Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: The National Archives has turned over to the House select committee investigating the assault on the Capitol last Jan. 6 a large batch of documents that former President Donald J. Trump had sought to keep out of the panel’s hands, citing executive privilege. The committee has yet to make the documents public or disclose how far along it is in scrutinizing them for any new information about the roles played by Mr. Trump and his…

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Yahoo News reports: John Eastman, the conservative law professor who authored memos outlining how President Donald Trump could overturn the results of the 2020 election, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 146 times when he was questioned by the Jan. 6 committee last month, a lawyer for the panel revealed late Monday. The disclosure came in a court hearing before U.S. District Judge David Carter in Santa Ana, Calif., on Eastman’s lawsuit to block a subpoena from the committee directing Chapman…

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Andy Kroll reports: The technology was complicated, but the plan was simple: Scan mail-in and absentee ballots in populous Maricopa County, remove the “invalid votes,” and recertify the state’s 2020 election count, surely declaring then-President Donald Trump the rightful winner. This scheme to subvert the election outcome in Arizona is laid out in newly released emails obtained by Rolling Stone. Sent in early December 2020, the emails cover a critical moment when the post-election push by Trump and Republican allies…

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Michael Tomasky writes: In a sane world, Jane Mayer’s excellent piece on Ginni Thomas in The New Yorker would set off a series of events that would lead to her husband Clarence Thomas’s impeachment and removal from the Supreme Court. Ginni is involved with numerous far-right organizations and schemes that take very public positions on court decisions across a range of social and political issues, such as last week’s 8–1 holding that Donald Trump could not block the release of…

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The Guardian reports: When Donald Trump announced plans in 2006 to build a golf complex on ancient sand dunes on the Aberdeenshire coast in Scotland he told reporters it was love at first sight. “As soon as I saw it there was no question about it,” he said. It would be the world’s “greatest golf course”. This week Trump International Scotland became a central element of a case that looks poised to dominate his post-presidential life, and could even put…

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David French writes: Yesterday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to the chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court requesting to empanel a special grand jury “for the purpose of investigating the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia.” The request was triggered by the reluctance of key witnesses, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to cooperate without…

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Margaret Carlson writes: We’ve been lulled into believing Donald Trump is made of Teflon. He was, after all, the guy who boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. But Trump’s luck began to run out in early 2021—when he lost the White House, Air Force One, and his Twitter account inside a few weeks. His days of getting away with conduct that would sink anyone else appear to be over. He could even…

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Jane Mayer writes: In December, Chief Justice John Roberts released his year-end report on the federal judiciary. According to a recent Gallup poll, the Supreme Court has its lowest public-approval rating in history—in part because it is viewed as being overly politicized. President Joe Biden recently established a bipartisan commission to consider reforms to the Court, and members of Congress have introduced legislation that would require Justices to adhere to the same types of ethics standards as other judges. Roberts’s…

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The New York Times reports: The New York State attorney general, Letitia James, accused Donald J. Trump’s family business late Tuesday of repeatedly misrepresenting the value of its assets to bolster its bottom line, saying in court papers that the company had engaged in “fraudulent or misleading” practices. The filing came in response to Mr. Trump’s recent effort to block Ms. James from questioning him and two of his adult children under oath as part of a civil investigation of…

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Slate reports: Last week, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel referred to federal prosecutors a criminal investigation into who was behind a Dec. 14, 2020, certificate falsely attesting that Donald Trump won Michigan’s electoral votes. The next day, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas made a similar referral to federal prosecutors in his state. Those who had a hand in crafting and attempting to submit false certificates of electors may have committed multiple crimes, including forgery and fraud. The actions of…

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HuffPost reports: Should former President Donald Trump run for the White House again, an obscure Reconstruction-era law could keep him off the ballot in six southern states, including North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, because of his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The third section of the 14th Amendment prohibits people who swore to defend the Constitution, but who subsequently took part in an insurrection against the United States, from holding state or federal office. Other language in that post-Civil…

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Grid reports: In the lead-up to the Capitol siege, the FBI received at least a dozen warnings about the possibility of violence that day. When the day came and the Capitol barricades fell, it became evident the FBI largely ignored them all. The warnings came from all sides: regional law enforcement, social media platforms, Congress (specifically the House and Senate intelligence committees), a top defense official, extremist watchdogs, right-wing experts, journalists and even three different components within the FBI itself….

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The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, testifying just days after the nation observed the one-year anniversary of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, said the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists has more than doubled since the spring of…

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CNN reports: A federal judge in Washington, DC, is questioning former President Donald Trump’s actions during his speech on January 6, 2021, as he considers for the first time whether Trump is immune from liability related to his supporters attacking the US Capitol. During a court hearing Monday, Judge Amit Mehta pointed out repeatedly that Trump on January 6 asked the crowd to march to the Capitol, but that he didn’t speak up for two hours asking people to stop…

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