<Despite facing an avalanche of indictments in four different jurisdictions, Donald Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba have decided to devote time to attempting to refile a lawsuit that was already dismissed and led to the two of them being sanctioned $937,989 for wasting the court's time.

According to the report from the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, the object of the former president's ire is his old nemesis Hillary Clinton for implying that he was an agent of the Kremlin.

As the Beast report notes, the original case was tossed out in January by U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks who wrote a scathing order that included the fine.

At that time, he wrote, "This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it."

As Pagliery explained, "Middlebrooks was describing the way that Trump sued everyone he has publicly blamed for fueling pernicious conspiracies that he’s a Kremlin agent: Clinton, her 2016 campaign chair, Democratic lawyers, and FBI officials who launched the infamous Crossfire Hurricane investigation looking into Trump-Russia connections."

The reanimated lawsuit, in which Habba warned she would ask for Middlebrooks to be removed from hearing it, was inspired by the Durham report submitted in May which Trump and Habba have seized upon as evidence to be used in the re-filing.

Citing the Durham report, Habba wrote it “seismically alters the legal landscape of this case,” before adding, "corroborates many facts and allegations about which this court expressed skepticism.”

"But the biggest hurdle for Trump at this point is that it’s probably too late to relitigate the same things he’s been railing about at 2016 campaign speeches and Twitter and Air Force One and 2020 campaign speeches and Truth Social and Trump Force One and now 2024 campaign speeches," Pagliery wrote before elaborating, "While Habba claims that 'the Durham Report provides new context' to the lawsuit, she’s also running that risk that Middlebrooks will use this as an opportunity to closely scrutinize the Durham Report—and drill down on just how not new it actually is."

"And this judge—an appointee of Hillary Clinton’s husband and former president, Bill—has already shown zero patience for Trump’s deliberate misreading of official government findings," the Beast's Pagliery added.>

<As an undergraduate at Yale University, Ron DeSantis joined St. Elmo, one of the school's secret societies.

Every week, DeSantis and the members of his diverse society class met for dinner at a townhouse near campus in New Haven, Connecticut, where they would each speak at-length about their backgrounds — in a ritual that could take several hours.

DeSantis leaned heavily on his life story as the product of a working-class family and baseball player who worked his way to one of the most elite universities in the country. But when other members spoke about their own biographies in the living room, DeSantis — now the governor of Florida and a 2024 Republican presidential contender — paid little attention to them, according to a New York Times report.

Cristina Sosa Noriega, a fellow member of St. Elmo, told The Times that DeSantis rolled his eyes when she spoke of her background as a Hispanic girl who was raised in San Antonio, Texas. Two additional members of the secret society also recounted DeSantis' expression at the time, according to The Times.

"He seemed bored and disinterested," Sosa Noriega told the newspaper. "It was like I wasn't worth listening to. I had the feeling that he assumed that I didn't deserve to be there."

In response to The Times, a DeSantis spokesman denied that the incident occurred and added that it was "frankly absurd" that any individual would recall "such a detail from decades ago." (DeSantis attended Yale from 1997 to 2001.)

In his 2023 book, "The Courage to Be Free," DeSantis has been critical of his academic experience at both Yale and Harvard Law School, describing both campuses as ones grounded in liberal ideology and removed from the views of everyday people.

Since becoming governor in 2019, DeSantis has led the charge in enacting a slew of conservative laws in Florida affecting millions of lives, from limitations to how race can be taught in schools and restrictive voting laws to a six-week abortion ban and a law barring classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the book, DeSantis describes his longstanding conservative beliefs as a foundation for what he would face years later as governor.

"In retrospect, Yale allowed me to see the future," he wrote. "It just took me 20 years to realize it.">

As the saying goes: plus ca change....

<The more Donald Trump gets indicted, the less certain Republican congressmen want to talk about him — especially if they’re serving in decidedly vulnerable districts that Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.

No fewer than 15 of the 18 Republican House members whose district voted Democratic in the 2020 presidential election have failed to make a single public comment in response to either of the two indictments handed down in August against Trump, a Raw Story review of news coverage and major social media shows.

The group has become known as “the Biden 18,” and with Republicans clinging to a tiny majority in the U.S. House, their political fates are central to the GOP’s quest to retain power there.

Only famed fabulist Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has spoken up forcefully for Trump on the two indictments, the most recent coming Monday on sweeping racketeering charges in connection with the 2020 election in Georgia. Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump on August 1 with four felony counts related to his alleged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), was the only one of the Biden 18 to even speak out on the federal indictment on election interference. But he hardly said what MAGA world wanted to hear, telling Axios: "Trump will have his day in court to present his defense. I trust our judicial system to sift through both sides of the case and find a just verdict."

Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) was the only other Republican to comment on the Georgia indictment and he didn’t offer a defense to Trump so much as to tow [sic] the party line:

“I’m deeply concerned about partisanship and a double standard creeping into our justice system,” Ciscomani stated. “Timing and political partisanship cloud the merit of these charges with doubt which can erode the trust of Americans in our legal system. Our standard should always be equal justice under the law.”

The near radio silence from others in the Biden 18 illustrates the growing peril that each succeeding Trump indictment represents for vulnerable Republicans.

And it cannot be attributed to the congressional recess.

On August 15, the day they could have been reacting to Trump’s Georgia indictment, 13 of the 18 congressmen did find the time to commemorate the two-anniversary of the fall of Kabul. Their strikingly similar tweets had a common theme: Sharply worded criticism of Biden for what Ciscomani called “one of the biggest blunders in U.S. history.”

Of the five “Biden 18” members who didn’t get the memo about re-attacking Biden on the solemn anniversary, the only ones who set aside politics for the day were Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY), who just returned from surgery, and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR-5) who jarringly strayed off message with a shout out to Democratic Rep. Joe Neguso about a bipartisan bill they worked on together.

Even when they have spoken out in mild defense of Trump, such as on June 8 when Smith indicted Trump on conspiracy and obstruction charges under the Espionage Act related to classified documents he had taken from the White House, they’ve done so in relative whispers. They failed to even mention Trump — a la Voldemort in “Harry Potter” — by name.

Instead, they focused their ire on the government for its decision to enforce the law against the former president regarding the classified materials that he took to his homes and refused to return, even under subpoena.

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., called the indictment “a continuation of, really, eight years of bad behavior from the far left,” against Trump since his 2016 campaign,” NBC News reported. Garcia added: “They’re willing to use the executive branch this time, the DOJ, to go any lengths to remove a political opponent that they know will win the election.”

Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) tweeted: “Why, on the same day Members of Congress reviewed hard evidence alleging our President took a $5M bribe from a foreign country while VP, would the DOJ indict a former President? Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) tweeted that it “wreaks political retaliation.”

That was about the extent of the pushback that the Biden 18 offered on the first federal indictment. Most of the imperiled members chose the middle lane, obviously torn between offending either Trump supporters or the Democratic majorities in their district.

Ciscomani of Arizona emphasized the presumption of Trump’s innocence while promising to “vigilantly monitor” the process for signs of politicization....>

<.....Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a former FBI agent, called for leaders “to lower the temperature of the rhetoric” for the sake of the justice system – after trying to conflate Trump’s indictments to the legal woes of Hunter Biden, the president’s troubled son.

Spokespersons for Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY) and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) were even more circumspect. D’Esposito would be “monitoring” the situation and Chavez-DeRemer was “aware” of the indictment and “would let in play out in court,” the media was informed.

Two of the Biden 18 offered harsh words — for Trump.

“It’s obvious what the president did was wrong,” Bacon said, according to NBC News. “To have thousands of secrets in your house, showing them to people that were not read in and then not giving all of it back, saying you gave it all back and then lying about it, I just — there’s no way to defend that. And I just think the emperor has no clothes.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), the only member of the Biden 18 to have voted to impeach Trump in 2021, following the January 6 insurrection, said “the alleged mishandling of classified documents containing sensitive national security information and the failure to return them when asked is extremely troubling."

Of course, none of the “Biden 18” reacted with the fury of MAGA extremists such as Rep. Andy Biggs, (R-AZ) who tweeted, "We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye." Or Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who described the indictments as “a human rights violation” comparable to the actions of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The only reliable “Biden 18” outlier is Santos, who appears to be on a political suicide mission has he, too, faces his own federal charges for alleged fraud, stealing public funds and money laundering. Santos threw the full weight of his credibility, such that it is, behind these words this week:

“All these indictments against Trump are exposing the double standard in our Justice system. If you are a Democrat you get a pass if you are a Republican; “we will ruin your life with false accusations and our partners in the media will sell it for us.”

Santos sat out on commenting about Trump’s election-interference indictment. But when the classified documents charges landed in June, he had share these pearls of wisdom:

“Another indictment of President Donald J. Trump will not gaslight the American People into abandoning the greatest champion of freedom this great young nation has ever known,” Santos tweeted. Hashtag #Trump2024NowMorethanEver.

Who controls the U.S. House?

The Trump indictments have made a difficult situation worse from the Republicans holding blue-district seats. They already have been identified as the top political targets of the Democratic Party, which needs just a net gain of five seats to regain control of the House in 2024.

The Democrats have some reason for optimism, as 12 of the 18 seats are held by freshman members of Congress. The same number of 12 (although not all the same seats) are rated tossups by pundits, as shown below.

Their Congressional Integrity Project, for one, has unleashed a biting ad specifically targeting members of the Biden 18 in their respective districts – singling out each with a personalized insert.

This is how the shell of the ad reads:

“MAGA Republicans have hijacked the House of Representatives. They're wasting your taxpayer dollars on partisan stunts instead of tackling the issues that the American people care about. But what has Congressman (fill in the Biden 18 rep) done to stop them? Absolutely nothing! He’s been asleep at the wheel while MAGA Republicans push conspiracy theories, give platforms to anti-Semites and racists. And now they're moving to impeach President Biden without a shred of evidence he's done anything wrong. Call Congressman (___). Tell him to stop pushing an extreme agenda.”...>

<The California delegation (5) One of the bluest states in the nation is large and diverse enough to host some solidly red districts. But these are the blue ones that Democrats let get away in 2022.

John Duarte (CA-13)

Toss-up

2022 Victory margin: 0.4%

2020 Biden victory margin: 10.9%

David Valadao (CA-22)

Toss-up

First elected: 2012

2022 Victory margin: 3.0%

2020 Biden victory margin: 12.9%

Mike Garcia (CA-27)

Toss-up

First elected: 2020

2022 Victory margin: 6.5%

2020 Biden victory margin: 12.4%

Young Kim (CA-40)

Likely Republican

First elected: 2020

2022 Victory margin: 13.7%

2020 Biden victory margin: 1.9%

Michelle Steel (CA-45)

Leans Republican

First elected: 2020

2022 Victory margin: 4.8%

2020 Biden victory margin: 6.2%

The Arizona delegation (2)
The most daunting task for this duo is sharing a state caucus with some of the most whacked-out Republicans in Congress, including the aforementioned Biggs and Gozar.

David Schweikert (AZ-1)

Toss-up

First elected: 2010

2022 Victory margin: 0.9%

2020 Biden victory margin: 1.5%

Juan Ciscomani (AZ-6)

Toss-up

First elected: 2022

2022 Victory margin: 1.5%

2020 Biden victory margin: 0.1%

The Lone Representatives (5)
Each of the following is the only Republican member to represent a blue district in their states. Only Bacon hails from a red state.

Don Bacon (NE-2):

Leans Republican

First elected: 2016

2022 Victory margin: 2.7%

2020 Biden victory margin: 6.3%

Tom Kean Jr. (NJ-7)

Toss-up

First elected: 2022

2022 Victory margin: 2.8%

2020 Biden victory margin: 3.9%

Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR-5)

Toss-up

First elected: 2022

2022 Victory margin: 2.1%

2020 Biden victory margin: 8.9%

Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1)

Likely Republican

First elected: 2016

2022 Victory margin: 9.7%

2020 Biden victory margin: 4.6%

Jen Kiggans (VA-2)

Leans Republican

First elected: 2022

2022 Victory margin: 3.4%

2020 Biden victory margin: 1.9%>

<Philadelphia City Commissioner Omar Sabir was at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Nov. 5, 2020, to help tally the votes of the recent presidential election.

But something else was brewing that day.

Sabir told USA TODAY law enforcement officials were alerted that armed individuals from Virginia were going to drive to Philadelphia to allegedly "straighten" out the election.

When the men, supporters of former President Donald Trump Joshua Macias and Antonio LaMotta, arrived near the convention center in a vehicle with handguns, they were immediately apprehended.

"We basically kept going on...because we knew that there was a duty that had to be done, and so I wasn't going to be unwavered by that," Sabir said. "As I reflect back now, that's like kind of crazy that... some (weapons) were actually a stone's throw from where you were at just completing the job."

His office also received a chilling call in September 2020 from a man who threatened to use the "Second Amendment" against Democrats and other officials. In the days leading up to Nov. 3 election, Sabir said his behavior changed.

"I had to sleep in different places," Sabir said. "I couldn't come home. My home was under police protection. So it didn't just affect me or my family. My neighbors were concerned. It was life transforming."

Trump has been indicted twice over his efforts to allegedly steal the 2020 election, on federal charges and state charges in Georgia. Both indictments accuse him and his allies of a pressure campaign against state officials across the country. Here's what you need to know.

'I will not play with laws': How officials reacted to Trump's calls

It was late November 2020 when then-Arizona House of Representatives Speaker Rusty Bowers and his wife returned home from church meetings, according to testimony he gave to the U.S. House last year.

That was when he received a phone call from Trump and the former president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Bowers testified that he asked Giuliani “on multiple occasions” to provide evidence for his claims of widespread election fraud during the call, including false allegations of votes from noncitizens and dead people. He never received the proof.

When Giuliani allegedly asked Bowers to replace the electors who were supposed to support President Joe Biden in the race for the White House, Bowers said he wouldn’t violate Arizona law.

But his refusal to reject the 2020 election results earned him threats, Bowers testified. For instance, he described how various groups would come to his neighborhood to call him a pedophile.

"I do not want to be a winner by cheating," Bowers said. "I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to."

Bowers wasn't the only state official Trump and his allies called following Election Day 2020.

Just days before the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other members of his office spoke with Trump, his campaign attorneys and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

In an hour-long call, Trump urged Raffensperger to find "11,780 votes" in Georgia, a state Biden won in the election. "What I knew is that we didn't have any votes to find," Raffensperger testified to the House last year.

Raffensperger said both he and his family received threats in the wake of the election, and intruders broke into his daughter-in-law's home.

"I think sometimes moments require you to stand up and just take the shots," Raffensperger said. "You're doing your job."

Michigan attorney general: 'I was certain that there was a plot afoot'

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who charged 16 of Trump's fake electors, told USA TODAY she also had concerns about false claims of election fraud in her state.

After the election, Trump met with former Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and former Michigan House of Representatives Speaker Lee Chatfield in the Oval Office. The federal 2020 election indictment against Trump alleges he falsely claimed in the meeting there was an illegitimate dump of votes in Detroit, which Shirkey debunked.

"At some point, I became very, very nervous, and I was certain that there was a plot afoot to overturn the results of the election in Michigan," Nessel said.

Nessel explained that she contacted Democratic attorneys generals in the U.S. and asked to speak to them so she could share what was happening in Michigan.

Along with the "massive amounts of litigation," that emerged in the state, Nessel said social media posts and other statements from supporters of the former president made it appear state and local officials were the target of a pressure campaign.

Both local and state officials were receiving threats, which she said was "unsettling" and "not really a part of our democracy."....>

<....What it was like inside the room with Giuliani

When Giuliani, Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis and other witnesses appeared before the Michigan House Oversight Committee in December 2020, then Michigan State Rep. Cynthia Johnson told USA TODAY she thought it was silly.

“I felt stupid actually, because here I am. I'm 62 years old at the time… We shouldn't even be doing this. We are wasting tax paying dollars,” Johnson said.

"I was just so disgusted…The world is watching this," she added.

Johnson explained that while she was asking the witnesses questions, she was receiving racist threats on her computer. “As I'm sitting there as (a black woman) in the room, I'm feeling threatened…thank God for our sergeants that were there," Johnson said.

Then-Michigan State Rep. Beau Lafave told USA TODAY that he asked "probing questions" to each of the witnesses as they raised claims of election fraud.

"At the time of that meeting and up to the sixth of January and up until this moment, I cannot say and put my credibility on the line that Donald Trump won the state of Michigan," Lafave said. "I do not see the evidence of that."

The next day, Giuliani and Ellis appeared before the Georgia Senate with a similar plan in mind. Georgia State Sen. Elena Parent, who was present at the meeting, said in her closing remarks that it was "kind of like an Alice in Wonderland moment where you've gone down a rabbit hole."

Parent told USA TODAY that after the 2020 election, she became the subject of misogynist attacks and false claims from QAnon conspiracy theorists, including allegations that she would be tried for treason at Guantanamo Bay.

"It was terrifying and just...you have some guilt in having your family in the public eye and having their lives disrupted," Parent said.

'It has lingering effects on everything that I do'

Trump didn't publicly criticize Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley. But she still felt the effects of his and his allies' attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Philadelphia.

Deeley told USA TODAY she knew the city would be a target for Trump in the election when he falsely claimed during a September 2020 debate that poll watchers were being thrown out of its election centers.

The days after the election were "surreal" for Deeley. When she was alerted about a threat from a supporter of Trump from her office, Deeley had to have a physical security detail follow her around.

“It's important for people to know that this had a real effect on real people,” Deeley said. “It had a real effect on me. It had a real effect on my staff. It had residual effects on my family, on my social circle. Still today going forward it has lingering effects on everything that I do."

She added that Trump not only called out the results of the election, but also her personal integrity "because people that know you and know what your job is, they know that he's talking about you" and "that's a lot to take."

Seth Bluestein, her colleague, told USA TODAY he received an onslaught of threats and harassment after Pam Bondi, one of Trump's lawyers during his impeachment trial, named him during a press conference on ballot counting.

He said he looked into allegations about Philadelphia's election, but he did not find evidence of widespread fraud that would have impacted the 2020 election results.

"We're going to prepare for the 2024 election with the preparation required to make sure that... everyone, whether they're Democrat, Independent or Republican, should be committed to protecting election workers and accepting the legitimate results of the election," Bluestein said.

What does this mean for 2024?

If Trump loses the 2024 election, Matthew Gunning, a political science professor at Georgia Gwinnett College, said he fears Trump will double down on charges of fraud.

But one thing that would be different from the 2020 election is that Trump wouldn't have potential leverage he could exercise as the sitting president, Stefanie Lindquist, a political science and law professor at Arizona State University, told USA TODAY.

At the same time, experts are still seeing Trump make allegations of voter fraud, Anthony Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, told USA TODAY

Last week, Trump said on Truth Social that he planned to hold a news conference revealing a full report of alleged election irregularities in Georgia, though it was later canceled.

"That to me signals that at least Donald Trump and people in his orbit have not necessarily let go...of the 2020 election results," Kreis said.>

<Even if it ultimately falls apart, a complaint by Donald Trump's lawyers about the impropriety of second secret grand jury investigating the stolen documents at Mar-a-Lago could hand U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon another opening to delay the trial of the former president.

That is the opinion of one legal observer who spoke with the Daily Beast.

According to the report, the complaint filed by Trump's legal team that there is "potential grand jury abuse" which led to a Judge Cannon rebuke could present an issue for special counsel Jack Smith if the Trump-appointed judge chooses to drag it out or sanction him.

University of Missouri law school professor Frank Bowman admitted to the Beast, "She’s asking questions which are legitimate to be asked. Although I’ve been pretty critical of previous rulings by Judge Cannon in this case—which are so bad as to have been absolutely inexplicable—nonetheless, at least at this point, there’s nothing untoward in her asking for some explanation of what special counsel’s up to.”

Explaining the situation, the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery wrote, "There appears to be an ongoing grand jury—whose proceedings are secret—in the nation’s capital long after a Miami grand jury already issued an indictment in June. To defense lawyers representing Trump’s Diet Coke valet, Walt Nauta, the existence of an ongoing D.C. grand jury is like taking two bites of the same apple. And Trump’s defense lawyers are raising objections before Cannon," before adding, "it could also allow Cannon to take decisive steps to limit the DOJ’s ongoing investigation."

Legal expert Bowman explained, "It’s not going to result in a dismissal of the original indictment, whether evidence can be used and whether sanctions can be brought against the Special Counsel’s office.”

Bowman added that Smith may have some wiggle room when pressured by Cannon.

“He can operate in any federal district. Therefore, it’s not surprising or presumptively inappropriate for him to decide pieces of this investigation belong in District A while the center of gravity is in District B, and we’ll have a grand jury in A and B,” he elaborated. “He’s a different kind of bird than other US attorneys, which is one of the reasons why his method of proceeding here may seem unfamiliar.”

As an aside, Pagliery wrote, that the "latest court filing by defense lawyers is a head-scratcher, raising even more questions about what exactly federal investigators have discovered—and hinting at even more misbehavior by Trump and his Mar-a-Lago employees," before adding, "It’s clear Trump’s lawyers want the judge to shut down this other grand jury before it’s too late—and before it uncovers anything else.">

<Donald Trump is severely damaging the credibility of his legal team by having them file motions that not only have no chance of succeeding but that test the patience of the judges hearing them, according to two former DOJ officials.

Writing for the Bulwark, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut and former associate deputy attorney general Frederick Baron explained that Trump's insistence that his lawyers ask Judge Tanya Chutkan to move his federal election interference trial to 2026 would have a long-term impact on how she conducts his case.

And not in a way that favors the former president.

According to the two legal experts, the one thing that lawyers carry into the courtroom is their credibility, and making unreasonable or frivolous motions can cause irreparable harm when it comes to future rulings.

"Trump’s proposal on the all-important trial date sends an unintended message: that Trump is pressing his lawyers to take legal positions so extreme that they will be entirely disregarded," they wrote before adding, "Credibility with judges is the coin of the realm for trial lawyers. Squander it early and it’s hard to retrieve."

"Trump’s past pattern is that his lawyers lose credibility by kowtowing to his absurd, uninformed demands. Then he tosses them like bad pennies. Sooner or later, it’s tough attracting the gold standard in the legal profession," they continued before stating Chutkan will likely not take the extension request seriously.

"An experienced judge like Chutkan has seen many teams of lawyers prepare competently for trial in more legally and factually complex cases involving databases larger than in Trump’s case — and do it in far less time than Trump has requested," they explained.

"Trump’s laughable 2026 trial date proposal will lose Judge Chutkan’s trust for his lawyers faster than a bullet fired at someone standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue."

They then added, "Though criminal trials often take priority over civil trials, Judge Chutkan is likely to allow time for those other short trials to finish, and then provide a brief buffer period for Trump to complete preparation for the conspiracy and obstruction trial in her court. Look for a spring 2024 trial date to be set.">

<Donald Trump's former chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows, has asked a judge to dismiss the new indictment against him, arguing that he was just doing his job and should be immune from the criminal charges.

A grand jury in Atlanta brought the indictment against Meadows last week, accusing him of participating in a racketeering enterprise that sought to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election. Meadows is one of 19 people, including Trump, named as a defendant in the case.

Meadows pressured Georgia state officials to take steps that would help Trump win the state's presidential election in 2020, even though he lost, the indictment from the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says.

He also personally went to Georgia to watch a non-public vote audit, planned to delay Congress's vote certification on January 6, 2021, attended calls where Trump pressured Georgia officials to change election results, and arranged meetings with fake electors — some of whom are also co-defendants in the case — who plotted to falsely declare Trump the true winner of the 2020 election in several states, the indictment says.

A day after the criminal charges were filed against Meadows, his attorneys moved to bring the case to federal court, rather than have the charges considered in a state-level court.

The case was assigned to US District Judge Steve C. Jones, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. Jones hasn't yet decided whether to grant the move, but Meadows's lawyers asked the judge to dismiss the case anyway in a Monday filing.

The new motion from Meadows's lawyers argues he's protected by the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, which historically shields federal employees against interference from state officials.

"The State's prosecution of Mr. Meadows threatens the important federal interest in providing the President of the United States with close, confidential advice and assistance, firmly entrenched in federal law for nearly 100 years," Meadows' lawyers wrote, citing a law review paper written by Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan.

As the US president's chief of staff, Meadows served in an "advice-and-assist function" whose conduct was part of "his official duties and the federal policy underlying them," his lawyers wrote. Even if state officials like Willis deem his activities as breaking state law, they're consistent with federal law and therefore protected, according to his lawyers.

Meadows's lawyers also point out that Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith recently brought an indictment against Trump over his efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, but did not charge Meadows. It's a sign, they argue, that Meadows is protected by the Constitution's supremacy clause.

"Indeed, neither the State of Georgia in its indictment, nor the United States in its recently charged case involving overlapping conduct, United States v. Trump, has accused Mr. Meadows of violating federal law," they wrote. "Even if they had, moreover, a federal official does not lose Supremacy Clause immunity based on a violation of federal law where the violation was not clear and willful.">

<Special counsel Jack Smith has gotten used to moving quickly. It was just under nine months after he was appointed as a special counsel in November that he indicted former President Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Now he’d like to keep the momentum going and has proposed that a trial begin Jan. 2, a little over four months from now.

On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers proposed that the trial begin in April. April 2026, that is. That’s right, Trump is seeking to delay Smith’s proposed start of the trial by more than two years. It’s the most audacious bid to delay legal proceedings that we’ve ever seen from Trump — and that’s really saying something, given that, for decades, his primary legal strategy has been to stall. It’s one thing to say on television that the defense should get an equal amount of time to prepare as the prosecution has spent investigating, but to see such nonsense in a legal filing is truly shocking. As a whole, the filing shows how deeply unserious Trump’s team is and the lack of substantive arguments it has.

“The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche writes in the filing submitted to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. The reasons he lists can be boiled down to a few key points: The government had more time to prepare and more lawyers working the case; the case is massive, with millions of pages of documents; it’s a case with no historic precedence; and Trump has a lot of other trials to get through.

The most potentially salient argument Blanche presents is the amount of material Trump’s team will have to review. Smith’s office has already provided roughly 11.5 million pages worth of documents to Trump, and there’s audio-visual material on top of that.

But Trump’s team couldn’t even make that point without sounding ridiculously dramatic. The filing claims that “even assuming we could begin reviewing the documents today, we would need to proceed at a pace of 99,762 pages per day to finish the government’s initial production by its proposed date for jury selection. That is the entirety of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day, every day, from now until jury selection.”

Somebody on Trump’s team decided to helpfully include a citation: “LEO TOLSTOY, WAR AND PEACE (Vintage Classics Ed., Dec. 2008).” Honestly, though, that citation happens to be more relevant than other citations we’ve previously seen from Trump attorneys. Blanche is right that it would take a very long time to get through all of this material — but asking for a trial that far in the future is still preposterous....>

<.....From there, the arguments get much less convincing. The idea that Smith’s office is too well staffed and funded to make for a fair trial may be popular among congressional Republicans, but it will probably carry little weight here. For one, how many cases are there in which the defendant is better resourced than the government? If that were a valid reason to delay a trial, almost every trial would be delayed.

Also, this is one of the rare cases in which the defendant is a literal billionaire; that is, he has more resources than many defendants could ever dream of having. Theoretically, Trump could easily afford to pay a whole phalanx of lawyers to work this case for him, even if he weren’t busy draining his political committees dry to avoid having to dip into his own pockets. But it’s not Smith’s fault that Trump’s history of either not paying his lawyers or refusing to take their advice has left him scraping the bottom of the barrel for representation.

Meanwhile, the filing tries to turn the number of pending cases against Trump into an advantage. Because as things stand, Trump is juggling four criminal cases, two at the federal level and one each in New York and Georgia, as well as a second defamation suit from writer E. Jean Carroll in federal court in New York and a major civil case against his business in New York. The election interference case would go first among the criminal cases under Smith’s proposed trial schedule, so of course that means the trial should be pushed back until after all of the others, Blanche argues.

But even U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who has been more receptive to Trump’s lawyers’ reasoning than some judges might be, rejected a proposal to move the federal Mar-a-Lago documents case to after the 2024 election. Cannon instead ordered in July that the trial will take place in May. It seems unlikely that Chutkan will be more inclined to grant an even lengthier delay.

It’s true that, as Blanche wrote, “no president has ever been charged with a crime for conduct committed while in office” and that “no major party presidential candidate has ever been charged while in the middle of a campaign.” It may even be the case, as he argues, that “these and numerous other issues will be questions of first impression, requiring significant time for the parties to consider and brief, and for the Court to resolve.”

But the novelty of Trump’s actions and his status as a candidate are all the more reason to move forward with this case quickly. Even if Blanche doesn’t seriously expect to have the trial pushed back two years, it is such an extreme opening bid that the goal may be to make even a midway point between the two dates seem reasonable, as with the Mar-a-Lago case. That would, of course, still push the trial start date into the next presidential term, leaving the door open for a victorious Trump to have whichever attorney general he appoints dismiss the case altogether or to pardon himself.

Chutkan must be aware of this reasoning from Trump’s legal team and that he’s running to reclaim an office prosecutors say he attempted to hold in contravention of multiple U.S. laws. Giving him the opportunity to do so again can’t feasibly be considered to be in the national interest.

My prediction is that this trial may pushed back to July, at the latest, after the Mar-a-Lago case has concluded. That would still be ahead of the Republican National Convention, months before Election Day and lots more time than Trump’s team needs to prepare what is looking like a very thin defense.>

<Republicans on the Supreme Court are, it appears, planning to gut most of America’s regulatory agencies, in what could be the most consequential re-write of the protective “deep state” since it was largely created during the New Deal in the 1930s.

If they pull it off, they could destroy the ability of:

— the EPA to regulate pollutants,

— the USDA to keep our food supply safe,

— the FDA to oversee drugs going onto the market,

— OSHA to protect workers,

— the CPSC to keep dangerous toys and consumer products off the market,

— the FTC to regulate monopolies,

— the DOT to come up with highway and automobile safety standards,

— the ATF to regulate guns,

— the Interior Department to regulate drilling and mining on federal lands,

— the Forest Service to protect our woodlands and rivers,

— and the Department of Labor to protect workers’ rights.

Among other things on the rightwing billionaire wish list: virtually the entirety of America’s ability to protect its citizens from corporate predation rests on what’s called the Chevron deference (more on that in a moment), which the Court appears prepared to overturn with a case they just accepted this year.

Declared Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants to eliminate the Department of Education “on day one” if he’s elected president. If the Supreme Court has its way, he wouldn’t have to bother. It’ll become impotent.

Far-right conservatives and libertarians have been working for this destruction of agencies — the ultimate in deregulation — ever since the first regulatory agencies came into being with the 1906 creation of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, a response to Upton Sinclair’s bestselling horror story published that year (The Jungle) about American slaughterhouses and meat-packing operations.

Gutting these agencies is what Steve Bannon meant when Trump brought him into the White House and he said one of the main goals of that administration was to “deconstruct the administrative state.” If there’s any coherent explanation of the phrase “deep state” as used by Republicans, it’s our nation’s regulatory agencies.

The modern effort to destroy or at least neuter America’s protective agencies began when Ronald Reagan put Anne Gorsuch in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

She directed the agency to dial back restrictions on expansion of factories and other operations that were already polluting the atmosphere. That provoked a challenge to the Supreme Court, Natural Resources Defense Council, v. Gorsuch, where the Court overruled the Reagan administration.

Gorsuch nonetheless continued her efforts to gut the EPA. In her first year heading the agency, there was a 79 percent decline in enforcement cases, and a 69 percent drop in cases the EPA referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. She pushed a 25 percent cut in her own agency’s funding into Reagan’s first budget proposal.

It took Congress years to overturn her cuts to the Clean Air Act “on everything from automobiles to furniture manufacturers,” according to Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.

She took a meat axe to President Carter’s renewable energy programs and “set solar back a decade” according to Clapp.

Gorsuch finally resigned her office to avoid prosecution for what Newsweek described as “a nasty scandal involving political manipulation, [Super]fund mismanagement, perjury, and destruction of subpoenaed documents, among other things.”

Her son, Neil Gorsuch, was devastated by his mother’s resignation. In her memoir Are You Tough Enough? she tells the story of how Neil confronted her when she resigned:

“Neil,” she wrote, “got very upset. Halfway through Georgetown prep and smart as a whip, Neil knew from the beginning the seriousness of my problems. He also had an unerring sense of fairness, as do so many people his age.

“‘You should never have resigned,’ he said firmly. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president [Reagan] ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?’

“He was really upset,” she added.

Now, it appears, her son is preparing his revenge.

<.....Here’s how regulatory law — using the example of the EPA and CO2 — is supposed to work (in super-simplified form):

1. Congress passes a law that says, for example, that the Environmental Protection Agency should limit the damage that pollutants in the environment cause to the planet. Congress (the Constitution’s Article I branch of government) defines the broad goal of the legislation, but the Executive Branch (Article II, which encompasses the EPA and other regulatory agencies) has the responsibility to carry it out.

2. The EPA, part of that Executive Branch and answering both to the law and the President, then convenes panels of experts. They spend a year or more doing an exhaustive, deep dive into the science, coming up with dozens or even hundreds of suggestions to limit atmospheric CO2, ranging from rules on how much emission cars can expel to drilling and refining processes that may leak CO2 or methane (which degrades into CO2), etc.

3. The experts’ suggestions are then run past a panel of rule-making bureaucrats and hired-gun rule-making experts for the EPA to decide what the standards should be. They take into consideration the current abilities of industry and the costs versus the benefits of various rules, among other things.

4. After they’ve come up with those tentative regulations, they submit them for public review and hearings. When that process is done and a consensus is achieved, they make them into official EPA rules, publish them, enforce them, and the CO2 emissions begin to drop.

This is how it worked until last year, a process that simply comports with common sense, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 when they established what’s called the “Chevron deference” to legitimize and defend our regulatory agencies.

That doctrine — established by the Supreme Court and reflecting a century of the will of Congress and presidents of both parties who signed regulatory agencies into existence — says that when a regulatory agency does its due diligence and determines reasonable rules for a substance or behavior they have the legal authority to regulate, the courts should defer to the agency.

Congress passes laws that empower regulatory agencies to solve problems, the agencies figure out how to do that and put the rules into place, and the solutions get enforced by the agencies. And when somebody sues to overturn the rules, if the courts determine they were arrived at through a reasonable process without corruption, those rules stand.

Then came a group of rightwing Supreme Court justices — including Neil Gorsuch — who overturned rules made by the EPA about CO2 emissions from power plants in their June, 2022 West Virginia v EPA decision.

Their rationale was that because the legislation that created the EPA doesn’t specifically mention “regulating CO2,” the agency lacks that power. And now it has lost that power, the result of that West Virginia v EPA decision last year.

The coal-, oil-, and natural-gas-fired power plant industry has been popping champagne corks for almost a year now, as CO2 levels continue to increase along with the temperature of our planet.

In addition to Gorsuch, the Court’s decision-makers in West Virginia v EPA included Amy Coney Barrett whose father was a lawyer for Shell Oil for decades, and John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh who are all on the Court in part because of support from a network funded by fossil fuel billionaires and their industry (among others).

And, of course, Clarence “on the take” Thomas, who supported the Chevron deference 15 years ago but in 2020 wrote:

“Chevron compels judges to abdicate the judicial power without constitutional sanction. … Chevron also gives federal agencies unconstitutional power.”

Giving us a clue to how this will probably go down, all six Republicans on the Court voted to gut the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2; all 3 Democratic nominees opposed the decision.

Elena Kagan wrote that the Court:

“[D]oes not have a clue about how to address climate change...yet it appoints itself, instead of congress or the expert agency...the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening."

Their ruling was, essentially, that all of that research into the specifics of anticipated regulations — all those hundreds of scientists, millions of public comments, and hundreds of thousands of science-hours invested in understanding problems and coming up with workable solutions — must be done by Congress rather than administrative regulatory agencies.

As if Congress had the time and staff. As if Congress was stocked with scientific experts, a much larger budget, and had millions of hours a year for hearings. As if Republicans in the pockets of fossil fuel billionaires wouldn’t block any congressional action even if it did....>

<....Gorsuch, et al, succeeded in the West Virginia v EPA case, but it was narrowly focused on CO2.

In the upcoming case that they accepted just this month, however, the Court is explicitly preparing to expand that victory by blowing the entire Chevron deference out of the water, thus ending or severely limiting most protective government regulations in America and opening the door to court challenges to every regulatory agency listed at the open of this article (and more).

They’re saying, essentially, that the EPA (and any other regulatory agency) can’t do all the steps listed above: instead, that detailed and time-consuming analysis of a problem, developing specific solutions, and writing specific rules has to be done, they say, by Congress itself.

Specifically, this case the Court just accepted has to do with whether or not fishermen should have to pay fees that help cover the cost of the agency that regulates them. It’s called Loper Bright Enterprises v Gina Raimondo.

But when you look at the briefs being filed by billionaire- and corporate-funded rightwing groups like the CATO Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Pacific Legal Foundation, Independent Women’s Law Center, Southeastern Legal Foundation, Christian Employer’s Alliance, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Advancing American Freedom, and the Buckeye Institute, you find the real goal of this litigation.

CATO, for example, writes:

“[I]t is now clear that Chevron deference is unconstitutional and ahistorical. Over the past forty years and counting, it has wreaked havoc in the lower courts upon people and businesses.”

Competitive Enterprise writes of the National Marine Fisheries Service:

“The agency lacks inherent legislative power: it may only use the powers that Congress gives it. … Only Congress can decide if a power given to it by the Constitution should be exercised. … The agency’s attempt to exercise this never-assigned power not only goes beyond the authority Congress gave it; it goes beyond any authority that Congress could legitimately give it.”

Pacific Legal Foundation cuts right to the heart of the ability of agencies to regulate anything, saying the case turns on:

“Whether the Court should overrule Chevron…”

The Buckeye Institute writes they’re submitting their amicus brief to the Court:

“[T]o speak on behalf of the thousands of small businesses concerned with agency aggrandizement of power through Chevron deference…”

On the side of you, me, and most other average Americans who just want clean air and water, safe drugs and cars, and reasonable protections in the workplace, the Biden administration has stepped up....>

<.....In defense of America’s regulatory agencies, the federal government’s brief filed with the Court lays out what’s at stake:

“Petitioners bear an especially heavy burden in asking this Court to overrule Chevron, which stands at the head of 'a long line of precedents’ reaching back decades. The Court in Chevron described its approach not as an innovation, but as the application of “well-settled principles” concerning the respective roles of agencies and courts in resolving statutory ambiguities.

Federal courts have invoked Chevron in thousands of reported decisions, and Congress has repeatedly legislated against its backdrop. Regulated entities and others routinely rely on agency interpretations that courts have upheld under the Chevron framework.

By centralizing interpretive decisions in agencies supervised by the President, Chevron also promotes political accountability, national uniformity and predictability, and it respects the expertise agencies can bring to bear in ad- ministering complex statutory schemes.

Petitioners offer no persuasive ‘special justification’ for overruling Chevron, let alone the type of ‘particularly special justification’ that would be required to overturn such a deeply ingrained part of administrative law.

Petitioners principally contend that Chevron improperly transfers the authority to ‘say what the law is’ from the Judicial Branch to the Executive Branch. But this Court has explained that the Chevron framework rests on a presumption that ‘a statute’s ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation from Congress to the agency to fill in the statutory gaps."

This could be the big enchilada, the case that fundamentally transforms America and American government from a modern, well-functioning nation into a third-world backwater where massive corporations and the billionaires they made rich, instead of We the People through elected representatives, set the rules. It’s corporate America’s wet dream.

It could fulfill Bannon’s and Trump’s promise to dismantle — or at least eviscerate — most of America’s regulatory agencies, leaving us all subject to the tender mercies of the country’s CEOs.

Now that the announcement has been made, expect this topic to go quiet until arguments begin this fall and a decision is announced, probably next spring. But you may want to hang onto this note for future reference, because it will roar back one day soon.

And knowing what’s coming down the road — and why, and from whom — is pretty important for those concerned with the future of our country and our children’s safety.>

<As his legal peril intensifies, so do Donald Trump’s legal fees. Most of these lawyer charges have been paid by draining funds from his political action committee (PAC), Save America, and shifting funds from Trump-supporting Super PACs.

Save America, the leadership PAC founded by former President Donald Trump, has less than $4 million cash on hand, after siphoning over $101 million to pay legal fees for Trump and his allies since the beginning of 2022, reports the New York Times.

Mid-year tax filings for PACs provide awareness about presidential campaign funding and how those funds are being used. In Save America’s case, money that could be going to necessary campaign needs or political work, is being spent overwhelmingly on the former president’s and his associates’ pending legal cases.

According to its mid-year Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing, the Save America PAC has spent approximately $25 million in the first half of 2023, $21.6 million of that went to legal fees.

A PAC is a tax-exempt, 527 political organization created to raise and spend money to elect and defeat candidates. PACs have donation limits for individuals ($5,000 per year) and can’t accept donations from corporate or labor union treasuries.

PACS differ from Super PACs, which can gather unlimited funds from people, corporations, unions and other PACs to finance campaign expenditures independently. They can help finance travel and events and often pay for advertising to support a candidate or cause (or to oppose another candidate) but can’t coordinate directly with candidates or contribute money to political parties or campaigns.

The pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., has sent back $12.25 million of the $13.1 million it raised in 2023 to Save America. “The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns,” claims The New York Times.

Although donors would want to know where their contributions are being spent, PACs can use their wealth in any legal way they see fit, including paying for the litigation costs of their candidate. And just like any other organization or entity, political action committees can have negative funds.

PACs are subject to financial ups and downs like businesses or individuals. A negative fund balance indicates that the PAC owes more money than it currently has on hand. This situation can arise for various reasons, such as overspending, insufficient fundraising, unexpected expenses, or financial mismanagement.

However, it’s important to note that PACs, like all political organizations, are subject to financial regulations and reporting requirements. They are required to disclose their financial activities regularly to the appropriate regulatory agencies, such as the FEC. If not appropriately addressed, negative fund balances and financial issues can lead to regulatory scrutiny and potential penalties.

While the drop in fundraising by the Save America PAC might suggest that the small-dollar donor operation that has helped the former president and his allies could be running out of steam, experience tells us that Trump will continue to bet on his legal troubles supplying big donations from his supporters.>

<It may come as a shock to China’s leaders but the nostrums of Marxism-Leninism are not able to buck the realities of capitalist markets. During the pandemic and its aftermath some economists suggested centrally planned autocracies were in a better position to direct economic recovery.

Beijing kept Covid controls in place far longer than Western countries and after a sudden burst of economic activity when they were lifted, China is now struggling – not with inflation seen elsewhere, but deflation. In July, consumer prices fell 0.3 per cent.

When prices fall over an extended period, consumers reduce spending and companies cut back on production, which in turn results in layoffs and lower salaries. China’s economy relies on domestic consumption, not least when other countries are looking to buy less from its factories amid the uncertain global economic outlook and geopolitical tensions.

A low birth rate, high local government debt, a flagging real estate market and record youth unemployment are all holding down growth. It is a phenomenon experienced in Japan for the past 30 years after decades of soaring economic growth.

The geopolitical consequences are hard to discern. Some fear Beijing will seek to distract the population by adventurism abroad. Others sense a threat to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), especially as many people are at risk from a collapsing property market.

George Magnus, a China expert, says Beijing needs to end its obsession with state-led industrial policy and let the market determine the prices of capital, land and labour. That would indeed be a great leap forward for the CCP.>

<For a bloc that is often seen as a counterweight to the Western-led international order, the BRICS has a somewhat awkward origin story. In 2001, Jim O’Neill, a British economist at U.S. megafirm Goldman Sachs, came up with the acronym “BRIC” — Brazil, Russia, India and China — to capture the collective power of these major economies on the world stage. No matter their differences in history, geography and political systems, the four nations represented more than a third of the world’s population and a growing proportion of global GDP.

The term caught on, morphing from Western marketing jargon into a genuine geopolitical project. The first BRIC summit involving all four nations was held in Russia in 2009. By 2011, South Africa was a full-fledged member, too, adding the S in BRICS. But the bloc in the past decade has muddled along. Its constituent economies have performed unevenly, and its member states have occasionally locked horns, with India and China violently skirmishing along their rugged, contested border.

In a world of myriad regional blocs and political groupings, the BRICS seemed one of its more quixotic. What were its shared interests? Whose agenda did it serve? The heft of China’s economy obscured the woes afflicting some of the other BRICS states. The bloc’s only tangible accomplishment was the launching of an international development finance arm, headquartered in Shanghai.

“If it weren’t for China — and India, to some degree — there wouldn’t be much of a BRIC story to tell,” O’Neill wrote in 2021. “Beyond creating the BRICS Bank, now known as the New Development Bank, it is difficult to see what the group has done other than meet annually.”

China and Russia draw closer, but how close?

This week’s annual summit, held in Johannesburg, may be another talk shop, but unlike many of its predecessors, it brims with intrigue and interesting storylines. The war in Ukraine will shadow the proceedings. Russian President Vladimir Putin, dogged by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, is the only BRICS leader who will not be in attendance (he is set to speak virtually and be represented in person by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov). Civil-society groups, including South Africa’s branch of Amnesty International, are expected to protest outside the summit venue, calling for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the Kremlin’s crackdown on antiwar dissent at home.

The other BRICS nations have offered little to no protest of the Kremlin’s decision to rush to war. China and India stepped up purchases from Russia as Western sanctions started to bite. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva suggested that the West was at least partially to blame for the conflict and has offered a vague proposal to help forge a truce between Kyiv and Moscow. South Africa’s government equivocated, too, refusing to outright condemn Putin’s regime while bemoaning the war’s ripple effects on supply chains critical to African societies.

In Johannesburg, a big topic of conversation will be the outsize influence of the U.S. dollar in the global economy. Talk of “de-dollarization” is rife among exponents of the BRICS, even though not formally on the summit’s agenda. Some have floated a rival BRICS-backed currency to challenge the greenback’s supremacy. But the invention of a new BRICS currency is wildly ambitious — and probably unfeasible — and the summit is expected to focus instead on options to expand the use of local currencies in trade between bloc members. Dollar-strapped countries like Argentina have already started dealing in the Chinese yuan in certain transactions.

“Why does Brazil need the dollar to trade with China or Argentina? We can trade in our currency,” Lula told reporters recently, before casting the BRICS bank as a more just potential actor on the world stage than U.S.-led institutions like the International Monetary Fund. “The BRICS bank must be effective and more generous than the IMF,” he said. “Which is to say, the bank exists to help save countries and not to help sink countries, which is what the IMF does many times.”

Putin, facing war crimes arrest, will skip BRICS summit in S. Africa

For Beijing, the BRICS summit carries a hard geopolitical edge. Over the weekend, President Biden hosted his Japanese and South Korean counterparts at Camp David, marking a deepening tripartite alliance on China’s doorstep — what an editorial in China’s state-run Xinhua described as the United States’ “desperate bid to salvage its hegemonic power.” In response, Chinese President Xi Jinping is making only his second foreign trip of the year to South Africa, where he’ll tout the BRICS bloc — and China’s key role within it — as an example of a different world order....>

<....Chinese officials are keen on expanding the bloc to a possibly far more unwieldy acronym, with countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, Argentina and Saudi Arabia all knocking on the door. Leaders from more than 60 countries are expected to be in attendance at the summit. For China, an expanding bloc would present a vehicle for its more “inclusive” worldview. Speaking in Beijing’s talking points, China’s ambassador to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong, said the bloc was “an important platform for cooperation among emerging and developing nations” and “the backbone of international fairness and justice.”

Another Chinese official, speaking anonymously to the Financial Times, said that “if we expand BRICS to account for a similar portion of world GDP as the [Group of Seven major economies], then our collective voice in the world will grow stronger.”

The larger objective, even as China grapples with its own faltering economy, seems clear: “Xi Jinping is not trying to out-compete America in the existing liberal international order dominated by the U.S.,” Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, told CNN. “His long-term goal is to change the world order into a Sino-centric one.”

China hoped Fiji would be a template for the Pacific. Its plan backfired. Other BRICS members are keen not to be pulled into the rivalries of bloc geopolitics. “While some of our detractors prefer overt support for their political and ideological choices, we will not be drawn into a contest between global powers,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a State of the Nation address, in remarks ostensibly directed at Western countries in NATO. “We have resisted pressure to align ourselves with any one of the global powers or with influential blocs of nations.”

“Non-alignment” may have been in vogue during the Cold War for many countries in the Global South, but it’s a trickier proposition in an age when China’s political and economic footprint has steadily expanded across the developing world. “Given the aims of the C in BRICS, neither the B, R, I or S nor other countries that have expressed an interest in joining, such as Indonesia, can really be enthusiastic about becoming Beijing’s vassals just to teach Washington a lesson,” wrote Bloomberg Opinion columnist Andreas Kluth. “That’s one reason why the forum will struggle to project soft power, much less hard.”

Other analysts argue that’s no reason to doubt the relevance of the gathering. “For the BRICS to remain viable and make an increasing impact, it is not necessary that its core members be close friends but that they see a common interest,” wrote Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute, a Washington think tank. “Forming a coalition with Russia and China gives Global South states leverage in their dealings with the US-led West. It also helps generate a more multipolar world, long a goal of the South’s middle powers.”>

<A key witness in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case has retracted their "false testimony" after switching lawyers, special counsel Jack Smith’s team contends in court filings obtained by Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

The witness is identified as “Employee 4” in Smith’s legal team’s notification to Judge Aileen Cannon.

“Chief Judge Boasberg made available independent counsel (the First Assistant in the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of Columbia) to provide advice to Trump Employee 4 regarding potential conflicts. On July 5, 2023, Trump Employee informed Chief Judge Boasberg that he no longer wished to be represented by Mr. Woodward and that, going forward, he wished to be represented by the First Assistant Federal Defender.”

The witness since retaining new counsel has provided evidence to prosecutors implicating Donald Trump along with his aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Olivera, the filing contends.

“Immediately after receiving new counsel, Trump Employee 4 retracted his prior false testimony and provided information that implicated Nauta, De Oliveira and Trump in efforts to delete security camera footage, as set forth in the superseding indictment,” the court filings said.>

<At some point last week, Donald Trump’s lawyers got through to him. One day after a Georgia grand jury indicted him for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the former president announced on Tuesday that he would hold a press conference the following week to rebut the charges. The plan didn’t last for long. By Thursday, the whole thing was nixed. "My lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

In other words, Trump’s attorneys seemingly convinced him of one of his most sacred rights as a criminal defendant: Mr. President, you have the right to remain silent.

But while his legal team may have dodged a bullet, for now, the problem isn’t going away. Trump is famous for his impromptu and incendiary pronouncements, whether through his rambling speeches or his social media tirades. Over the course of a long and arduous campaign, he will have ample opportunity to pontificate on his many prosecutions, meaning his lawyers, in all likelihood, won’t be able to protect Trump from himself for long. “No one has been able to manage Donald Trump, including Donald Trump,” says Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP strategist. “The effort to do so is virtually hopeless. I can't imagine being his defense attorney in one of these trials. You'd have to drink a case of Maalox every morning just to get through the day.”

Still, Trump has proven himself adept at turning scandal into political advantage. His mastery of survival and showmanship could help him clinch the Republican nomination—with each indictment, he has soared only further in the polls—but it also comes with a distinctive risk, as Trump’s comments could potentially be used against him in court.

“I think that the statements he's making can, and likely will do, substantial damage to him,” says Norm Eisen, who served as counsel for House Democrats on Trump’s first impeachment. “Additional statements can incriminate you. They can be the basis of worsening existing charges or superseding charges. They can be utilized as admissions while the trial is being prosecuted, whether or not Trump testifies. They run the risk of witness intimidation or harassment, which violate the terms of release for federal and state law.”

Attorneys for Special Counsel Jack Smith have already alerted the judge overseeing the federal election subversion case against Trump about a Truth Social post that appeared to threaten prospective witnesses. “If you come after me, I’m coming after you,” Trump wrote in all caps. While Trump’s campaign insisted the post was meant as a warning to the former President’s political enemies, it was written in a way that left his intent open to interpretation. That kind of language from Trump could also become a problem for him in Georgia, where the conditions of a new $200,000 bond agreement stipulate that he refrain from intimidating a witness or co-defendant, including on social media.

It’s a dynamic that reveals the double-edged nature of Trump’s ploy to consolidate his political and legal strategies. “I think they're going to have a field day, because any prosecutor would tell you there are few things more powerful than using a defendant’s own statements in court,” says Temidayo Aganga-Williams, a former federal prosecutor who was a staff member on the Jan. 6 Committee. “You would tell jurors to act like this is any other person—if this were your son, your brother, your co-worker.”....>

<.....Trump has cast the four separate indictments against him as a partisan witch-hunt to stop him from reclaiming the White House. In both the federal and Georgia cases that allege he knowingly spread lies of election fraud to stay in power, Trump’s attorneys have argued that he was acting within his First Amendment rights to challenge the election outcome. They also insist that Trump believed his own claims and was therefore not operating with criminal intent.

But while his lawyers are trying to exonerate him in court, his campaign has been using his predicament to capitalize on the campaign trail, sending out a stream of fundraising blasts after each arraignment and selling merchandise with fake Trump mug shots. The tactic has worked; the former President is currently leading the GOP field by 30-to-40 points in most surveys. “President Trump is dominating every single poll—both nationally and statewide—and his numbers keep going up,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, tells TIME. “The latest polls conducted after the last indictment show the American people are standing firmly with him against out-of-control Democrats.”

Trump’s grip on the Republican base is one reason why most of his opponents haven’t attacked him over his legal woes. Instead, they seem to have made a calculation that the myriad prosecutors bringing criminal charges against Trump in the middle of an election year present the greatest threat to his Oval Office aspirations. A looming question that will be hanging over the first GOP primary debate Wednesday night is whether any of these cases will be resolved before voters head to the polls next year.

Smith has requested the election case go to trial in January, while the federal judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents case has already set a trial date for May 2024. Former prosecutors suspect that Smith is trying to move these cases along swiftly to avoid the possibility that Trump could put an end to them should he win the election, either by attempting to pardon himself or appointing an attorney general to squash the matter altogether. The Justice Department’s long-standing policy of avoiding even the appearance of interfering in an election adds another level of urgency to bring these cases to a conclusion.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney, has more latitude. As a state prosecutor, she operates independently of the federal government, which allows her to keep prosecuting Trump even if he’s the sitting President of the United States. That helps to explain why she’s pursuing a more sprawling and complicated case, bringing racketeering charges against Trump and 18 allies with whom he allegedly conspired to nullify Joe Biden’s election victory. It may well be another reason why Trump’s lawyers tried to put the kibosh on his planned press conference, in which he was expected to propagate the disproven election fraud claims that sit at the heart of the Georgia indictment.

“In my more than three decades principally acting as a criminal defense lawyer,” Eisen says, “the first instruction I gave my client at the very first meeting was: Shut up about this case. Do not talk to anyone. You do not know how that is going to come back to harm you.”>

<Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is investigating judicial activist Leonard Leo and his network of nonprofit groups, according to a person with direct knowledge of the probe.

The scope of the investigation is unclear. But it comes after POLITICO reported in March that one of Leo’s nonprofits — registered as a charity — paid his for-profit company tens of millions of dollars in the two years since he joined the company. A few weeks later, a progressive watchdog group filed a complaint with the D.C. attorney general and the IRS requesting a probe into what services were provided and whether Leo was in violation of laws against using charities for personal enrichment.

David B. Rivkin Jr., an attorney for the parties in the investigation, said in a statement that the complaint “is sloppy, deceptive and legally flawed and we are addressing this fully with the DC Attorney General’s office.”

The news of the investigation comes as the nonprofit that was a subject of the complaint quietly relocated in recent weeks from the capital area to Texas, according to paperwork filed in Virginia and Texas. For nearly 20 years the nonprofit, now known as The 85 Fund, had been incorporated in Virginia.

Gabe Shoglow-Rubenstein, Schwalb’s communications director, declined to confirm or deny the existence of the probe, including whether the attorney general took any action in response to the complaint.

Schwalb, who took office in January, has a background in tax law and served as a trial attorney in the tax division of the Department of Justice under President Bill Clinton.

Best known as Donald Trump’s White House “court whisperer,” Leo played a behind-the-scenes role in the nominations of all three of the former president’s Supreme Court justices and promoted them through his multi-billion-dollar network of nonprofits. Trump chose his three Supreme Court picks, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, from a list drawn up by Leo. More recently, Leo was the beneficiary of a $1.6 billion contribution, believed to be the biggest political donation in U.S. history.

He is also the co-chair of the Federalist Society, the academic arm of the conservative legal movement, for which he worked in various capacities for decades while building his donor base.

While Leo grants few interviews, in mid-July he was featured in a two-part podcast with the Maine Wire, a conservative news organization. Asked why he’s become a “lightening rod for criticism,” Leo cited his commitment to “defend the Constitution” and spoke about the “long history” of dark money in U.S. politics.

“It’s not to hide in the shadows,” he said. “It’s because we want ideas judged by their own moral and intellectual force.”

He did not address any allegations of potential misuse of nonprofit tax law.

Real estate and other public records illustrate that the lifestyle of Leo and a handful of his allies took a lavish turn in the course of the making of the current ultraconservative court, beginning in 2016, the year he was tapped as an unpaid adviser to Trump. Citing the report, a progressive watchdog group called on the IRS and D.C. Attorney General a few weeks later to investigate whether the groups may be violating their tax-exempt status by “siphoning” assets or income for personal use.

Anthony Burke, a public affairs specialist with the IRS, declined to comment. “Under the federal tax law, federal employees cannot disclose tax return information,” he said.

The Leo-aligned nonprofit The 85 Fund — which is registered as a tax-exempt charity — paid tens of millions of dollars to a public relations firm in Virginia which he co-chairs in the two years since he joined the firm, known as CRC Advisors.

The watchdog complaint alleges the total amount of money that flowed from Leo-aligned nonprofits to his for-profit firms was $73 million over six years beginning in 2016....>