Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Special counsel Jack Smith’s office argued Friday that Donald Trump’s recent attacks on Gen. Mark Milley and one of their own newly appointed prosecutors bolster their case to put a gag order on the former president ahead of his trial in Washington, D.C. In a 22-page filing, senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston said prosecutors rejected Trump’s claims that their proposed gag order was an attempt to silence him on the campaign trail. Rather, she said, it was…

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Reuters reports: Donald Trump’s political operation has helped pay the legal expenses of more than a dozen people contacted by prosecutors investigating the former president, tying up millions of dollars that otherwise could be used for his 2024 White House bid. Reuters has identified 13 potential witnesses or co-defendants who were represented by law firms that received payments from a political group run by Trump, based on interviews and a review of court records and campaign finance disclosures. The payments…

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David Cay Johnston writes: Donald Trump is no longer in business. Worse, the self-proclaimed multibillionaire may soon be personally bankrupt as a result, stripped of just about everything because for years he engaged in calculated bank fraud and insurance fraud by inflating the value of his properties, a judge ruled Tuesday. His gaudy Trump Tower apartment, his golf courses, his Boeing 757 jet and even Mar-a-Lago could all be disposed of by a court-appointed monitor, leaving Trump with not much…

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NBC News reports: The FBI is investigating whether Egypt’s intelligence services might have been involved in the alleged bribery scheme described in the indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. The counterintelligence investigation is in addition to the federal corruption case that accuses Menendez, D-N.J., of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, the sources said. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez helped oversee billions of dollars…

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The Associated Press reports: A judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House. Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general, found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing. Engoron ordered that some…

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Politico reports: Donald Trump’s lawyers said Monday that a gag order proposed by prosecutors would unconstitutionally silence him during key months of the 2024 presidential campaign, urging a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to reject the proposed limits. In a 25-page filing that mirrored some of Trump’s own heated political rhetoric, Trump’s attorneys said the former president’s attacks on potential witnesses, special counsel Jack Smith and even U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan herself are protected by the First Amendment…

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The New Republic reports: During a campaign trip to South Carolina, Donald Trump took some time to visit the gun store that sold weapons to the racist Jacksonville, Florida, mass shooter. Trump visited Palmetto State Armory on Monday, where he admired a handgun engraved and decorated in his honor. He repeatedly said he wanted to buy a gun there—which would be a violation of federal law given his many indictments. A lot of the media has focused on whether Trump…

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The New Republic reports: The Supreme Court on Tuesday slapped down Alabama Republicans’ latest attempt to use a congressional district map that only includes one majority-Black district, delivering a major blow in just one sentence. This is the Supreme Court’s second such ruling in three months. Earlier this summer, the court struck down a similar GOP-drawn congressional map and ordered Alabama to add a second majority-Black district. But Alabama Republicans dug in their heels and approved a similarly problematic congressional…

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Brian Klaas writes: Late Friday night, the former president of the United States—and a leading candidate to be the next president—insinuated that America’s top general deserves to be put to death. That extraordinary sentence would be unthinkable in any other rich democracy. But Donald Trump, on his social-media network, Truth Social, wrote that Mark Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in…

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Judd Legum writes: “Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.” That was the response of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to the indictment of Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on Friday. Federal prosecutors accused Menendez and his wife, Nadine, of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for using his official position to benefit…

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The New York Times reports: At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.” At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the…

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Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write: ProPublica released a new report on Friday detailing Justice Clarence Thomas’ close relationship with the Koch brothers with previously undisclosed and extraordinarily damning new details. According to ProPublica, the justice developed a friendship with the Kochs as they were funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into right-wing causes, many of which ended up before the Supreme Court. The brothers then used Thomas to raise money for their sprawling network, inviting him to speak…

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ProPublica reports: On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead. Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s…

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