June 15, 2023

Thursday, June 15, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

Where the White House stands with regard to the Trump federal case.

Biden orders DNC and reelect to remain silent about Trump’s indictment.

President Joe Biden and his top aides have taken a vow of silence on the federal indictment of his predecessor, Donald Trump — and have explicitly ordered the national Democratic Party and his reelection campaign to do the same.

That directive was issued in recent days after Trump was hit with federal charges for his handling of classified documents after he left the White House, according to three people familiar with the instructions. But that decision has some Democrats and allies worried that Biden could miss a chance to underscore the seriousness of the national moment as well as deliver a political blow to his top White House rival.

Biden declared at the start of his presidency that he would not discuss Department of Justice investigations, particularly those about the former president, and he remained tightlipped when Trump was arraigned Tuesday in a Florida courthouse.

Some in his inner circle hope the decision will be revisited if next year’s general election looks like it could be a rematch with Trump, even if the legal fight has not been resolved by then. As the president’s advisers chart a court for the campaign to come, they are aware that continued silence about the charges facing Trump would deprive Biden’s reelection effort of a potent political weapon.

The number of criminal cases Trump faces are growing and could soon include charges of election interference and inciting the Jan. 6 riot. Those acts make up much of Biden’s long standing case that Trump poses unique threats to American democracy, and there could eventually be a move to allow surrogates and leading Democrats, even if not the president himself, to squarely address the criminal charges.

But Biden to this point has been explicit: The entities that the White House controls, which includes the reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee, are not to publicly discuss any of the criminal investigations into Trump. Those closest to the president are deeply wary of any perception that Biden is trying to influence the investigations.

“I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do, relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge,” Biden told reporters Thursday. “I’m honest.”

Some left-leaning groups outside Biden’s control have already commissioned ads about Trump’s legal woes, which Democratic officials believe helps do the dirty work for them. And first lady Jill Biden did venture a public comment, bemoaning the Republicans standing by Trump in the face of the indictment.

“My heart feels so broken by a lot of the headlines that we see on the news,” she told donors at a fundraiser Monday night in New York. “Like I just saw, when I was on my plane, it said 61 percent of Republicans are going to vote, they would vote for Trump.”

“They don’t care about the indictment. So that’s a little shocking, I think,” she added.

But those groups and the first lady have a more limited reach than the party’s political apparatuses and the president himself. Biden has privately told aides that he is disgusted by Trump’s behavior but is adhering to his promise that the Department of Justice would have independence from the White House. The DNC, meanwhile, has advised members of Congress seeking guidance on what to say that they should not comment on the Trump probes if they are speaking publicly in their role as Biden campaign surrogates.

While Biden has framed his stance as in line with longstanding tradition, it is not uncommon for presidents to occasionally weigh in on ongoing criminal investigations. Biden has at times done so himself — including weighing in before the verdict was announced in the 2021 trial of the white Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd.

Some people in Biden’s orbit believe that the moment calls for his imprimatur, outlining for the nation the gravity of a former president facing charges in a federal court. Others believe it would be political malpractice to not make Trump’s woes a campaign issue and privately said that they wish the president’s campaign would take on the issue directly.

They argue that the charges connected to Trump’s alleged reckless mishandling of some of the United States’ top secrets shows that he is unfit for the job. And they believe that both the ongoing January 6 and Georgia election interference probes illuminate their central campaign arguments.

“It’s a pretty easy argument to make,” said one senior Democrat not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. “Vote for our guy, because the other guy is going to jail.”

There is a possibility that the decision could be revisited next year, multiple people close to the process said this week. One option being bandied about is that while Biden would maintain his silence on the Trump investigations, other top Democrats and surrogates would take up the argument. But even that — which aides warn may not ever happen — would likely not occur for months, perhaps after a possible conviction, or after Trump has clinched the GOP nomination. And advisors acknowledge that Biden himself may need to weigh in at a moment when it would be impossible not to comment, like a potential general election debate against Trump.

Some aides also think that if Trump were to be charged for his actions on Jan. 6, Biden would feel comfortable enough talking about the tragedy of that day without linking it to any crimes allegedly committed by his predecessor. Other Democrats believe the current silent treatment is the right approach — and don’t want to inadvertently get in the way of a bad Trump news cycle.

“The Justice Department needs to be able to make its prosecutorial decisions independent of influence from any administration,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said to Politico on Tuesday. “Donald Trump tried to use the Justice Department as a political tool. Joe Biden has said he absolutely will not do that, and I respect that.”

Those close to the president also acknowledge a particular sensitivity at the moment on matters related to the Department of Justice, which is believed to be nearing a charging decision in its investigation into Biden’s son. Hunter Biden is being probed for tax crimes and a potentially illegal purchase of a firearm. While the president has maintained his public silence on the case — other than to offer support for his son — he has privately expressed frustration at the length of the investigation and worries about the outcome of the probe, according to two people close to him.

While Biden has tried to maintain a distance from DOJ affairs, Republicans have been hammering home the talking point that he is using his Department of Justice to investigate his top political rival ahead of 2024.

“The Biden Administration continues to egregiously weaponize the federal government against Joe Biden’s top political opponent,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of the House GOP leadership, at a House Republicans news conference Tuesday. “The unequal application of justice by Joe Biden’s DOJ must be stopped. There cannot be one set of rules if your last name is Biden or Clinton and another set of rules for everyone else.”

Those supporting or working on Biden’s re-election ultimately believe they have other compelling arguments to make beyond pointing to Trump’s legal troubles. They believe the president’s week provides an advantageous split screen set nicely against the backdrop of chaos that has descended upon the Republican-controlled House after nearly a dozen far right members rebelled against Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The president will hit a lot of key 2024 issues, including civil rights, environmental causes, the GOP tax plan and gun regulations, as well as appear with Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally with union workers Saturday in Philadelphia.

The White House, Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee all, fittingly, declined to comment.

(Jonathan Lemire, Politico).

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Answers for those who want to speak.

The Impossible Task of Defending Donald Trump.

From the moment Donald Trump was indicted last week, top Republican lawmakers and media figures have found themselves in the humiliating position of trying to defend the indefensible. Many of them are lawyers; having seen the overwhelming strength of the evidence in the indictment, they could simply have accepted that Mr. Trump is in big trouble.

Instead, they have burst forth with an embarrassing slurry of misdirection, illogic and non sequiturs explaining why Mr. Trump should not be treated like everyone else in the eyes of the law. They offer legal arguments with no basis in the law or explanations that are nonsensical on their face.

On Monday, for example, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked whether he was concerned that Mr. Trump kept highly classified national security documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom. His reply: “A bathroom door locks.”

Alas, Mr. McCarthy is far from alone in debasing himself for the benefit of the former president. So on the occasion of Mr. Trump’s second not-guilty plea in three months, after he was arrested and arraigned on the charges on Tuesday in a Miami federal court, let’s take apart the two most common, and most absurd, defenses of his behavior.

Selective Prosecution. This is the “witch hunt” narrative that has animated the Republican Party for years. In this account, the “deep state” has always had it in for Mr. Trump, targeting him for things that other officials, especially Democrats, get away with. “If you’re Donald Trump, they’re going to come get you for anything,” Byron Donalds, a Florida congressman, saidon CNN on Tuesday. “But if you’re Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, they’re going to investigate very, very slowly, and let’s see where it actually ends up.” This is an upside-down way of looking at what’s happened over the past several years.

It’s true that Mr. Biden was found to have classified documents from his time as a senator and as vice president in his personal possession, too, some stored in his Delaware garage. Same with former Vice President Mike Pence. In both cases, the removal of secret material after their terms ended was apparently inadvertent, and there was no indication that either man even knew he possessed the documents. Both men cooperated with authorities, immediately returning the documents to their rightful owner, the federal government. Even so, Mr. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, quickly appointed a special counsel to look into the president’s documents case.

In contrast, it has taken the government more than a year to get the hundreds of classified documents Mr. Trump took from the White House. First the government asked politely, then it issued subpoenas, and finally it executed a search warrant. Even now, it would be foolish to assume that everything in Mr. Trump’s possession has been turned over. The indictment charges him with multiple acts of obstruction, including instructing his personal aide Walt Nauta to move boxes around in order to hide them from his own lawyers, and later suggesting to one of his lawyers that the lawyer “pluck” out any documents that might get Mr. Trump in trouble.

And what of Mrs. Clinton, against whom Mr. Trump still seems to believe he is running, seven years later? It has become an article of faith among Republicans, both the “Lock her up” crowd and the supposedly more serious ones, that Mrs. Clinton committed a major crime by using a personal email server to conduct government business while she was secretary of state. Even Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who plays one of the few responsible politicians in the modern G.O.P., called the allegations against her “damning.”

Yet the Justice Department, while rightly calling her behavior “extremely careless,” declined to prosecute — a decision that has infuriated the G.O.P. ever since. “Is there a different standard for a Democratic secretary of state versus a former Republican president?” askedGov. Ron DeSantis, who is running against Mr. Trump in the Republican primaries while echoing his claims against prosecution. No. But there is a different standard for a public servant who cooperates with the government after apparently making a mistake in handling highly sensitive information, compared with one who plays three-card monte with investigators until they have no choice but to enter his home with a warrant.

That’s not a comparison of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump; it’s a comparison of Mr. Trump and himself. Note that the special counsel assigned to Mr. Trump’s case, Jack Smith, did not charge him regarding any of the documents he returned in early 2022, when he and his lawyers voluntarily sent back 15 boxes in response to a National Archives request. The charges pertained only to those documents that the government had to go in and retrieve.

So let’s be clear about who’s being targeted for what. Mr. Trump created this mess entirely by himself. He didn’t simply violate the law by taking documents that didn’t belong to him. He refused to return many of them when asked. Had he done so, as Mr. Biden and Mr. Pence did, he very likely would not have faced any legal consequences. In other words, people who behave like responsible adults are more likely to get the benefit of the doubt.

The Presidential Records Act. A separate defense of Mr. Trump’s actions has been offered up by the former president’s lawyers for months, and lately it has been appearing with more frequency in right-wing media: He is not guilty, the argument goes, because of a law called the Presidential Records Act. Congress passed this law in 1978, after the Watergate scandal, specifically to prevent presidents from taking papers that don’t belong to them when they leave the White House. (An earlier law stopped Richard Nixon from destroying his own papers, including the Watergate tapes, after his resignation in 1974. Mr. Nixon challenged the law but lost in the Supreme Court.)

The act says explicitly that the federal government “shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession and control of presidential records.”

And this is how the Trump team interprets the records act: “The president can take whatever he wants when he leaves office,” said Kash Patel, a lawyer who served as a high-ranking national security adviser in the Trump administration. When the president takes a document, he went on, “it transitions from being U.S. government property to the personal, private property of the past president.” This is about as wrong as it is possible to be; it is literally the opposite of what the law says, especially when you are talking about the sort of highly sensitive documents — nuclear secrets, military strategies and so forth — that Mr. Trump is charged with illegally keeping in his possession. I would call it gaslighting, except it’s not creative enough.

“There’s no ambiguity in the law,” said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library. “The 31 documents that are listed — there’s no way you could apply the P.R.A. and determine they were personal records. Under the P.R.A., they belong to the American people. Trump stole American property.”

Mr. Naftali continued, “This shouldn’t be strange. Most every power a president has disappears when they leave office. For example, he’s no longer in charge of the nuclear codes. So why is it so weird for people to imagine that he can’t handle the nuclear secrets?”

What’s concerning about the bogus P.R.A. argument is how quickly it has become a talking point among Mr. Trump’s defenders. It almost seems to be a coordinated effort to influence the public conversation, and thus Aileen Cannon, the federal judge assigned to Mr. Trump’s case, who previously demonstrated what you might call a remarkably flexible and Trump-friendly view of the relevant law. How does this play out in court? Consider the records act a red light. If enough people in the right-wing ecosystem keep calling it a green light, Judge Cannon may be persuaded to treat it like one and to drive the case right into a ditch.

Perhaps the worst argument of all is that it is somehow dangerous to prosecute a former president. The greater danger, of course, is a former president who repeatedly flouts the law without consequence. (Jesse Wegman, New York Times).

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Happening in the Congress.

Adam Schiff was attacked by MAGA yesterday. MAGA lost. So far.

Touch to watch. 👇

Some Senators wanted to look at Supreme Court ethics.

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June 12, 2022. Treasonous members of the House identified.

Just a reminder.

Logs show 10 House Republicans attended White House meeting on pressuring Pence.

Ten Republican members of Congress attended a Dec. 21 White House meeting focused on efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to help overturn the 2020 election, according to the Jan. 6 committee.

Why it matters: The revelation underscores how deep the involvement of some lawmakers were in former President Trump's schemes to overturn the election even after the electoral college met to affirm President Biden's victory.

Driving the news: Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) said at a hearing on Tuesday that White House visitor logs reveal 10 members were physically in attendance:

Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)

Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)

Now-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)

The backdrop: Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the panel in closed-door testimony that members "felt that [Pence] had the authority to ... [send] the electors back to the States," according to a court filing from April.

Hutchinson noted that "they dialed in a few Members over the course of that meeting."

She mentioned two members – Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) – who were not in the visitor logs cited by Murphy.

The committee unveiled multiple pieces of new evidence about the planning of the meeting:

A note on Trump's private schedule for the day about a 2:00 pm "private meeting with Republican members of Congress" in the Oval Office.

Pence, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani were all in attendance, according to Murphy.

• Brooks said in an email setting up the meeting, with the subject line "White House meeting Dec. 21 regarding Jan. 6," that he said he hadn't recruited other lawmakers into the "Jan. 6 effort" because "only citizens can exert the necessary influence on Senators and Congressmen."

What they're saying: Murphy tied the meeting to the testimony of former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donohue at a previous hearing.

• Donohue said that Trump told him to have the Justice Department "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen."

• She also noted that the committee has played testimony indicating that several of the members in the meeting later requested pardons after Jan. 6. (Axios).

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