<Republican Congressman Jim Jordan is standing by Donald Trump in the face of his 37-count indictment for mishandling classified documents, falsely claiming in a heated CNN interview with Dana Bash that Trump had the right to handle the documents "however he wants."

"If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, in a box on the stage, he can do that," the representative from Ohio said.

The indictment, filed by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, accuses Trump of violating the Espionage Act by holding on to classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound that included sensitive information on the United States' nuclear stockpile and potential vulnerabilities to foreign attacks, among other national security topics.

The indictment also cites audio recordings of Trump sharing documents on a plan to attack Iran with people within his circle who did not have clearance to see them and acknowledging that he was not allowed to show them such files.

Despite this evidence, Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, insisted during his interview with Bash on CNN's "State of the Union" that Trump had declassified the documents. When pressed for evidence by Bash, he simply insisted, "I go on the president's word."

"He said he declassified this material," Jordan added. "He can put it wherever he wants and handle it however he wants."

"But he says, point blank, on tape as president, 'I could have declassified it. Now I can't,'" Bash said. "He says in his own words. It's on tape as part of this indictment that he did not declassify the material. Therefore, it is classified."

"Dana, saying he could have is not the same as saying he didn't," insisted Jordan.

"But he's saying point blank in this audio tape he did not declassify it. What you're saying just doesn't make sense on its face!" Bash exclaimed.

Jordan's defense of Trump ran in sharp contrast to Trump's former attorney general Bill Barr, who called the indictment "very, very damning" in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

"He's not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets that the country has. They have to be in the custody of the archivist. He had no right to maintain them and retain them," Barr said.>

<Former President Donald Trump on Sunday confirmed the existence of audio recordings that could be used as evidence against him in a case about the mishandling of classified documents.

During an interview on Sunday with host Roger Stone, Trump responded to reports indicating he admitted he did not declassify some documents before leaving office with them. Those recordings are reportedly in the hands of special counsel Jack Smith.

"By the way, the tapes that you read about, those tapes are my tapes," Trump growled. "I gave them very willingly, the tapes."

Trump complained that President Joe Biden "probably doesn't have tapes" incriminating himself.

"I gave them the tapes!" he exclaimed before threatening to release tapes of the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago.

"I have tapes of the FBI during the raid. I didn't put them out because I was asked not to by them," he ranted. "But I have tapes of the raid by FBI. You want to see some tapes? Those are tapes.">

See ya in Miami, dumbass!

<It’s quite telling about our political environment that we are not more shocked by a former president facing his second indictment since March.

This time, Donald Trump is the first former president slapped with federal charges related to his handling of hundreds of classified documents after leaving office.

It’s also another day that Trump is plastered all over the headlines.

While the charges are not surprising – even Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, has acknowledged that there's a strong case against his former boss – Trump is already twisting what should be devastating news to his presidential campaign and turning it into a fundraising ploy.

Trump is adept at this, and after his charges in March in the New York hush money and business record falsification case, he saw a significant bump in his fundraising. Expect the same thing to happen here.

Trump, the ‘victim’

The new charges – unsealed Friday afternoon – give Trump fresh material to “show” his supporters that he is yet again the victim of a Democratic witch hunt.

Trump fears DeSantis: Freshly indicted Trump has gone from mocking DeSantis to begging him not to run. SAD!

The political optics look bad: President Joe Biden’s Justice Department bringing an indictment against his chief rival for the White House.

By overplaying their hand in the past with Trump investigations, Democrats have given Trump and his Republican base the ammunition to distrust these latest accusations – even if there is more justification this time.

What’s more surprising is how Republican Party leaders – including some of his primary opponents – are circling the wagon around Trump.

Trump’s 2024 opponents are missing an opportunity

GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy set the tone Thursday by tweeting, “It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” and calling it a “grave injustice.”

It could be, but it's too early to know.

Even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – Trump’s most formidable presidential primary rival – couldn’t bring himself to criticize Trump. Rather, he focused on the “weaponization of federal law enforcement.”

Other GOP contenders also took this tactic. Only long-shot candidates like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took a more direct approach.

“These are all self-inflicted wounds,” Christie said on Fox News. “Return the documents and stop doing this. Why do you have to be the center of negative attention all the time?”

DeSantis doesn’t want to tick off Trump’s hardcore fans, but he can’t shy away from taking the fight directly to Trump. Rather than dabble in juvenile back-and-forths with Trump over AI-generated images, he should take the opportunity to highlight how if he were president, he’d never put himself in these vulnerable situations.

Heat taken off Biden?

In the meantime, the other winner in this whole debacle is Biden. The more Trump is in the news for possible criminal wrongdoing, it takes the heat off the president and his increasing frailty and his own legal troubles.

House Republicans are pursuing their investigations into Biden family influence peddling while Biden was vice president. And the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is looking into allegations that Biden himself was involved in a $5 million bribery scheme.

Biden calls the investigation “malarkey,” but we shouldn’t take his word for it.

And let’s not forget that Biden faces his own special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents, which were found in his office and garage.

Don't overlook Biden's problems: If Trump was 'irresponsible' for stashing secret documents, what does it make Biden?

Regardless, in the short term, Trump and Biden each benefit from Trump being in the spotlight. If the GOP really wants to move on from Trump, his opponents need to do a much better job of turning the heat on the former president.

These indictments are the perfect opportunity.>

<Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, broke his silence on Sunday about the second indictment of Donald Trump.

On Thursday, a grand jury indicted the former president on 37 charges ranging from willful retention of classified documents to obstruction charges in connection to the Department of Justice (DOJ)'s investigation into whether he mishandled classified documents after leaving office in January 2021. The probe was led by special counsel Jack Smith who was appointed by the DOJ to oversee the case.

Federal prosecutors are accusing the former president of mishandling sensitive presidential records and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. Trump, however, has maintained his innocence, accusing prosecutors of investigating him for political reasons. Thursday's indictment makes Trump the first former president to face federal criminal charges in United States history.

Graham, a staunch Trump supporter who endorsed his 2024 presidential bid, did not immediately comment on the indictment. However, he broke his silence during an appearance on ABC News' This Week in a testy interview with host George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos asked the senator about whether he believes Trump did "nothing wrong." In response, Graham attempted to compare the treatment of Trump to that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who faced scrutiny for conducting government business on a private server, raising security concerns prior to the 2016 presidential election. He argued that the actions of Trump and Clinton are "similar," but that only Trump has faced prosecution.

The interview then grew contentious after Stephanopoulos tried to interrupt Graham to again ask about Trump's behavior.

"No. Let me finish. I'm trying to answer the question from a Republican point of view. That may not be acceptable on this show. Yes, I don't like what President Trump did in some aspects. I don't like that President Biden has classified information in the garage. I don't like that Mike Pence carelessly took classified information. I don't like any of that," Graham said, continuing to explain that he believes Clinton was treated differently by the justice system than Trump.

Graham said he is "not justifying" Trump's alleged actions, but that he won't change his support for the former president in light of the indictment. He added that Trump was overcharged by the DOJ, saying it is "ridiculous" to believe the former president committed espionage and that conservatives view the indictment as politically charged.

"Most Republicans believe that the law now is now a political tool," he said.

As a result, Graham believes Trump is "stronger today politically than he was before" the indictment, he said.

Trump is facing 37 charges, including 31 counts of willful retention of classified documents and one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign and Graham via email for comment.

Meanwhile, Manhattan prosecutors filed more than 30 felony charges against Trump earlier this year in relation to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Daniels alleged that she had an affair with the former president a decade earlier, an allegation that Trump has denied.>

<Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 felony counts related to his theft of classified documents and his obstruction of the investigation into that security breach. Now comes the hard part: trying the case.

Prosecutors often talk of the “cruel dilemma” they face: If they secure the conviction of a charged defendant, they are “just doing their job” and merit no substantial credit; if they indict and fail to secure that conviction, they have somehow messed up.

To a large degree, this description is accurate. In a run-of-the-mill criminal case, notwithstanding the formal presumption of innocence, the prosecutor comes into the trial with a host of procedural and substantive advantages. In these routine cases, to lose is truly to err.

Not so with the case against Trump. Though the special counsel, Jack Smith, begins the proceedings with some significant pluses, he faces a much tougher road than prosecutors typically do. There is a more-than-reasonable possibility that Trump will never be convicted of the crimes with which he has been charged.

Smith’s most notable advantage is the factual strength of his case. In his speaking indictment (or, as Norm Eisen of the Brookings Institution called it, his “shouting” indictment), Smith laid out the case against Trump in stark detail. To take but one example, the Espionage Act criminalizes the “willful retention” of national-defense information. In a recording of his own voice, Trump admits to almost all of the essential elements of the criminal charge—that he has a document in his possession; that he knows it is national defense-information (involving a plan for an attack on a foreign nation); that he knows it is still classified; that he knows that he can’t declassify it.

The indictment is replete with examples of the stunning depth and texture of Smith’s evidence. It references, for example, multiple text messages in which Trump’s co-defendant, Waltine Nauta, and other Trump employees discussed how the boxes containing classified documents were being handled at Trump’s express direction. It also references surveillance-camera footage showing Nauta removing boxes from a storage area before that area was to be canvassed for classified information. And it goes into painful detail about how Trump misled his own attorneys into falsely certifying that the search for classified documents was complete, and how he attempted to persuade one attorney to lie for him by removing particularly damning classified documents from the set he was going to produce to the government.

Smith’s case is also significantly bolstered by the underlying seriousness of the charges. Though Trump has tried to minimize the consequence of the papers he retained, and though the contents of the documents are not yet, and may never be, public, the description Smith has offered—documents “regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack”—is chilling. Trump’s casualness in storing such important materials (and his apparent willingness to share some details contained in them with authors and one of his PAC employees) will surely be viewed skeptically by the jury when the matter goes to trial.

In any other circumstances, given the weight of this evidence, the case would be a slam dunk. But in the current state of affairs, the case is more aptly characterized as a difficult contested shot from beyond the three-point arc.

To begin with, Smith was exceedingly unlucky in his drawing of a judge. The case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, the same judge whose interference in the original search of Mar-a-Lago was roundly criticized and rejected by the Eleventh Circuit (the appellate court that oversees her district). Her past rulings suggest that her instincts will favor Trump. Federal district judges have substantial discretion in the conduct of trials, and so their underlying proclivities can matter.....>

<....To take one extreme example, consider the impact of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(a). This rule—obscure to most Americans, though well known in the criminal-defense bar—gives a federal judge the power to dismiss a prosecutor’s case at the end of the prosecutor’s presentation on a finding that the government has not presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This broad discretion is rarely used, because it allows a judge to substitute their own judgment for that of the jury. But it does exist and, more important for our purposes, it is completely unreviewable. For reasons of double jeopardy, if a judge dismisses a case at the close of the prosecutor’s presentation, that’s the end of it. One does not have to be completely Machiavellian to see in this power the prospect of judicial interference and disruption.

But we need not have anywhere near so dystopian a view of judges to worry about how one might conduct a trial. (And, to be clear, I have no reason to think that Judge Cannon would, in fact, use Rule 29[a] in an inappropriate manner). There are ample other ways, well within the bounds of discretion, in which a judge might impact the trial of a case. Consider just two more.

Within certain boundaries, trial judges have almost unreviewable discretion to determine what evidence will, and will not, be presented to a jury. Often, judges use that authority to trim frivolous defense arguments. Sovereign-tax protesters, for example, are not allowed to offer evidence that they think shows that the U.S. government is not constitutionally authorized to impose an income tax. Nonsense arguments like that are simply ruled out of bounds.

Many of Trump’s defenses to the espionage charges border on frivolous. The “I can declassify a document just by thinking about it” and the “I’m entitled to keep whatever documents I want from my presidency” defenses genuinely have no legal basis. Many judges would, quite properly, exclude testimony about those issues as an attempt to confuse the jury with irrelevant matters. But that decision is not inevitable, and a small minority of judges might reach the opposite conclusion, inevitably complicating Smith’s presentation of the case and reducing the likelihood of a conviction.

Far more prosaically, trial judges have near absolute and plenary authority over the timing of trials in their courtroom. They set the deadlines for when discovery must be completed, for when motions must be filed, for how quickly (or slowly) they decide those motions, and, ultimately, for when the trial will be scheduled.

As the special counsel made clear in his brief public remarks last Friday, he is seeking a relatively speedy trial. Beyond the normal concerns regarding delay—that evidence will grow stale or that witnesses will become available—he wants this trial to be resolved well before the 2024 presidential election. Many think that the public interest also counsels a quick resolution; as voters, we also want to know the result before the election.

Trump, by contrast, wants delay. Delay always benefits a defendant, but here, if the trial were postponed until after the 2024 election, there is every reason to think that a Republican victor (whether Trump or another candidate) would order the case dismissed. We cannot know now who will win, but in some ways the Trump candidacy is the ultimate plea for absolution from his criminal jeopardy. He is running for president in part to avoid jail.

Moreover, to be completely fair, though the average timeline for a typical white-collar case runs from nine to 12 months, it would be utterly unremarkable if this case were to take longer to come to trial. Given the uniqueness and complexity of some of the issues that might arise, even a completely neutral jurist might find it difficult to move this case along as rapidly as Smith would like. How much more likely is delay now that a Trump-friendly judge has been named?>

<....The special counsel is not powerless in the face of these challenges. He may repeat his public call for a rapid trial in formal papers. He can make motions to exclude frivolous arguments, and attempt to convince a reluctant jurist with detailed legal reasoning. In the end, if he feels especially aggrieved, he can ask Judge Cannon to recuse herself or seek her recusal by the Eleventh Circuit. These steps are not wholly ineffective. But realistically, they are second-best solutions to a difficult problem. Even if successful, they will result in delay—and if unsuccessful, they will leave Smith no better off (and possibly worse off for having directly challenged the judge) than he was before.

The choice of judge is not the only challenge Smith faces. The jury that will hear the case, or, more accurately, the jury pool from which the jurors will be drawn, will also be challenging. Like many observers, I thought that the special counsel would bring his charges in Washington, D.C., if only because doing so would let him draw from a jury pool that more than 90 percent of voted for Joe Biden in the last election.

But venue is not always a choice; it is sometimes an inexorable constitutional command. And a review of the new indictment makes clear that most of the charges Smith has lodged could have been brought only in the Palm Beach division of the Southern District of Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located. That jury pool is more evenly divided politically than the jury pool in D.C. To be sure, Biden won in Palm Beach County, with more than 433,000 votes. But Trump received more than 334,000 votes, and that 46 percent of the electorate is likely to be 46 percent of the pool from which the jury will be drawn.

Voting patterns, of course, are not an absolute proxy for a juror’s determination at trial. Indeed, the entire purpose of voir dire (the process of examining potential jurors before they are seated) is to weed out of the jury those who have already made up their mind and who cannot fairly hear the evidence. But a great deal of discretion goes into assessing a juror’s suitability (again, a role for the judge), and, more to the point, the standard to be applied is that a juror has already reached a decision.

That does not, and cannot, mean that jurors may not have predispositions and biases. Many jurors (indeed, likely all of them) will come to the jury box with a preexisting view of Trump. And it would be both impossible and improper to seat a jury composed solely of Palm Beach Biden voters. At a minimum, some jurors will have inherent sympathy for the defendant—and the total number of them will likely be greater in Florida than in Washington, D.C....>

<....This, too, will make Smith’s case harder to win. Reluctant jurors can be persuaded by a strong case, such as the one against Trump. And experience tells us that convictions of Trump’s allies are possible. But most of the convictions thus far—such as those of Steve Bannon and Paul Manafort—have come in jurisdictions that have leaned decidedly against Trump. Even Trump’s civil trial in New York City, which had to deal with a diverse jury pool likely containing Trump-supporting jurors, occurred in a venue that was significantly weighted against Trump. Because this is the first significant instance in which a Trump-related case has been brought in a venue where the jury pool is politically balanced, the conduct of voir dire and the seating of a jury will be an especially important part of the case and another unusually notable obstacle to Smith’s success.

And then, finally, there is the wild-card prospect of jury nullification—the possibility that an adamant pro-Trump supporter will be seated on the jury with the committed mission of refusing to convict Trump, against all the evidence. This risk is not unique to the Trump prosecution. It can arise in any political case and can even appear in situations (like the prosecution of minor drug offenses) where the identity of an individual defendant is irrelevant to the nullifier. But it seems clear to me that the risk of nullification is especially salient with high-profile defendants like Trump, who are often the beneficiaries of cultlike loyalty.

Here, too, Smith is not without recourse. Careful voir dire is intended to address this problem directly. But mendacious jurors who want to sit on a jury in order to disrupt it can be difficult to ferret out and seem more likely in the context of Trump’s trial than in most others. A complacent judge will only exacerbate the problem. It is by no means improbable that the end result of a lengthy trial of Trump would be a hung jury with a single recalcitrant holdout. Any retrial would happen during the administration of whoever won the 2024 election.

Are any of these obstacles insurmountable? No. But they are far more formidable than many observers think. The fundamental strength of Smith’s case mandated an indictment; bald-faced rejection of the legal system and manifest threats to national security could not be ignored. The strength also counsels optimism for a conviction. But the collateral factors of judge and jury make this a much harder case than the typical criminal prosecution.

As always, this circumstance demonstrates that the criminal process is, in the long run, ill-suited as a vehicle for resolving the fundamental underlying political problems facing America. Those problems seep into the process and affect its operation. Ultimately, the only solutions to America’s political challenges lie in the political arena.>

<The federal criminal case against Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents will be overseen, at least initially, by Judge Aileen Cannon, according to the New York Times. This is excellent news for Trump and exceedingly bad news for special counsel Jack Smith. Cannon’s total lack of principle, combined with her evident incapacity to experience shame, renders her a uniquely favorable jurist for the former president. Indeed, if she maintains her grasp on this case, it is nearly impossible to envision Smith securing a conviction in her courtroom.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, gained notoriety while presiding over Trump’s attempt to halt the classified documents investigation in 2022. Following the search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lawyers filed a complaint alleging that the search was illegitimate and unconstitutional; they demanded the appointment of a special master and, in the meantime, a freeze on prosecutors’ review of seized materials. In a calculated act of judge shopping, the case was assigned to Cannon, who leaped at the opportunity to prove her fidelity to the man who’d appointed her and, perhaps, audition for a future Supreme Court seat. Trump’s lawsuit amounted to pure gibberish, a glorified Truth Social post that alleged a Democratic conspiracy. So Cannon promptly encouraged his lawyers to rewrite the suit so it sounded marginally less asinine. She then issued an order prohibiting the government from “further review and use of any of the materials” seized from Mar-a-Lago “for criminal investigative purposes.”

This command marked the first time in the history of the republic that a federal judge had claimed the power to stop a pre-indictment criminal investigation into a suspect. Cannon’s overreach provoked genuine shock in legal circles and fear in the intelligence community, as it effectively blocked officials from assessing the seized documents for national security risks. (Her order reflected a profound misunderstanding of national security damage assessments.) A right-leaning panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit—which included two Trump appointees—soon stayed this portion of her decision, highlighting its “chilling” effect on fundamental “national-security duties.”

But Cannon wasn’t finished. She agreed to Trump’s request for a special master and appointed Raymond Dearie, a well-respected federal judge. After Dearie tried to bring some discipline to the case, though, Cannon immediately ran interference for Trump. She overruled an order that would’ve required the former president to either disavow or stand by previous claims that FBI agents planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. She spared him the burden of lodging specific objections to the review of individual documents, which would have revealed the bogus nature of his claim to executive privilege. And she extended deadlines to help Trump drag out the special master’s review for as long as possible....>

<....The madness finally ended when a panel of the 11th Circuit—made up of two Trump appointees and the ultraconservative William Pryor—ruled that Cannon had no authority to hear Trump’s lawsuit in the first place, rendering every one of her orders null and void. It was one of the most humiliating appellate smackdowns in recent history, a total demolition of literally every action that Cannon had taken from the outset of the case. The 11th Circuit accused Cannon of attempting “a radical reordering of our caselaw” that violated “bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.” And it directed her to relinquish control over the case.

Now fast-forward to today. Cannon has been assigned to handle at least the initial phases of Trump’s federal indictment in Florida. Her name appeared on the summons sent to the former president, as did Bruce Reinhart’s, the magistrate judge who signed off on the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. (Magistrate judges may conduct preliminary proceedings in a criminal case, like authorizing a warrant, but it’s unlikely that Reinhart will play a major role here.) Typically, federal district court judges are assigned cases randomly, though the court may transfer a case to a specific judge who has prior experience with the matter. So, perhaps Cannon’s (calamitous) oversight of the Mar-a-Lago search dispute gave her dibs on this indictment. Cases are also reassigned based on workload to ensure that there’s a roughly even distribution among active judges. All of this means that we don’t really know why Cannon was initially assigned the case, and we don’t know if she will keep it. We can be fairly confident, though, based on her history, that she will do everything in her power to keep it to protect her benefactor, who is clearly in immense legal danger from this case.

Smith, for his part, has the option of requesting a different judge; 11th Circuit precedent allows reassignment when the presiding judge appears unable to put “previous views and findings aside.” (This is a nice way of saying that they’re in the tank for the defendant.) Trump would surely fight such a request, and it’s impossible to say where the 11th Circuit would come down.

Imagine, though, that Cannon does preside over this case. She has infinite tools at her disposal to thwart the prosecution at nearly every turn. Big swings, like tossing out the whole case—a very real possibility in her courtroom of chaos—can be appealed and overturned. But at every step, there are opportunities for sabotage. Cannon can try to rig voir dire to help the defense stack the jury with Trump supporters. She can exclude evidence and testimony that’s especially damning to Trump. She can disqualify witnesses who are favorable to the prosecution. She can sustain the defense’s frivolous objections and overrule the prosecution’s meritorious ones. She can direct a verdict of acquittal to render the jury superfluous. She can declare a mistrial prematurely for any number of reasons, including lengthy juror deliberations, and stretch out various deadlines to run out the clock. Many of these procedural moves could not be appealed until the proceedings have drawn to a close; appeals courts do not referee every little dispute in a jury trial as they happen. Cannon will be in control.

That should be a frightening prospect for Smith. Cannon has already revealed her profound bias in favor of the president who appointed her, breaking a series of bedrock rules to help him escape the classified documents probe. Now she seems to have gotten a second bite at the apple, a chance to manipulate court procedures to assist Trump and subvert Smith at every turn. Let’s not pretend as if it’s a mystery whether she will; her name is already synonymous with MAGA-style judicial corruption. The simplest way to put it is that if Cannon remains assigned to this case, Trump will not be convicted, no matter how damning the evidence. That conclusion is not defeatist or cynical; it is a mere acknowledgment of the reality that Republicans have created by stacking the bench with venal mediocrities like Aileen Cannon.>

<Frances Haugen, the Meta whistleblower, told The Sunday Times that "tens of millions" will die if social media isn't overhauled.

She worked at Facebook until 2021, when The Wall Street Journal published documents that she leaked, known as "The Facebook Files."

They included research reports and employee discussions that showed that the company knew its platforms caused harm.

For example, The Journal reported that Meta downplayed Instagram's effects on teenagers' mental health, and Facebook helped spread religious hatred in India.

Now, Haugen has written a memoir in which she says social media is still damaging due to a continued lack of transparency, The Washington Post reported.

She writes that Meta's profits were contingent on "no one knowing how large the gap between Facebook's and Instagram's public narratives and the truth had grown," per The Post.

And Haugen believes that the only way to change that is to overhaul our understanding of social media.

"The reality is that culture change is hard," she told The Sunday Times. "I view this book as part of how we build that consensus."

"A lot of people will die in the next 20 years if we don't solve this problem," she said, adding the figure would be "tens of millions." Haugen did not expand on the comment.

In 2018, United Nations investigators said Facebook "substantively contributed" to the Myanmar genocide, per Reuters. And Instagram made several policy changes after it was blamed for the suicide of a British teenager.

While Meta is coming under more scrutiny — it was last month handed a record-breaking $1.3 billion fine relating to data privacy — Haugen argues more needs to be done to stop it spiraling out of control.

Meta did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.>

<The narrative here is one of betrayal of a nation and its most precious secrets by a man who was the commander in chief for four years and who seeks that mantle again. There's never been anything remotely like it.

Just think about it. The disregard for the lives, the risk and the individual courage that goes into gathering information vital to our national security and our safety is incomprehensible. There is no way for the brain to wrap itself around what is described in this indictment, the violation of sacred trust, a one-man demolition crew working against the American intelligence system that has been built, brick by brick, over 80 years.

With the kind of conduct alleged in the indictment by the former occupant of the highest office in the land, how is any foreign intelligence service supposed to trust us to keep information confidential, to protect its methods of collecting our enemies' secrets or the identity of its sources?

<House Speaker Kevin McCarthy defended Donald Trump's practice of storing boxes of classified documents in a chandeliered bathroom today by arguing that doing so is safer than storing them in a garage, because bathroom doors lock.

However, many — if not most — garage doors have locks.

Asked at a press gaggle whether it was "a good look" for Trump to be caught storing classified documents in the bathroom of Mar-a-Lago's Lake Room, McCarthy responded with a question: "I don't know — is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks."

McCarthy was attempting to draw a parallel between the document storage practices of current and former presidents.

Whereas Trump was indicted last week on charges of illegally hiding secret documents in the chandeliered bathroom of Mar-a-Lago's Lake Room (among other things), President Joe Biden is under investigation by a special counsel for storing classified documents in his Wilmington, Delaware, garage (among other things).

When classified records were discovered in the garage in January by Biden's lawyers, who immediately notified the Department of Justice and handed them over, the president was quick to point out that his garage, like most garages, had doors that lock.

"My Corvette's in a locked garage," Biden said at the time."So, it's not like it's sitting on the street."

If true, that would place Biden's garage in the same category as Trump's Mar-a-Lago bathroom as a location with a lock — even if, as McCarthy claimed, Biden's garage "opens up all the time."

It's unclear how frequently the bathroom in Mar-a-Lago's Lake Room opens up. It's also unclear whether, like most bathrooms, it locks from the inside and remains unlocked when unoccupied.

McCarthy's office did not return a voicemail message seeking comment.>

No line of argumentation is beyond the pale, come to defending their horse.

<The Proud Boys are largely ignoring the indictment of former President Donald Trump as the far-right group shifts its focus to attacking the LBGTQ community, Vice News reported Monday.

Despite the group being central to the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021 – and a local branch reportedly being involved in a protest outside the Miami courthouse that Trump is expected to be arraigned at Tuesday – members have been quiet about Trump's latest troubles.

Vice’s Tess Owen writes that “Ever since the latest batch of criminal charges against the former president dropped, this time under the Espionage Act in a federal court in Florida, the public response from the Proud Boys has so far been a resounding ‘meh.’”

Owen’s report cites Telegram channels associated with Proud Boy chapters showing tepid interest in the 37-count indictment accusing Trump of mishandling sensitive classified documents.

The report notes that a Miami Proud Boy chapter called “Vice City” initially reposted a flier promoting a protest outside the courthouse for Tuesday, but that by Monday it was back to assailing Pride Month.

Proud Boy chapters in North Carolina and Tulsa, Oklahoma showed similar apathy in the former president’s legal troubles, according to the report.

The group’s apparent indifference to Trump’s indictment makes them outliers in the broader far-right movement, according to the report, which notes that since Friday many such groups have trafficked in incendiary rhetoric.

The report describes the relationship between the Proud Boys and Trump as complicated, noting the former president’s mention on a debate stage in 2020 that the group “stand back and stand by.”

Since then, several members – including group leaders – have been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

The New York Times reports that, minutes after Trump’s Jan. 6 remark, “members of the group were posting in private social media channels, calling the president’s comments ‘historic.’ In one channel dedicated to the Proud Boys on Telegram, a private messaging app, group members called the president’s comment a tacit endorsement of their violent tactics.”

But Owen notes that the group started to sour on Trump after he conceded the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

“Trump will go down as a total failure,” a Proud Boy member wrote in a Telegram channel after Biden’s inauguration.>

<Arizona voters didn’t want Republican Kari Lake to be their governor, and they probably wouldn’t want her teaching math either after the farfetched claim she made Monday.

The former newscaster turned Donald Trump toadie appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast to discuss Tuesday’s arraignment of the former president in Miami.

This past weekend, Lake attempted to gin up support for Trump by saying that if prosecutors “want to get to President Trump,” they’re ”going to have to go through me and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA.”

On Monday, she put the “high” in “hyperbole” by claiming that 90% of the U.S. population would be getting their collective panties in a bunch over Trump getting indicted for taking top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House.

“If they think they are going to hurt, lay a finger on our president ― President Trump ― they’re going to have to come through me,” Lake told Bannon. “And I made a mistake, I said 75 million others just like me. I think it’s more like 300 million others just like me.”

Even conservative-leaning outlets like Newsweek noted that Lake’s assertion was “absurd,” considering that the U.S. population is about 334 million, meaning that nearly 9 in 10 Americans would be protesting Trump’s arrest, including many of the81 million people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Since it’s pretty much impossible to get 90% of Americans to agree on anything, much less Trump, it’s a fair chance that Lake is either just spreading B.S. or is really bad at math.

Luckily, Twitter users were kind enough to give Lake a lesson....>

<“In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”

That’s what then-candidate Donald Trump said at a campaign rally in August of 2016. This was the alleged policy behind chants to “lock her up!” directed at Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her off-site email server. They were calls for political vengeance without due process.

But now, with former President Trump indicted by the federal government on 37 counts for retaining and concealing classified documents related to national security – including nuclear secrets – key Trump supporters ditched calls for accountability and have resorted to threats of violence. This is the politics of incitement and intimidation and it cannot be allowed to succeed.

Trump has reached for apocalyptic rhetoric, calling for his supporters to protest at the Florida courthouse when he is arraigned on Tuesday.

Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican and one of the chief promoters of the “stop the steal” election lie that led to the January 6 attack on the Capitol tweeted: “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an Eye.”

Failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake declared at a Georgia Republican rally: “I have a message tonight for Merrick Garland and Jack Smith and Joe Biden — and the guys back there in the fake news media … If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA. That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”

Just to be clear, that is a threat. After having her election lies rejected by court after court, Lake should know that just because you say something doesn’t make it true.

But the response to an absence of facts is often simply to scream louder – and some MAGA backers have heard the warlike rhetoric loud and clear, responding with online chatter about a second civil war.

The threats of violence reflect an authoritarian impulse completely at odds with the alleged principles of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. After all, this is a political party that has long claimed to stand for patriotism, individual responsibility, family values and the rule of law. They are risking abandoning it all to protect a cult of personality for a political con man whose actions are the opposite of all those virtues.

There’s a deeper twist: Conservatism literally began in reaction to the threat of mob violence.

Edmund Burke’s condemnation of the violent excesses of the French Revolution is generally considered to be the starting point of conservative thought. Attacking the US Capitol in response to the election lies of a leader who says things like “I alone can fix it” is the opposite of anything resembling Republican virtues or conservative principles.

But conservative populists are a different breed, especially when they use fear to encourage retaliatory strikes. “Aggressive defensiveness” is the term for the kind of threats being leveled: using defensive feelings as an excuse to get aggressively violent.

They were a recurring feature in the reaction to Reconstruction after the Civil War – as I discuss in my book ”Lincoln & The Fight for Peace” – when White vigilante groups would claim that someone attacked them and use that threat (or more broadly, the demographic “threat” of multiracial democracy) as a pretext to slaughter their political opponents and intimidate the opposition into silence.

This is not a distant concern relegated to history books. The January 6 attack showed the clear and present danger created by apocalyptic rhetoric and the politics of incitement. The threat of violence was a feature, not a bug, in the effort to get senators to stop the certification of the election.

It was the culmination of years of violent rhetoric deployed by the former president and his surrogates and amplified without any supporting evidence by right-wing networks. Two militia leaders – from the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys – have been convicted of seditious conspiracy for what they did after hearing Trump falsely declare the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

Given the history of violence aimed at the heart of our democracy, these latest threats should be easy to condemn – especially for Trump’s Republican rivals in the 2024 primaries.

With the exception of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (who said that if the indictment is proven to be true, Trump’s actions were “extremely reckless”) and Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson – both former US attorneys – Trump’s GOP rivals have all tried to criticize the process or the optics without addressing the substance of the indictment....>

<....That’s presumably a political calculation made out of fear of offending Trump’s base. It’s also an implicit recognition, however, that the details of the indictment are damning to the point of absurdity.

There are photos of boxes of classified documents stacked in a chandeliered bathroom at Mar-a-Lago; there is a transcript of a taped conversation in which Trump discusses how he is in possession of classified documents and cannot declassify them because he did not do it as president.

Every defense that Trump and his surrogates once offered has been revealed by the evidence to be a lie. Trump is known to even have lied to his own lawyers. But sadly, many of his supporters still believe he is telling them the truth.

The candidates presumably know better – but they keep retreating to weak-kneed responses. One recurring theme is the false belief that the DOJ was inconsistent with its indictment. Let’s clear this up, because a cursory review of the Trump charges should mean an end to whataboutism.

Both Hillary Clinton and former Vice President (and current GOP presidential candidate) Mike Pence, in their cases regarding retention of classified information, were not charged because they cooperated with the authorities and no deliberate mishandling was found. Biden’s case is ongoing but he has also cooperated with authorities.

Here’s the key difference: Trump was not charged for having the classified documents but for willfully trying to hide the documents after the feds enquired. It’s not the crime, but the cover-up. Even conservative legal analysts ranging from Jonathan Turley to Andrew McCarthy to former Attorney General Bill Barr have read the indictment and pronounced it damning to Trump, with Barr saying: “The counts under the Espionage Act, that he willfully retained those documents, are solid counts … it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning.”

One final line of defense argues that democracies don’t indict former presidents – that this action makes America look like a “third world” nation. Never mind the fact that democracies like France, Italy and Israel have done just that in recent years when their former heads of state were accused of committing high crimes. In fact, it’s an essential feature of accountability and showing no one is above the law. The Washington Post offered an excellent round-up of some of these recent cases. This is necessary in a country like the United States where sitting presidents cannot be charged with a crime.

When facts and reason no longer apply, desperate individuals resort to threats of violence. It is an attempt to intimidate in the belief that the rule of law will be suspended. This is thuggery and more evidence that the January 6 playbook remains in effect for Trump and his apologists.

But facts matter, and there is nothing unfair about equal justice under law, applied without fear or favor. That is what Trump is really afraid of.>

<Jack Smith came out to speak today. (JACK SMITH SPEAKS! Special counsel as Garbo.) And he was as Jack Smithian as Jack Smith could be.

"Our nation's commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone."

Simple as that, and then he was gone. Finished. Drive home safely everyone.

Clearly, Smith decided to let the indictment speak for itself and, boy howdy, it does more than that. It bellows. It snarls. It grabs you by your lapels and screams in your face, "LISTEN, IDIOTS. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT ELECTING THIS DANGEROUS CROOK AGAIN. JESUS, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"

Or words to that effect.

Take a look at page 16, where the former president* essentially defenestrates one of his favorite alibis. Or marinate slowly in pages 21-26, where the former president* is repeatedly telling his lawyers not to touch "my boxes."

TRUMP: “I don't want anybody looking, I don't want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don't, I don't want you looking through my boxes,” Trump said, as recounted by the indictment, which cited how one of the attorneys had “memorialized” the conversation.

“Well what if we, what happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them?” Trump is alleged to have said. The indictment also quotes Trump as allegedly saying, “Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?” and, “Well look isn't it better if there are no documents.” On the possibility that, upon hearing this, one of the lawyers stripped, left the room, and walked into the Atlantic, never to return, the record is silent.

Look at all the absurd and lovely pictures of the boxes of documents stored willy-nilly all over Mar-a-Lago. The ones with the chandeliers are my favorite, especially the bathroom with the chandelier.

“From January through March 15, 2021, some of Trump’s boxes were stored in the Mar-a-Lago Club’s White and Gold Ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place. Trump’s boxes were for a time stacked on the ballroom’s stage."

"Nauta texted another Trump employee, “I opened the door and found this,” including two photographs of the spilled documents. At least one of the photographs, shown in the indictment, had classified information in it...The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.” Poor Walt Nauta. He's been hung out to dry in a hurricane. And now, some texts....>

<,....Trump Employee #2: "We can definitely make it work if we move his papers into the lake room."

Trump Employee #1: "There is still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is. Is it only his papers he cares about?"

Trump Employee: “Anything that’s not the beautiful mind paper boxes can definitely go to storage.”

Is this Trump Employee suggesting that the former president* was similar to the disturbed John Nash, played by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, and comparing all these boxes in the ballroom and in the shower to Nash's shack, where he filled sheets of paper with indecipherable scribbling at the behest of his imaginary cohort? We are all keen to know. And now, The Importance Of The Crime-Fraud Exception.

Trump Attorney No. 1 — He made a funny motion as though — well, okay, why don't you take them with you to your hotel room and if there's anything really bad in there, like, pluck it out. And that was the motion he made. Plucking amazing.

Another development that is not funny at all is that the "wheel" apparently has handed the trial over to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee with whom I thought we were finished after she put both thumbs and an andiron on the scale earlier in the litigation leading up to Thursday's indictment. From The New York Times:

Ruling for Mr. Trump, Judge Cannon effectively froze a significant portion of the government’s inquiry, barring prosecutors from using the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago for any “investigative purpose” connected to the case against Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was finished. An appeals court sitting in Atlanta ultimately overruled Judge Cannon, scrapped the special master’s review and allowed the investigation of Mr. Trump to resume unhindered. In a sharply critical decision, a three-member panel of the appeals court said Judge Cannon never had the proper jurisdiction to intervene in the case and order the review. The court also chided her for stopping federal investigators from using the files seized from Mar-a-Lago, saying there was no justification for treating Mr. Trump differently from any other target of a search warrant.

<A chorus of legal experts is calling for District Court Judge Aileen Cannon to recuse herself from former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges relating to his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

A Trump appointee, Cannon drew widespread condemnation for her rulings in Trump’s favor during the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s retention of national security information at his private residence and social club in Palm Beach, Fla.

Richard Painter, the White House chief ethics lawyer under George W. Bush; Norman Eisen, who occupied the same position for Barack Obama; and Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan, good government advocacy organization, wrote in an article in Slate that Cannon “must recuse herself from the case.”

“Judge Cannon’s prior, fundamentally erroneous approach casts a shadow over the proceedings,” the bipartisan trio wrote. “Because her earlier handling of this case went well outside the judicial norm and was roundly criticized by the Court of Appeals, reasonable observers of this case could question her impartiality.”

Why was Cannon chosen in the first place?

On Friday, when Trump’s indictment was unsealed, experts inferred that Cannon had been assigned because she had already overseen Trump’s lawsuit demanding the appointment of a “special master” to block government access to documents over which Trump claims executive privilege.

But on Saturday evening, the chief clerk of the Southern District of Florida told the New York Times that Cannon was also assigned randomly to the criminal trial. Judges have certain geographic areas they cover, so Cannon draws 50% of the cases in the West Palm Beach, Fla., courthouse, the clerk said.

Opposition grows

Federal prosecutors, including many Republicans and even Trump’s own former attorney general, William Barr, sharply criticized Cannon’s handling of Trump’s lawsuit, which they considered frivolous.

The special master Cannon appointed said he was “perplexed” by Trump’s assertion of executive privilege over classified documents after he had left office. Cannon’s decision was overturned and Trump’s lawsuit was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which included two judges who were also appointed by Trump.

How Cannon could alter the outcome of the case

“Trial judges can affect the timing and shape of cases in many ways,” the Washington Post noted. “They can rule on motions to dismiss counts or the entire indictment, decide what evidence is admitted or excluded, and address a host of other critical questions.”

One point of contention will be that a federal judge in Washington granted a request from prosecutors to apply the “crime fraud exception” to attorney-client privilege in Trump attorney Evan Corcoran's conversations with the ex-president. Justice Department lawyers — pointing to Corcoran’s notes that Trump suggested lying to federal investigators about the existence of hundreds of classified records in his possession — argued Trump used Corcoran’s legal services in furtherance of a crime....>

<....The Daily Beast reported Saturday evening that Trump’s team is already working on an effort to get Cannon to have evidence from Corcoran excluded from the trial.

“If Cannon agrees that the jury should not hear all of the Corcoran evidence, the Justice Department’s case won’t be over, but it will be critically hobbled,” NBC News concluded.

What are the rules governing a judge’s recusal?

The federal law governing recusal says a judge should recuse if their impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.” Stephen Gillers, professor emeritus at NYU Law, says Cannon is obligated to recuse herself because she showed favoritism toward Trump in her prior rulings.

“She was partial to Trump as a former President, which should not have any influence on the way this trial is conducted,” Gillers told the New Yorker. “I’m concerned that the partiality she expressed in her decisions last year creates a reasonable perception in the mind of a fair-minded person that she is not impartial — which is the test.”

"For her to re-emerge as the judge presiding over this historic trial would cast a long shadow over a proceeding that should be, and should be seen to be, entirely unbiased and legally sound," Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe told Newsweek.

What happens next?

If Cannon doesn’t voluntarily remove herself from the case, the Department of Justice can file a motion requesting that she do so. If she refuses, the government can file a mandamus application with Cannon’s superiors on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel would then decide whether to remove Cannon. “Mandamus efforts are rarely successful,” Gillers cautioned.

On Monday afternoon, the Miami Herald reported that Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman will oversee Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday, but Cannon “will still remain on the historic case as the lead judge.”>

<Former Oath Keepers member Jason Van Tatenhove sounded the alarm on CNN Monday that pro-MAGA members of Congress are actively trying to promote violence ahead of former President Donald Trump's arraignment.

Trump, who is charged with 37 federal crimes including violations of the Espionage Act for repeatedly trying to stop federal agents from retaking boxes of highly classified national defense information from his Mar-a-Lago country club, is scheduled to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday, and law enforcement is preparing for a huge showing of anger from Trump supporters — including the potential for violence.

"I mentioned [Congressman] Andy Biggs, but I wanted to give you another Republican Congressman, Clay Higgins, tweeting another tweet that some have seen as a not-very-subtle, in this case, call to action, referring to Trump as rPOTUS," said anchor Erin Burnett. "That stands for 'Real President of the United States.' Now, I just want to note that Congressman Higgins is an Army veteran and he's using military-style language telling Trump supporters to, quote, 'buckle up.' You hear Andy Biggs talking about war and 'an eye for an eye.'"

Specifically, Burnett asked, "It's not just what message does that say. Does the fact that it is coming from elected representatives in any way open the door even wider or allow and encourage violence even more?"

Van Tatenhove, who saw up close the violent actions of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was unequivocal: "Absolutely."

"This was part of the playbook that [Oath Keepers leader] Stewart Rhodes employed with working with local officials, grooming people to run for local office," said Van Tatenhove. "Because it gives a sense of legitimacy and authority to some of the more violent rhetoric and extremist views out there. And these words are more dangerous than bringing weapons to something, because they inspire, they go on. It's hard to counteract words calling for violent action. It's much harder to defend against that than it is to harden up a building like a federal courthouse."

"No one has really been held accountable," Van Tatenhove added. "We've seen this type of rhetoric coming up to January 6th. We're just now beginning to see some sort of legal account being held. But, largely, politicians that have been using this rhetoric to get elected and increase their following and what not, they really haven't been held to account for the actions that they are inspiring.">

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) battled CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday about the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Greene asked the CDC director about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

"And in 2021, COVID-19 reports skyrocketed to number one at 728,829 reports," Greene said. "And the numbers kept growing and growing and growing on the VAERS report."

"The amount of miscarriages and stillbirths that increased drastically due to your advice to get vaccinated," she claimed. "But my question for you today, Dr. Walensky, is now that you're going to be leaving the CDC pretty soon, what job are you going to take? Are you going to be on the board of either Pfizer or Moderna? Because you've done one hell of a job at making sure that they've made a lot of money."

Walensky pointed out that the CDC was not responsible for the purchase of vaccines.

"I do want to talk a minute about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System," she continued. "It is intended to have an over-reporting... Any adverse event, if you got hit by a truck after you got your vaccine, that was reported to the vaccine adverse event reporting system."

"You did nothing about that and continue to push vaccines," the lawmaker charged.

"We review all of the things that come into the vaccine adverse event reporting system," Walensky explained. "I'd be happy to have our staff educate your staff on the work."

"I don't want my staff educated!" Greene exclaimed. "You should educate the American people about what you've done of 1.5 million reports because they feel like you've done nothing and continue to say [the vaccine is] safe and effective.">

<The defense for disgraced biotech mogul Elizabeth Holmes, who once had an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion, is objecting to proposed changes in her case that include $250 monthly payments to victims.

In a filing in federal court in California, the team argued that implementing prosecutors' proposed restitution schedule would amount to a significant modification to the outcome of Holmes' fraud trial.

In November, the 39-year-old former CEO was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for misleading investors about the speed, convenience and capability of high-tech blood tests developed by the Silicon Valley company she ran, Theranos.

The San Jose federal court found that she and Theranos COO Ramesh Balwani, convicted in a separate trial of 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy, are liable for covering more than $452 million in investor losses.

Holmes is appealing the decision; Balwani has been unsuccessful in his appeals.

On June 7, prosecutors filed a motion "to correct judgements" that noted the court's latest contained "clerical errors" that included the absence of a restitution payment schedule.

Government lawyers proposed, among other things, adding a schedule of monthly payments in the amount of at least $250 or 10% of her earnings, whichever is greater, according to the filing.

They argued this is what the court "intended" in finding Holmes and Balwani responsible for investor losses, according to the government's filing.

"The government proffers a guess as to what 'the Court intended,'" the defense team said in its filing.

In the document, Holmes' lawyers called the proposal an "attempt to manufacture a record that does not exist."

Both sides seem to agree that the process allows for changes in restitution if a convict's financial situation changes significantly, but Holmes' team argues the government has offered no evidence of such a change for Holmes.

In its filing Monday, the Holmes defense team said, "The Court had before it substantial evidence showing Ms. Holmes’ limited financial resources."

Lawyers for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In May, Forbes, which once estimated Holmes had a net worth of $4.5 billion, reduced her estimated net worth to $0. Before reporting to federal prison in Texas that month, she was living with partner Billy Evans and their two young children in the San Diego area.

Evans is the grandson of the founders of a successful group of hotels in San Diego now run by his father. In 2021, CNBC reported that Holmes and Evans were living in a home on a $135 million Woodside, California estate.>

<A judge this week ordered Michigan Republican Party Chairperson Kristina Karamo and others to pay more than $58,000 in legal fees incurred by the Detroit clerk’s office to fight a lawsuit they filed challenging absentee voting in the city.

In an order signed Monday, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny said the Oct. 26 lawsuit in which Karamo was the lead plaintiff was “rife with speculation, an absence of facts and a lack of understanding of Michigan election statutes and Detroit absentee ballot procedures.”

At the time, Karamo was the Republican nominee for secretary of state, a position that serves as Michigan’s top election official. Two weeks after the suit was filed, Karamo lost to Democrat Jocelyn Benson by 14 percentage points before being elected the state GOP chairperson in February.

“Plaintiffs merely threw out the allegation of ‘corruption in Detroit’ as the reason for disregarding the Michigan Constitution in this state’s largest city,” Kenny wrote in his order. He ordered the plaintiffs to pay the $58,459 in legal fees incurred by the Detroit clerk's office.

Email requests seeking comment were sent Tuesday to Karamo and the state GOP.

Karamo and the others sued to try to force Detroit residents to vote in person or go to the city clerk’s office to get an absentee ballot.

They filed a lawsuit 13 days before the election, making a variety of allegations about how Detroit election officials review signatures on absentee ballots and monitor drop-off boxes. The lawsuit, among other things, also claimed the city was using “uncertified high-speed tabulators” to count votes.

Kenny dismissed the lawsuit the day before the Nov. 8 election.

“Despite plaintiffs’ arguments to ‘shed light in a dark place,’ they have failed dramatically,” the judge said at the time. “Over an eight-hour evidentiary hearing, no evidence of election law violations” was revealed.>