Attention to the Unseen

Barbara McQuade writes: When the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month, they didn’t find a smoking gun, but they did find some smoldering passports. On August 8, agents removed from Trump’s home 33 boxes of sensitive government documents, including more than 100 records classified at the highest levels. In a 36-page brief responding to Trump’s motion to appoint a special master to review the material seized by the FBI, the Justice Department explained that three…

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The New York Times reports: Two lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump are likely to become witnesses or targets in the investigation into how he hoarded documents marked as classified at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate — and secretly held onto some even after the lawyers claimed all sensitive materials had been returned, legal specialists said. The lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, handled Mr. Trump’s interactions with the government over a subpoena in May seeking additional material marked…

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Bloomberg reports: Federal prosecutors are likely to wait until after the November election to announce any charges against Donald Trump, if they determine he broke laws, according to people familiar. The unprecedented prospect of bringing charges against a former US president is creating intense scrutiny of the Justice Department in the aftermath of its search of his home at Mar-a-Lago. A separate DOJ probe is focused on his effort to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe…

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The Guardian reports: More than two-fifths of Americans believe civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years, according to a new survey – a figure that increases to more than half among self-identified “strong Republicans”. Amid heated rhetoric from supporters of Donald Trump, the findings, in research by YouGov and the Economist, follow similar results in other polls. On Sunday night, the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham predicted “riots in the streets” if Trump is indicted…

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S.V. Date writes: America can have peace and tranquility. Or it can have a criminal prosecution of Donald Trump. It cannot have both. Presenting this mob-like ultimatum appears to have become the former president’s strategy as the FBI and the Department of Justice close in on Trump’s possession of and refusal to return top secret documents he took with him to his Florida social club when he left the White House following his failed coup attempt. “Nice store you got…

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NBC News reports: Chris Kise, Florida’s former solicitor general who served on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ transition team, inked a contract to represent Donald Trump in the criminal case that resulted in the FBI search of the former president’s home in Mar-a-Lago, according to two sources with knowledge of the discussions. Kise, who declined to comment, began negotiations with Trump shortly after the FBI’s search of his Palm Beach estate Aug. 8. Numerous other criminal defense attorneys have said they couldn’t…

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Politico reports: Donald Trump’s team demanded last week that a judge appoint an official to sift through all the material that was seized from his home to find out if it was privileged. The government indicated Monday that his demand — which came nearly two weeks after the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — may have come too late. The Justice Department told a federal judge that its review of the records seized identified only a “limited set” that might…

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Politico reports: Many of the election deniers running for secretary of state this year have spent their time talking about something they can’t do: “decertifying” the 2020 results. The bigger question — amid concerns about whether they would fairly administer the 2024 presidential election — is exactly what powers they would have if they win in November. Atop the list of the most disruptive things they could do is refusing to certify accurate election results — a nearly unprecedented step…

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The New York Times reports: On May 25, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to a top Justice Department official, laying out the argument that his client had done nothing illegal by holding onto a trove of government materials when he left the White House. The letter, from M. Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor, represented Mr. Trump’s initial defense against the investigation into the presence of highly classified documents in unsecured locations at his…

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Michael Stern writes: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and former President Donald Trump are locked in a long running dispute over records taken from the White House in January 2021. According to a NARA May 2022 letter and more recent reporting, the agency went back and forth with Trump’s lawyers about “missing Presidential records” throughout 2021 and well into 2022. In January 2022, Trump transferred 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago to NARA. It’s an exchange that may…

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The New York Times reports: They risk imprisonment or death stealing the secrets of their own governments. Their identities are among the most closely protected information inside American intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Losing even one of them can set back American foreign intelligence operations for years. Clandestine human sources are the lifeblood of any espionage service. This helps explain the grave concern within American agencies that information from undercover sources was included in some of the classified documents recently…

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Brad Moss writes: I have finally seen enough. Donald Trump will be indicted by a federal grand jury. You heard me right: I believe Trump will actually be indicted for a criminal offense. Even with all its redactions, the probable cause affidavit published today by the magistrate judge in Florida makes clear to me three essential points: (1) Trump was in unauthorized possession of national defense information, namely properly marked classified documents. (2) He was put on notice by the…

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The New York Times reports: When the Justice Department proposed redactions to the affidavit underlying the warrant used to search former President Donald J. Trump’s residence, prosecutors made clear that they feared the former president and his allies might take any opportunity to intimidate witnesses or otherwise illegally obstruct their investigation. “The government has well-founded concerns that steps may be taken to frustrate or otherwise interfere with this investigation if facts in the affidavit were prematurely disclosed,” prosecutors said in…

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Politico reports: The U.S. intelligence community will evaluate the potential national security risks stemming from former President Donald Trump’s possession of top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told top lawmakers. In a letter obtained by POLITICO and dated Friday, Haines told House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) that her office will lead an “assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from…

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