On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that “close associates” of Donald Trump count on the Justice Department’s Jack Smith–led investigation into his handling of classified documents to outcome in an indictment—which, for these of you maintaining up at dwelling, would make him the 1st president in US history to be indicted twice. (To be clear, he’s also the 1st president in US history to be indicted as soon as.) And according to a new report, Trump’s personal legal group is creating just the identical prediction.
According to Rolling Stone, numerous attorneys representing Trump—as nicely as political advisers—have “bluntly informed him that they count on the Justice Division to charge him in the criminal investigation into his hoarding of extremely classified documents following the finish of his presidency,” according to two people today familiar with the matter. Though reportedly insisting to the former guy that they think the probe is “bullshit,” these people today have nonetheless apparently told him that “they would be shocked at this point if he wasn’t charged—particularly for alleged obstruction of justice—and have urged Trump to prepare for yet another historic fight.” As 1 of the sources place it to the outlet: “Looks like they’re going for it. Persons close to the [former] president have discussed with him what we feel is going to come about quickly, and how he and absolutely everyone else desires to be prepared for it…it would be crazy not to.”
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Not surprisingly, Trump, in at least 1 of theses chats, has reacted “angrily,” asking, “What about Joe Biden?” (Classified documents have been identified at numerous places made use of by Biden, and shortly thereafter, Lawyer Common Merrick Garland appointed yet another specific counsel to investigate the matter. Documents have been also identified at former vice president Mike Pence’s dwelling. An essential point that seems to elude the ex-president: Neither the president nor Pence refused to comply with a government request to retrieve the documents.) In April, Trump’s former lawyer common Bill Barr stated in an interview that the classified-documents probe was the 1 Trump should really be “most concerned about.” In yet another interview earlier this month, he told CBS News: “He wouldn’t get in problems, possibly, just for taking them…. The challenge is what did he do right after the government asked for them back and subpoenaed them. And if there’s any games getting played there, he’s going to be quite exposed.”
Speaking of what Trump did right after the government asked for him to return the documents—which they started requesting in Could 2021—here’s a new and intriguing report from The Washington Post:
Two of Donald Trump’s staff moved boxes of papers the day just before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida dwelling to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena—timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of attainable obstruction, according to people today familiar with the matter…. On the evening of June two, the identical day the two staff moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Division and stated officials there have been welcome to pay a visit to Mar-a-Lago and choose up classified documents connected to the subpoena. [Senior Justice Department lawyer Jay] Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.
As aspect of that pay a visit to, Bratt and the agents have been invited to pay a visit to the storage area exactly where Trump aides stated boxes of documents from his time as president have been kept. Court papers filed by the Justice Division say the guests have been told by Trump’s lawyers that they could not open any of the boxes in the storage area or appear at their contents. When FBI agents secured a court order to search Mar-a-Lago two months later, they identified additional than one hundred added classified documents, some in Trump’s workplace and some in the storage location.
According to the Post, Jack Smith’s group has also identified proof that just before Trump was subpoenaed—but nicely right after the government had began asking for the documents to be returned—he performed a “dress rehearsal” for moving documents he didn’t want to give back. And, that he “at instances kept classified documents in his workplace in a location exactly where they have been visible and often showed them to other people,” according to people today familiar with the matter. Prosecutors also reportedly stated in an August filing they had proof that “obstructive conduct” took location in response to the Could 2022 subpoena.
As has been the case with all of the numerous investigations into his conduct, Trump has denied all wrongdoing. In a statement, a spokesman told the Post: “This is absolutely nothing additional than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and avoid the American people today from returning him to the White Home.”
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The Supreme Court decides to make it less complicated to pollute wetlands
Which is quite substantially in character for the Court’s conservative majority. Per The New York Occasions:
The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to police millions of acres of wetlands, delivering yet another setback to the agency’s capability to combat pollution. Writing for 5 justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. stated that the Clean Water Act does not let the agency to regulate discharges into wetlands close to bodies of water unless they have “a continuous surface connection” to these waters.
The selection was a second big blow to the EPA’s authority and to the energy of administrative agencies typically. Final year, the court limited the EPA’s energy to address climate change under the Clean Air Act. Specialists in environmental law stated the selection would leave lots of wetlands topic to pollution without the need of penalty, sharply undercutting the EPA’s authority to defend them beneath the Clean Water Act.
Patrick Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law College, told the Occasions that the selection is “a seriously disastrous outcome for wetlands, which have turn into definitely crucial for biodiversity preservation and flood manage.” In a surprise twist, Brett Kavanaugh sided with the Court’s liberal justices, writing in a concurring opinion that the selection will have “significant repercussions for water high-quality and flood manage all through the United States.” In a separate concurring opinion, Elena Kagan noted that the Court restricted the EPA’s capability to regulate energy plant emissions final year beneath the identical apparent belief that it knows additional about the atmosphere than environmental specialists, writing: “There, the majority’s non-textualism barred the EPA from addressing climate transform by curbing energy plant emissions in the most powerful way. Right here, that system prevents the EPA from maintaining our country’s waters clean by regulating adjacent wetlands. The vice in each situations is the identical: the Court’s appointment of itself as the national selection-maker on environmental policy.”
Ron DeSantis apparently considering about taking a web page from Trump’s playbook on January six
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1661771915348914190
GOP lawmaker stands up for the underrepresented tiny guys
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1661805398452568074
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