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