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In a new interview this morning, Donald Trump has boasted that the story of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago has boosted his poll numbers, and also warned that his supporters are “really angry” and “aren’t going to stand for this”.
Mr Trump has also accused the Justice Department of staging an already infamous photo of classified documents seized at his residence, but appears to have pivoted away from claiming the documents were planted, instead acknowledging that they were indeed stored at his residence while still claiming without evidence that he had declassified them.
The ex-president’s bragging comes after a new filing from his legal team failed to clarify their objections to the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago. Mr Trump’s lawyers are seeking the appointment of a special master to review the seized documents for materials covered by attorney-client privilege, but a review to the same effect has already been completed by a law enforcement filter team. A judge is mulling the issue after hearing from both sides on Thursday.
The document submitted yesterday by the Trump team in response to a devastating Department of Justice filing has been ridiculed by legal experts as incoherent and unconvincing.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin blasted her Republican opponent Nick Begich III for costing Republicans the special election and called on him to withdraw from the race.
“Nick Begich is now a three-time loser,” Ms Palin said in a statement on Thursday. “His ego-driven assistance after repeatedly failing to garner a majority of Republican votes, while I have consistently won the vote, has just cost Republicans a seat in Congress.”
Palin slams Republican opponent after special election, refuses to mention Peltola
Former president Donald Trump heads to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, today for his first rally of the midterm election season and since the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago residence.
The former president is going to be campaigning for Republican Doug Mastriano, who badly trails his Democratic opponent in fundraising, lags in polls and has yet to go on air with ads.
Meanwhile, president Joe Biden is also set to be in the state for the Labor Day weekend as Pennsylvania turns into a political battleground.
Mr Trump’s rally comes after a Florida court released a full list of what was found at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate during the FBI search last month.
FBI agents found 90 empty folders that had once held extremely sensitive documents among the 27 boxes removed from former president Donald Trump’s home during a court-authorised search on 8 August, according to an unsealed copy of a detailed inventory filed with a federal judge.
Trump had empty classified folders among loose papers at Mar-a-Lago
The unsealed inventory of what the FBI found in Donald Trump’s office and storage area at his Mar-a-Lago residence reveals a startling number of government documents were taken away from the White House at the end of his presidency.
According to the inventory from the 8 August search, there were:
How many classified documents did the FBI seize from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago?
Donald Trump baselessly accused Joe Biden of threatening the US with “military force” and as having “late stage dementia” after the president called him and his “MAGA Republican” followers for threatening democracy in a speech from Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace.
Trump bizarrely claims Biden speech threatened US with ‘military force’
Steve Bannon’s request for a new trial in his Contempt of Congress case has been rejected by a federal judge and he now faces prison when sentenced next month.
Steve Bannon’s request for new trial rejected by federal judge
President Joe Biden on Friday shot down criticism from Republican pundits over his condemnation of the way many of former president Donald Trump’s allies have embraced violence as a means to their political ends.
The president was speaking in the White House’s South Court Auditorium regarding the success of the American Rescue Plan Covid relief package when a reporter questioned him about comments he’d made on Thursday during a primetime speech from Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park.
Andrew Feinberg reports for The Independent.
Biden says support for violence — not voting for Trump — is ‘threat to democracy’
Joe Biden pulled zero punches on Thursday evening as he condemned Donald Trump and his grip over the Republican Party in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.
The president spoke on a warm summer evening as drama over an FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago continues to unfold and the stability of America’s rule of law seems more fragile than ever. Polling indicates that the feeling of uncertainty about the future is widespread: as many as four in 10 Americans say civil war is possible in the coming years, a shocking number.
The address on Thursday echoed many of the same warnings Mr Biden made earlier this year on the 12-month anniversary of the Jan 6 attack on Congress, a major but not the first sign of America’s worsening political fractures. Violence between the right and the left has been escalating for years, and was evident as early as 2017 when far-right rally attendees including white nationalists attacked counter-protesters in Charlottesville, killing one person.
There were many unique points in Mr Biden’s speech on Thursday as the president made his most aggressive case yet that Donald Trump and his allies’ continued efforts to sow distrust in America’s election systems represents a clear threat to the future of US democracy.
Here are a few notable points to think about after the president’s address to the nation:
Democracy or violence: Five key takeaways from Biden’s primetime speech
The National Archives is responsible for collecting, cataloguing and storing all federal government records. It takes its job very seriously, reports Richard Hall.
Trump is learning an important lesson in the hard way: Don’t mess with librarians
The Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin endorsed by Donald Trump is calling for people to take up “pitchforks and torches” in reaction to a story that detailed his giving to anti-abortion groups, churches and others — rhetoric that Democrats say amounts to threatening violence.
Wisconsin GOP candidate calls for 'pitchforks and torches'
Donald Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr tore apart the one-term president’s defence of having secret papers at his home during an appearance on Fox News.
Mr Barr defended the FBI’s raid of Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and said that his former boss had been “jerking around” the Justice Department.
Bill Barr tears apart Trump’s secret papers defence on Fox News
The former husband of MAGA-Republican Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo claims she threatened to crash her car — with intent to kill him and their two children — after he asked for a divorce, court filings suggest.
Jezebel obtained copies of the court documents in which Ms Karamo’s ex-husband, Adom Karamo, said she threatened to kill him and their young daughters over a divorce dispute.
GOP candidate’s ex-husband claims she threatened to crash car to kill family
Taylor Budowich, director of communications for Save America and Donald Trump, claims that the detailed inventory of what the FBI uncovered during their court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago proves it was a “smash and grab” operation.
He tweeted: “The new “detailed” inventory list only further proves that this unprecedented and unnecessary raid of President Trump’s home was not some surgical, confined search and retrieval that the Biden administration claims, it was a SMASH AND GRAB.”
Mr Budowich added: “These document disputes should be resolved under the Presidential Records Act, which requires cooperation and negotiation by NARA, not an armed FBI raid.”
These document disputes should be resolved under the Presidential Records Act, which requires cooperation and negotiation by NARA, not an armed FBI raid. 2/2
Pushing back on the notion that the operation was a “smash and grab”, Politico notes that the search warrant “specifically contemplated seizing items found alongside classified documents”.
Further: “The government indicated in filings earlier this week that the placement of classified materials among personal items were part of the potential evidence of a crime.”
Bloomberg Opinion writer Conor Sen has taken a look at where Joe Biden’s current opinion ratings stand in comparison to other presidents at this point in their first (or only) term.
Using FiveThirtyEight’s data, Mr Biden is currently rated higher than presidents Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, and level with Jimmy Carter.
Mr Sen points out that the Mr Biden’s numbers are pretty typical for a post-Watergate president.
July was a low point but at this point Biden’s numbers are something like pretty typical for a President in the post-Watergate era outside of GWB’s 9/11 boost.
Former US Representative and current Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes is pleading with Google to reverse its decision to block Donald Trump‘s personal social media platform back onto its app store.
Google made the decision to block the app from its store after it determined that content moderation on the Twitter-clone social media app was not meeting the necessary minimum standards to be included in the marketplace.
Graig Graziosi has the story.
Devin Nunes begs Google to approve Trump’s social media platform for Android devices
President Joe Biden on Friday shot down criticism from Republican pundits over his condemnation of the way many of former president Donald Trump’s allies have embraced violence as a means to their political ends.
The president was speaking in the White House’s South Court Auditorium regarding the success of the American Rescue Plan Covid relief package when a reporter questioned him about comments he’d made on Thursday during a primetime speech from Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park.
Andrew Feinberg reports for The Independent.
Biden says support for violence — not voting for Trump — is ‘threat to democracy’
Fox News host Maria Bartiromo is the latest figure from the right-wing news network to provide an out-of-court testimony as part of the Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the cable news titan.
A filing in the Superior Court in Delaware noted that the Fox News star would take questions on 8 September in reference to the network’s airing of false claims about the company in the fallout from the 2020 presidential election, according to a report inThe Los Angeles Times.
Maria Bartiromo to be deposed in Dominion defamation case over false election claims
Donald Trump baselessly accused Joe Biden of threatening the US with “military force” and as having “late stage dementia” after the president called him and his “MAGA Republican” followers for threatening democracy in a speech from Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace.
Delivering a prime-time address on Thursday ahead of November’s midterm elections, Mr Biden painted a picture of dark forces and “extreme ideology” that was working to undermine the “foundations of our republic”.
Trump bizarrely claims Biden speech threatened US with ‘military force’
The unsealed inventory of what the FBI found in Mr Trump’s office and storage area at his Mar-a-Lago residence reveals a startling number of government documents were taken away from the White House at the end of his presidency.
According to the inventory from the 8 August search, there were:
The Independent’s Oliver O’Connell explains:
How many classified documents did the FBI seize from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago?
Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr offered some harsh words against his former boss as new details were released about documents seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI.
“People say this was unprecedented. Well, it’s also unprecedented for a POTUS to take all this classified information & put ‘em in a country club, ok? And how long is the govt going to try to get that back?” Barr probed on Fox News.
"People say this was unprecedented. Well, it's also unprecedented for a POTUS to take all this classified information & put 'em in a country club, ok? And how long is the govt going to try to get that back?" -- Bill Barr bodies Trump on Fox News even as anchors try to defend him pic.twitter.com/7HqOvf9xvp
Biden appeared to tone down his rhetoric around Trump supporters on Friday, hours after his scathing attack in a primetime speech the night before.
“I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country,” he said from the White House.
“When people voted for Donald Trump - and support him now - they weren’t voting for attacking the capital. They weren’t voting for overruling the election. They were going for a philosophy he put forward.”
However, he did repeat his condemnation of violence such as that which occurred on January 6.
“I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which the rules and we count votes, that is a threat to democracy. Democracy. And everything we stand for, everything we stand for, rests on the platform of democracy,” he said.
“So I am not talking about anything other than it is inappropriate. And it’s not only happening here, but other parts of the world with failure to recognize and condemn violence whenever it’s used for those purposes, failure to condemn the attempt to manipulate an electrical outcome, failure to acknowledge when elections were won or lost.”
Many Republican voters chose to rank Democrat Mary Peltola above Palin, and say they will do so again in November. After Palin claimed she lost because voters were ‘confused’ by the new system, Alaskans told Summer Koester: ‘Just because she is confused doesn’t mean we are’.
‘I could see sanity from my house!’: Republican Alaskans reacting to Palin’s loss
Doocy: Do you consider Trump supporters to be a threat to the country?
Biden: I do think that anybody who calls for violence and fails to condemn violence..refuse to acknowledge when an election has been won, that is a threat to democracy.. pic.twitter.com/IJO9mG0z4q
Pressed for more detail about his speech last night railing against MAGA Republicans, President Joe Biden clarifies that he does not consider all Trump supporters a threat the US.
“I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat,” he said, but singled out “anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge an election that has been won, insists upon changing the rules upon which you count votes — that is a threat to democracy.”
He adds: “People voted for Donald Trump and support him now: they weren’t voting for attacking the Capitol, they weren’t voting for overruling the election, they were voting for the philosophy he put forward.”
Biden: "People voted for Donald Trump and support him now: they weren’t voting for attacking the Capitol, they weren’t voting for overruling the election, they were voting for the philosophy he put forward."
Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specialises in litigation on matters relating to national security, federal employment, and security clearance law, as well as the Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act, weighs in on the folders on Twitter.
He writes: “Per government source: if there is an empty folder that was originally used to properly store classified records, there will be documentation indicating who put the records in that folder, why they were placed there, and what the records were.”
Mr Moss adds: “This needs to be emphasised: the folder itself usually isn’t classified. The documents inside it are classified. If the folder was no longer being used to house classified records, anything could have been put in it.”
This needs to be emphasized: the folder itself usually isn’t classified. The documents inside it are classified. If the folder was no longer being used to house classified records, anything could have been put in it.
Former White House Situation Room director and ex-NSA chief of staff Larry Pfeiffer tells The Independent that the 48 empty classified folders found at Mar-a-Lago is “on its immediate face disturbing”.
Trump had empty classified folders among loose papers at Mar-a-Lago
FBI agents found 90 empty folders that once held extremely sensitive documents among the 27 boxes they removed from former president Donald Trump’s home during a court-authorised search on 8 August, according to an unsealed copy of a detailed inventory filed with a federal judge.
The 27 boxes were found to contain at least 10,000 documents which are by law the property of the United States government and were supposed to be returned to the National Archives at the close of his term.
Agents also seized morethan 100 “unique documents with classification markings,” including three stored in Mr Trump’s desk. Classification levels ranged from confidential — the lowest level of classification in the US system — to the highest, top secret.
Andrew Feinberg takes a close look at the inventory for The Independent.
Trump had empty classified folders among loose papers at Mar-a-Lago
Donald Trump relished collecting personal details about fellow world leaders during his time as president, according to a new report.
Insiders tell the New York Times that during intelligence briefings, the otherwise-bored commander-in-chief would perk up when security agencies relayed the innermost details they had gleaned about the lives of Canada’s Justin Trudeau, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s then-chancellor Angela Merkel.
“But the details of broader national security policies bored him,” reporters wrote, citing officials who had been present at the time of intelligence briefings.
Johanna Chisholm has more details about the former president’s thirst for gossip.
Trump hoarded gossip on world leaders he didn’t like including Trudeau and Macron
In addition to the dozens of documents marked ‘Confidential’, ‘Top Secret’, or ‘Secret’, there were nearly 90 empty ‘Classified’ folders... which is worrying, no?
NEW: The unsealed inventory of what FBI agents seized from Mar-a-Lago included 90 EMPTY folders meant for sensitive documents, marked either as classified or for return to the White House Staff Secretary.
Oh nice, dozens of empty folders labeled "CLASSIFIED" or "Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide." https://t.co/lpwt4CcW8R pic.twitter.com/I0czz6yzCe
Why. Are. There. Empty. Folders? https://t.co/BldDeiCr1K
The court in West Palm Beach has unsealed the more detailed inventory of what was seized in the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Classified and Top Secret documents appear to be intermingled with gifts, photographs, items of clothing, magazines, and newspapers.
Curiously, or alarmingly, are several empty folders labelled “Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide” or with “Classified” markings.
JUST IN: The court has unsealed the more detailed inventory of what was taken from Mar-a-Lago. It’s not very enlightening except it shows in more detail how items marked as highly classified records were commingled with personal items like clothes, books and news articles pic.twitter.com/lxIbumL9xe
Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone has arrived at the DC District court for his appearance before the federal grand jury investigating efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election.
Pat Cipollone arriving with his attorney Mike Purpura at DC District court this AM for grand jury appearance. Didn’t answer q’s from reporters. H/t to the great @lauraromero1207 for the video. pic.twitter.com/7O6jjRavSv
He was the top White House lawyer at the end of the Trump administration as Trump and outside allies pressed for ways to overturn the results of the election, culminating in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.
Mr Cipollone vigorously resisted efforts to undo the election and has said he did not believe there was sufficient fraud to have affected the outcome of the race won by Democrat Joe Biden.
He and Patrick Philbin, a deputy White House counsel also set to appear before the grand jury, have already cooperated with a separate House committee probe investigating the Jan. 6 attack and attempts to subvert the election.
Lawyers in Trump White House to appear before 1/6 grand jury
Furious conservatives launched a collective tirade against president Joe Biden after he used his prime-time address to the nation to warn about the dangers posed by the “extreme ideology” of Donald Trump and his adherents.
Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the president of destroying the economy, overseeing a spike in crime and having a lax border policy. She also attacked him for the recent raid by the FBI on Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Mr Trump’s director of communication Taylor Budowich claimed that the US is a “nation in decline” at the hands of Joe Biden and “the radical Democrat”.
“After campaigning on a ‘return to normalcy,’ Biden showed tonight all that meant is division and plight that has left every American worse off than they were before,” he added.
Read more from Namita Singh:
Republicans react with fury to Biden call to reject Trump ‘extremism’
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was active in not just one but two states as she sought to overturn the rightful results of the 2020 election in favour of Donald Trump, new emails show.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Ginni Thomas emailed at least two elected lawmakers in Wisconsin, urging them to back the plot for a vote to “decertify” the state’s election results (which is not something the state legislature can legally do) in favour of a slate of Trump-supporting “electors” who would go to Washington and cast Electoral College votes for Mr Trump instead of Joe Biden.
Ms Thomas’s activities in Wisconsin were reported following previous revelations about her efforts to contact dozens of lawmakers in Arizona with a similar request there.
Emails show Ginni Thomas tried to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory in Wisconsin
The war in Ukraine would not have happened if Donald Trump was still president, his son-in-law has said.
Jared Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Mr Trump throughout his term, claimed the ex-president kept Europe out of conflict and put China on its “back foot.”
“We had peace in Europe, peace in the world. China was on their back foot and now we have a war in Ukraine with Russia - that never would have happened,” Mr Kushner said.
He also claimed that Mr Trump was laughed at when he suggested Germany should not be reliant on Russian gas.
Jared Kushner claims Ukraine war would have never happened if Trump was president
In another flurry of Truth Social activity that saw him sharing conspiracy theories and fringe memes from other users, Donald Trump used his Truth Social account last night to “retruth” an account whose handle explicitly uses the QAnon movement’s most familiar slogan.
There is no particular evidence to suggest that Mr Trump is more than superficially aware of the movement’s unhinged beliefs, but his recent activity on his bespoke social media platform has seen him blithely sharing various posts connected with QAnon – including a screenshot of one of Q’s “drops” from 2017.
Donald Trump was clearly incensed by Joe Biden’s speech last night on the threat he and his supporters pose to American democracy – so much so that he re-embraced the baseless claim that Joe Biden is suffering from cognitive decline.
Alina Habba, an attorney for Donald Trump appeared to contradict the former president’s claim that documents taken from his Mar-a-Lago residence were “declassified”, saying she didn’t have clearance to handle the “classified” documents before quickly correcting herself.
“I don’t have clearance to touch or go through classified documents. You actually have to have clearance to do that.”
She then quickly corrected herself and said: “These were declassified, is my understanding. But then again I am not the attorney that is handling this, haven’t been. I don’t plan on being. There are a team of attorneys who are dealing with this.”
Trump lawyer contradicts claim secret papers were declassified in latest gaffe
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defended former president Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents on Thursday, calling the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago an “assault on democracy.”
Abe Asher has the details:
Kevin McCarthy calls FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home an ‘assault on democracy’
Donald Trump has lashed out after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticised his endorsements in Republican primaries for the US Senate.
“He can think that if he wants, but he shouldn’t say it,” Mr Trump said on the television programme American Sunrise.
“But he says it. And the party is furious at him. We have to put up with him for a period of time, but eventually he’ll be gone. He’ll be gone. He’s bad news.”
Trump threatens to ‘do something with’ Mitch McConnell over endorsement criticism
Donald Trump has claimed he is financially supporting some suspects facing criminal charges for their role in the US Capitol riot, and plans to offer them pardons if re-elected.
In a new interview with conservative radio host Wendy Bell, Mr Trump said he had met with January 6 defendants at his office this week to offer them help with their legal fees.
Trump says he is financially supporting some Jan 6 suspects and offers pardons
The general counsel for far-right anti-government militia group the Oath Keepers was arrested in Texas on 31 August and charged in four courts connected to the attack on the US Capitol, according to the US Department of Justice.
A federal indictment charges Kellye SoRelle with obstruction of an official proceeding and obstruction of justice, as well as conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.
Oath Keepers attorney arrested and charged in Capitol riot case
A group of former prosecutors who served at the highest levels of Republican-led administrations has asked the Florida judge overseeing former president Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized from his home to reject Mr Trump’s claims.
In an amicus brief filed before US District Judge Aileen Cannon, former prosecutors Donald Ayer, Gregory Brower, John Farmer Jr., Stuart Gerson, and Peter Keisler urged her to deny Mr Trump’s motion for the appointment of a third-party special master to review the reams of sensitive documents which FBI agents took from his Palm Beach, Florida home during an 8 August search.
They were joined on the brief by two former Republican governors, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and William Weld of Massachusetts.
Ex-Republican officials ask Florida judge to reject Trump’s special master request
A new poll from the Wall Street Journal shows the Democratic Party in newly strong shape, just more than two months before the upcoming midterm elections.
Thanks to a surge of support from independent voters and a surge in support and enthusiasm from younger voters, women, and voters of color, the poll found that a plurality of voters would now rather see the Democrats control Congress next year than the Republicans — the party’s first generic ballot lead in a Wall Street Journal poll this year.
New poll shows Biden approval rising as Democrats lead Republicans on generic ballot
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former aide Jared Kushner has said that the former president is considering running for president in 2024.
In an interview with Sky News Mr Kushner said: “I know that he’s obviously thinking about it, he hates seeing what’s happening in the country.”
Mr Kushner wouldn’t be drawn on when Mr Trump might formally declare that he’s running.
And when asked if the former president isn’t “ruling out” a 2024 run, Mr Kushner replied: “With Trump it’s hard to rule anything out, he’s a very flexible thinker.”
Donald Trump has claimed that photos from 2021 prove that he had no “sinister plot” to horde sensitive government documents when he left the White House after losing the 2020 election.
“In other words, it’s not like this was some sinister plot,” Mr Trump said.
“They have pictures of guys standing outside. The boxes are literally outside. The sun is pouring down and they’re waiting for a truck and then they have pictures putting them on a truck. There was nothing secret about it. It didn’t have to be anything secret.”
Trump says 2021 photo exonerates him in document scandal
Donald Trump and his accounting firm have reached an agreement with the House Oversight Committee for lawmakers to receive key financial records as part of a long-running probe into his disclosures and conflicts of interest.
“After numerous court victories, I am pleased that my Committee has now reached an agreement to obtain key financial documents that former President Trump fought for years to hide from Congress,” committee chair Carolyn Maloney announced on Thursday (1 September).
Trump forced to hand over financial records to Congress after three-year legal battle
Donald Trump has promised to seriously consider granting full pardons to 6 January rioters if he decides to run for the 2024 presidential elections and manages to secure a second term.
In an interview with Wendy Bell Radio on Thursday, Mr Trump said: “I will tell you, I will look very, very favourably about full pardons [sic]. If I decide to run and if I win, I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons. Full pardons.”
He added: “We’ll be looking very, very seriously at full pardons because we can’t let that happen ... And I mean full pardons with an apology to many.”
The former president had made a similar promise during his final days in office when some of the rioters were already in jail.
However, none were pardoned before he left office.
Donald Trump is staring down a lot of problems, but the one he seems chiefly concerned about isn’t how classified documents from the White House ended up in his Palm Beach resort, but rather how those materials – photographed strewn across his floor – could make him appear “like a slob”.
Johanna Chisholm has the story.
Trump rages at DOJ for making him appear ‘like a slob’ in raid photos
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was active in not just one but two states as she sought to overturn the rightful results of the 2020 election in favour of Donald Trump, new emails show.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Ginni Thomas emailed at least two elected lawmakers in Wisconsin, urging them to back the plot for a vote to “decertify” the state’s election results (which is not something the state legislature can legally do) in favour of a slate of Trump-supporting “electors” who would go to Washington and cast Electoral College votes for Mr Trump instead of Joe Biden.
Emails show Ginni Thomas tried to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory in Wisconsin
The White House counsel under former President Donald Trump and his top deputy are set to appear Friday before a federal grand jury investigating efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
Lawyers in Trump White House to appear before 1/6 grand jury
Donald Trump found something to celebrate on Thursday after tacitly admitting to keeping classified presidential records without the permission of the National Archives in a legal filing the day earlier.
In an interview with a right-wing broadcaster, the former president pointed out how his poll numbers among Republican voters have rebounded in recent weeks amid news of the raid and new criminal investigation targeting him.
“I don’t even like saying it because it sounds so trivial...my poll numbers have gone through the roof because of [the raid],” he said. “I’ve never been involved in an event that’s driven me up like this.”
Trump claims he has his own polls that show Mar-a-Lago raid has made him more popular
Former president Donald Trump on Thursday repeated a previously-discredited explanation for how classified documents he hoarded during his term ended up at his Palm Beach, Florida home during an appearance on a conservative talk radio show.
Trump repeats false explanation for how classified documents got to Mar-a-Lago
Former president Donald Trump’s hoarding of highly classified national defence information at the Palm Beach, Florida, home could bring about a level of damage to US intelligence operations not seen in decades, according to current and former intelligence community officials and experts who spoke to The Independent.
Ex-intel officials say Trump’s document hoarding could ruin years of work
Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy made a rare break from the network’s fawning coverage of Donald Trump to question why the former president kept top secret files at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday.
Fox News’ Steve Doocy calls out Trump in surprising segment
Half of Americans say Donald Trump should be prosecuted for hoarding top secret files at Mar-a-Lago, according to a new poll.
And nearly six in 10 think he acted inappropriately in storing boxes of classified information at his Florida residence, compared to 26 per cent who believe he was in the right, according to the Quinnipiac University survey.
Half of Americans say Trump should be prosecuted over top secret papers at Mar-a-Lago
Sarah Palin has called on fellow Republican Nick Begich to drop out of the race for Alaska’s at-large congressional seat, referring to him as a “three-time loser” and “negative Nick”.
Palin calling for Begich to “do the honorable thing” and withdraw from the November election for Alaska’s lone House seat: pic.twitter.com/9OOZGXZaaM
The Independent’s Eric Garcia believes the red flags were always there ahead of Wednesday night’s special election results surprise.
How Sarah Palin lost in Alaska and why Republicans got it so wrong
A Republican from Arkansas faced ridicule on social media after his reaction to Wednesday night’s election results in Alaska showed a sudden concern for the will of the voters.
The whole snafu originated on Wednesday evening with the loss of Sarah Palin, the Trump-backed candidate, for Alaska’s open US House seat. Ms Palin survived the first round of Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting procedure, which was used for the first time this cycle, but was defeated by Mary Peltola in the second round. Ms Peltola will become the first Democrat to represent the state in the US House in 50 years.
That didn’t sit well with Mr Cotton, who tweeted: “Ranked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections.”
Critics ridicule Tom Cotton over complaints about Sarah Palin results
The House January 6 select committee has asked former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to submit to a voluntary interview regarding his efforts to advise former president Donald Trump on ways to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Andrew Feinberg has the latest.
January 6 committee seeks interview with ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich
At one time, the Republican senator teared up while calling Biden one of the best men ‘God ever created’. Now, he’s talking about riots on the streets in Trump’s name — and Biden is referring to their friendship in the past tense.
The spectacular destruction of Joe Biden and Lindsey Graham’s friendship
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defended former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents on Thursday, calling the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago an “assault on democracy.”
Kevin McCarthy calls FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home an ‘assault on democracy’
Donald Trump is likely to be charged with a crime he previously called for others to be executed over, according to right-wing pundit Andrew Napolitano.
The former judge says the Justice Department could reasonably prosecute the former president with three crimes connected to the confidential documents the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago.
Graeme Massie has the story.
Trump likely to be charged with crime he said others should be executed for
The House select committee investigating the events of January 6 is seeking information from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
JUST IN: @January6thCmte seeks information from ex-House Speaker @newtgingrich pic.twitter.com/7jO6a0ZaWi
The other Republican in the special election for Alaska’s sole congressional seat issued a harsh salvo after Democrat Mary Peltola became the first Democrat to win the race in almost a half century: Sarah Palin can’t win.
Nick Begich III placed third in the general election and in Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, that meant that he was eliminated in the first round and votes went to the person voters wrote as their second choice.
While more than half of his voters ranked Ms Palin second, 28.8 per cent voted for Ms Peltola and almost 21 per cent did not pick anyone for their second choice.
Sarah Palin’s Republican rival in Alaska special election says she ‘cannot win’
Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, has sued the January 6 committee claiming it cannot compel witnesses to sit for depositions.
Mr Mastriano filed his lawsuit in federal court in Washington and named the committee, its members, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as defendants, according to Politico.
Graeme Massie has the latest on the story.
Trump-backed Doug Mastriano sues Jan 6 committee over deposition
A Georgia federal judge has rejected South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s bid to bar a Fulton County grand jury from asking him about phone calls he made to Georgia election officials at the time former president Donald Trump was pushing to overturn his 2020 election loss there.
In a ruling issued on Thursday, US District Judge Leigh Martin May said Mr Graham cannot invoke the US Constitution’s “Speech or Debate” clause to prevent prosecutors or grand jurors from asking about a call he held with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the weeks following the 2020 election.
Judge says Lindsey Graham may be questioned about calls to Georgia election officials
Former President Donald Trump claims that photos from 2021 prove that he had no “sinister plot” to horde sensitive government documents when he left the White House after losing the 2020 election.
Trump says 2021 photo exonerates him in document scandal
President Joe Biden will warn Americans in a primetime address that acolytes of former president Donald Trump want to strip them of their basic rights.
This is a developing story. More follows.
Biden to warn that ‘MAGA forces’ want to strip Americans of their rights in address
Former President Donald Trump fumed on Thursday after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticised his endorsements in Republican primaries for the US Senate.
“He can think that if he wants, but he shouldn’t say it,” Mr Trump said on the television programme American Sunrise. “But he says it. And the party is furious at him. We have to put up with him for a period of time, but eventually he’ll be gone. He’ll be gone. He’s bad news.”
Abe Asher has the story.
Trump threatens to ‘do something with’ Mitch McConnell over endorsement criticism
A former NYPD officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday for attacking police with a metal flagpole during the January 6 riots.
Thomas Webster’s prison sentence is the longest so far among the 250 defendants who have been punished for their role during the attack on the US Capitol.
Ex-NYPD officer receives longest Jan 6 sentence for attacking police with flagpole
Donald Trump has claimed he is financially supporting some suspects facing criminal charges for their role in the US Capitol riot, and plans to offer them pardons if re-elected.
In a new interview with conservative radio host Wendy Bell, Mr Trump said he had met with January 6 defendants at his office this week to offer them help with their legal fees
“I am financially supporting people that are incredible and they were in my office actually two days ago, so they’re very much in my mind,” he said. “It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them.”
Trump says he is financially supporting some Jan 6 suspects and offers pardons
California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is facing mockery after it was revealed that his in-laws donated to the campaign of his political adversary, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
Fox News first reported that the parents of the California governor’s wife, Kenneth F Siebel Jr and Judith A Siebel, had contributed $5,000 to the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC.
Johanna Chisholm has the story.
California Gov Gavin Newsom’s in-laws donated to Ron DeSantis campaign
Far-right Congressman Paul Gosar is one of three Arizona Republicans who will be paying $75,000 fines in retribution for their lawsuit against a Democratic elected official in the state who urged investigations into their role in January 6.
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that a judge ruled against Mr Gosar, former state Rep Anthony Kern, and secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem, all Republicans, over their lawsuit targeting Charlene Fernandez, a former state representative who now works for USDA.
Paul Gosar and two others to pay $75k for suing Democrat in order to harass her
Sky News will broadcast a UK-exclusive interview with Jared Kushner on Friday morning.
Anchor Kay Burley talked to Donald Trump’s son-in-law about whether he will run again in 2024; Mr Kushner’s view on the top secret files found at Mar-a-Lago; his relationship with Saudi Arabia; and the former president’s secret Oval Office chocolate stash.
UK exclusive with Jared Kushner - the man who knows Trump better than most
💥Will Trump run in 2024: We’ve talked about it
💥’Top Secret files’ stashed at Mar-a-lago: Just paperwork
💥Trump’s secret chocolate stash in the Oval Office@SkyNews from 7am #KayBurley pic.twitter.com/uIy06Zwvdr
Steven Portnoy of CBS Radio reports that Judge Cannon is unsealing the more detailed inventory of the search.
A Department of Justice lawyer heading up the privilege review team says 520 pages from 64 sets of documents have been set aside as potentially privileged.
DoJ attorney Jay Bratt revealed that Trump lawyers approached him the day after the Mar-a-Lago search (9 August) about appointing a special master.
Mr Bratt told the court that he declined to join that request.
MORE NEWS: DOJ attorney Jay Bratt revealed that Trump lawyers approached him the DAY AFTER the Mar-a-Lago search about appointing a special master.
Bratt announced in court that he declined to join that request.
A federal judge on Thursday declined to rule immediately on whether to grant former President Donald Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the documents the FBI seized from his home in August.
At a hearing in West Palm Beach, US District Judge Aileen Cannon also said she would defer ruling now on whether to unseal a more detailed inventory of the seized property that the Justice Department has filed under seal with the court.
Media companies earlier this week asked for the sealed documents to be released publicly.
Thursday’s hearing came less than two days after prosecutors laid out fresh details about their ongoing criminal investigation into whether Trump illegally retained government records and sought to obstruct the government’s probe by concealing some of them from the FBI.
Trump’s attorneys in a filing late on Wednesday downplayed the government’s concerns about the discovery of classified material inside his home, and accused the Justice Department of escalating the situation even after he handed over boxes of documents to the National Archives and allowed FBI agents in June to “come to his home and provide security advice.”
“Simply put, the notion that Presidential records would contain sensitive information should have never been cause for alarm,” his lawyers wrote.
A special master is an independent third party sometimes appointed by a court in sensitive cases to review materials potentially covered by attorney-client privilege to ensure investigators do not improperly view them.
The nonpartisan Cook Political report moved five House races toward Democrats the day after Mary Peltola beat former Republican governor Sarah Palin in a special election to fill a vacant congressional seat in Alaska.
Democrats currently have 220 seats in the House, though Representative Charlie Crist announced his resignation and Ms Peltola has not been sworn in yet. Republicans currently hold 211 seats, meaning they only need nine seats to win back the majority in November’s midterms.
Cook Political Report moves five races toward Democrats as Palin loses
The West Palm Beach court hearing on the appointment of a special master to oversee the Mar-a-Lago documents has wrapped up.
According to reporters who were in the court, Judge Aileen Cannon did not rule and will instead enter a written order at some point, but did not indicate what the timeline might be.
The hearing here in Florida has wrapped. Judge Cannon is not ruling on Trump’s request for a special master from the bench, she will enter a written order at some point. No indication on timeline.
A group of former prosecutors who served at the highest levels of Republican-led administrations has asked the Florida judge overseeing former president Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized from his home to reject Mr Trump’s claims.
Andrew Feinberg had the latest.
Ex-Republican officials ask Florida judge to reject Trump’s special master request
Donald Trump this morning made the rounds of some fringe Maga-aligned livestreamed online shows – and in one of his phone interviews, he put forward a truly bizarre theory about what the FBI might have been looking for at Mar-a-Lago...
In a new interview, Trump says he believes DOJ was really looking for Russiagate material and Hillary Clinton emails during the search. pic.twitter.com/PtLBIQKjwp
Donald Trump found something to celebrate on Thursday after tacitly admitting to keeping classified presidential records without the permission of the National Archives in a legal filing the day earlier.
In an interview with a right-wing broadcaster the former president pointed out how his poll numbers among Republican voters have rebounded in recent weeks amid news of the raid and new criminal investigation targeting him.
“I don’t even like saying it because it sounds so trivial...my poll numbers have gone through the roof because of [the raid],” he said. “I’ve never been involved in an event that’s driven me up like this.”
Trump claims he has his own polls that show Mar-a-Lago raid has made him more popular
Donald Trump is no fan of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the feeling is entirely mutual. If there were any doubt about that, here’s a clip from Mr Trump’s interview this morning, where he credits himself for Mr McConnell’s easy re-election win in 2020 (when Mr Trump lost) and blames him for the poor performance of the current Republican Senate slate in midterm election polls.
“He raises money and he hands it out to senators,” Mr Trump said, “and that’s how he keeps power...The party is furious at him.”
Trump on Mitch McConnell: "Later on, we'll have to do something with him ... we have to put up with him for a period of time, but eventually he'll be gone. He's bad news." pic.twitter.com/6uQht5QcDH
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared frustrated after losing the special election to fill the state’s only House seat to Democrat Mary Peltola.
Referring to the state’s ranked-choice voting system, the 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee was caught on video saying: “When it comes down to second and third place votes, that’s going to decide who’s going to win?”
“I mean, really? Alaskans want [President] Joe Biden and [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi?” she asked.
A former state legislator, Ms Peltola will become the first native Alaskan in Congress since the state joined the US in 1959 and the first Democrat to represent the state in almost 50 years.
Ms Peltola will serve until January for the remainder of this Congress. She and Ms Palin will face off again in November in another ranked-choice contest for a full two-year term in Washington.
Gustaf Kilander has the story.
It seems like there will be radio silence while the hearing takes place.
I am told texting during the hearing is also BANNED. So our reporter inside the court house cannot transmit what happens until this is over.
Gustaf Kilander is tracking news out of West Palm Beach.
Court turns off wifi to block live reporting of Trump hearing, journalist says
Attorneys representing former President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now in the courtroom for the hearing on the “special master” to oversee the documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Per @NicoleSganga in West Palm, Trump attys Kise, Corcoran, Trusty, and Halligan are now in the courtroom for today's hearing on a possible "special master." From DOJ, Bratt, US atty Gonzalez, and others.
Here’s our earlier reporting on the Trump team request for a special master:
DOJ says it has reviewed seized documents after Trump asks for special master exam
Donald Trump and his accounting firm have reached an agreement with the House Oversight Committee for lawmakers to receive key financial records as part of a long-running probe into his disclosures and conflicts of interest, the chair has annnounced.
“After numerous court victories, I am pleased that my Committee has now reached an agreement to obtain key financial documents that former President Trump fought for years to hide from Congress,” committee chair Carolyn Maloney announced on 1 September.
The agreement follows a 2019 subpoena for financial records to his accounting firm Mazars USA, which will help the committee “get to the bottom of former President Trump’s egregious conduct and ensure that future presidents do not abuse their position of power for personal gain,” according to congresswoman Maloney.
Trump forced to hand over financial records to Congress after three-year legal battle
Rick Scott, the Florida Senator overseeing the GOP’s campaign to retake the US Senate in November, has been under heavy attack lately as a number of the party’s candidates show signs of floundering in key races. Among the seats in play are Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio; if Republicans were to lose all five, the result would be a net Democratic gain of two.
As stories emerge of concerns among the party leadership about “candidate quality”, Mr Scott has now hit out to defend himself and those he has helped to recruit and (to some extent) fund while criticising those in his party who are badmouthing them.
Ultimately...when you complain and lament that we have “bad candidates,” what you are really saying is that you have contempt for the voters who chose them. Now we are at the heart of the matter. Much of Washington’s chattering class disrespects and secretly (or not so secretly) loathes Republican voters.
These self-appointed “smart guys” in Washington think they (not the voters) should be able to choose our candidates. The D.C. crowd should not choose candidates, and they do not, and they will not. The D.C. crowd did not choose me and actively opposed me in 2010 when I ran for governor in the Florida Republican primary. If the D.C. crowd was right, I wouldn’t be in the Senate.
Here’s his full Washington Times op-ed.
NRSC chair Rick Scott writes a new piece in Washington Examiner: “Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates.” https://t.co/5XPFBfUeaY
The wife of a Supreme Court justice was active in not just one but two states as she sought to overturn the rightful results of the 2020 election in favour of Donald Trump, new emails show.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Ms Thomas emailed at least two elected lawmakers in Wisconsin, urging them to back the plot for a vote to “decertify” the state’s election results (which is not something the state legislature can legally do) in favour of a slate of Trump-supporting “electors” who would go to Washington and cast Electoral College votes for Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden.
The plan never bore fruit, but was in motion until the hours before January 6 when a Trump campaign lawyer contacted the top deputy to Ron Johnson, Wisconsin’s GOP senator, and urged him to have his boss hand the slate of electors over to Vice President Mike Pence in person. The deputy refused.
Emails show Ginni Thomas tried to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory in Wisconsin
In his interview with Real America’s Voice this morning, Donald Trump gave his latest thoughts on the FBI’s photo of the documents found in his office – and like his lawyers, he appears more concerned with the presentation of the photo and what it supposedly implies about his tidniness than he is with what it reveals.
Trump this morning: “A lot of people think that when you walk into my office I have confidential documents spread out all over my floor .. like a slob. Like I’m sitting there reading these documents .. They put them there in a messy fashion and they took a picture.” pic.twitter.com/nsXaaYJydG
The days when the Trump team argued at every turn that the Mar-a-Lago documents were not sensitive appear to be over. For evidence of that, here’s a key sentence from their widely ridiculed filing last night, in which they agree that the special master they want to see appointed to cover the documents should have a sufficient security level to read them.
If Trump declassified everything, why are his lawyers agreeing with DOJ that any Special Master should have a Top Secret/SCI security clearance??https://t.co/sUf2kgf3Pq pic.twitter.com/4JTtpd3v7G
Having already testified at length to the Jan 6 select committee this summer, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone is tomorrow set to appear before the federal grand jury convened by Justice Department prosecutors to investigate efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Mr Cipollone will be joined by his former deputy Pat Philbin. Both were subpoenaed to appear; they are key figures in the narrative of the events leading to the Capitol riot since they directly counseled the president and his close aides that the plan to have Mike Pence throw the results out of Congress was illegal.
NEWS - Former Trump White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin are expected to appear Friday before federal grand jury probing Jan. 6 sources tell me & @Santucci https://t.co/5A5hq7NbKz
Charges of seditious conspiracy have already been brought against several members of the Oath Keepers, a self-described “militia” movement that had an organised presence at the 6 January Capitol riot. And now the group’s own lawyer is facing charges of her own.
NEW: DOJ has charged Kelley Sorelle, the top lawyer for the Oath Keepers, with conspiracy in connection w/the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Sorelle had claimed she was cooperating with the investigation of the militia group. She has not been charged, like others, with sedition. pic.twitter.com/h9ICuw2CMg
Kellye Sorelle is an active tweeter, but so far has said nothing about these newly announced charges. But for a sense of her views on the Department of Justice, here’s a QAnon-flavoured post from a year ago.
Did you know that the DOJ is in the busy of trafficking children/slave trade. As a former border prosecutor for the great state of Texas, we had to get permission to proceed on defendants. Anybody want to start digging?
The House Oversight Committee has spent years in court trying to obtain records from Mazars USA, an accounting firm that Donald Trump used for years, as part of an investigation into his financial conduct – or as chair Carolyn Maloney puts it, his “unprecedented conflicts of interes, self-dealing, and foreign financial ties”.
In a statement issued this morning, Ms Maloney has announced a deal with the former president and the firm under which Mazars’s records will be handed over.
Oversight Chairwoman @RepMaloney announces that the committee will get former President Trump's financial records from Mazars after a long subpoena/court battle pic.twitter.com/LoEt3yI7wf
The former president is in a rambling mood this morning, but when asked about the fate of defendants facing charges for taking part in the 6 January riot, he seemed to say he is considering looking “very very seriously” at “full pardons” if he is re-elected as president.
(Various 6 January defendants have expressed their dissatisfaction with the former president for not pardoning them when he left office.)
His train of thought was hard to follow, but here’s what he said when asked what he’s doing to help the defendants now:
“I met with and am financially supporting people that are incredible. They were in my office two days ago, it’s actually on my mind...they’re fireman, they’re policemen, they’re people in the military...we’re working on it very hard, we’re working with legals.”
Donald Trump is now describing the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago as a fishing expedition, and that they were “Looking for Hillary Clinton emails” or “something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” and “part of their scam materials”.
Having already spoken to one host this morning Donald Trump is now giving an on-air interview to right-wing online host Wendy Bell. Currently he is complaining about inflation, gas prices and the supposed porousness of the US’s southern border.
He has also claimed that “we won the election by a lot”, referring to his 2020 defeat, and repeatedly likened the US to a “third world country”.
Asked on Real America’s Voice how the documents found at Mar-a-Lago got there, Donald Trump said he “believed” the material was sent down to his residence by the General Services Administration, a government agency.
“There was nothing secret about it,” he said. “There didn’t have to be anything secret about it. And all declassified.”
Trump repeats false explanation for how classified docs got to Mar-a-Lago
Phoning into a show on loyalist network Real America’s Voice this morning, Donald Trump boasted that the raid on Mar-a-Lago raid has driven up his polling numbers – among Republicans, that is.
Trump this morning on the search: “My poll numbers have gone through the roof because of it. I’ve never been involved in an event that’s driven me up like this.” pic.twitter.com/mSUAPhlgMg
He also reiterated his claim that the FBI staged the picture of documents on the floor of his office to make him look bad, insisting that he does not have confidential documents “spread out all over my floor like a slob”.
He did not deny that the documents were kept in his office.
Former state legislator Mary Peltola beat former governor Republican governor Sarah Palin to become the first Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress in almost fifty years.
Ms Peltola, a former state representative whose mother was Yup’ik, will also be the first Native Alaskan to represent the state since it formally joined the union as a state in 1959.
She responded to the result by tweeting: “It is a GOOD DAY.”
The contest was a special election to fill the vacant seat for the remainder of the current Congress. A standard election will be held as part of this year’s midterms; both Ms Palin and Ms Peltola are standing again.
Here’s Eric Garcia’s report.
Mary Peltola beats Sarah Palin to become the first Native Alaskan congresswoman