For all the dribbling of new facts, suspicions and theories I confess that I still can’t make sense of what on earth Donald Trump was doing with all those documents. One finds oneself hesitating to say such things because it brings forth a rush of shaming claims of naïveté. So let me clear that, yes, I know all the possibilities and I’ll do you one better by noting that I’ve seen all the countless examples showing that Donald Trump is ready to betray his country at the drop of his hat to advance his own ends. We’ve seen him do it multiple times.

Phoenix New Times: Abe Hamadeh Wants to be Arizona’s Top Cop. As a Teen, He Bragged About Voter Fraud

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Investigating Anna: The tale of a Fake Heiress, Mar-a-Lago and an FBI Investigation

KARE11: ‘It’s a legitimate comparison’: MN GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen defends remarks about COVID, Nazism

CNN: Minnesota’s GOP nominee for top elections official called changing voting rules ‘our 9/11’ after ‘the big rig’ in 2020

Politico: RNC chief on tape to donors: We need help to win the Senate

We’ve slowly come around to a given that Joe Biden is very unpopular but that in the peculiar politics of 2022 it simply doesn’t matter. A few weeks ago I told a friend that I expected Biden’s approval numbers to surge from just under 40% to about 45% after the mini-BBB (aka, Inflation Reduction Act) passed. After that, I told this person it was less clear. Why? A lot of Biden’s unpopularity was tied Democratic partisans who were pissed off that he wasn’t successful enough as a Democrat. That’s how you can have Biden flatlining while Democrats are doing pretty well on the generic ballot poll and in lots of Senate races. Pass the mini-BBB, pass the CHIPS bill, get some good news on economic outlook and you can expect his support among Democrats to rise fairly quickly. It’s low-hanging fruit.

Have you not liked James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas and been hoping for years to see these sleazy degenerates get into a world of hurt? This may be your lucky day. We’ve known for a while that Project Veritas got hold of the diary and more of Ashley Biden, Joe Biden’s daughter. That story has been rattling around for almost two years and Project Veritas has made great hay out of how the investigation is allegedly an attack on their First Amendment rights. The DOJ just announced two plea deals with the thieves, one of whom, Robert Kurlander, has agreed to testify against the as yet unnamed “organization” noted in the plea deal.

That’s Project Veritas.

We’ll have an accompanying news story shortly. But this is a case where I have some specific insight and perspective as an editor and publisher about how to stay out of trouble or, as Project Veritas seems to have done here, get in a lot of trouble.

So here goes.

My God it’s been a while since I’ve seen this level of journalistic force-feeding of self-wompery to what may be embarrassingly compliant Democrats. Politico Nightly is just out noting that even skeptics now recognize the demise of Roe profoundly reordered the trajectory of the 2022 midterms. And this is … wait for it … terrible news for the Democrats! Wait, what? When I saw the headline (“Post-Roe political regrets sink in”) I figured this was about electorally focused Republicans having some misgivings about defying the views of solid verging on overwhelming majorities who wanted to keep the Roe status quo. But no, it’s Democrats who are crying in their beer because they didn’t anticipate the anti-Dobbs backlash enough a year ago and didn’t get referendums and propositions on ballots in every state.

From TPM Reader JS …

Democrats always do this.

They have an issue that’s popular and that they have the power to do. But it gets staffed/committeed to death and all of the sexiness is taken out. It starts as a transformational thing, then Very Serious People in the media tell you why it’s a bad idea that will be bad for Democrats when really it just makes them mad. Then the Democrats get criticism from people who like the idea for not doing it and from people who feel like they need to be with the smart kids and who doubt it.

Pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, today the Biden administration released an unredacted version of the memo Bill Barr received recommending against obstruction of justice charges tied to President Trump’s actions detailed in volume two of the Mueller Report. That was the part of the Report that made the case about obstruction of justice.

To understand the context, these were two Trump appointees (Steven A. Engel and Edward C. O’Callaghan) working under Barr, who had made clear publicly prior to his nomination as attorney general that he did not think the Mueller investigation was merited or proper. So this is essentially two of Barr’s subordinates preparing a memo for Barr containing what all involved knew Barr wanted to hear.

Still, it is a notable document for understanding the internal reasoning and justifications. Also important: We know there is a longstanding DOJ policy that holds that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted at all. This memo sets that question aside and simply looks at whether prosecution would be merited in any case. Worth a read.

TPM Reader DD says I’m not seeing the forest for the trees about Democratic prospects in the House. From DD …

Reader reaction with some thoughtful nuance about Dem chances on holding the House

The recent upswing for Democrats across several metrics has folks, including yourself, feeling hopeful that Democrats could somehow maintain control of the House. Now I know you’ve said it’s still a long shot and unlikely but I think that long shot misses the forest for the trees (or actually the trees for the forest).

At the macro level there are plenty of reasons to maintain that hope, and the rising, and real, fortunes of Senate Democrats seem to color that perspective. But with the House it’s a matter of math and race-by-race dynamics. By those measures the House is all but gone for Democrats, although the losses may be low enough that they’re in the hunt to reclaim the majority in 2024.

Another point which comes out of last night’s result. It now seems quite possible, perhaps even probable, that the outcome of the midterms will come down to high stakes GOP redistricting wins that came right at the end of the cycle in NY, FL and OH. I don’t say that to bum anyone out or to predict that Democrats can’t win the House. It is only to note how close it seems likely to be and that those extra seats could well be in the margin.

I’ve just seen it noted that it now appears that in all five post-Dobbs special elections to the House Democrats have improved on Biden’s 2020 performance by at least 2 percentage points. The story from 2020 was that Biden did well enough to beat Trump by a decent margin. But Democratic congressional candidates didn’t do as well as he did. So they’re improving on 2020, which suggests a very different midterm environment than we’ve been hearing about for months.

A bit more on last night’s result in NY-19, which I discussed here. The only minor update is that it didn’t even turn out to be a virtual tie. Democrat Pat Ryan appears to have won with 52% of the vote — a clear if close win. Ryan will only serve for four months. He’s on the November ballot in the new adjoining 18th district. Republican Molinaro will also be on the ballot in a redrawn 19th district against Democrat Josh Riley. The takeaway is the same as last night. Molinaro was and is a first-rate recruit in what the Cook Report calls a dead-even district. The fact that Republicans couldn’t notch a solid win here strongly suggests the governing assumptions about the 2022 midterm are simply wrong.