A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
But Who’s Counting?!?
New reporting from the New York Times reveals that some 300 documents marked classified have been retrieved from Mar-a-Lago since Trump left the White House. 300! Let’s get into the key revelations, many of which point in the direction of possible obstruction of justice:
- Of COURSE he did: “Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.”
- Feds still not convinced: “The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Mr. Trump took with him from the White House.”
- Feds sought more surveillance footage AFTER the raid: “Even after the extraordinary decision by the F.B.I. to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, investigators have sought additional surveillance footage from the club, people familiar with the matter said.”
- What the initial surveillance footage showed: “It revealed people moving boxes in and out, and in some cases, appearing to change the containers some documents were held in.”
- Now we know which Trump lawyer certified they’d turned everything over to the feds: “[Evan] Corcoran then drafted a statement, which [Christina] Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed. It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement.”
Late, Lame And Laughable: Trump Sues Over MAL Raid
Two weeks after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, Trump finally got around to actually challenging the feds in court. In a doozy of a lawsuit full of Trumpian rants, misstatements, and admissions, the former president throws a bunch of stuff against the wall, very little of which will stick.
Trump filed his case not in the courthouse where the search warrant was signed but a few miles up the coast, where he found one of his own appointees:
The court assigned Trump’s requests to Fort Pierce, Fla.-based U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed by the Senate about a week after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.
Commentators were smirking over the filing and the media coverage:
EmptyWheel had a field day with the coverage:
Again, here are three competent headlines from this filing:
If you’re a horse race journalist… TRUMP FAILS DELIVER PROMISED FOURTH AMENDMENT CHALLENGE
If you’re a legal journalist: TRUMP LAWYERS ADMIT HE VIOLATED ESPIONAGE ACT.
If you really want to get to the newsworthy bits: TRUMP CONFESSES HIS LAWYER THREATENED ATTORNEY GENERAL MERRICK GARLAND.
Those are your choices. “Trump asks for special review”? That’s not real!?!?! If that were real we would have been here 2 weeks ago.
This Is The Best Part
Trump issued a typically bombastic statement touting his lawsuit, but down at the very bottom is the best part: He just wants to the get back the documents the FBI seized so he can … return them to the National Archives!
Don’t Expect Much From Unsealed MAL Affidavit
The judge may yet unseal the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit but in a written order indicated there was still a chance the redactions would be so extensive as to render the unsealing meaningless.
Gang Of 8 Wants In On The MAL Action
Politico:
The group of congressional leaders charged with reviewing the most sensitive intelligence information has asked the Biden administration for access to the documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s private residence in Florida, according to two people with direct knowledge of the request.
Wait, Are Dems Being Sneaky Strategic?
As experts and journos pour through the language of the Inflation Reduction Act, it seems there’s more and more to like about its climate change provisions.
It also begins to look like Democrats snuck a few things under the noses of Republicans (was Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in on it, too, or was he the gullible mark?).
Case in point: The new law contains robust language declaring carbon dioxide emissions a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, Lisa Friedman reports in the New York Times. That effectively reverses the Supreme Court decision earlier this year in West Virginia v. EPA, which found that Congress had not explicitly authorized the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Republicans weren’t completely fooled, the NYT reports:
In the hours before the legislation passed the Senate, Republicans fiercely fought the language behind closed doors, according to three Senate aides who were involved in the discussions.
Must Read
WaPo:
Sensitive election system files obtained by attorneys working to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat were shared with election deniers, conspiracy theorists and right-wing commentators, according to records reviewed by The Washington Post.
Related from TPM: Key Pro-Trump Lawyers, Technicians Worked Together To Breach Voting Machines Nationwide
Latest From Ukraine
WaPo: Car-bomb killing sows unease among cheerleaders of Putin’s war
CNN: Americans urged to leave Ukraine immediately as new Russian attacks feared
NYT: “Five months after Russian forces took over the Zaporizhzhia plant, all that stands between the world and nuclear disaster are dedicated Ukrainian operators working at gunpoint.”
The Cringiest Thing You’ll See Today
If you married Dukakis in the tank and George W. Bush in his “Mission Accomplished” flight suit, you get this comedic disaster.
Former Navy JAG lawyer Ron DeSantis pretends to be a Top Gun pilot dogfighting with the media (ugh, this is so embarrassing) in a new video posted to Twitter by his wife:
Top GOV … get it?
Pure 100% Organic Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson celebrated Tony Fauci’s retirement with such zeal, it veered into self-parody, with special class-warfare cameos by Edgartown, Bethesda, Napa, Aspen and Brookline:
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