Comin' Back To Bite Ya

When the tailor-made pandering bullshit comes back around and kicks you right in the balls, because the election you were so sure you'd rigged adequately in your favor didn't turn out the way you needed it to.

They put this shit into the law because they believed they'd never be out of power, and they could turn that law in any direction they deemed necessary to punish dissent. Prove me wrong.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Citizen Trump may have broken a law that President Trump made a felony

There are not many people who know exactly why FBI agents searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday. The FBI knows, certainly, and the former president and his attorneys probably have a good sense as well, given that they saw the search warrant. Everyone else is operating on what’s been revealed by Trump’s team and public reporting: The FBI search was largely or entirely a function of the investigation into Trump’s retention of documents after leaving the White House.

We know that he did, by his own admission. This year, a number of boxes of material were turned over to the National Archives. Included in that material were some that were classified. On Monday, the FBI removed another dozen boxes, with speculation rampant that more of that material was similarly restricted.

If Trump is found to have violated federal law in removing and retaining classified documents without authorization, he could be convicted of a felony punishable by five years in prison. And that conviction would be a felony carrying that punishment because of a law signed by President Donald Trump.

Trump’s 2016 campaign was intertwined with a similar question. His Democratic opponent, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, had been found to have operated a private email server that she used for official business — including, the FBI determined, some that was classified. Trump and his allies pushed for Clinton to face criminal charges but in July 2016, FBI Director James B. Comey announced that the FBI wouldn’t seek an indictment. Trump was furious, but he won anyway.

During his first year in office, a central tool used for surveillance by the intelligence community — Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — was set to expire. Shortly before it did, Congress passed an extension of the authority for another five years.

But that didn’t come without turmoil. Trump came into office angry at the intelligence community for revealing to reporters that it believed Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. He excoriated intelligence agencies on Twitter — and continued to do so as the contours of the investigation into that interference became clear.

On the day that the House was set to vote on the reauthorization, Trump complained on Twitter:

“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?

The tweet freaked out advocates of the extension. A few hours later, he tweeted his support and it passed. On Jan. 18, 2018, he signed it into law.

What became law was S. 139. It had been introduced by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) as the Rapid DNA Act of 2017. But sometimes Congress hollows out existing legislation and replaces it entirely with other legislation to move the process forward more quickly. So S. 139 was replaced with H.R. 4478, which extended Section 702 for another five years.

It also had a stipulation editing 18 U.S. Code §1924. It originally read:

Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

With Trump’s signing S. 139 into law, that became: “ … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.” And with that, it became a felony.

You can see how Trump absconding with classified material to Mar-a-Lago would facially violate the law as articulated. So Trump’s allies have already been offering a rationalization: He had declassified everything he took to Mar-a-Lago.

In an interview on Fox News Tuesday night, former Trump administration official Kash Patel made this case.

“What I can tell you definitively is that President Trump was a transparency president,” Patel said when asked if there was any classified material at Trump’s Florida estate. “And time and time again … we tried to get all of it out. And President Trump, on multiple occasions at the White House, declassified whole sets of documents. Including — I remind you and your audience that around October of 2020, he issued a statement from the White House declassifying every document related to not just the Russiagate scandal, but also the Hillary Clinton email scandal.”

Trump did, in fact, order the wholesale declassification of a number of documents related to those investigations, including on the day before he left office. At that point, though, the order was to declassify documents that had been cleared by the FBI a few days prior.

In an interview with Breitbart in May (at the time reports about classified material at Mar-a-Lago first emerged), Patel made a slightly different argument.

“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” he said. “The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified.”

In other words, Trump declassified a bunch of stuff, even if there isn’t record of it. This obviously is very convenient — but also not completely ridiculous.

In 2017, on the day after he fired Comey, Trump welcomed senior Russian officials into the Oval Office for a meeting. During that discussion, he revealed to them classified information. That report spurred an unexpected defense as articulated by Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho) and others: The president has full authority to declassify things and can, in essence, do so on the fly. Fact-checkers considered this idea … and determined it to be largely accurate.

We’re trudging toward a very gray area here, clearly, but it is conceivable that Trump’s defense against his potential possession of classified material at Mar-a-Lago may be that he declassified it while still president, even if no formal record of the declassification was made. This introduces a slew of other questions, since that material would now presumably be publicly available in some form.

“The president has unilateral authority to declassify documents — anything in government,” Patel told Breitbart. “He exercised it here in full.”

Patel was one of the administration’s most loyal defenders during Trump’s presidency. As a staffer to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Patel was intimately involved in the congressman’s fervent effort to push back against the investigation into Russian interference. Nunes was also a critic of Clinton’s handling of her email server, suggesting at one point in 2016 that he hoped “the irresponsible handling of classified information documented by the FBI will be considered if any of these individuals currently possesses a security clearance or applies for one in the future.”

H.R. 4478, the legislation that became S. 139 and which escalated the punishment for the retention of classified material, was introduced in the House by Nunes.

Today's Tweet

The "tell" at about :30 - that little stroke of her chin says she knows it's all bullshit.

Marge says the government violated Trump’s right to privacy. pic.twitter.com/22hoMIG7Wv

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) August 11, 2022

The Rage Machine

Manufactured Rage Reactions - made-to-order for every occasion.

Axios:

House report details grisly threats to election workers

A report from the House Oversight Committee offers new details into how election misinformation has hamstrung the work of election offices and spurred a deluge of violent threats against their workers.

Why it matters:

• The report's findings highlight the enduring effects of the still-ongoing effort by former President Trump and his allies to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election."Today's report reveals the disturbing and even violent impact of election lies on real people — including the workers we rely on to administer our elections safely and fairly," said Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

Driving the news:

• The 21-page Democratic staff report is based on responses to an April 21 letter the panel sent to the leaders of election worker organizations in four key states: Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Texas."Election administrators informed the Committee that responding to the influx of threats and disinformation required hours of work and increased security that made it more difficult for them to do their jobs," the report says.
• The report draws direct connections to Trump. Arizona election official Lisa Marra told the panel: "We had many people demanding to know exactly when their ballot was counted because ‘the President told them to.’"
• It also cites complaints from officials that election laws passed in GOP-controlled states have sown further doubts about elections and posed sometimes insurmountable logistical hurdles for election workers.

Details:

• The report offers graphic examples of the threats sent to election workers and officials "singled out by politicians with a national platform."A Texas election official had his home address leaked and received threats telling him to leave the state and that he would be hunted down. Another message said: "hang him when convicted for fraud and let his lifeless body hang in public until maggots drip out of his mouth."
• "Perhaps most disturbing, [he got] messages threatening his children, saying, 'I think we should end your bloodline,'" Texas official Remi Garza told the panel.
• A Florida election worker targeted by Alex Jones and Roger Stone was "was inundated with phone calls from angry conspiracy theorists from across the country."

Between the lines:

• These conditions have led to staffing shortages at election offices, further jeopardizing already beleaguered operations.Marra told the panel: "[T]he job of an election official has changed dramatically over the years and it’s not a position that just anyone can learn in a few short months. It takes years to become an industry expert."
• "The fact so many of us are leaving the field should concern every person across the country."

The report also shed light on the steps offices took to combat misinformation, including myth-busting websites in Ohio and Arizona; guided tours of election operations and partnerships with non-profits in Florida; and social media outreach in Texas.However, these initiatives strained local resources, with the report noting that "election officials in almost every state in the country accepted private grants to help administer the 2020 election."
"We never know if [election assistance] funding will be put into the Federal budget. Elections and the security around them cost money," Marra said.

What's next:

• The report will be the focus of a virtual roundtable held by Maloney on Thursday afternoon. It offers several legislative and executive recommendations, including:A federal agency to support state and local efforts to counter election misinformation.
• Aggressive federal prosecution of threats and harassment of election workers, as well as stiffening statutory penalties for those offenses.
• Funds for election offices for cyber and physical election security, as well as to combat threats against election workers.

Go deeper: 1 in 3 election workers are "very worried" about interference from politicians

And then this too:

VICE:

Far-Right Extremists Are Violently Threatening the Trump Search-Warrant Judge

“Let's find out if he has children... where they go to school, where they live... EVERYTHING,” one person wrote on a message board where the judge’s address was posted.

Far-right extremists on pro-Donald Trump message boards and social networks are making violent, antisemitic threats against the judge who reportedly signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to search the former president's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Multiple members of these toxic online communities are even posting what appears to be Judge Bruce Reinhart’s home address, phone numbers, and names of his family members alongside threats of extreme violence.

“This is the piece of shit judge who approved FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago,” a user wrote on the pro-Trump message board formerly known as TheDonald. “I see a rope around his neck.”

Responding, another user wrote: “Idgaf [I don’t give a fuck] anymore. Name? Address? Put that shit all up on here.” Moments later, a different member replied with what appears to be Reinhart’s current address, phone numbers, previous addresses, and names of possible relatives.

In another post on the same message board, one user commented, “Let's find out if he has children....where they go to school, where they live...EVERYTHING.”

These threats of violence and antisemitic slurs on a range of platforms, including 4chan, Telegram, Gettr, Gab, and Trump’s own platforms called Truth Social, were first uncovered by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that conducts public-interest investigations.

“The threats against Judge Reinhart in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid are significant,” Daniel J. Jones, founder of Advance Democracy, told VICE News. “In addition to the antisemitic and violent slurs, we’re seeing his address and other personal information being shared online—with the implied or explicit purpose of ‘real-life’ action.”

A message board where a number of these threats were posted also happens to be the same one where many of those involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot posted threats of violence in the lead-up to Jan. 6.

These threats against the judge, Jones told VICE News, are “all the more alerting given the events of January 6.”

These threats made against Reinhart and his family didn’t occur in a vacuum: Within hours of the FBI searching Trump’s Palm Beach home, the former president’s supporters reacted furiously, calling for civil war and the dismantling of the FBI. As Trump has scrambled to explain why his home was searched, he has also pushed conspiracy theories about the FBI supposedly planting evidence there.

Right-wing news outlets have also tried to connect the judge to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Reinhart worked as a federal prosecutor until 2008, and a day after he quit, he became the defense attorney for a number of Epstein’s employees, including his pilots and a scheduler, according to his 2018 Miami Herald report. The link between Reinhart and Epstein has been weaponized by Trump supporters to incorrectly imply Reinhart was Epstein’s own lawyer, and, by extension, was corrupt and possibly a pedophile. (A small note in light of these accusations: Trump had a long personal relationship with Epstein, and once famously told New York Magazine that he was a “terrific guy.”)

On fringe message board 4chan, one user posted an image of Reinhart with the caption: “About that Judge that signed the search Warrant…Bruce Reinhart once quit his job as a U.S. Attorney to work for Jeffrey Epstein. Another 4chan user wrote in response: “That is a k***. And a pedophile … He should be tried for treason and executed.”

“The U.S. Marshals are responsible for the protection of the federal judicial process, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals told VICE News when asked for comment about the threats. “While we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the measures in place and take appropriate steps to ensure the integrity of the federal judicial process.”

The FBI deferred comment to the U.S. Marshals, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida told VICE News “the Court has no comment.”

A Democrat Did That?

Over the last few weeks - maybe months - Democrats have been getting their game faces on.

Here's a clip from Beto O'Rourke reacting appropriately (IMO) to some dick who decided to mock him for speaking out about the violent death of 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde TX.

This, plus various other instances, indicate to me that Dems are done fuckin' around and trying to play nice.

I'm hoping to see a lot more of these assholes getting kicked right in the nutsack.

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

Hanlon's Razor: Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

"He doesn't wanna load the bases, so look for low and away - but watch out for in your ear."

--Shoeless Joe, Field Of Dreams

The Great Hollowing

We've heard plenty of horror stories about how the Russian military has been hollowed out.

Fairly reliable reporting has shown how thousands of tanks and other fighting vehicles have been found to be in disrepair, less than fully operational, and in many cases, without vital components - like engines and transmissions - because the corruption in the Russian military is rife.

Task & Purpose

There was one story about the explosives that every infantryman in every army loves more than his mom. It was found that a significant percentage of the packages contained lumber - literally chunks of wood - 2x2s and inch-and-a-half dowels - wrapped in the standard brown craft paper, stamped with the official seals of the manufacturers and the whole bit. Wood.

And now this - the Explosive Reactive Armor - the stuff that should provide a little extra protection for the crew - is actually pieces of sponge rubber.

COVID-19 Update

WaPo: (pay wall)

Covid deaths no longer overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated as toll on elderly grows

Experts say numbers show importance of boosters — and the risks the most vulnerable still face

Unvaccinated people accounted for the overwhelming majority of deaths in the United States throughout much of the coronavirus pandemic. But that has changed in recent months, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal data.

The pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to or could not get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised — who are at greatest risk of succumbing to covid-19, even if vaccinated — having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains.

The vaccinated made up 42 percent of fatalities in January and February during the highly contagious omicron variant’s surge, compared with 23 percent of the dead in September, the peak of the delta wave, according to nationwide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Post. The data is based on the date of infection and limited to a sampling of cases in which vaccination status was known.

As a group, the unvaccinated remain far more vulnerable to the worst consequences of infection — and are far more likely to die — than people who are vaccinated, and they are especially more at risk than people who have received a booster shot.

“It’s still absolutely more dangerous to be unvaccinated than vaccinated,” said Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California at Irvine who studies covid-19 mortality. “A pandemic of — and by — the unvaccinated is not correct. People still need to take care in terms of prevention and action if they became symptomatic.”

A key explanation for the rise in deaths among the vaccinated is that covid-19 fatalities are again concentrated among the elderly.

Nearly two-thirds of the people who died during the omicron surge were 75 and older, according to a Post analysis, compared with a third during the delta wave. Seniors are overwhelmingly immunized, but vaccines are less effective and their potency wanes over time in older age groups.

Experts say they are not surprised that vaccinated seniors are making up a greater share of the dead, even as vaccine holdouts died far more often than the vaccinated during the omicron surge, according to the CDC. As more people are infected with the virus, the more people it will kill, including a greater number who are vaccinated but among the most vulnerable.

The bulk of vaccinated deaths are among people who did not get a booster shot, according to state data provided to The Post. In two of the states, California and Mississippi, three-quarters of the vaccinated senior citizens who died in January and February did not have booster doses. Regulators in recent weeks have authorized second booster doses for people over the age of 50, but administration of first booster doses has stagnated.

Even though the death rates for the vaccinated elderly and immunocompromised are low, their losses numbered in the thousands when cases exploded, leaving behind blindsided families. But experts say the rising number of vaccinated people dying should not cause panic in those who got shots, the vast majority of whom will survive infections. Instead, they say, these deaths serve as a reminder that vaccines are not foolproof and that those in high-risk groups should consider getting boosted and taking extra precautions during surges.

“Vaccines are one of the most important and longest-lasting tools we have to protect ourselves,” said California State Epidemiologist Erica Pan, citing state estimates showing vaccines have shown to be 85 percent effective in preventing death.

“Unfortunately, that does leave another 15,” she said.

‘He did not expect to be sick’

Arianne Bennett recalled her husband, Scott Bennett, saying, “But I’m vaxxed. But I’m vaxxed,” from the D.C. hospital bed where he struggled to fight off covid-19 this winter.

Friends had a hard time believing Bennett, co-founder of the D.C.-based chain Amsterdam Falafelshop, was 70. The adventurous longtime entrepreneur hoped to buy a bar and planned to resume scuba-diving trips and 40-mile bike rides to George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate.

Bennett went to get his booster in early December after returning to D.C. from a lodge he owned in the Poconos, where he and his wife hunkered down for fall. Just a few days after his shot, Bennett began experiencing covid-19 symptoms, meaning he was probably exposed before the extra dose of immunity could kick in. His wife suspects he was infected at a dinner where he and his server were unmasked at times.

A fever-stricken Bennett limped into the hospital alongside his wife, who was also infected, a week before Christmas. He died Jan. 13, among the 125,000 Americans who succumbed to covid-19 in January and February.

“He was absolutely shocked. He did not expect to be sick. He really thought he was safe,’” Arianne Bennett recalled. “And I’m like, ‘But baby, you’ve got to wear the mask all the time. All the time. Up over your nose.’”

Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, said the deaths of vaccinated people are among the consequences of a pandemic response that emphasizes individuals protecting themselves.

“When we are not taking this collective effort to curb community spread of the virus, the virus has proven time and time again it’s really good at finding that subset of vulnerable people,” Salemi said.

While experts say even the medically vulnerable should feel assured that a vaccine will probably save their lives, they should remain vigilant for signs of infection. As more therapeutics become available, early detection and treatment is key.

When Wayne Perkey, 84, first started sneezing and feeling other cold symptoms in early February, he resisted his physician daughter’s plea to get tested for the coronavirus.

The legendary former morning radio host in Louisville had been boosted in October. He diligently wore a mask and kept his social engagements to a minimum. It must have been the common cold or allergies, he believed. Even the physician who ordered a chest X-ray and had no coronavirus tests on hand thought so.

Perkey relented, and the test came back positive. He didn’t think he needed to go to the hospital, even as his oxygen levels declined.

“In his last voice conversation with me, he said, ‘I thought I was doing everything right,’” recalled Lady Booth Olson, another daughter, who lives in Virginia. “I believe society is getting complacent, and clearly somebody he was around was carrying the virus. ... We’ll never know.”

From his hospital bed, Perkey resumed a familiar role as a high-profile proponent for vaccines and coronavirus precautions. He was familiar to many Kentuckians who grew up hearing his voice on the radio and watched him host the televised annual Crusade for Children fundraiser. He spent much of the pandemic as a caregiver to his ex-wife who struggled with chronic fatigue and other long-haul covid symptoms.

“It’s the 7th day of my Covid battle, the worst day so far, and my anger boils when I hear deniers talk about banning masks or social distancing,” Perkey wrote on Facebook on Feb. 16, almost exactly one year after he posted about getting his first shot. “I remember times we cared about our neighbors.”

In messages to a family group chat, he struck an optimistic note. “Thanks for all the love and positive energy,” he texted on Feb. 23. “Wear your mask.”

As is often the case for covid-19 patients, his condition rapidly turned for the worse. His daughter Rebecca Booth, the physician, suspects a previous bout with leukemia made it harder for his immune system to fight off the virus. He died March 6.

“Really and truly his final days were about, ‘This virus is bad news.’ He basically was saying: ‘Get vaccinated. Be careful. But there is no guarantee,’” Rebecca Booth said. “And, ‘If you think this isn’t a really bad virus, look at me.’ And it is.”

Hospitals, particularly in highly vaccinated areas, have also seen a shift from covid wards filled predominantly with the unvaccinated. Many who end up in the hospital have other conditions that weakens the shield afforded by the vaccine.

Vaccinated people made up slightly less than half the patients in the intensive care units of Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California hospital system in December and January, according to a spokesman.

Gregory Marelich, chair of critical care for the 21 hospitals in that system, said most of the vaccinated and boosted people he saw in ICUs were immunosuppressed, usually after organ transplants or because of medications for diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

“I’ve cared for patients who are vaccinated and immunosuppressed and are in disbelief when they come down with covid,” Marelich said.

‘There’s life potential in those people’

Jessica Estep, 41, rang a bell celebrating her last treatment for follicular lymphoma in September. The single mother of two teenagers had settled into a new home in Michigan, near the Indiana border. After her first marriage ended, she found love again and got married in a zoo in November.

As an asthmatic cancer survivor, Estep knew she faced a heightened risk from covid-19, relatives said. She saw only a tight circle of friends and worked in her own office in her electronics repair job. She lived in an area where around 1 in 4 residents are fully vaccinated. She planned to get a booster shot in the winter.

“She was the most nonjudgmental person I know,” said her mother, Vickie Estep. “It was okay with her if people didn’t mask up or get vaccinated. It was okay with her that they exercised their right of choice, but she just wanted them to do that away from her so that she could be safe.”

With Michigan battling back-to-back surges of the delta and omicron variants, Jessica Estep wasn’t able to dodge the virus any longer — she fell ill in mid-December. After surviving a cancer doctors described as incurable, Estep died Jan. 27. Physicians said the coronavirus essentially turned her lungs into concrete, her mother said.

Estep’s 14-year-old daughter now lives with her grandparents. Her widower returned to Indianapolis just months after he moved to Michigan to be with his new wife.

Her family shared her story with a local television station in hopes of inspiring others to get vaccinated, to protect people such as Estep who could not rely on their own vaccination as a foolproof shield. In response to the station’s Facebook post about the story, several commenters shrugged off their pleas and insinuated it was the vaccines rather than covid causing deaths.

Immunocompromised people and those with other underlying conditions are worth protecting, Vickie Estep said. “There’s life potential in those people.”

A delayed shot

As Arianne Bennett navigates life without her husband, she hopes the lesson people heed from his death is to take advantage of all tools available to mitigate a virus that still finds and kills the vulnerable, including by getting boosters.

Bennett wore a music festival shirt her husband gave her as she walked into a grocery store to get her third shot in March. Her husband urged her to get one when they returned to D.C., but she became sick at the same time he did. She scheduled the appointment for the earliest she could get the shot: 90 days after receiving monoclonal antibodies to treat the disease.

“My booster! Yay!” Bennett exclaimed in her chair as the pharmacist presented an updated vaccine card.

“It’s been challenging, but we got through it,” the pharmacist said, unaware of Scott Bennett’s death.

Tears welled in Bennett’s eyes as the needle went in her left arm, just over a year after she and her husband received their first shots.

“Last time we got it, we took selfies: ‘Look, we had vaccines,’” Bennett said, beginning to sob. “This one leaves me crying, missing him so much.”

The pharmacist leaned over and gave Bennett a hug in her chair.

“He would want you to do this,” the pharmacist said. “You have to know.”

Gimme My Shit Back, Asshole

The records that Trump took from the White House don't belong to him. They belong to us.

He had no right to take them, and he had a legal obligation to return them. All of them.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Mar-a-Lago search appears focused on whether Trump, aides withheld items

A lawyer for Donald Trump said agents seized about a dozen boxes on Monday, months after 15 boxes of items were returned

In the months before the FBI’s dramatic move to execute a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Florida home and open his safe to look for items, federal authorities grew increasingly concerned that Trump or his lawyers and aides had not, in fact, returned all the documents and other material that were government property, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Officials became suspicious that when Trump gave 15 boxes of items to the National Archives about seven months ago, either the former president or people close to him held on to key records — despite a Justice Department investigation into the handling of classified and other material that had been sent to the former president’s private club and residence in the waning days of his administration.

Over months of discussions about whether documents were still missing, some officials also came to suspect Trump’s representatives were not truthful at times, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

On Tuesday, a lawyer for Trump said the agents who brought the court-approved warrant to Mar-a-Lago a day earlier took about 12 more boxes after conducting their search.

People familiar with the investigation said that Justice Department and FBI officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago this spring, a meeting first reported by CNN. The officials spoke to Trump’s representatives, inspected the storage space where documents were held, and expressed concern that the former president or people close to him still had items that should be in government custody, these people said.

By that point, officials at the National Archives had been aggressively contacting people in Trump’s orbit to demand the return of documents they believed were covered by the Presidential Records Act, said two people familiar with those inquiries. Like the others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation.

Christina Bobb, a lawyer for Trump, said his lawyers engaged in discussions with the Justice Department this spring over materials held at Mar-a-Lago. At that time, the former president’s legal team searched through two to three dozen boxes in a storage area, hunting for documents that could be considered presidential records, and turned over several items that might meet the definition, she said.

In June, Bobb said, she and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran met with Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, along with several investigators. Trump stopped by the meeting as it began, to greet the investigators, but was not interviewed. The lawyers showed the federal officials the boxes, and Bratt and the others spent some time looking through the material.

Bobb said the Justice Department officials commented that they did not believe the storage unit was properly secured, so Trump officials added a lock to the facility. When FBI agents searched the property Monday, Bobb added, they broke through the lock that had been added to the door.

The FBI removed about a dozen boxes that had been stored in the basement storage area, she said.

Bobb did not share the search warrant left by agents, but said that it indicated agents were investigating possible violations of laws dealing with the handling of classified material and the Presidential Records Act.

Trump aides also declined to share the search warrant with The Washington Post.

Cue the nutballs - and bring on the Keyboard Kommandos.

The Atlantic: (pay wall)

The Bad and Good News About Trump’s Violent Supporters

The FBI search at Mar-a-Lago prompts sincere talk of violence. But some threats remain mere threats.

In some corners of MAGA-land, a new civil war is getting under way. The FBI’s arrival at Mar-a-Lago yesterday evening to collect evidence in a criminal investigation related to former President Donald Trump is the trigger that some of his supporters needed to suggest that violence is imminent. Predictably, the unverified Twitter accounts of armchair revolutionaries circulated claims such as “I already bought my ammo” and dark talk of “kinetic civil war” and “Civil War 2.0.”

Not to be outdone, the National Rifle Association posted an image of Justice Clarence Thomas above an indignant quotation from a majority opinion he wrote: “The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second class right.’” Verified right-wing influencers got in on the martial rhetoric, too. “Tomorrow is war. Sleep well,” Steven Crowder promised.

The bad news is that much of this talk is sincere. It is intended to intimidate the people investigating Trump’s many abuses of power, and to galvanize and organize his true believers—some of whom already proved on January 6, 2021, that they will commit violence in his name. The latest such propaganda is shocking to read, mostly because the talk of violence comes so casually to Trump’s apologists. It is all out in the open now.

The good news is that some threats remain merely threats. A violent movement either grows or shrinks. Its ideology is not defeated; it simply stops motivating people to action.

David A. Graham: The Mar-a-Lago raid proves the U.S. isn’t a banana republic

Trump has a hold on a party that has been offered plenty of exit ramps from its relationship with him, but he is not Voldemort. He has been isolated and humiliated. Many of the individuals who used violence to support him on January 6 are now in jail. His audiences have dwindled. Even on the night of the FBI search, in the area of Florida that he now calls home, an impromptu roadside demonstration in support of him attracted “roughly two dozen” supporters, the Miami Herald reported. “Roughly two dozen” isn’t a revolution. It isn’t even a rally.

For many Americans who wish for a peaceful democracy and remain frustrated about Trump’s continuing influence in Republican primaries, hope springs eternal that someone or something—Robert Mueller, two impeachment drives, and now criminal investigators—will definitively erase his power. But expecting saviors to intervene is the wrong way to think about how the threat of violence from Trump’s supporters might dissipate. Rather, the danger will be over when violent MAGAism becomes a rallying cry for a limited pool of adherents whose online anger fizzles upon contact with the real world.

A win, at this stage, isn’t that Trump’s troops make an apology. It is that they remain an online threat, a cosplay movement, a pretend army that can’t deliver, whose greatest strength is in their heads rather than reality.

Trump, as a former president of the United States, may be a rather unique leader of a violent insurrection, but that doesn’t make the ongoing, multiyear strategy any less effective. The January 6 committee has adopted a counter-insurrection strategy by portraying Trump squarely as the leader of a violent movement, and not simply the leader of the GOP. But some of his more extreme followers are now turning on one another. Members of the Oath Keepers, for example, have spoken to FBI investigators about matters connected with the Capitol riot—a sign that at least some fear legal penalties more than they fear the consequences of breaking with Trump. If the former president’s legal jeopardy deepens, he will in all likelihood try to raise the level of agitation in the days ahead; he knows how to use language that incites followers to violence without giving them specific instruction.

But allow me at least a glimmer of optimism. “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come,” the poet and author Carl Sandburg famously wrote. And the decline of MAGA looks something like that—just a smattering of people respond to the overheated rhetoric of Trump and his allies. If Trump’s supporters only end up cosplaying a civil war, that itself is a small victory.

Today's Brian

Brian Tyler Cohen

Yes - if the FBI can execute a lawful search warrant on an ex-POTUS because there's credible suspicion he's committed a crime, then the FBI could come to your house too - it there's credible suspicion you've committed a crime.

WTF are these idiots yammering about?

Is That A Light?

So here comes a little relief - maybe. We can only wait, and hope it doesn't presage a recession.

Reuters:

U.S. consumer price growth unchanged for July

Aug 10 (Reuters) - U.S. consumer prices did not rise in July due to a sharp drop in the cost of gasoline, delivering the first notable sign of relief for Americans who have watched inflation climb over the past two years.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) was unchanged last month after advancing 1.3% in June, the Labor Department said on Wednesday in a closely watched report that nevertheless showed underlying inflation pressures remain elevated as the Federal Reserve mulls whether to embrace another super-sized interest rate hike in September.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.2% rise in monthly CPI in July on the heels of a roughly 20% drop in the cost of gasoline. Prices at the pump spiked in the first half of this year due to the war in Ukraine, hitting a record-high average of more than $5 per gallon in mid-June, according to motorist advocacy group AAA.

But the Fed has indicated that several monthly declines in CPI growth will be needed before it lets up on the increasingly aggressive monetary policy tightening it has delivered to tame inflation currently running at four-decade highs.

U.S. consumer prices have been surging due to a number of factors, including snarled global supply chains, massive government stimulus early in the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Food is one component of the CPI that remained elevated in July, rising 1.1% last month after climbing 1.0% in June.

In the 12 months through July, the CPI increased by a weaker-than-expected 8.5% following a 9.1% rise in June. Underlying inflation pressures, which exclude volatile food and energy components, also showed some encouraging signs.

The so-called core CPI rose 0.3% in July after climbing 0.7% in June, but increased 5.9% in the 12 months through July, the same pace as in June.

Inflation in the cost of rent and owners' equivalent rent of primary residence, which is what a homeowner would receive from renting a home, held almost steady last month. Shelter costs comprise about 40% of the core CPI measure.