Former US president Donald Trump claims he can declassify top secret documents just ‘by thinking about it’
On Sunday, GOP Senator Rick Scott of Florida refused to condemn the former president.
“I can never respond to why anyone says what they said, but here’s they way I looked at it is, I think what the president is saying is, you know, there’s been a lot of money spent over the last two years,” he told CNN.
Other Republican Senators, like Susan Collins of Maine, say the tone of violent rhetoric in US politics is ratcheting up, to the point where she’s worried a member of Congress might get assassinated.
Meanwhile, historians are arguing Mr Trump may seek “revenge” against rivals and former allies like Florida governor Ron DeSantis if he’s re-elected president in 2024.
The debate on violent words in politics follows another campaign-style rally from Mr Trump, who visited Michigan on Saturday.
In his speech, he lashed out at journalist Maggie Haberman of The New York Timesand praised people like conservative activist Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who lobbied to overturn the 2020 election result.
William Barr says Trump is going overboard on executive privilege claims
Former Trump administration Attorney General William Barr is one of a number of legal observers saying Donald Trump is probably going too far by claiming executive privilege prevents investigators from examining his efforts to keep White House documents and overturn the 2020 election results.
“There is a decent argument” that making such privilege claims infringes on the powers of current preisdent Joe Biden, Mr Barr told The New York Times on Sunday.
Others interviewed by the Times said such privilege claims are in a legal grey area, as no current or former president has ever invoked executive privilege to stop other members of the executive branch, in this case the Justice Department, from accessing documents.
“This is tricky stuff,” Mark J Rozell, a George Mason University professor and author of Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy and Accountability. “That gets to the point where the Trump era changed things and raised these kinds of questions that before were unthinkable to us.”
Even Republicans are worried about violent political rhetoric
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine warned about increasing violent threats against lawmakers in an interview with The New York Times, the day after Donald Trump made what some interpretted as a death threat against Senator Mitch McConnell.
The Republican senator spoke about her concerns in the wake of a man smashing a brick through her home in Bangor, Maine, and as political figures like Donald Trump and his supporters deploy increasingly incendiary language.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed,” he said. “What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.”
The threat against Ms Collins came amid escalating threats against lawmakers. In 2018, after she voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, she received a message that featured a beheading.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also received numerous threats
Michael Fanone tears into Trump and ‘weasel’ GOP in profane Rolling Stone interview
Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC, police officer who was seriously injured during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, slammed Donald Trump and his GOP enablers in a profane new interview in Rolling Stone, ahead of the release of his forthcoming memoir.
The former officer and current CNN contributor said that since January 6, he’s been “waging a one-man war against Donald Trump and the f***ing people that refuse to accept reality” about what happened at the Capitol.
Among that group, Mr Fanone said, is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who the former officer said lied and equivocated during a meeting with him and the mother of officer Brian Sicknick, who was killed on January 6, about forming a bipartisan January 6 committee.
In the interview, Mr Fanone described, that “weasel b**** named Kevin McCarthy, with his fake f***ing spray-on tan, whose f***ing claim to fame, at least in my eyes, is the fact that he amassed a collection of Donald Trump’s favorite-flavored Starburst, put them in a Mason jar, and presented them to f***ing Donald Trump. What the f***, dude?”
The former officer also claimed that “history is going to s*** on Mike Pence’s head.”
National Archive says it is still missing some Trump administration records
The National Archives and Records Administration sent a letter to Congress saying that it is still missing records from the Trump administration, despite the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Streidel Wall sent a letter to House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney. “While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” the letter stated.
The letter was in response to one sent by Ms Maloney asking the agency to “conduct an urgent review of presidential records from the Trump Administration to identify any Presidential record” that might still be outside of its control and to seek a written certification from Mr Trump that he had surrendered all presidential records or classified materials; had not made any copies and hadn’t transferred them to anyone but NARA or the Department of Justice.
Eric Garcia has the full story.
Letter says ‘we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should’
Will Trump exact revenge against Ron DeSantis?
Mary Trump, niece of former president Donald Trump, has predicted that the former president will take revenge against Florida governor Ron DeSantis if Mr Trump secures another term in the White House.
Mr Trump is perhaps most responsible for Mr DeSantis’s political rise, but the Florida governor now threatens to overshadow the former president as both men jockey for position ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump once endorsed DeSantis, but relationship has soured
GOP senator Rick Scott’s awkward interview
Sen Rick Scott, chair of the GOP Senate’s campaign arm, refused to confront former president Donald Trump over recent attacks againt Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, who served as Mr Trump’s transportation secretary.
‘It never ever OK to be racist,’ GOP senator Rick Scott says when pressed
Conservative firebrand Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene has been sharply criticised for her violent rhetoric at last night’s Trump rally.
Trump thanks wife of Supreme Court justice for sticking to stolen election lies
Donald Trump gave his first public commendation to Ginni Thomas, the deeply controversial wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, on Saturday.
At his rally in Michigan he shouted out the activist Ms Thomas, who testified before the January 6 committee this week about her newly-reported efforts to help Mr Trump overturn the election in states he rightfully lost. And Mr Trump thanked her for sticking to those nonsensical conspiracies during his remarks.
The praise was likely heartfelt but could complicate matters for Ms Thomas and her husband, who sits on the nation’s highest court and faces questions about whether she used her connection to him while pressing Mr Trump’s lies about the 2020 election in conversations with state lawmakers around the US.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg in The Independent:
‘According to the standard and routine leaks from the committee ... she said that she still believes the 2020 election was stolen,’ Mr Trump says at rally
Trump attacks Maggie Haberman book as ‘disgusting’
Donald Trump took special time at his rally on Saturday to attack Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter well-sourced in the Trumpworld beat who has continued to speak with the ex-president since he left office.
She is set to publish a number of embarrassing claims and bits of reporting about the ex-president in her upcoming book Confidence Man.
One particular part of the book was denounced by Mr Trump as “disgusting”.
Read more from Josh Marcus in The Independent:
Former president has repeatedly attacked New York Times reporter’s forthcoming book on White House
Archives: Records from Trump WH staffers remain missing
The National Archives and Records Administration informed lawmakers in Congress on Friday that a number of electronic communications from Trump White House staffers remain missing, nearly two years since the administration was required to turn them over.
"While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should," wrote the acting archivist.
It’s the latest confirmation that the former president has documents without the permission of the agency that has absolute legal control of such records.
Read more from Farnoush Amiri in The Independent:
The National Archives has informed congressional lawmakers that a number of electronic communications from Trump White House staffers remain missing, nearly two years since the administration was required to turn them over
