Crooked Media - What A Day: Let well enough Cipollone

Disgraced former president Donald Trump is back on his bullshit, not that he was ever off it.
 

• The Justice Department has rebuffed a Trump/GOP effort to sabotage the investigation of the classified documents he stole by demanding DOJ publish the FBI affidavit supporting the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. The department stipulated that the investigation “implicates highly classified material,” and releasing the document would endanger witnesses and compromise the ongoing inquiry generally. Officials also confirmed that Trump’s passports have been returned to him and even arranged for them to be returned before Trump whined on his social media platform that FBI agents had “stolen” them. Imagine taking sensitive documents without asking!
   

• Trump famously did not read his Presidential Daily Brief while in office, relying instead on aides to prepare colorful charts and graphics for him to follow along, so if you can believe it, he also didn’t really give a shit about official classified material, either. In one notorious example Trump ignored his CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, and tweeted a photo from an American spy satellite over Iran showing the aftermath of a failed Iranian rocket launch after receiving a briefing on it.
   

• Even former National Security Director John Bolton confirmed this, saying, “The president had a habit of asking to retain sensitive documents and from time to time, he did that and we didn’t know what happened to them…And it was always a concern, because he didn’t really fully understand the risks to sources and methods and other dangers of revealing classified information that it might get out to the wrong people.” It’s clear that Trump thought and perhaps still thinks he can get away with this on the technicality that “the president can declassify anything,” but he might not. Trump’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin were interviewed by the FBI recently about the boxes of highly sensitive documents that were stored at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office. Do you think they’d lie to the FBI about Trump’s fabricated “standing declassification order” alibi?

As is customary of late, the house of cards supporting Trump is beginning to wobble.
 

• The Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog has rejected calls from leading Democratic legislators to recuse himself from the investigation into the mass erasure of Secret Service text messages exchanged before and during the January 6 insurrection. Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said in a letter published today that he would not share investigative documents or allow his top lieutenants to sit for transcribed interviews before House committees investigating January 6, nor would he provide documents that House lawmakers requested. Cuffari and his staff knew about the missing text messages for months and failed to notify Congress or DHS, then abruptly halted plans to retrieve them. Fire him, Lord Dark Brandon.
   

• Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who chair the House Oversight Committee and the January 6 Committee, respectively, wrote to Cuffari today saying, “If you continue to refuse to comply with our requests, we will have no choice but to consider alternate measures to ensure your compliance.” The writing is on the wall for Trump and his sycophants, which even Tucker Carlson seems to grasp, but the Republican Party seems befuddled as to what to do next. 

Donald Trump is the Republican Party now, and his acolytes are everywhere in the halls of Congress and on the stump across the country. It’s our job to maintain a Democratic majority and pressure our leaders to hold them all accountable.

It's Poll Worker Recruitment Day and we're working with Power the Polls to recruit as many poll workers as possible. With Election Day less than 100 days away (and Early Voting starting earlier in many states), elections officials will be deciding in the next few weeks how many early voting and election day polling locations they can open. Which means we need people signing up right now! Sign up to be a poll worker and invite your friends in battleground states to do the same at powerthepolls.org/crookedmedia!

We helped Power the Polls recruit over 700,000 potential poll workers in 2020, but there are still many gaps ahead of November's midterm elections. Sign up and make sure every voter can cast a ballot in the midterm elections!

Abortion opponents in Kansas charged almost $120,000 to credit cards to cover the cost of a partial recount of the state referendum where Kansas voters chose to keep abortion rights protected under the state constitutions. The recount will not change the outcome as the victory was won by a decisive 18 point margin. 

A century-old tuberculosis vaccine may protect against Covid and other infections by broadly bolstering the immune system, new clinical trials show.

Dr. Jill Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, and is reportedly experiencing mild symptoms. We wish the First Lady a speedy recovery to continue keeping the big guy in line. 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences offered a formal, public apology to Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American aspiring actress who declined the Best Actor Oscar on Marlon Brando’s behalf at the 1973 Academy Awards to address mistreatment of Native actors, where she was then booed and later blacklisted from Hollywood. 

A Pennsylvania man has been arrested for making threats of violence against FBI personnel.

Elon Musk will be among the guests at a Wyoming event hosted by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy today. Cool guy!

Germany plans to postpone the closure of the country’s last three nuclear power plants as it braces for a possible energy shortage after being cut off from Russian gas supplies. 

Former Greenpeace activist and current Canadian environment minister Steven Guilbeault is under fire for greenlighting the Bay du Nord deep-sea oil drilling project off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Zut alors!

State primary elections are being held today in Wyoming and Alaska. As always, we’ll have a full rundown with the goods tomorrow.

Giorgia Meloni is on track to possibly become Italy’s first female prime minister, and its first, how should we say this, fascist leader since World War II. Her political party, Brothers of Italy, is neo-fascist in origin, but Meloni’s friendly face helped to dissuade supporters that was actually the case. If the Brothers of Italy party prevails at the polls on September 25 and Meloni becomes premier, it will be almost 100 years to the month after Benito Mussolino came to power in October of 1922. In fact, in 2019 Meloni proudly introduced Mussolini’s great-grandson as one of her candidates for European Parliament, although he lost (maybe people didn’t like his last name for some reason?). The problem is, most Italian voters just don’t seem to see fascism as a reality of the present, believing it has been relegated to the past. We’re sincerely hoping that come September Italy doesn’t elect its first fascist Girl Boss.

Crooked x Cariuma: No Steps Back 
 

A limited-edition collab with our favorite shoe brand is here.
 

Crooked and Cariuma are combining forces to move us forward (without blisters).
 

You know we’re all about voting: doing it, registering people to do it, and of course giving a portion of the proceeds from the Crooked Store to VoteRiders to help inform citizens of their state’s voter ID requirements and secure them the documents they may need to vote. 
 

Why not add wearing shoes that support voting to that list?
 

Just in time for canvassing season, we’re excited to announce that Crooked and Cariuma have collaborated to launch our own co-branded OCA low-tops, in two designs that we think you’ll really love.
 

Progress is a marathon, so make sure you’re wearing the right shoes. Fortunately, we’ve got the perfect ones with two designs focused on the reminder that while we may be living through a meat grinder of a present, a better future is always possible.
 

Choose from a clean white sneaker with the words “No Steps Back,” or our patented “I voted” sticker print. They’re both perfect for peaceful protests, voter registration drives, and/or grabbing bagels (heroes have to eat, too).

Make sure to reserve your pair now before you hit the ground running this election season!

The NBA announced today it will not schedule any games on election day (November 8) in an effort to encourage both fans and players alike to vote. Swish.
 

The new Federal Transit Administration infrastructure law is set to double the number of zero-emission buses on U.S. roads in a single year. 
 

President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act today. We (actually) did it, Joe.
 

The FDA will make hearing aids available over the counter, without a prescription or medical exam, beginning as early as mid-October, generating huge savings for nearly 30 million Americans. 
 

John Fetterman raised $500,000 in one day after Dr. Oz’s hilarious campaign video where he struggled to grocery shop went viral.

A law has taken effect in Scotland making period products free to anyone who needs them. It’ll be a skoosh! Gaun yersel’!