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Tag: Capitol attack

  • Hope Hicks Watched the Capitol Being Attacked and Thought, Oh No! My Job Prospects!

    Hope Hicks Watched the Capitol Being Attacked and Thought, Oh No! My Job Prospects!

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    Since wrapping up its year-and-a-half-long investigation of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the insurrection that followed, the January 6 committee has released several batches of witness transcripts as a sort of companion piece to its 845-page report. Not surprisingly, few people come out of these transcripts looking good. Take, for example, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who, according to the claim of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, spent the last weeks of the Trump administration literally burning documents, which is something you just never want to do. Also not looking great, or at least at all sympathetic? Longtime Trump adviser Hope Hicks, who apparently watched the violent attack on the Capitol unfold and thought, Oh no! This is going to affect all those cushy private sector jobs I had lined up!

    Yes, text messages released by the committee show Hicks whining to Julie Radford, former chief of staff to Ivanka Trump, that “in one day,” the insurrection-inciting president “ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local proud boys chapter.” She added, putting a fine point on it: “And all of us that didn’t have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed. I’m so mad and upset. We all look like domestic terrorists now.” In another missive, Hicks wrote, “Not being dramatic, but we are all fucked,” noting that Alyssa Farah Griffin, who resigned as White House communications director a few weeks after Trump lost the election, looked “like a genius” for quitting.

    Of course, Hicks had a chance to (at least attempt to) put some daylight between herself and the worst president in modern history, whose actions led to a violent attack on democracy and the deaths of multiple people—but chose not to. When she let it leak that she would be leaving the administration, she (1) did not do so immediately but rather with just a few days to go until Joe Biden’s inauguration, and (2) made it clear that she was absolutely not taking a moral stand against the shocking violence that had unfolded in her boss’s name. According to reports at the time, Hicks told people she was not leaving Team Trump over the riots that left five people dead and literal shit all over the floors of the Capitol building; instead, it was “part of planned departure and normal drift away at the end of an administration.”

    As for her employability, as Jezebel notes, Hicks probably won’t be joining the breadline anytime soon:

    When Hicks left the White House in 2018 for a two-year stint as the chief communications officer and executive vice president of Fox News, she took home a whopping $1.9 million. (She returned to the White House in March 2020.) She also hails from one of Greenwich’s most prominent families: Her father was once the regional CEO of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and executive vice president of communications for the NFL. He’s currently the managing director of the Glover Park Group, a DC communications consulting firm. Methinks moving back in with mom and dad wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

    In other revelations around the January 6 transcript dumps, we learned this week that longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway urged Melania Trump to get her husband to stop the insurrection, arguing that though he might listen to people who work for him, he “reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.” (Unfortunately, the then first lady was uninterested in doing anything about the attack, as she was reportedly busy helping with rug photography at the time.) We also learned that the 45th president called Senator Josh Hawley half a dozen times the day before the riot and then again the day of. (Given Hawley’s fist-pumping solidarity with the mob of election deniers gathered at the Capitol, whom he later fled from, you can understand why.)

    And then, of course, there’s the deeply disturbing news that Stefan Passantino, a former White House ethics lawyer from the Trump administration, allegedly tried to get Cassidy Hutchinson to give false testimony before the January 6 committee, effectively acting like an employee of a Mob boss.

    Per CBS News:

    Hutchinson struggled to find an attorney and sought help from people she knew from her work at the White House, including former White House attorney Eric Herschmann. Eventually, she received a call from Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House ethics lawyer who represented Hutchinson for her first two interviews with the committee, and did not tell her who was paying for his services. In a February meeting, Hutchinson testified that Passantino told her they would “downplay” her role at the White House and on Jan. 6 when she was interviewed by the select committee.

    Hutchinson said she was uncomfortable with the arrangement but felt she had no other choice, telling the committee that she said to her mother, “I am completely indebted to these people…they will ruin my life, Mom, if I do anything they don’t want me to.” Hutchinson said Passantino told her to keep her answers “short” and said that saying “I don’t recall” is an “entirely acceptable” response because “they don’t know that you recall some of these things.” She told the committee that testifying with him as her lawyer “felt like (she) had Trump looking over (her) shoulder.”

    “I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be,” Hutchinson said. She also told the committee that Passantino also mentioned job opportunities and worked to connect her with other people on getting a job, saying, “We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family.” 

    In a statement, Passantino insisted to CBS News that he represented Hutchinson “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me.” Hutchinson replaced Passantino before her public hearing with the January 6 committee, bringing on attorney Jody Hunt. During her public testimony, she shared incredibly damning information about Trump, including that he knew some of his supporters were armed before they went to the Capitol and that he told people Mike Pence deserved chants calling for his hanging.

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    Bess Levin

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  • January 6 Committee’s Damning Final Report on Donald Trump Should Blow Away the GOP’s Desperate Attempts to Discredit It

    January 6 Committee’s Damning Final Report on Donald Trump Should Blow Away the GOP’s Desperate Attempts to Discredit It

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    Even after 10 public hearings, the January 6 committee still has plenty to say. Its sprawling, 845-page final report contains a number of new revelations about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, including a warning from attorney John Eastman, in an email, that the former president had made “inaccurate” claims in a court document. It adds to its already damning case against Trump, whom they referred to the Justice Department this week for four charges of federal offenses. And it makes a number of recommendations to safeguard against another insurrection—including a call for Congress to ban Trump, the “central cause” of the 2021 attack, from ever holding public office again. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him,” the committee wrote at the top of its executive summary. 

    But the committee’s final report also serves another purpose, beyond expanding on its extensive account of the former president’s attack on democracy: It serves as a bulwark against efforts by Trump, his allies, and Capitol Hill Republicans to discredit the panel’s work. 

    Throughout the bipartisan investigation into the insurrection, the panel and those who cooperated with it were subjected to constant smears and threats from Trumpworld; even on Thursday, as the final report was published, Trump railed against the “unselect committee,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the “Government of the United States” in a series of unhinged social media posts. Trump allies also appeared to obstruct and influence the probe, as former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson indicated in testimony released by the committee Thursday. 

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    These tactics—intimidation and “flooding the zone with shit,” as Steve Bannon would put it—have worked for Trump in the past. But the committee, in its sweeping report, goes to notable lengths to clear the zone. 

    In its executive summary—itself the length of a short novel—the panel acknowledges that “millions of Americans still lack the information necessary to understand and evaluate what President Trump has told them about the election” and that some “news outlets and commentators have actively discouraged viewers from watching, and that millions of other Americans have not yet seen the actual evidence addressed by this Report.” The report not only outlines the committee’s findings, as lawmakers did in this year’s hearings, but allows the public to get a peek inside its exhaustive process—a rebuke, it would seem, to Kevin McCarthy’s vow to investigate the investigators when Republicans take control of the House next year. McCarthy, who opposed the committee, was also one of the 139 Republican House members who voted to overturn the election results in the hours after the January 6 attack.

    “If this Select Committee has accomplished one thing, I hope it has shed light on how dangerous it would be to empower anyone whose desire for authority comes before their commitment to American democracy and the Constitution,” Chairman Bennie Thompson said in a foreword to the report. “I believe most Americans will turn their backs on those enemies of democracy.”

    The committee also preempts Trump’s claims that the investigation was “highly partisan” by making clear that virtually all of its witnesses were Republicans and current or former employees and allies of the former president. In four pages listing those who testified, there is only one Democrat listed: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who told the panel of how pro-Trump protestors stood outside her home with bullhorns, trumpeting their leader’s election lies. “We decided that the vast majority of our witnesses needed to be Republicans,” Ranking Member Liz Cheney, one of two GOP lawmakers on the panel, wrote in her foreword. “They were.”

    To read the report is not only to confront the extraordinary lengths Trump went to try to overturn his loss to Joe Biden, but to be reminded of how painstaking the investigation into that coup attempt was. That may not matter to those who still believe in Trump’s conspiracy theories—or to the Republicans who still try to profit politically from them, and who are sure to wave away many of the committee’s recommendations when they assume control of the House next month. As Thompson writes in his foreword to the report, “Some will rally to the side of the election deniers.” The hope, as the committee concludes its work, is that most do not, and that the fever of Trumpism will finally start to break.

    “​​Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” Thompson wrote. “We can never surrender to democracy’s enemies.”

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    Eric Lutz

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  • Hope Hicks Shows Up to Twist the Knife as 1/6 Committee Implores the DOJ to Prosecute Trump

    Hope Hicks Shows Up to Twist the Knife as 1/6 Committee Implores the DOJ to Prosecute Trump

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    Donald Trump’s extremely long list of legal problems got significantly worse on Monday, when the January 6 committee capped off its year-and-a-half-long investigation into the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, and the violent riot that ensued, by recommending the Justice Department charge him with four major crimes. While the recommendation is not binding, and the DOJ could choose to ignore it, it is nevertheless a shocking indictment of a former president of the United States, who hopes to hold that position again come January 20, 2025. Probably making the whole thing sting even more? That one of his most loyal aides, and a person he would undoubtedly rank above several of his children, helped twist the knife.

    Continuing the tradition of airing taped testimony of various high-ranking individuals within Trumpworld, the committee used its final public hearing to show footage of a deposition with Hope Hicks, a former longtime senior counselor to the ex-president whom Trump has affectionately referred to as “Hopey” and “Hopester.” According to Hicks, who left the Trump administration in 2018 and returned in early 2020 to help get him reelected, in the days prior to the January 6 insurrection, she pressed for him to tell his followers that anyone coming to Washington to protest the election should not engage in violence—but the recommendation was refused. “It was my view that it was important that the president put out some kind of message in advance of the event,” she said, adding that another senior adviser, Eric Herschmann, made the same request but was also rebuffed.

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    In other words, the then president was warned—well in advance—that violence could unfold on the day the election was to be certified in Congress, and he did nothing to stop it.

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    In addition to recommending Trump be charged with inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement, and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, the committee also recommended an ethics inquiry into the actions of four top House Republicans: Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, and Andy Biggs.

    While it’s not clear if the DOJ—which is conducting its own investigation into Trump—will act on the panel’s referrals, committee chairman Bennie Thompson said Monday, “I’m convinced the Justice Department will charge former President Trump. No one, including a former president, is above the law.”

    Jared Kushner catches some football with his pals

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    Bess Levin

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  • Oh, Look: Another GOP Lawmaker Wanted Trump to Declare “Marshall Law” to Steal a Second Term

    Oh, Look: Another GOP Lawmaker Wanted Trump to Declare “Marshall Law” to Steal a Second Term

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    If you’ve been keeping up with the various investigations and revelations surrounding January 6 and the plot to overturn the 2020 election, you know that one person—among many!—who hasn’t come out looking good is former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The fourth and final individual to serve as Donald Trump’s right hand at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Meadows, according to his assistant, had prior knowledge that the rioters who attacked the Capitol were armed, brushed off the mob’s chants to have then vice president Mike Pence hanged, and later sought a pardon from Trump for his actions on the day of the insurrection. He also repeatedly urged the Justice Department to investigate ridiculous voter-fraud conspiracy theories—like the one about Italian satellites giving Trump votes to Joe Biden—and exchanged a number of messages with Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, about keeping the former president in the White House. In other words, Meadows was intimately involved in the effort to subvert democracy—and according to recently revealed text messages, he was even more involved than previously thought.

    On Monday, Talking Points Memo published a trove of text messages that the former chief of staff turned over to the January 6 committee before suing the panel and asking a federal judge to block a subpoena for his phone records. Perhaps not surprisingly—given the lengths to which Meadows went to not cooperate with the people investigating the events before, during, and after January 6—these texts do not make him look good, as they suggest that he basically spent all of his waking hours between the 2020 election and Biden’s inauguration chatting with people about how to stop Biden from becoming president. In total, Meadows texted with, or received texts from, at least 34 Republican members of Congress regarding how to keep Trump in the Oval Office despite the inconvenient fact that he had not won the presidential election.

    Representative Scott Perry, for instance, told Meadows about assembling a “cyber team” to seize voting machines throughout the country and place them under “lock and key.” He was all in on the crackpot idea re: Italian satellites and also suggested that Gina Haspel, who’d been appointed to run the CIA by Trump, was “running around on the Hill covering for the Brits who helped quarterback this entire operation.” While Meadows does not appear to have responded to the majority of Perry’s messages, he did push the DOJ to investigate the Italian satellite conspiracy theory and personally asked Perry if one of his contacts would be “willing to sign an affidavit,” which likely detailed claims of election fraud.

    Elsewhere, Meadows exchanged messages with Representative Mo Brooks, who texted the chief of staff in December of 2020 about plans to hold a “White House meeting regarding formulation of our January 6 strategies.” In a message to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, Meadows later confirmed the meeting had occurred. (“The President and I met with about 15 members of Congress to discuss the evidence of voter fraud in various states as well as discuss the strategy for making the case to the American people,” Meadows wrote to Kilmeade.) The meeting was attended by, among others, GOP reps. Paul Gosar, Jody Hice, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Perry, and Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene. Speaking of Greene, thanks to previous reporting from CNN, we know that she texted Meadows on December 31, 2020, to say, “We have to get organized for the 6th”; she also asked to “meet with Rudy Giuliani again.” Jordan reached out the night before the attack on the Capitol and presented a plan for Pence to block the certification of Biden’s win “in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence.”

    Probably most disturbing, though, is the message that came from Representative Ralph Norman 11 days after the insurrection and just three days before Biden’s inauguration, in which he wrote: “Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”

    Norman, like Greene, of course meant to refer to “martial law” despite writing “Marshall,” because they’re both f–king idiots. Also like Greene, Norman is a current member of Congress, as are Perry, Jordan, and a whole bunch of other people who frantically texted with Meadows about stealing a second term for Trump. And come January, their party will control half of Congress. Not great for the ye olde democracy!

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    Bess Levin

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  • The January 6 Committee Will Issue Criminal Referrals to the DOJ—Will Trump Make the List?

    The January 6 Committee Will Issue Criminal Referrals to the DOJ—Will Trump Make the List?

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    On June 30, 2021, the House of Representatives voted to form the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, a.k.a. the January 6 committee. Come January, when Republicans take over the lower chamber, it will vanish into thin air, as the people who will then hold power have a vested interest in pretending the events that took place that day in 2021 were not a big deal. Before that happens, though, the panel will issue a final report detailing its findings, much of which will presumably make Donald Trump and the people involved in the attack on the Capitol look very bad. Another bit of unfinished business for the committee? The matter of criminal referrals, which are apparently in the offing.

    On Tuesday, chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters that the panel has decided to criminally refer individuals to the Department of Justice for prosecution. According to CNN, the decision of whether to do so has long “loomed large over the committee,” with panel members in wide agreement that Trump and his allies committed a crime by “push[ing] a conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.” However, they’re in disagreement over what to do about it; while some have reportedly argued that “criminal referrals are not necessary to close out the panel’s investigation” since the Justice Department is conducting its own criminal investigation into the attack, others believe they are “a necessary measure” to complete the panel’s work.

    According to Thompson, the committee, which was scheduled to meet today, has not yet decided exactly who to recommend for criminal charges. Among the potential charges reportedly being considered are conspiracy to defraud the US and obstruction of an official congressional proceeding. The panel itself does not have the ability to indict anyone, meaning the referrals will not carry legal weight. Still, as The New York Times notes, a criminal referral would be a hugely “symbolic act by the panel to put forth an official finding that it believes a crime or crimes were committed.” Representatives Liz Cheney, Jamie Raskin, Zoe Lofgren, and Adam Schiff, all of whom are lawyers, make up a subcommittee of the panel that has studied the matter.

    Obviously, the question on many people’s minds is whether Trump himself will be referred for charges. In a court filing in March, the committee’s lawyers said that they had amassed evidence showing that Trump and others could potentially be charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and obstruction through their efforts to mislead the public about the outcome of the 2020 election and their attempt to overturn the result.

    Of course, even if the panel does not refer Trump for criminal charges, he’d hardly be in the clear, given the Justice Department’s current investigation into his actions surrounding the election. Last month, following Trump’s announcement to run for office for a third time, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to oversee the case. (Smith is also overseeing the investigation into Trump‘s decision to take classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago and refuse to give them back, despite being asked to do so on multiple occasions.) On Tuesday, Smith issued grand-jury subpoenas to officials in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, seeking all their communication with Trump, his 2020 campaign, and a number of allies and aides. (The three states played a key role in Trump’s plot to stay in power after he lost the election to Joe Biden.)

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    Bess Levin

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  • Donald Trump, Running for President in 2024, Defends Violent Mob That Broke Into the Capitol Over His 2020 Loss

    Donald Trump, Running for President in 2024, Defends Violent Mob That Broke Into the Capitol Over His 2020 Loss

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    As we’ve frequently noted around these parts, the list of reasons why Donald Trump should never be allowed within 1,000 feet of the White House again is a very long one that continues to grow longer with each passing day. The latest entry? His continued defense of the people who violently attacked the US Capitol following his 2020 loss, which seems to suggest he’d encourage such behavior again, should his bid to retake the presidency in 2024 not go according to plan.

    The Washington Post reports that in a video aired at a fundraising event on Thursday night, Trump “expressed solidarity” with the mob that broke into the government building in an attempt to block Joe Biden’s electoral win, saying: “People have been treated unconstitutionally, in my opinion, and very, very unfairly, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. It’s the weaponization of the Department of Justice, and we can’t let this happen in our country.” The event was hosted by the Patriot Freedom Project, which bills itself as “a nonprofit organization providing legal, financial, mental health, and spiritual support for individuals and their families—including young children—who are suffering at the hands of a weaponized justice system.”

    While this is far from the first time Trump has gone to bat for the violent mob—last September, he said he would issue “full pardons with an apology to many” of the rioters—it appears to be the first time he’s done so since announcing he will run for president for a third time. As a reminder, a number of the rioters he says he stands with brutally attacked law enforcement officers on January 6, while five people died during or after the attack. Earlier this week, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia, was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his plot to keep Trump in power. Since the attack on the Capitol took place nearly two years ago, more than 800 people have been arrested and federally charged with crimes, the Post noted.

    Trump’s role in January 6 is currently under investigation by the Justice Department, which appointed war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith to serve as special counsel to oversee the case last month, after Trump announce his candidacy for office. In June, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump knew his supporters were armed on the day of the attack and nevertheless demanded they be allowed onto the Ellipse for his pre-insurrection speech—and later, to march to the Capitol—arguing that they weren’t there to hurt him.

    In other news about why there should be a federal ban on Trump entering not just the District of Columbia but the entire Washington metropolitan area—that’s right, throw Maryland and Virginia in there too: On Thursday, a guy whom he had dinner with just last week said things like, “I like Hitler” and “I’m a Nazi,” and then tweeted an image of a swastika inside a Star of David. So, y’know, add that to the tab.

    If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, click here to subscribe.

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    Bess Levin

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  • “The Party Will Shatter” If Donald Trump Is The 2024 Nominee: Rep. Liz Cheney

    “The Party Will Shatter” If Donald Trump Is The 2024 Nominee: Rep. Liz Cheney

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    Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said she won’t let former President Donald Trump turn his testimony before the January 6 committee into a “circus.”

    “This isn’t going to be his first debate against [President Joe Biden] … and the food fight that became. This is a far too serious set of issues,” Cheney said to host Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

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    Earlier this month, the committee voted unanimously to subpoena the former president. The subpoena requires Trump to turn documents over to the House panel by November 4; it also requires him to appear under oath around Nov. 14.

    We are going to proceed in terms of the questioning of the former president under oath,” Cheney added. “It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves.”

    Cheney served as one of two Republicans on the January 6 bipartisan committee. After the committee’s vote, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the other Republican on the panel, said: “He’s required by law to come in, and he can ramble and push back all he wants. That’s the requirement for a congressional subpoena to come in.”

    It is unclear as to whether Trump will actually go through with testifying. On Friday, Trump’s lawyer said in a statement: “We understand that, once again, flouting norms and appropriate and customary process, the Committee has publicly released a copy of its subpoena. As with any similar matter, we will review and analyze it, and will respond as appropriate to this unprecedented action.”  

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    Cheney added that the future of her party looks dim; if Trump is the GOP nominee in 2024, “the party will shatter.” She continued, “The party has either to come back from where we are right now, which is a very dangerous and toxic place, or the party will splinter and there will be a new conservative party that rises.”

    Cheney essentially lost her seat in the House in the pursuit of holding the former president accountable for his inaction on January 6. She has even hinted at a potential presidential run, as part of her effort to keep Trump out of office again. Cheney said she will do “whatever it takes” to make that happen.

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    Kelly Rissman

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  • “We Demand Answers On The Crime Of The Century”: Donald Trump Reacts to January 6 Committee Subpoena With Lengthy Missive

    “We Demand Answers On The Crime Of The Century”: Donald Trump Reacts to January 6 Committee Subpoena With Lengthy Missive

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    After the January 6 committee voted unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump on Thursday, on Friday evening, Trump wrote an angry 14-page letter reacting to the House committee’s efforts.

    Despite the letter’s length, the former president did not address whether he would comply with the subpoena. Instead, the message began with a familiar string of words—in all-caps this time: “The presidential election of 2020 was rigged and stolen!”

    In the missive, Trump sank even deeper into his hole of 2020 election fraud lies and said the committee pursued the wrong people: “You have not gone after the people that created the Fraud, but rather great American Patriots who questioned it, as is their Constitutional right. These people have had their lives ruined as your Committee sits back and basks in the glow.”

    He concluded by saying, “We demand answers on the Crime of the Century.”

    The New York Times reported that sources expect the January 6 committee to issue the subpoena as soon as Monday. The hearing on Thursday was likely the panel’s last public hearing. Just before the committee members voted on the subpoena, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said: ​​“[Trump] is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. So we want to hear from him. The committee needs to do everything in our power to tell the most complete story possible.”

    Footage released on Thursday showed how Trump had planned on announcing his 2020 victory months in advance. Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told the committee that Trump had planned on declaring victory–regardless of the real results–since July 2020.

    Similarly, conservative activist Tom Fitton sent a memo to two White House officials on October 31, 2020–four days before Election Day–stating, “We had an election today—and I won.”

    One day after the vote for subpoenaing the former president, the Justice Department appealed the appointment of the special master to review the documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

    “Plaintiff has no plausible claim of executive privilege as to any of the seized materials and no plausible claim of personal attorney-client privilege as to the seized government records — including all records bearing classification markings,” according to the DOJ’s brief.

    “Accordingly, the special-master review process is unwarranted,” the DOJ wrote.

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    Kelly Rissman

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  • The Mar-a-Lago ‘Raid’ Put Ron DeSantis in a Box

    The Mar-a-Lago ‘Raid’ Put Ron DeSantis in a Box

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    That the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida home has become a rallying point for Republicans—ever eager to demonstrate fealty to the former president and rage at government overreach—is not exactly a shock. What is noteworthy is how the news might shift political considerations in MAGA world.

    In another universe, last week’s FBI search could have provided a perfect opportunity for a wannabe party leader like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to set himself apart. A reckless has-been running off with nuclear secrets? Not my president! But in this universe—and given this particular cult of personality—DeSantis has parked his wagon next to all the others encircling Trump.

    “These agencies have now been weaponized to be used against people that the government doesn’t like,” DeSantis told a crowd on Sunday at an Arizona political rally alongside the GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and the Senate candidate Blake Masters. If the Florida governor had been gearing up to launch his own presidential bid, the FBI search—and what could come after—might be forcing him to rethink his plans. “Now that Trump is beleaguered and in legal trouble and the current narrative is Rally to the king!, he will rally to the king,” Mac Stipanovich, a Florida Republican strategist, told me.

    DeSantis has Trump to thank for his political success. The president’s endorsement—and multiple campaign appearances—helped him when he was the underdog candidate in his 2018 Republican primary, and ultimately led to his slim victory in the general election. In the three years since DeSantis got the keys to the governor’s mansion, he has worked diligently to position himself as the natural inheritor of Trumpism. He’s waded dutifully into the culture wars, opposing lockdown orders, blasting critical race theory and banning lessons on sexuality in school. He’s even mastered Trump’s hand gestures.

    David Frum: The Republicans have a Trump problem. Again.

    If the former president should decide not to run again in 2024, DeSantis has seemed ready and willing to accept the baton. In polls, Republican voters have consistently chosen him as their second-favorite choice for president.

    Some strategists told me that DeSantis might even try to challenge Trump in a primary by arguing—carefully, respectfully—that the MAGA movement does not belong to just one man. “Before the Mar-a-Lago raid, I was of the mind that it would be a crowded primary” in 2024, David Jolly, a former GOP representative from Florida, told me. “DeSantis has been so strong that he could say, ‘Enough voters are asking me to get in the race; I’m going to stand. But if Trump wins, I’ll support him.’”

    The FBI search, though, might have sabotaged DeSantis’s diligent plans. The news was read by MAGA world as the opening salvo of a war on Trump, and every Republican with a political survival instinct has proclaimed righteous anger on his behalf. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted an upside-down American flag in apparent support of Trump; “We are seeing the justice system being used as a hammer to batter political opponents,” the Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano told Newsmax. Even former Vice President Mike Pence came to Trump’s defense, despite recent reporting that Trump had expressed support for Pence’s hanging: “I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump,” Pence tweeted.

    DeSantis, too, was not about to bite the hand that feeds. He issued an angry tweet condemning the Biden “Regime” for its overreach. As DeSantis continues to campaign for MAGA-type candidates ahead of the midterms, including Mastriano in Pennsylvania and the Senate candidate J. D. Vance of Ohio, you can bet that he’ll keep talking about “the raid,” pointing to it as evidence of a leftist takeover of American government. This may be pure pandering. “There is no [advantage] in being seen to betray Donald Trump in his hour of travail,” Stipanovich said. Doing so risks appearing like a traitor to the MAGA cause and losing the base’s admiration. The most that DeSantis or any other presidential hopeful can do is be a loyalist and hope that, eventually, Trump falls or makes room for them to run.

    Conor Friedersdorf: Why Never Trumpers should bet on Ron DeSantis now

    Still, even in his condemnation of the search, DeSantis appears to be walking a careful line. During his speech in Arizona, he didn’t actually mention Trump by name. Instead, he accused the FBI of “targeting people who go against the regime.” The remarks seemed intended to demonstrate loyalty to the base rather than to Trump himself. Maybe DeSantis assumed that the audience wouldn’t notice? Or maybe he’s making a judgment that MAGA world wants Trump’s rhetoric but no longer requires Trump the man to be its mouthpiece.

    DeSantis could be leaving himself a small opening: If the various investigations into Trump never amount to anything, DeSantis might still have room to challenge the former president. But if Trump is actually indicted for a crime related to the Capitol attack on January 6, or to whatever classified documents he’s allegedly taken from the White House, last week’s rally-round-the-king moment offered a glimpse of what we can expect. Every Republican politician, including any potential challengers, would be forced to choose between defending Trump and siding with Joe Biden’s corrupt, leftist “deep state.” “The prosecution of Donald Trump would be the most catalyzing moment available to the former president,” Jolly said. “That’s a harder case for DeSantis to get into the race.”

    Last week, after the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump’s lead over DeSantis in a potential primary matchup widened by 10 points. But beyond gaming out DeSantis’s diminished options, the takeaway from the federal investigation is the simple fact that an angry septuagenarian still holds the Grand Old Party in a vise grip. Whatever succession plans those who dutifully kissed the ring were hatching, their political fortunes and futures remain tied to Trump.

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    Elaine Godfrey

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  • National Safety Shelters Repurposes Safety Pods To Protect Government Officials From Violent Attacks

    National Safety Shelters Repurposes Safety Pods To Protect Government Officials From Violent Attacks

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    Officials and staff can now have instant access to near-absolute protection from armed intruders and bomb threats without restricting building access

    Press Release
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    updated: May 25, 2021


    WASHINGTON, May 25, 2021 (Newswire.com)
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    In response to the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building and the alarming Capitol Police report of a “107% increase in threats against Members [of Congress] compared to 2020,” National Safety Shelters is repurposing its line of Hide-Away safety pods and proposing that Congress consider acquiring them to protect Members and their staff from future violent attacks.

    INSTANT NEAR-ABSOLUTE PROTECTION

    The Hide-Away safety pods are bolt-together steel structures that provide instant access to safety from violent attacks and certain natural disasters (tornadoes, earthquakes). Fabricated using military-grade ballistic American steel, they protect against rounds shot from commonly used firearms and semi-automatic weapons like the AK47 and AR15. They also offer protection from the blast and shrapnel of IEDs.

    Originally designed to withstand the forces of EF-5 tornadoes and falling debris from earthquakes, the Hide-Away pods have since been installed in K-12 schools to protect students and staff from active shooters and tornadoes (in tornado prone areas). They are the only safety measure currently available that provides instant access to near-absolute protection.

    Small pods can be placed in personal offices and homes to protect from one to several individuals, whereas larger models can accommodate from dozens to hundreds of occupants, depending on the need. Each can be custom configured to fit into just about any available space.

    With a safety pod in each office, Members and staff can now have an unprecedented level of security that no other safety measure can achieve – instant protection. In addition to their use at the Capitol Complex, Members could also install them in their homes and district offices.

    This economical security safety net would only require a minute fraction of the $1.9 billion spending bill that Congress is currently proposing for security upgrades.

    SECURITY WITHOUT LIMITING BUILDING ACCESS

    Notably, the Hide-Away safety pods and shelters satisfy the recommendations outlined in the Capitol Security Review released on March 5, 2021 by Task Force 1-6  led by retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré. The recommendations seek “to improve the security of the Capitol, Members, and staff” in ways that will not reduce “physical access to the Capitol Complex.”

    Being that the pods would be installed either inside personal offices or at other easily accessible interior locations throughout the Complex, there would be no impact on physical access to either the Capitol Building or other office buildings within the Complex. Should a violent attack occur, casualties could virtually be eliminated.

    In view of the current threat level to Members and the uptick in mass shootings this year (212 as of 5/13), National Safety Shelters is in the process of introducing this innovative security safety net to all 535 Members of Congress, federal security and law enforcement agencies and all 50 state governments.

    For more information please contact Sarah Corrado at 1-772-248-0236 or sarah@nationalsafetyshelters.com.

    Source: National Safety Shelters

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