RANT COMPLETE WITH VISUAL AIDS

By Caleb Howe Aug 2nd, 2023, 12:17 pm

The graphics on the screen said “Coincidence or Cover-Up?” but the Fox News host in front of those images wasn’t posing a question but answering it, claiming that “this isn’t a coincidence” and Justice Department indictments of Donald Trump are specifically “coordinated” to “take the heat off” of President Joe Biden, in a Tuesday night segment.

Jesse Watters presented a graphic timeline demonstrating what he said was no coincidental timing, but a coordinated effort, presumably between the DOJ and the White House directly, to indict Trump in order to shift the news and attention away from the president and his son, Hunter Biden, whose criminal charges and collapsed plea deal have been big news lately and consistently.

Trump was indicted again Tuesday on charges related to January 6, and the explosive development has Trump and allies on offense, and Hunter Biden’s name coming up a lot.

On Jesse Watters Primetime Tuesday, the host made no bones about his claim, presenting it as fact that the indictments are designed to distract from the Bidens.

“The timing of this indictment was coordinated to take the heat off Biden,” he said. “This is the third time this has happened.”

He then went through the dates of the last 3 Trump indictments, noting Joe or Hunter Biden stories that took place the day before. “You ready?” he said as the timeline chart appeared on screen.

On March 17th, Hunter admitted the laptop was his. And on the very next day, Trump received word Alvin Bragg was indicting him in New York. On June 8th, an FBI document broke that Ukraine paid Biden a $5 million bribe. And the next day, on June 9th, Biden’s DOJ indicts Trump on the Mar-a-Lago documents. Yesterday, on July 31st, a Biden insider told Congress that Biden spoke with Hunter Biden’s business partners dozens of times, and Hunter was paid handsomely to get his dad to fire the prosecutor in Ukraine. And then today, August 1st, Biden’s Justice Department indicts Trump on January 6 charges. This isn’t a coincidence. Any time Biden’s in trouble, Trump pays for it and the news cycle flips.

The clip of this timeline caught on in social media posts from the right.

After presenting that theory, Watters said that Trump is the most likely to win in 2024, and after pardoning himself will have no choice but to seek revenge if elected a second time.

Trump then shared a clip of that take on his Truth Social.

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – From the New York Post

2024 Republican candidates take sides as Trump indicted over 2020 election interference

By David Propper August 2, 2023 12:46am

		NET FAVORABILITY
Hush money payments to alleged mistress	March 30	+49.8%	+52.1%	+2.3
Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago	June 8	+53.2	+49.6	-3.6
Plot to overturn the election	Aug. 1	+47.4	?	?

ALLEGATION	% WHO THINK IT’S A SERIOUS CRIME
Conspiring to overturn the results of a presidential election	71%
Attempting to obstruct certifying a presidential election	69
Taking classified documents and obstructing retrieval efforts	64
Falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments	50

CASE	% WHO THINK TRUMP ACTED ILLEGALLY
Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago	53%
Events at the Capitol on Jan. 6	45
Hush money payments to alleged mistress	35

		NET FAVORABILITY
Hush money payments to alleged mistress	March 30	-14.8%	-15.2%	-0.4
Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago	June 8	-13.6	-16.2	-2.6
Plot to overturn the election	Aug. 1	-15.8	?	?

More on the Trump Jan. 6 indictment

The latest: A grand jury indicted former president Donald Trump on Tuesday for a raft of alleged crimes in his brazen efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Follow live updates.

The charges: Trump faces four charges in connection with what prosecutors allege was a plan to overturn the r

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN – From the Washington Post

The third Trump indictment gets a stamp of approval from Bill Barr

Philip Bump August 3, 2023 at 10:10 a.m. EDT

William Barr was already a former attorney general when he preemptively reached out to the Justice Department in 2018 to criticize the investigation into links between President Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russia. A few months later, Trump’s attorney general was ousted and, a few months after that, Barr was in.

In short order, Barr approved an investigation into the roots of the Russia probe, precisely the sort of thing Trump had demanded. Barr was similarly useful in dealing with the fruits of that probe, including intervening to suggest a reduced punishment for Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone after the latter was convicted of lying to Congress.

Of course, Barr effected Trump’s will more broadly than that. Most notoriously, and controversially, he spoke with law enforcement near Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020, shortly before a crowd of protesters was roughly removed from the area. The clearing of the area allowed Trump to progress across the street for a photo shoot that was quickly looped into his reelection campaign. Barr denied the park was cleared at his direction.

All of this made his public rejection of Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen in December 2020 more noteworthy. Barr told the Associated Press that there was no evidence of fraud, eliciting a furious response from Trump and, in short order, Barr’s ouster. He went from being seen as a loyal ally in the president’s eyes to one of a galaxy of former aides who earned mockery from Trump on social media.

Speaking to Kaitlan Collins on CNN Barr, on Wednesday, explained why it took him until December 2020 to reject Trump’s false claims. “If I had come out, and shot from the hip, without doing some due diligence, and making sure I understood what the claims were, and that I knew the facts, and if I turned out to be wrong, without doing due diligence?” he said. “I think that would have been a disaster for the country.”

This aligns with Barr’s testimony to the House select committee investigating Trump’s efforts to retain power after the election. At that point Barr declared that, for Trump, “there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.” For Barr there was, and the facts did not support the claims Trump was making.

It is not surprising, then, that Barr also told Collins he believed the indictment handed down against Trump on Tuesday was valid, something he seems never to have believed about the Russia probe. “I don’t know if I would have approved the indictment,” he said. He also said, though, “I think it’s a legitimate case.” He continued, “As a legal matter, I don’t see a problem with the indictment. I think it’s not an abuse. The Department of Justice is not acting to weaponize the department by proceeding against the president for a conspiracy to subvert the electoral process.”

Barr expressed concern about the overlap of a trial with the election, in part because he said it would distract from actual issues. He also offered renewed criticism of how the Justice Department is handling charges brought against President Biden’s son Hunter. But in the center of that buffet of delights for Trump’s base was an endorsement of the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith, along with a defense of Smith. “I know a lot of Republican lawyers who have worked with him over the years,” Barr said. “And they tell me he is a tough, hard-nosed prosecutor, but that he is not a partisan prosecutor.”

Barr also rejected the first-blush defense Trump’s attorney has been offering in recent interviews and said this was not an assault on Trump’s First Amendment rights. “All conspiracies involve speech. And all fraud involves speech,” Barr said. “So free speech doesn’t give you the right to engage in a fraudulent conspiracy.”

Moreover, Barr said, he came to believe Trump “knew well that he had lost the election.” He pointed to evidence including reports before the election that Trump would declare victory regardless of outcome and again to his “lack of curiosity as to what the actual facts were.” “I think he brought this on himself,” Barr said. “This is one of the reasons I oppose him for the Republican nomination, because he has this penchant for engaging in these reckless acts that create these calamitous situations, and then undercut the cause he is supposed to be leading. And this is a perfect example of it.”

Barr noted the reckless acts had negative effects on others, too, like the co-defendants in the classified documents case. “I think these two people down in Mar-a-Lago represent many Republicans who feel that they have to man the ramparts and defend this guy no matter what he does and go along with him,” Barr said. “And I think they have to be careful, or they are going to end up as part of the carnage in his wake.

Barr understands this from firsthand experience. When he sent his letter to the Justice Department five years ago, little could Barr have anticipated that he would eventually become a target of Trump’s disparagement and hostility for making obviously true statements about the 2020 election. The thing about being shunted into the enormous and growing pool of Trump’s mortal enemies, however, is that there is no longer any reason to go along with his overheated claims about how he is being persecuted.

Philip Bump is a Post columnist based in New York. He writes the newsletter How To Read This Chart and is the author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. Twitter

ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT – From dw.com

Donald Trump could be first US president elected behind bars

By Ines Pohl 08/03/2023 August 3, 2023

The former US President has been indicted for the third time, accused of serious crimes in the middle of election season. DW's Washington correspondent Ines Pohl answers the most important questions.

What makes the third indictment against Trump different?

The latest indictment includes what are undoubtedly the most serious accusations against Donald Trump. The allegations revolve around his efforts to undermine the result of the 2020 presidential election, as well as to incite his supporters to storm the capitol in January 2021. The indictment also entails allegations that he conspired to defraud the United States and prevented voters from carrying out their constitutional rights.

The charges could have a major impact on the Republican candidate's reelection campaign, and they're significantly more serious than those in the past, which included indictments for falsifying business records in New York and withholding top-secret documents in Florida.

What impact will the indictment have on Trump's reelection campaign?

That depends on who you're referring to. There's a core of Trump supporters whose minds won't be changed by anything. In fact, Trump might even be able to shrewdly use the trial to raise money for his campaign. He could then, in turn, use those funds to help cover his legal fees. One could even say that the indictment could actually help him among this group.

A lot of swing voters will be scared off by the indictment, as will Republican voters who are concerned that the proceedings could lower Trump's chances of defeating incumbent Joe Biden.

What do the surveys say?

Donald Trump is by far the most popular Republican candidate. Everything indicates that he will win the party's primary and become the Republican challenger in the 2024 US presidential election.

According to a recent poll, Biden and Trump are tied in a hypothetical rematch at 43% support for their return to the White House.

What do the indictments mean for Trump's candidacy?

The big question is whether or not the trials will be finished before the elections. The court dates are set for March and May of 2024, which is right around the time members of the two major parties vote for candidates in the primaries.

The proceedings will be highly complex, and Donald Trump will do everything in his power to delay the verdict until the elections are over.

How will Trump contest the allegations?

He'll probably rely on his right to free speech, which is very wide-reaching in the United States, but that's unlikely to help him much in this case.

It will be interesting to see if he's able to convince the judges that he himself was actually convinced that he had won the 2020 election because proving intent is essential in US criminal law. If he manages to do so, that would greatly increase his chances of winning in court.

Can Trump still become president if he's convicted?

The US Constitution lists very few conditions for the presidency. Candidates must be born US citizens, be at least 35 years old, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.

Beyond that, they can't have already been elected president twice before. So theoretically yes, Trump could still be elected president even if he was a convicted criminal serving time.

What would happen if Trump was elected while the trial was still ongoing?

That would likely cause a constitutional crisis. It would be unprecedented and would lead to a power struggle between the judiciary and the executive branches — meaning between the legal system and the government.

It would, however, be interesting to see how independent the courts really are, and whether or not Trump could manage to exert influence over the Department of Justice and the nation's criminal prosecution apparatus.

Can Trump pardon himself as president?

The general legal opinion is that it isn't possible, but in terms of constitutional law it isn't clear. The US Supreme Court would have to rule on the matter.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – From Fox

How Trump will fight back in court

By Ruth Marcus August 6, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Now the legal wrangling begins. The indictment of Donald Trump lays out four felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against voting rights.

Trump’s lawyers will surely move to challenge the legal sufficiency of the case, arguing that the allegations, even if true, don’t amount to a crime and filing a motion to dismiss the indictment even before the case goes to trial. I think they’ll lose; even if some charges are knocked out or pared back, prosecutors will be able to proceed on others. Trump will then have to wait for an appeal, if he is convicted, to raise the legal arguments again.

Here are the strongest — although perhaps not all that strong — claims we can expect to hear ahead of trial:

Argument #1: The statutes governing conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding (Counts Two and Three) don’t apply here, because that prohibition only covers destruction of evidence and other forms of evidence tampering.

The relevant law, 18 U.S.C. 1512(c), provides that whoever “corruptly (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

Most courts have broadly interpreted the second, “otherwise obstructs” language to cover conduct that ranges beyond document destruction. The provision, the Supreme Court said in a 1995 decision, “serves as a catchall, prohibiting persons from endeavoring to influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice.”

Some Jan. 6 defendants have argued that the law does not cover conduct outside the general area of document destruction or witness tampering. But the language is broader than that. As U.S. Appeals Court Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, wrote in an April ruling, U.S. v. Fischer, upholding the use of the obstruction statute, “no fewer than fourteen district judges in this jurisdiction have adopted the broad reading of the statute urged by the government to uphold the prosecution of defendants who allegedly participated in the Capitol riot.”

That doesn’t doom Trump’s argument. Trump nominee Gregory Katsas, dissented, arguing that the “otherwise obstructs” language meant that the illegal conduct had to have something to do with evidence. After all, he noted, the provision was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal in response to corporate wrongdoing and document destruction.

“Section 1512(c)(2) has been on the books for two decades and charged in thousands of cases — yet until the prosecutions arising from the January 6 riot, it was uniformly treated as an evidence-impairment crime,” Katsas wrote.

Even if Katsas is correct, however, prosecutors could argue that Trump’s efforts to prevent the election results from being certified are closer to evidence tampering than is the rioters’ conduct in assaulting police officers. Still, this is an issue on its way to the Supreme Court, and it’s not certain how the majority, which has been wary of endorsing broad interpretations of anti-corruption laws, would rule on the issue.

The intent question is a complicated one. The indictment repeatedly asserts that Trump knew he lost the election and sets out a mountain of evidence to that effect — his own statements, the conclusions of his top advisers, the unanimous findings of numerous courts.

At the same time, it recognizes that Trump had every right — whether he was lying or merely deluded — to argue that he had won. He just didn’t have the right to use illegal means to effectuate that victory. As Randall Eliason, a former federal public corruption prosecutor, has explained, “If I honestly believe a bank had cheated me and owes me money, that doesn’t mean I can rob the bank to get my money back.”

But the fact pattern in Trump’s case is a mix of perfectly legal claims of election fraud with other acts that prosecutors argue cross the line of legality — demanding that Georgia officials “find” the necessary votes to produce a win, arranging to submit phony slates of electors, pressing Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election after Pence insisted he had no such authority. (“You’re too honest,” Trump allegedly replied.)

The obstruction counts, as outlined above, require proof that the defendant acted “corruptly.” The meaning of corruptly under 1512(c) is far from settled, as the recent Fischer case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit illustrated. In that case, Pan wrote, “corruptly” was not at issue because the underlying obstructive action — assaulting Capitol police — was “independently unlawful.”

Here is a breakdown of all 78 charges Trump faces.

But the concurring judge, Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, said the “corruptly” provision requires proof the defendant “must intend to obtain a benefit that he knows is unlawful.” That at least gives Trump an opening to argue that he lacked the requisite intent in seeking to have himself declared the victor. Did he know he wasn’t entitled to the presidency? The D.C. Circuit is weighing the question in another Jan. 6 case argued in May; you can be sure both sides in the Trump case will be keeping a close eye on the ruling.

Whatever the meaning of corruptly, Trump’s argument under the conspiracy to defraud statute would be similar: that he was convinced the election had been stolen from him and he was making legitimate efforts to rectify the error. As the Justice Department’s instructions for prosecutors state, “The intent required for a conspiracy to defraud the government is that the defendant … performed acts or made statements that he/she knew to be false, fraudulent or deceitful to a government agency, which disrupted the functions of the agency or of the government.”

In the end, the issues of Trump’s state of mind and whether prosecutors have met their burden of proof will be questions for the jury to decide.

Argument #3: Trump relied on advice of counsel in pursuing his quest to remain in office.

I’m with Trump’s former attorney general, William P. Barr, on this one: “I don’t think that dog is going to hunt.” Reliance on advice of counsel is an affirmative defense available to Trump, but the lawyer actually has to be acting as the counsel (there’s no evidence that Trump retained Eastman for this purpose) and, even more important, that reliance has to be reasonable. Prosecutors will argue that Trump was told by numerous lawyers that Pence had no such power, notwithstanding Eastman’s contention to the contrary. The indictment notes that Trump, tellingly, excluded his own White House counsel from a meeting on the topic.

“He wouldn’t listen to all the lawyers … in various departments or the White House that had those responsibilities, or his campaign,” Barr said. “He would search for a lawyer who would give him the advice he wanted.”

Moreover, as a model prosecution memo produced by Just Security points out, the fact that the counsel on whom Trump supposedly relied is a (so-far unindicted) co-conspirator undercuts Trump’s ability to pursue this argument. In a 1984 case rejecting the reliance on counsel defense, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit noted that the lawyer “was integrally involved in the sham operation.”

To get the issue before jurors, Trump will have to show that he relied in good faith on his lawyers’ advice. Even if jurors buy that, however, it would not knock out all the charges against Trump, just the parts of those — such as the slates of phony electors and the Pence certification — where Eastman’s advice played a central role.

Argument #4: The federal civil rights statute under which Trump is accused of conspiring to interfere with the right to vote does not cover the conduct at issue here.

Earlier this year, a federal judge in New York upheld the use of Section 241 in a case involving a far-right activist’s effort to mislead Twitter users into thinking they could cast their votes for Hillary Clinton by posting hashtags on Twitter or Facebook or texting her name to a specific phone.

In rejecting the defendant’s argument that he wasn’t properly on notice that such conduct could be criminal under Section 241, the court quoted from a 1941 Supreme Court case: “It is no extension of the criminal statute … to find a violation of it in a new method of interference with the right which its words protect. For it is the constitutional right, regardless of the method of interference, which is the subject of the statute.”

Still, Trump could argue that prosecutors are using Section 241 far beyond its original, intended purpose. Preventing the vote from being certified is different, or so they could argue, from stopping people from casting ballots. “What Trump did, though reprehensible, bears no relation to what the statute covers,” National Review editorialized. I thought we were all textualists now, and the text of the statute clearly seems to cover Trump’s conduct. But brace yourself for this argument, too.

If Trump knows anything, it’s how to manipulate the legal system to his advantage, which in this case means throwing up a lot of arguments to see what will stick, in the hope, above all, of delaying a trial. After all, Trump’s winningest legal strategy would be to return to office and order the prosecution dismissed. But he may not be able to pull that off. An experienced federal judge, Tanya Chutkan, is overseeing the case. A former public defender, she well understands the importance of protecting Trump’s rights, but also that there is a public interest in having a speedy trial. If she rejects Trump’s arguments, his hopes lie in an acquittal or eventual success on appeal. But that is a long way down the road, and almost certainly after the next election.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY – From the Guardian UK

Trump supporters condemn January 6 charges after third arraignment this year

Republicans and rightwing commentators line up to condemn prosecution – though Pence dissents and DeSantis avoids using Donald Trump’s name

Mary Yang Fri 4 Aug 2023 05.00 EDT

It’s the third time Donald Trump has been arraigned this year, even as he is the only former US president in history to face criminal charges. Each time, Trump and his supporters, as well as detractors, have moved to gain from his time in court.

Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a Washington federal court to three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction in a plot to subvert the results of the 2020 election. He similarly denied his guilt in March over hush money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, and then in June for illegally hoarding classified documents at his Florida resort.

Outrage after DeSantis says he’d ‘start slitting throats’if elected president

After Trump was indicted on Tuesday, the former vice-president Mike Pence – whom Trump allegedly called “too honest” after he refused to reject electoral votes according to the indictment – used the arraignment as fodder for his own campaign, including to sell merch. “[A]nyone who puts himself over the constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said in a statement.

Trump has also moved to profit from each of his own indictments, blasting supporters with a barrage of fundraising requests after his court appearances in Miami and New York.

Minutes after Trump left Washington, his son, Eric Trump, sent out a fundraising email with language calling the city “the belly of the beast”, according to NBC News. His campaign pulled in nearly $4m after his first arraignment in March and considerably less but still more than $1m after his arraignment in June, according to the New York Times.

Trump earlier said being arrested was “a great honor” in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. He also posted Thursday ahead of his arraignment: “I NEED ONE MORE INDICTMENT TO ENSURE MY ELECTION!”

A district attorney, Fani Willis, is due to hand down a fourth indictment, related to election interference in Georgia, in the coming weeks.

Conservative media outlets largely heaped praise on Trump while blasting the current probes against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. When asked by a CNN reporter if he would follow the indictment as he was cycling on vacation, the president said: “No.”

Trump has seemingly grown more comfortable with each indictment, according to NBC News’ Garrett Haake, who has covered each indictment from the ground.

While Trump appeared “tight and tense” on his March court date in Manhattan, he was joking with his attorneys in Washington, Haake told MSNBC Thursday evening. “He seemed so much more comfortable and practised at this.”

For many, the federal charges against Trump for his role in inciting the violence at the US Capitol were the first steps to finally holding the ex-president accountable for the deadly attack over which 1,000 individuals have been charged. A US Capitol police officer, Sgt Aquilino Gonell, was in the courtroom where Trump appeared for his arraignment, along with two other officers who were overwhelmed by rioters.

“On that day, I risked my life defending everyone regardless of their political affiliation,” wrote Gonell in a statement released after Trump left the courthouse. “Our democracy is worth fighting for. Not prosecuting is far riskier than having no consequences for the alleged power grab attempts. Justice and the rule of law must win for our democracy to survive.”

Adam Schiff of California, a member of the House January 6 select committee, signed a letter along with dozens of other Democratic lawmakers urging the district court to publicly broadcast the trial proceedings. “It is imperative the conference ensures timely access to accurate and reliable information surrounding these cases and all of their proceedings, given the extraordinary national importance to our democratic institutions and the need for transparency,” the letter said.

After the Tuesday indictment, Schiff said in a statement posted online the law “must” be enforced against a former US president and candidate for “the sake of our democracy”.

Trump attorney John Lauro, who joined the legal team after special prosecutor Jack Smith informed the ex-president he was a target in the January 6 case, suggested moving the trial to West Virginia, which he called a more “diverse area” than DC (???) in an interview with NPR ahead of the arraignment. Former federal prosecutors and legal experts said there was no basis for doing so.

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who is the strongest contender for the Republican nomination after Trump, though trailing by a wide margin, said in a statement released after the Tuesday indictment that he would “end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans”.

DeSantis did not, however, refer to Trump by name, and said he did not read the indictment.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY ONE – From the Washington Post

Awkwardness in Trump’s circle: Top aides could be trial witnesses

Some of Trump’s closest advisers are referenced in charges against him, potentially putting them in a bind as cases advance

By Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey August 5, 2023 at 8:45 a.m. EDT

At least seven currently serving advisers to former president Donald Trump took actions that are mentioned prominently in one of his three criminal indictments or have been interviewed by prosecutors, potentially setting up uncomfortable situations in which they are working for his 2024 presidential bid while also serving as witnesses at one of his upcoming trials.

They include his top presidential campaign adviser, as well as a senior communications aide and several other campaign staffers. Walt Nauta, his closest personal aide who is frequently at his side on the campaign trail, is now a co-defendant in the case in which Trump is accused of mishandling classified documents.

Other witnesses could be drawn from a broader network of former Trump employees, political associates and longtime allies. Even the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, a longtime Trump ally who would be responsible for helping Trump win the White House should he become the party’s nominee, could be forced to take the witness stand.

Their roles add another awkward dimension to the never-before-seen prospect of a former president and possible major-party nominee standing trial while running for president. The aides’ involvement in the legal cases could further complicate their scheduling and discussions with the candidate, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, who relies on a relatively small staff.

“My best friends are lawyers,” one Trump adviser joked on Thursday, echoing a common experience among the former president’s aides that their service so often comes with legal bills.

The situation poses practical challenges for a famously undisciplined candidate running a major campaign while also preparing for multiple criminal trials, two brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Trump has been ordered by a Florida judge to avoid discussion of the documents case with Nauta and a list of witnesses compiled by prosecutors. Prosecutors have identified at least 84 witnesses in that case alone.

At Trump’s arraignment on Thursday, where he pleaded not guilty to charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a federal judge ordered him not to talk to any witnesses about the case unless through attorneys.

Asked to comment about Trump staffers who may have to serve as witnesses, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung alleged the investigation is harassing Trump aides to interfere with his campaign. “It is clear that Joe Biden knows he’s losing to President Trump and is now using his weaponized Department of Justice to attack his campaign team in order to interfere in the election,” he said.

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment.

Here is a breakdown of all 78 charges Trump faces.

Potential witnesses in the cases will also face a special challenge to keep Trump’s confidence in their loyalty while at the same time avoiding drawing prosecutors’ suspicions. Even though their grand jury testimony and document production was compelled by subpoenas, as would be trial testimony, any appearance of cooperating with the case against Trump could cause the former president to turn on loyal aides, spoiling their day jobs.

“Those called as witnesses are best served by letting the facts fall as they find them and ensuring they are perceived as objective,” said Brian Whisler, who represented cabinet members and senior staff of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, many of whom testified at his 2014 federal corruption trial. Their testimony helped lead to a jury conviction for McDonnell and his wife, though the verdict was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of Trump, Whisler added: “Based on his public statements, it seems entirely possible he would be somewhat suspicious about other people’s actions in this case.”

During Trump’s presidency, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election made for awkward interactions, according to former aides who testified to the special counsel and then returned to work down the hall from the man they had testified about.

Trump instructed aides to answer investigators’ questions, former chief of staff John Kelly said, but assumed his aides would tell investigators nothing untoward happened.

Kelly said Trump was angered to learn how much time then-White House counsel Donald McGahn spent with Mueller’s team. In his final report, released in 2019, Mueller described how Trump badgered McGahn after learning that he had revealed to Mueller’s team that Trump had at one point intended to fire the special counsel. “Actually, lawyer Don McGahn had a much better chance of being fired than Mueller. Never a big fan!” Trump tweeted not long after the report was published.

“When he found out Don McGahn and others went down there and told the truth, it was kind of a shocker to him,” Kelly said. “In the world he grew up in, people would lie and cheat for him because you were theoretically loyal to him. He didn’t like it at all.”

Similarly, during the House Jan. 6 investigation last year, Trump was upset at aides — and even some family members — for their testimony that sometimes directly contradicted his election fraud claims, growing angry as he watched some of the clips played on live TV, multiple advisers said.

In those instances, however, close advisers and friends largely offered testimony behind closed doors, with damaging bits played in small bursts months later. If called to testify at one of Trump’s trials, advisers would be required to take the witness stand and speak live in courtrooms crowded with reporters, separated by just a few feet from their boss at the defendant’s table.

Some of Trump’s current advisers have faced pointed questioning from Smith’s prosecutors, who appeared to believe they have not been forthcoming when questioned about Trump’s actions in the two federal cases, according to two people familiar with the matter. Some told Trump subsequently that they felt as though the prosecutors were hostile to them.

In Trump’s current orbit, advisers say they have tried to separate his legal and political discussions to avoid extra subpoenas to his team, but there is no surefire way to fully separate the two when his legal fate is almost certainly tied to his political fate, and vice versa. The campaign’s messaging and scheduling have become increasingly intertwined with Trump’s criminal defense, making it harder to insulate political aides from legal discussions.

The list of advisers who could serve as witnesses is long.

Nauta, the president’s omnipresent personal aide, will face trial with him in Florida. Prosecutors have alleged that Nauta lied to the government and helped Trump move boxes of documents to hide them from investigators.

Trump’s senior campaign adviser, Susie Wiles, is one of the people to whom Trump is accused of improperly showing classified documents. The Florida indictment says Trump showed the map to “a representative of his political action committee,” indicating that he should not be doing so and warning her not to get too close. People familiar with the episode have said the PAC representative was Wiles, who was running his political operation at that time. The indictment says Wiles did not have a security clearance.

The indictment also alleges that two weeks after the FBI conducted a court-ordered search at the Mar-a-Lago resort, Wiles was on a Signal chat group in which another Trump employee assured the group that Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, remained loyal to Trump. De Oliveira was charged in July with lying to investigators and trying to cover up evidence. Wiles is not alleged to have sent a message herself.

Wiles’ grand jury testimony blindsided others on Trump’s team when it appeared in the indictment, aides said. She remains one of Trump’s closest advisers, overseeing his campaign operation, finances and travel. Wiles has privately told others she only testified because she was required to by law after receiving a subpoena and that she remains loyal to Trump. She declined to comment.

Jason Miller, another senior adviser on the campaign focusing on press and communications, was referenced in Tuesday’s indictment related to the 2020 election as a “Senior Campaign Advisor,” people familiar with the case said.

“You can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases,” Miller wrote in an email quoted in the indictment, referring to the campaign’s loss record in court challenges to the 2020 election and disparaging the efforts to subvert the election results. “It’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy sh — beamed down from the mothership.”

The indictment also alleges that Miller spoke with Trump and informed him that election fraud claims, such as that votes were fraudulently cast in the name of dead people in Georgia, were not true. Those conversations could be critical to the prosecutors’ attempts to prove that Trump knew the claims were false, a required element of three of the four charges in the Jan. 6 case.

Miller has told others that he was not being critical of Trump but of the legal team around him following the 2020 election, and that he too remains loyal to Trump. Trump advisers say they feel many of the inclusions are gratuitous and are designed to draw wedges between Trump and his team.

Miller declined to comment for this story.

Lawyer Evan Corcoran remains a member of Trump’s legal team even after the Mar-a-Lago indictment extensively relied on his accounts of his interactions with Trump, referring to him as “Trump Attorney 1.” In one such conversation, Trump allegedly praised a lawyer who had supposedly deleted Hillary Clinton’s emails. In another, Trump allegedly suggested Corcoran could take documents to his hotel room and pluck out anything bad before turning the records over to the FBI.

Corcoran attended Trump’s arraignment in his case related to Jan. 6 this week, emerging from the judge’s chambers just before the former president and his other attorneys and then sitting behind the defendant's table during the hearing. He is no longer heavily involved in Trump’s defense, multiple advisers said, largely because of his role as a witness.

Reached by phone, Corcoran hung up.

Liz Harrington and Margo Martin, both current campaign aides, were part of a meeting where Trump was recorded seeming to acknowledge that he knew he had secret documents, The Washington Post has reported.

“This is secret information,” Trump said in the recording, taken during a meeting with writers helping prepare former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ book, according to the indictment. “As president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

“Now we have a problem,” Harrington said, laughing.

Harrington did not respond to a request for comment. She has taken a less influential role in the past year, Trump advisers said. Martin’s attorney, Bob Driscoll, said it is simple and routine for people who work together to comply with a judge’s order not to discuss an ongoing case.

“Every lawyer tells their client, ‘Don’t talk about the case except when talking to me,’” he said. “They can interact on campaign stuff — but you don’t want your witnesses contaminating each other and getting their memories screwed up.”

Will Russell, a White House alumnus who is working for the campaign on a contract basis, testified repeatedly to the grand jury investigating Trump’s actions before Jan. 6. When Russell appeared in July, his lawyer told a judge that the questions potentially involved executive privilege, suggesting they related to conversations with Trump himself.

Trump aide’s Jan. 6 grand jury appearance sparks fracas with U.S. judge

Stan Woodward, a lawyer for Russell, declined to comment.

The head of the main super PAC supporting Trump’s campaign, Taylor Budowich, testified to the grand jury in the documents case in June. Budowich was Trump’s spokesman during 2022 when the former president drafted a statement saying he had given “everything” back to the federal government. Budowich declined to release the statement after consulting with lawyers and advisers, fearful that it might not be accurate, people familiar with the matter have said.

Budowich is already largely walled off from direct interactions with Trump because campaign finance law prohibits super PACs from coordinating with allied campaigns. Budowich did not respond to a request for comment.

Another campaign adviser and lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, has come under scrutiny in the Jan. 6 case. Federal agents with court-authorized search warrants seized his cellphone last year, and Epshteyn appeared before the special counsel’s team in April. Epshteyn’s ongoing involvement in Trump’s legal team caused tensions with some of the other attorneys, leading at least one of them to quit in recent months.

Epshteyn declined to comment.

The indictment filed last week also describes a phone call in which Trump and “co-conspirator 2,” identified as attorney John Eastman, spoke to Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman, about a plan to convene Trump’s electors even in states where President Biden had been certified the winner of the 2020 election. The indictment alleges that Eastman “falsely represented to her” that the phony electors would only be submitted if the campaign’s court challenges succeeded in changing the outcome in one of the decisive states.

McDaniel speaks with Trump often, including recently to lobby him to attend the first primary debate later this month.

An RNC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Perry Stein contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY TWO – From U.S. News

QUOTES: Reaction to the Indictment of Donald Trump

Allies and adversaries were quick to respond to news that former President Donald Trump had been charged with attempting to subvert the peaceful transfer of power.

By U.S. News Staff Aug. 1, 2023, at 7:48 p.m.

A federal grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Tuesday as part of a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Reactions to the indictment were swift to follow.

Jack Smith, special prosecutor:

“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies – lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”

Merrick Garland, attorney general:

“Mr. Smith and his team are experienced, principled career agents, prosecutors have followed the facts and the law wherever they may lead.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence, 2024 GOP contender:

“Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”

"Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 2024 GOP contender:

Vivek Ramaswamy, 2024 GOP contender:

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, 2024 GOP contender:

Trump campaign:

“This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins.”

Chuck Schumer, Senate majority leader/Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader:

Rep. Steve Scalise, House majority leader:

Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker:

"As this case proceeds through the courts, justice must be done according to the facts and the law."

Rep. Elise Stefanik, Republican conference chair:

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Jan. 6 committee member:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican:

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican:

“When you drain The Swamp, The Swamp fights back. President Trump did nothing wrong!”

Rep. Joaquin Castro, Texas Democrat:

Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican:

“DOJ unveils the latest effort to stop Trump from running against Biden – totally unprecedented in American history.”

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law:

Reed Galen and Rick Wilson, co-founders of The Lincoln Project:

Marilyn Carpinteyro, Common Cause interim co-president

Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director:

ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE – From Time

ALWAYS BE READY TO RUN': FOR SOME CAPITOL WORKERS, IT'S STILL JAN. 6

“Trump facing some form of accountability was supposed to feel better than this,” the chief of staff to a Democrat in Congress told me in the midst of yet another lockdown. This was Wednesday afternoon, the day after Special Counsel Jack Smith had released his four-count indictment against former President Donald Trump, a move that was both cheered by many Hill denizens while also sending some of them back to one of the worst days of their lives, that harrowing moment when they barricaded themselves in offices as hundreds of Trump loyalists roamed the complex looking for lawmakers to intimidate—or worse.

And then came the 911 call suggesting there was an active shooter in the Hart Senate Office Building and what has become an all-too-familiar routine kicked in.

“I had to silence my cell phone, blockade my office door, and keep the staffers here calm,” the chief of staff said. The echo of Jan. 6, 2021, was almost too precise.

Even before that midday adrenaline spike, many Capitol staffers have been mentally bracing for Thursday, when Trump is due to make his first appearance in federal court to answer felony charges related to his behavior related to the mob attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Wednesday’s lockdown was like a metaphor for the sense of security that Capitol workers had lost since that day.

“I hate it here,” one junior staffer messaged his friends as the threat was ongoing.

“This s— doesn’t get any easier,” a Republican chief of staff messaged me back on a secure app.

“K Street looks better by the day,” a second Democratic chief of staff replied when I did a quick check-in.

Yet for staffers over a certain age—particularly those in their 40s, those of us who were leaving high school around the Columbine shooting in the spring of 1999—this is all new. This cohort is the one now leading staff in senior roles, and many of them are especially having trouble adapting to this new dynamic.

Quantifying the impact is tricky, for sure. But there are some metrics that are at the ready. In the year that followed the Jan. 6 riots, 135 officers had left the 2,000-person Capitol Police force; a year earlier, that number stood at 80. In 2017, there were fewer than 4,000 threats made against Congress. In 2021, that number skyrocketed to 9,600.

In the 30,000-person city within a city that is the Capitol complex, the turnover numbers are only part of the story. One former Democratic member of Congress who was at the Capitol that day but has since retired has nicknamed their former place of employment Doom City: “Every day was like attending a wake. The joy was gone, the celebration of service was killed.”

Chiefs of staff had already noticed the growing sense of unease, especially for their employees who were at the Capitol for the attack, and now seem to be just waiting for it to happen all over again. “Don’t ask Are you OK? unless you want a real answer,” a Senate senior aide warned me earlier this week, even before the Capitol crashed into lockdown.

Talk to any receptionist in a member’s office—especially Democratic ones, but not exclusively—and they now always have the right forms at the ready to report threats that come to the switchboard. Some offices have just started sending everything to voicemail so they have evidence of the belligerence. Republicans deemed insufficiently MAGA are spared none of the wrath, and those still willing to downplay Jan. 6 keep a wide berth in public lest they be latched to perceived traitors.

In the months that followed the riot, Capitol Hill transformed from one of the most accessible places in the federal government into a fortress on par with the White House. At one point, more armed troops patrolled Capitol Hill than Afghanistan. Security fences went up, and down, and up again. Heck, metal detectors were even installed just off the House floor to screen lawmakers for guns. That’s how toxic and anxiety-demanding working on the Hill had become.

And all of that unresolved trauma came rushing back on Wednesday, 24 hours before Trump was set to return to another fortified building just down the street and presumably plead not guilty over his role in a tragic day that he continues to misrepresent. By the time the all-clear message went across the Capitol complex, the nerves had frayed. Capitol Police said it was likely a “bogus” call, but nonetheless went door to door through all of the Senate office buildings just to be sure. Police then escorted staffers from the building, again just to be sure. There was no indication of shots fired, injuries, or an ongoing threat, but that is little consolation to the professionals on the Hill who had to relive their Jan. 6 experiences during a week when many are already struggling to put the trauma behind them.

This, right here, is why so many of the best and brightest don’t want to log a few years on Capitol Hill. The drag on mental health isn’t remotely worth it.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR – From GUK

‘THESE PEOPLE ARE DIEHARD’: IOWA TRUMP SUPPORTERS SHRUG OFF INDICTMENTS

Many in the state see prosecution of Trump as a Democratic political move – and they say it will backfire

By Chris McGreal in Cresco, Iowa Sun 6 Aug 2023 03.00 EDT

From his corner of rural Iowa, Neil Shaffer did more than his fair share to put Donald Trump in the White House and to try to keep him there.

Shaffer oversaw the biggest swing of any county in the US from Barack Obama to Trump in 2016, and increased the then president’s share of the vote four years later. But the chair of the Howard county Republican party is not enthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Trump presidential campaign, and he blames the Democrats for driving it.

“Honestly, the Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot with these prosecutions,” he said. “Why is Trump doing so well? Because people feel like they are piling on him. If this is the Democrats’ effort to make him look bad, it hasn’t. It’s probably going to make him the [Republican] nominee and, honestly, he may win the general election again. And then whose fault would it be?”

Pence would be ‘best witness’ in Trump electionconspiracy trial, attorney says

After pleading not guilty on Thursday to federal charges over his attempts to steal the 2020 presidential election, Trump denounced the indictment as “a persecution of a political opponent”.

“If you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him,” he said.

There are plenty who buy that line in Iowa and the rest of Trump-sympathetic America.

Ron DeSantis’s biggest donor to pull plug until campaign makes changes

With Trump likely to spend a good part of the next year in one courtroom or another, after being indicted in New York, Florida and Washington on an array of charges and with more expected in Georgia before long, his supporters are more than willing to believe it is a plot to keep their man out of the White House.

One of them is Tom Schatz, a Howard county farmer on Iowa’s border with Minnesota.

“They’re bringing the charges against Trump so he can’t run against Biden. Biden is so damn crooked. We’ve never had this kind of shit in this United States, ever,” he said. “Democrats are gonna keep riding [Trump’s] ass and bringing shit up against him. They don’t quit. They just don’t like him because he’s draining the swamp, and they don’t like that.”

Schatz, like many Trump supporters, sees the prosecutions as part of a pattern of establishment attacks, from Congress twice impeaching the then president to the FBI’s investigation into alleged ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign. The same message is hammered home on rightwing talk radio stations that are often the background to the working day in rural America.

On the day of Trump’s arraignment, Buck Sexton, a former CIA analyst on AM 600 WMT in Iowa, was energetically telling his listeners, without irony, that the prosecutions undermined confidence in the electoral system.

“We are up against something we have never dealt with before,” he said. “They don’t care how reckless this is, the Democrats. It doesn’t bother them the disruption that they are doing to faith in the judicial system, faith in our elections, something that he’s talked about all the time. How can you have a fair election when one candidate has soon to be four criminal trials against him? Specifically timed to happen during the election.”

Some support drained away to the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, after several prominent candidates backed by the former president lost in the midterm elections last November. For a while, polls put DeSantis ahead of Trump in a primary matchup. Shaffer said his county party was split, although at the time he still thought Trump would win because his supporters had more energy and commitment.

Shaffer sensed the renewed vigor in Trump’s campaign when he met the former president days before the latest indictment, at the Iowa Republican party’s annual fundraising Lincoln Dinner. Trump was among 13 candidates there to argue their case before meeting party activists one on one. So was his former vice-president, Mike Pence.

“I feel bad for Pence because there were 500 people in line to see Trump and there were literally five people in the room for Pence,” said Shaffer. “Trump has that connection. Most of our group was there just to meet him.”

Shaffer said the line to see DeSantis was longer than for Pence but nothing like the one for Trump, which he took as further evidence that the rightwing Florida governor’s moment had passed and that the the prosecutions helped revive Trump’s candidacy.

“I think DeSantis is awesome. I think he’ll make a great president someday. But as long as Trump is running, there’s no way he’s gonna get the nomination,” he said.

The polls back Shaffer’s view. But among some Howard county voters, support for Trump is more ambivalent.

Tom Schatz’s son, Aaron, was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016. He voted for Obama but didn’t like Hillary Clinton. He was much more enthusiastic about Trump four years later but has cooled on him since.

For all that, Schatz believes the former president is the victim of a political conspiracy.

The dairy and corn farmer said he was more concerned about inflation, rising interest rates and falling prices for his milk than the details of the 45-page indictment laying out Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. He preferred to see the charges as evidence of a double standard in which the Washington establishment failed to properly investigate Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden for alleged crimes.

Asked about Trump’s part in the January 6 storming of the Capitol, Schatz brushed it off as a bad thing but not very different from what he said were Democratic politicians encouraging the protests and riots that followed the killing of George Floyd three years ago.

“They burned down Minneapolis. Were they prosecuted for that?“ he asked. “Trump acted poorly when he lost, I’ll give them that. But they’re just out to get anything they can on him. Part of me thinks that all they’re going to do is unite the Trump followers. I think they’re doing more harm than good.”

Shaffer, too, is not persuaded by the detail of the indictment.

“I still don’t like a lot of what Trump was doing, a lot of what he was saying. People know he didn’t handle himself very well from election day through January 6. But does it rise to the level where he should go to jail because he said something in a phone call? I think we’re more adult than that,” he said.

Suspicions about the barrage of indictments even extends to the chair of Howard county’s Democratic party, Laura Hubka, a US navy veteran and ultrasound technologist at the city’s hospital who has no like of Trump.

“I think that they’re going after him because he’s running,” she said. “Did he break laws and is he a bad guy? Yeah. But I think if he just went into the sunset, and blathered on Truth Social, maybe they would just have left him alone. But once he ran again, people thought he’s popular enough to win again and we need to do something to stop him. They had to do something, I guess.”

The impact of Trump’s coming trials, and the evidence they lay bare, remains to be seen. But it might be expected that while diehard supporters will remain loyal through it all, those who voted for him once but then swung to Biden four years later have little reason to switch back.

Trump was defeated by 7m popular votes and 74 electoral college ballots in 2020, and some Democrats are calculating that he will struggle to overcome that deficit with the additional baggage of indictments, trials and possibly even prison time.

Yet the polls show the US’s two most recent presidents tied, including in key swing states such as Michigan.

Finally, three reasons for Donald Trump to be afraid: a courtroom, a jury and the truth

“Every time they indict him, he goes up in the polls,” said Shaffer. “I think the Democrats are so arrogant. Some of the liberals believe that, just like they did in 2016, he’ll never be elected, he’ll never get in again. Don’t be too sure about that.”

For her part, Hubka cannot believe that the polls are that close even if the election is more than a year away.

“I feel like he could be running from prison and it’ll still be a tight race with Joe Biden. That’s what scares me,” she said.

Which raises a question about why the Democrats are not doing better in a former stronghold like Howard county.

Shaffer says Howard county is doing well in many ways, and thanks to Biden. He said the presidents’s Inflation Reduction Act has pumped money into the county, paying to renew infrastructure, including bridges and roads. Shaffer’s conservation work for the state is well funded thanks to the federal government, and that brings financial benefits to farmers. In addition, the push for green energy has resulted in a proliferation of very profitable windmills.

“We’ve got a lot of windmills around here and it’s a huge benefit. Each one of those is valued at a million dollars and we’re able to tax them and it puts money in our budget so we can build bridges and roads and have money for the schools,” said Shaffer.

“I’ve got one of my farmers has four windmills and all the roads and lines. He gets $185,000 a year from it. He built a new home. He’s got new tractors. The whole northwest part of the county used to be a more depressed area. The windmills pumped in a lot of money “

Shaffer is surprised that, with so many Republicans denouncing renewable energy, the Democratic party isn’t making more of an effort to claim credit for the benefits in Howard county.

Hubka blames the Democratic national leadership, which has been accused of overly focusing on parts of the country where a majority of the residents have a college education, unlike rural Iowa.

“They need to get some balls, be more bold. I also feel like they just are writing off the rural counties,” she said.

But Hubka is still there, campaigning and waiting to see what happens if Trump goes to prison. She bought a gun before the last election because of so many threats from Trump supporters.

“I was really very scared that I was going to get shot or hurt. It’s calmed down a bit in that sense. But who knows what happens if he gets thrown in jail,” she said.

Around the corner from her hospital, a flag hanging outside a house might be read as a warning: “Trump 2024. The rules have changed.”

ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE – From the Washington Post

IN AN ATLANTA SUBURB, AMERICAN REALITIES COLLIDE OVER TRUMP’S INDICTMENT

Trump has changed the lives of Jenny Peterson and Jerry Ramsey. But they inhabit opposite poles in a divided America.

By Sarah Ellison and Greg Jaffe August 6, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

MARIETTA, Ga. — Hours after former president Donald Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election, Jenny Peterson was heading off to pick up Mexican food for her family. She’d tried to cut back on listening to the news in the car in favor of soul music. Politics left her too angry and agitated.

But on this night, the news was too big to ignore.

Peterson, 55, listened to NPR and flipped over to Fox News on her satellite radio to see what the other side was saying. She believed that so many of America’s core institutions were failing under the pressure of the former president and his followers. Convicting Trump wouldn’t fix those problems. But it was an essential first step.

“It’s important to me as a mom that my 16- and 14-year-old will see this one thing happen,” Peterson said. “Things will be improved when someone who has committed crimes in plain sight is held accountable.”

A few miles away, Jerry Ramsey, 79, was finishing up a landscaping job for the company he owns and heading home for dinner with his wife, Carolyn. She usually kept Fox News on in the background, but Ramsey didn’t feel the need to learn the intricacies of the case against Trump. As he saw it, the 45-page indictment was just another effort to tear down the country he, a Vietnam vet, had worked so hard to defend.

“They just dream stuff up,” he said. “They just keep coming after him.”

Peterson and Ramsey share a few things in common:

Both of their lives have been forever altered by Trump. His presidency has driven them to advocacy and enriched their social circles with new, like-minded friends.

Both live in Cobb County, a politically contested Atlanta suburb in a state at the center of the legal battle over the 2020 election. The latest Trump indictment detailed the former president’s attempts to strong-arm Georgia officials, with a separate, Georgia-specific indictment possible later this month.

And both believed that the legal proceedings and the 2024 election would finally render a judgment not just on Trump the man but on the future of America’s democracy.

The two Georgians, though, inhabited opposite poles in a divided America. They voted differently, took in information through different outlets and had radically different views of the threats to the country’s democracy.

It had been eight years since Trump first seized the American political spotlight. Two and a half years since he left office. Nine months since he declared his campaign to win back the White House.

If anything, it felt as though the two sides — those appalled by Trump and those who adore him — were growing ever more suspicious of each other. The divisions were reflected in opinion polls, which showed that Americans held diametrically opposite views of whether Trump should face criminal charges for his role in the attack on the Capitol. And they were reflected in the lives of Peterson and Ramsey.

On the day Trump was arraigned for his alleged crimes, they were living in close proximity but inhabiting separate political worlds and drawing radically divergent conclusions about the state of their nation. Trump’s coming trials and the November 2024 election seemed certain to escalate the tension.

The poles of American politics were on a collision course.

When conservative commentator Mark Levin appeared on screen, Ramsey picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

“He gets so excited!” said Ramsey’s wife, Carolyn, who was sitting across from him.

Levin was the angriest voice of the morning and the person Ramsey most wanted to hear. He spoke to Ramsey’s sense of outrage and fear for the country.

Ramsey was among Trump’s earliest outspoken supporters in Cobb County, which had long been a Republican stronghold but, like many growing suburbs in America, was increasingly trending toward Democratic control.

Ramsey had felt the magic and energy of Trump’s early rise as a candidate in 2015. He served in the Army in Vietnam and ran a series of small businesses, including his current venture as a landscaper. He liked that Trump was a fellow businessman, but what really drew him in was the energy and dedication of the crowds that rallied to him.

“That first summer there were twelve of us, and by the end, it was up to 300,” he recalled of the campaign’s active supporters in Cobb. He remembers the first time he climbed aboard a bus adorned with Trump’s campaign logo in early 2016 and headed to the Daytona 500. A local owner of a charter bus company had taken one of his buses and decorated it with Trump’s name as part of a freelance effort to support the candidate.

Ramsey awoke that first early morning in Florida to 100 people standing outside the bus, ready to buy the MAGA baseball caps he and his friend had brought down to sell. They didn’t stop until after 7 p.m.

“I know exactly what it is to be a rock star,” he said. “Stop the bus anywhere in the southeastern United States and within five minutes, there would be 50 people there.” Other trips on the bus followed, and he and the owner became close friends.

More than seven years and 38 Trump rallies later, Ramsey is a regional supervisor for the Cobb County Republican Party, overseeing 16 precincts. As the 2024 election approached, he was determined to awaken others to the dangers he believed the country faced — which he described as deep-state globalists and a broken election system that was subverting the will of the American people. Trump, he was sure, had the unique ability to stop them. Some days he wondered why more people weren’t putting in the hours for Trump.

After listening to Levin’s burst of anger — which reflected his own frustration — he started to go over his notes for a coming meeting with his precinct captains. He wanted to help them hone their own messages with potential voters, downplaying abortion and religion and hitting harder on the issues he thought were most important to Americans: inflation, the border and what he characterized as liberal ideology in schools.

The solution to all those issues, he believed, was Trump, who had built a movement of true believers who saw the world just as Ramsey did.

Nothing had dissuaded him from that conviction, not even the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol. He had listened to Trump’s speech on the Mall that day and even walked toward the Capitol with the angry crowd. But he was feeling cold and tired, he said, so instead of joining the protesters at the steps of the Capitol, he went to Starbucks. His memory of that day is of a peaceful protest.

“I didn’t see any violence,” he said. To Ramsey, it was inconceivable that his fellow Trump supporters would have ransacked the Capitol, so he blamed the violence on shadowy outside groups.

Around 11 a.m. on Thursday he headed out to meet a friend who was a fellow veteran and one of those first dozen early Trump supporters in Cobb. They began to discuss an issue they believed was critical if Trump was going to prevail in 2024: They needed to replace electronic voting machines in the county with paper ballots.

The federal indictment filed Tuesday was full of examples of Trump’s advisers telling him that there were no major irregularities or fraud in the 2020 election. Numerous expert and legal reviews had come to the same conclusion.

But no one Ramsey listened to took the indictment seriously, and Ramsey had almost no interest in what was in it. “They don’t have a case against him,” he said to his friend, “and they’re going to eat their words.”

As Trump was making his way to the courthouse just down the street from the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon, Peterson was sitting down to lunch with Tamara Stevens, one of her closest friends and a woman she would never have met if not for the Trump presidency.

She and Stevens felt the same sense of horror on election night in 2016 and vowed to get involved in local politics. Their opportunity came when Trump nominated their congressman to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services in early 2017, opening up a House seat.

Like scores of women in their suburban neighborhood, they rushed to volunteer for Jon Ossoff, who they believed could be a small but significant check on Trump’s power. He narrowly lost the House race but won a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia in 2021. “We were all finding each other,” she said. “And we were all for the same thing.”

Peterson and the friends she met working on that race called themselves “the resisters.” She lost a few old friends who were Republicans. “Trump and 2016 broke us,” she said. But her new friends more than took their place. Together they volunteered for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. When Trump visited Georgia in 2018, they shouted and waved signs at him. “I am a witch on a hunt for JUSTICE!,” Stevens’ sign read.

During their lunch, Peterson and Stevens picked at their salads and talked about the prospects of Trump going to jail. “It’s hard to get your hopes up,” Peterson told her friend.

“He might be walking around with an ankle bracelet,” Stevens replied.

“Cholesterol could be our best option,” Peterson said.

“Burger King is going to take him out before the justice system ever does,” Stevens joked.

Around 3:30 p.m. Peterson headed off to the high school where it was her day to drive carpool for her two teenage kids and their friends, who rushed into her minivan as a thunderstorm erupted. She worked from home for her husband, who is a financial adviser, a job that gave her the freedom to be around for her children and came with a duty, she believed, to give back. “We’ve been soaked in grace and privilege,” she often told her children.

In the early years of the Trump presidency, Peterson would call her lawmakers from the car to object to Trump’s policies and plead with them to take a stand.

She phoned former senator David Perdue’s office so often that her 16-year-old daughter can still recite the message on his old answering machine from memory: “Thank you for calling Senator David Perdue, I can only do my job by listening to you.”

Now Peterson wondered if all of those calls had been “useless.” Sometimes she wondered where she could make the most difference fighting back against the forces she believed that Trump had unleashed. She talked about ways to pressure the school board to change the name of her children’s high school, which had been named in the 1960s after a Confederate general.

On this day, NPR was playing on her car radio and a reporter was announcing that Trump had arrived at the courthouse. It was his third felony indictment this year, following his arraignments on separate charges in Florida and New York. Trump has pled not guilty to all charges and has claimed he is being persecuted by his opponents.

“Third time’s the charm,” Peterson said under her breath.

Trump has been indicted before. Historians say this time is different.

In the early days of Trump’s presidency she and her friends were fueled by the same sense of outrage and mission. These days they text as much about their kids, their husbands and their days as they do about politics.

Even if Trump was sent to prison, Peterson believed that the threat of Trumpism remained. At the state level, his followers were passing laws to restrict abortions. They were changing election laws and redrawing legislative maps to limit the Democrats’ growing power in Georgia, Peterson said. In Cobb County, they were banning the teaching of critical race theory and, in at least once instance, disciplining a teacher who read a book to her class that they didn’t like.

All of her “resister” friends were taking up different causes. “Everyone has their own most important thing,” she said. After seven years, some had taken a break from politics. One thing that hadn’t changed was the threat, Peterson believed. “We live in precarious times,” she said.

On opposite sides of Cobb County, Ramsey and Peterson were sitting down for dinner at the end of another long day in which they’d both been thinking about Trump and the future of the country’s democracy.

Ramsey, his family, and the head of the county’s Republican Party had met up at a local barbecue restaurant. He was still wracking his brain for ways to motivate his fellow Republicans to turn out for Trump and show them what was really at stake in 2024.

He floated an idea to the GOP chair: Maybe the answer was to invite someone who could provide proof that the election was stolen. Douglas Frank, a high school math teacher with a chemistry doctorate, had been making the rounds nationwide, evangelizing that he had an algorithm that proved that 2020 was rigged. His theories had been widely discredited, but Ramsey believed them.

“We have to bring back Dr. Frank,” Ramsey said.

The truth about election fraud: It's rare.

Peterson was defrosting some fish for her family’s dinner when a text message from her niece in D.C. appeared on the phone. She had been standing with the crowd outside the courthouse where Trump had been arraigned hours earlier.

“Did you see the big orange pumpkin?” Peterson asked her.

“No,” she replied. “Too many vehicles.”

Peterson then checked to see if any of her friends were talking about Trump. They weren’t. “People are living their lives. They aren’t worried about this guy,” she said. “That’s good.” Her children were doing their math homework. PBS NewsHour was playing on her television.

“This is not that significant to me,” she said of Trump and the indictment.

But she also couldn’t look away or stop thinking about the prospect of another Trump presidency and the damage she felt it would do to the country. On NewsHour, William P. Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, was talking about his unfitness for the presidency. Peterson looked at Barr with disgust, thinking of all the moments when he had protected Trump.

“What did you do about it?” she yelled at the television.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SIX – From the Washington Post

Donald Trump’s relationship with Fox News grows more complex

Analysis by Philip Bump August 2, 2023 at 5:01 p.m. EDT

Donald Trump spent the hours after his indictment on Tuesday ensconced in the safest space he could muster. He was at his private club in Bedminster, N.J., and dining with two of his most important supporters: the CEO and the president of Fox News.

The former president’s dinner engagement with Jay Wallace, the president, and Suzanne Scott, the chief executive, was reported by the New York Times on Wednesday afternoon. The timing was almost certainly coincidental; I have not dined with senior executives of a cable-news juggernaut, but I assume such things are arranged over days and not hours. But it is evocative. In that moment of unusual turmoil, it was Fox News and Trump, breaking bread.

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Sean Hannity was supposed to be there, the Times’s Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman report, but he was otherwise engaged on Trump’s behalf, hosting his 9 p.m. program on the channel. A central focus of the evening’s program, naturally, was rebutting the allegations made by special counsel Jack Smith and rising to the defense of his friend Donald.

“Let me be very clear at the start here tonight,” he said to begin his show. “This is an incredibly weak, baseless, convoluted indictment. It is bizarrely centered around what is clearly protected speech. Zero criminal statutes, because there are none that were applicable that are actually written into law.”

A bit later, he declared that the indictment was “a political persecution through and through.”

It’s not worth evaluating Hannity’s claims, though it’s obviously and immediately the case that his assertion that the indictment centers on “zero criminal statutes” makes no sense. What’s important is that Hannity was engaged in doing what Hannity has done for Trump for some eight years now: defending the former president and framing the day’s news in ways that benefit him.

Back at Bedminster, the conversation was reportedly centered indirectly on the same instability that has defined the Fox-Trump relationship since Election Day 2020, the tug-of-war over their Foxd audience. In the immediate aftermath of the election, Fox embraced the reality of Trump’s loss, only to see the then-president savage their coverage and stars, sending some of his most die-hard backers to fringe-right networks. Fox News began giving more space to his unfounded accusations of fraud, a decision that proved costly, quite literally.

Since then, Trump has sporadically attempted to reshape Fox News’s coverage by criticizing what he sees on its airwaves. As he was gearing up his criticism of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this year, his strongest opponent for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Trump would blast Fox News for what he presented as inappropriately generous coverage of the governor. He encouraged his supporters to look elsewhere for news.

It was Fox News that reportedly sought Tuesday’s dinner. Trump has been flirting with skipping the first presidential debate, something that’s very much in keeping with his indifference to debating but also serves as leverage on Fox, the channel that’s hosting the engagement. Fox News is aware that a Trumpless debate would be a far less compelling one, and not only for Trump supporters. Trump has been keenly aware of the value of his participation for eight years now; more than once, he has used his participation as leverage against cable channels back in 2015. In early 2016, he even skipped a Fox News-hosted one.

According to Haberman and Swan, the dinner ended without this issue being resolved. Trump did, however, offer at least one bit of countervailing pressure, reportedly complaining about host Bret Baier’s recent interview in which he asked Trump challenging questions. Trump’s interviews on the channel are often ones facilitated by Hannity, in which the questions are some iteration of “You did this thing that was good, don’t you agree?” or “Joe Biden is bad, thoughts?”

There is another lingering issue, though, one reported this week by the media outlet Puck.

“[T]he former president has subpoenaed Fox News for Tucker Carlson’s unaired interview with Steven Sund, the former U.S. Capitol Police chief,” Eriq Gardner reported, “along with any communications about that interview. The channel declined to comply.

Being familiar with this issue requires some exploration of the murkier regions of right-wing theorizing. In an interview with actor Russell Brand last month, former Fox host Tucker Carlson said he’d conducted an interview with Sund shortly before his ouster from the network.

“I had no thought in my head as I watched [the Capitol riot] happen on television and in the subsequent weeks that U.S. law enforcement or military agencies [had] anything to do with it. That never crossed my mind,” Carlson said. “ … And then I interviewed the chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, in an interview that was never aired on Fox.”

He noted that Sund was not a partisan actor. “And he said, ‘Oh, yeah, that crowd was filled with federal agents!’” Carlson claimed.

At no other point has Sund made this allegation. He did tweet about his aborted interview soon after Carlson was fired but made no mention then of any such claim. Nor was this claim picked out of his memoir, released this year — promotion for which was central to his appearance and his tweet.

Carlson, of course, has readily embraced the idea of government actors being present at the Capitol and is a central promulgator of the debunked claim that a former Marine named Ray Epps played a role in stoking the day’s violence. Epps is now suing Fox News for defamation.

Trump, though, seemingly believes that Fox is sitting on this interview and that its release would aid his side in a lawsuit filed by Capitol Police officers. According to Byers, Fox News’s response to Trump’s subpoena was to suggest that he simply depose Sund himself — a fair point.

Fox News and the former president have been deeply intertwined since soon after he first announced his candidacy. His administration traded staff with both the channel and its parent company; administration veterans often appeared on Fox’s payroll and some still do. Trump was a Fox News fan, like many of his supporters, and the network’s coverage often informed his worldview as president.

Since he left office — and in part because he left office — the relationship has gotten more complicated. He wants frequent softball coverage, explicit rejection of his opponents and the Carlson-Sund interview. Fox wants his base to keep tuning in, including for that important first debate.

On Tuesday night, Fox News’s prime-time coverage was an hour-by-hour parade of defenses against the third indictment. Trump, meanwhile, was dining in the comfort of his summer home with Fox’s top executives, with all three parties trying to figure out how to continue the symbiosis that served each side well from 2015 until January 2021.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SEVEN – From Fox

Trump indictment would ‘bulldoze’ the First Amendment if it succeeds: Turley

Former President Donald Trump was indicted earlier this week

The latest indictment of former President Trump threatens to destroy the First Amendment and give the federal government the unprecedented power to criminalize political lies, constitutional law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley warned Saturday.

Trump was indicted this week on four charges related to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in a Washington, D.C., courtroom Thursday.

In an op-ed for The Hill, Turley wrote that Smith’s indictment essentially charges Trump for spreading "lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election," which he said is a dangerous proposition for the First Amendment.

Specifically, Turley said Smith’s charges assert that Trump knew the statements he made about the 2020 election were false and said if Trump does believe he won, "the indictment collapses."

"Trump is allowed to seek out enablers who tell him what he wants to hear," Turley wrote. "All presidents do this. (Joe Biden, for example, ignored virtually unanimous legal opinion and relied upon a single law professor’s say-so to justify an obviously unconstitutional executive action that later had to be reversed.)"

Turley also warned that successfully charging Trump in this way sets up the "dangerous" precedent of giving the government the power to determine what’s true and what isn’t.

"There is no limiting principle to this indictment," Turley wrote in The Hill. "The government would choose between which politicians are lying and which are lying without cause."

Turley said there is a "constitutional problem" with trying to "criminalize lies" in this way. He said a 2012 Supreme Court case, United States v. Alvarez, found that it’s unconstitutional to criminalize lies and that the court recognized that ruling otherwise would give the government "broad censorial power unprecedented in this court’s cases or in our constitutional tradition."

"So, even assuming that Smith can prove Trump lied, there would still be constitutional barriers to criminalizing his false statements," Turley wrote.

Turley added that even if Judge Tanya Chutkan supports Smith’s case, "the Supreme Court would likely balk at the criminalization of false political speech."

ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT – From

@REDACTED

ATTACHMENT THIRTY NINE – From France 24

Indictment puts Trump and democracy on trial

Washington (AFP) – Donald Trump's historic indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election paints a picture of a former president so determined to hang on to power that he put the very foundations of American democracy at risk.

Issued on: 02/08/2023 - 19:16

Trump's legal troubles have already thrust the United States into uncharted territory, but the latest charges from special counsel Jack Smith are in a different league.

While two previous indictments focused on hush money payments to a porn star and hiding secret government documents, this one lays out in compelling detail a complex plot with half a dozen conspirators to effectively overthrow an elected government.

Adding even more weight to the case is the fact that the 77-year-old real estate tycoon is seeking to recapture the White House and holds a commanding lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, singled out the unique nature of the legal case against a former commander-in-chief in stark terms.

"It is hard to overstate the stakes riding on this indictment and prosecution," Hasen wrote on Slate.com. "It is perhaps the most important indictment ever handed down to safeguard American democracy and the rule of law in any US court against anyone.

"It's not hyperbole to say that the conduct of this prosecution will greatly influence whether the US remains a thriving democracy after 2024."

Smith, the special counsel, linked Trump's actions following his November 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden directly to the attack two months later on the US Capitol, which he called an "unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy."

"It was fueled by lies," Smith said. "Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the US government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election."

'Darkest hours'

Historian Jon Meacham, whose biography of former president Andrew Jackson won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize, said the charges against the twice-impeached Trump stem from what he called one of the "darkest hours" in American history.

"What we haven't had before is a person so powerful that they can bend the Constitution to the point of breaking," Meacham said on MSNBC. "(Trump) put fundamentally his own appetite, his own ambition, ahead of everything else."

The 45-page indictment brought by Smith charges Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy to deprive Americans of a civil right -- their votes.

The "criminal scheme," as Smith described it, meticulously outlines the various efforts taken by Trump and his unnamed co-conspirators to overturn the election results using accusations that they knew were untrue.

"The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud," the indictment says. "Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power."

The plot allegedly included repeated attempts to pressure vice president Mike Pence into throwing out Electoral College votes at the January 6 joint session of Congress.

When Pence told Trump during a January 1 meeting he had no constitutional authority to do so, the president reportedly responded by saying "You're too honest."

Trump and his co-conspirators are also accused of submitting fraudulent slates of electors to Congress in a bid to reverse the results in seven key states won by Biden.

Trump allegedly sought to enlist senior Justice Department officials in his plot, telling them at one point to "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen."

The efforts culminated in a fiery speech by the president near the White House on January 6 and the subsequent attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, who were seeking to block the certification of Biden's victory.

Trump, who has denounced the indictment as politically motivated, is expected to make his first court appearance to answer the charges before a US District Court Judge in Washington on Thursday.

ATTACHMENT FORTY – From the Daily Beast

The Trump Indictment Has Team Putin Shaking in Their Boots

‘EATING HIM ALIVE!’

Russian state media stars are panicking about how the former president’s latest legal firestorm could ultimately hurt Moscow.

By Julia Davis Published Aug. 02, 2023 5:38PM EDT

Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters in Russia appear to be shaken to their core over his latest felony indictment for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. election.

“These aren’t the elites or society with whom you can negotiate! I’m starting to lean towards your point of view that a big war is becoming almost inevitable,” he said. “Americans always thought they could bypass the big war, but the more they keep doing this internally within their own country... and if things related to Trump will continue the way they’re going, we can surmise that their regime went from being authoritarian to being totalitarian and I can tell you that they will not be able to escape a big European war.”

Evstafiev complained about pro-Western elements in Russia, and suggested without proof that certain groups in the country are considering staging another coup at a time when the Kremlin is vulnerable.

“All of our liberal pro-Western groups have livened up! They say that something should be done, there should be a coup and then they offer us something,” he said. “Who will offer it, these people, who are trying to forcefully put their own former president in prison, with violation of all norms and procedures? Do you really think that people who don’t abide by their own written and unwritten rules will honor them towards you? Have you totally lost your minds?”

Solovyov chimed in to criticize Trump for not finishing off the Democrats when he had the chance: “He didn’t throw [Hillary] Clinton in prison, he did not deal with the rest of them and now this clan is eating him alive!”

In Evstafiev’s view, Trump is being prosecuted solely because he had a real chance of winning in the upcoming presidential elections.

“They were certain that no one would follow Trump. They thought that Trump would be a disco dancer and he would dance disco in front of the rednecks,” he fumed. “Meanwhile, they [the Democrats] would win. Now they no longer have this certainty. This means that serious powers with big money have committed to Trump! To them, Trump is a lesser evil than all the rest. I understand these big money people! To have a moron as their president is better than nuclear war.”

Evstafiev bemoaned the fact that only middle-aged voters fear nuclear threats, apparently lamenting efforts by Russia’s leading propagandists to terrorize Western populations into submission through nuclear blackmail.

“It may lead to civil war.”

The duo concluded Trump’s only potential solution for this problem would be to incite a civil war in the United States. “He is practically [planning a civil war] already, at least he’s getting close,” Evstafiev said.

Guests on the state TV show 60 Minutes reached similar conclusions. Host Olga Skabeeva claimed not to understand the nature of charges against Trump, describing them as “strange.” Alexander Gusev, a contributor to the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry magazine, predicted that election-related conflicts, including the growing collection of indictments against Trump, will trigger a civil war in the United States.

“The initiation of charges against the ex-president, the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump, demonstrates a crisis of the political system in the United States... This internal conflict that is currently happening in the US is unnerving Americans. They are very concerned, because it may lead to civil war,” he said.

ATTACHMENT FORTY ONE – From South China Morning Post

Donald Trump indicted on 4 counts over efforts to overturn 2020 election results

· US federal indictment led by US Special Counsel Jack Smith also makes reference to six co-conspirators, including a Justice Department official

· Trump has already been indicted on federal charges concerning his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House

By Robert Delaney I Published: 5:56am, 2 Aug, 2023

Former US president Donald Trump was indicted by federal prosecutors on Tuesday for his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, a move that puts Trump further into legal jeopardy as he seeks a return to the White House in next year’s election.

The front-running candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination posted on his Truth Social platform soon before news reports that an indictment in the investigation led by US Special Counsel Jack Smith was imminent.

The indictment included four counts: “Conspiracy to defraud the US; a conspiracy to threaten the rights of others; a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding before Congress; and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Trump “did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators … to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified”, the indictment said.

US Special Counsel Jack Smith details the latest federal indictments involving former president Donald Trump on Tuesday in Washington. Photo: AP

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election,” it added.

Trump’s campaign office issued a statement moments after news of the indictment, asserting that the move was an attempt by US President Joe Biden to “interfere” with next year’s election.

“This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden crime family and their weaponised Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 presidential election, in which President Trump is the undisputed front runner, and leading by substantial margins,” it said.

Speaking to reporters gathered at the Justice Department on Tuesday evening, Smith called the January 6 attack “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy” and devoted much of his brief speech to law enforcement officials who defended the Capitol in the melee.

Trump’s campaign finances are strained as legal peril mounts

1 Aug 2023

“The men and women of law enforcement who defended the US Capitol … are heroes, they’re patriots and they are the very best of us,” he said. “They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people.”

The federal indictment announced on Tuesday was the second that Smith’s office has brought against Trump. In June, Trump pleaded not guilty to charges related to 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, after he left the White House.

Last week, Trump was hit with new charges in a superseding indictment, including one asserting that he and two employees attempted to delete surveillance video footage at Mar-a-Lago last year.

A trial date in that case has been set for May 20, 2024, in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The latest case provides more visibility into a wide range of actions Trump and his supporters took to obstruct the legitimate transfer of power to Biden, who defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes.

Trump’s bid to quash Georgia investigation rejected by judge

That included the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol, when more than 2,000 people stormed the building in a bid to disrupt the certification of electoral votes in Congress.

The indictment included details of Trump’s attempts to pressure then vice-president Mike Pence to refrain from certifying the election.

The document quoted Trump as telling Pence that he was “too honest”.

Pence, who is also running against Trump for the Republican Party nomination, issued a statement calling the indictment “an important reminder”.

“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” he said.

US Congress certifies results of presidential election after Trump supporters storm the Capitol

Ahead of the indictment, Trump has regularly assailed Smith, the US Justice Department and the FBI, claiming on Truth Social to be the victim of a “coordinated HOAX” orchestrated by his enemies to rob him of a return to the White House.

The new indictment was only the latest development in Trump’s legal battles. It follows an indictment against him in June for illegally retaining reams of documents with highly classified intelligence and obstructing attempts by US government officials to retrieve them.

The indictment in the classified documents case, which included violations of the Espionage Act, was the first issued to a former American president by the federal government.

According to charges in that case, Trump illegally retained reams of documents with highly classified intelligence and obstructing attempts by US officials to retrieve them. Additionally, he was said to have described a Pentagon “plan of attack” and Foxd a classified map related to a military operation with individuals who lacked security clearance.

‘Our last shot to save America’: Trump casts himself as best bet against Biden

Trump has also been indicted in a state-level case in New York related to his role in a payment scheme to cover up a potential sex scandal to clear his path to the presidency in 2016. Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case as well.

In yet another legal tangle this year, a civil court jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then defaming her by branding her a liar; it ordered him to pay US$5 million in damages.

Carroll’s lawyers filed an amended lawsuit against him seeking US$10 million in damages to hold him liable for remarks he made after the verdict.

The judge assigned to Trump’s latest case announced Tuesday, Tanya Chutkan, made headlines in 2021, when she rejected Trump’s effort at that time to block a House committee from accessing White House records related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Ruling that Trump had no authority to overrule Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege that the former president was claiming and release the materials to Congress, Chutkan said: “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president”.

Trump was ordered to make an initial appearance in federal court in Washington on Thursday.

Trump also faces a fourth criminal investigation by a county prosecutor in Georgia into accusations he sought to undo his 2020 election loss in that state.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has indicated she plans to bring charges in that case within the next three weeks.

Additional reporting by Reuters

ATTACHMENT FORTY TWO – From CNN

Dark and sinister rhetoric drenches right-wing media amid Trump indictments

Oliver Darcy, CNN Published 9:24 PM EDT, Thu August 3, 2023

Millions of Americans are immersed in a twisted world where language used to describe autocrats is being applied to America’s democratic institutions.

The draconian rhetoric, once reserved for the likes of tyrants and dictators, has become commonplace in right-wing media when referring to President Joe Biden and the elected government he leads. The dark and sinister language, normalized on mainstream conservative platforms such as Fox News, has been on full display this week during coverage of Donald Trump’s third indictment.

The Biden White House is referred to as the “Biden regime.” Federal law enforcement are referred to as the “Gestapo” and Biden’s “personal police force.” Institutions such as the Department of Justice are referred to as “the Department of Injustice.” The indictments against Trump are referred to as “political war crimes” and an “assassination.”

Talk of imprisoning Democratic politicians — and even their families — in acts of revenge is par for the course. Even floating the outright execution of Biden, as Charlie Kirk recently did, is accepted in the warped world of MAGA Media, where the audience has been programmed through years of conditioning to welcome such vile rhetoric into their homes.

None of this is an exaggeration. It is the reality of what is being broadcast in millions of homes across the country.

It’s all part of a larger trend that has dramatically disfigured the conservative media since Trump ascended to power. With the aim of portraying progressives as an evil force in America, right-wing media’s most popular figures and outlets have casually appended despotic terms to Biden and his administration.

The extreme vernacular often flies under the radar, drawing eye rolls from those outside this alternate universe and receiving little media attention. But it shouldn’t. Language carries with it serious consequences. And repeatedly conveying to millions of people that their democratically elected leader is a tyrant out to nefariously use the force of government to target and imprison his political opposition carries with it great risk.

“I think it’s hard to overstate the dangers here: This language moves beyond mere demonization because it suggests a need for violent resistance,” Charlie Sykes, a former conservative talk-radio host and an editor-at-large of The Bulwark, told me Thursday. “It’s language that undermines the integrity, the democratic institutions, and the justice system itself. And there’s a constant escalation without much concern where this leads or who might act on the idea that our opponents aren’t just wrong — but evil, dangerous, and illegitimate.”

Sykes smartly pointed out, “One does not argue, debate or disagree with the gestapo.” Instead, “You go to war with them.”

Each day gives way to evidence that the fact-defying repetition is working. A CNN poll published Thursday found that nearly 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaners said they believed Biden’s presidential win was not legitimate, a staggering majority despite there being no evidence of widespread election fraud. Perhaps more alarming, about half of Republicans say they now have no confidence at all that elections reflect the will of the people.

Arguably, the rhetoric saturating mainstream right-wing media today is more extreme than the hyperbole used in the weeks leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol. In those weeks, just like now, right-wing media forces set the stage and gathered the tinder for Trump — who was happy to light a match to the gasoline-soaked kindling gathered before him on January 6.

At the very least, the poison pumped into the national discourse has maimed America’s Foxd sense of democratic principles and contributed to profound polarization, dividing neighbors, friends, and families. But in the wake of Trump’s third arrest, over an attempt to topple American democracy, and ever-intensified rhetoric, let’s hope history does not repeat itself.

ATTACHMENT FORTY THREE – From the Washington Post

If Trump is convicted, Secret Service protection may be obstacle to imprisonment

Donald Trump can keep Secret Service protection for life, even if he were to be convicted and sentenced to prison or home confinement

By Spencer S. Hsu, Carol D. Leonnig and Tom Jackman August 4, 2023 at 11:49 a.m. EDT

If convicted in any of the three criminal cases he is facing, Donald Trump may be able to influence whether he goes to prison and what his stay there looks like under a law that allows former U.S. presidents to keep Secret Service protection for life, some current and former U.S. officials said.

Presidents since 1965 have been afforded lifetime protection. Since then, only Richard M. Nixon has waived it, as a cost-saving move for taxpayers 11 years after his -resignation.

But unless he follows Nixon’s example, Trump could force politically and logistically complex questions over whether officials should detail agents to protect a former American president behind bars, leave it to prison authorities to keep him safe, or secure him under some type of home confinement, former U.S. officials said.

“Any federal district judge ought to understand it raises enormous and unprecedented logistical issues,” Rosenberg said of the prospect Trump could be incarcerated. “Probation, fines, community service and home confinement are all alternatives.”

Trump is now facing three separate criminal cases, with the prospect of at least one more on the horizon. He has a pending March trial date in a New York state fraud case. He was charged by special counsel Jack Smith in federal court in Florida over the handling of classified documents that were taken from his Mar-a-Lago home after he left the White House. In federal court in D.C., Smith’s team alleges Trump conspired to subvert the results of the 2020 election. He could soon be charged in Georgia on similar allegations.

The charges Trump faces technically come with the possibility of decades in prison — though pleas, verdicts and possible punishments are very far off.

Mary McCord, who served as acting assistant attorney general for national security during President Barack Obama’s administration and led the department for the first several months under Trump, said Trump presents unique challenges to the Justice Department. Ensuring some penalty for a former president under Secret Service detail would require extensive discussions and potential accommodations, “because it really would be a pretty enormous burden on our prison system to have to incarcerate Donald Trump.”

The question is an open one at the U.S. Secret Service. Asked whether a former president who does not waive protection can be incarcerated, agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, “The Secret Service does not have a comment or response, only because there is no such policy or procedure that currently exists.”

Former and current Secret Service agents said that while there is no precedent, they feel certain the agency would insist on providing some form of 24/7 protection to an imprisoned former president. And, they say, the agency is probably planning for that possibility, seeking to match to some degree its normal practice of rotating three daily shifts of at least one or two agents providing close proximity protection.

“This question keeps getting raised, yet no official answers” from the Secret Service, said Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent and now chief operating officer for Teneo, a corporate advisory and communications firm. “However, we can infer how security measures could be implemented based on existing protective protocols. Unless there are changes in legislation or the former president waives protection, the U.S. Secret Service would likely maintain a protective environment around the president in accordance with their current practices.”

Current and former agents said Trump’s detail would coordinate their protection work with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure there was no conflict about duties or about how they would handle emergencies, as well as the former president’s routine movements in a prison — such as heading to exercise or meals. The Secret Service, they said, would maintain a bubble around Trump in any case, keeping him at a distance from other inmates.

“In some ways, protection may be easier — the absence of travel means logistics get easier and confinement means that the former president’s location is always known,” Wackrow said. “Theoretically, the perimeter is well fortified — no one is worried about someone breaking into jail.”

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons declined to say whether former presidents with Secret Service protection could be incarcerated, or to comment on circumstances of a possible Trump designation. However a spokesman said general factors can include the level of security an inmate requires, any health needs, proximity to their release locations and “separation and security measures to ensure the inmate’s protection.” The bureau has had to handle VIP inmates in the past, though minimum security camps often have dormitory style housing.

Another agency official said it was in a position similar to the Secret Service, lacking a policy or procedure.

What would sentencing look like?

The prospect of potentially decades in prison for Trump is politically loaded, though the charges he faces could carry such a penalty. After entering a not-guilty plea in Miami federal court on June 13, Trump claimed he was being threatened with “400 years in prison,” adding up the statutory maximum penalty for the 37 counts against him. The charges he faces in D.C. related to his alleged efforts to stay in power despite losing the election could add additional decades, based on that math.

Judges almost never apply maximum penalties to first offenders and rarely stack sentences rather than let them run concurrently. However, federal sentencing guidelines are highly technical. Specialists estimate that a first offender convicted of multiple counts of willfully retaining national defense information and obstructing or conspiring to obstruct an investigation by concealing evidence might face a range of anything from 51 to 63 months on the low end — about five years — to 17½ to 22 years on the high end — or about 20 years, given Trump’s alleged leadership role and abuse of trust.

Similarly, Jan. 6 riot defendants convicted at trial of two on the same counts with which Trump is charged — conspiring to or actually obstructing an official proceeding — have faced sentencing guideline ranges as high as seven to 11 years, and as low as less than two years.

But judges always have the final say.

“Without question, if it were anyone else [but Trump], prison would be a certainty,” said Thomas A. Durkin, a former federal prosecutor who teaches national security law at Loyola University Chicago. However, he said, “The Secret Service waiver issue is a novel and complex issue” that could theoretically factor into an exception.

The Justice Department has mounted at least a dozen investigations into the removal or unlawful retention of classified information since 2005. Pentagon employees, contractors and people employed by the FBI, the CIA and National Security Agency have all been convicted and sentenced to prison. Among the most recent, former contractor Harold Martin was convicted in 2019 and is serving a nine-year prison term for taking home a huge number of hard and digital copies of classified materials — the equivalent of 500 million pages. And former FBI analyst Kendra Kingsbury was recently sentenced to nearly four years in prison after taking home more than 300 documents, including materials related to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

But other high-ranking U.S. officials who pleaded guilty got probation, including President Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser Sandy Berger in 2005 and retired U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, a former CIA director, in 2015. Berger admitted to concealing and removing five copies of a classified document from the National Archives, and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and give up his security clearance for three years. Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $100,000 following revelations that he shared some materials with his biographer and lover.

The acceptance of a plea deal is a crucial consideration. In the only case of an American president or vice president to be convicted of a crime, U.S. prosecutors involved in the federal bribery prosecution that led to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew’s resignation in 1973 said prison time never became an issue — because he entered a plea deal.

“It was clear from the very beginning that there would be no deal if he had to go to jail,” recalled Russell T. Baker Jr., former Maryland U.S. attorney.

“We in the department debated with [attorney general] Elliot Richardson whether or not we should insist on a jail term. But Agnew [and] his lawyers kept saying — and we believed [them] — there would be no deal then, so it never really rose as an issue,” Baker said.

Agnew, a former Maryland governor, received three years probation and a $10,000 fine after agreeing to enter a plea to a criminal tax felony for failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks he received as a county executive.

U.S. prosecutors have charged more than 300 people with obstructing Congress’s certification of the election, and those sentenced after trial have received around three and a half years in prison on average, although Army veteran Jessica Watkins, an Ohio bar owner who stormed the Capitol in military-style formation with the Oath Keepers, got eight and a half years. None who went to trial have escaped prison time.

Neither a felony conviction nor incarceration bar a candidate from running for president. Trump leads a growing field of Republican candidates, and said post-indictment he will not quit, “I’ll never leave.”

What are the complications of confinement?

“While it is unusual … the complexity of the conditions of confinement could have an impact on the sentence a judge imposes,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and Harvard Law School professor.

Gertner cited a body of law that allows a judge to consider whether a frail defendant might be subject to abuse in prison, and a case in which she recognized that a non-U.S. citizen would not qualify for programs such as drug or mental health treatment.

Unlike Berger and Petraeus whose crimes appear to be “one-offs,” Trump is accused of a “much more sustained problem,” she said.

“On the other hand, there are the political considerations, and the uniqueness of the case,” she added.

Gertner said the Secret Service has handed off security duties in the past, such as when former first lady Hillary Clinton was protected by State Department security as secretary of state. The Secret Service can direct and oversee protection by others, assigning a special detail to work inside the Bureau of Prisons, or potentially helping prison officials enforce a custodial sentence at home — potentially such as at Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., or Mar-a-Lago residences or elsewhere.

“Who knows how that would pan out?” Gertner said. She added, “I think the answer would be, an accommodation could be made. … The fact that there have been accommodations in the past for various situations suggest there could be accommodations now.”

ATTACHMENT FORTY FOUR – From CNN

@ REDACTED

ATTACHMENT FORTY FIVE – From the Washington Post

Prosecutors cite Trump’s social media posts as they seek limits on handling of evidence

The court filing outlines rules the government wants Trump and his lawyers to follow during the discovery process

By Perry Stein

Updated August 5, 2023 at 12:19 p.m. EDT|Published August 5, 2023 at 12:58 a.m. EDT

The Justice Department urged in a Friday-evening court filing that a federal judge in Washington impose firm rules on Donald Trump and his attorneys as they review materials during the discovery process for his trial, citing, in part, the former president’s history of revealing details about cases on social media.

The filing comes as the federal case centered on Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election gets underway. Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to four crimes that the government has accused him of committing, including scheming to disrupt the election process and depriving Americans of their right to have their votes counted.

The government and Trump’s lawyers are working out proposed rules to which the former president and his legal team must adhere when they review evidence materials during the discovery process — when the defense team reviews all the evidence that the government has collected in the case. It is a standard part of the legal process, and a judge must sign off on the agreement. Evidence that is handed over in the discovery process includes grand jury interviews, recordings and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

The government’s proposed agreement — called a protective order — dictates that Trump and his lawyers not disclose any of the materials they receive during the discovery process to people who are not authorized by the court to have knowledge of the materials. Mar a lago!

Tracking Trump indictments, investigations

The filing includes an image of a threatening post that Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform earlier Friday afternoon, apparently in reference to the D.C. case, that reads: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

The filing also states that Trump and his attorneys should be barred from writing down any identifying information about people involved in the case.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, ordered Trump’s defense to respond to the government request by 5 p.m. Monday, including any changes they propose.

In response, the Trump campaign issued a statement early Saturday saying the social media post cited by the government was aimed at the former president’s political critics in the Republican Party.

Trump has previously posted disparaging comments on social media about the federal investigations into him and about Smith, the prosecutor leading those cases. Trump has called Smith “deranged” and a “psycho” and said he “looks like a crackhead.”

Devlin Barrett and Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT FORTY SIX – From GUK

DONALD TRUMP: THREATENING SOCIAL MEDIA POST FLAGGED BY PROSECUTORS IN COURT FILING

Prosecutors have asked ex-president be banned from sharing evidence with unauthorized people after post on Truth Social

By Edwin Rios Sat 5 Aug 2023 12.35 EDT

Federal prosecutors asked a judge on Friday for a protective order limiting what Donald Trump and his team can say about the criminal case against him, citing a social media from the former president stating: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

A Trump spokesperson said in a statement late Friday night that the ex-president’s post was the “definition of political speech” protected by the constitution’s first amendment and that it did not have to do with the criminal case. Instead, it was directed toward interest groups.

Prosecutors’ request for the protective order came a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to forcibly overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden which culminated in his supporters’ January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Trump had also sworn in court that he would not intimidate witnesses.

In the court filing, the office of US justice department special counsel Jack Smith argued that the sought restrictions were “particularly important” in the case because Trump had a history of using social media to post statements “regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him”.

Smith’s office requested that Trump’s attorneys be barred from sharing copies of grand jury interviews and other “sensitive” material handed to them as part of the legal process known as discovery. The office also asked that the protective order be imposed before Trump’s attorneys had a chance to weigh in.

The judge gave Trump until 5pm local time Monday to respond to prosecutors’ request.

Prosecutors warned that if Trump Foxd public statements stemming from discovery material, “it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case”.

Judges in other ongoing criminal cases against the former president have warned him against his public comments. At a court hearing in New York in April, state judge Juan M Merchan told Trump to not make comments “likely to incite violence or civil unrest” after the former president took to Truth Social and alluded to potential “death and destruction” if he was charged with a crime.

Merchan, who Trump has called “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family”, is weighing the state’s prosecution of the former president for allegedly falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump also faces federal charges in Miami for his alleged illicit hoarding of classified documents after leaving the Oval Office. Trump has pleaded not guilty to those cases as well.

The former president faces a possible fourth indictment in Georgia, where Atlanta prosecutors have been investigating his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results there. He could face charges of racketeering and multiple state election crimes, including engaging in a conspiracy to commit election fraud, the Guardian has reported.

This afternoon, he “complied” with minutes to go before 5 PM, but essentially told Jack Smith and Judge Upadhyaya to go stuff it because political speech is protected by the First Amendment. There will be lawyers. - DJI

ATTACHMENT FORTY SEVEN – From the Washington Post\

House Democrats push for televising Trump trials on classified documents, 2020 charges

Trump’s lawyer has also called for cameras in the courtroom

By John Wagner Updated August 4, 2023 at 3:24 p.m. EDT|Published August 4, 2023 at 9:42 a.m. EDT

About three dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), are calling for televising the federal trials of former president Donald Trump on charges related to the 2020 election and the retention of classified documents.

In a letter to Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, who oversees the administration of federal courts, the lawmakers argued that the move would bolster public acceptance of the outcome.

“Given the historic nature of the charges brought forth in these cases, it is hard to imagine a more powerful circumstance for televised proceedings,” said the letter, dated Thursday. “If the public is to fully accept the outcome, it will be vitally important for it to witness, as directly as possible, how the trials are conducted, the strength of the evidence adduced and the credibility of witnesses.”

A spokeswoman for Mauskopf’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While cameras are common in state and local courtrooms, they are generally not allowed in federal courtrooms. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body for the courts, has allowed some pilot programs in recent decades focused on civil cases. Lawmakers in both parties have unsuccessfully pushed legislation to allow more transparency.

During the pandemic, court policies were loosened, with some federal courts using Zoom for hearings and live-streaming audio of oral arguments.

A lawyer for Trump has also suggested that they would like the expected trial on 2020 election-related charges to be televised.

Last month, after Trump revealed that he had received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith, Trump attorney John Lauro said he would welcome additional transparency.

“I would hope that the Department of Justice would join in that effort so that we can take the curtain away and all Americans can see what’s happening,” Lauro told Fox News.

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment about the prospect of televised proceedings.

The federal district court in Washington where Trump is likely to be tried on election-related charges has never allowed cameras.

Opponents to cameras in the courtroom argue that they can be disruptive, intimidate witnesses and cause judges and jurors to lose their relative anonymity.

One possible compromise, he suggested, would be to provide a live stream that is entirely under the court’s control. By doing so, Singer suggested, the court could place cameras unobtrusively and “lower the risk of intimidation or pandering” while making it possible for interested citizens to follow the entire proceeding in context.

Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a group that advocates for more openness and accountability from federal courts, argued that televising the Trump trials would be a positive because “more access to primary sources is always a positive thing.”

But Roth said the chance of it happening are “very, very slim” in part because members of the Judicial Conference of the United States for the most part are not of a generation that appreciates the wide use of video.

“The decision-makers are not people with Instagram and TikTok accounts,” he said.

Moreover, Roth said, “Courts change policies slower than a battleship turns right or left.”

Cristina Tilley, a law professor at Iowa College of Law, who has conducted research on cameras in the courtroom, said she is skeptical that televising the trial would accomplish what the House Democrats are seeking.

“If their objective is that they want people to accept the outcome, whatever it is, I’m not sure that televising the trial accomplishes that,” she said.

Tilley said her research shows that the emotional “uptake” by viewers of vivid courtroom testimony can cloud their appreciation of drier aspects of the case that are crucial for how jurors ultimately evaluate charges against a defendant.

She cited the 2011 trial of Casey Anthony, an Orlando woman who was acquitted of murdering her toddler in a widely televised trial. People who watched the trial intently were most upset with the verdict, Tilley said.

“They absolutely failed to appreciate that the prosecutors didn’t prove the case to the legal standard they had to meet,” she said.

In Trump’s election-related case, she said, reactions to images of the insurrection or testimony from Trump could undercut the understanding of whether prosecutors make their case on each of the counts he faces, Tilley argued.

Trump’s arraignment Thursday in front of a federal magistrate judge in Washington was not televised. During the proceedings, Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, appearing in the federal courthouse that sits just blocks away from where his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to keep him in power on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump also faces a federal trial in Florida scheduled in May in the classified documents case that Smith brought against him.

The lawmakers’ letter to Mauskopf, who serves as director of the administrative office of the U.S. Courts, argued that “[i]t is imperative the Conference ensures timely access to accurate and reliable information surrounding these cases and all of their proceedings, given the extraordinary national importance to our democratic institutions and the need for transparency.”

Connolly has previously introduced legislation that would allow Supreme Court proceedings to be televised.

If the Judicial Conference fails to act, lawmakers, at least in theory, could pass legislation opening up federal courts to cameras.

Schiff spokeswoman Marisol said it’s too early to consider going that route, and that the House Democrats are “taking it one step at a time.”

Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu and Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.

Analysis|5 things Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment week tells us about the 2024 election

Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT

ATTACHMENT FORTY EIGHT – From the Washington Post

5 things Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment week tells us about the 2024 election

By Aaron Blake August 4, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The first former president of the United States to be indicted has now been charged a third time. This historic event capped a week that tells us a few things about the 2024 presidential race, in which the former president remains the overwhelming GOP favorite.

Here’s what we’ve learned from the past five days.

1. No candidate can escape the specter of Jan. 6

Republican Party leaders have spent much of the past two years hoping to just move on from Jan. 6 — and urging Trump (in vain) to stop talking about the 2020 election.

This week made clear that nobody can escape it.

Trump faces a criminal trial over his role in efforts to overturn the election that culminated in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And former vice president Mike Pence, who was invoked more than 100 times in the indictment, has been forced to lean into making the Jan. 6-centric case he had long declined to emphasize.

(Imagine you were told a month ago that Pence would be selling merchandise based on Trump’s indictment — new gear features the slogan “too honest,” which is what Trump allegedly called Pence as Pence declined his entreaties to help overturn the election.)

The party as a whole and all its 2024 contenders will feel a newfound onus to weigh in, too.

The GOP has done its best to avoid a detailed accounting of Trump’s actions and his false claims of mass voter fraud. It acquitted him at his post-Jan. 6 impeachment trial based on a technicality. (Key senators said you can’t impeach someone who has left office.) Then it pulled out of a deal for a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission.

But this indictment has landed when Trump is again the focal point of American politics. There is no waving it off because he’s out of office. And 2024 opponents who have carefully massaged and triangulated their messages about Trump’s legal peril will risk being left out of the major topic of conversation if they don’t engage.

Oh, and Trump has signaled he is going to make all of this very uncomfortable for the GOP by using it to re-litigate the 2020 election and his false claims that it was “stolen” from him.

2. Trump may be losing control of the clock

Trump’s legal team has made clear it would prefer his federal criminal cases don’t go to trial before the 2024 election. While that remains possible with the classified-documents case in Florida — set for trial in May but subject to delay, in part thanks to the new superseding indictment and the care required in handling sensitive material — the Jan. 6 case in Washington, D.C., may be a speedier affair.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment appears built for speed. For a start, he charged Trump solo. If he charges Trump’s alleged co-conspirators, it will apparently be separately. And he kept the indictment narrowly focused on four charges, one count each. Then Smith announced at a news conference that “my office will seek a speedy trial.”

He might get his wish. A magistrate judge said Thursday that a trial date will be set at the first hearing, on Aug. 28, which isn’t always how it’s done. Trump lawyer John Lauro has said it’s “absurd” to try to conduct the trial in accordance with the Speedy Trial Act, which would mean starting the trial within 100 days.

Also remember that, unlike the classified-documents case, this one doesn’t feature a Trump-appointed judge who has in the past ruled in his favor in controversial ways. And it does feature a fact pattern that has been chewed over extensively for more than two years.

3. Ron DeSantis is running out of ideas

July was not a good month for the Florida governor. The presidential race was actually mostly static for his first month as a candidate, but since then he has gone from trailing Trump by nearly 30 points in the Republican primary to trailing by nearly 40 points. He’s now competing just to be in second place in states like Iowa and South Carolina, after polling close to Trump as recently as February, before he was officially running.

Hence the campaign shake-up.

What’s got to be particularly frustrating for DeSantis is that he’s even losing badly to Trump among voters who might logically be in his corner, like those who emphasize fighting “woke” corporations, a DeSantis signature issue. And his supposed retooling of his message hasn’t exactly borne fruit.

So what’s left for him to do to arrest the backsliding? Well, this week DeSantis sent Vice President Harris a letter seeking a meeting to discuss his state’s controversial slavery curriculum (she declined). And he just agreed to a one-on-one debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), which Newsom proposed nearly a year ago.

The combined picture is a campaign more focused on stunts than anything else, because the “anything else” has roundly failed.

4. Trump’s woes have not helped Biden

Despite all the legal drama surrounding Trump, polls this week suggested that the GOP might be as competitive as ever in the 2024 general election.

A New York Times/Siena College poll showed Trump and Biden tied at 43 percent in a prospective matchup, despite most recent quality polls giving Biden a small edge.

A CNN poll, meanwhile, showed that encouraging signs about the economy and inflation really have yet to give President Biden much of a boost.

Finally, the CNN poll included a somewhat remarkable finding. It asked whether people had more confidence in Biden or congressional Republicans to deal with major issues. While Americans in December picked the GOP by two points, they picked it by nine points in this poll.

All of which might help explain why Barack Obama felt the need to give Biden a reality check about Trump’s potential to defeat him in 2024.

5. Republicans won’t desert (or vouch for) Trump

There has been little in the way of a merit-based defense of Trump after this latest indictment, as was the case after the previous two. And relatively few Republicans have actually gone to bat for him in any significant way — at least compared with the way they did when the federal government searched Mar-a-Lago a year ago.

But in this case, the tepid pushback is arguably more pronounced.

The idea is that Trump is being politically targeted. The idea is that there is a two-tiered system of justice. The idea is that Trump was entitled to free speech and may even have believed his falsehoods.

Virtually none of the Republican defense argues that Trump was actually right and that his actions were warranted. This lack might be considered rather patronizing, because it implies that he wasn’t, and they weren’t. Why not just argue that what he said and did was substantiated?

Because they can’t. It’s in some ways an extension of what happened after the 2020 election. Republicans by and large didn’t echo Trump’s obviously false claims of mass voter fraud, because they seemingly knew they were ridiculous. They instead made process arguments about voting rules that changed during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, supplementing Trump’s objections with these to at least seem like they were on the same page.

Some seemed to think that was the smart play and it would all just blow over. Then Jan. 6 happened.

Nearly three years later, Republicans get to keep dealing with it, right into the middle of the 2024 election.

ATTACHMENT FORTY NINE – From the Washington Post

Trump shatters laws of political physics with third indictment

The former president’s support base holds firm as each negative in a court of law translates to a positive in the court of public opinion

By David Smith in Washington Sat 5 Aug 2023 06.00 EDT

It was hardly the triumphant return to Washington that he and his campaign imagined. Donald Trump was back in America’s capital this week, not as president but an accused criminal. “Not guilty,” he pleaded in a hushed courtroom to four charges stemming from the effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

From ‘Mr President’ to ‘Mr’: strongman Donald Trump cut down to size in court

But even as observers savored a sombre yet reaffirming moment for the rule of law, a follower of the former US president could be seen outside court waving a giant flag. “Trump or death,” it declared, not far from the halls of Congress where lethal violence erupted on January 6,2021.

Trump is now twice impeached and thrice indicted but his support base is holding firm.

Indeed, each negative in a court of law translates into a positive in the court of public opinion. He remains the dominant figure among Republican voters who Fox his view that he is being unfairly targeted by a justice system bent on helping Democrat Joe Biden.

“The more the indictments, the better his poll numbers, the easier the argument that it’s two standards of justice and Donald Trump is persecuted and picked on,” said Bill Whalen, a policy fellow at the Hoover Institution thinktank in Palo Alto, California. “It’s very funny, considering he’s the pre-eminent bully in American politics, that no one plays the victim card better than Donald Trump.”

A whiff of criminality or scandal used to be career ending for politician. President Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate; Vice-President Spiro Agnew quit after being charged with bribery, tax evasion and conspiracy; Gary Hart’s presidential campaign collapsed due to allegations of an extramarital affair; Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress after a series of sexting scandals.

But Trump has shattered the laws of the political physics. He has made the state and federal charges – now a combined 78 across three jurisdictions – against him a central plank of his campaign platform, casting himself as a martyr. At his rallies he portrays the cases as not just an attack on him but his supporters. He told a crowd last week in Erie, Pennsylvania: “They’re not indicting me, they’re indicting you.”

A few dissenting voices apart, Republicans have echoed and amplified these talking points with characteristic fervour. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that she “will still vote for Trump even if he’s in jail”.

“I don’t see a pathway right now where Republican base voters suddenly wake up and say, ‘Wow, this is a bad guy and we’re going to change our minds, we’re going to to vote for Chris Christie or Ron DeSantis.’ All of them have failed on a fundamental level to make a case for themselves because the base will punish them if they attack him.”

The more the indictments, the better his poll numbers

Some Republicans in Congress are still willing to criticise Trump on certain issues and a few, such as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, are outspoken in their conviction that he is unfit for office. Others, such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have either retired or been ousted.

But most party leaders have stayed silent and fallen into line, apparently terrified of alienating Trump’s fervent support base in what critics describe as political cowardice. Even his main opponents in the party’s presidential primary race have dodged the issue or endorsed his claim of a Democratic witch-hunt and “deep state” conspiracy.

Wilson added: “Not one of the serious candidates – there aren’t many in the primary field – are making any kind of argument other than this is illegitimate, this is wrong, [special counsel] Jack Smith’s the real criminal, all these crazy things. Not one of the serious ones is saying this guy should be in prison, not in the White House.

“I don’t think this is a moment where Trump has been harmed in the primary; it’s solidified it. He’s going to be on TV every minute of every day for weeks and weeks and weeks and every time that happens the fundraising for the other Republicans dries up, their ability to communicate a messaging stops, none of it works. The whole thing is set of perverse incentives and it’s an almost inescapable trap for the rest of the field.”

Trump himself understands this trap and how it starves his opponents of political oxygen. Ahead of his court appearance on Thursday, he wrote on his Truth Social media platform: “I need one more indictment to ensure my election!”

He has also used the cases to raise cash, sending out a flurry of fundraising emails and raking in millions. Even so, an analysis by the Associated Press found that so far this year the former president’s political operation has spent more on legal fees defending him, his staff and his allies than on travel, rallies and other campaign expenses combined.

And commentators say that while the indictments could help Trump solidify support within his base and win the Republican nomination, his ability to capitalise on them will be more limited in next year’s presidential election, when he will have to win over more sceptical moderate Republicans and independents.

In a July Reuters/ Ipsos poll, 37% of independents said the criminal cases against Trump made them less likely to vote for him for president, compared to 8% who said they were more likely to do so.

However, hours before the latest indictment was unsealed, alarm bells were set off among Democrats by a New York Times/Siena opinion poll that showed him running neck and neck with Biden at 43%. Wilson’s advice to Democrats is simple: “They should say over and over again: this is a choice between economic growth and steady leadership in the world and at home or backing a criminal.”

Democratic leaders in Congress welcomed this week’s indictment as proof that all are equal before the law. But Biden has been circumspect about commenting on Trump’s trials and tribulations.

He appointed Merrick Garland as attorney general, who in turn appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the Trump investigations. The president, an institutionalist, has been careful to keep his distance from both and to avoid commenting on the cases, lest he give credence to the accusation of political meddling. On Tuesday, as the nation was digesting the latest indictment, Biden continued his holiday by going to see the blockbuster film Oppenheimer. On Thursday, asked if he would watch the court hearing, Biden replied: “No.”

Donna Brazile, a former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “There’s a reason the justice department is independent and Merrick Garland appointed the special counsel so there’s no role whatsoever for the president to be involved in it. First of all, the separation of powers and secondly, it doesn’t help him politically to become entangled in this.

“At this moment the Republican party has to sort this out, not the Democratic president, not the Democratic party, not Democratic voters. Trump is running for president not to solve America’s problems; he’s running to try to stay out of jail and not be held accountable.”

The electoral and legal calendars are set to collide. A New York state criminal trial involving a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels is due to start on 25 March next year, and his Florida trial in a federal classified documents case is scheduled to begin on 20 May. Both would take place just months before the November election, as might a third trial in the case centred on his 2020 election lies.

But plenty of analysts agree that the White House should resist the temptation to weigh in on Trump’s woes. Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “They need to let the law speak for itself. The more they talk about it, the more it looks political.

“They want the person who didn’t vote, particularly the young person who is culturally liberal and inclined to the Democratic party, to let the facts speak for themselves and not have them think, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I think Trump is awful but this is awful too’. That’s the question you never want to have appear in marginal voters’ minds. That means let the court thing play out for itself. Don’t talk about it.”

ATTACHMENT FIFTY – From Time

These Are the Key Dates in Donald Trump's Legal Cases—and Re-Election Bid

BY NIK POPLI UPDATED: AUGUST 3, 2023 4:53 PM EDT | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: AUGUST 3, 2023 2:22 PM EDT

After being criminally indicted for the third time on Aug. 2, former President Donald Trump is now facing the prospect of being put on trial at least six times in the next year, clogging up his campaign calendar with multiple court appearances that intersect with key events on the 2024 political schedule.

If the trial dates stay the same, Trump could clinch the GOP presidential nomination before voters learn whether he has been convicted on any of the charges, raising new questions about the logistical and political challenges of multiple trials unfolding against the backdrop of a presidential campaign.

Trump is currently facing criminal charges in three different states and is widely expected to face another criminal indictment in Georgia by the end of this summer. He also faces three separate civil suits.

It’s unclear if the unprecedented slew of legal activity will hurt Trump politically. In the immediate aftermath of his first two indictments, Trump raised millions of dollars and his polling soared. But it could hurt Trump simply by taking away his time and attention. Typically, criminal defendants must be present in the courtroom during their trials, meaning Trump will likely have to step away from the campaign trail to stand trial. And while he can still run for President under criminal charges, it will open a series of unresolved legal and constitutional questions if he's convicted before—or after—he retakes the Oval Office.

Here is a timeline of key dates for Trump in his legal cases and reelection campaign until Election Day 2024.

Aug. 3, 2023: Arraignment in Washington, D.C. in Jan. 6 case

Trump will make his first appearance in federal court in Washington, D.C. after being indicted in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Aug. 10, 2023: Arraignment in Florida in classified documents case

Aug. 10, 2023: Hearing in Georgia

Aug. 23, 2023: First GOP presidential primary debate

Aug. 28, 2023: First hearing in Jan. 6 case

Trump will appear in federal court in Washington, D.C. for a hearing before Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will set the trial date in the Jan. 6 case.

Sept. 27, 2023: Second GOP presidential primary debate

Oct. 2, 2023: Trial in Trump Organization civil fraud suit

Jan. 15, 2024: Trial in E. Jean Carroll civil defamation suit

Jan. 15, 2024: Iowa Republican caucuses

Jan. 29, 2024: Trial in pyramid scheme class-action suit

Start of trial in class-action lawsuit accusing Trump and his company of promoting a get-rich-quick scheme that conned victims into forking over money.

Feb. 6, 2024: Nevada Republican primary

Feb. 27, 2024: Michigan Republican primary

March 5, 2024: Super Tuesday primaries

March 25, 2024: Trial in New York state criminal hush-money case

Start of criminal trial in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case accusing Trump of falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election.

May 14, 2024: Pretrial hearing in classified documents case

Start of a pretrial hearing in the classified documents case to address remaining issues about classified evidence or other matters related to the trial.

May 20, 2024: Trial in classified documents case

Start of criminal trial in Special Counsel Smith’s case accusing Trump of hoarding classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

July 15-18, 2024: Republican National Convention

Nov. 5, 2024: Election Day

ATTACHMENT “A” – From x07 Guk

Trump lawyer hints defense will focus on free speech; ex-president will not have mugshot taken – live

John Lauro claims four criminal charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election ‘absurd’; US officials say Trump will have fingerprints taken but no photo

· Can Trump still run in 2024 – and can he pardon himself?

· 45 pages that skewer Trump’s bid to destroy American democracy

LIVE Updated 9m ago

· 9m ago 1440

Messages suggest top Trump adviser could be 'co-conspirator 6' in indictment - report

· 2h ago 1240

US Capitol offices evacuated after threatening phone call

· 2h ago 1240

Pence says Trump surrounded himself with 'crackpot lawyers' as he tried to overturn election

· 2h ago

Trump will not have mugshot taken in Thursday arraignment - report

· 4h ago 1040

Obama warned Biden of Trump's continued strength - report

· 4h ago

The day so far

· 5h ago 0940

Special counsel concerned lawyer for Trump co-defendant has conflict of interest

· 6h ago 0840

Concerns over January 6 played a role in Fitch downgrade of US debt

· 8h ago 0640

Trump lawyer argues January 6 indictment criminalizes speech

· 9h ago 0540

Americans digest latest charges against Trump ahead of court appearance

· 10h ago 0440

Trump's legal calendar before the 2024 election

· 11h ago 0340

Trump summoned to court on Thursday

· 12h ago 0240

Indictment says Trump knowingly 'spread lies'

· 12h ago 0240

Trump charged over attempts to stay in power despite election loss

Léonie Chao-Fong (now); Chris Stein, US politics live blogger, and Oliver Holmes (earlier)

Wed 2 Aug 2023 17.04 EDT

Show key events only

From 8h ago

09.42 EDT

Trump lawyer argues January 6 indictment criminalizes speech

Lauro first indicated that he objects to special counsel Jack Smith’s push to hold the trial in 90 days, calling it “absurd”:

Smith made a similar attempt with the charges he filed against Trump over the Mar-a-Lago documents, but a federal judge has now pushed that trial to May 2024.

Lauro also indicated that he planned to argue Smith was putting Trump on trial over his speech, which would go against the first amendment:

.@SavannahGuthrie: The indictment specifically says that the President has a first amendment right to speech, he even has a first amendment right to lie. (…) This indictment is criminalizing conduct, not speech.
Lauro: No, it’s criminalizing speech (…) pic.twitter.com/VAo3jCFvwL

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 2, 2023

Updated at 10.49 EDT

9m ago17.04 EDT

Messages suggest top Trump adviser could be 'co-conspirator 6' in indictment - report

Donald Trump’s latest indictment lists six unnamed co-conspirators alleged to have helped the former president in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

The former president’s six co-conspirators were not charged in the indictment.

Epshteyn has been one of Trump’s closest advisers in recent years, with more knowledge about the former president’s legal entanglements than perhaps anyone else.

He was interviewed in April by special counsel prosecutors investigating Trump’s retention of classified-marked documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.

Top Trump adviser to be interviewed by special counsel prosecutors

30m ago16.43 EDT

Prosecutors wrote in the 11-page court filing:

All three of these witnesses may be witnesses for the government at trial, raising the possibility that Mr Woodward might be in the position of cross-examining past or current clients.

51m ago16.22 EDT

Chutkan “has a reputation for being far left, even by DC district court standards”, Cruz said in an episode on his podcast on Wednesday. He added:

Cruz – along with every other Republican senator at the time – voted for Chutkan’s confirmation in 2014.

Updated at 16.26 EDT

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1h ago15.52 EDT

Donald Trump is a known TV watcher, particularly of Fox News, the right-leaning network that he has had an on again, off again relationship with ever since his first campaign for the White House.

The hint that Trump may have can be found on Truth social, where about 10 minutes ago, he posted the following:

Trump’s claims of election fraud have been rejected by almost every judge they have appeared before.

2h ago15.26 EDT

US Capitol offices evacuated after threatening phone call

Frightening scenes played out at the US Capitol a few minutes ago, when police evacuated Senate office buildings in response to a threatening phone call that was reportedly a hoax.

US Capitol police say they dispatched officers after receiving warnings of a possible active shooter:

Politico reports the Washington DC police department, which helps secure the Capitol complex, said the call appeared to be a ruse:

Updated at 15.40 EDT

2h ago15.08 EDT

Pence says Trump surrounded himself with 'crackpot lawyers' as he tried to overturn election

Mike Pence kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech condemning former boss Donald Trump ’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

Pence reiterated that criticism today when asked about the indictment filed by Jack Smith:

It’s not exactly a winning message, at least not yet. Polls currently have Pence with single-digit support among Republican voters.

Updated at 15.16 EDT

2h ago14.49 EDT

Trump will not have mugshot taken in Thursday arraignment - report

Here’s more on what we can expect tomorrow, from Bloomberg:

Wade confirmed that Trump:

— will have his fingerprints taken digitally

— will be required to provide his social security number, date of birth, address, and other personal information

— won’t have photograph taken, since he’s already easily recognizable and there are already many photographs available

Trump won’t be placed under arrest, according to Wade. In accepting the indictment Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya issued a summons for his appearance, not an arrest warrant.

Separately, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has released a terse statement about what Washingtonians can expect when the former president goes to court tomorrow:

3h ago14.26 EDT

Donald Trump had a private dinner with Fox News executives shortly after learning that he would be indicted a third time, according to a New York Times report.

According to the paper, Trump told the Fox executives he had not yet made a decision and would keep an open mind.

3h ago14.09 EDT

He added in a statement:

Let’s be clear: Justice Alito is not the 101st member of the United States Senate. His intervention … is unwise and unwelcome.

Saying he was defending himself because “nobody else is going to do this”, the George W Bush-appointed conservative, 73, said: “Congress did not create the supreme court.

I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the constitution gives them the authority to regulate the supreme court – period.

Durbin, who with Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has sought to pilot ethics reform in response to the Thomas and Alito scandals, rejected Alito’s position.

“The ethical conduct of supreme court justices is a serious matter within this committee’s jurisdiction,” he said.

Ensuring ethical conduct by the justices is critical to the court’s legitimacy.

3h ago13.54 EDT

A lawyer for John Eastman, one of the co-conspirators named in Tuesday’s indictment of Donald Trump, said he would decline a plea deal if offered one by federal prosecutors.

In a statement, Harvey Silverglate said Eastman has not and will not be engaged in plea bargaining in the case with state or federal prosecutors.

4h ago13.41 EDT

Here’s our video report of how Democrats and Republicans reacted to Donald Trump’s latest federal indictment on charges relating to his alleged attempted election subversion.

02:19

How Washington DC reacted to Trump's latest indictment – video report

4h ago13.31 EDT

Obama warned Biden of Trump's continued strength - report

Barack Obama warned Joe Biden that Donald Trump would be a formidable election opponent, even with his legal troubles, the Washington Post reports.

Here’s more from the Post’s report:

Recent polling suggests Trump has a significant lead over his GOP rivals and that he and Biden are essentially tied in a hypothetical rematch.

4h ago13.13 EDT

The day so far

That’s not all that’s been happening:

· Why did Fitch downgrade the US’s debt from its highest rating? The January 6 insurrection was among the reasons.

· Robert F Kennedy Jr is running as Democrat for president, but is being bankrolled by a Republican.

· Reporters managed to track down Merrick Garland somewhere that wasn’t the justice department headquarters, but he still had little to say about the new charges against Trump.

4h ago12.50 EDT

Senator and Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott highlighted his presence on the “weaponization” bandwagon in response to Donald Trump’s latest indictment:

5h ago12.27 EDT

Special counsel concerned lawyer for Trump co-defendant has conflict of interest

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that special counsel Jack Smith is concerned that Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, has a conflict of interest:

Trump valet arraigned over role in classified documents case

5h ago12.11 EDT

The US capital city is deeply Democratic, and during his presidency, Trump rarely ventured into its streets, except to visit his hotel.

Polls show that DeSantis is Trump’s strongest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, but his campaign is going much worse than expected.

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5h ago11.50 EDT

Such as Jim Banks, who may soon be headed to represent Indiana in the Senate:

Dan Meuser adopted the “weaponization” allegation Trump has repeatedly leveled against the Biden administration:

Mike Bost keeps his message simple:

In an interview with CNN, a Washington DC police officer who was assaulted on January 6 Foxd his thoughts on Donald Trump’s indictment over the attack:

6h ago11.09 EDT

Here’s more from Reuters on Fitch’s surprise decision to downgrade the US debt rating yesterday, citing factors that polarized economists and investors:

The rating agency Fitch downgraded the US government’s top credit rating on Tuesday, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors.

Surprise US credit rating downgrade draws White House ire

6h ago10.52 EDT

Concerns over January 6 played a role in Fitch downgrade of US debt

Credit agency Fitch’s surprise downgrade of US debt from its top rating yesterday was motivated in part by concerns over the January 6 insurrection, Reuters reports.

Fitch is the second of the three major ratings agencies to downgrade US debt. In 2011, S&P downgraded the US from its top level rating after a protracted standoff over raising the debt ceiling.

7h ago10.31 EDT

Donald Trump’s legal troubles are not the only thing happening in the world of American politics. The Guardian’s Mary Yang reports that a prominent Democratic challenger to Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination is, surprise, surprise, being funded by a Republican:

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s campaign bankrolled by Republican mega-donor

7h ago10.06 EDT

Reporters managed to track down attorney general Merrick Garland somewhere to ask him about the latest indictment against Donald Trump.

8h ago09.42 EDT

Trump lawyer argues January 6 indictment criminalizes speech

Lauro first indicated that he objects to special counsel Jack Smith’s push to hold the trial in 90 days, calling it “absurd”:

Smith made a similar attempt with the charges he filed against Trump over the Mar-a-Lago documents, but a federal judge has now pushed that trial to May 2024.

Lauro also indicated that he planned to argue Smith was putting Trump on trial over his speech, which would go against the first amendment:

Updated at 10.49 EDT

8h ago09.17 EDT

As the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports, reactions to Trump’s indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election have thus far fallen mostly along partisan lines:

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is a distant second to Trump in primary polling, swiftly issued a statement that notably did not mention Trump by name.

“As president,” DeSantis said, “I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans.”

DeSantis leads Republican support for Trump after election subversion charges

8h ago08.52 EDT

This is now the third indictment Donald Trump has faced this year alone, but historians who spoke to the Washington Post say this one is more serious than the rest.

Here’s more from their story on the indictment’s historical significance:

9h ago08.31 EDT

Americans digest latest charges against Trump ahead of court appearance

Here’s what else is happening:

· The White House is fuming after ratings agency Fitch downgraded US debt from its highest mark. The agency cited the country’s finances, as well as its repeated bouts of fiscal brinksmanship.

· Trump, meanwhile, is doing his usual thing on Truth social, the platform that has become his mouthpiece after getting banned from Twitter following January 6.

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9h ago08.06 EDT

It’s just gone 8 am in Washington DC.

I’m going to hand over now to the US politics live blogger, Chris Stein, who will guide you through the rest of the day.

Updated at 08.25 EDT

9h ago07.53 EDT

Léonie Chao-Fong

Here are some key takeaways from the latest indictment:

Donald Trump’s January 6 indictment: six key takeaways

10h ago07.32 EDT

Trump's legal calendar before the 2024 election

Trump has quite the legal calendar ahead of him, while also seeking to run for president in the 2024 election.

Here is a rundown of all his legal dates alongside the political calendar. As you can see, it’s going to be impossible to untangle the two.

10h ago07.15 EDT

The Trump campaign's response to the indictment is here. An extract below:

Below is the video of the announcement:

02:16

Donald Trump charged over efforts to overturn 2020 election - video

11h ago06.29 EDT

A reader has sent in a couple of questions that I’m sure are on everyone’s mind:

1.) “Will he go to jail”

2.) “Will he run in 2024”

The answer to the first one is “possibly” and the second is “still very likely”.

Trump faces charges that have maximum jail sentences of many, many years.

There is even a scenario in which Trump both goes to jail and runs in 2024 (and even wins!).

“How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question,” Hasen said.

11h ago06.19 EDT

For those just waking up, here is our most recent news story:

Donald Trump to appear in court over attempt to overturn 2020 US election

11h ago06.07 EDT

Trump summoned to court on Thursday

The former president has been summoned to appear before a federal magistrate judge in Washington DC on Thursday.

Things are moving relatively fast. Jack Smith, the special counsel, said he would seek a “speedy trial”, and stressed that Trump was entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Trump is expected to be arraigned – a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant – at the DC district court before magistrate judge Moxila A Upadhyaya.

12h ago05.42 EDT

Indictment says Trump knowingly 'spread lies'

The case against Trump was announced last night by special counsel Jack Smith. He is a federal prosecutor – a government lawyer who is tasked with prosecuting criminal cases.

You can read it in full here, but here are parts of the introduction:

(Note: “outcome-determinative” means that the alleged election fraud was so big that it would have changed the outcome of the election ie mean Trump had won)

12h ago05.24 EDT

Trump charged over attempts to stay in power despite election loss

Donald Trump has been indicted with several crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a frenzied attempt to stay in power.

In short (and avoiding legalese) the charges relate to Trump’s alleged effort to deny the American people their democratic right to choose their own leader.

Donald Trump faces four charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election

ATTACHMENT “B” – From x21 NYT

X21 to Overturn the 2020 Election

The former president was arraigned in a Washington federal courtroom two days after he was formally charged with conspiring to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. The next hearing in the case is set for Aug. 28.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:49 p.m. ET1 minute ago

1 minute ago

Glenn Thrush

Reporting from Washington

Here’s the latest on Trump’s court appearance.

Former President Donald J. Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges that he conspired to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss, appearing before a judge in a Washington courthouse in the shadow of the Capitol, where his supporters rampaged in an effort to undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

Mr. Trump, who is running in the hopes of being sworn in again on the steps of the Capitol, stood before a federal magistrate judge who asked for his plea to the four counts he faced. He replied, “Not guilty.”

It was the third time in four months he stood before a judge on criminal charges. But it was the most momentous, the beginning of what prosecutors say should be a reckoning for his multipronged efforts to undermine one of the core tenets of democracy.

Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya, who oversaw the roughly half-hour hearing, ordered Mr. Trump not to communicate about the case with any witnesses except through counsel or in the presence of counsel. She set the date for the first hearing before the trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, for Aug. 28.

One of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, John F. Lauro, complained to Judge Upadhyaya that the government had had years to investigate the matter and he and his colleagues were going to need time to fairly defend their client. She directed him to bring it up with the trial judge, and for prosecutors to respond within five days of his filing.

The same courthouse where Mr. Trump appeared before to face the charges brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, has already hosted a stream of trials for Trump supporters accused of attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Security is heavy around the courthouse, with officers on foot and on horseback and barricades erected on the sidewalk. The crowd — made up of Mr. Trump’s critics and his supporters — clogged the area outside the courthouse, with some carrying pro-Trump signs and others shouting anti-Trump slogans, including “Lock him up!”

Here’s what to know:

· Mr. Trump’s appearance came about six weeks after his arraignment in Miami on federal charges of mishandling government documents after he left the White House and seeking to block investigators. As in that case, he did not have a mug shot taken.

· The hearing before Judge Upadhyaya, who was appointed to the bench last year, is expected to be relatively straightforward. Mr. Trump will be asked to enter a plea to the four charges against him, then the government will be asked to present conditions for his release. In the Florida case, prosecutors requested no bail and no restrictions on his travel, acknowledging his status as a leading candidate for the 2024 presidential Republican nomination.

· .

· Three members of Mr. Smith’s small team of veteran prosecutors will be at the forefront of the election case. Mr. Trump’s legal team has added a new member specifically for this latest indictment.

· Mr. Trump is already under indictment in two other cases. He is charged with 40 counts in the documents case and 34 felony counts in a New York State case in the spring in connection with a hush-money payment to a pornographic actress before the 2016 election. Mr. Trump could face a fourth criminal case before the month is over: The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is also investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election. Track the investigations here.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:48 p.m. ET2 minutes ago

2 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:47 p.m. ET3 minutes ago

3 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Trump is expected to talk to reporters before he boards his plane back to New Jersey. Unlike after his first two indictments, he won’t deliver rally-style remarks later.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:46 p.m. ET3 minutes ago

3 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:46 p.m. ET4 minutes ago

4 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

It bears repeating that Trump’s advisers are blunt privately that their goal is for Trump to win the election in part so that the cases can be disappeared by the Trump Justice Department.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:46 p.m. ET4 minutes ago

4 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:45 p.m. ET5 minutes ago

5 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Judge Upadhyaya directs Lauro to make a written filing before Judge Chutkan regarding the Speedy Trial Act, and tells the government it will have five days to respond.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:44 p.m. ET5 minutes ago

5 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

Here, again, the Trump defense team will do whatever it can to delay. The longer the trial is delayed, the better chance there is that it won’t conflict with the election.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:43 p.m. ET7 minutes ago

7 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:44 p.m. ET6 minutes ago

6 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro says the government has had years to investigate the matter, and the defense lawyers are going to need a little time to fairly represent their client.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:39 p.m. ET10 minutes ago

10 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:40 p.m. ET9 minutes ago

9 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

And let’s not forget that Trump might be indicted in Georgia later this month as well.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:41 p.m. ET9 minutes ago

9 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

The legal calendar has become intertwined with the political calendar in a way that could prove challenging for Trump, although he is currently leading the Republican primary field by some 30 points.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:38 p.m. ET12 minutes ago

12 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:39 p.m. ET10 minutes ago

10 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro requests that the government be required to give the defense, within two or three days, an understanding of the scope of discovery.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:40 p.m. ET10 minutes ago

10 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:37 p.m. ET13 minutes ago

13 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:37 p.m. ET13 minutes ago

13 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:36 p.m. ET14 minutes ago

14 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:35 p.m. ET14 minutes ago

14 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya said Judge Chutkan was willing to waive Trump’s appearance at the first hearing if he wants.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:35 p.m. ET15 minutes ago

15 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:34 p.m. ET16 minutes ago

16 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:34 p.m. ET15 minutes ago

15 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

The first two dates are just before the first Republican primary debate, Aug. 23, which Trump has not yet said if he is attending.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:32 p.m. ET18 minutes ago

18 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Judge Upadhyaya signed the document outlining the conditions of release and told the lawyers they would all receive copies.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:31 p.m. ET19 minutes ago

19 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:30 p.m. ET20 minutes ago

20 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:30 p.m. ET20 minutes ago

20 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Upadhyaya asks if Trump is prepared to comply with the conditions, and he nods and says yes.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:29 p.m. ET21 minutes ago

21 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:27 p.m. ET22 minutes ago

22 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

It is no surprise that the government did not seek to detain Trump on the charges he faces. He was not detained after his arraignment in Florida either.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:32 p.m. ET18 minutes ago

18 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

It’s also no surprise that prosecutors did not require Trump to surrender his passport or attach any other serious condition to his release. The same thing happened in the Florida case.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:27 p.m. ET23 minutes ago

23 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:28 p.m. ET22 minutes ago

22 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Lauro says this accurately states the defense’s understanding of the conditions of release.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:28 p.m. ET22 minutes ago

22 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

The order imposed on Trump not to communicate with any witnesses in the case is the same one imposed on him in the documents case.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:26 p.m. ET23 minutes ago

23 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

In response to a question from Judge Upadhyaya, Windom confirms that the government is not seeking to detain Trump.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:26 p.m. ET24 minutes ago

24 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

It can’t be stressed enough that Trump values projecting strength, and these indictments and arraignments are events he spent a lifetime avoiding before his presidency.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:25 p.m. ET25 minutes ago

25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump returns to his chair and sits down.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:25 p.m. ET25 minutes ago

25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

“Not guilty,” Trump says to Counts 1 through 4.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:25 p.m. ET25 minutes ago

25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:24 p.m. ET26 minutes ago

26 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:21 p.m. ET29 minutes ago

29 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:21 p.m. ET28 minutes ago

28 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

The question about a defendant using drugs is standard operating procedure and not specific to Trump.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:20 p.m. ET29 minutes ago

29 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:20 p.m. ET30 minutes ago

30 minutes ago

Neil Vigdor

The legal issues with Ron DeSantis’s push to move cases away from Washington, D.C.

Legal experts say that an idea floated by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida about transferring criminal cases out of Washington, D.C., is a flawed concept.

“It’s going to be hard to square with the Constitution,” said Elizabeth Earle Beske, an associate law professor at American University in Washington, D.C.

“Congress can certainly change the rules of criminal procedure to allow defendants to change venues out of D.C. for politically charged cases,” he said.

Arthur Hellman, a law professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, suggested that Mr. DeSantis had “not thought that through completely.”

“Criminal venue was so important to the framers,” of the Constitution, he said.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:18 p.m. ET31 minutes ago

31 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The magistrate judge, Moxila A. Upadhyaya, just warned people not to record anything in the courtroom or media overflow rooms.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:18 p.m. ET32 minutes ago

32 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The defense lawyer John F. Lauro introduced himself and Todd Blanche, and said “President Trump” was present.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:17 p.m. ET32 minutes ago

32 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

A prosecutor, Thomas P. Windom, introduced himself and a fellow prosecutor, Molly Gaston. He identified the other woman at the prosecutors’ table as “F.B.I. Special Agent Garner.”

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:19 p.m. ET31 minutes ago

31 minutes ago

Alan Feuer

Generally, an F.B.I. agent who appears with prosecutors in the courtroom is the case agent on the investigation. We will see if that’s the case with Agent Garner.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:16 p.m. ET34 minutes ago

34 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

The gavel just banged. Trump stood with his lawyers and everyone else at the “all rise” order, then sat back down.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:16 p.m. ET34 minutes ago

34 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:14 p.m. ET36 minutes ago

36 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:15 p.m. ET34 minutes ago

34 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

A reporter tries to come up with yet another descriptive way to convey that nothing is happening yet.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:13 p.m. ET37 minutes ago

37 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Trump has done everything he can do to try to make these indictments roll out on his own terms. But now he’s at the mercy of prosecutors and the judge.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:12 p.m. ET38 minutes ago

38 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump came into the room at 3:51 p.m., so he has now been waiting 20 minutes.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:10 p.m. ET40 minutes ago

40 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump appeared to stare at Jack Smith for several moments. Now he is leaning forward and appears to be staring at the prosecutors sitting at their table across from him.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:09 p.m. ET41 minutes ago

41 minutes ago

Luke Broadwater

The crowd outside the courthouse has grown and now outnumbers the hundreds of members of the news media here.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:08 p.m. ET42 minutes ago

42 minutes ago

Benjamin Protess

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:12 p.m. ET38 minutes ago

38 minutes ago

Maggie Haberman

Corcoran was brought into Trump’s world by Boris Epshteyn, an adviser who is traveling with the former president today.

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:07 p.m. ET43 minutes ago

43 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 4:00 p.m. ET50 minutes ago

50 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:59 p.m. ET51 minutes ago

51 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s 2024 campaign, is standing in the corner behind the defense table area, along with some men who may be Trump’s Secret Service detail based on their pins.

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:55 p.m. ET56 minutes ago

56 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:56 p.m. ET54 minutes ago

54 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:57 p.m. ET53 minutes ago

53 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Blanche returned to the defense table, and Lauro got up to lean over him and look at the papers. Trump is sitting impassively next to them but not taking part, instead looking around left and right.

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:55 p.m. ET55 minutes ago

55 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Here are the charges Trump is facing.

The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday leveled four criminal counts against him over his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election.

Conspiracy to violate rights

In invoking the statute, the indictment frames Mr. Trump’s conduct as “a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”

Essentially, Mr. Smith accused Mr. Trump of trying to rig the outcome of the election.

The indictment, which recounts each of those episodes in detail, relies on the same basic facts for the other counts against Mr. Trump.

Conspiracy to defraud the United States

Conspiracy to defraud the United States involves Section 371. Any conviction on this charge is also punishable by up to five years in prison.

Corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to commit that crime

Both of the closely related third and fourth counts are provisions of Section 1512. Any conviction under that statute is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:52 p.m. ET58 minutes ago

58 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Trump is entering the room.

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:51 p.m. ET59 minutes ago

59 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:51 p.m. ET59 minutes ago

59 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:45 p.m. ET1 hour ago

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Benjamin Protess

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:42 p.m. ET1 hour ago

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Charlie Savage

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:35 p.m. ET1 hour ago

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Jonathan Swan

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:33 p.m. ET1 hour ago

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Alan Feuer

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:36 p.m. ET1 hour ago

1 hour ago

Benjamin Protess

Aug. 3, 2023, 3:30 p.m. ET1 hour ago