Congress Takes Recess

After Friday’s House vote on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Congress is on its scheduled summer recess until after Labor Day. The House Select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack will continue its investigation, though with no plans for public hearings before September. The Hustings is taking a break, too, though with news updates, including coverage of the Wyoming Republican primary Tuesday, August 16, in which Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House Select committee, faces challenges from pro-Trump candidates.

Scroll down to read our aggregate coverage of the FBI’s search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and the fallout, with commentary in the left and right columns. Contributing pundit Jim McCraw’s commentary, “The Documents Were There. Really. The FBI Took Them Back,” is below in the left column.

COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news.

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House Passes Inflation Reduction Act

The vote … in the House of Representatives was 220-207 Friday with unanimous Republican opposition to the bill. Approximately $370 billion for curbing harmful emissions and subsidizing green technology counts as the federal government’s “largest-ever investment” in climate change mitigation, according to The Washington Post, and relies on tax law revisions, including a 15% minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations that now pay nothing, plus a new tax on corporate tax buybacks and new funding for the Internal Revenue Service. Democrats claim a $300-billion reduction in the federal deficit, although the fiscal analysis is not yet final, according to WaPo.

The Senate passed the bill last weekend along party lines, 51-50, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie.

Upshot: Though progressive Democrats will have to get over, or hide, their disappointment that their party’s majority in Congress could not pass the much larger Build Back Better bill, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 now stands as the latest and best argument for stanching a Republican wave in November 8^th’s midterm elections. Republican candidates are countering with arguments that small businesses and the middle class will be subject to greater harassment by the IRS and inflationary effects from the federal spending.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Contact Us

Although we’re joining Congress in taking recess through Labor Day, this is a good opportunity to voice your thoughts for the right or the left columns. Write your opinions down in the Comments box in this column or the left column, or email us at editors@thehustings.news and please include your political leanings (conservative or liberal) in the subject line.

Scroll down to read our aggregate coverage of the FBI’s search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and the fallout, with commentary in the left and right columns. Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary, “Donald Trump and the Art of the Flush” is below in the right column.

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The Documents Were There. Really. The FBI Took Them Back

By Jim McCraw

Whether he will be prosecuted for it or not, it is a simple fact that, if there had not been a number of classified documents still inside Mar-A-Lago after repeated attempts by federal authorities to return them to the National Archives, it would not have been necessary for the FBI to serve the search warrant and execute the search of the former president’s mansion on Monday.

A simple fact the Trump people resolutely refuse to understand has turned into loud accusations of political persecution. “Persecution” of a man who has been flouting the law since college, told more than 20,000 lies while in office, was impeached twice, lost big in 2020, told The Big Lie about the election, and fomented the January 6^th attack on the Capitol, continues to evade and flout the law, but is still somehow a great guy who deserves another chance to run the country.

The right has accused the Biden administration of another witch hunt, while the White House says it has been completely unaware of the timing of execution of the warrant. The White House would have not scheduled Biden’s signing of the CHIPS Act on the same day it would be overshadowed by the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.

That wasn’t enough to keep the right from bleating instantly about a witch hunt, persecution, and “weaponizing” of the Justice Department. The FBI serves warrants on private citizens in all kinds of federal investigations every day. Donald J. Trump is a private citizen with Secret Service protection, but a private citizen, nevertheless, who had access to classified documents and information for four years and illegally retained some of those documents, contents unknown, which are the property of the American people, not Donald Trump. That’s as much as we know about the FBI affidavit or the search warrant. The documents were there, and they were taken away. Trump’s lawyers have an invoice of items removed from Mar-a-Lago, and they have the right to release that invoice to the public.

For legal actions, warrants and searches involving a former president to even happen in the first place requires very, very careful sequential steps by the DOJ, the FBI, local police, and of course, the Secret Service, which was duly informed prior to the early morning visit to Mar-a-Lago. The documents were there, illegally, and the FBI took them away.

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View from the Left

And so the hard-right continues to lambast the FBI and Justice Department for Monday’s FBI seizure of 12 boxes of documents that belong to the federal government from Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. The MAGA-right are listening to the conspiracy social media-right, insisting that the ex-president continues to be mistreated, continues to be the victim of a deep-state witch hunt. This could mean another civil war.

Some even suggest that perhaps the FBI planted those dozen banker’s boxes full of papers found in Mar-a-Lago’s basement. Conversely, The Wall Street Journal reports that it appears to be a Trump insider who tipped off the Justice Department that Trump failed to return all the boxes they had demanded be returned months ago.

Our estimable pundit-at-large, Stephen Macaulay, weighs in on all this on the other side of this page, in the right column. Spoiler alert: Macaulay is, once again not the least bit sympathetic toward Trump. What is Macaulay doing in the right column, you ask? He has always leaned right as a conservative in the traditional sense of the adjective and would consider authoritarian populists like the ex-president to be the true RINOs.

Whether your politics are to the right or left of Stephen Macaulay, you are invited to tell us what you think in the Comments box in this column or in the one on the right, or to email editors@thehustings.news. You’re even invited to defend Donald J. Trump if that’s your thing. Please be civil in your comments, and please avoid false or misleading statements. Your comments may be edited for length or clarity, though not for point of view.

--TL

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FBI Removed 11 Sets of Docs from Mar-a-Lago

(FRI 8/12/22)

Some marked ‘top secret’ … and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents taken from ex-President Trump’s Florida estate, as reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The FBI took about 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and Trump’s executive grant of clemency to his ally, Roger Stone. Information about the “President of France” was included in the list, which is in a seven-page document included with the search warrant granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.

The FBI’s list includes one set of documents marked “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” (for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information”) the WSJ reports. Agents collected four sets of top secret documents and three sets each of secret documents and of confidential documents. The list gave no other details.

Trump’s attorneys say that he used his authority to declassify the material before he left office. The president has power to do this, according to the WSJ, but only under a process described by federal regulations.

Regarding that French president: The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to look for nuclear documents and other items, The Washington Post reported earlier. France, for what it’s worth, is Continental Europe’s only designated nuclear weapons state.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich’s response: “The Biden administration is in obvious damage control after their botched raid where they seized the President’s picture books, a ‘hand written note’ and declassified documents. This raid of President Trump’s home was not just unprecedented, but unnecessary.”

Fact-check:

•It was a legal FBI search, not a “raid.”

•Trump is ex-president, not president.

•According to the White House, Biden had no knowledge of the search until Trump himself announced it Monday night.

Some Republicans back off: Congressional Republicans are “contorting” themselves over details of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Politico reports. “As new information emerged about the circumstances behind the FBI search … the contrast drew starker between Republicans advancing a knee-jerk defense of the former president and those who are simply calling for additional disclosures” by the Justice Department, including Ohio’s Rep. Mike Turner, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

--Todd Lassa

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Garland Seeks to Unseal Mar-a-Lago Warrant (FRI 8/12/22)

By Todd Lassa

UPDATE: Ex-President Trump has called for the "immediate release" of the Justice Department's search warrant and property receipt for the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, per NPR, though Trump's own lawyers have always had the right to release these documents themselves.

The Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida seeking to unseal the search warrant and property receipt for the FBI search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland announced in a rare public statement Thursday afternoon. Garland confirmed that the search was conducted in his authority and used the public forum to defend the actions of his department and of the FBI.

Copies of the warrant and FBI receipt were provided to the former president’s counsel at Mar-a-Lago on the day of the search, as required by law, Garland said. In accordance with federal law and ethics rules and obligations, the AG was not able to give further details, but Garland said he had to make “certain points” after the strong reaction to the search by pro-Trump followers and pro-MAGA media:

•“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.”

•“The department does not take such decisions lightly. When possible, it is standard practice to seek less-intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”

•On the “unfounded attacks on the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors; I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our personal rights. They do so at great sacrifice and risk to themselves…

“I am honored to work alongside them.”

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...meanwhile... (THU 8/11/22)

'Deplorable and dangerous' ... FBI Director Christopher Wray's reaction to Trump supporters circulating threats online toward his agents after carrying out a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago Monday. "I'm always concerned about threats to law enforcement," the FBI chief, appointed by President Trump in 2017, said in a press conference following a visit to the Omaha field office. "Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you're upset with." (Per USA Today.)

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Gas drops below $4/gallon ... The average price per gallon for regular unleaded in the U.S. is $3.99 as of Thursday, AAA reports, down from a peak of $5.016 per gallon on June 14.

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Fomenting civil war? ... Rhetoric from what constitutes the right wing these days raged on over the FBI’s search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to recover a dozen boxes of classified government documents airlifted with the ex-president to his Florida compound.

Trump was in Manhattan Monday when the FBI descended on the compound with warrant in hand, and Wednesday he appeared before New York State Attorney Gen. Letitia James for her questioning in the Trump Organization’s civil trial. Of course, Trump evoked the Fifth Amendment to all but one question, The New York Times reports – he confirmed his identity. Of course, Trump’s detractors dug up a tape of him on the campaign trail in 2016, calling the Fifth a mobster tactic and asking why anyone would use it except for evade the truth. Of course he replied to his detractors by saying that now, finally, he knows what good pleading the Fifth is for.

Pleading the Fifth was a smart tactic, and good advice from Trump’s lawyers, University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade told NPR’s All Things Considered. Any testimony Trump would give in his company's civil trial could be used as evidence in the criminal trial, McQuade said.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Donald Trump and the Art of the Flush

By Stephen Macaulay

As you may recall from the early days of the pandemic, there was a monumental difficulty in acquiring toilet paper. It was just one of those things that people suddenly realized that were there to be a dearth of, things would not come out particularly well in the end. And because of that realization, the amount of available toilet paper was nearly non-existent.

One thing that continued to be available — more or less, with the emphasis on the latter — was facial tissue. The stuff you use to blow your nose with.

While the configuration of the two — toilet paper and tissues — is different, the material seems to be reasonably the same.

So people, not surprisingly, thought that if they couldn’t get their grip on Charmin, they could use the box of Kleenex.

Turned out that that was a bad move. Warnings came out that while toilet paper is formulated to be dissolved in water, that’s not the case for seemingly similar paper products. The latter would lead to clogs in sewers and septic systems.

One wonders how busy Emergency Plumbing of West Palm Beach is.

Maggie Haberman gave Axios two photographs that show the toilet in the White House residence during the Trump residency: Two pictures of torn up paper — as in copier paper, not something with a flimsiness to it — with Trump’s handwriting visible.

According to Haberman, Trump has a penchant for ripping and flushing.

So the FBI searches Mar-A-Logo.

There is a federal law, the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which, among other things, according to the National Archives:

Establishes that Presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist as soon as the President leaves office.

Hmm . . . seems that Trump has taken a whole lot of documents when he left Washington. Back in January the National Archives and Records Administration got 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago.

Presumably there were more.

There is a federal law. If he didn’t “automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist,” isn’t that, ipso facto, a crime?

Maybe it is much simpler.

Possibly the Justice Department was worried about the plumbing situation in Palm Beach.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Omar Holds Off Dem Challengers in Minnesota

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a key member of the progressive Democratic congressional “Squad” led by potential 2024 presidential candidate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, has narrowly won her party’s primary for the Minnesota 5^thDistrict (Associated Press).

AP says that Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has 77.5% of the Democratic vote to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a key Trump acolyte on Capitol Hill. Also in Wisconsin, Doug LaFollette, secretary of state since 1974, won his closest Democratic primary in 48 years and faces Republican candidate Amy Loudenbeck (who beat two other GOP primary candidates) on November 8.

Democratic Rep. Peter Welch handily won Vermont’s Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by eight-term Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is retiring and will make Independent Bernie Sanders senior senator from the state. Democrat Becca Balintfaces Republican Liam Madden and Progressive Party candidate Barbara Nolfi to replace Welch for the single House seat from Vermont (AP).

--TL

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Inflation Rate Eases to 8.5%

(WED 8/10/22)

Inflation rate is 8.5% … The Consumer Price Index was unchanged in July, after a 1.3% increase in June, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Reports. The annual rate fell slightly to 8.5% from a record 9.1% the previous month.

Gasoline prices fell 7.7%, while all energy was down 4.6%, the BLS says. Food was up 1.1% and food at home was up 1.3%, leaving the monthly inflation rate for all items except food and energy at 0.3%.

AAA gas prices: The national average is $4.01 per gallon as of Wednesday, AAA reports, down from a record average of $5.016 per gallon on June 14.

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Tuesday’s primaries … See Left- and Right-columns for Democratic and Republican primary highlights from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trumpy Republicans Win Primaries in Wis., Minn.

Donald J. Trump-backed businessman Tim Michels, who joined the Wisconsin Republican primary race for governor just four weeks ago, beat ex-Gov. Scott Walker’s lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, NPR reports. Michels took 47.1% of the vote to Kleefisch’s 42.5%, and will take on incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers November 8.

Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos narrowly edged Trumpian challenger Adam Steen, 51.3% to 48.7%, for his seat, says Wisconsin Public Radio. Steen had organized a “toss Vos” event in which his supporters loaded effigies of the longtime speaker into a makeshift catapult.

In a special election to replace Rep. Jim Hagedorn, Republican from Minnesota who died in office last May 24, Republican Brad Finstad beat Democrat Jeff Ettinger, 53.7% to 44.1%, Ballotpedia reports.

In Minnesota’s gubernatorial race, Republican Scott Jensen will take on first-term incumbent Democratic Gov. Tim Waltz. Both cruised to “easy victories” in their respective primaries, AP says. In the state’s race for attorney general, Republican business attorney Jim Schultz takes on incumbent Democrat Keith Ellison.

And in Minnesota’s race for secretary of state, Republican Kim Crockett, who has called the 2020 presidential campaign “rigged” and wants to roll back changes making it easier to vote faces two-term incumbent Democrat Steve Simon.

--TL

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Left Turns

Contributing pundit on the left Ken Zino comments on Kansas voters’ rejection of an abortion law amendment, and what it means for November’s primaries, in The Gray Area. Click on the tab above to read Zino’s commentary.

Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin hold their midterm primaries, today. In Wisconsin, Democratic voters choose a challenger to one of the Senate’s Trumpiest Republicans, Ron Johnson. Leading the Democratic field is the state’s lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, after other competitive Democrats dropped out to make room for him.

COMMENT on these and/or other issues in the box below, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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FBI Visits Mar-a-Lago

(TUE 8/9/22)

News photos and television video of pro-MAGA protests popping up near Mar-a-Lago after ex-President Trump announced on his Truth Social media site that the FBI “raided” his home and broke into his safe raised alarms of the potential of another uprising by his vocal gang of loyal followers. The nature of the documents apparently seized by the FBI in the search has not been disclosed. The search was brought on by U.S. Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland, who sought and received a warrant as part of his investigation of Trump’s mishandling of his presidential records, CNN reports Tuesday.

MSNBC was putting out the warning from its analysts late Monday night that the August 8 FBI execution of a search warrant for could become bigger and worse than the January 6 Capitol attacks.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) vowed to probe Garland and the Justice Department over the Mar-a-Lago search when he expects Republicans to retake the House of Representatives next year.

Georgia GOP strategist Seth Weathers told BBC World Service radio that Trump, who was not at Mar-a-Lago during the FBI search Monday would use the seizure as an opportunity to announce his 2024 presidential candidacy (Eric Trump alerted his father to the FBI search, the New York Post reports). Trump has already begun fundraising efforts over the search, CNN says.

The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, it has been noted, took place on the 48^th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation, which was forced upon the president when he was threatened with a House impeachment vote. The House dropped impeachment proceedings 12 days after Nixon’s resignation.

By contrast, Monday’s FBI search of Mar-a-Lago appears to have reinforced GOP leadership’s support for Trump, empowered by last week’s CPAC convention in Dallas headlined by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbån and Trump himself, a full 19 months since Trump left office, as the ex-president’s wing of the party continues to push its voter-suppressed advance toward authoritarianism.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Pence v. Trump in Wisconsin

Former vice president and Electoral College integrity champion Mike Pence has endorsed former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary, per Ballotpedia. Kleefisch faces Donald J. Trump endorsee Tim Michels, a businessman who also has been endorsed by former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.

The winner (there are two other Republican gubernatorial candidates) will take on incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

There is no apparent Democratic National Committee effort backing Michels to provide Evers an extremist Republican.

The DNC did spend money to defeat freshman incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) in last week’s Michigan primary for the 3^rdDistrict House seat, covering Grand Rapids, Battle Creek and surrounding rural areas in the western part of the state. Trump-endorsed Republican John Gibbs, described as “too conservative” for the 3^rd District in DNC campaign commercials edged out Meijer – who was one of 10 Republican Congress members to vote in favor of Trump’s second impeachment in January 2021, following the January 6 Capitol insurrection. We’ll see how the tactic plays out for Democratic challenger Hillary Scholten on November 8.

COMMENTS: This column, below, or editors@thehustings.news.

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Sinema’s Defense of the Interest Tax Provision

Senate Democrats were on edge last week when Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) reportedly had to study the entire 755-page Inflation Reduction Act before committing to providing the final necessary vote to pass the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package. Sinema held out until Democrats removed the bill’s carried interest tax provision and tweaked the 15% minimum corporate tax.

While fighting for the rights of hedge fund managers once was considered a “Republican” sort of thing, that is easily disproved by how bi-partisan investment professionals are when they contribute to political campaigns.

According to Open Secrets, Sinema received $2,257,315 in campaign contributions from securities and investment individuals and political action committees, between 2017 and 2022 ($318,000 of that was from PACs, the rest from individual investment managers).

In the end it worked out for the bill, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) dropped the new tax for hedge fund managers from the bill, costing $580 million, according to The Hill, and replaced it with a new tax on corporate buybacks to bring in an additional $1.3 billion.

--TL

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Hope for Democrats This November? ...

Last week, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) predicted the November midterm elections could go either way for the Senate, with his fellow Republicans taking a slight majority, or Democrats taking a slight majority. No one is predicting either party will win a filibuster-proof edge.

Will the Senate’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act help stem the traditional midterm sweep by the president’s opposing party? What do you think of the bill’s provisions?

Enter your opinion in the Comment box in this or the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news (subject to editing for length and clarity, but not civilly stated content).

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Senate Passes Inflation Reduction Act, 51-50

The Senate has passed the $739-billion Inflation Reduction Act 51-50, along party lines with Vice President Harris providing the tiebreaker, The Hill reports. The corporate tax/climate change/healthcare legislation survived a Vote-o-Rama that included an amendment by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) that extended a SALT cap (state and local deductions) that is part of the 2017 Trump tax cut bill.

Ruled by the Senate parliamentarian as eligible for budget reconciliation, Democrats were able to pass it without fear of a Republican filibuster.

Thune’s amendment, which passed with the support of seven Democrats including Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema, was considered a threat to the bill because the deduction ceiling hurts many households in blue states and districts, according to The Hill’s report. But a subsequent amendment replaced the SALT cap extension with another revenue stream. Several Democrats offered hugs to Sinema as the vote on the final passage happened, the report says.

Sinema’s support had been Democrats’ biggest concern after compromise on the bill, a heavily reduced version of President Biden’s $3-trillion-plus Build Back Better proposal, that was negotiated between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sinema ally Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

What Does This Mean for the Midterms?

Will Republican candidates have any success in using the $739-billion Inflation Reduction Act as an argument against Democrats in the November midterm elections?

What do you think of the bill’s provisions?

Enter your opinion in the Comment box in this or the left column, or email editors@thehustings.news (subject to editing for length and clarity, but not civilly stated content).

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