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How Grand Juries Work and What They’re Doing About Jan. 6

The general public might not know a lot about grand juries, but the closed-door panels figure prominently in the legal aftermath of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

A grand jury subpoenaed the National Archives for all materials the agency gave to the House Select Committee looking into the events leading up to January 6. Justice Department prosecutors are working with a grand jury that is reportedly looking into former President Donald Trump’s role in efforts to reverse the election outcome. A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, subpoenaed members of Trump’s legal team during its probe into possible illegal interference in Georgia’s 2020 elections.

Mystery often surrounds grand juries because their work is, by law, conducted in secrecy.

“Washington, D.C., has been investigating the individuals who were responsible for the [January 6] break-in, but how much farther that goes and the extent to which they’re investigating Donald Trump or Donald Trump’s confidants, we only know of that, if at all, because either people told the press or they brought litigation resisting subpoenas,” says Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor who is currently a professor at the Fordham University School of Law. “And even then, if one wanted to, you could file the litigation as a John Doe [unnamed person] if you want to preserve confidentiality.”

‘indict a ham sandwich’

Grand juries play a central role in the American justice system. They are tasked with listening to evidence presented by prosecutors and witnesses and then deciding, by a secret vote, whether there’s enough evidence to charge a person with a felony, which is any criminal offense punishable by at least one year in prison.

Grand juries are required in federal felony prosecutions, and many U.S. states have adopted a similar system. However, in some states, prosecutors can also present their evidence to a judge, who then decides whether someone can be charged with a crime.

Federal grand juries are made up of 16 to 23 members. At least 12 jurors must agree before an indictment — a formal charge — can be brought. Grand jurors are selected from the same pool of ordinary citizens who serve as trial jurors. They are identified from public records such as driver’s licenses and voting registries. Grand jurors serve from 18 to 36 months, usually meeting a few times a month, and have the power to question witnesses and issue subpoenas.

“The grand jury system is important in terms of deciding who’s going to face criminal charges, but it’s also important for involving citizens in the criminal justice system,” says Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “The origins of the grand jury system are based on, in a sense, a certain degree of trying to keep the government honest.”

Grand juries were originally conceived as a safeguard against government power, which is why the Founding Fathers wrote them into the U.S. Constitution. But former federal prosecutor Green isn’t convinced the so-called “people’s panel” fulfills that function in a meaningful way.

“If the original idea of the Founding Fathers was, as I believe it was, to be a restraint on government power … it’s probably not a very effective tool to protect people from prosecution overreaching,” Green says. “And there’s a pretty significant risk that, if the prosecutor gets it in their head that somebody’s guilty, they can achieve an indictment whether the person is guilty or not.”

Grand juries rarely decline to indict. In 2010, government statistics showed that federal grand juries brought charges more than 99% of the time. In 1985, a New York judge famously said that prosecutors have so much influence over grand juries that they could convince jurors to “indict a ham sandwich.”

High stakes

While the grand jury might be a rubber stamp in most cases, the panel is more likely to play a more meaningful role in cases that draw widespread public attention, Joy says.

“I think it’s very likely that prosecutors in presenting the evidence to the grand jury most likely tried to present more evidence than they might in a typical type of case and presented in a way that would be balanced,” he says.

Some states require prosecutors to show evidence that the accused might be innocent. However, federal prosecutors are not required to do so.

“The higher the profile the accused has, the greater the likelihood is that the prosecutor really wants to feel that he or she has a solid case, and they’re going to want to test out the evidence in a way that would give them increasing confidence in the case that they have,” Joy says.

“Because the stakes are high, a smart prosecutor — if there is some contrary evidence that might put into question guilt or innocence — they’re likely to use the grand jury as a vetting process for that.”

Green expects several grand juries to consider potential charges against people accused of breaking into the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. The high volume of cases could be too much for one grand jury to consider. However, that might not hold true in related cases higher up the food chain.

“If you’re looking at a number of people in the Trump orbit who may have been working together before January 6 to plan the break-in, then all the evidence is going to be related, and they’re all going to be in a relationship, and you’re going to want to have one grand jury look at everything because you want them to see all the evidence,” Green says.
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Biden Rallies for Democrats, Slams ‘Semi-Fascism’ in GOP

U.S. President Joe Biden called on Democrats Thursday “to vote to literally save democracy once again” — and compared Republican ideology to “semi-fascism” — as he led a kickoff rally and a fundraiser in the state of Maryland 75 days out from the midterm elections.

Addressing an overflow crowd of thousands at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Biden said: “Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of your kids from gun violence is on the ballot, and it’s not hyperbole, the very survival of our planet is on the ballot.”

“You have to choose,” Biden added. “Will we be a country that moves forward or a country that moves backward?”

The events, in the safely Democratic Washington suburbs, were meant to ease Biden into what White House aides say will be an aggressive season of championing his policy victories and aiding his party’s candidates. He is aiming to turn months of accomplishments into political energy as Democrats have seen their hopes rebound amid the legacy-defining burst of action by Biden and Congress.

From bipartisan action on gun control, infrastructure and domestic technology manufacturing to Democrats-only efforts to tackle climate change and health care costs, Biden highlighted the achievements of the party’s unified but razor-thin control of Washington. And he tried to sharpen the contrast with Republicans, who once seemed poised for sizable victories in November.

Just months ago, as inflation soared, Biden’s poll numbers soured and his agenda stalled, Democrats braced for significant losses. But the intense voter reaction to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and a productive summer on issues of core concern to Democrats have the party feeling like it is finally on the offensive heading into the Nov. 8 vote, even as the president remains unpopular.

Ahead of the rally, Biden raised about $1 million at an event with about 100 donors for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund in the backyard of a lavish Bethesda home.

After his speech at the rally, Biden lingered with the largely mask-free crowd for nearly 30 minutes, diving back into the style of campaigning that had been disrupted for Democrats for more than two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. The president, who was identified as a close contact of first lady Jill Biden on Wednesday when she was diagnosed with a “rebound” case of the virus, did not appear to wear a face covering as he posed for selfies and hugged supporters.

Biden’s Thursday events come a day after the president moved to fulfill a long-delayed campaign pledge to forgive federal student loans for lower- and middle-income borrowers — a move that Democrats believe will animate younger and Black and Latino voters.

Republicans, though, saw their own political advantage in the move, casting it as an unfair giveaway to would-be Democratic voters.

“President Biden’s inflation is crushing working families, and his answer is to give away even more government money to elites with higher salaries,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. “Democrats are literally using working Americans’ money to try to buy themselves some enthusiasm from their political base.”

Biden on Thursday expanded on his effort to paint Republicans as the “ultra-MAGA” party — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — opposing his agenda and embracing conservative ideological proposals as well as Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” Biden told donors at the fundraiser. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”

“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said later. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”

The Republican National Committee called Biden’s comments “despicable.”

“Biden forced Americans out of their jobs, transferred money from working families to Harvard lawyers, and sent our country into a recession while families can’t afford gas and groceries,” said spokesperson Nathan Brand. “Democrats don’t care about suffering Americans — they never did.”

Since the June Supreme Court ruling removing women’s constitutional protections for abortion, Democrats have seen a boost in donations, polling and performance in special elections for open congressional seats. The latest came Tuesday in a Hudson Valley swing district that, in a Republican wave year, should have been an easy GOP win.

Instead, Democrat Pat Ryan, who campaigned on a platform of standing up for abortion rights, defeated Republican Marc Molinaro.

“MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women,” Biden said, noting the resonance of the abortion issue with women voters as some in the GOP push a national ban on the procedure. “Let me tell you something: They are about to find out.”

The shift is giving Democrats a new sense that a Republican sweep of the House is no longer such a sure bet, particularly battle-tested incumbents polling better than Biden work their districts.

Meanwhile, Democrats have benefited from Republican candidates who won primaries but are struggling in the general campaign. Trump-backed Senate candidates have complicated the GOP’s chances in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, while several Trump-aligned candidates in House races were not always the party’s first choice.

Trump’s grip on the GOP remains strong and has perhaps even become tighter in the aftermath of the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home.

JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority Project, an outside group that is working to elect Democrats to the Senate, said the Republican candidates are “getting caught up in the Trump tornado once again — that is exactly what voters of both parties don’t want.”

Biden’s political event, sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, comes as the president and members of his Cabinet are set to embark on what the White House has billed as the “Building a Better America Tour” to promote “the benefits of the President’s accomplishments and the Inflation Reduction Act to the American people and highlight the contrast with Congressional Republicans’ vision.”

Meanwhile, the White House has benefited from a steady decline in gasoline prices, which, while still elevated, have dropped daily since mid-June.

“Our critics say inflation,” Biden said, dismissing GOP attacks that his policies resulted in inflation being at a 40-year high. “You mean the global inflation caused by the worldwide pandemic and Putin’s war in Ukraine?”

In Maryland, Biden was joined by gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and a host of other officials on the ballot. Moore, introducing Biden, said his Trump-backed rival “Dan Cox is not an opponent. He’s a threat.”

Months ago, Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection fights sought to make themselves scarce when Biden came to town, though White House aides said Biden could still be an asset by elevating issues that resonate with voters and sharpening the distinction with Republicans.

Now, allies see the fortunes beginning to change and the president as more of a direct asset to campaigns.

“Joe Biden is not the ballot technically,” said House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer. “But Joe Biden is on the ballot, and Joe Biden needs your support.”
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Judge Orders Justice Department to Unseal Trump Search Affidavit

A federal judge directed the U.S. Justice Department late Thursday to unseal its redacted version of an affidavit it used to obtain a recent search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

U.S. magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart issued the order hours after the Justice Department proposed redactions to the document that prosecutors had said would be needed to guard sensitive details of their investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.

The affidavit is being sought by several U.S. news organizations and other groups amid intense public interest in the FBI’s unprecedented August 8 search of a former American president’s home.

During the search, FBI agents removed 11 sets of classified documents labeled confidential, secret or top secret, according to a property receipt given to Trump’s lawyer.

The search warrant was unsealed four days later, showing that the former president was under investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses.

Trump and his allies have denounced the action, accusing the Biden administration of “weaponizing” law enforcement against him. He has said he wants the affidavit unsealed.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the Justice Department to seek the search warrant, has dismissed the accusation.

In his order, Reinhart wrote that he had reviewed the redacted affidavit as well as an accompanying legal memo, and found that “the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit because disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure.”

The Justice Department had opposed making the document public, saying it contains critical details about the ongoing investigations, including information about the government’s investigative techniques and witnesses interviewed by the FBI.

Reinhart gave the Justice Department until noon Friday to submit “a version of the affidavit containing the redactions” it proposed earlier on Thursday.

Just how much of the document will be unsealed and what details about the investigation it will reveal remains to be seen.

In opposing the unsealing of the affidavit, Justice Department prosecutors last week argued in court that they expected their redactions to the document to be so extensive as to render the document meaningless.

Citing the “historical significance” of the Mar-a-Lago search, media outlets pressing for the unsealing of the affidavit filed a new motion on Thursday asking that portions of the Justice Department’s memo justifying the redactions be unsealed.

“Like the search warrant affidavit itself, the Brief is a judicial record to which a presumption of public access applies,” they wrote.

The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago came seven months after Trump turned over to the National Archives 15 boxes of government records that he’d taken to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House in January 2021.

Under the Presidential Records Act, all presidential records are the property of the U.S. government and must be turned over to the National Archives by outgoing presidents.

In a May 10 letter to a Trump lawyer, acting U.S. archivist Debra Wall wrote that the boxes included more than 100 classified documents consisting of more than 700 pages. The National Archives released the letter this week.

The FBI investigation of Trump’s handling of classified records represents the latest legal headache for him as he mulls another presidential run in 2024.

In the 21 months since he lost his re-election bid in November 2020, Trump has been under investigation by congressional investigators and prosecutors for his efforts to overturn the results of the vote.
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US Justice Department Proposes Redactions to Trump Search Affidavit

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday proposed redactions to an affidavit that FBI agents used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as part of an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified government documents.

The sealed affidavit – essentially the legal justification for conducting the controversial and unprecedented search of the former president’s property – is being sought by a number of U.S. news organizations and other groups.

But federal prosecutors have opposed making the document public, saying it contains critical details about the ongoing investigation, including information about the government’s investigative techniques and witnesses interviewed by the FBI.

Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said the DOJ’s submission was made under seal in response to an August 22 court order directing prosecutors to propose redactions to the affidavit.

“The Justice Department respectfully declines further comment as the Court considers the matter,” Coley said in a brief statement.

It remains unclear whether Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who issued the court order, will ultimately decide in favor of releasing the document.

That is because prosecutors have argued in court that the information in the affidavit is so sensitive that blacking it out will render the document meaningless.

Reinhart has said that “the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed.”  But he’s held out the possibility that he may accept the prosecutors’ argument.

“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government,” Reinhart wrote in his Monday court order.

The August 8 search of Mar-A-Lago set off a political firestorm, prompting Trump and his allies to accuse the Biden administration of “weaponizing” the Justice Department and the FBI.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the Justice Department to seek a search warrant for Mar-A-Lago, has dismissed the accusation.

During the search, FBI agents removed 11 sets of classified documents labeled confidential, secret or top secret, according to a property receipt given to Trump’s lawyer.

The content of the documents remains secret.  But the information was deemed sensitive enough that Garland personally intervened in the case.

The search came months after Trump turned over to the National Archives 15 boxes of government records that he’d taken to Mar-A-Lago after leaving the White House in January 2021.

Under the Presidential Records Act, all presidential records are the property of the U.S. government and must be turned over to the National Archives by outgoing presidents.

In a May 10 letter to a Trump lawyer, Debra Wall, acting archivist of the United States, wrote that the boxes included more than 100 classified documents consisting of more than 700 pages. The National Archives released the letter this week.

The FBI investigation of Trump’s handling of classified records represents the latest legal headache for the former president as he mulls another run at the White House in 2024.

In the 21 months since he lost his re-election bid in November 2020, Trump has been probed by congressional investigators and prosecutors in connection with his efforts to reverse the results of the vote.
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US Judge Blocks Idaho Abortion Ban in Emergencies

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Idaho from enforcing an abortion ban when women with pregnancy complications require emergency care, a day after a judge in Texas ruled against President Joe Biden’s administration on the same issue. 

The conflicting rulings came in two of the first lawsuits over the Democratic administration’s attempts to ease abortion access after the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the procedure nationwide. 

Legal experts said the two state rulings, if upheld on appeal, could force the Supreme Court to wade back into the debate. 

About half of all U.S. states have or are expected to seek to ban or curtail abortions following Roe’s reversal. Those states include Idaho and Texas, which like 11 others adopted “trigger” laws banning abortion upon such a decision. 

Abortion is already illegal in Texas under a separate, nearly century-old abortion ban that recently took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. Idaho’s trigger ban takes effect on Thursday, the same day as those in Texas and Tennessee. 

In Idaho, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill agreed with the U.S. Justice Department that the abortion ban taking effect Thursday conflicts with a federal law that ensures patients can receive emergency “stabilizing care” at hospitals. 

Threat to patients cited

Winmill, an appointee of former Democratic President Bill Clinton, issued a preliminary injunction blocking Idaho from enforcing its ban to the extent it conflicts with federal law, citing the threat to patients. 

“One cannot imagine the anxiety and fear she will experience if her doctors feel hobbled by an Idaho law that does not allow them to provide the medical care necessary to preserve her health and life,” Winmill wrote. “From that vantage point, the public interest clearly favors the issuance of a preliminary injunction.” 

The Justice Department has said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires abortion care in emergency situations. 

Winmill’s decision came after a late-night Tuesday ruling in Texas by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix holding the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Biden went too far by issuing guidance holding the same federal law guaranteed abortion care. 

Hendrix agreed with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, that the guidance issued in July “discards the requirement to consider the welfare of unborn children when determining how to stabilize a pregnant woman.” 

Hendrix, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, said the federal statute was silent as to what a doctor should do when there is a conflict between the health of the mother and the unborn child and that Texas’s law “fills that void.” 

He issued an injunction barring the federal government from enforcing HHS’s guidance in Texas and against two groups of anti-abortion doctors who also challenged it, saying the Idaho case showed a risk the Biden administration might try to enforce it. 

Hendrix declined, though, to issue a nationwide injunction as Paxton wanted, saying the “circumstances counsel in favor of a tailored, specific injunction.” 

Appellate courts

Appeals are expected in both cases and would be heard by separate appeals courts, one based in San Francisco with a reputation for leaning liberal and another in New Orleans known for conservative rulings. 

Greer Donley, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and expert on abortion law, said should those appeals courts uphold this week’s dueling rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court may feel pressured to intervene and clarify the law. 

“Without a federal right to abortion, this is the type of legal chaos that most people were predicting would be happening,” she said. 

Shannon Selden, a lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton who represents several medical associations supporting the Justice Department’s Idaho case, said “there’s a huge cloud over physicians’ ability to provide stabilizing care for patients who need it.” 

“The Justice Department is trying lift that cloud through its Idaho action, and the Texas court has made that cloud darker,” she said.
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US Justice Department Releases 2019 Memo Advising Against Charging Trump 

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday released a confidential 2019 memo that advised then-Attorney General William Barr not to pursue criminal charges against then-President Donald Trump for obstructing the special counsel investigation of Russian election meddling.

The memo by Steven Engel, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Edward O’Callaghan, another senior official, was written on March 24, 2019, the same day Barr told Congress that there was “not enough” evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice in connection with the Russia probe.

“We recommend that you conclude that, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense,” the memo stated.

The nine-page document was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, a left-leaning ethics watchdog based in the nation’s capital.

The Justice Department had resisted releasing the full report, arguing that it reflected sensitive internal deliberations. But a federal appeals court panel last Friday ordered the law enforcement agency to make the report public.

The memo came at the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of allegations the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia to change the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

In his final report to Barr, Mueller wrote that he had not found enough evidence that Trump or his associates had criminally conspired with the Russian government.

But Mueller left unresolved the question of whether Trump had obstructed the federal investigation, leaving it to Barr to decide the matter.

Partly relying on the internal DOJ memo, Barr determined that Trump could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice.

Barr’s announcement led Trump to tweet at the time: “No collusion. No obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION.”

Barr, who was a critic of the special counsel investigation before becoming Trump’s second attorney general in early 2019, drew fire from Democrats and other critics for giving Trump a pass.

In their memo for Barr, the two top DOJ officials wrote that Mueller’s findings did not warrant the prosecution of Trump.

“While cataloging actions that the President took, many of which took place in public view, the Report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constituted obstructive acts, done with a nexus to a pending proceeding, with the corrupt intent necessary to warrant prosecution under the obstruction-of-justice statutes,” the officials wrote.

They also noted that Trump had not been charged with any crime or criminal conspiracy in connection with Russian election meddling.

“It would be rare for federal prosecutors to bring an obstruction prosecution that did not itself arise out of a proceeding related to a separate crime,” the memo stated.

In a statement, CREW said the memo “presents a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump.”

“It significantly twists the facts and the law to benefit Donald Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller,” CREW said.

CREW faulted the memo for premising its conclusion on “the fact that there was no underlying criminal conduct, which is not what Mueller found.”
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2 New York Democrats Ousted from US House in Primary Losses 

In a cluster of contentious Democratic primaries Tuesday, two New York incumbents were ousted from the U.S. House after redistricting shuffled congressional districts in one of the nation’s largest liberal states. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a 15-term incumbent who chairs a powerful House committee, lost to longtime colleague Rep. Jerry Nadler, while Rep. Mondaire Jones, a first-term progressive who was one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress, was defeated by Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as counsel to House Democrats in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. 

In other races in the state, the chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, Sean Patrick Maloney, survived a primary challenge of his own from a progressive. Democrats held on to a swing district in a special election — at least for a few more months. 

In Florida, an incumbent Republican narrowly defeated a far-right provocateur. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a conservative firebrand, won his primary with the specter of a federal investigation looming over him. 

Some of the highest-profile elections: 

End of an era 

Nadler and Carolyn Maloney each chair powerful committees and had spent 30 years representing Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Upper East Side, respectively. But they ended up in the same race after new redistricting maps merged much of their longtime congressional districts. 

The race for New York’s 12th District, between Maloney, 76, and Nadler, 75, became contentious. The two stopped speaking after deciding to run against each other, Nadler said, and the campaign became barbed, with Maloney questioning his mental acuity. 

Nadler, who was endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has talked up his role overseeing Trump’s impeachments while serving as chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Maloney has touted her own check on the former president while serving as chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee and positioned herself as a feminist champion. 

Challenging them both was 38-year-old lawyer Suraj Patel, who argued it was time for a new face in Congress. 

Crowded field for an open seat 

With Nadler and Maloney running in the district immediately north, a congressional seat covering southern Manhattan, including Wall Street, and Brooklyn, was a rare open contest in one of the most liberal and influential areas of the country. 

Goldman, a Democratic attorney who built his reputation as a federal mob and securities fraud prosecutor but made a national name for himself as House Democrats’ lead counsel in Trump’s first impeachment hearing, won a crowded primary for New York’s 10th District, which attracted a bevy of progressive candidates. Among the contenders was Jones, a congressman from the New York City suburbs, who moved to the area to run and finished third in the primary. 

House Democrats’ campaign chief wins primary 

Sean Patrick Maloney, who became New York’s first openly gay congressman when he was elected a decade ago, survived a primary challenge from state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi in New York’s new 17th District, home to idyllic towns along the historic Hudson River Valley. 

Maloney, who had the backing of former President Bill Clinton, campaigned on Democrats’ recent legislative wins in Congress and warned that the congressional seat could fall to Republicans in November if the Democratic nominee is too liberal. 

Biaggi, a 36-year-old progressive endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is a granddaughter of former Bronx congressman Mario Biaggi. She had sought to portray Maloney as out of touch and part of the establishment. 

State GOP chair defeats controversial candidate 

New York’s Republican Party chair, Nick Langworthy, won a primary in western New York by defeating controversial Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino in New York’s redrawn 23rd District. 

Paladino, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2010, has a long history of inflammatory and offensive remarks, including recent comments that praised Adolf Hitler and circulated conspiracy theories around mass shootings. 

The heated primary came as Langworthy and Paladino sought to replace GOP Rep. Chris Jacobs, who decided not to seek reelection after facing backlash from his own party for voicing support for an assault weapons ban following a racist mass shooting in his hometown of Buffalo in May. 

A win for Republicans, a win for Democrats in special elections 

In addition to the primary races, New Yorkers elected two new House members to fill vacancies for the rest of the year. 

Democrat Pat Ryan won one of the special elections, a battleground race in southern and central New York to replace Democrat Antonio Delgado, who became New York’s lieutenant governor. Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in what is currently New York’s 19th Congressional District. 

In western New York, Republican Joe Sempolinski defeated Democrat Max Della Pia in a special general election to serve out the rest of the year in what is currently New York’s 23rd District. Sempolinski will replace Republican Rep. Tom Reed, who resigned in May after being accused of sexual misconduct. 

Far-right provocateur loses again 

Florida Republican Rep. Dan Webster defeated Laura Loomer, a far-right provocateur in Florida who’s been banned on some social media networks because of anti-Muslim and other remarks. 

Webster, who has served central Florida districts since 2011, won the unexpectedly tight primary in Florida’s 11th District, which is home to The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community and a GOP stronghold. 

Loomer unsuccessfully ran for the House in 2020, winning a Republican primary but losing the general election that year to incumbent Democrat Lois Frankel for a Palm Beach-area seat that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. 

On social media, Loomer regularly posted conspiracy theories and misinformation around Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress. Among them was the false claim that Omar and other Democrats were plotting to institute Sharia law in Minnesota. 

Gaetz wins republican primary amid scandal 

Gaetz, a Trump protégé under federal investigation in a sex trafficking case, won a primary contest that was seen as a test of whether he could keep support among moderate Republicans. 

Gaetz has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. He was facing a challenge from Mark Lombardo, a former Marine and executive at FedEx who had blanketed the western Panhandle with attack ads centering around the investigation as he tried to take him on in Florida’s 1st Congressional District. 

Rebekah Jones, a former Department of Health employee who questioned the state’s COVID-19 data, won the Democratic primary for the seat in the heavily Republican district. A state inspector general’s report concluded Jones’ allegations were unfounded, but in her race for Congress, she tapped into national support for fundraising, bringing in more than $500,000. 
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US National Archives: Trump Took 700 Pages of Classified Documents to Florida

Former U.S. President Donald Trump left Washington with more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some containing the government’s top secrets, when his presidency ended last year, the National Archives disclosed Tuesday. 

The disclosure came in a letter dated May 10 from the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall, to one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, as she rejected claims from Trump’s representatives that the former president should be allowed to keep some of the documents by claiming executive privilege from his time in the White House. 

Wall described the growing alarm in the Justice Department’s National Security Division about the “potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported” to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate rather than being turned over the National Archives when his presidency ended, as required by U.S. law.  

Her letter said there were “over 100 documents with classification markings” in the 15 boxes of materials the government retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January, the first of three times this year that the FBI and U.S. archivists have collected boxes of classified materials from Trump’s wintertime residence and private club on the Atlantic coastline. 

Trump and his aides handed over more documents in June, and then FBI agents, acting with a court-approved search warrant, retrieved another two dozen boxes, including 11 boxes of classified files on August 8, as they searched his office, a basement storage area and other rooms at the estate. 

Some of the documents retrieved have been classified as “TS/SCI,” which stands for “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information,” or labeled as “Special Access Programs,” which contain some of the government’s most closely held secrets and are supposed to be viewed only in secure government facilities, not a residence like Mar-a-Lago. Aside from being Trump’s home several months a year, it is a high-end dinner club and hotel for dues-paying members. 

Trump has claimed that he declassified the materials before his term ended on Jan. 20, 2021, and Joe Biden became the U.S. president, but neither Trump nor his aides have produced any documented evidence of such a declassification. 

John Solomon, one of Trump’s allies in the news media and one of the former president’s liaisons to the archives, first disclosed the Wall letter Monday night and the archives then released it on Tuesday. 

The new disclosure came as Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked a federal court to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing documents recovered from his Florida estate until a special master can be appointed to separate out any materials covered by executive privilege and return them to him.  

Federal investigators are probing whether Trump illegally kept the records at Mar-a-Lago, contending in a search warrant it used for the August 8 search that he might have violated three U.S. laws, including the U.S. Espionage Act. 

The New York Times reported Monday that overall, the government has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Trump’s estate, including CIA, National Security Agency and FBI materials, although the content of the material has not been disclosed.  

Trump has criticized the proceedings, and his legal filing called the August 8 FBI search a “shockingly aggressive move.”  

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he had authorized the search, and a federal magistrate approved it after the FBI asserted in an affidavit that it believed a crime could have been committed.  

Trump’s allies have asserted that he had a “standing order” to declassify material taken out of the Oval Office at the White House, but no paperwork has been produced confirming he did so.  

Following the August 8 search, some of the biggest U.S. news organizations asked federal magistrate Bruce Reinhart in Florida to make public the FBI affidavit detailing the probable cause for conducting the search. The Justice Department opposes release of the document for fear it would jeopardize its investigation and divulge the names of cooperating witnesses.  

The magistrate judge said he was considering releasing a redacted version of the affidavit but acknowledged Monday that if key portions of it were blacked out, as requested by government prosecutors, its release would be virtually meaningless. He has ordered prosecutors to present their proposed redactions by Thursday.  

 
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