Tag Archives : Build House

Fewer Americans say COVID-19 situation is improving: Gallup

Fewer Americans believe that the COVID-19 situation in the country is improving, according to a new Gallup poll. 

The poll, published on Wednesday, found that 41 percent of respondents said that the COVID-19 situation is getting better in the U.S., a percentage that is down 22 points from a similar poll published in April and May. 

Thirty percent of respondents said that the nation’s COVID-19 situation is getting worse, while 29 percent of those surveyed said it is staying the same, according to the poll. 

The shift was particularly notable among Democratic respondents.

In Gallup’s polling in April and May, 56 percent of Democrats said they thought the situation was improving, compared to just 29 percent in the new poll. While just 23 percent though the situation was getting worse in the spring poll, now 44 percent think it is getting worse.

Fifty-eight percent of Republican respondents believe that the country’s COVID-19 situation has gotten better, while 41 percent of Independent respondents believe the same sentiment, the poll said. 

Overall, 35 percent of respondents said they are very or somewhat worried that they will be infected with the virus. 

The U.S. is averaging more than 100,000 new cases a day. Much of the population has been vaccinated, but administration officials have pressed for people over 50 to get a second booster shot for added protection.

Officials in recent weeks have also suggested wearing masks in crowded indoor settings.

Much of the public, however, has moved past the era of COVID-19 restrictions, and the wearing of masks even on the Washington metro line is mixed.

Twenty-four percent of respondents in the Gallup said that their lives are back to the way they were before the pandemic, while 55 percent of those surveyed said their lives are somewhat back to normal and 21 percent of respondents said their lives are not yet back to normal. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 67 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. 

The latest Gallup poll was conducted from July 26 to August 2.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump lawyer says FBI teams focused on three areas at Mar-a-Lago

An attorney for former President Trump said the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago focused on three specific areas — a bedroom, an office and a storage area. 

Lindsey Halligan, a Florida-based lawyer for Trump who was at Mar-a-Lago during the search, told CBS News in an interview that she was not allowed to go into the complex while the search occurred and needed to stay outside between the ballroom and the residence. 

Halligan said she first received a call that FBI agents were executing a search warrant at 10 a.m. on Monday, and she arrived about an hour later. Another attorney for Trump had already arrived. 

She said 30 to 40 FBI agents conducted the search for eight hours, some of whom were wearing suits, but most were wearing casual clothing. She said 10 to 15 vehicles went into the property. 

Halligan said she did not see agents taking any documents but believes they did. 

The FBI conducted its search reportedly focused on records sought by the National Archives and Records Administration that Trump should have turned over when he left the White House. The National Archives recovered 15 boxes of material from Trump, including some containing classified information, earlier this year. 

Trump has slammed the search, saying in a statement confirming it occurred that he has cooperated with relevant government agencies.

Halligan told CBS that Trump was shocked at the search and believed he had cooperated with investigators. She said he told her that he instructed his attorneys to turn over documents if they have them. 

She said the search warrant was sealed. She said the search was “an appalling display of abuse and power — complete overkill.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump says he'll be questioned in New York investigation into finances

Former President Trump said he’ll be questioned on Wednesday in the New York attorney general’s investigation into his finances, confirming the deposition in a Truth Social media post. 

“In New York City tonight. Seeing racist N.Y.S. Attorney General tomorrow, for a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. history!” Trump wrote. “My great company, and myself, are being attacked from all sides. Banana Republic!”

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and her office launched the probe into Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, over allegations that it misstated the value of assets and misled lenders and tax authorities. 

James alleges in court filings that investigators found that the company “used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.” It is also alleged that the size of Trump’s Manhattan-based penthouse was exaggerated.

Trump was initially scheduled to be deposed last month, but the questioning was delayed due to the death of his first wife, Ivana Trump

The attorney general’s office said that former President Trump’s deposition is one of the few remaining pieces left in the investigation. 

Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations against his company, referring to James’s investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

Trump’s pending deposition comes two days after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate, with the search reportedly being focused on the classified documents that were brought to his Florida residence after the end of his presidential term. 

The FBI search at Mar-a-Lago also came weeks after the Department of Justice launched its investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Alex Jones’s well-deserved reckoning

The first round in Alex Jones’s well-deserved reckoning was recently completed in an Austin, Texas, courtroom. There is more to come, with much unhappiness in store for Jones. Thanks to a stunning blunder by his attorney, there may also be trouble for some of his Trump-adjacent friends.

In the Texas trial, the conspiracy monger was hit for a total of over $45 million in compensatory and punitive damages in favor of Scarlet Lewis and Neil Heslin, the grieving parents of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim. Jones had repeatedly libeled them as “crisis actors” who only pretended to mourn a non-existent son. (The punitive damages will be reduced under Texas law.) 

One of the most dramatic moments in the trial came when Lewis confronted Jones from the witness stand. “Jesse was real,” she rebuked him. “I am a real mom.” Heslin fought back tears when he described holding his dead son’s body.

The monetary award will affect only Jones and his various dummy corporations. Much broader repercussions may follow from the disclosures found on Jones’s cell phone, due to the inattention (to say the least) of his lawyer.

Here is how it happened: Throughout the pretrial discovery proceedings, Jones insisted that he had no emails or texts relating to Sandy Hook. He refused to produce his phone for plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston, claiming to have searched it himself for relevant evidence. Jones’s noncooperation was so pervasive that the judge defaulted him on liability, so the only issue for trial was the extent of damages.

Jones had, however, given the phone to his attorney, Andino Reynal, who copied its files, a routine step in contested litigation. Then Reynal “messed up” by unintentionally sending a “file transfer link” to Bankston, with a “digital copy of [Jones’s] entire cellphone with every text message” he’d sent for the past two years, including some about Sandy Hook.

Bankston quickly recognized that the sensitive files had been sent inadvertently. Such unintended disclosures have become increasingly common in the digital age, now that voluminous data can be transferred with a single click.

Many states, including Texas, have therefore enacted “claw-back” or “snap-back” provisions, allowing attorneys to require the destruction or deletion of inadvertently disclosed materials. Texas law gives sending lawyers 10 days to act, beginning when they discover the mistake, but it applies only to legally privileged documents and communications.

Bankston was holding a bonanza of potentially compromising information, but he needed to make sure the 10-day clock was running. He immediately wrote to Reynal, informing him that the disclosure seemed “to contain a lot of confidential information,” adding, “my assumption is that you did not intend to send us this. Let me know if I am correct.”

In a foolish economy of words, Reynal tersely replied, “Please disregard the link and I will work on resending.”

It was too late for Bankston to disregard the link, even if he wanted to, and the Texas snap-back – set out in the Rules of Civil Procedure and Rules of Evidence – applies only to privileged communications, not to everything disclosed. There is no snapping back “intimate messages” between Jones and Roger Stone, or texts with Tucker Carlson and other disseminators of former President Trump’s “Big Lie.”

Several states have an additional ethics rule, requiring the receiving lawyer to abide by the sender’s instructions. Many others follow the American Bar Association’s Model Rule of Professional Conduct 4.4(b), requiring notice to the sender, with a comment suggesting that a receiving lawyer may “voluntarily return such a document or delete electronically stored information.”

Texas, however, has no ethics rule at all covering the receipt of inadvertently disclosed material. Bankston had no duty even to inform Reynal of his mistake – though he wisely chose to trigger the 10-day clock – and no obligation to “disregard” Jones’s cell phone data once the grace period expired.

Fatefully, Jones’s testimony was scheduled for 12 days after the snap-back notice to his lawyer. That set the stage for a devastating cross-examination, in which Bankston confronted Jones with his blatant lies during discovery.

Jones began sweating when Bankston informed him that his text messages had been given to plaintiffs’ counsel, and his defense lawyer “did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protect it in any way,” pointedly adding, “And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook.”

The consequences have only begun. Jones may be prosecuted for perjury in Texas. He is also facing three more Sandy Hook trials, one in Texas and two in Connecticut. His lies in Lewis and Heslin’s case will be admissible against him in those trials. Jones’s strained last-minute “apology,” finally conceding that the Sandy Hook tragedy was “100% real,” is unlikely to do him much if any good before future juries.

Crucially, Jones’s texts were requested by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Insurrection, and Bankston complied. Jones was deeply involved in organizing the pro-Trump rallies in Washington on Jan. 5 and 6, in direct communication with the Trump camp. He was deposed by the Jan. 6 Committee, but he kept mum, taking the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. It is possible that his texts and emails will reveal whatever incriminating facts he may have been withholding. (Jones predictably insists there is nothing revelatory on the phone, but his record for reliability is not impressive.)

It will be exquisite poetic justice if the nation’s foremost pusher of bogus conspiracies ends up exposing a real conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election. And more ironic still because Texas’s loose legal ethics rules made it possible.

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He is the author of “Modern Trial Advocacy” and hundreds of other articles and books on law practice and legal ethics.

Source: TEST FEED1

Arctic Commitment Act requires different commitments

Last week, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Angus King (I-Maine) tabled the Arctic Commitment Act, a bipartisan bill to improve U.S. Arctic security. The bill calls for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard to determine feasibility of establishing a “persistent, year-round presence” and conducting “year-round maritime operations” in the “vicinity of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Region.” This is a tall order that falls short. 

As Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and Arctic advocate for the Department of Defense (DOD), explained, NORTHCOM calls for more spending. But the solution rests — at least in the interim — with deliberate utilization of the federal fleet and establishing interagency coordination with an underutilized Arctic partner. NORTHCOM, the Navy, and the Coast Guard need help in the Arctic and they can get it from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

As introduced, the bill charges the maritime services with reporting the feasibility of persistent maritime presence in the Arctic. But NOAA’s fleet collects and provides much of the domain knowledge used by the sister services for Arctic operations and is, at times, more Arctic-present than the Navy and Coast Guard. Limiting assessments to the Navy and Coast Guard overlooks NOAA as a capable Arctic partner. We can do better.

Despite its promise to be more assertive in the Arctic, the Navy’s few brief Arctic sailings since 2018 left crews battered and ships damaged. Prior to 2018, the Navy hadn’t sailed a vessel north of the Arctic Circle since 1991. The Navy’s historic and current Arctic presence is almost exclusively in the subsurface and air domains. 

The Coast Guard struggles as well. It has two polar icebreakers, one of which is more reliably broken than it is reliably at sea. Its two future polar security cutters won’t be fleet ready and operational until 2025, at best. The Arctic Commitment Act calls for feasibility assessments of persistent maritime presence now, not in three years. So, what to do?

Comparatively, since 2015, NOAA vessels have sailed over 30 underway legs totaling 489 planned days at sea in the U.S.-defined Arctic region. Of those days, nearly all were in North American Arctic waters. The majority of NOAA’s 15 vessels sail in and around North America conducting surveying missions. Two NOAA ships homeport in Alaska (Ketchikan and Kodiak) and a third of the overall fleet operates in the Arctic at times. Moreover, six of the NOAA ships have ice-hardened hulls that can operate in first-year sea ice. The Navy has zero. NOAA and the Coast Guard maintain “robust partnerships” such that NOAA is a curious omission in the Arctic Commitment Act. 

For persistent Arctic presence, the bill markup must include NOAA in the feasibility assessment. This is both a logical and legally-mandated recommendation. Here’s why.

NOAA fleet vessels are commanded by commissioned NOAA Corps officers, one of eight uniformed services of the United States. Per their mission statement, these officers can serve with the Armed Forces during war or national emergency. The president can declare a national emergency and legally arm and absorb NOAA vessels and NOAA Corps officers for defense use — but we aren’t there yet.

Short of in extremis, federal law requires NOAA Corps to coordinate its operations with the DOD during peacetime. Specifically, law requires the DOD and Department of Commerce to jointly prescribe regulations for interdepartmental peacetime coordination. That’s exactly what needs to happen. And this peacetime coordination between NOAA Corps and DOD for Arctic missions will occur via, with and through NORTHCOM.

NORTHCOM’s collaboration with NOAA vessels for Arctic presence requires liaison with NOAA Corps. Twenty-three of 24 assets (15 ships and nine aircraft) within NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) are homeported, based and operate within NORTHCOM’s area of responsibility. NOAA Corps has a legal and interdepartmental regulatory requirement to “maintain liaison” with the DOD during peacetime, in preparation for wartime duties and missions. 

So, it makes sense that NOAA Corps has a resident liaison at the DOD command whose area of responsibility aligns to 96 percent of its asset locations and base of operations, right? Wrong. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command hosts NOAA Corps’s only resident combatant command liaison, despite the fact that only one of NOAA’s ships and none of its aircraft homeport in Hawaii. This must change for enhanced Arctic presence and domain awareness.

Given that most of NOAA Corps’s assets are based and operate in NORTHCOM’s area of responsibility, and that NOAA Corps is required to maintain liaison with the DOD, NOAA Corps can’t be the only uniformed service without a resident liaison at NORTHCOM. But it is, despite NORTHCOM’s insistence that “all service branches” work at the command’s headquarters. Seven of eight uniformed services employ a full-time resident liaison at NORTHCOM headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo. The NOAA Corps liaison, however, is an ancillary duty assigned to an officer 100 miles north in Boulder, Colo. It is, effectively, a non-functioning relationship. This also must change.

A serious homeland defense commitment requires a credible deterrent. Washington can achieve more credible deterrence through visible federal presence in and around the Arctic. Integrating NOAA ships into the Arctic presence posture is a known capability to leverage now and a first step advancing the U.S. toward expanded Arctic commitments. But doing so requires forging formal partnerships between NORTHCOM as the designer of the missions and NOAA Corps as a contributor.

If the bipartisan Senate Arctic Caucus is serious about improving U.S. Arctic presence and national security via the proposed Arctic Commitment Act, integrating NOAA marine operations into the bill markup is a necessary first step. Including NOAA’s assessment clarifies the federal fleet’s Arctic feasibility presence picture. The second step to enhanced Arctic domain awareness — via the NOAA integration proposal — is for NOAA Corps to establish and maintain liaison with NORTHCOM via a resident liaison to assist the command in coordinating future Arctic presence missions and improve critical interdepartmental partnerships between the DOD and NOAA Corps for future national defense and security. 

These recommendations are actionable now. Absent these bill revisions, Washington is willingly shortchanging Arctic commitments and gambling on our national security.

Ryan Burke, Ph.D., is a professor of Military and Strategic Studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy, co-director of Project 6633 at the Modern War Institute, and an affiliate faculty member at the University of Alaska’s Center for Arctic Security and Resilience. His latest book, “The Polar Pivot,” discusses the polar regions through the lens of strategic competition. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, Air Force, or the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Source: TEST FEED1

FBI thunderbolt scrambles political predictions on Trump

The FBI’s search of former President Trump’s estate in Florida is a political thunderbolt that on Tuesday had a number of Republicans thinking it could boost his standing in a future presidential race.  

Trump seized on the raid to rally his supporters, while Republicans across the political spectrum offered support for the former president — including potential rivals for the 2024 nomination.  

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it an “escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies,” while former Vice President Mike Pence said it “undermines public confidence in our justice system.” He demanded “a full accounting” of the matter.  

Critics of Trump also offered worries that the surprise search could help the former president.  

One of the most high-profile remarks came from a former Trump and Pence staffer who has emerged as a major critic of Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.  

“This, I’m hoping, goes beyond simply not complying with some archiving laws, or DOJ [the Department of Justice] just handed Donald Trump the Republican nominee and potentially the presidency,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former official, said on CNN.  

“If it’s seen as some sort of massive overreach and not something incredibly serious, this is a very good day for Donald Trump,” she added.     

It was far too early on Tuesday to know for sure how much the FBI raid signaled legal jeopardy for Trump, or just how the political reverberations would be felt in the November midterm elections and beyond.  

But the news scrambled a political scene in which Democrats had dared to feel more optimistic about their chances in the midterms after a series of legislative victories culminating in Sunday’s passage of a massive climate, tax and health care bill.  

In recent months, Trump had also seemed to be weakened by relentless attacks from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which had revealed damaging testimony from Republicans about Trump’s actions on that day.  

Various polls still indicated that Trump was a favorite to win the GOP nomination, while suggesting DeSantis was closing in as a real rival.  

Monday’s raid, which was reportedly focused on classified material taken from the White House, outraged Republicans and quickly shifted the focus in Washington back to Trump.  

The FBI has never before executed a search warrant on the residence of a former president, let alone one who has publicly floated a possible comeback campaign for the White House against the man who defeated him.    

Saul Anuzis, a longtime Republican consultant and former Michigan GOP chair, said the Florida raid could help Trump recreate the success he saw during his 2016 White House bid, when he rallied voters around a message that he was the only person who could cleanse Washington of rampant corruption and abuse of power.   

“If you look at why Trump was as successful as he was in 2016, it’s that people thought he was the one guy willing to go to Washington and take on the swamp,” Anuzis said.     

The raid was a remarkable step for federal investigators looking into Trump’s actions, and some voices on Tuesday argued it could actually offer an opening to Trump’s GOP rivals.  

“The logjam of Republican candidates waiting to see if Trump was going to run just burst. There’s no need for them to wait anymore,” Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor, said. “The FBI raiding Trump’s beloved Mar-a-Lago rips the 2024 Republican primary wide open. The Trump era is over, and it’s anybody’s ball.”  

Trump has openly spoken about the possibility of launching another White House bid, saying in an interview last month that he was only weighing whether it was better to make a formal announcement before or after November’s midterm elections.  

Sources downplayed any potential benefit of announcing his candidacy immediately in the wake of the FBI search, but some Trump allies indicated the former president was as committed as ever to running again.  

“One thing I can tell you: I believed he was going to run before. I’m stronger in my belief now,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters in South Carolina on Tuesday after speaking to Trump earlier in the day.  

But top Republican officials have also sought to dissuade Trump from mounting another presidential bid before the 2022 midterm elections, fearing that a campaign could distract from the GOP’s plans to focus on economic issues like inflation this year and bolster Democrats’ efforts to tie the broader party to Trump and his many controversies.   

Democrats immediately seized on the news as yet more proof that Trump is unfit to govern. But they are also aware that the raid on the former president’s private residence has the potential to backfire.   

One longtime Democratic strategist warned that if the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search fails to turn up any evidence of a serious offense, it could energize the GOP’s ultra-conservative base and potentially erode Democrats’ support among moderates wary of government overreach.   

“If there’s nothing significant here and it appears to be political persecution, you’re going to have a huge backfire that motivates the Trump base and the conservative base, and also has some unintended consequences with moderates,” the strategist said.  

“I think it’s a very dangerous political situation with regard to backfiring among a broader audience.”  

Still, while Republicans once again fall in line behind Trump, some in the party are aware of the risks of nominating Trump for a third time, especially if he’s under the cloud of an investigation or an indictment stemming from Monday’s raid.  

Multiple polls in recent weeks have found roughly half of Americans already believe Trump should face criminal charges for his actions around the Jan. 6 riot. He’s still facing investigations in Georgia and New York, as well.  

A New York Times poll released last month found that despite Biden’s approval ratings sinking to 33 percent, he still led Trump in a hypothetical 2024 match-up, 44 percent to 41 percent.  

“It certainly helps [Trump] in the primary and hurts him for the general,” said Sam Nunberg, a former adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign. “It’s the typical conundrum.”  

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden in a tough spot on Trump after FBI Mar-a-Lago search

President Biden is in a tough spot following the FBI’s search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, facing a delicate dance of handling the situation while steadfastly appearing not to politically taint the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Republican lawmakers almost immediately lashed out at Biden following news of the search, which was shared by Trump himself, raising questions about how soon the former president might announce he’s running again in 2024. It comes as Biden navigates skepticism within his own party about whether he should seek reelection — a potential repeat match-up of 2020.

The White House insisted on Tuesday that Biden had no advance notice of the FBI search in Florida the day before, telling reporters that he learned of it through public reports and distancing itself from the DOJ’s investigation into Trump. 

“The president and the White House learned about this FBI search from public reports. We learned just like the American public did yesterday, and we did not have advance notice of this activity,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

She described Biden as completely uninvolved, stressing the president believes the DOJ should conduct its investigations independently. 

Democratic strategists argued that is the White House’s best move.

“Unlike Trump, who explicitly politicized the DOJ, and every Republican who cheered him on as they now cry crocodile tears, Biden is doing the right thing by letting the DOJ and FBI — whose director is a lifelong Republican appointed by Trump — do their job without notice to or direction from the White House,” said Democratic strategist Eddie Vale.

The dramatic step by the FBI, which is run by Trump appointee Christopher Wray, in searching the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate has increased speculation that Trump is in legal jeopardy. The search was reportedly focused on the retention of classified materials and came after the FBI secured a search warrant from a federal magistrate judge.

Trump has decried the situation as politically motivated. As news of the search broke Monday night, the White House would only say that it “did not have notice of the reported action.”

Republican strategist Doug Heye argued that the president’s best strategy is to avoid politicizing the operation to show the differences between Biden and Trump.

“Biden should resist acting as Trump did in politicizing the Department of Justice and FBI and remain above the fray. And he should make that clear every opportunity he gets,” Heye said.

One Democratic strategist said all Biden has to do is “get out of the way.”

“Get out of the way and stay out of the way and let him implode,” the strategist said. “He was bound to implode sooner or later. All the better now while Biden is gaining wins.”

A Democratic donor agreed, adding that the White House should keep quiet.

“Sometimes silence says it all,” the donor said. “Silence is the way to go.”

The search comes as speculation grows over whether — and when — Trump will announce his candidacy in 2024 and whether Biden will be too old if he runs in the next presidential election cycle.  

Biden said in an interview that month that he wouldn’t be disappointed if 2024 was a rematch between himself and Trump.

Biden will be 81 years old in 2024. Last month, Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.) said he would not support Biden if he ran for reelection. 

Other Democrats have dodged the question entirely. 

“Is the timing of this event politically awkward? Sure. With Trump around, it always will be. Nonetheless, the FBI and the Justice Department must do their work despite the political environment,” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a Biden ally.

“Regardless of the fact we are in a highly charged political environment, the Justice Department still has a job to do. The accused will always cry ‘political persecution.’ It’s noteworthy that FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, saw enough evidence to pursue the warrant,” he added.

Many Republicans blamed Biden himself for the search, suggesting that he was using the DOJ to go after a political opponent. When asked how the White House might combat this message — and address how much of the American public might actually believe that — Jean-Pierre continued to refuse to comment, saying she would not talk about any investigation by the DOJ.

Some Republican lawmakers Monday night invoked the president’s son Hunter Biden, who is under federal investigation for his worldwide business dealings, suggesting that federal authorities had not been probing that matter as intensely as Trump’s. 

But the White House has doubled down on its approach to remove President Biden from the Trump situation, saying he had not been briefed on the search as of Tuesday and insisted on not getting dragged into it.

Jean-Pierre on Tuesday also would not reveal whether Attorney General Merrick Garland signed off on the search or say if the president had spoken to Garland, whom he appointed.

Heye argued that given the distrust of the DOJ and the FBI that was largely established under Trump, someone in the current administration should answer lingering questions about the search.  

”It’s critical that Garland and/or Wray answer whatever questions they can as soon as possible,” Heye said.

Despite many unanswered questions and outrage from Trump and his allies, Democratic strategist Joel Payne suggested the president should stay “above the fray.”

“President Biden does not have to lean into this news,” Payne said. “It tells its story organically. The contrast is clear between the two men, for better and worse.”

Amie Parnes contributed to this report.

Source: TEST FEED1

US downplays tensions with China amid fears of military escalation

Following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) high-profile trip showing solidarity with Taiwan, Washington and Taipei are taking drastically different tracks toward China’s retaliatory military drills encircling the island.

In an unprecedented show of force, China has sent warships and aircraft through the Taiwan Strait and fired missiles into waters surrounding the island it views as its own territory under its One China policy. 

Taiwan has since accused Beijing of not only rehearsing for an invasion of the self-governing island, but of signaling its ambitions to control large swaths of the western Pacific.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has largely played it cool when addressing the war games.

“I’m concerned they are moving as much as they are,” President Biden told reporters on Monday. “But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more than they are.” 

The Pentagon’s top policy official Colin Kahl also offered a measured response to reporters on Monday when asked if China was gearing up to militarily seize Taiwan in the next few years. 

“Clearly the [People’s Republic of China] is trying to coerce Taiwan, clearly they’re trying to coerce the international community, and all I’ll say is we’re not going to take the bait and it’s not going to work,” Kahl said.

The Chinese drills, which began Thursday in retaliation for Pelosi’s trip and were extended on Sunday, are Beijing’s largest ever wargames in the Taiwan Strait and have included a dozen missile exercises that bracketed Taiwan. Beijing also upped the pace of naval and air activities in the waterway, including those that crossed over the median line between mainland China and Taiwan. 

Though crossing the center line was a rare move for Beijing before 2019 – when it sent aircraft over the divider for the first time in 20 years – the country has done so several times since. 

Even Chinese state media called the exercises “unprecedented” last week, noting that the drills demonstrate the “mainland’s absolute control over the Taiwan question.” 

The implications of the wargames have rippled outward, disrupting flights and shipping in a key region for global trade. Commercial ships and aircraft stayed clear of several “closure zones” in the waters around Taiwan and the air above after the Chinese defense ministry revealed them on a map in a warning not to enter the exercises.   

The drills have also reached beyond that. Five missiles that China launched as part of the exercises landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone last week — the first time such an event has happened — setting off strong protests via diplomatic channels, according to Japanese defense minister Nobuo Kishi. 

Taiwan has sounded the alarm over the exercises, with its Foreign Minister Joseph Wu warning that China looks to control more of the western Pacific. That dominance would include the East and South China Seas and the Taiwan Strait, as well as a blockade to keep the U.S. and its allies from helping Taipei should Beijing attack, according to The Associated Press. 

Wu also said China’s claim that its wargames were prompted by Pelosi’s trip is simply cover for undertaking long planned military posturing.   

But the Biden administration has remained outwardly cool, with the Pentagon in the past several weeks looking to quell any perceived aggression that may arise from U.S. military movement. 

On Thursday the Defense Department for a second time held off on a planned intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch to reduce “the risks of miscalculation and misperception,” amid China’s posturing,  according to John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator. 

Defense officials have also stayed silent on if they’ll move any U.S. aircraft or Navy vessels closer to Taiwan should the situation grow more tense for Taipei.  

The U.S. military already has four warships in the Indo-Pacific on what it said are routine operations, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, the USS Higgins destroyer, and guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville. 

“What’s important for us right now is to make sure that Beijing understands that our forces in the region will continue to operate, to fly, to sail wherever international waters allows. That includes the Taiwan Strait,” Kahl said.

While Washington does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, it is legally bound to come to the island’s aid in defending itself under the Taiwan Relations Act. 

So far the biggest criticisms seem to come from lawmakers including Pelosi, who on Tuesday said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is behaving like a “scared bully” and is in a “fragile crisis” in the wake of her trip to Taiwan.

“I think that he’s in a fragile crisis … he has problems with his economy. He’s acting like a scared bully,” Pelosi said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when asked what she had learned by Xi’s reaction to trip. 

Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official in 25 years to visit Taiwan with her stop last week, drawing China’s ire as the country interprets international leaders’ visits to the island as recognition of its sovereignty. 

And Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Sunday said Xi choose to “manufacture a crisis” over a Pelosi’s visit, arguing the U.S. needs “to be very clear that China doesn’t get to dictate which U.S. officials go to Taiwan and when they go to Taiwan.” 

Still, the Pentagon has allowed that “it’s clear that Beijing is trying to create a kind of new normal, with the goal of trying to coerce Taiwan, but also frankly, to coerce the international community, given the importance of the Taiwan Strait to the global economy,” Kahl said Monday.

He added that the U.S. military will continue transit the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks, continue freedom of navigation operations elsewhere in the region, and “continue to stand by our allies and partners.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Five takeaways from the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate

The FBI raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday stunned a political world that thought it had become inured to the chaos and controversy surrounding the 45th president.

This time around, multiple reports indicate that the search was related to classified material Trump may have removed from the White House at the end of his presidency.

Parts of the case are shrouded in doubt, not least because the legal documentation justifying the search is non-public by its nature.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways so far.

Trump upends the political landscape again

The news from Mar-A-Lago has placed Trump once again at the center of the political stage.

To Democrats and other critics, the search is a sign that the former president might finally get what they see as his just desserts. 

The critics have been frustrated in the past by the equivocal outcome to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian collusion, Trump being acquitted by the Senate after both of his impeachments by the House, and the perception that a criminal probe into his business dealings by Manhattan prosecutors is petering out.

For the anti-Trump segment of the public, it would be a delicious irony if he were to be brought low by charges of mishandling classified information — the same accusation he repeatedly leveled against his 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s defenders have reacted with fury to the raid, seeing it as evidence of a politicized justice system and prosecutorial overreach. On social media, allegations abound that a deep state is working to undermine Trump and prevent him from seeking the presidency again.

It’s worth underlining that investigators could only have gotten a search warrant by proving to a judge’s satisfaction that there are reasonable grounds to believe a crime has taken place — and that there were no less invasive ways of gathering germane evidence.

But the bottom line is that President Biden — who had been enjoying a much-needed streak of success capped by the near-certain passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — once again finds himself sidelined as his divisive predecessor is thrust back into the spotlight.

GOP rallies around Trump but doubts linger about 2024

Republicans rallied adamantly to Trump’s defense after the former president confirmed the first reports of a raid.

Even for a party that the former president has remolded in his own image, the red-hot rhetoric was striking.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) taunted Attorney General Merrick Garland with the threat of investigation if, as widely expected, the GOP retakes the House majority in November. 

“Preserve your documents and clear your calendar,” McCarthy warned.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel in a statement said the raid was “outrageous” and an “abuse of power.” Conservative Political Action Conference Chairman Matt Schlapp urged Americans to “rid this nation of this socialist reign of terror.”

Several of Trump’s potential rivals for the 2024 GOP nomination were supportive of him too.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused the Biden administration of a “weaponization of federal agencies” against its opponents. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said the move against Trump was “un-American.” Former Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he shared the “deep concern” others felt about the “unprecedented search.”

But for all that, there are at least some in the party who question the merits of potentially nominating Trump yet again in 2024. 

He is the most divisive president of modern times, the only president to be twice impeached, and lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020.

The doubts would surely grow deeper if he faced criminal charges. And that’s a peril he faces beyond the current raid. 

A federal grand jury is examining his actions and other matters pertaining to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, while prosecutors in Georgia are looking at whether he and his aides committed crimes in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

Schisms in divided nation grow deeper

The massively polarized response to the raid on Trump’s property wasn’t surprising. But the episode still feels like another lurch towards national destabilization.

To be sure, many millions of Americans see the search as welcome evidence that no American is above the law — a generation after former President Nixon famously told interviewer David Frost, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

But those who see a nefarious action against Trump by an imagined deep state are signaling they have lost any faith in the instruments of the law. The loss of faith is dangerous in itself, however ill-founded it may be. Another peril is the threat to wield the apparatus of justice in the future to help friends and punish enemies.

Some of the rhetoric coming from conservative leaders — McCarthy’s gleeful promises of investigations to come, for example — would have been barely conceivable 20 years ago.

But such threats are now par for the course — something that reveals a dangerous hollowing out of common ground.

Investigators under pressure to show they have the goods

Right now, just about everyone is flying blind on two related and crucial questions — what exactly the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago, and whether the bureau’s agents found it.

The broad theme has been widely reported. Earlier this year, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said it had found classified material among 15 boxes retrieved from the Florida property.

NARA made no secret of the fact that it contacted the Department of Justice about the matter — a move that appears to be the genesis of the current probe.

But that information does not really answer the question of why the FBI should be raiding Mar-a-Lago and breaking into Trump’s safe at this point.

Until the evidence is produced or charges are pressed, the whole episode is sure to be mired in wild speculation and accusations.

If seems unlikely that the attorney general or a federal judge would have signed off on the search — the first of its kind in any former president’s home — without compelling evidence.

But right now, we have no idea what it is.

Biden keeps his distance

While turmoil swirls around Trump, Biden and his aides have been at pains to affirm a wall of separation between the White House and the current investigation.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at Tuesday’s media briefing that the White House had learned about the FBI search from media coverage “just like the American public did.” 

She added that Biden has long been adamant that “the Justice Department conducts its investigations independently.” Jean-Pierre directed any further inquiries to the DOJ.

Biden is sure to be asked more about the probe. And by its nature it brings up other questions, including the status of an investigation into the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

Biden has been more willing to frontally criticize Trump recently, but he will almost certainly keep his distance from this explosive case.

Source: TEST FEED1