The Full Belmonte, 8/12/2022
“‘PUT UP OR SHUT UP’ — Merrick Garland has broken his silence.
In a five-minute afternoon presser, the attorney general revealed that he personally approved of the decision to execute the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, and announced the Department of Justice’s decision to unseal portions of the warrant. The move comes after three days of wall-to-wall media coverage and a massive outcry from Republicans who have demanded more information about the search and why it was necessary.
Garland’s comments marked the first public acknowledgment that the DOJ is investigating former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified records, and they came on the heels of a New York Times report that Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents.
What’s been missing during this week of noise and speculation is an explanation as to why Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray have been so tight-lipped about what led the FBI to scour Trump’s West Palm Beach resort.
Nightly called an expert who is familiar with what can and cannot be said under these circumstances. Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor and general counsel for the FBI who’s probably best known for being one of the senior prosecutors on Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation, pointed to two legal rules and one departmental policy.
According to Weissmann, the first legal rule is that the FBI can’t disclose anything that’s covered under grand jury secrecy, as established by rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Based on his experience, he noted, this likely applies to only a ‘small subset’ of the information related to the Trump investigation.
The other legal barrier is the sealing order Garland addressed today. When a search warrant is obtained, the approving judge is often asked to seal the warrant so the investigative process is not impeded. While we could soon see portions of the search warrant, we will not yet have access to the underlying affidavit.
‘For instance, if the underlying affidavit discloses that there was an informant or many informants, and it gave information about reliability of information that could suggest who that informant is, you can imagine why the Department of Justice wouldn’t want to disclose it,’ Weissmann said.
But the main thing at play here is likely DOJ policy, he explained. The department has a huge book called the Justice Manual, which outlines the general practice that officials don’t speak about ongoing investigations.
This policy was established for two reasons: to protect the investigation process and to safeguard civil liberties.
‘It is so-called put up or shut up, which is you are either charging someone, or it’s not your place to talk about who is under investigation. They’re innocent until charged and proven guilty,’ Weissmann said, noting that this is why people were outraged by then-FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Clinton emails investigation.
Trump, who had the right to do so, publicly announced on Monday night that he is under investigation — no longer making civil liberties a concern. During his presser today, Garland said he moved forward with the rare step of addressing an ongoing investigation for this reason and because doing so would serve the ‘public interest.’
Trump and his allies, without evidence, have suggested the search warrant was politically motivated, and some conservative commentators have floated conspiracy theories suggesting FBI agents planted the evidence. Garland addressed these attacks head-on today and defended the men and women of the FBI.
‘I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,’ he said.
With his announcement, Garland succeeded in putting the ball back in Trump’s court. The former president and his legal team have the option to block the public release of the warrant, a step that would be in opposition to Republicans’ calls for answers. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who signed off on the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, ordered today that the DOJ must relay Trump’s decision to him by 3 p.m on Friday.” Read more at POLITICO
“Former President Donald Trump and his lawyers have until 3 p.m. ET Friday to decide whether to approve the Justice Department's request to unseal the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and related materials. This comes after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Department of Justice filed a motion to unseal the warrant and property receipt from a search FBI agents conducted Monday at Trump's estate in South Florida. Trump said he will not fight the move.
The case for unsealing: Show the public what the FBI was looking for and what property was seized during the search.
•Trump could block: The decision to unseal ultimately belongs to Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, but Trump and his allies have argued the FBI is targeting him because he is considering running for president again in 2024.
•New info: Trump served subpoena at Mar-a-Lago home two months before the unprecedented FBI search.
•FBI claps back: FBI Director Christopher Wray has denounced threats by Trump's supporters against his agency.” Read more at USA Today
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks to journalists Aug. 10, 2022, at the Omaha FBI office. Wray addressed threats made to law enforcement after agents raided Mar-a-Lago.CHRIS MACHIAN/OMAHA WORLD-HERALD/AP PHOTO
Graphic: MSNBC
“Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the papers being sought by FBI agents in their search of former President Trump's home, The Washington Post reports.
15 boxes the National Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January apparently included signals intelligence — intercepted electronic communications, such as foreign leaders' emails and phone calls, The Post adds.
‘Former senior intelligence officials said in interviews that during the Trump administration, highly classified intelligence about sensitive topics, including about intelligence-gathering on Iran, was routinely mishandled,’ the story continues.
‘One former official said the most highly classified information often ended up in the hands of personnel who didn't appear to have a need to possess it or weren't authorized to read it.’” Read more at Axios
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines, dropping recommendations that Americans who are not up-to-date on vaccines quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person. The nation's top public health agency also said people who do test positive for the virus but show no symptoms or see symptoms improve quickly can isolate for a shorter period. Read more at USA Today
•High-risk area: Face masks are back in some Tennessee counties where transmission is high.
•If you're feeling a vacation: Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises will drop vaccination requirements for select sailings.
•Pandemic fallout: The airline industry is still reeling from the effects of COVID-19. Now thousands of flights for the fall are getting cut.
•Want to be sure you don’t have COVID? The FDA now says you'll need to pass 3 home tests.” Read more at USA Today
People screening themselves at home for COVID-19 may need to use three rapid tests to accurately detect the virus, according to new U.S. recommendations released Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022, that call for a longer testing period.Ted S. Warren, AP
“Congress is expected on Friday to pass a major bill that includes close to $375 billion in spending related to fighting climate change. The bill, called the Inflation Reduction Act, will infuse cash, subsidies and tax breaks into various sectors of the economy, all aimed at making green energy much cheaper. It's expected to reduce U.S. carbon emissions around 40% by 2030. The legislation also includes a hard-fought cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors in the Medicare program, new corporate minimum tax to ensure big businesses pay their share and billions left over to pay down federal deficits. Read more at USA Today
•How it goes further than the Affordable Care Act: The legislation limits out-of-pocket costs of Medicare recipients at $2,000 a year. (USA Today)
•Millions of people live near Superfund sites. An oil industry tax in the Inflation Reduction Act could pay to clean those up. (USA Today)
In the Inflation Reduction Act the House is taking up Friday, the per-barrel tax on oil is not only being reinstated for the next 10 years, it's nearly doubling from 9.7 cents to 16.4 cents and will be indexed to inflation beyond that.Matthew Brown, AP
“The Arctic is heating up nearly four times faster than the Earth as a whole, according to new research. Scientists had previously predicted it was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, and the startling new numbers are a reminder that the people, plants and animals in polar regions are experiencing rapid, and disastrous, climate change.” Read more at NPR
“Second run | President Joe Biden is preparing to launch his re-election bid after the congressional midterms in November, aides and allies said, setting up a potential re-match with Trump. Biden’s resolve to run is hardening, even with polls showing most Democrats prefer a different candidate, as he’s buoyed by legislative, economic and foreign policy victories, sources say.” Read more at Bloomberg
“A federal judge declared a mistrial in the Flint water crisis civil trial Thursday after jurors informed the court they could not reach a unanimous verdict after weeks of deliberations.
Federal Magistrate Judge David Grand declared the mistrial after jurors presented a note saying “For the physical and emotional health of the jurors, we don’t believe we can continue with further deliberations … further deliberations will only result in stress and anxiety.”
The lawsuit was brought by four plaintiffs who were children when the water crisis began in 2014. The plaintiffs claimed two engineering firms working in Flint at the time of the water crisis, Veolia Water North America Operating Services (VNA) and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. (LAN) failed to take adequate steps to respond to the lead contamination that struck the city.” Read more at USA Today
“With less than three weeks to go until the federal student loan repayment pause expires, millions of borrowers are waiting to hear whether President Joe Biden will extend the current payment moratorium or possibly forgive any of their debts. Borrower balances have effectively been frozen since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, with no payments required on most federal student loans since March 2020. Democratic lawmakers and advocates have been calling on Biden to broadly cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower, but the President has said he would not consider that number. Along with potentially extending the pause, the White House has suggested Biden is considering canceling $10,000 per borrower, excluding those who earn more than $125,000 a year. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden will have something to announce ‘before August 31.’” Read more at CNN
“An ‘alarming’ situation is unfolding at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, according to the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. Parts of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant -- the largest nuclear plant in Europe -- have been knocked out due to recent attacks, risking an ‘unacceptable’ potential radiation leak, according to Mariano Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). ‘IAEA experts believe that there is no immediate threat to nuclear safety," but "that could change at any moment,’ Grossi said. Russia and Ukraine have so far been unwilling to agree to an IAEA inspection of the plant and have accused each other of shelling the facility. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for the complete withdrawal of Russians from the territory, which he said is putting all of Europe in danger.” Read more at CNN
“LUX, France (AP) — Once, a river ran through it. Now, white dust and thousands of dead fish cover the wide trench that winds amid rows of trees in France’s Burgundy region in what was the Tille River in the village of Lux.
From dry and cracked reservoirs in Spain to falling water levels on major arteries like the Danube, the Rhine and the Po, an unprecedented drought is afflicting nearly half of the European continent. It is damaging farm economies, forcing water restrictions, causing wildfires and threatening aquatic species.
There has been no significant rainfall for almost two months in Western, Central and Southern Europe. And the dry period is expected to continue in what experts say could be the worst drought in 500 years.
Climate change is exacerbating conditions as hotter temperatures speed up evaporation, thirsty plants take in more moisture and reduced snowfall in the winter limits supplies of fresh water available for irrigation in the summer. Europe isn’t alone in the crisis, with drought conditions also reported in East Africa, the western United States and northern Mexico.” Read more at AP News
“McDonald's will start reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months, a symbol of the war-torn country's return to some sense of normalcy and a show of support after the American fast-food chain pulled out of Russia.
The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after Russia's invasion nearly six months ago but has continued to pay more than 10,000 McDonald's employees in the country.
McDonald's said Thursday that it will begin gradually reopening some restaurants in the capital, Kyiv, and western Ukraine, where other companies are doing business away from the fighting.
Western businesses including Nike, KFC and Spanish clothing retailer Mango are open in Kyiv.” Read more at USA Today
Image caption, Protesters had once focused on Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong in anti-corruption demonstrations
“Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong - convicted of bribery and embezzlement in 2017 - has been granted a special presidential pardon.
One of South Korea's most powerful white collar criminals, Lee was twice imprisoned for bribing a former president.
South Korea's government justified the move, saying the de-facto leader of the country's biggest company was needed back at the helm to spearhead economic recovery post-pandemic.
This marks another swing in a struggle over how the country is run that has raged since mass protests took over Seoul six years ago and ousted a president from office.
Lee's crimes were directly tied up in the corruption scandal that led to the imprisonment of former president Park Geun-Hye, in office from 2013-2017.
The ‘Crown Prince of Samsung’ - as he was dubbed by protesters - paid $8 million (£6.6m) in bribes to President Park and her associate to secure support for a merger opposed by shareholders that would shore up his control of his family's empire.” Read more at BBC
Solar panels in Grafton, Mass.Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Ditching fossil fuels
“By the end of today, Congress will likely have passed the biggest climate bill in U.S. history.
This newsletter has already covered the bill’s main goals and the back story of how it came together. Today, I want to get more detailed and explain how it will help people and businesses abandon the dirty energy that contributes to global warming.
What’s in the bill
The bill’s climate provisions are mostly a collection of subsidies for energy that does not emit any carbon, like solar, wind and nuclear power. Without those subsidies, polluting fossil fuels are often still cheaper. The subsidies try to give cleaner energy an edge.
‘I don’t mean this as an exaggeration: This really changes everything,’ said Jesse Jenkins, a climate policy expert at Princeton University. ‘It is effectively going to shift the financial case away from dirty energy toward clean energy for everyone.’
For consumers, the subsidies will reduce the prices of electric vehicles, solar panels, heat pumps and other energy-efficient home improvements. You can claim the subsidies through tax filings; as a separate rebate if you don’t file taxes; or, in some cases, immediately when you make a purchase.
Let’s say you want to buy one of the cheaper, new electric vehicles on the market right now, priced around $40,000. To get the subsidy, you will first want to make sure the car qualifies; the bill requires, among other things, that the vehicles are assembled in North America. (Ask the car dealer or manufacturer to find out.) Then, make sure that you qualify; individual tax filers cannot make more than $150,000 a year, for example. And, given high demand, you might have to order a car well in advance.
If you meet the requirements, you can claim up to $7,500 in tax credits — effectively bringing the price of a $40,000 vehicle to $32,500.
That is the tax credit for new cars. For used cars, there will be a smaller tax credit of up to $4,000. The goal of both credits is to even the playing field: Cars that burn fossil fuels are still generally cheaper than electric vehicles. With the credits, electric cars will be much closer in price to, if not cheaper than, similar nonelectric vehicles.
For home improvements, the process will be different, but the basic idea is similar. For a typical $20,000 rooftop solar installation, tax credits will cut the price by up to $6,000. There are also subsidies for heat pumps, electric stoves and other energy-efficiency projects. The hope is to make all these changes much more affordable for everyday Americans, leading to less reliance on fossil fuels and expanding the market for cleaner energy.
President Biden touring wind turbines in Colorado last year.Doug Mills/The New York Times
‘A good deal’
The bill includes a slew of benefits for businesses, too. For example, they will be able to claim credits to replace traditional cars with electric ones, saving as much as 30 percent on each vehicle’s cost.
Another set of incentives will encourage businesses to build and use cleaner energy. Similar credits have existed in the past, but they often expired after one or two years — producing unpredictable boom-and-bust cycles for investors and businesses. This time, Congress is establishing the credits for at least a decade, helping create more certainty. And the credits will for the first time apply to publicly owned utilities and nonprofits, a large segment of U.S. electricity providers.
The bill does include a compromise: It requires more leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas projects. Senator Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, demanded this provision.
But experts say that it will have only a modest impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, the bill will subtract at least 24 tons of carbon emissions for each ton of emissions that the oil and gas provision adds, according to Energy Innovation, a think tank.
‘It’s a trade-off,’ my colleague Coral Davenport, who covers energy and environmental policy, told me. ‘But in terms of emissions impact, it’s a good deal.’
The bottom line
The bill will make cleaner energy and electric vehicles much cheaper for many Americans. Over time, it will also likely make them more affordable for the rest of the world, as more competition and innovation in the U.S. lead to cheaper, better products that can be shipped worldwide.
And it will move America close to President Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse emissions to half their peak by 2030, according to three independent analyses.
Modeling for the new climate bill is based on draft legislation from July 27, 2022. | Source: REPEAT Project, E.P.A. | By Nadja Popovich
The bill is also a sign that the U.S. is starting to take climate change seriously. That will give American diplomats more credibility as they ask other countries, such as China and India, to do the same.
Still, many scientists believe the U.S. will eventually need to do more to prevent severe damage from climate change. ‘This bill is really only the beginning,’ said Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara.” Read more at New York Times
Police direct traffic outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump said in a lengthy statement that the FBI was conducting a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and asserted that agents had broken open a safe.
“Years of tensions and resentment over the perceived ‘witch hunt’ of Donald Trump and his supporters exploded into view this week after FBI agents searched the former President’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
From conservative pundits and lawmakers to far-right influencers, the search was cast as an existential threat to the United States, with terms like ‘civil war’ and ‘tyranny’ thrown around on television and online forums. Pro-Trump commentators called for mass arrests, denounced the FBI, mourned a ‘dark day for our republic,’ and suggested that the move would result in political violence.
‘This is warfare. The only rule in war is to win,’ one user wrote on a popular pro-Trump forum that served as a staging ground for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. ‘We need to go on offense.’
The surge in violent rhetoric drew concerns that it could inspire attacks on law enforcement, as analysts noted a wave of threats directed at FBI agents and leaders. Trump supporters picketed several of the agency’s field offices, with a larger protest planned at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on Sunday. The Florida federal judge who signed the warrant that allowed FBI agents to search Trump’s residence has been flooded with threats, with far-right messaging channels publishing his address and spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
But former law enforcement officials and analysts of political violence warn that this may be only a preview of the backlash that could erupt if the various investigations into Trump, who is stoking speculation about a 2024 presidential run, progress further. Trump is facing a range of investigations: the Mar-a-Lago search was reportedly related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents, a House committee is investigating the Jan. 6 attack, a federal grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election has subpoenaed senior Trump officials, and there are several state-level investigations also probing 2020 election matters, as well as a legal battle over his tax returns.
With recent polls showing that a growing number of Americans think violence against the U.S. government can be justified, right-wing personalities amplifying the alarming rhetoric, and national security agencies warning that the upcoming midterm elections could be a flashpoint for extremist violence, this kind of language is likely to be seen as a call to arms, experts say.
‘Republican politicians and media figures are playing with fire,’ says Rachel Kleinfeld, a political violence analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ‘Acceptance of violence for political ends in America is approaching the levels seen in Northern Ireland at the height of their Troubles… fanning the flames of violence through incendiary language is the worst possible thing they could be doing.’
Trump and his allies have been quick to use the outrage over the FBI search for political gain, blasting out fundraising emails and vowing to hold the Biden Administration to account. ‘I need every single red-blooded American Patriot to step up during this time,’ read one email in Trump’s name sent by his political action committee on Wednesday, casting him as the victim of a ‘deep state’ plot. There are indications that supporters on the more extremist fringes might take the apocalyptic rhetoric seriously, especially as some Republican leaders echo and boost the disturbing language.” Read more at Time
“Mark Zuckerberg’s new top lieutenant at Meta is the anti-Sheryl Sandberg. He’s rarely in the public and he’s not a household name. Javier Olivan, the company’s new chief operating officer, has long been the unofficial fixer at Facebook. He’s spun out Facebook’s Messenger app. He was a key advocate for major deals, including its $22 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, as well as the lesser-known Onavo tool—which helped Meta gather competitive intel on how often users were opening other social apps on their phones. While Zuckerberg invented Facebook, it was Olivan who helped expand the service—with all of its societal benefits and ills—to unprecedented size and power.” Read more at Bloomberg
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta, and Javier Olivan in 2014. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg
“$24 million settlement in USWNT's equal pay lawsuit gets preliminary approval by federal judge
The U.S. women’s national soccer team's long fight for equal pay is all but over. A federal judge on Thursday granted preliminary approval to a $24 million settlement in the USWNT’s equal pay lawsuit against U.S. Soccer, declaring it “fair, adequate and reasonable.” A hearing to grant final approval is scheduled for Dec. 5 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. With the new CBA already in effect, official resolution of the equal pay lawsuit is all that is left in the U.S. women’s decades-long and often rancorous fight for equality. Read more
•Equality in sports: A new NBA diversity study found job gains by minorities and women in the league.
•Men's soccer: FIFA moves up start for 2022 World Cup with host nation Qatar to now play Ecuador on Nov. 20.” Read more at USA Today
U.S. Soccer agreed in February to pay USWNT players $24 million to settle the equal pay lawsuit the women had filed in 2019, but the deal was contingent on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Now that one has been reached, the settlement can be finalized in district court.David Butler II, David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
In 1964, Boston Celtics star Bill Russell is congratulated at Boston Garden by coach Red Auerbach after scoring his 10,000th career point. Photo: Bill Chaplis/AP
“Bill Russell's No. 6 jersey is being retired across the NBA, a first for the league, AP's Tim Reynolds writes.
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association announced that the number worn by the 11-time champion civil rights activist, who died last month, will be permanently retired by all 30 teams.
‘Bill Russell's unparalleled success on the court and pioneering civil rights activism deserve to be honored in a unique and historic way,’ NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.
Players who currently wear No. 6 — including the Lakers' LeBron James — may continue doing so. But the number cannot be issued again.
Major League Baseball permanently retired No. 42 — in honor of Jackie Robinson, who broke the big league's color barrier — with the understanding that those who were wearing that number could continue to do so. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees was the last in the majors to wear No. 42, doing so through his final season in 2013.
The NHL, on Wayne Gretzky's retirement in 1999, said No. 99 would be retired league-wide in honor of the sport's all-time scoring leader.” Read more at Axios
Image caption, Anne Heche attended the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards in California in March
“US actress Anne Heche is not expected to survive, her family has said, after a car crash earlier this week that left her vehicle engulfed in flames.
She remains in a coma and had ‘a severe anoxic brain injury’ - when the brain is deprived of oxygen - they said.
‘We want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne's recovery and thank the dedicated staff and wonderful nurses,’ they added.
Her car crashed into a two-storey home in Los Angeles last week.
Police said on Friday that preliminary blood tests had revealed the presence of drugs in her system, but extra testing was needed to rule out any substances given in hospital.
The Los Angeles Police Department told the PA news agency the incident was being investigated as a felony driving-under-the-influence traffic collision.” Read more at BBC
In hot weather, squirrels have been known to sprawl flat on the ground in a position known as a ‘sploot’. Photograph: Eric Kayne/Getty Images
“It’s baking hot in New York, which can only mean one thing for the city’s small mammal population: it’s splooting season.
This week, with temperatures reaching 95F (35C), the city’s parks department urged residents not to worry about the health of squirrels seen sprawling on the ground, legs extended behind them like a person whose arms gave out halfway through a yoga class. ‘On hot days, squirrels keep cool by splooting (stretching out) on cool surfaces to reduce body heat,’ the department tweeted.” Read more at The Guardian
“Lives Lived: Jean-Jacques Sempé, the French cartoonist known for children’s book illustrations and New Yorker magazine covers, portrayed tiny people at poignant moments. He died at 89.” Read more at New York Times