This morning the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Allen v. Milligan, a case that challenged the Alabama legislature’s redistricting of the state after the 2020 census on the grounds that the new districts had been configured to pack the state’s growing numbers of Black voters into a single district and thus dilute their vote. Such discrimination based on race, plaintiffs charged, violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA).
District courts agreed with the plaintiffs and told the state it couldn’t use the new map, but in February 2022 the Supreme Court issued a stay of the injunction prohibiting that map. The Supreme Court ruling left the Alabama map intact for the 2022 election. Legal scholar Stephen Vladeck noted that the decision was part of the court’s recent use of the “shadow docket,” unsigned, unexplained orders issued without a hearing.
Today’s 5–4 decision upheld the verdicts of the lower courts, agreeing that the new Alabama map was, after all, illegal, because it violates Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits the denial of the right to vote on account of race. This leaves intact the ability of plaintiffs to sue when states appear to discriminate against minority voters. Similar lawsuits are pending in ten different states.
But, as Vladeck notes, the Supreme Court’s February 2022 decision leaving the discriminatory map in Alabama, as well as similar maps in other states, in place for the November election, is likely responsible for the Republicans’ current majority in the House of Representatives. The Cook Political Report, which follows elections, immediately changed their ratings for the leanings of five House districts after news of the Supreme Court decision.
That House majority is currently at an impasse that makes it impossible to conduct business. The extremist House Freedom Caucus (HFC) has revolted against House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) because of the budget deal he cut with President Biden before he would agree to raise the debt ceiling. Members of the HFC are demanding deeper cuts than McCarthy agreed to. The revolt of the far right puts into danger crucial spending bills, raising fears of a government shutdown in the fall.
To placate the extremists, McCarthy has apparently agreed to take up two bills: one to kill a Biden-backed gun regulation and another to push even more strongly against abortion rights. This move, which flies in the face of popular opinion, has angered Republicans in battleground districts, who are revolting against measures that will hurt them at home. It also runs the risk of alienating Democrats McCarthy will need to pass spending measures if the far right refuses to vote for them.
The extremism of today’s Republican Party grew in large part from the work of televangelist Pat Robertson, who died today at age 93. The son of a segregationist southern Democratic senator, Baptist minister Robertson urged evangelical Christians to vote and made them a core constituency of the Republican Party. Paving the way for those today calling for an end to liberal democracy, Robertson blamed LGBTQ Americans and women for secularizing the United States, which he saw as a tragedy and frequently blamed for natural disasters.
That political ideology depended on creating a false picture of what was really going on in the country. The Republican Party has become so wedded to lying about reality that today we saw Florida governor and Republican candidate for president Ron DeSantis circulating fake images of rival candidate Donald Trump embracing right-wing nemesis Dr. Anthony Fauci as a way to discredit Trump.
Trump’s team cried foul at the fake images, but the former president himself relies on manipulating reality to garner political support. CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes reported today that Trump’s people reached out this week to congressional allies to encourage them to flood the airwaves with a defense of Trump and attacks on special counsel Jack Smith before a possible indictment of the former president.
To that end, Trump’s supporters spent the week trying to gin up outrage over a document they claimed shows that President Biden had taken a bribe as vice president. The document in question appears to be an unverified report that came to the Department of Justice through Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, one that the Trump Department of Justice dropped after it determined that the allegation was not supported by facts. But the practice of influencing politics through sham investigations is one of the Republicans’ key tools, and Trump allies have flooded social media this week insisting that this document is a smoking gun.
They were, of course, trying to set up a defense for the former president’s possible indictment on charges related to his refusal to hand over national security documents he had taken when he left the White House.
This evening, news broke that Trump has, indeed, been indicted by a grand jury in South Florida in connection with the documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago. The indictment is sealed, but there are reports that it includes seven counts of lawbreaking, including at least one related to the Espionage Act. These charges are serious indeed.
Trump is now the first former U.S. president in history to face federal criminal charges (his first indictment, on March 30, was at the state level). As The Guardian’s David Smith puts it, “he really might be going to jail.” Smith—who is a keen observer of American politics—notes that it is hard to figure out what is important and what is not in the general drama around the former president, but this indictment is “genuinely monumental.”
According to Trump’s outraged posts on social media, he has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami next Tuesday.
Trump’s team asked his allies to jump to his defense, and they did. Trump loyalists implied that the “sham indictment” was destined to distract from the blockbuster story they had invented about Biden. House speaker McCarthy implied that Biden, who has had nothing to do with the Department of Justice investigation, special counsel in charge of the investigation Jack Smith, or the grand jury deliberations, was responsible for launching a political attack on a rival. The third Republican in House leadership, New York representative Elise Stefanik, also defended Trump…in a fundraising email that assured donors their money would go to the “OFFICIAL TRUMP DEFENSE FUND” though, in fact, most of it would be diverted to Stefanik’s operations. Trump, too, lost no time in fundraising off the indictment.
Significantly, though, all Republicans who do not identify with the far right have remained steadfastly silent in the face of the day’s news. The exception has been long-shot presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, who has called for Trump to end his campaign.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who communicates with the Trump camp, says he holed up tonight not with his legal team but with political advisors. CBS News correspondent Robert Costa reports tonight that the camps of Republican rivals think that this news will actually help Trump in the short term, as his base rallies to him, but that the news of what is at stake in the theft of national security documents might well lose him support over time. If another indictment comes from Georgia concerning his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election there, rival camps say he might “bleed out.”
Rep. Clay Higgins
@RepClayHiggins
President Trump said he has "been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM."
This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this.
Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.
9:19 PM · Jun 8, 2023
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican who has at times broken with his party when it comes to criticizing Trump, did so again when reacting to the indictment Friday morning.
He said in a statement that Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence — but acknowledged that the accusations against him have merit.
"By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others," Romney said.
That's a far cry from the response of many Republican lawmakers, who portrayed the indictment — and the Justice Department itself — as politically motivated in their defense of the former president.
Romney said Trump "brought these charges upon himself" by taking classified documents and refusing to return them despite numerous opportunities to do so.
"These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection," he added.
While Romney has been critical of Trump (including voting for his impeachment), he also seemed skeptical of the charges brought against him by the Manhattan district attorney in April. He said at the time that he believed the prosecutor had "stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda."
Rep. Jim Jordan @Jim_Jordan
Sad day for America. God Bless President Trump.
4:48 PM · Jun 8, 2023
1.3M Views
the sad day for America was jan 6...
At 3:00 today, Washington D.C., time, Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered a statement about the recently unsealed indictment charging former president Donald J. Trump on 37 counts of violating national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Although MAGA Republicans have tried to paint the indictment as a political move by the Biden administration over a piddling error, Smith immediately reminded people that “[t]his indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”
The indictment is, indeed, jaw dropping.
It alleges that during his time in the White House, Trump stored in cardboard boxes “information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.” The indictment notes that “[t]he unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”
Nonetheless, when Trump ceased to be president after noon on January 20, 2021, he took those boxes, “many of which contained classified documents,” to Mar-a-Lago, where he was living. He “was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents.” The indictment makes it clear that this was no oversight: Trump was personally involved in packing the boxes and, later, in going through them and in overseeing how they were handled. The employees who worked for him exchanged text messages referring to his personal instructions about them.
Mar-a-Lago was not an authorized location for such documents, but he stored them there anyway, “including in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.” They were stacked in public places, where anyone—including the many foreign nationals who visited Mar-a-Lago—could see them. On December 7, 2021, Trump’s personal aide Waltine Nauta took two pictures of several of the boxes fallen on the floor, with their contents, including a secret document available only to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, spilled onto the floor.
The indictment alleges that Trump showed classified documents to others without security clearances on two occasions, both of which are well documented. One of those occasions was recorded. Trump told the people there that the plan he was showing them was “highly confidential” and “secret.” He added, “See, as president I could have declassified it….Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
This recording undermines his insistence that he believed he could automatically declassify documents; it proves he understood he could not. In addition, the indictment lists Trump’s many statements from 2016 about the importance of protecting classified information, all delivered as attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom he accused of mishandling such information. “In my administration,” he said on August 18, 2016, “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”
The indictment goes on: When the FBI tried to recover the documents, Trump started what Washington Post journalist Jennifer Rubin called a “giant shell game”: he tried to get his lawyer to lie to the FBI and the grand jury, saying Trump did not have more documents; worked with Nauta to move some of the boxes to hide them from Trump’s lawyer, the FBI and the grand jury; tried to get his lawyer to hide or destroy documents; and got another lawyer to certify that all the documents had been produced when he knew they hadn’t.
Nauta lied to the grand jury about his knowledge of what Trump did with the boxes. Both he and Trump have been indicted on multiple counts of obstruction and of engaging in a conspiracy to hide the documents.
Eventually, Trump had many of the boxes moved to his property at Bedminster, New Jersey, where on two occasions he showed documents to people without security clearances. He showed a classified map of a country that is part of an ongoing military operation to a representative of his political action committee.
Trump has been indicted on 31 counts of having “unauthorized possession of, access to, and control over documents relating to the national defense,” for keeping them, and for refusing “to deliver them to the officer and employee of the United States entitled to receive them”: language straight out of the Espionage Act. Twenty-one of the documents were marked top secret, nine were marked secret, and one was unmarked.
These documents are not all those recovered—some likely are too sensitive to risk making public—but they nonetheless hold some of the nation’s deepest secrets: “military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States,” “military activities and planning of foreign countries,” “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” “military attacks by a foreign country,” “military contingency planning of the United States,” “military options of a foreign country and potential effects on United States interest,” “foreign country support of terrorist acts against United States interests,” “nuclear weaponry of the United States,” “military activity in a foreign country.”
Smith put it starkly in his statement, “The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.”
On Twitter, Bill Kristol said it more clearly: “These were highly classified documents dealing with military intelligence and plans. What did Trump do with them? Who now has copies of them?” Retired FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi noted that there is a substantial risk that “foreign intelligence services might have sought or gained access to the documents.”
There is also substantial risk that other countries will be reluctant to share intelligence with the United States in the future. At the very least, it is an unfortunate coincidence that the Central Intelligence Agency in October 2021 reported an unusually high rate of capture or death for foreign informants recruited to spy for the United States.
Since Trump supporters have taken the position that Trump’s indictment over the stolen documents is the attempt of the Biden administration to undermine Trump’s presidential candidacy, it is worth remembering that Trump’s early announcement of his campaign was widely suspected to be an attempt to enable him to avoid legal accountability. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith precisely to put arms length between the administration and the investigations into Trump.
Smith noted today, “Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. And our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws. Collecting facts. That’s what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“The prosecutors in my office are among the most talented and experienced in the Department of Justice. They have investigated this case hewing to the highest ethical standards. And they will continue to do so as this case proceeds.”
Smith added: “It’s very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter. Consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida.”
Likely responding to MAGA attacks on the FBI and the rule of law, Smith thanked the “dedicated public servants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom my office is conducting this investigation and who worked tirelessly every day upholding the rule of law in our country,” before closing his brief statement.
The indictment revealed just how much detailed information Smith’s team has uncovered, presenting a shockingly thorough case to prove the allegations. Trump’s lawyers will have their work cut out for them…although the team has shifted since this morning: two of Trump’s lawyers quit today. The thoroughness of the indictment also suggests that Trump and his allies might have reason to be nervous about Smith’s other investigation: the one into the attempt to overturn results of the 2020 election.
Some of Trump’s supporters are calling for violence. After Louisiana representative Clay Higgins appeared to be egging on militias to oppose Trump’s Tuesday arraignment, Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) issued a joint statement calling for “supporters and critics alike to let the case proceed peacefully in court.” Legal scholar Joyce White Vance noted that it was “extremely sad for our country that this isn’t a bipartisan statement being made by leaders from both parties.”
Quote:In addition, the indictment lists Trump’s many statements from 2016 about the importance of protecting classified information, all delivered as attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom he accused of mishandling such information. “In my administration,” he said on August 18, 2016, “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”
hcr
Boris Johnson’s resignation statement – what he really meant
As ever with the former PM there was plenty of barely hidden subtext as he took aim at perceived enemies
Boris Johnson’s statement announcing he will quit the Commons is not brief – more than 1,000 words – and, as ever with the former prime minister’s pronouncements, there is a lot of often barely hidden subtext:
I have received a letter from the privileges committee making it clear – much to my amazement – that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of parliament.
They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.
This is Johnson trying to preshape opinion about the privileges committee report into whether he lied to MPs about lockdown-breaking parties, which he has seen but is not yet public. This is the statement’s key message: whatever the evidence, Johnson and his allies will always insist he was wronged.
They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister.
They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister – including the current prime minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak – believed that we were working lawfully together.
I have been an MP since 2001. I take my responsibilities seriously.
I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the committee know it.
But they have wilfully chosen to ignore the truth because from the outset their purpose has not been to discover the truth, or genuinely to understand what was in my mind when I spoke in the Commons.
Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court.
This is the other central message to not just this statement but most of Johnson’s public output since he was ousted – the idea that not only has he done no wrong, but that there is a conspiracy to remove him from politics. Both the argument and the seeming lack of any real evidence to back it up are strongly reminiscent of Donald Trump – a repeated theme in this missive.
Most members of the committee – especially the chair – had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt before they had even seen the evidence. They should have recused themselves.
In retrospect it was naive and trusting of me to think that these proceedings could be remotely useful or fair. But I was determined to believe in the system, and in justice, and to vindicate what I knew to be the truth.
A more neutral observer might argue that Johnson in effect had no option but to agree to the privileges report and hope for the best. This was not a choice.
It was the same faith in the impartiality of our systems that led me to commission Sue Gray. It is clear that my faith has been misplaced. Of course, it suits the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP to do whatever they can to remove me from parliament.
Sadly, as we saw in July last year, there are currently some Tory MPs who share that view. I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch-hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.
The use of “witch-hunt” is a presumably deliberate echo of Trump, whose paranoid, conspiratorial tone infects Johnson’s words throughout. He also explicitly amplifies another common and similarly evidence-lacking claim of his more vehement supporters – that removing him is part of a wider plot to reverse Brexit.
My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about. I am afraid I no longer believe that it is any coincidence that Sue Gray – who investigated gatherings in No 10 – is now the chief of staff designate of the Labour leader.
Nor do I believe that it is any coincidence that her supposedly impartial chief counsel, Daniel Stilitz KC, turned out to be a strong Labour supporter who repeatedly tweeted personal attacks on me and the government.
More paranoia, more Trump-style personal attacks. On Gray, it is worth remembering that Johnson welcomed the former senior civil servant’s report into Partygate, one that most observers believe was relatively soft on him.
When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened.
Yes and no. In July 2022 a few polls had the Conservatives five or six percentage points behind Labour. Others had the gap at 15 points or more. Johnson’s personal polling was abysmal, what remained of his brand was tarnished not just by Partygate but by the endless other dramas that surrounded his premiership.
Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.
Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.
We need to show how we are making the most of Brexit and we need in the next months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda. We need to cut business and personal taxes – and not just as pre-election gimmicks – rather than endlessly putting them up.
We must not be afraid to be a properly Conservative government.
Why have we so passively abandoned the prospect of a free trade deal with the US? Why have we junked measures to help people into housing or to scrap EU directives or to promote animal welfare?
Some more wishful thinking mixed with fairly dishonest revisionism. Johnson’s policy was not “properly” Conservative in the traditional sense – his 2019 offering was a creative mix of free trade Brexitism and highly interventionist state spending, under the banner of levelling up. And a US trade deal was not “abandoned” by the UK – Washington simply did not want one.
We need to deliver on the 2019 manifesto, which was endorsed by 14 million people. We should remember that more than 17 million voted for Brexit.
I am now being forced out of parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members let alone the wider electorate.
I believe that a dangerous and unsettling precedent is being set.
Setting aside yet more claims of a plot, students of recent Conservative party history might agree that it is not ideal how the party has switched leaders four times since 2016 on the say so of just party members, or in the case of Sunak, just Tory MPs. That is how Johnson himself took over from Theresa May – forcing out a prime minister who had won power (however limited in her case) at a very recent election.
The Conservative party has the time to recover its mojo and its ambition and to win the next election.
I had looked forward to providing enthusiastic support as a backbench MP. Harriet Harman’s committee has set out to make that objective completely untenable.
This statement will particularly raise eyebrows inside No 10, given the sense that Johnson had been using most of his time as a backbench MP to either make money with overseas speeches or undermine Sunak. Since being ousted as PM he has voted in the Commons four times.
The committee’s report is riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice but under their absurd and unjust process I have no formal ability to challenge anything they say.
The privileges committee is there to protect the privileges of parliament. That is a very important job. They should not be using their powers – which have only been very recently designed – to mount what is plainly a political hit-job on someone they oppose.
It is in no one’s interest, however, that the process the committee has launched should continue for a single day further.
So I have today written to my association in Uxbridge and South Ruislip to say that I am stepping down forthwith and triggering an immediate byelection.
The crux of the letter – he is quitting, and so the privileges committee can stop work. However, the committee has said it still plans to publish the report, and will meet on Monday.
I am very sorry to leave my wonderful constituency. It has been a huge honour to serve them, both as mayor and MP.
But I am proud that after what is cumulatively a 15-year stint I have helped to deliver among other things a vast new railway in the Elizabeth line and full funding for a wonderful new state of the art hospital for Hillingdon, where enabling works have already begun.
I also remain hugely proud of all that we achieved in my time in office as prime minister: getting Brexit done, winning the biggest majority for 40 years and delivering the fastest vaccine rollout of any major European country, as well as leading global support for Ukraine.
It is very sad to be leaving parliament – at least for now – but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.
A final blast of conspiracism, with the added threat that he is leaving parliament “at least for now” – perhaps a reference to rumours that he may seek another, more secure Tory seat. But while politics can change at speed, especially recent Conservative politics, it seems hard to envisage a way in which the party would want him back.
