|
Something is rotten in the state of the Union, and as more information unfurls from the investigation of Donald Trump’s apparent theft of the nation’s most sensitive information, that something is becoming more evident.
-
According to a just-surfaced letter sent by the National Archives earlier this year, the disgraced former president took more than 700 pages of classified documents to his residence in Florida when he left the White House in January 2021. Moreover, the documents included some related to the nation’s most covert intelligence operations known as “special access programs.” The letter was written by the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall and sent to Trump’s lawyers back in May, and described the state of alarm rising in the Justice Department as officials began to realize how sensitive the missing documents were.
-
The letter also suggested that top DOJ prosecutors and members of the intelligence agencies were delayed in conducting a damage assessment regarding the removal of these documents because Trump’s lawyers tried to argue that some of them may be protected by executive privilege. That marks the oh, one-thousandth time that Trump has tried to claim post-presidency executive privilege as a get-out-of-jail free card. After the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) received the initial 15 boxes of documents in the first retrieval from Mar-a-Lago back in January, Trump’s legal stonewalling meant that the intelligence agencies weren’t able to access the documents until May, when DOJ asked president Biden to authorize the transfer.
-
Thankfully, the executive privilege door slammed shut on Trump 20 months ago. It’s not his to claim, and even if the current administration agreed that those documents deserved to be kept private to preserve executive privilege, they’d still belong to the public, and need to be housed at the archives. Thus, NARA and DOJ went over Trump’s head to get their hands on the documents. In the first days after the Mar-a-Lago search when Republican lawmakers were bending over backwards to defend Trump and cast doubt on the gravity of the documents retrieved, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) of the House intelligence committee was perhaps unintentionally prophetic when he said, “I mean, if he had actual special access programs - do you know how extraordinarily sensitive that is?...If that were actually at his residence, that would be a problem.” I’m sure this means that congressional Republicans will take the case seriously now that we know he did have those documents at Mar-a-Lago, instead of continuing to blindly adhere to Trump like racist barnacles!
|
|
|
There’s more troubling news in the way of national security for which we can also thank Trump and Republican Party rank-and-file.
-
According to records reviewed by the Washington Post, sensitive system files obtained by attorneys working to overturn the 2020 election in Donald Trump’s favor were shared with election deniers, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing commentators. Attorneys for the effort to overturn the result hired a Georgia computer forensics firm, placed the files on a server and then released them to these already conspiracy-minded individuals who downloaded the data. Since 2020, a series of data leaks and alleged breaches of local elections offices has prompted criminal investigations and fueled concerns among security experts that public disclosure of information collected from voting systems could be exploited by hackers and those seeking to manipulate future election results.
-
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig (a Trump appointee, to be clear) announced Tuesday that the agency will launch a full security review of its facilities across the country in response to congressional Republicans and far-right extremists lashing out at the Internal Revenue Service following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which will appropriate much-needed new funding to the agency. It will be the agency’s first such review since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, which killed 168 people. With the increase in violent rhetoric and actual attacks against FBI branches and officers, there’s no telling how far right-wing extremists will go.
Donald Trump and his frothing Republican Party base have taken to a full-time assault on small-d democratic government and the rule of law, endangering national security, law-enforcement agencies, and the people who work for them in the process. Our legitimate leaders need to work quickly to impose penalties, and discourage this dangerous behavior, before it’s too late.
|
|
|
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! We're working with Power the Polls to recruit as many poll workers as possible. 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!
|
|
|
Twitter’s former head of security has filed whistleblower complaints last month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice, new reports show. The most serious accusations made by former security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko is that Twitter violated the terms of an FTC settlement by falsely claiming that the company had a strong security plan. Zatko also accused the company of deceptions involving its handling of “spam” accounts. This last point in particular has implications for Elon Musk, who tried for months to buy twitter then for months thereafter to get out of buying it. The issue of spam/bot accounts is at the core of Musk’s attempted takeover bid withdrawal, but Twitter argues that he’s just experiencing buyer’s remorse amid a market downturn. Nevertheless, these new disclosures could throw a wrench in Twitter’s plans as they battle with Musk, as the company was previously seen to have the stronger legal case. Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro said his legal team had already subpoenaed Zatko in the dispute with Twitter. Hard to know which billionaire to root against more forcefully, as always!
|
|
|
A jury has convicted two Michigan men of conspiring to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) in 2020 in what prosecutors described as a “rallying cry for a U.S. civil war by anti-government extremists.” Sounds bad!
Tennessee’s disgraced former GOP House Speaker Glen Casada and his top aide were arrested today on federal charges including bribery, kickbacks, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Vacation towns are increasingly limiting short-term rentals through services like AirBnb and Vrbo, which have depleted the already-stressed housing supply for local residents. That’s a great start but I would also suggest maybe building more dwellings, idk…
The U.S. plans to send an additional $3 billion in aid to train and equip Ukrainian forces to fight for years to come as Russia continues to escalate its war.
A gun-rights advocacy group has asked a federal judge to block a New York state law that bans the carrying of firearms in certain “sensitive locations” such as stadiums, hospitals, and Manhattan’s Times Square, following this summer’s disastrous Supreme Court decision creating a false “right” to concealed carry.
China’s largest freshwater lake has been reduced to just 25 percent of its usual size, forcing work crews to dig trenches just to keep water flowing to one of the country’s key agricultural regions.
An ethics board in South Dakota said yesterday that it found sufficient information that Gov. Kristin Noem (R-SD) may have “engaged in misconduct” when she intervened in her daughter’s application for a real estate license, unrelated to a separate ethics complaint over her state airplane usage. Yas queen - breaking the glass ceiling of ethics violations!
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak began his 12-year prison sentence today and will be forced to pay a $47 million fine for money laundering and corruption.
82 year-old Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pleaded guilty to a DUI charge in Napa County, California today and was sentenced to five days in jail, though he’s unlikely to serve any jail time. Yes, Paul, I’m sure we all hope to be getting wine drunk in Napa at 82, but get a designated driver!!
Florida and New York hold primary elections today. Fear not, we’ll have the full rundown for you tomorrow.
|
|
|
Former Louisville, KY, police detective Kelly Goodlett pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy, admitting that she had worked with another officer to falsify a search warrant application authorizing the raid of Breonna Taylor’s apartment in March 2020 that led to her murder, and later lied to cover it up. Goodlett admitted that she knew there was insufficient evidence to support approving the warrant, but had failed to object when her fellow detective made a false claim on the document. Her plea deal suggests that she may be cooperating with DOJ prosecutors who charged her and two other former Louisville police officers for their roles in acquiring the search warrant for the raid. A fourth officer is accused of violating Taylor’s civil rights and those of her neighbors by firing ten bullets through the two apartments. Goodlett, who resigned from the police force after she was charged this month, was not present at the raid. She faces up to five years in prison.
|
|
|
Did you know The Daily Show is also available as a podcast called “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: Ears Edition”?
On the podcast, you can listen to full episodes, re-visit your favorite interviews, and hear exclusive bonus content. In every episode, host Trevor Noah and The Daily Show correspondents — Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, Desi Lydic, Dulcé Sloan, Roy Wood Jr. — bring insightful humor to the day’s top headlines, providing coverage of and catharsis from daily events through a sharp, incisive lens.
Listen to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: Ears Edition on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
|
|
|
|
|
