Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Seventy-five days. That’s how long special counsel Jack Smith has to figure out how to unwind his unprecedented efforts to put former and future President Donald Trump in prison. Smith’s two cases against Trump — one for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election; the other for hoarding classified documents and obstructing justice — were doomed the moment the 2024 race was called. That’s because longstanding Justice Department policy forbids prosecuting a sitting president, and even if it didn’t,…

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The New York Times reports: A 24-year-old Tennessee man was arrested on Saturday moments before he planned to use a drone carrying an explosive to destroy a Nashville power substation to further his “violent white supremacist ideology,” federal prosecutors said Monday. The man, Skyler Philippi of Columbia, Tenn., had plotted the attack to push an extremist ideology called “accelerationism,” which calls for the complete collapse of American society, according to a criminal complaint prepared by the F.B.I. Christopher Wray, the…

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Reuters reports: Elon Musk’s pro-Trump group does not choose the winners of its $1 million-a-day giveaway to registered voters at random, but instead picks people who would be good spokespeople for its agenda, a lawyer for the billionaire said on Monday. Musk lawyer Chris Gober was trying to persuade a Pennsylvania judge that the giveaway was not an “illegal lottery,” as Philadelphia district attorney Lawrence Krasner alleged in a lawsuit seeking to block the contest ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential…

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The Washington Post reports: Long before he became one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors and campaign surrogates, South African-born Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California, according to former business associates, court records and company documents obtained by The Washington Post. Musk in recent months has amplified the Republican presidential candidate’s claims that “open borders” and undocumented immigrants are destroying America, broadcasting those views to…

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ProPublica reports: Dan Meyer, the police chief in Whitewater, Wisconsin, had been worried for months about the seemingly sudden arrival of hundreds of Nicaraguan immigrants to this quiet university town. But he rarely got to hear from any of them directly; most of what he knew, he had learned from his officers. Then one afternoon in November 2022, a man named Ariel walked into the police station. Meyer, 35 at the time, had been trying to get a handle on…

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CNN reports: The Justice Department warned Elon Musk’s America PAC in recent days that his $1 million sweepstakes to registered voters in swing states may violate federal law, people briefed on the matter told CNN. Musk, who has thrown his support behind former President Donald Trump and is spending millions of dollars supporting his candidacy, has publicized the $1 million prize by his political action committee aiming to increase voter registrations in hotly contested states. Musk’s initial promise to pay…

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The Washington Post reports: Former Republican lawmakers, advisers and Justice Department officials have called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate tech billionaire Elon Musk for awarding cash prizes to voters in swing states if they sign his political organization’s petition, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post and sent to Garland on Monday. The letter argues that the large prizes set up by Musk, a vocal supporter of Republican nominee Donald Trump, violate federal voting laws that…

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The Guardian reports: In the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency, a young lawyer with crisply shorn blond hair approached the podium at a gathering for Texas members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group that wields immense power in the US judicial system. As vice-president of the group’s Fort Worth chapter, Matthew Kacsmaryk had the honor of presenting the first speaker. “We are blessed to have Judge Edith Jones,” Kacsmaryk announced. Jones, a longtime judge on the US…

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NPR reports: Two Republican legal challenges to the legitimacy of ballots cast by U.S. citizens living abroad, including U.S. military members, hit setbacks Monday. A Michigan state judge dismissed one of three lawsuits that GOP groups filed in swing states in recent weeks, while in a North Carolina-based case, a state judge rejected the Republican National Committee’s request for the court to order that returned ballots of some overseas voters be set aside and not counted until the voters’ eligibility…

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The Guardian reports: Rudy Giuliani must give control of his New York City apartment, a 1980s Mercedes-Benz once owned by Lauren Bacall, several luxury watches and many other assets to two Georgia election workers he defamed. Lewis Liman, a US district judge in New York, appointed Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss as recipients of the property and gave the former New York mayor and Trump confidante seven days to turn over the assets. A jury ruled that Giuliani…

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