Some interesting and absurd but still noteworthy events overnight. Trump’s representatives, at least for the moment, have settled on a story which is that he had a “standing order” that any and all classified materials he took home with him to the White House residence was “deemed” declassified. So in fact, none of the materials in question are classified and none of it matters. This was announced on Fox as an official statement from Trump’s office by John Solomon, the notorious fake news hustler who is now operating as Trump’s “designated representative” to the National Archives.
We are, we might say, deep in the thick of it. Until recently we heard constantly how there was no accountability for the ex-President, no investigations or prosecutions, of anything tied to the denouement of the Trump presidency, save for the men who actually entered the Capitol complex on January 6th. Now we learn that there are and have been multiple investigations touching on various incidents tied to the end of the Trump presidency. There was a bunch of frothy and nonsensical chatter earlier in the week about how the FBI had just given the presidency back to Donald Trump. This morning the House Freedom Caucus, ground zero of Trumpism and coup plotting, canceled the press conference they had planned to bewail the FBI search of the ex-President’s home. Facts change and you have to react to them.
It is probably best to say that we are back in one of those fugue windows Trump Republicans have, much like January 7th-9th 2021, in which there’s a period of relative silence while a story is devised to explain why something inexplicable and indefensible is in fact awesome and totally fine. They’ll get there.
The Washington Post has a breaking new development this evening that’s worth your attention:
Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Based on a variety of reports over the past hour or so, it appears that the man who attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati this morning went over the edge after the feds conducted their search of Mar-a-Lago. The caveat is that the man was reportedly present for the Jan. 6 attack in Washington, so it might not have taken much to push him over the edge. He was killed this afternoon by law enforcement after a standoff in a cornfield in rural Ohio. An account on Trump’s fake Twitter platform under the same name as the gunman was posting about the attack seemingly in real time today. Matt Shuham has our story.
There’s a lot going on in the world of Trump investigations this week, but I wanted to catch you up on some details surrounding additional FBI activity in Pennsylvania. At the center of it, it seems, is Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA).
Federal judge orders DOJ to confer with Trump lawyers and report to him by 3 PM tomorrow about how to proceed on releasing the warrant and related documents.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss stunning developments in Kansas and the Senate, along with the FBI’s visit to Mar-a-Lago.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
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After a week of attacking the Justice Department, claiming victimhood, and offering nonsensical defenses of the classified documents that were apparently still residing in his seaside resort post-presidency, Donald Trump appeared to selectively leak search warrant documents ahead of formally agreeing that a judge could unseal the documents in a court record.
After the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision and overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, devestated onlookers shifted their attention to Congress, desperate for a legislative safeguard.
