Tag: Mar-a-Lago

…meanwhile…

Donald J. Trump returned to a Manhattan court Thursday where his defense attorney cross-examined adult film star Stormy Daniels. The criminal case over falsified business records looks likely to be the only case Trump faces before the election. On Wednesday, the Georgia Court of Appeals announced it will review a judge's ruling that allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue prosecuting Trump, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, which means prosecutors will not get their August trial date.

FRIDAY 5/10/24

Netanyahu on Dr. Phil – As Republicans on Capitol Hill have been criticizing President Biden for withholding arms to Israel over its attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, buzz Friday morning centers on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interview with Phil McGraw on Dr. Phil Primetime. But Israel’s Haaretz led with this quote from Netanyahu in the interview: “The government’s first responsibility is to protect the people, that’s the ultimate enveloping responsibility, and the people weren’t protected, we have to admit that.”

•••

Confederate Leaders Go Back to School – School board members for Virginia’s Shenandoah County district voted 5-1 to restore names of Confederate leaders to two of its schools early Friday, CNN reports. Mountain View High School is to be renamed Stonewall Jackson High School, and Honey Run Elementary will be renamed Ashby Lee Elementary, for General Robert E. Lee and cavalry commander Turner Ashby, according to the report. 

The Confederate leaders’ names were removed from both schools four years ago in the wake of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd. 

Note: Save for the Jim Crow South, we cannot think of any losing military force that has had its “heros’” names applied to public buildings. We’re confident, for instance, there never has been an Adolf Eichmann secondary school nor a Hermann Göring kindergarten.

--TL

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No Shells for Rafah Attack – The Israeli Defense Force has not entered Rafah’s population centers yet, President Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett on AC 360 Wednesday, but when they do, the U.S. will cut off arms to Israel, including artillery shells.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone into Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not going to supply them the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with those cities, to deal with that problem,” Biden said. 

Republicans on Capitol Hill are objecting, CQ Roll Call reports. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a letter to Biden they were “alarmed” by the pause in armament deliveries, that “flies in the face of assurances provided regarding the timely delivery of security assistance to Israel.”

•••

MTG Fail? – The House voted a decisive 359-43 to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over bi-partisan passage of a $61-billion aid package to Ukraine. The vote, according to CQ Roll Call, breaks down to just 11 Republicans voting against the motion to table, assisted by 32 Democrats, with another seven Democrats voting “present.” 

While considered a major win for Johnson, who replaced ousted speaker and former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last year, Punchbowl News says the speaker “looks weak,” after “bucking” or ignoring other Republican congressional leaders’ suggestion he rework the motion to vacate available to any single member when he advanced the Ukraine aid package. 

Meanwhile, MTG – known as “Moscow Marj” in some circles – achieved her goal to get GOP House members on the record regarding the Ukraine aid vote, according to Punchbowl News. On the other hand, this could be considered a sign Republican voters are not so much against aid to Ukraine.

And of course, a statement from Donald J. Trump, whom Johnson visited at Mar-a-Lago in April, reenforced the notion that Trumpian loyalty is a one-way street: “With a majority of one, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a motion to vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.”

•••

Cruz Control – Republican senators reportedly are joking rather openly about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) push to authorize the Federal Aviation Administration’s budget for the fiscal year by Friday’s deadline. Their “bemusement” stems from Cruz’s 180-degree turn from his role as a “conservative rabble-rouser” to “playing the leadon authorizing the FAA,” The Hill reports. Cruz is the ranking Republican on the Commerce Committee.

There is precedent for such hypocrisy, not mentioned in the report, when Cruz and his family jetted off to a Cancun vacation in February 2021 as a severe Texas storm left millions of his voters without power and water. 

“It’s been entertaining to watch,” one unnamed Republican senator told The Hill, regarding Cruz’s FAA push. Quoting the classic comedy movie Airplane, the senator added, “What’s the old Hollywood joke? ‘The foot’s on the other hand.’” Or in Cruz's mouth?

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 5/8/24

Haley Gives GOP Hope -- In case one of Donald J. Trump's myriad criminal cases stick before this August's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee (meaning, hurting him in the polls rather than helping him), his former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, continues to grab primary votes more than two months after she suspended her campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Haley got 128,000 votes in Tuesday's Indiana primary, according to The Hill's Decision Desk HQ, or 21.7% to Trump's 78.3%. In April, 150,000 Pennsylvania Republicans voted for Haley in that state's primary.

•••

U.S. Blocks Arms During Rafah Attack – In response to the Israeli government’s refusal to hold off its long-threatened attack on Rafah at Gaza’s southern border, the U.S. is withholding shipment of 3,000 missiles to Israel, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Israel’s offensive on Rafah launched after Palestinians believed Hamas had successfully negotiated a ceasefire, but Israel refused to sign on to the deal brokered with Egypt and Qatar.

 •••

Cannon Gums Up Trump’s Classified Docs Trial – Quick reminder of the facts: Then-President Trump appointed Judge Aileen Cannon to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in late 2020. In an August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, the FBI recovered boxes of classified documents Trump hoarded after leaving the White House.

The Washington Post reported last year that witnesses in the subsequent case said Trump showed some classified documents to guests at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s attorneys, meanwhile, have successfully clogged up special counsel Jack Smith’s case accusing Trump of willful retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, among other charges.

On Tuesday, Cannon issued a five-page order that delays indefinitely the classified documents trial once scheduled for May 20 – less than two weeks from now – and which special counsel Jack Smith had hoped would be rescheduled to July 8 (per Politico).

Considering all the issues between prosecutor Smith and Trump’s defense team, “finalization of a trial date at this juncture … would be imprudent and inconsistent with the court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the pre-trial issues,” Cannon’s order says. 

Theoretically, the case could still go to trial before the end of 2024, some legal pundits say, but that would require Cannon to run out of ways to slow the process.

•••

Zelenskyy’s Latest Threat – The narrative behind Ukraine’s resilient efforts to keep Russia from taking over the country tells of a united effort by its military and its public. That ignores the fact that ethnic Russians make up the largest minority in Ukraine, reportedly 17.3% in 2001, according to Wikipedia. What’s more, Ukraine’s military is not impervious to Russian infiltration. 

On Monday, Ukraine’s security service said it had uncovered a network of Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, whose agents were preparing yet another assassination attempt of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to The Kyiv Independent. In addition, two Ukraine state security administration (UDO) colonels have reportedly been detained for leaking classified information to Russia. 

According to the Independent’s report, Zelenskyy told The Sun last November he had survived “at least” five assassination attempts.

--TL

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TUESDAY 5/7/24

Israel Attacks Rafah -- The Israeli government did not agree to the same ceasefire deal Hamas agreed to Monday, so Israeli Defense Forces took control of Rafah anyway and have blocked off aid flow, a border official told The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Egypt has denounced the IDF's military operations in Rafah.

Putin to Out-Stalin Stalin -- It's inauguration day for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's fifth term as president, NPR reports. If he fills out the entire term, Putin will have led Russia longer than Joseph Stalin. Most European Union nations boycotted Putin's inauguration ceremonies, Morning Edition says.

--TL

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MONDAY 5/6/24

UPDATE: Hamas has accepted a 42-day ceasefire deal proposed by Egypt and Qatar that would return 33 hostages, dead or alive, BBC News reports. The deal still awaits response from Israel, which says it will not call off its planned attack on Rafah.

Time is Up for Rafah – Cease fire talks between Hamas and Israel seems to have sputtered to a stall, again, and so the Israeli government Monday morning urged people to evacuate Rafah in southern Gaza (The Washington Post) as its military prepares for its long-threatened assault on the city. Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government are blaming each other for lack of progress in the negotiations.

•••

Speaker Under Pressure – House Democrats will join a majority of Republicans to block Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) motion to dismiss Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) this week, says NPR’s Morning Edition. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), told CBS News’ 60 Minutes Sunday, “Our view would traditionally be; ‘Let the other side work its own mess out.’ But when that mess starts to impact the ability to do the job on behalf of the American people, then the responsible thing at that moment might be to make clear that we will not allow the extremists to throw the Congress and the country into chaos.”

MTG has the backing in her threat of Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), but Donald J. Trump, who received Johnson at Mar-a-Lago last week, is sitting this issue out as he tends to the trial over falsification of business records in connection with hush money payments.

Hindsight… We have to wonder whether former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would still be speaker and Trump wouldn’t be running for president again if McCarthy hadn’t had his pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago less than two months after the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.

•••

More Tears Over Trump? – The criminal trial in which former President Trump is charged with falsifying business records in an alleged attempt to put the "hush" into hush money continues Monday, with the alleged recipient of said hush money, adult film star Stormy Daniels, expected to testify this week, according to The New York Times. On Friday, former Trump spokeswoman and close White House advisor Hope Hicks broke down in tears, after describing the effect on Trump’s 2016 campaign when the infamous Access Hollywood tape surfaced.

•••

Feds Investigate Cuellar – Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and his wife were indicted last Friday on federal charges accusing them of accepting $600,000 in bribes from the country of Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in exchange for political favors in Congress. Federal agents raided Cuellar’s office and the couple’s house Friday, just weeks before a runoff between two Republicans to challenge him in the general election, according to The Texas Tribune. Republicans Jay Furman and Lazaro Garza face each other in a May 28 runoff with the winner to challenge Cuellar November 5.

•••

Up on the Hill – Both chambers of Congress are in session Tuesday through Thursday. The full House only is in session Monday, while the full Senate is in session Friday.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump Legal Scorecard

[CPI at 3.2% -- As some economists (and the Biden campaign) eagerly anticipate an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve sometime this year, the Consumer Price Index has ticked up to 3.2% in February, from an annual rate of 3.1% in January, the Labor Department reports. That’s the wrong direction from the Fed’s target 2% rate. The month-over-month increase was 0.4%, with shelter and gas accounting for 60% of the increase. Energy was up 2.3%, while food, and food at home, was unchanged.]

IDES OF MARCH 2024

Fulton County, Georgia – Atlanta Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday morning that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can remain on the election interference case against Donald J. Trump, but only if her former romantic partner, Nathan Wade, withdraws from the case …

Mar-a-Lagogate – U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon appears to have handed prosecutors in the confidential documents case against Trump a win by ruling against the ex-president’s attorneys’ motion that the Espionage Act behind the indictments are “unconstitutionally vague.” However, Newsweek notes that Trump appointee Cannon instructed his attorneys in the ruling that they should bring up the “unconstitutionally vague” argument in “connection with the jury instruction briefing” …

Hush Money Case – New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg says his office is willing to delay Trump’s hush money case after receiving late evidence from the U.S. attorney’s office, to give defense attorneys sufficient time for review. The trial was scheduled to begin March 25, and may now be delayed by 30 days.

--TL

•••

The Schumer-Netanyahu Split – After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for new Israeli elections on π day Thursday in frustration over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence on a ceasefire in Gaza, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the Senate floor to “remind” Schumer that Israel is not an American colony, calling his remarks “grotesque” and “unprecedented” (per Punchbowl News).

But just as Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition continues to consider Palestinians and their Hamas “leadership” in Gaza one and the same, so too do the staunchest U.S. supporters of Netanyahu refuse to distinguish between the Israeli government and the Jewish people. This despite the fact that even before the vicious, horrible Hamas attack October 7, Netanyahu was long-resistant to a two-state solution with Palestinians in Gaza.

Meanwhile ...

Gaza's health ministry has accused Israel's military of firing on Palestinians awaiting aid in Gaza, killing 20 and injuring 150, The Guardian reports. The Israeli military denies the reports.

Influencing our November election

In trying to save his own power, Netanyahu has helped to throw the November U.S. presidential election to Donald J. Trump, and he knows it. Biden has ceded substantial votes to “uncommitted” in the Michigan and Minnesota Democratic primaries as he tries to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza in vain. 

While Biden has known Netanyahu for a very long time, going back to his time in the Senate, Trump and Netanyahu had a closer relationship during the Trump administration – until Netanyahu congratulated Biden for his victory in 2020, which of course led Trump to criticize the Israeli prime minister for his “disloyalty.”

If Netanyahu continues to reject ceasefire in Gaza (it is necessary to note that Hamas has done very little to help, either) the Israeli prime minister might very well be able to make it up to Trump by congratulating him this November.

--Analysis by Todd Lassa

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THURSDAY π Day 2024

Schumer Calls for Israeli Elections -- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), wants Israel to hold new elections, saying its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has "lost his way" (per The Hill). "As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7," Schumer continued. "The world has changed -- radically -- since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past."

•••

VP to Abortion Clinic -- Vice President Kamala Harris visits a Twin Cities, Minnesota abortion clinic Thursday, Axios reports, a first-ever such appearance by a sitting veep according to the White House. 

•••

Meanwhile, in Ft. Pierce, Florida – Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon holds a hearing Thursday morning on two of the ex-president’s requests to dismiss his 40-count federal indictment in Mar-a-Lagogate. Donald J. Trump’s attorneys claim the section of the Espionage Act accusing him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing federal officials’ attempts to get them back to the National Archives Washington is “unconstitutionally vague as applied to President Trump,” The Washington Post reports. 

Meanwhile, in Fulton County, Georgia: Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee Wednesday dismissed three of 13 counts against Trump in the election interference case (per WaPo). Prosecutors may refile the charges, however.

•••

Schumer's Watch is Slow – The Senate may take its time in taking up the House bill passed Wednesday, 352-65, that would force ByteDance to sell its U.S. interest in TikTok, or face some sort of blockage or shutdown in the country. 

“The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” CQ Roll Call quotes Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). 

This, despite obvious House urgency for the bill sponsored by Select China committee chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL). 

Not on Warner's watch: From its interview with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Semafor has a much different take on the upper-chamber's timing on the TikTok bill. "We're going into a 24-hour election cycle, where literally millions of Americans get a lot of their news from this site," said the chairman of the Senate Select committee. "And if that can be manipulated against American interests -- I don't care whether you're Democrat or Republican, that is not in America's interests."

The Trump factor: Politico reports of worry that billionaire Jeff Yass, who has a 15% stake in TikTok, has influenced Trump’s flip-flop on the issue, as he has since objected to removing the social media platform from the nation. Former Trump administration Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway has signed on with Club for Growth to counter the push to ban TikTok on national security concerns. 

Our take: Two things. A.) It’s a notable shift if the Senate, and not the House, takes up Trump’s cause. But after all, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is now a solid Trump backer. B.) If ByteDance is forced to sell TikTok to an American entity or face shutdown, wouldn’t Yass be in the catbird seat to buy up the 85% he doesn’t already own?

--TL

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Tick...Tick...Tick...

WEDNESDAY 3/13/24

Rrrrring -- The House passed HR 7521 Wednesday morning, 352-65, (per The Hill) that would force ByteDance to divest U.S. interest in TikTok within 165 days. That clock doesn't start ticking until the Senate passes the bill. President Biden, whose re-election campaign has used the social media platform to reach young voters, is in favor of the bill and presumably will sign it.

How to Stop a Clock – The House is expected to pass HR 7521 Wednesday, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would force China’s ByteDance to divest its U.S. interest in TikTok within 165 days over national security concerns, or face shut-down here. This, even though the House needs two-thirds majority to fast-track suspension of rules procedures that the Republican leadership plans to use, Punchbowl News reports, and even though the leader of the GOP, Donald J. Trump, has reversed his position calling for the social media phenomenon’s removal.

TikTok flip-flop: Much has been speculated about Trump’s reversal on TikTok. He proposed a ban in 2020, but more recently said that its shut-down here will give more power to Facebook, which a 2022 “documentary” blames for Trump’s 2020 re-election loss. One theory that sticks out more than most is that billionaire Jeff Yass, who has a “huge financial stake” in ByteDance according to Axios, has invited Trump to a retreat by Club for Growth, a conservative group that also opposes the ban. Yass has previously contributed $4.9 million to Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign.

Bonus social media gossip: Trump last summer asked The World’s Second-Richest Man Elon Musk whether he wanted to buy Truth Social, The Washington Post scoops Wednesday morning, citing two people “with knowledge” of the matter. Musk apparently demurred, but the conversation indicates an even closer relationship between the 91-times indicted ex-president and the owner of X than previously known.

•••

It’s … Trump v. Biden – In sports terms, the 2020 race would be Biden v. Trump, but however you put it, November’s presidential election is a rerun of the last. Ex-President Trump and President Biden both clinched their parties’ nominations Tuesday, winning primaries in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. In addition, Donald J. Trump took the Hawaii Republican primary (Biden earlier won the state). 

Georgia on my mind: Pundits point to Georgia, the state where Trump begged for 11,780 extra votes in ’20. While Biden took 95.2% of the Democratic vote (Marianne Williamson, 3%, Rep. Dean Phillips, 1.8%) Trump took 84.2% of the Republican vote, with 13.2% going to Nikki Haley and 1.3% to Ron DeSantis. 

Democrats shouldn’t get too excited, though: Republican voter turnout in Georgia was more than twice that for the Democratic Party.

History: November will mark the seventh time in U.S. history that the two major party candidates will be the same as in the previous election. For those of you who are about to be contestants on Jeopardy! here are the previous six, according to Pew Research:

1952 and 1956: Dwight D. Eisenhower v. Adlai Stevenson.

1896 and 1900: William McKinley v. William Jennings Bryan.

1888 and 1892: Grover Cleveland v. Benjamin Harrison.

1836 and 1840: Martin Van Buren v. William Henry Harrison.

1824 and 1828: John Quincy Adams v. Andrew Jackson.

1796 and 1800: John Adams v. Thomas Jefferson.

•••

Not With Hur --  Perhaps it’s a sign of how well Robert K. Hur, special counsel on President Biden’s documents case, did his job that both Democrats and Republicans took shots at him in a congressional hearing Tuesday. Hur argued that he did not “exonerate” Biden in his report, and he defended his questioning of Biden’s memory, according to The Washington Post.

“I did not exonerate him. The word does not appear in the report, congresswoman,” he told Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) called him “part of the Praetorian Guard” preserving the Washington “swamp.”

Responding to a question by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on the federal documents case against Donald J. Trump; “Sir, I’m not here to express any opinion with respect to a pending case against another defendant.”

You can read Hur's full report for the U.S. Department of Justice here.

--TL

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TUESDAY 3/12/24

Buck Out -- Rep. Ken Buck (D-CO) said last year he would not run for rr-election this November. On Tuesday, he told reporters he can't wait that long to leave.

"This place just keeps going down, and I don't want to spend my time here," Buck said (per The Hill). The 65-year-old congressman often breaks from his party on various issues, and has criticized Trumpian election denial. With his unexpected early departure, the GOP now has 218 members to 213 House Democrats.

•••

Tuesday’s Primaries – Georgia is the big one for both Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald J. Trump. There are also primaries in Mississippi, Washington and the Northern Mariana Islands, with Hawaii holding GOP caucuses, per U.S. News & World Report. The organization Democrats Abroad also hosts a primary.

•••

Biden Budget v. House GOP – The Biden administration proposes a $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal year 2025, up 4.7% from this year, but with tax raises on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade (per USA Today). The proposal would restore the child tax credit from the American Rescue Plan, launch a program for affordable, high-quality childcare available from birth to kindergarten and provide new mortgage relief for home buyers. 

The White House’s budget is a wish list that will get lots of attention by both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign between now and November (as Congress likely extends this fiscal year’s budget past its September 30 end), as will an alternate proposal just passed by the GOP-led House Budget Committee, according to the Huffpost. That “budget blueprint” for 2025 would shrink the deficit by $14 trillion over the next decade while extending the Trump tax cuts, which expire next year. HuffPost says “vulnerable” congressional Republicans are balking at taking a full House vote on what would be the first such Republican alt-budget to hit the floor since 2014.

--TL

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MONDAY 3/11/24

Orban Explains All -- Fresh back in Budapest from his visit to Mar-a-Lago, Hungary's authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, explained how Donald J. Trump will end the war in Ukraine if he is returned to the White House.

"He will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russian war," Orban told Hungary's M1 TV channel, according to the BBC. "That is why the war will end. ... If the Americans don't give money and weapons, along with the Europeans, then this war is over. And if the Americans don't give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over."

We have been warned.

•••

Sweden became NATO's 31st member nation Monday morning, NPR reports, after decades resisting joining the Western military alliance. Sweden and Finland applied for membership in May 2022. Finland joined last year, but Sweden had faced opposition from Turkey and Hungary.

•••

Trump Mocks Biden’s Stutter – After generally favorable reviews of his State of the Union address last Thursday for its display of the president’s energy if nothing else, Joe Biden’s stutter has become the subject of Donald J. Trump’s ridicule beginning with a rally in Georgia Sunday. Trump infamously mocked a New York Times reporter for his upper-body disability back in 2015, but this is his first such attack on Biden’s lifelong speech impediment. 

What stands out about this to John Hendrickson, himself a stutterer, writes in The Atlantic is, “the sound of Trump’s supporters laughing right along with him. This is a building block of Trumpism. The man at the top gives his followers to be the worst version of themselves.”

•••

Oscar Speech – Mystyslav Chernov, one of three filmmakers of 20 Days in Mariupol to win the Academy Award for Documentary Feature Film Sunday night said in his acceptance speech he wishes he could exchange his Oscar statue for “Russia never Invading Ukraine.” At last year’s Academy Award ceremony Navalny took home the Oscar for the same category. Its subject, Aleksei Navalny, who died under suspicious circumstances at a Russian prison last month, led the Oscar broadcast “death reel.”

Pope chimes in on Ukraine: Pope Francis "sparked anger" last weekend after he said Ukraine should have the "courage of the white flag" and negotiate the end of the war with Russia, CNN reports. On X, Business Ukraine magazine responded with the post that the Pope "might want to consider the famous words of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu on, "neutrality"; "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

•••

ICYMI – After all the hand wringing and folderol about the current fiscal year budget, its can having been kicked by continuing resolutions several times since last October, the Senate passed a $460 billion bill, 75-22 last Friday to avert a partial government shutdown (per The New York Times). Congress now has to March 22 to pass the other half of the federal budget. On Monday, President Biden unveiled his federal budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, which begins October 1.

•••

Up on the Hill – Both the full House and the full Senate are in session Monday through Wednesday. The Senate only is in session Thursday.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

FRIDAY 6/23/23

•(What's with these data-news stories in the right and left columns? Read about our new partnership with Stacker -- scroll down the center column.)

Modi Visit Upholds U.S. Interests – India has not joined the rest of the democratic world in supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russia, and instead the “world’s largest democracy,” run for nearly a decade by nationalist Prime Minister Narenda Modi (above) continues to support Russia’s economy by purchasing its oil. All that, and Modi’s demonstrably poor record on human rights and religious freedom was not the subject of public discussion at a lavish state dinner hosted at the White House, where President Biden “showered him with flattery” according to The New York Times.

The Biden administration hopes to draw India closer to the U.S. while Russia’s war on Ukraine rages on and Chinese relations deteriorate. Biden and Modi announced initiatives Thursday, with no evidence of resolving disagreements. Earlier Thursday, the two leaders announced a deal in which General Electric will build military jet engines in India with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics, Politico reports, in an agreement that has long been in the making.

“America has no permanent friends or enemies,” Henry Kissinger once said, “only interests.”

Modi’s “most surprising breakthrough” Thursday evening, the NYT reports, was a Q&A Modi allowed with White House reporters. Modi said democracy is “in India’s DNA.”

He added, “In India’s democratic values, there’s absolutely no discrimination neither on the basis of caste, creed, or age, or any kind of geographic location.” Meanwhile, demonstrators protested India’s crackdown on dissent from outside the White House gates.

Before the state dinner, Modi appeared at a joint session of Congress Thursday. He was to continue his visit Friday with a lunch with Vice President Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NPR reports.

•••

‘Frankly Stupid’ – House Democrats reportedly are “giddy” and Republicans embarrassed by uber-MAGA Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) resolution Wednesday to impeach without requisite hearings President Biden over the White House’s handling of immigration policy and the situation at the southern border, says New York magazine’s Intelligencer. Boebert’s move had no chance of passage and dispensed with such formalities as Judicial Committee hearings.

A 219-208 vote to send the impeachment resolution for consideration by committees effectively parked Boebert’s resolution, as those committees have no obligation to do anything about it, The Hill reports. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is more interested in defeating Biden with next year’s congressional and presidential elections intended to call Boebert to the carpet in a closed-door GOP conference meeting, but the Colorado rep failed to show. 

Republican strategist Dan Judy described Boebert’s resolution as “frankly stupid,” (per The Hill), adding; “The party needs to be focused on the problems facing American voters rather than this sideshow.”

--TL

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THURSDAY 6/22/23

Schiff on the Trump-Russia Axis – The House voted 213-209 to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a favorite target of former President Trump, over Schiff’s allegations as the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that Russia helped Trump’s successful 2016 campaign (per Axios). Vote on the resolution only came to the floor after its sponsor, pro-MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) removed a $16-million fine she sought to have imposed against Schiff last week. 

Democrats on the House floor shouted down Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as he tried to read the resolution, chanting “shame” and jeering him as a “spiteful coward” as they cheered Schiff. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called for the speaker to be ousted. One unidentified Republican House member shouted back, “jackasses.”

Five Republicans on the House Ethics Committee, plus Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) voted “present” on the censure resolution. 

Meanwhile, in the Judiciary Committee: In a hearing with Special Counsel John Durham Wednesday on his investigation of the FBI’s investigation of the alleged Russian intervention in Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Schiff said this: “The only distinguishment between [Robert Mueller’s] investigation and yours is he refused to bring charges where he couldn’t prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and you did.”

Durham spent five hours before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday (and was in a closed-door meeting with the committee Tuesday night) on his four-year, $6.5-million investigation of the investigators, which failed to find wrongdoing and concluded in a 306-page report that the FBI should have conducted a preliminary investigation rather than a full investigation. 

What’s next?: Schiff might use the $16 million he does not have to pay along with his censure on his campaign for the Senate seat of Diane Feinstein, who turns 90 Thursday and is not running for re-election next year. Schiff faces fellow Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee and Katie Porter in the California primary.

--TL

_______________________________________________

WEDNESDAY 6/21/23

Ukrainian Recovery Conference – Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged an additional $1.3 billion in U.S. recovery assistance to Ukraine to help rebuild the war-torn country’s energy grid and such critical infrastructure as rail lines and border crossings (per Bloomberg) during a conference hosted by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London. 

Poland’s minister of foreign affairs tweeted he has prepared a law that would extend investments and insurance coverage for transport of goods and services to and from Ukraine … meanwhile, the European Conference chief wants Hungary to answer questions regarding Ukraine’s claims that Russia transferred prisoners of war to authoritarian President Viktor Orbån’s Hungary without Ukraine’s involvement (per The Guardian). 

Ukrainian counteroffensive is ‘not Hollywood’: Battlefield progress has been “slower than desired” in the early weeks of Ukraine’s push-back of Russian troops, President Volodymyr Zelinskyy (FILE IMAGE above) told the BBC.

“Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It is not. What’s at stake is people’s lives.”

Ukraine has reclaimed eight villages in the southeast region of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk to the east, so far, he said.

Nuke sabre-rattling: Vladimir Putin says Russia’s new Sarmat missiles, which can carry 10 or more nuclear warheads, will soon be ready for deployment, The Guardian reports. The comments came after defense minister Sergei Shoigu told graduating military academy students that the “collective west” is waging a “real war” against Russia.

•••

DEMOCRACY WATCH: Conjuring the Ghost of Nixon – Donald J. Trump revealed “another sweeping piece of his plans to slash federal spending and defund the ‘deep state’” in a video first revealed to Semafor, the news website reports. This plan for the former president’s self-expected second term coming in 2025 would “scrap” parts of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974, implemented in reaction to President Nixon’s attempt to scrap tens of billions of dollars in federal funding on his own. Specifically, the law forces the executive branch to spend money Congress approves, and regulates the president from delaying or impounding federal spending for specific programs.

Russia v. Ukraine, again: Trump was accused of violating the '74 law enacted as Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment when he froze Congressional funding earmarked for Ukraine in 2019, a move that led to Trump's first impeachment.

--TL

_______________________________________________

...meanwhile...

TUESDAY 6/20/23

Hunter Biden to Plead Out – Son of the president, Hunter Biden, has reached a tentative plea agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failing to pay in 2017 and 2018, and admit to the fact of a gun charge, The Washington Post reports, citing court papers filed Tuesday. The deal likely will keep Biden, 53, out of prison but still needs approval by a federal judge. Federal prosecutors and Biden’s defense counsel have requested a hearing to enter his plea.

The investigation into the case opened in 2018 during the Trump administration. Since at least 2020, Republican politicians have accused the Biden administration of reluctance to pursue the case – a charge that is not at all likely to go away with the plea deal, which was negotiated with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a “holdover” from the Trump administration, WaPo notes.

•••

Court Date for Mar-a-Lagogate -- Judge Aileen Cannon (above) has scheduled Thursday, August 24 as the date for the trial to begin in the Justice Department's case over Donald J. Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, The Hill reports. The trial in Cannon's Ft. Pierce, Florida, courtroom would begin about two months after Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts issued by Special Counsel Jack Smith, but attorneys for the former president are expected to push delays well into the 2024 presidential campaign season. Pre-trial motions are due by July 24.

•••

Ukraine Gains in South – But the country’s defense ministry reports a “difficult situation” in the east. Russia launched 35 attack drones overnight, with Ukrainian soldiers able to repel 32 of them, The Guardian reports, while Ukraine’s defense ministry confirmed liberation of Piatykhatsky in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast region, according to the Kyiv Independent. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has landed in London after meeting with Chinese officials, including President Xi Jingping in Beijing, the UK government says it will extend economic sanctions against Russia after the war ends until the Kremlin pays to rebuild Ukraine.

Meanwhile, on Fox News: Donald J. Trump told Fox News’ Brett Baier on Special Report what he said to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a private meeting in Helsinki in July 2018: He “claimed Monday” that the conversation convinced Putin to delay his invasion for several years (Russia invaded in February 2022). “He wouldn’t have done it if it were me. He did it after I left.”

About those boxes of documents: Trump also told Fox News’ Baier he was too busy to return boxes full of classified documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago, Politico reports. Trump had to take time to sort through them to keep shirts and golf shoes that belonged to him, apparently. 

And foxnews.com says that in the exclusive interview with the former president, he called the National Archives and Records Administration – which requested return of the papers ahead of the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago – a “radical left” group.

•••

Special Counsel to the Hill – Special Counsel John Durham, who was tapped by then-Attorney Gen. Bill Barr in 2019 to investigate whether federal law enforcement officials unfairly investigated a connection between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, appears before the Republican-majority House of Representatives this week. Durham will testify on his recently released report on that investigation before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday, The Washington Post reports, and in a closed session with the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. 

•••

Trump’s Saudi Deal – A real estate deal with the Saudi government’s sovereign fund to develop a golf complex, including luxury villas with sticker prices up to $13 million, overlooking the Gulf of Oman is “unlike any of [Donald J. Trump’s] deals before,” according to a special report The New York Times. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, “cultivated” the deal with the government of Oman while Trump was in office, according to the report, which says the Trump Organization received nearly $5 million from the deal, which includes a Trump-branded hotel, golf course and golf club, and a 30-year management contract.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_______________________________________________

Where Do You Live?

Are you a conservative in a liberal state? A liberal in a conservative state?

For the first time since we began posting, we present data reporting and analysis, by our new partners at Stacker, in the left and right columns at the same time. Stacker reporters compiled voter turnout data from The New York Times and political ideology insight from the Gallup organization to single out the counties in each state that vote against the statewide ideological grain. 

For Washington, D.C., ideological insight came not from Gallup, but from the Pew Research Institute.

There are 20 listings in each column, including one for Washington, D.C. (care to guess which column it is in?). No voter turnout data were available for Virginia, Alaska, Louisiana nor Alabama. Some "battleground" states that split evenly between conservative and liberal voters were not included.

These are not liberal/conservative commentaries we traditionally post in the left and right columns, but rather straight news features that help describe vagaries of the red state-blue state divide. However, as with any of our regular posts in these columns, , we seek your reactions. Become a Citizen Pundit and write your opinions in the Comment section of the appropriate column (subject to editing for civility) or email editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

--Todd Lassa

_____

Trump Indicted

FRIDAY 6/9/23

(PHOTO: Special Counsel Jack Smith unsealed the Justice Department's 49-page indictment of Donald J. Trump over the former president's alleged retention of classified documents, Friday. Smith promised a speedy trial, to be held in the Southern District of Florida.)

UPDATE: Evidence behind Donald J. Trump's indictment includes a 2021 audio recording in which he says of an apparently secret document, "As president, I could have declassified it, but now I can't." This from The Washington Post quoting "a person familiar with a transcript of the remarks." It has become increasingly apparent, WaPo reports, that Trump's own words could serve as the most severe evidence against him.

Ex-President Trump says he will surrender to court Tuesday after being indicted by a Florida grand jury on seven counts in the case of classified documents stashed at his Mar-a-Lago compound after he left the White House. Charges include conspiracy to obstruct justice, willful retention of documents in violation of the Espionage Act, false statements and a conspiracy count, people familiar with the indictment told The New York Times.

Trump attorney Jim Trusty told CNN the legal team had not been shown the indictment itself, but that a summary commanding the former president to appear in court contained language that suggests the counts would include obstructing an official effort and witness tampering or other means of obstructing an official proceeding,

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump to Constitution: Drop Dead

By Todd Lassa

Donald J. Trump last weekend claimed the United States as his very own banana republic by calling for suspension of the Constitution so he could be reinstated as president, because, you know … the Big Lie. 

In case you missed it, this is what he said (via Politico) on his Truth Social site (as Elon Musk awaits his return to Twitter): “A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Wonder whether it was one of Trump’s star attorneys who suggested it was within his right to call for ditching the Constitution? Or perhaps the advice came from antisemite Ye, white supremacist Nick Fuentes and/or far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolis (who has just departed Ye’s 2024 presidential bid according to the Daily Beast – the campaign for which the artist formerly known as Kanye West wants Trump to be his running mate).

“Republicans are going to have to work out their issues with the former president and decide whether they’re going to break from him and return to some semblance of reasonableness,” said incoming House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY), “or continue to lean into the extremism, not just of Trump, but Trumpism.” (PBS News Hour.)

One might also wonder what constitutional originalists on the right think of Trump’s call for “termination” of rules, regulations and articles found in the Constitution. 

GOP lack of reaction to Trump’s latest comments so far rival the party leadership's lack of their reaction to his dinner with Ye, Fuentes and Yiannopolis. ABC News This Week host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday had to press Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) for his comments on the Truth Social post. 

Joyce, chairman of the Republican Governance Group said, “It’s early. I think there’s going to be a lot of people in the primary … I will support whoever the Republican nominee is.”

At first glance, the defeat of many Trump-backed candidates in the midterms, and then the notorious Mar-a-Lago dinner two weeks later have been hailed as a voter affirmation of American democracy. Even the New York Post was ready to write the obituary for Trump’s political career as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerged as the new darling of the hard-right wing. But the inability of such GOP leaders as Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell, topped by Joyce’s comments on This Weekhave kept Trump’s future alive and well. According to Politico, latest polls show the ex-president remains the most likely 2024 GOP nominee.

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

One of These Days. . .

By Stephen Macaulay

As winter is aborning for many of us, the phrase “getting ahead of your skis” comes to mind, not as regards schussing down the east face of Jupiter Peak, but politics.

Funny thing, though.

People mainly left of center have been doing this for the past couple years, seasons notwithstanding. Snow, no snow. Off they go.

They are consistently ahead of what actually happens. It is seemingly always “This time!”

And reality is otherwise.

My colleague over on the left column concludes his piece on the convictions of the Oath Keepers for their planning of and participation in the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6 with, “Coming soon ‘The United States Versus Donald J. Trump.’”

To be sure, to see that there has actually been judicial action taken against people who are loosely associated with Trump can be encouraging to those who see Trump as a self-absorbed transactional actor who is only concerned with personal benefit and self-aggrandizement.

Make no mistake: the man has done nothing but exhibit the behavior of a parasite on the body politic. 

Does anyone imagine that he is a politician in the context of someone who espouses a codified political philosophy?

If he was so committed to making America great again, why did he exhibit behavior, behind closed doors (per the January 6 Committee) as well as on a stage at the Ellipse (on January 6), that would have taken the notion of peaceful transition of office, which has existed since Thomas Jefferson won over John Adams, and put it out in the trash like the course guide for Trump University?

No, it is always about him.

The recording of his conversation with Brad Raffensperger. The way-late “Go home. We love you” message. The Mar-a-Lago collection of documents.

These are but some of the most-recent instances when seemingly clever talking heads — many of them with law degrees not from an on-line university — claim ad nauseum on MSNBC, “Coming soon ‘The United States Versus Donald J. Trump.’” 

And it doesn’t happen.

Possibly it will happen.

But isn’t it disconcerting that the self-proclaimed “stable genius” really may be one and that all of those people who have been predicting his downfall are in need of skiing lessons?

_____________________________________

Trump's Still in Charge

(WED 11/30/22)

GOP Leader ‘Condemnations’ – “I don’t think anybody should be spending any time with Nick Fuentes,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters. “He has no place in the Republican Party.”

But Wait: “[H]e came out four times and condemned him, and didn’t know who he was,” McCarthy said, according to Rolling Stone.

So … If GOP leadership truly was about to leave ex-President Trump behind, as appeared to be the case following the November 8 midterms, this would have been McCarthy’s chance to lead the way.

Perhaps McConnell Then?: Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) said this about the Trump-Fuentes-Ye Mar-a-Lago dinner, at his weekly Capitol Hill news conference Tuesday (per Axios); “There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy.” Pressed on whether McConnell would support Trump if he becomes the 2024 GOP presidential nominee: “Let me just say again, there is simply no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy. This would apply to all the leaders of the party who will be seeking offices.”

Sigh. 

Trump Replies: McConnell “is a loser for our nation.”

--TL

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

(WED 11/16/22)

It’s Official: GOP Wins House – Republican Mike Garcia defeated Democratic challenger Christy Smith to win California’s 27th District House seat Wednesday, the AP reports, to finally give the GOP the majority in the lower chamber it had expected to come much more easily a week earlier. Garcia’s victory puts the House count at 218 Republicans and 211 Democrats, per The New York Times, with six more seats to call. 

Reddish Trickle: The GOP House margin, which will be anywhere from one to 14 seats -- though more likely between five and seven -- is good enough for the party’s first declared 2024 presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. The jury was still out 24 hours after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago announcement on whether his fall from party leadership finally is over. Rupert Murdoch’s news empire is sticking to its guns so far – Sean Hannity even broke away from the drone of Trump’s “low energy” speech, and ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported that Mar-a-Lago security had to keep several in the gaga-for-MAGA crowd from leaving his speech early. 

Why would GOP leadership break up with Donald J. Trump this time, and not after three election losses – the House in 2018, the presidency and Senate in 2020 and essentially both chambers this year (and his only win was by electoral count, not popular vote) – as well as two impeachments, one insurrection, and an FBI seizure of top secret documents? 

Consider that when Mitt Romney lost, miserably, in his bid to unseat President Obama in 2012, the GOP conducted an “autopsy” on the party’s apparent lack of popularity.

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in Florida’s winds, where Gov. Ron DeSantis offers the party sanctuary, and he won’t fly you on a chartered airplane to get there.

Meanwhile, McConnell Holds: SCOTUS- and federal court-crusher Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) won over his party’s caucus to remain minority leader, with 37 votes to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) 10 votes. One Republican voted “present” in the secret ballot held in the Old Senate Chamber according to Politico, which adds that Scott sent out a memo during the vote accusing the outgoing National Republican Senatorial Committee, led by Indiana’s Todd Young, for distributing “hundreds of thousands of dollars of unauthorized and improper bonuses to staff.”

McConnell has been GOP leader for nearly 16 years, and when asked whether he might soon consider stepping down, he told reporters “I’m not going anywhere” (Politico again). 

•••

Senate Moves to Codify Same-Sex Marriage – The Senate Wednesday passed a procedural provision, 62-37, to advance a same-sex marriage bill that could reach its final vote this week, per Roll Call. The bill would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was ruled largely unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a 2013 decision. The bill “will not take away or alter any religious liberty,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), chief negotiator and the first openly gay U.S. senator. 

Among the 12 Republican senators voting to advance the bill was its primary GOP sponsor, Susan Collins, of Maine. It is the first among several bills the lame duck Congress will take up in a rush to beat the end of its 117th session.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____________________________________

Trump Trumps, Again

(WED 11/16/22)

It’s 2015 again, with the fabulosity of Mar-a-Lago – where FBI agents seized top secret government documents just three months ago -- substituting for Trump Tower’s Golden Elevator. Some 20 minutes after beginning his speech – which came off sounding like a low-key MAGA-hat rally in which he described the magnificent success of his administration and the dismal failures of his successor -- Donald J. Trump announced his third bid for president of the United States. 

“In order to make America great and glorious again tonight I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.” Though Trump did not conjure up his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he did suggest China had somehow meddled in the 2022 midterms. And the GOP did win the midterms thanks to Trump’s involvement, he suggested, but Republican leaders had overblown expectations they would win 40 House seats. 

Trump threw in this statement, devoid of any irony or self-awareness: “This will not be my campaign. This will be our campaign.”

Biden on Strike on Poland: Before Trump in his very big announcement could blame on the current president a missile that struck Poland – he perversely suggested that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine had he still been in office – Biden spoke at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, telling reporters “there is preliminary information that contests that … it’s unlikely given the trajectory that it was launched from Russia.“ It has been identified as a Russian missile, however, and it killed two people in rural Poland. In discussions with Polish President Andrej Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Biden says the U.S. has offered support to Poland’s investigation “and we need to determine exactly what happened.”

--Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

At Least Three Shades of Red

Sunak is Britain’s Next PM – Rishi Sunak (above) is Britain’s prime minister after his last Conservative Party rival, Penny Mordaunt, dropped out of the race just before Monday nomination deadline, The Guardian reports. Scandal-plagued former PM Boris Johnson, for whom Sunak served as chancellor of the exchequer for two years, dropped out Sunday evening. Sunak was expected to take over for Liz Truss by Tuesday, giving her a total of 50 days as PM. 

Note: Truss was on her way out pretty much from the time she took over for Johnson in August. Plagued with a higher inflation rate in the UK than in the US, in part blamed on Brexit administered by Johnson, she announced a huge tax cut evoking President Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics, which triggered a negative reaction by financial markets. That led to her embarrassing reversal of the economic plan. 

Sunak, 42, the youngest British PM in nearly 200 years, is to be the third Conservative PM since Johnson won in 2019.

•••

McConnell v. McCarthy on Ukraine Aid – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has rebuked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for his warning that a GOP majority in the lower chamber will not “write a blank check” for Ukraine, per Newsweek. It’s the latest sign of a continued split between Senate and House Republicans over loyalty to Donald J. Trump and his relationship to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

“Russia continues escalating attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure,” according to McConnell’s statement. “The lessons to us are clear. The Biden administration and Ukraine’s friends across the globe must be quicker and more proactive to get the aid they need.”

Last Tuesday, McCarthy told Punchbowl News that if the GOP retakes the House after November 8th’s midterms, his caucus will balk at further military aid to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion. Last May, 57 House Republicans led by uber-Trumpers Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, and Matt Gaetz, of Florida, voted against a $40-billion aid package for Ukraine.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), responding to a question at a Harvard Kennedy School event last Tuesday, said “I don’t know that I can say I was surprised, but I think it’s really disgraceful that today Minority Leader McCarthy suggested that if Republicans get the majority back that we will not continue to provide support for the Ukrainians.”

Dirty Bomb: After Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused Ukraine of preparing a “dirty” nuclear bomb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded in his weekly Sunday evening address that only Russia was capable of using nuclear weapons in Europe, reports Voice of America. 

•••

Discuss these issues in the right or left column Comment box or email editors@thehustings.news.

_____

…meanwhile…

(FRI 9/30/22)

UPDATE: House Passes CR -- The House passed the continuing resolution extending the current fiscal year budget beyond its Friday midnight expiration, to December 16. President Biden will have signed it ASAP.

Here are the 10 House Republicans who joined all the Democrats in the House of Representatives to pass the bill, according to The Hill: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Garret Graves of Louisiana, Chris Jacobs of New York, John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Hal Rogers of Kentucky, Fred Upton of Michigan and Steve Womack of Arkansas.

•••

New Sanctions on Russia as Putin Claims Four Territories – The White House announced a new round of sanctions on Russian government and military officials and their families, per The Hill, in response to President Vladimir Putin’s forced annexation through sham referenda of four regions of Ukraine. The sanctions by the Treasury, Commerce and State departments target the governor of Russia’s Central Bank and former Putin advisor Elvira Sakhipzadovna Nabiullina, more than 100 members of Russia’s Duma, members of the country’s National Security Council, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, among others. In addition, 57 entities will be restricted from obtaining key technologies and other materials. 

Meanwhile: Ukrainian military forces say they have surrounded enemy troops in Lyman, hub of the Russian military in Donetsk, one of four eastern and southeastern regions Putin claimed in a ceremony Friday, according to the Daily Beast, which calls it Putin’s most humiliating defeat by Ukraine yet. It “could be one of the most serious Russian military losses of the war so far,” according to the report.

•••

House’s Turn – The Senate Thursday passed a continuing resolution funding the federal government at current levels through December 16, and now it’s the House’s turn. Failure to do so before midnight Friday, the end of the fed’s fiscal year, would shut down key Social Service, IRS services and national parks, The Washington Post notes.

•••

Cannon v. Dearie – Federal Judge Aileen Cannon Thursday overruled Special Master Raymond Dearie’s order that Donald J. Trump’s attorneys clarify whether they believe the former president’s claims that the FBI lied in its seizure of government documents at Mar-a-Lago August 8 (WaPo again).

Upshot: Dearie’s ruling last week would have forced Trump’s lawyers to deny his claims that more than 100 documents in the seizure were not classified or face potential perjury. As the judge who appointed Dearie the special master in Mar-a-Lagogate, Cannon has the power to do that. Trump’s appointment of Dearie as lame duck after he lost the 2020 election is paying off for him, and is continuing to slow the case well past the midterms and toward a possible GOP takeover of House and Senate majority rule.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Where’s the Beef? 1/6 Hearing Curtain Raiser

By Ken Zino

With the republic facing another public hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Wednesday, let’s take a look at the fast-breaking developments last week of Donald J. Trump versus the United States of America. Part of the committees’ remit is “to strengthen the security and resilience of the United States and American democratic institutions against violence, domestic terrorism, and domestic violent extremism.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta in a stinging rebuke of Judge Aileen Cannon’s contrary decision, agreed with the Justice Department to let the FBI reclaim access and use 100 classified documents (and “papers physically attached to them”) taken from Trump’s residence in Florida while conducting a legal search. The Trump-appointed (just after the 2020 election) Cannon had ruled that DOJ was not to present “the seized materials to a grand jury and (use) the content of the documents to conduct witness interviews as part of a criminal investigation.” 

Trump’s preposterous argument that he de-classified the documents, either verbally or non-verbally was not addressed by his attorneys (mindful of their own futures if they advised Trump otherwise since there are clear procedures for de-classification?) was rejected completely in the appellate court ruling that said the law should not give Trump special treatment no matter what he was or is. So damaging was the ruling apparently to Cannon’s future career that she cancelled her stay against the use of the documents on the very evening the Court of Appeals issued the reproach.

Then came the special master that the Cannon ruling specified … as part of her egregious opinion in favor of the legally imperiled Trump and his attorneys. Enter special master Raymond J. Dearie, semi-retired judge from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He was proposed by Trump’s attorneys and DOJ agreed that he read and sort through 11,000 records or documents that left the White House and turned up in the long-delayed August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, after more than a year of DOJ maneuvering to get the National Security documents returned.

Dearie, who clearly is tired of all the lies and false arguments floating about in Trump-land in effect said, “Where’s the beef?” Dearie issued an order after the appellate court ruling asking Trump’s lawyers to let him know if there were any discrepancies between the documents that were kept at Mar-a-Lago and those the FBI said it had hauled away. He was countering false allegations that the FBI planted documents. Where’s your evidence, Trump? 

This whole sordid affair would be farce if it solely existed on a Broadway stage: Mari Lago Magic Wand Madness Review and the Art of the Steal. The absurd jokes and steady laughter start as the curtain rises. A president can declassify simply by thinking about it, Trump told Sean Hannity. Guffaw. And the FBI in its legal search was really looking for the deleted e-mails of Hillary Clinton. Guffaw, guffaw. If they are deleted how would Trump have possession of them? Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. If Trump had them, he certainly would have used them during the last 18 months when he illegally removed presidential records from the White House. Right? Guffaw. Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. 

Enter stage left, the New York attorney general with fraud charges, looking to fine Trump $250 million and stop him from doing business ever again in the state. Another “witch hunt” claim is not enough. Trump counters by appearing at his own rallies as a QAnon true believer and booster. Wait, there’s a last-minute script change. It’s Trump and company who are the Satan-worshipping pedophiles in our midst sucking the blood of our children so they won’t live to defend our democracy. 

Curtain for the Mari Lago Magic Wand Madness Review and Art of the Steal?

As grim as Trump’s legal prospects look, there’s also the prospect of conspiracy charges over the 1/6 mob’s effort to have Mike Pence hanged, and ongoing election interference charges in Georgia. Perhaps now, finally, the GOP establishment has had enough. Nonetheless, all the investigations and potential charges haven’t significantly changed people’s views of him, a New York Times/Siena College poll found.

I’m not looking forward to a sequel. Let’s hope the backers -- the institutions and people who support American democracy -- turn off the money and shut Trump and the Art of the Steal down. The show’s over. 

_____

NY AG Sues Trump for “Massive Fraud”

(WED 9/21/22)

New York State Attorney General Letitia James (center, above) announced a $250-million-plus civil suit against ex-President Trump, his family and his company. The suit seeks to permanently bar Donald J. Trump, sons Don Jr. and Eric, and daughter Ivanka from doing business in the state, James announced in a press conference Wednesday. 

The former president also would be barred for five years from entering any commercial real estate acquisition in the state and from applying for any loans from New York-registered financial institutions.

The suit alleges Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars over the years. The investigation covered 2011-2021. Of her many examples of alleged over-value, one included the former president’s own apartment at Trump Tower Manhattan, which was listed at 30,000 square-feet, roughly three times its actual size. As a result, the likely value of $127 million was inflated to $317 million in 2012, still more than any apartment sold in Manhattan.

Mar-a-Lago revenue should have been valued at less than $25 million per year, and no higher than $75 million per year – Trump valued his Florida residence and private club at $739 million, she said. No word on the value of Trump’s golden escalator.

The suit also includes these remedies:

• An independent monitor to oversee compliance, financial reporting, valuations and disclosure to tax authorities for no less than five years. 

•Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)-compliant audited statements, showing Trump’s net worth, for five years.

•Replacement of current trustees of Donald Trump’s revocable trust with independent trustees.

The suit also seeks to permanently bar former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and controller Jeffrey McConney from serving in financial control of any New York corporation or similar entity in the state. James said former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress sparked her office’s investigation. Such alleged white-collar fraud is not “victimless” crime, she said.

“When the well-connected break the law it reduces resources to working people, to regular people, to small businesses and to taxpayers,” James remarked. 

“Claiming you have money that you do not have is not the Art of the Deal. It is the art of the steal.”

•••

Biden Speaks to UN – President Biden did not have to alter his speech much, before the 77th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bellicose statement about extending his attack on Ukraine.

“This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state,” Biden said, “plain and simple. And Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, that should make your blood run cold.”

Biden equated the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty as a democratic nation with the struggle to maintain democracy everywhere, including the U.S.

“The only country standing in the way of that is Russia,” he said. While Biden was expected to alter his remarks after Putin announced his “partial military call up” CNN reports the president’s speech written before that announcement held up.

Extending the UN Permanent Security Council: Biden noted that 141 nations share the United States’ condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He called on the UN to expand its permanent Security Council, which since its inception consists of China, France, the Russian Federation (previously Soviet Union), the United Kingdom and the U.S. Currently, any single country among these five may veto a UN resolution.

Global food security: Biden also announced $2.9 billion in federal funding to strengthen global food security. He disputed Putin’s statement that current global food insecurity is the result of Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. 

“Our sanctions explicitly allow Russia the ability to export food and fertilizer,” Biden said.

•••

Putin’s Not Bluffing? – Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial military call-up” mobilizing up to 300,000 reservists – falling just short of a draft -- to hold its border with Ukraine, the AP and NPR report. This has set Russians “scrambling” to buy airline tickets out of their country. In his seven-minute address Wednesday, Putin “also warned the West he isn’t bluffing about using all the means at his proposal to protect Russia’s territory,” a veiled reference to the country’s nuclear capability. 

But Russian nukes, as always, are held in-check by Western nations’ capabilities, Sergey Radchenko, professor of Russian history at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told NPR’s Morning Edition, so Putin’s claim his sabre-rattling is not a bluff hints it is indeed a bluff. And U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink tweeted that Russia is showing “weakness” and “failure” after its escalation of the war. She vowed that the U.S. will never recognize Russia’s scheme to claim Ukrainian territory.

Radchenko said plans announced Tuesday by eastern and southern regions of Ukraine currently controlled by Russia to hold votes on becoming an integral part of Russia – which Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy has called a “sham” – is a ploy for Putin to claim that it is Ukraine doing the invading when the country tries to take back those territories.

Biden’s UN Speech: Coming up Wednesday morning, President Biden speaks before the United Nations General Assembly (which Putin will not attend, despite Russia’s membership). The White House is scrambling to rewrite Biden’s speech in light of Putin’s announcement from Moscow, MSNBC’s Morning Joe reports.

•••

No Cake in Mar-a-Lagogate – Special Master Raymond Dearie, the candidate of the two candidates named by Donald J. Trump’s attorneys who was agreed to by the Justice Department, “appeared skeptical” about the former president’s claim he “declassified” classified documents recovered in the FBI’s August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, as Time put it Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, Judge Dearie told Trump’s attorneys “You can’t have your cake and eat it.” 

Upshot: Trump’s attorneys have avoided arguing that Trump had declassified the documents for fear of breaching ethics standards with an untruth.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Barr Blasts Special Master Ruling

William Barr, attorney general for ex-President Trump until he resigned just before Christmas 2020, has joined a plethora of legal experts in criticizing Federal District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ordering of a special master in the case of the FBI’s seizure of confidential government documents from Mar-a-Lago. 

“The opinion, I think was wrong,” Barr, whom critics will note is also promoting his book, One Damn Thing After Another told Fox News Tuesday, “and I think the government should appeal it. …

“I don’t think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up,” he continued, saying it will only delay the investigation. “But even if it does, I don’t see it fundamentally changing the trajectory.”

Enter your thoughts in the Comment box in this column, or email us at editors@thehustings.news and identify yourself as leaning left or right in the subject line. 

 

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More Trump Treachery Revealed

By Ken Zino

The Justice Department in a 36-page court filing* late Tuesday night responded to the latest attempt at avoidance of accountability by FPOTUS -- Former President Donald Trump -- via an independent special master review of classified documents of the most important type recovered from the legal FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. 

Simply put; Trump’s and his sycophant’s treachery are worse than had previously been revealed. They lied when the claimed falsely that all national security-sensitive documents had been returned. The search found three classified documents in desks inside FPOTUS’ Mar-a-Lago office. 

More outrageous still was more than 100 documents in 13 boxes with classification markings in the residence, including some at the most sensitive levels. This is at least two times the number of classified documents the former president’s lawyers turned over voluntarily while falsely swearing that they had returned all the material wanted by the National Archives or Federal Government. **

The DOJ asserts: “In particular, the government developed evidence that a search limited to the storage room would not have uncovered all the classified documents at the premises. The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

In my view, it’s time for democratic rule and the respect for law to proceed. Free DOJ of having to respond to the “stay out of jail” maneuverings of proven liars. Let DOJ and national security officials who need to assess the damages and threats from Trump’s treacheries do their jobs. And if indictments come, so be it – even in the face of Republican threats of violence. It’s time to address these treacheries in U.S. courts under the rule of U.S. laws.

Read the * and ** filings referenced above in the center column.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Reading Under the Redacted Lines

By Ken Zino

The 38-page redacted document* released last Friday to comply with a Southern District Court of Florida judge’s order to unseal the affidavit giving probable cause that crimes were committed at ex-President Trump’s Mar-a-Largo home seems complex. But the steps leading up to this legal search are simple to comprehend. It was prompted by 184 returned documents that Trump took from the White House including 25 marked “Top Secret” and 92 marked “Secret” that deal with, well, spying. 

This is really a simple matter in my view, requiring only the simplest explanation of what is going on. 

First, remember that Trump, aka FPOTUS [Former President Of The United States in the filing] publicly demanded that the affidavit justifying the search be released but then took no legal actions whatsoever to compel the court to do so. The crux of the matter is on page 31 subhead 78, “Subject Offenses” and 31 subhead 79 that probable cause exists to believe that evidence, contraband, fruits of crime or other items in violation of USC [United States Code]… will be found at the premises.” Premises, in this case, means multiple, unsecured places at the complex – all of them unsecured with relatively easy access to whomever was poking about. 

Remember that classified documents were found previously, which goes back to when Trump left the White House and then later when the National Archives got some documents that should never have left the White House. The first contact with Trump on this matter was May 6, 2021. Government officials were trying to get the documents returned. So the search was hardly a surprise, let alone a misuse of power. Rather it was an attempt to recover loose documents containing state secrets.

As this unfolds Trump and others potentially face a trial in a U.S. Court of law, not Trump’s bully insurrectionist court of fraudulent opinion. There are some serious charges here ranging from the mishandling of classified documents, and/or possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice statutes. [from heading 14 in the release “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (FISA) is a dissemination control designed to protect intelligence derived from the collection of information authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or “FISC.”

Simply put: FPOTUS maliciously kept national security records that he was required to turn over to the National Archives. There is a DOJ ongoing investigation and a grand jury looking into violations of a series of grave National Security matters that are discussed under the redactions. 

In time, I think some of these serious legal matters will become better known -- likely in only the vaguest of outlines given how sensitive and life-threatening they are to our National Interests and the people who look at for them -- in subsequent legal proceedings. 

*Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER Document 102-1 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/26/20

From the first page:

“1. The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records. The investigation began as a result of a referral the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) sent to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) on February 9, 2022, hereinafter, “NARA Referral.” The NARA Referral stated that on January 18, 2022, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA), NARA received from the office of former President DONALD J. TRUMP, hereinafter “FPOTUS,” via representatives, fifteen (15) boxes of records, hereinafter, the “FIFTEEN BOXES.” The FIFTEEN BOXES, which had been transported from the FPOTUS property at 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480, hereinafter, the “PREMISES,” a residence and club known as “Mar-a-Lago,” further described in Attachment A, were reported by NARA to contain, among other things, highly classified documents intermingled with other records.

2. After an initial review of the NARA Referral, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened a criminal investigation to, among other things, determine how the documents with classification markings and records were removed from the White House (or any other authorized location(s) for the storage of classified materials) and came to be stored at the PREMISES; determine whether the storage location(s) at the PREMISES were authorized locations for the storage of classified information; determine whether any additional classified documents or records may have been stored in an unauthorized location at the PREMISES or another unknown location, and whether they remain at any such location; and identify any person(s) who may have removed or retained classified information without authorization and/or in an unauthorized space.

3. The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago…

(WED 8/31/22)

Looks like obstruction of justice … The Justice Department pushed back on federal district judge for the Southern District of Florida Aileen M. Cannon’s “preliminary intent” to grant Trump attorneys a “special master” to overlook the case of the FBI’s August 8 search of government documents kept at Mar-a-Lago, NPR reports. “The Case of FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago” is not a Nancy Drew title: DOJ released photos of the classified documents, many labeled moved to a floor at ex-President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, next to boxes of old, framed magazine covers of The Donald. FBI agents had to be granted special security clearance August 8 to inspect some of the documents. 

The DOJ says the classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from locked Mar-a-Lago storage, to avoid discovery in the FBI search. As pundits have speculated in recent days, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation centers on obstruction of justice.

•••

Gorbachev is dead … Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who oversaw the dismantling of the Soviet Union and helped end the Cold War, died in Moscow Tuesday after a “long and grave illness,” according to The New York Times. He was 91. 

Gorbachev, who became president of the Soviet Union in 1985, helped bring the Cold War to a peaceful end, freed satellite countries in Eastern Europe and reunited Germany, but his reforms of Russia have since been reversed by its current president, Vladimir Putin. 

“I think he’s one of the most consequential leaders of the 20th Century,” Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, told NPR’s Morning Edition.

--Todd Lassa

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...meanwhile...Mar-a-Lagogate (TUE 8/30/22)

Mastered documents … No need for a special master to review documents confiscated from Mar-a-Lago in the FBI’s August 8 search of ex-President Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home. The Justice Department has told U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon that a “filter team” already has weeded out material that should not be reviewed by the criminal investigation, The Washington Post reports. Pundits and analysts have been wondering why Donald J. Trump’s attorneys have waited this long to request the special master. Judge Cannon, a Trump appointment, said last Saturday it was her “preliminary intent” to appoint a special master, but now we will not need to wait for her decision. 

•••

Secret Service assistant director retires … U.S. Secret Service Assistant Director Tony Ornato, a key figure in the House Select Committee hearings on the January 6 Capitol attack, has announced his retirement after 25 years of service, Just Security reports. In a key hearing this summer, Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told the panel that Ornato described then-President Trump as lashing out “in anger” when Secret Service agents refused to drive him to the Capitol on January 6.

--Todd Lassa

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Will Mar-a-Lagogate Finish Trump? (MON 8/29/22)

Donald J. Trump is embroiled in one more scandal that may stretch beyond the limits of his political career.

Again.

This time, however, there is concern over what sort of harm the ex-president’s hubris in running off to Mar-a-Lago with what he has insisted are his White House documents may have imposed on our national security. As originally reported by Politico National Intelligence Director Avril D. Haines has written to the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees that her office will lead an investigation to assess the “potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure” of the 184 government documents that Trump hauled off to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House. This will be an assessment of what intelligence sources and systems may have been identified within those boxes of papers kept at the ex-president’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate. 

Of three criminal laws listed as the basis for the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago served August 8, much of the attention has been on the Espionage Act and the FBI’s recovery of 25 top secret, 92 secret and 67 confidential documents. But according to The New York Times Sunday “the crime of obstruction is as, or even more, serious a threat to Mr. Trump or his close associates,” and cites Section 1519 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In other words, Trump may be held responsible for keeping the documents from being returned to the National Archives for more than a year after he left the White House. Violating Section 1519 carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, “which is twice as long as the penalty under the Espionage Act,” the Times says.

Florida judge: Meanwhile, Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida said Saturday it is her “preliminary intent” to appoint a “special master” to conduct a review of the 184 documents the FBI seized three weeks ago, the NYT says. According to NPR, a special master is usually an attorney or former judge acting as an independent arbiter in the case – typically requested an appointed at the time the warrant is served.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news