Thursday Reads

Good Afternoon!!

Oskar Bergman, Spring Birches and Red Cottages by the Sea

You probably saw the incredible story that The Washington Post broke yesterday about FBI agents living in fear of Donald Trump. Some were so scared that they wanted to treat Trump with kid gloves, even after he stole hundreds of classified documents from the government and refused to return them. So it’s not just elected Republicans who are scared of Trump–even some in law enforcement want to let him get away with serious crimes in order to protect their own careers.

The Washington Post: Showdown before the raid: FBI agents and prosecutors argued over Trump.

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute, one of several previously unreported clashes in a tense tug of war between two arms of the Justice Department over how aggressively to pursue a criminal investigation of a former president. The FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on Aug. 8, recovering more than 100 classified items, among them a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.

Starting in May, FBI agents in the Washington field office had sought to slow the probe, urging caution given itsextraordinary sensitivity, the people said.

Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had beenconducted and all classified records had been turned over, according to somepeople with knowledge of the discussions.

This sounds familiar. Back in 2016, James Comey kept the investigation of Trump and Russia secret, while making public statements about the much less significant investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails; because FBI agents in the New York office had it in for Hillary and supported Trump. WTF is going on with the FBI? Here’s what Peter Strzok, who lost his job at the FBI because of pressure from Trump, had to say about this news:

Back to the WaPo article:

The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government. However, the agents, who typically perform the bulk of the investigative work in cases, and the prosecutors, who guide agents’ work and decide on criminal charges, ultimately focused on very different pitfalls, according to people familiar with their discussions.

On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.

Both sides were mindful of the intense scrutiny the case was drawing and felt they had to be above reproach while investigating a former president then expected to run for reelection. While trying to follow the Justice Department playbook for classified records probes, investigators on both sides braced for Trump to follow his own playbook of publicly attacking the integrity of their investigation, according to people with knowledge of their discussions.

The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans, the people said.

Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security. As evidence surfaced suggesting that Trump or his team was holding back sensitive records, the prosecutors pushed for quick action to recover them, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

It’s a very long piece–head over to the WaPo to read the rest.

Paul Cézanne, Melting Snow

I have to ask: why does Christopher Wray still have a job? From Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post: Christopher Wray is getting away with doing a lousy job.

The MAGA right thinks FBI Director Christopher A. Wray is some sort of patsy for Democrats. But the problem is not that Wray, a Trump appointee, is showing favoritism to a Democratic administration. It’s that he is not doing his job when it comes to threats from right-wing authoritarianism.

Don’t take my word for it. The Government Accountability Office issued a report this week concerning the performance of multiple agencies and police units regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Among its findings: The FBI “did not consistently follow agency policies or procedures for processing tips or potential threats because they did not have controls to ensure compliance with policies.”

The extent to which the FBI was aware of credible threats but did not prepare is breathtaking:

In the weeks preceding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the FBI obtained information across other sources indicating potential threats. Through human source reporting, investigations, and observed activity, the FBI identified the increasing threat of violence at high profile special events, such as the 2020 election and 2021 presidential inauguration. FBI officials we spoke with said that from December 29, 2020, through January 6, 2021, they tracked domestic terrorism subjects that were traveling to Washington, D.C., and developed reports related to January 6 events. As of January 6, 2021, FBI officials noted that the Washington Field Office was tracking 18 domestic terrorism subjects as potential travelers to the D.C. area.

Other information came directly from social media platforms. From October 1, 2020, through January 5, 2021, officials from the FBI we spoke with said they obtained and reviewed 73 potential domestic terrorism related referrals from one social media platform, and obtained one referral on January 4, 2021, related to potential violence in Washington, D.C. on January 6. In addition, the FBI received information from another social media platform from late November 2020 through January 6, 2021, regarding potential violence at January 6 events.

Once the FBI had that information, it did not act upon it with the urgency required. “FBI personnel did not follow policies for processing some tips, resulting in them not being developed into reports that could have been shared with partners. Specifically, the FBI did not process all relevant information related to potential violence on January 6.”

The conclusion: “While the FBI identified and shared threat information, it did not process certain referrals from social media platforms according to policies and procedures and, as a result, it failed to share critical information with all relevant partners.”

Worse, the bureau has not undertaken the kind of systematic self-evaluation needed to correct glaring inadequacies. “The ongoing FBI review of its actions during the weeks preceding January 6, 2021, has not included an assessment of how it processed information. Assessing this process will help determine if the mistakes we identified are isolated or due to a systemic cause.” (Emphasis added.)

Click the link to read the rest.

In other news, Chris Christie thinks Trump will be indicted by this summer. The Independent: Chris Christie explains why he believes Trump will be indicted.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has said that he thinks former President Donald Trump will be indicted in connection to at least one of the numerous investigations he’s the subject of, as the former president campaigns for the 2024 GOP nomination.

Gabriele Münter, Still Life on the Tram (After Shopping)

Mr Christie, who ran against Mr Trump and more than a dozen others in the 2016 Republican primary, spoke to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, saying that he believes Mr Trump’s attorneys wouldn’t be able to reject the case of the grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, even after the jury foreperson made a series of media appearances, prompting criticism towards some of her conduct….

“This is a very difficult case to make off the phone call,” Mr Christie said of the phone conversation between Mr Raffensperger and Mr Trump. “Now I don’t know what their other evidence is. That’s supposed to be the beauty of the grand jury system. And it is so far in this case that you don’t know what all the specific other evidence may be. But based upon what I know publicly, I think it’s a tough case to bring against the former president based upon the information we now know.”

Mr Christie added that Mr Trump appears to be legally vulnerable in connection to the lead-up to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and obstruction of Congress.

“I think the most likely place it will happen is New York. And I think it’s the least harmful matter to him,” he told Mr Hewitt. “If in fact, all they’re looking at is the Stormy Daniels payments….

“I think in terms of the likelihood of indictment, I’d put New York first, the special counsel second, Georgia third. But in terms of the seriousness of the peril for the president, I’d put the special counsel above either of those,” Mr Christie said.

“So in brief, do you expect an indictment by July?” the host asked the ex-governor.

“I expect that New York probably would act. I don’t know whether the special counsel will act by that time, but my guess is that New York would act by that time,” he said.

The New York Times broke some news yesterday on that New York case: Kellyanne Conway Meets With Prosecutors as Trump Inquiry Escalates.

Kellyanne Conway, who managed the final months of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign, met with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Wednesday, the latest sign that the office is ramping up its criminal investigation into the former president.

The prosecutors are scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s role in a hush money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with him. The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign, and Mr. Trump ultimately reimbursed him.

Mr. Cohen has said that Ms. Conway played a small yet notable role in the payment: she was the person Mr. Cohen alerted after making the payment, he wrote in his 2020 memoir.

“I called Trump to confirm that the transaction was completed, and the documentation all in place, but he didn’t take my call — obviously a very bad sign, in hindsight,” he wrote. Instead, he wrote, Ms. Conway “called and said she’d pass along the good news.”

Ms. Conway, who was seen walking into the district attorney’s office shortly before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, is the latest in a string of witnesses to meet with prosecutors in the last month or so. Since the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, impaneled a grand jury in January to hear evidence about Mr. Trump’s role in paying the hush money, at least five witnesses have testified: Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, employees of Mr. Trump’s company; David Pecker and Dylan Howard, two former leaders of The National Enquirer, which helped arrange the hush money deal; and Keith Davidson, a former lawyer for Ms. Daniels.

The decision to question those central players in the hush money saga before the grand jury suggests that Mr. Bragg is nearing a decision on whether to seek an indictment of the former president.

Weasels Playing, Franz Marc

Another possibility for Trump to face some accountability is through a lawsuit by Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The Daily Beast: Georgia Poll Workers Pick Up Where Jan. 6 Committee Left Off.

Two Georgia poll workers who were attacked by 2020 election conspiracy theorists are picking up where the Jan. 6 congressional investigation left off—by trying to independently examine the private communications between two of the men behind the firestorm: Rudy Giuliani and former President Donald Trump.

Giuliani, who played a central role in the Republican attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election as Trump’s lawyer, refused to tell congressional investigators about their conversations, citing attorney-client privilege.

But now, a mother and daughter still reeling from the MAGA harassment are trying to pierce that veil.

Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of Fulton County, Georgia, are turning their defamation lawsuit against Giuliani into a no-limits, fact-finding mission, according to an undisclosed letter from their attorneys reviewed exclusively by The Daily Beast.

In their Jan. 13 letter, the pair’s attorneys tell Giuliani’s defense lawyer that his objections to the Jan. 6 Committee’s questions about interactions with Trump “were improper,” warning that they intend to bulldoze right over them.

“Mr. Giuliani invoked privilege during January 6 testimony with respect to certain topics we expect to broach during his… deposition,” said the letter, which was written in anticipation of a closed-door questioning session.

Giuliani was deposed on Wednesday inside a midtown Manhattan skyscraper that serves as the headquarters of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the high-end international law firm representing the women.

Lawyers for Freeman and Moss said they want to know more about Giuliani’s interactions with Trump, as well as his “correspondence” with the Department of Justice regarding Trump’s mission to overturn the 2020 election, conservative state legislators who were coaxed into publicly doubting the ballot results that year, and fake Republican electors who tried to band together as alternate electoral college votes to supplant the real ones that went for Joe Biden.

There’s much more at the link.

On Tuesday, I posted about the Supreme Court hearing on Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. According to this story at CNBC, the odds may have shifted toward the Biden administration winning the case: Biden administration lawyer may have saved student loan forgiveness plan at Supreme Court, experts say.

The government’s top Supreme Court lawyer may have saved President Joe Biden’s $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan from what experts considered all but certain defeat.

Experts lobbed praise on Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the lawyer who represented the Biden administration in front of the nine justices Tuesday.

“The Biden administration now seems more likely than not to win the cases,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

“Her preparation, poise and power were impressive,” Kantrowitz said.

Wassily Kandinsky, Tree of Life

In contrast, the attorneys for plaintiffs opposed to the program were less than stellar, Kantrowitz said. “It was like the difference between a star quarterback and two tiddlywinks players,” he said.

University of Illinois Chicago law professor Steven Schwinn agreed: “Prelogar knocked it out of the park.”

“I do think she could have influenced or even changed the thinking of two justices, maybe more,” he added.

On Wednesday, Fordham law professor Jed Shugerman tweeted that he remains “struck by SG Elizabeth Prelogar’s brilliant performance.”

“She may have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat,” Shugerman wrote.

The nine justices considered two legal challenges to Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for borrowers. Six GOP-led states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina — had brought one of the lawsuits, and the other was backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy organization.

Prelogar argued that the president was acting squarely within the law to avoid borrower distress during national emergencies and that plaintiffs had not shown in any way that they’d be harmed by the policy, which is typically a requirement to establish so-called legal standing.

I hope these experts are right. We’ll have to wait a few months to find out.

This story out of Michigan is really scary. NBC News: ‘Heavily armed’ man who FBI said targeted Jewish Michigan officials was after state Attorney General Dana Nessel, she says.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was targeted last month by a “heavily armed” man who threatened injury and death to Jewish members of the state government, she said Thursday morning.

Jack Eugene Carpenter III is accused of tweeting: “I’m heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is jewish in the Michigan govt if they don’t leave, or confess, and now that kind of problem,” according to a criminal complaint filed Feb. 18.

“Because I can Legally do that, right?” he added, according to the FBI affidavit.

Carpenter’s mother confirmed to investigators that the tweets came from him and that to her knowledge, he was in possession of “three handguns, a 12 gauge shotgun, and two hunting rifles, one of which is an MIA, military-style weapon,” the complaint said.

Nessel, a Democrat, said Thursday in a tweet that the FBI confirmed she had been one of the officials targeted by “the heavily armed defendant in this matter.”

“It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes & Domestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials,” she said.

That’s all the news I have for you today. Please share your thoughts in the comment thread and post any other stories that interest you.