(Screen shot of Kerch Bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to Russia, after Monday's explosion, via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Details below.)
FRIDAY 7/21/23
Judge Sets Trump Docs Court Date – Federal Judge Aileen Cannon split the difference between Justice Department prosecutors and Donald J. Trump’s legal team, scheduling the trial over the former president’s alleged mishandling of confidential documents for May 2024, NPR reports. Prosecutors wanted the trial to begin this December, while Trump wanted the trial to begin after the November 2024 presidential election, for which he is the GOP’s current leading candidate.
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Senate Committee Passes SCOTUS Ethics – Despite recent evidence that liberal as well as conservative justices have stepped over the line into questionable ethics by receiving cushy luxury vacations and other financial benefits, proposed legislation to impose strict rules on the U.S. Supreme Court passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 11-10 on party lines Thursday (The New York Times). The bill will die in the Senate, where it would need nine Republican votes to overcome a filibuster, and obviously would have no chance in the Republican-majority House.
But Democrats will make a point. The court’s reputation has taken a hit in the polls in recent months, particularly after reports that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito have taken private jet trips to luxury vacations from billionaires and failed to disclose them.
“This legislation will be a crucial first step in restoring confidence in the court after a steady stream of reports of justices’ ethical failures,” said committee Chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL). The committee’s Republicans argued that the proposed legislation is an attack on the conservative-majority court.
“This bill is going nowhere,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who argued the legislation would “fundamentally change the way the court operates.”
“I think our founders are rolling over in their graves,” added Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
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THURSDAY 7/20/23
Grain is a Russian Military Target – Russian military strikes destroyed 60,000 tons of grain in attacks against port infrastructure in Chornomorsk, Odesa Oblast Wednesday, The Kyiv Independent reports. This comes the same day Russia’s defense ministry warned that all ships sailing to Ukraine are to be considered military targets as of Thursday.
Ukraine Agriculture Minister Mykola Solski said of the Chornomorsk strike; “This is a terrorist act not against Ukraine, but against the whole world.”
Russia says its blockade of cargo ships in and out of occupied Ukrainian territory could end if NATO and the U.S. eases up on economic sanctions against Russia, specifically, of its grain and fertilizer trade, NPR reports.
Ukraine defends, pushes back: Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force air defense reported it shot down 13 Kalibr cruise missiles, one guided Kh-59 cruise missile and 23 kamikaze drones in a massive night strike by Russia against Ukraine. But the Russian strikes killed two Ukrainians and injured two dozen, NPR says.
In its struggling counter-offensive, Ukraine pushed Russian forces out from its positions near the village of Orikhovo-Vasyliuka, northwest of Bakmut, according to Andrii Kovalov, spokesman for the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces (KI).
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Cancel Senate Summer Break? – Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “left the door open” to keeping the Senate in session through August in order to process nearly three dozen nominees to serve as U.S. ambassadors, according to Punchbowl News. Nearly all the nominees are foreign service officers, which means they’re not buddies nor contributors to the president. Nevertheless, Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) are pulling a Tuberville.
Paul and Vance are holding up the nominees over diversity initiatives and COVID-19 issues, much in the same way Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is conducting a military promotions blockade over the availability of abortion and abortion travel to U.S. armed services personnel.
Similarly, critics of Paul and Vance say charge’ d’ affairs personnel who lead embassies awaiting their ambassadors do not have the same level of access to foreign officials as the ambassadors. Senate leaders could go through procedural motions to push through nominees, but these confirmations would take weeks.
“We’ve got to be willing to stay through August recess or through weekends in order to move these ambassadors,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said. “I understand this is a topic the public doesn’t easily connect to, but it harms our national security. But it’s not rocket science. We just have to be willing to put in the time.”
Upshot: Schumer and Murphy hope the threat of spending August in Washington is enough for Republican Senate leaders get Paul and Vance in line.
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...meanwhile...
WEDNESDAY 7/19/23
Michigan Charges Alleged ‘Fake Electors’ – Michigan Attorney Gen. Dana Nessel announced charges for 16 people connected with the state’s Republican Party who allegedly sought to serve as electors for the 2020 presidential election, NPR reports. The charges were announced hours after former President Trump revealed on Truth Social that the Justice Department informed him he is the target of its investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the election.
With the charges Tuesday, Michigan joins Georgia in investigating alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election for Trump. Among those charged are Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the Michigan GOP, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The 16 charged were alleged to have met covertly in the basement of the state’s GOP headquarters on December 14 and signed their names to multiple certificates that they were the “duly elected and qualified electors” for president and vice president for the state of Michigan, according to Nessel’s statement. Nessel (a Democrat) says in her statement the false documents were transmitted to the Senate and National Archives “in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing” in place of Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris, who had 150,000 more votes than Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence in Michigan.
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TUESDAY 7/18/23
UPDATE: 1/6 Charges Next? -- Donald J. Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social Tuesday morning that he received a letter from the Justice Department Sunday informing the former president he is the target of a long-running investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election (The Washington Post).
"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country before or even close," Trump wrote. In the post, he called Special Prosecutor Jack Smith "deranged" and Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland "unethical."
WaPo notes that a target letter means investigators "have gathered substantial evidence" connecting the recipient to a crime, but does not necessarily mean the recipient will be charged.
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Trump’s Next Big Day in Court – All eyes on federal Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee holding he first pretrial hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida Tuesday for the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. Cannon will rule on administrative procedures for the case, which relies on classified government documents as evidence, and she will decide whether to schedule the trial before the 2024 presidential election or as Trump has argued – after (The Washington Post).
ICYM Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures (clearly, we did), host Maria Bartiromo asked Trump whether he had any indication Cannon would grant his motion to postpone the classified documents case “indefinitely.” The former president replied, “I don’t know. I know it’s a very highly respected judge, a very smart judge and a very strong judge.”
Meanwhile, the lights are on in Georgia: The Georgia Supreme Court dismissed Monday the Trump legal team’s move to stop Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ criminal probe into alleged 2020 election interference (also WaPo). The state’s top court – eight of its nine members were appointed by Republican governors – said Trump had failed to provide “extraordinary circumstances” to warrant intervention.
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Israeli President on the Hill – President Isaac Herzog reportedly will attempt to salvage bipartisan support for Israel when he addresses a joint session of Congress Wednesday, CQ Roll Call reports. While bipartisan support is far from gone, congressional Democrats are critical of persistently re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authoritarian attempts to weaken his country’s judiciary while expanding settlements into occupied Palestinian territory. (As president, center-leftist Herzog’s role in Israel’s parliament is “largely ceremonial” former U.S. Special Envoy Dennis Ross told NPR’s Morning Edition.)
“A lot of us who are steadfast supporters of Israel, from the far right to the far left to everything in between, have to acknowledge that the current Israeli government is allowing things that the current Israel government is allowing things that make [peace] more and more difficult to achieve,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.
Other, far more progressive Democrats are far less tolerant of Netanyahu’s policies. Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) called Israel a “racist state” at the Netroots Nation conference in Chicago last Saturday. On Sunday, Jayapal walked back her comments, a bit, saying Netanyahu’s “extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminary and outright racist policies.”
--TL
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MONDAY 7/17/23
Crimean Bridge Hit Again – Russian media reported explosions carried out on the Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea with Krasnodar Oblast Monday morning and promptly blamed Ukraine. The blasts reportedly occurred about 3 a.m. local time and killed a Russian man and a woman and injured a child.
“While Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the alleged attack, it has not denied it either,” according to The Kyiv Independent, which describes the bridge as a key supply line for Russian troops operating in Southern Ukraine.
Russian media reported the bridge’s roadway sustained damage, but did not specify the attack, according to the Ukrainian outlet, and Russian-installed officials claimed the bridge’s railroad track was not damaged. News agency TASS reported that eight trains going to or from Crimea were delayed Monday.
CNN quoted an anonymous source from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) who said Monday that the attack was a joint operation of the SBU and Ukraine’s naval forces. Liga.net reported Ukraine’s naval forces likely used surface drones.
Kyiv did eventually claim responsibility for an October 2022 explosion on the roughly 12-mile long bridge, which was opened in 2018 with Russian leader Vladimir Putin taking the ceremonial first crossing.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskyy admitted his country’s counter-offensive against Russia is going slower than expected.
Meanwhile, grain cutoff: Russia has refused to extend a United Nations-brokered deal that made it possible to deliver Ukrainian grain around the world, NPR reports. Though considered a “suspension” rather than an absolute end to the deal, Vladmir Putin has been quoted as claiming the deal to provide Ukrainian grain to global customers is “one-sided.”
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Up on the Hill – Both chambers are in session Tuesday through Thursday, with the House only in session Monday, and the Senate only in session Friday.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa