Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

This afternoon, US Attorney General Merrick Garland stepped up to a podium at the Justice Department and completely ruined Donald Trump's week. Marcy Wheeler explains:

 

Merrick Garland just announced that the government has moved to unseal limited parts of the search warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago, pending giving Trump an opportunity to object.

Garland cited the public interest, but also Trump’s disclosure of the search himself.

Although the government initially asked, and this Court agreed, to file the warrant and Attachments A and B under seal, releasing those documents at this time would not “impair court functions,” including the government’s ability to execute the warrant, given that the warrant has already been executed. See Romero, 480 F.3d at 1246. Furthermore, on the day that the search was executed, former President Trump issued a public statement that provided the first public confirmation that the search had occurred. Subsequently, the former President’s representatives have given additional statements to the press concerning the search, including public characterizations of the materials sought.

But he’s not asking to unseal the whole warrant.

On the contrary. He’s only unsealing precisely the documents that Trump already has in his possession: the cover page and Appendices A (describing this house) and B (describing what can be seized). Indeed, the motion notes that the FBI gave Trump these documents.

In these circumstances involving a search of the residence of a former President, the government hereby requests that the Court unseal the Notice of Filing and its attachment (Docket Entry 17), absent objection by former President Trump. The attachment to that Notice consists of:

• The search warrant signed and approved by the Court on August 5, 2022, including Attachments A and B; and

• The redacted Property Receipt listing items seized pursuant to the search, filed with the Court on August 11, 2022.
  

The government will respond to the direction of the Court to provide further briefing as to additional entries on the docket, pursuant to the schedule set by the Court.

Consistent with standard practice in this Court, the search warrant and attachments were each filed under seal in Case No. 22-mj-8332-BER prior to the search; the Property Receipt was filed under seal today. Former President Trump, through counsel, was provided copies of each of these documents on August 8, 2022, as part of the execution of the search.

These documents are precisely the ones that Trump could have released all by himself, but chose not to. He could object now. But if he did, it would make clear — as if all the refusals to release it to journalists hasn’t already — that it’s really damning.

And now — in a short announcement where he took no questions, but where Garland made a fierce defense of DOJ and the FBI — Garland is calling Trump’s bluff.

 

And we know now this morning from the NY Times that Trump indeed did get a subpoena for these classified documents he was keeping in Mar-a-Lago back in June, and Trump ignored it.

Former President Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year, when he returned boxes of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people familiar with the matter said.

The existence of the subpoena helps to flesh out the sequence of events that led to the search of Mr. Trump’s Florida home on Monday by F.B.I. agents seeking classified material they believed might still be there, even after efforts by the National Archives and the Justice Department to ensure that it had been returned.

The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and members-only club.

Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act.

The subpoena was first disclosed by John Solomon, a conservative journalist who has also been designated by Mr. Trump as one of his representatives to the National Archives.

The existence of the subpoena is being used by allies of Mr. Trump to make a case that the former president and his team were cooperating with the Justice Department in identifying and returning the documents in question and that the search was unjustified.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Christina Bobb, a lawyer working for Mr. Trump, did not respond to messages. It is not clear what precise materials the subpoena sought or what documents the former president might have provided in response.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Thursday confirmed that he personally signed off on a search warrant that was executed on Monday. He did not address a subpoena, but said that “where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means,” indicating that other measures were tried before a search took place.

The subpoena factored into a visit that Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, made with a small group of other federal officials to Mar-a-Lago weeks later, in early June, one of the people said.

 

What Trump did not do was cooperate fully with the subpoena. The feds believed Trump still had classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, documents of such sensitive nature that the feds showed up on Monday to get them personally.

 

Thanks to the Washington Post, we know what these documents were and why they were so important to recover.

Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands.

The people who described some of the material that agents were seeking spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. They did not offer additional details about what type of information the agents were seeking, including whether it involved weapons belonging to the United States or some other nation. Nor did they say if such documents were recovered as part of the search. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.

Again, if the documents were harmless, we absolutely would have seen Trump release the warrant and appendices that he got and scream WITCH HUNT at the top of his lungs over being UNFAIRLY PERSECUTED LIKE NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY over classified White House cookie recipes.

But Trump didn't do that.  And now Garland is giving him the business: either this list gets out, or he has to object in court, proving he has something to hide.

My theory is again that he has to. Just the list of what was taken out of there would end him, and everyone knows it.

We'll see what Trump does.

The Rent Is Too Damn High, Con't

As I've been warning about for months now, corporate takeovers of rental property companies, double-digit rent inflation, NIMBY bans on new apartment complexes, the end of pandemic eviction moratoriums, and the housing crisis pushing both existing and potential homeowners into renting, now means that the renting crisis is upon us and in a bad way.

Rental costs in the US are soaring at the fastest pace in more than three decades, surpassing a median of $2,000 a month for the first time ever and pushing rents above pre-pandemic levels in most major cities. Increases are particularly steep in metropolitan areas that saw large influxes of new residents during the pandemic, but the rental market is sparing almost nowhere and no one.

While the affordability crisis in the US is not new, it has snowballed over the past year as people returned to big cities and some areas short on housing supply saw a boom of new residents. Demand for rentals has soared, with many would-be homebuyers backing out of the market after mortgage rates jumped this year as a result of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate hikes.

Tight inventory is leading to bidding wars, typically more a fixture of the homebuying market. Rising costs and a shortage of available units are giving landlords the leverage to hike rents at all price points. And the end of the federal eviction moratorium, combined with dwindling rental assistance, has forced people to make tough choices.

“It’s pretty much the perfect storm for renters right now,” said Kate Reynolds, principal policy associate at the Washington-based Urban Institute. “Those renters and their landlords don’t have a place to turn if they’re unable to pay the rent.”
Inflation Pressure

Many renters, who typically spend a greater share of their income on housing than homeowners, are already struggling to keep up with larger bills at the grocery store and the gas station thanks to inflation running near the highest in four decades. And rent hikes are expected to persistently push inflation higher, since leases are staggered and renters face shocks at different times. Shelter costs account for about a third of the closely watched consumer price index, which increased by 8.5% in July from a year earlier, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday.

People of color and those with lower incomes are the most affected by the increase in rent prices, since they account for the majority of renters. In the US, about 58% of households headed by Black adults rent their homes, along with nearly 52% of Latino-led households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data. In comparison, about a quarter of households led by non-Hispanic White adults, and a little under 40% of Asian-led households, are rentals. Some 54% of renters earn less than $50,000, and the annual median household income among renters is about $42,500, below the national median of $67,500, according to Zillow.

 

And again, this isn't a nationwide focus because it's a problem that primarily affects Black, Hispanic and Asian folks, not white ones, so nobody's going to care.

Certainly we won't see any legislation get past the GOP that would help the tens of millions of American renters facing financial ruin.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Local Edition

I am truly saddened to be right in my predictions of MAGA terrorist violence after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

A pursuit and ongoing police situation in Clinton County has shut down two highways and prompted an area lockdown Thursday. It all started after an armed suspect attempted to breach an FBI building in Cincinnati.

According to FBI Cincinnati, it started around 9 a.m. when a person showed up to the office in Kenwood and attempted to breach the visitor screening facility.

An alarm went off and FBI special agents responded when the man fired a nail gun at law enforcement personnel. The man then held up an AR-15 style rifle before fleeing in a vehicle north onto I-71 leading Ohio State Highway Patrol on a pursuit into Clinton County.

The FBI, Ohio State Highway Patrol and local law enforcement are now on scene near Wilmington where they say they are trying to resolve the critical incident. 

 

What did you expect the party of January 6th was going to do in response, folks? Republicans in Congress have been screaming for FBI blood since Monday.

Today the got a taste of it.

More will follow.

The Big Lie, Con't

The feds moved on multiple state House and Senate Republican offices in Pennsylvania this week in connection with the effort by Trump minions to seat fraudulent electors in 2020 in order to give Trump the state.

Federal investigators delivered subpoenas or paid visits to several House and Senate Republican offices in the Pennsylvania Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to multiple sources.

At least some of the individuals receiving subpoenas were told they were not targets of an investigation, according to at least six sources reached by PennLive, but that they may have information of interest to the FBI. All of the sources had been briefed on the investigative moves in some way, but demanded anonymity in order to discuss them.

The information being requested centered around U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and the effort to seek alternate electors as part of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election, several sources said.

The Washington Post on Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the probe, also reported that Perry’s cellphone was seized Tuesday as part of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the use of fake electors to try to overturn President Biden’s victory. The Post’s source also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Spokepersons for the Pennsylvania’s House and Senate Republican leaders did not confirm whether any of their caucus members received a subpoena.

“I am unaware of any FBI presence in the Capitol or Leader Benninghoff’s office yesterday. To the extent House members or staff may have been contacted by the FBI, we would not comment on a potential or ongoing investigation,” said Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County, and the chamber’s Republican caucus.

A spokesman for House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, said on Wednesday morning that office did not receive a visit and said they were unaware of the FBI having a presence in the Capitol on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County, referred questions to the office of Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre County.

Jason Thompson, a spokesman for Corman, issued a statement, saying, “Federal subpoenas typically request confidentiality from the witnesses being subpoenaed in order to avoid impediment to the ongoing investigation, so it would be inappropriate to comment on whether members have received subpoenas or not. If subpoenaed as witnesses, our members will certainly comply with requests for documents or information not covered by an applicable privilege.”

He added: “We have no indication that any of our members are targets of any FBI investigation.”

The conspiracy to defraud the United States through the attempted appointment of electors sworn to Trump and not to the actual winner of the state is something that has to carry significant prison time for everyone involved.

That includes Trump himself.

I don't think the charges will go that high, because as I've said several times in the last few days, America isn't even ready to begin to discuss the cost of indicting Trump and the violence that will follow. Justice will have a steep price.

But the investigations are moving on towards justice.