Crooked Media - Take a load off, Fani

- Disgraced former president Donald Trump who is apparently obsessed with photos of current president Joe Biden on the beach

Disgraced former president Donald Trump traveled to Atlanta on Thursday to surrender at the Fulton County Jail. Siri, play “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
 

• A large crowd of Trump supporters, Trump protestors, journalists and looky-loos gathered outside the jail in punishing Georgia heat ahead of the former president’s arrival. Just before his visit to the jail to be booked on 13 felony counts, Trump shook up his Georgia legal defense team, surely a sign of great internal stability and confidence in his innocence. The big guy added Steve Sadow, a veteran criminal defense lawyer to his revolving door of attorneys. The addition comes after Trump’s Georgia legal team, led by Drew Findling, negotiated a $200,000 bond for their client in the sweeping racketeering indictment. Trump didn’t like that, so Findling is expected to be let go.
   

• It was similarly not a good day for one of Trump’s 18 co-defendants Kenneth Chesebro. On Wednesday, Chesebro demanded that he receive a speedy trial, so on Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis called his bluff, saying she would be happy to put all 19 defendants on trial starting in just eight weeks on October 23. That represents a major change from the initial March 2024 date Willis proposed, and in her Thursday filing she wrote, “Without waiting on any objection as to the sufficiency of Defendant’s Kenneth John Chesebro’s filing, the State requests that this Court specially set the trial in this case to commence on October 23, 2023, which falls within the term of the next succeeding regular court term after the July-August 2023 term.”
   

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tamar Hallerman called Chesebro’s request for a speedy trial “the legal equivalent of throwing a bomb into the proceedings and gambling that Willis wasn’t ready,” and needless to say, it backfired. Trump and most of the other co-defendants were looking to postpone the proceedings, not expedite them, so Chesebro’s request for an early trial date could undercut Trump and other co-defendants’ claims that they will need an exceedingly long time to prepare for trial. For now, though, the Chesbro stands alone.

Back in Washington, Trump’s unhinged GOP allies are losing their minds as usual. 
 

• House Republicans launched another sham investigation on Thursday, this time targeting Willis, led by Trump’s special little boy House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan. Jordan sent Willis a letter “raising questions” about whether she coordinated her probe with the Justice Department (including Special Counsel Jack Smith) or used federal tax dollars in her investigation. 
   

• He also cockily asserted congressional authority to “probe whether former presidents are being subjected to politically motivated investigations and prosecutions.” This is the same song and dance Jordan et al pulled with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought criminal charges against Trump in the hush money case (remember that one?) after which Bragg sued Jordan to stop what he called a “campaign of intimidation.” So far Jordan’s abuses of power to obstruct justice have accomplished nothing.

Whatever else happens, Thursday, August 24 will be remembered as the day we got to see our serial criminal former president’s mugshot, and that’s pretty special!

In case you missed it: Pod Save America just added new live shows in Cleveland, Louisville, San Diego, and San Jose! Members of our new subscription community, Friends of the Pod, have first access to presale tickets and the best seats for these shows. That’s right, the splash zone, baby. The Friends of the Pod subscriber presale ends tomorrow, August 25th at 9am local, so join at any tier today to get the code. Go to crooked.com/friends to subscribe and nab those presale tickets! 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has broken his silence about Wednesday’s extremely conspicuous plane crash that killed Wagner Mercenary Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, two months to the day after he launched (and then aborted) an armed rebellion against the Kremlin leadership. In a televised address, Putin said, "I want to express my most sincere condolences to the families of all the victims. It's always a tragedy.” Wow, convincing stuff! Putin then obliquely acknowledged that Prigozhin was aboard the plane and said only, “I had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the start of the 90s. He was a man with a difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life.” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters that U.S intelligence officials are considering the possibility that the plane crashed following an explosion aboard. According to three U.S. officials, there is thus far no indication that the jet was downed by a missile. The violent plane crash was an unsubtle message that “enemies” of the Kremlin (anyone who dares to cross Vladimir Putin) will meet an untimely death.

At Wednesday night’s GOP debate in Milwaukee, WI, not one of the eight candidates onstage raised their hand when asked if they believed that human behavior is contributing to climate change. On Thursday, the city’s schools were closed for the second day in a row because of record-breaking heat.  

Hawaiian Electric, the state’s power utility believed to have started the deadly fire in Lahaina, removed damaged power poles and other equipment from a key fire scene, potentially tainting or losing evidence in an official investigation. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has forcefully urged President Biden to expedite work permits for the influx of migrants who have arrived in the state over the past year. 

Canada’s ongoing wildfires, which have drifted into the United States, are leading to a spike in emergency-room visits for individuals with asthma, particularly in New York.

A retired Orange County police officer opened fire in a Southern California bar, leaving three dead and five wounded, including his wife. 

The Justice Department sued Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday, alleging that the company routinely discriminated against qualified refugees and asylum seekers in its hiring process.

At least two-dozen women have come forward in recent months to complain of abusive treatment within the Central Intelligence Agency. They have testified to authorities and Congress about sexual assault, unwanted physical touching, and coercion, as well as a campaign they allege the CIA is waging to keep them from speaking out. Some of the women allege that they received alarmist warnings that speaking out could wreck their careers or even “endanger national security.” Hard to imagine something more heinous than a government official invoking national security as a cudgel against a woman seeking justice for sexual misconduct, if we’re being honest! An attorney who represents some of the women who filed complaints said, “the whole nature of intelligence work—the culture of secrecy and people working under assumed names—really elevates the chilling effect of retaliation and isolation that victims feel.”

Thirty-nine year-old Ashkan Bayatpour attacked a female colleague in a stairwell at CIA headquarters in July of 2022, and he remained on the job for more than a year after the woman he assaulted reported it to the CIA and nine months since she reported it to the FBI and local law enforcement. On Wednesday, Bayatpour was convicted of a state misdemeanor charge of assault and battery and was sentenced to six months’ probation. After the decision, the attorney for the woman Bayatpour assaulted said, “This guilty verdict came despite, and not because of, the CIA.”

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Allina Health, a large Minnesota-based nonprofit health system announced on Wednesday that it will end its policy of denying medical care to patients with over $4,500 in outstanding medical bills. Not exactly a feel-good news item, but as close as we can get in a for-profit health-care system. 

The Supreme Court of Brazil ruled 9-1 on Tuesday that the use of homophobic slurs is a criminal offense punishable by prison, now the same level of offense as racist hate speech. 

A movement to transform highway shoulders, parking lots, schoolyards, and junk yards into “tiny forests” with native trees and plants is having major positive environmental effects in the communities where they are planted.