Obama, Bush don't have classified files; Manchin, McCarthy talk debt

Washington is reeling after another batch of classified documents was discovered in the home of another high-profile politician – this time, former Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence’s lawyer characterized the documents as “a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration.” He said they were found Jan. 16 and placed in a secure safe until they could be returned to proper authorities.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden got a rare show of support from an unlikely source: Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who told reporters on Capitol Hill that he'd be "shocked if there's anything sinister" in Biden's mishandling of classified documents.

Here's what else is happening in politics:

Republicans set a hearing for next week on the Biden administration's border policies.

for next week on the Biden administration's border policies. Harris in California: Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting California Wednesday after two mass shootings in her home state that killed 18 people.

Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting California Wednesday after two mass shootings in her home state that killed 18 people. McCarthy blocks Democrats from Intelligence panel: GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he won't seat fellow California Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff on the House Intelligence Committee. The White House has pushed back, accusing the GOP speaker of politicizing the committee.

GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he won't seat fellow California Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff on the House Intelligence Committee. The White House has pushed back, accusing the GOP speaker of politicizing the committee. Germany has approved plans to send coveted Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as the White House is expected to announce its own plans to send tanks. Biden is scheduled to speak at the White House at noon about Ukraine.

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Obama, Bush, Clinton: We don't have classified documents

Aides for former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton say they are not searching their offices for classified documents because those items were turned over when they left office.

“That search was conducted before he left the White House, when all of his Presidential records – classified and unclassified – were turned over to the National Archives," said a statement from Bush's office.

A similar statement from Obama's office says: "Consistent with the Presidential Records Act, all of President Obama’s classified records were submitted to the National Archives upon leaving office. NARA continues to assume physical and legal custody of President Obama’s materials to date."

And Clinton's office said that all his classified materials “were properly turned over to NARA in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.”

The statements came in the wake of the classified information troubles facing former President Donald Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and current President Joe Biden.

– David Jackson

White House: House Intelligence Committee ‘should not be politicized’

The White House criticized House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s move to block two Democrats from serving on the House Intelligence Committee, saying the panel “should not be politicized.”

Delivering on a promise to conservatives, McCarthy has said he won't seat Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., on the committee. He has threatened to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from the Foreign Affair Committee.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked about McCarthy's decision, said the three lawmakers “bring a lot to the table” on foreign affairs. “When it comes to that committee, it should not be politicized. It should be independent,” she said.

– Joey Garrison

Classified docs found at Pence's Indiana home:Classified documents found at former VP Mike Pence's Indiana home

Joe Manchin, Kevin McCarthy meet on debt limit

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Wednesday to discuss the debt limit amid growing fears over whether the divided Congress will raise the limit, according to Punchbowl News.

Manchin said that McCarthy told him in their meeting that he will not cut Social Security and Medicare, Punchbowl reported. McCarthy has previously said that he wouldn’t cut the two spending programs, including during his first press conference as House speaker.

– Sarah Elbeshbishi

What happens if the US hits the debt ceiling?:Here's what to expect if we reach debt limit.

Rep. Adam Schiff says House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ousting him shows his ‘weakness’

The morning after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked him off the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff said the move reveals how weak the House leader is and how far he will bend to placate the far right.

“This decision by Kevin McCarthy to bow to the demand from the most extreme elements of his conference and use the Intelligence committee for this kind of political play doesn’t show the strength of his speakership,” Schiff said. “Indeed, it shows the weakness of his speakership.”

McCarthy said he removed Schiff, who led the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump, for lying to the American public, though he did not describe the lies. He said his move is not about politics and is instead about restoring integrity to the committee.

– Candy Woodall

Intelligence interception:McCarthy plans to block Democrats Swalwell, Schiff from House Intelligence Committee

Marjorie Taylor Greene promoting herself to be Donald Trump's running mate, report says

Not only has the Republican presidential race begun, the jockeying for the vice presidential slot has also started – and it includes uber-conservative congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

NBC News reports that the Georgia lawmaker "is angling to be Donald Trump's running mate in 2024, according to two people who have spoken to the firebrand second-term congresswoman about her ambitions."

One of those people, former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon, told NBC that Greene is "ambitious" and "not shy" about it. "She sees herself on the short list for Trump's VP," Bannon said. Of course, a lot of conservatives are interested in being on a Trump ticket – if he wins the nomination.

No comment from Trump, who has campaign events this weekend in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Also: The Republican nominating convention is still a year-and-a-half away.

– David Jackson

Trump to hit campaign trail:Donald Trump plans campaign stops targeting Republican opponents – and prosecutors

Hearing set to investigate Biden’s border policies

The House GOP has set its first hearing to probe the Biden administration’s border policies for 10 a.m. Feb. 1, kicking off a big month in Washington as the president delivers the State of the Union address and a new budget against a backdrop of multiple Republican investigations.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said he was “ready to work,” as he announced the hearing called “The Biden Border Crisis: Part I.”

Republicans are also planning other investigations that will kick off early next month, including a look at how federal agencies have been “weaponized” against political opponents, the origins of COVID and Biden family finances.

– Candy Woodall

Migrant crisis:Biden meets with mayors amid calls for federal help on migrant crisis, urges comprehensive reform

GOP eager to investigate Biden:Biden’s most vocal Republican antagonists emerge from the sidelines – with subpoena power

Former FBI official Charles McGonigal, accused of taking secret payments, to appear in federal court

A former FBI official, who once ranked as the bureau's top counterintelligence agent in New York, will make a first appearance Wednesday in a D.C. federal court where he is charged with taking $225,000 in secret payments from a former Albanian intelligence operative who also served as an FBI informant.

Charles McGonigal, indicted separately this week in New York where he is accused of concealing a business relationship with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, first began accepting the cash payments from the Albanian operative a year before his 2018 retirement and hid the transactions from the FBI, prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors say McGonigal requested and received the cash from the operative who traveled extensively with McGonigal, including to Albania where the then-FBI official met with the prime minister to discuss oil drilling policies that could financially benefit his Albanian associate.

Federal authorities allege that the first of three payments was delivered to McGonigal Oct. 5, 2017, in parked car outside a New York City restaurant where the operative handed over about $80,000.

– Kevin Johnson

Ex-FBI official arrested:Charles McGonigal, ex-FBI official linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, arrested

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy picks former rivals and new allies for investigative committees

Speaker Kevin McCarthy picked a mix of Republican allies and rivals to serve on two, new investigative subcommittees, including members who previously blocked his path to lead the House and his new supporter, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene, who was previously ousted from Twitter for spreading COVID misinformation, will serve on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic – which will investigate the origins of the deadly outbreak. That panel also includes Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, who previously blocked McCarthy’s bid for speaker in more than a dozen rounds of voting.

For the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, McCarthy picked two members who previously voted against him for speaker: Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Dan Bishop of North Carolina. The only freshman on that committee is Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, who defeated former Rep. Liz Cheney – a leading member of the retired Jan. 6 committee.

– Candy Woodall

GOP committee picks:Far-right Reps. Boebert, Gosar and Greene are on committees probing Biden. What does that mean?

Nothing 'sinister': Sen. Lindsey Graham vouches for Biden amid classified docs discovery

President Joe Biden, under siege from GOP lawmakers over his mishandling of classified documents, got a rare shoutout from a Capitol Hill Republican.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., vouched for Biden's character Tuesday as the president faces intense scrutiny for his handling of classified information.

"I've known President Biden a long time," Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill. "I'd be shocked if there's anything sinister here."

Nothing 'sinister':Sen. Lindsey Graham vouches for Biden amid classified docs discovery

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says what it would take to remove George Santos

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has spelled out what it would take to remove embattled freshman Rep. George Santos, who has admitted to lying to New York voters about his personal and professional background.

“If for some way when we go through Ethics and he has broken the law, then we will remove him,” he told reporters Tuesday. “The American public in his district voted for him. He has a responsibility to uphold what they voted for, to work and have their voice here, but at any time, if it rises to a legal level, we will deal with it then.”

Democratic members from New York, Reps. Daniel Goldman and Ritchie Torres, filed a complaint with the Ethics Committee earlier this month, urging the panel to investigate Santos and his campaign finance reports. He is also facing scrutiny at the local and state levels, with members of his own party calling on him to resign.

– Candy Woodall

George Santos controversy:Here's a look at investigations of the new House Republican

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to block Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell from House Intelligence panel

GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday he would not seat fellow California Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff to the House Intelligence Committee.

"I will put national security ahead of partisan politics," he said during a news conference.

McCarthy has said Swalwell would be denied a security clearance in the private sector and that Schiff has lied to the public, claiming they are not fit to serve on the committee that handles classified information.

Democrats say it's political revenge. Both California Democrats served on the panel in the last Congress and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has asked that they be reappointed, Unlike most standing committees, the speaker has great latitute in deciding who serves on the Select Intelligence Committee.

- Candy Woodall

Cost of Leopard 2 tanks

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Wednesday that his country would provide 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks for Ukraine's military, in a move that follows months of diplomatic pressure from Kyiv. It comes ahead of an expected announcement from the White House about sending M1 Abrams tanks to battlefields in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to discuss Ukraine at a noon White House event today.

Modern, capable tanks are seen as critical to Ukraine’s ability to resist an expected springtime offensive by Russian forces and to help the Ukrainians claw back parts of their country seized during the invasion ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainians operate Russian and Soviet-era tanks. Western tanks would provide them with vehicles that have more firepower, mobility and armor.

-- Holly Rosenkrantz

Here's what to know on the Pence documents

When were the documents discovered? The classified files were found Jan. 16 and placed in a secure safe until they could be returned to proper authorities, according to Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob.

The classified files were found Jan. 16 and placed in a secure safe until they could be returned to proper authorities, according to Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob. How many files were found? Pence’s lawyer characterized the documents as “a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration.”

Pence’s lawyer characterized the documents as “a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration.” What Pence has said: Pence repeatedly denied knowledge of classified documents at his home last year. When asked explicitly by the Associated Press in August if he had such documents in his possession, he responded, "No, not to my knowledge."

Pence repeatedly denied knowledge of classified documents at his home last year. When asked explicitly by the Associated Press in August if he had such documents in his possession, he responded, "No, not to my knowledge." What security analysts say: The country's classified document woes are far from over yet. Security analysts told USA TODAY that the U.S. system of safeguarding classified presidential documents — especially during transfers of power — is in urgent need of improvement.

VP Kamala Harris to visit California in wake of mass shootings

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit California in the aftermath of two mass shootings in her home state that killed 18 people and renewed the president’s push for gun control.

"Our hearts are with the people of California," President Joe Biden said Tuesday. "The vice president's going to be going out.”

Seven people died Tuesday in two shootings near the Northern California community of Half Moon Bay, just days after a rampage in Southern California killed 11. Harris is scheduled to visit Monterey Park, site of one of the shootings.

– Joey Garrison

Biden schedule today

President Joe Biden will make a noon announcement at the White House about Ukraine.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean -Pierre will hold a press briefing at 1:30 p.m.

Vice President Kamala Harris will address the Democratic caucus at the Capitol this morning. She departs Washington at 1:45 p.m. for California.

Harris will visit Monterey Park at 8:20 p.m. She will meet with families of the mass shooting victims there.

-- Holly Rosenkrantz

California shootings:'Only in America': Gov. Newsom decries gun violence in visit to Half Moon Bay after 7 killed: Live updates

Taylor Swift ticket debacle took center stage in the Senate

The Senate Judiciary Committee knew “All Too Well” how poorly Ticketmaster handled selling tickets to Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated tour as senators examined the lack of competition within the ticketing industry and grilled a Ticketmaster executive on the handling of the tickets.

The committee pulled no punches as they held the company accountable and questioned its practices, power over the ticketing market and whether the company, which merged with Live National Entertainment in 2010, was a monopoly.

There was no shortage of Swift references as senators – and a witness – engaged in true fan behavior, dropping lyrics throughout the three-hour hearing, including Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who suggested to Joe Berchtold, the president and CFO of Live Nation, that the company “look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem. It’s me.’”

– Sarah Elbeshbishi

Sour note:'Industrial-scale ticket scalping.' Senators grill Ticketmaster over Taylor Swift concert fiasco

DOJ opposes making details public in Mar-a-Lago search warrant's ...

CNN —

The Justice Department is opposing the release of details in an affidavit that lays out the argument that investigators made to a federal magistrate judge explaining the probable cause it had to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week, saying it could have a chilling effect on the inquiry.

In their new filing arguing for some continued secrecy, the Justice Department made clear the seriousness of the ongoing criminal investigation, saying it “implicates highly classified materials.”

“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations,” the Justice Department wrote. “The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.”

Media organizations, including CNN, had asked for the affidavit to be unsealed after the search last week at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, club and residence.

The Justice Department said in its filing that disclosing the affidavit details “at this juncture” would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation.”

“The redactions necessary to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content, and the release of such a redacted version would not serve any public interest,” the Justice Department stated.

CNN, joined by The Washington Post, NBC News and Scripps, asked the judge last week to unseal all documents – including any probable cause affidavits – connected to the FBI search.

“Not since the Nixon Administration has a President been the subject of such a dramatic and public criminal process,” the outlets said in the filing, adding that the outlets are “attempting to shed light on the federal government’s unprecedented actions and motivations.”

“Here, there could not be a more ‘historically significant event’ than an FBI raid of a former President’s home for the alleged removal of national security records after leaving office,” the outlets said.

The New York Times, CBS, the Palm Beach Post, the Miami Herald, the Tampa Bay Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and ABC also requested the judge unseal affidavits.

A magistrate judge unsealed the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and property receipt on Friday, after Justice Department lawyers and lawyers for the former President agreed they should be released. Other parts of the search warrant, including the probable cause affidavit, were not addressed at the time. Trump’s team does not have access to the DOJ’s affidavit, though it was reviewed confidentially by the judge before the search.

The search warrant made public Friday identifies violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records as reasons for the search.

The receipt list, which shows what items agents recovered from Mar-a-Lago, shows that agents removed 11 sets of classified documents – including some marked with the highest levels of classification – from Trump’s home.

Republican politicians have continued to demand that the Justice Department explain its reasoning for taking the dramatic step to search Mar-a-Lago – with some, along with Trump’s circle of advisers, trying to downplay the seriousness of the documents. But the DOJ’s filing on Tuesday disputes that demand by saying the investigation deals with highly classified information.

After the judge unsealed the search warrant and receipt for Trump’s property last week, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a series of tweets that “We still need to see the affidavit,” and that “Attorney General (Merrick) Garland must release the information as to why a warrant was necessary, not what was taken.”

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “releasing the affidavit would help, at least that would confirm that there was justification for this raid.”

Prosecutors need to “show that this was not just a fishing expedition, that they had due cause to go in and to do this, that they did exhaust all other means,” Rounds said, emphasizing that waiting would hurt the integrity of the department. “And if they can’t do that, then we’ve got a serious problem on our hands.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the panel’s top Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, sent letter on Sunday to Garland and top intelligence officials requesting a classified briefing on the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago.

Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, who is the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, echoed that request on Sunday, telling CNN’s Brianna Keilar that “Congress is saying show us the goods.”

Katelyn Polantz Hannah Rabinowitz
Katelyn Polantz
Hannah Rabinowitz

Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump ...

CNN —

Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

His experience and resume will allow him, at least at first, to fly underneath the type of political blowback that quickly met former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. It also shows he is adept at managing complex criminal cases related to both public corruption and national security – and that he has practice making challenging decisions with political implications.

Smith is widely expected to be tasked with making policy decisions around whether to charge a former president of the United States. Garland’s statements on Friday and the recent steps taken in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations have signaled that, at the very least, Donald Trump is under investigation and could potentially be charged with a crime.

“He knows how to do high-profile cases. He’s independent. He will not be influenced by anybody,” said Greg Andres, a former member of Mueller’s team.

Andres, who has known Smith since the late 1990s when they started at a US attorney’s office together and ultimately became co-chiefs of the office’s criminal division, said it’s the breadth of Smith’s experience that will enable him to withstand the public scrutiny and make tough judgment calls.

“He will evaluate the evidence and understand what type of case should be charged or not. He has the type of experience to make those judgments,” said Andres.

“He understands the courtroom. He understands how to try a case. He knows how to prove a case,” he added. “Particularly in these circumstances it will be critical to understand what types of evidence is required to prove the case in court.”

In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

“The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.

One former colleague highlighted that Smith has prosecuted members of both parties.

“He’s going to be really aggressive,” the person said, adding that “things are going to speed up.” Smith, they said, “operates very quickly” and has a unique ability to quickly determine the things that are important to a case and doesn’t waste time “hand-wringing over things that are real sideshows.”

In court, Smith comes off as very down-to-earth and relatable, this person said, characterizing that as a good attribute to have as a prosecutor.

Smith also will not care about the politics surrounding the case, they said, adding he has very thick skin and will “do what he’s going to do.”

A career prosecutor

Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”

“He is a phenomenal investigator; he leaves no stone unturned. He drills down to get to the true facts,” Fodeman said.

Fodeman, who is still friends with Smith, said he is a “literally insane” cyclist and triathlete.

Beginning in 2008, Smith worked for the International Criminal Court and oversaw war crimes investigations under the Office of the Prosecutor for two years.

In 2010, he became chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, where he oversaw litigation of public corruption cases. Lanny Breuer, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division who recruited Smith, said his onetime employee was “a terrific prosecutor” with a “real sense of fairness.”

“If you are going to have a special counsel, in my view, and you want someone who is going to be fearless, but fair, and not going to be intimidated and not overly bureaucratic, that’s Jack – he is all of these things,” Breuer told CNN.

“Smith brings cases quickly. … He doesn’t sit on cases. He is a person of action,” Breuer added.

After his stint at the Public Integrity Section, Smith was appointed first assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2015.

Though he is not widely known in Washington, DC, legal circles, Smith is described as a consummate public servant.

About a decade ago, he hired waves of line prosecutors into the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, supervising dozens over his years in charge there.

Brian Kidd, whom Smith hired at the unit, recalled how his boss walked him through every step of a complicated racketeering case against corrupt police officers.

“He was not going to tolerate a politically motivated prosecution,” Kidd said. “And he has an incredible ability to motivate the people working with him and under him. He’s incredibly supportive of his team.”

Smith handled some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – to mixed outcomes.

He was the head of the public integrity unit when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was indicted in 2014, and was in meetings with the defense team and involved in decision-making leading up to the charges, according to a person familiar with the case.

McDonnell was initially convicted of receiving gifts for political favors, but then his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

Smith was also at the helm of the unit when the DOJ failed to convict at trial former Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

A Republican source familiar with Smith’s oversight of the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commended Smith’s non-biased approach, saying that he ultimately made a “just” decision to conclude the investigation without alleging DeLay committed any crime.

In recent years while working at The Hague, he has not lived in the United States. He’s no longer on the US Triathlon team but is still a competitive biker.

Smith took over as acting US Attorney when David Rivera departed in early 2017 before leaving the Justice Department later that year and becoming vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America. In 2018, he became chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

“Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said during the announcement on Friday. “Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

Smith interviewed as part of Republican-led IRS probe

In May 2014, the House Oversight Committee interviewed Smith behind closed doors as part of the Republican-led investigation into the alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups. Then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa launched the probe following a 2013 inspector general report that found delays in the processing of applications by certain conservative groups and requesting information from them that was later deemed unnecessary.

Republicans sought testimony from Smith, who at the time was Public Integrity section chief, due to his involvement with arranging a 2010 meeting between Justice Department officials and then-IRS official Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS scandal. The meeting had been convened to discuss the “evolving legal landscape” of campaign finance law following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, according to a May 2014 letter written by Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who is expected to be House Judiciary chairman next year.

“It is apparent that the Department’s leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, was closely involved in engaging with the IRS in wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived problems with the decision,” Issa and Jordan wrote in the letter seeking Smith’s testimony.

Smith testified that his office “had a dialogue” with the FBI about opening investigations related to politically active non-profits following the meeting with Lerner, but did not ultimately do so, according to a copy of his interview obtained by CNN.

Smith explained that he had asked for the meeting with the IRS because he wanted to learn more about the legal landscape of political non-profits following the Citizens United decision because he was relatively new to the public integrity section. He said that Lerner explained it would be difficult if not impossible to bring a case on the abuse of tax-exempt status.

Smith repeated at several points in the interview that the Justice Department did not pursue any investigations due to politics.

“I want to be clear – it would be more about looking at the issue, looking at whether it made sense to open investigations,” he said. “If we did, you know, how would you go about doing this? Is there predication, a basis to open an investigation? Things like that. I can’t say as I sit here now specifically, you know, the back-and-forth of that discussion. I can just tell you that – because I know one of your concerns is that organizations were targeted. And I can tell you that we, Public Integrity, did not open any investigations as a result of those discussions and that we certainly, as you know, have not brought any cases as a result of that.”

Smith also testified that he was not aware of anyone at the Justice Department placing pressure on the IRS – and that he was never pressured to investigate any political groups.

“No. And maybe I can stop you guys. I know there’s a series of these questions. I’ve never been asked these things, and anybody who knows me would never even consider asking me to do such a thing,” Smith said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Zachary Cohen Kara Scannell Jeremy Herb Katelyn Polantz Chandelis Duster

FBI took 11 sets of classified material from Trump's Mar-a-Lago ...

CNN —

The Justice Department removed 11 sets of classified documents from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence while executing a search warrant this week for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other crimes, according to court documents unsealed and released on Friday.

The property receipt, which was also released on Friday, for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home shows that some of the materials recovered were marked as “top secret/SCI” – one of the highest levels of classification.

The search warrant identifies three federal crimes that the Justice Department is looking at as part of its investigation: violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records. The inclusion of the crimes indicates the Justice Department has probable cause to investigate those offenses as it was gathering evidence in the search. No one has been charged with a crime at this time.

The warrant receipt didn’t detail the subject of these classified documents but did note that federal agents seized just one set marked “top secret/SCI.”

Agents also took four sets of “top secret” documents, three sets of “secret” documents, and three sets of “confidential” documents, court documents show. In total, the unsealed warrant shows the FBI collected more than 20 boxes, as well as binders of photos, sets of classified government materials and at least one handwritten note.

The warrant, which was unsealed and released publicly following a federal judge’s order, was obtained by CNN ahead of its release. The moment marks an unprecedented week that began with the search – an evidence-gathering step in a national security investigation.

Search warrant reveals new details about scope of FBI probe

While details about the documents themselves remain scarce, the laws cited in the warrant offer new insight into what the FBI was looking for when it searched Trump’s home, an unprecedented step that has prompted a firestorm of criticism from the former President’s closest allies.

The laws cover “destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations” and the unlawful removal of government records, according to the search warrant released Friday.

Also among the laws listed is one known as the Espionage Act, which relates to the “retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material.”

All three criminal laws cited in the warrant are from Title 18 of the United States Code. None of them solely hinge on whether information was deemed to be unclassified.

One of the less-sensitive items taken from Trump’s resort, according to a the property receipt, was a document about pardoning Roger Stone, a staunch Trump ally who was convicted in 2019 of lying to Congress during its probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Trump pardoned Stone before leaving office, shielding Stone from a three-year prison term.)

It’s unclear how the Stone-related document seized during the search is tied to the broader criminal probe into Trump’s potential mishandling of classified materials.

During the search, FBI agents also recovered material about the “President of France,” according to the warrant receipt. The French embassy in Washington declined to respond Friday to the development.

FBI agents searched ’45 Office’ at Mar-a-Lago

The court documents released Friday also offer new details about the search itself and revealed that FBI agents were only allowed access to specific locations within Mar-a-Lago as they combed Trump’s resort residence for potential evidence of crimes.

The judge authorized the FBI to search what the bureau called the “45 Office,” an apparent reference to Trump’s place in history as the 45th President. Agents were also permitted to search “all other rooms or areas” at Mar-a-Lago that were available to Trump and his staff for storing boxes and documents.

“The locations to be searched include the ’45 Office,’ all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate,” the warrant says, using the acronym “FPOTUS” to refer to the Former President of the United States.

The FBI’s warrant application to the judge specifically said that federal agents would avoid areas being rented or used by third parties, “such as Mar-a-Lago members” and “private guest suites.” Trump owns the sprawling estate, and it is his primary residence as well as a members-only club and resort.

“It is described as a mansion with approximately 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms, on a 17-acre estate,” FBI agents told the judge in their application, describing the Mar-a-Lago property.

Trump did not oppose release of search warrant

The FBI search at the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday was followed by days of silence from the Justice Department, as is the department’s normal practice for ongoing investigations.

Then on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the department had moved to unseal the search warrant and two attachments, including an inventory list, but also stressed that some of the department’s work must happen outside of public view.

“We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations,” Garland said, while explaining that he would not provide more detail about the basis of the search.

Trump said in a late-night post on his Truth Social platform Thursday that he would “not oppose the release of documents” and that he was “going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents.”

The court had instructed the Justice Department to confer with Trump about its request to unseal the warrant documents and set a Friday deadline to report back on whether he opposed their release.

Trump’s team had contacted outside attorneys about how to proceed, and the former President’s orbit was caught off guard by Garland’s announcement.

In a pair of posts to Truth Social following Garland’s statement, Trump continued to claim that his attorneys were “cooperating fully” and had developed “very good relationships” with federal investigators prior to Monday’s search at Mar-a-Lago.

“The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it,” Trump said. “Everything was fine, better than most previous Presidents, and then, out of nowhere and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided, at 6:30 in the morning, by VERY large numbers of agents, and even ‘safecrackers.’”

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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Justice Department says classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were ...

CNN —

US government documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago as part of an effort to “obstruct” the FBI’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified materials, the Justice Department said in a blockbuster court filing Tuesday night.

More than 320 classified documents have now been recovered from Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Department said, including more than 100 in the FBI search earlier this month.

Tuesday’s filing represents the Justice Department’s strongest case to date that Trump concealed classified material he was keeping at Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the potential mishandling of classified material.

The Justice Department revealed the startling new details as part of its move to oppose Trump’s effort to intervene in the federal investigation that led to the search of his Florida resort and his desire for a “special master” to be appointed to the case.

Trump has pushed an “incomplete and inaccurate narrative” in his recent court filings about the Mar-a-Lago search, the Justice Department said.

“The government provides below a detailed recitation of the relevant facts, many of which are provided to correct the incomplete and inaccurate narrative set forth in Plaintiff’s filings,” prosecutors wrote.

It presents a strong rebuttal of the criticisms of the FBI’s unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, laying out clearly how Trump had failed to return dozens of classified documents even after his lawyer attested that he had provided all classified material in his possession.

Video Ad Feedback Honig says DOJ filing shows FBI had no choice but to search Mar-a-Lago 02:29 - Source: CNN

A picture on the final page of the filing showing classified documents arrayed on the floor of Trump’s office – full of highly classified markings like “HCS,” meaning human intelligence sources – hammered home how sensitive the material Trump had taken was.

At issue is Trump’s compliance with a grand jury subpoena, issued in May, demanding that he turn over classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. Prosecutors said Tuesday that some documents were likely removed from a storage room before Trump’s lawyers examined the area, while they were trying to comply with the subpoena. The timeline is essential, because Trump’s lawyers later told investigators that they searched the storage area and that all classified documents were accounted for.

“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” prosecutors wrote. “This included evidence indicating that boxes formerly in the Storage Room were not returned prior to counsel’s review.”

The allegations came after the DOJ’s filing went into specific detail about actions from Trump’s team that the department implies were obstructive to its probe.

In the filing opposing Trump’s request, DOJ argues that the former president lacks standing over presidential records “because those records do not belong to him,” as presidential records are considered property of the government.

The Presidential Records Act makes clear that “[t]he United States” has “complete ownership, possession, and control of them,” the DOJ filing states.

Trump has argued that his constitutional rights have been violated and that some of the documents seized earlier this month contain material covered by privilege – particularly executive privilege.

The Justice Department was ordered to submit the filing by Judge Aileen Cannon, who has already indicated she is inclined to grant Trump’s request for third party oversight of documents the FBI seized Mar-a-Lago.

The role of a special master is to filter out any materials seized in a search that don’t belong in the hands of investigators because of a privilege. Special masters have been used in high-profile cases before, but usually in cases where the FBI has searched an attorney’s office or home and there is a need to filter out materials concerning attorney-client privilege. Trump’s request has centered on the need to protect documents concerning executive privilege from his conduct as president.

Signals from Cannon, a Trump appointee, that she is leaning toward appointing a special master in the Mar-a-Lago search have raised eyebrows among legal observers. For one, Trump filed his request for the appointment two weeks after the search of his Florida home, risking the potential that the Justice Department is already done with the bulk of its review. Secondly, Trump and the judge alike have pointed to civil rules concerning special master appointments, when the search warrant is arising in a criminal context.

Since the August 8 search, a number of previously secret court filings the DOJ submitted to obtain the warrant have been made partially public in part because of a bid for transparency filed in court by several media organizations, including CNN.

Those redacted documents have revealed that the search was connected to a DOJ investigation into alleged violations of the Espionage Act, criminal mishandling of government documents and obstruction of justice. According to an FBI affidavit that was released last week, an FBI review of 15 boxes retrieved by the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago in January found 184 documents bearing classification markings – some of them identified as particularly sensitive government documents.

Trump, in seeking the special master, has stressed in court filings the lack of criminal enforcement in the Presidential Records Act, a Watergate-era law laying out the process for preserving presidential records. He did not mention the three criminal statutes the DOJ cited in its warrant documents. Trump’s lawyers have also emphasized his supposedly unfettered ability when he was president to declassify documents, though the statutes in question don’t require that the materials be classified.

Wednesday morning, Trump posted on his social media platform on Truth Social for the first time since the Justice Department filing and once again claimed to have declassified documents that were found at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

In one of his most recent posts, Trump appeared to comment on the photo of top-secret documents laid out on the floor, saying, “Terrible the way the FBI… threw documents haphazardly all over the floor,” and, “Lucky I Declassified!”

In other posts, he attacked the FBI and DOJ generally and said, “This is the time, after many years of lawbreaking & unfairness, to clean things up. All things for a reason. DRAIN THE SWAMP!!!” He repeated his false claims of a stolen election and said, “Our Country is going to hell!” He also claimed crowds are “already forming” for his rally on Saturday.

Trump’s attorney limited what DOJ could look at during June visit

A top Justice Department official contends that federal investigators were limited in what they could look through when visiting the resort in June – contrary to the Trump team’s narrative of total cooperation.

Trump’s lawyer requested that the FBI come to the resort to pick up the documents after the Trump team had received a grand jury subpoena in May seeking any materials marked classified, according to the Justice Department.

DOJ’s account also undermined claims by Trump and his allies that the former President had declassified the materials in question.

“When producing the documents, neither counsel nor the custodian asserted that the former President had declassified the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege,” the filing said. “Instead, counsel handled them in a manner that suggested counsel believed that the documents were classified: the production included a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the document.”

In the DOJ’s account, Trump’s lawyer said that all the remaining documents from Trump’s White House were being kept in the storage at Mar-a-Lago. “Counsel further represented that there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched,” the filing said.

Prosecutors confirmed Trump’s assertion that the visiting DOJ and FBI officials were then allowed to visit the storage area.

“Critically, however, the former President’s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained,” the DOJ said.

DOJ reveals grand jury proceedings related to Mar-a-Lago search happening in DC

The Justice Department confirmed that grand jury subpoenas had been issued in its probe, and that the grand jury that issued them had been empaneled in DC. The department included a copy of a May 11 subpoena for government records at Mar-a-Lago marked as classified that indicated the existence of the DC federal grand jury. Before making the subpoena public, the department on Monday got permission to do so from Chief Judge Beryl Howell in the DC District Court, according to a footnote in its brief.

The reference to Howell suggests that in addition to Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart and Cannon in Florida, a third judge is now involved in the DOJ’s probe.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Herschel Walker's defeat delivers another blow to Trump and his ...

CNN —

Donald Trump was hoping for a win on Tuesday amid the slow start to his latest presidential campaign, believing a victory for his longtime friend and hand-picked candidate Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff would mitigate calls for new Republican leadership following a spate of losses for his endorsed candidates in high-profile 2022 races.

Instead, Trump’s first cycle as a so-called GOP kingmaker ended with one final blow to his scorecard.

Walker lost by nearly 3 percentage points to Sen. Raphael Warnock, handing Democrats a wider Senate majority than they’ve had the past two years and plunging the former president into deeper scrutiny as the GOP’s only declared 2024 contender.

“OUR COUNTRY IS IN BIG TROUBLE. WHAT A MESS!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site shortly after several networks called the race for Warnock late Tuesday night.

One source close to Trump said the Georgia results were likely to further damage the 2024 Republican hopeful’s third presidential campaign, which has been marred by a series of self-inflicted wounds and legal troubles in the three weeks since Trump announced he was running.

“This is really, really bad,” this person said.

Many in the former president’s orbit are concerned that this will boost demand for other Republicans to challenge him for the party’s presidential nomination.

“Trump backed the wrong candidates and lost virtually all of them in the Senate in 2022. He then goes and attacks two of the most popular Republican governors, the governor of Virginia and Florida, and now he talks about terminating the Constitution. He’s destroying himself,” longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz told CNN.

In the six states where Trump’s MAGA Inc. political action committee spent tens of millions boosting candidates with his backing, he notched only one victory: Sen.-elect J.D. Vance in Ohio, a state that has trended Republican in recent years. Trump aides insist he remains pleased with his roughly 80% success rate for the 250-plus endorsements he doled out this cycle – many of which went to heavily favored incumbents, Republican hopefuls running for reliably red seats, or candidates who ran unopposed – even as the former president has privately complained to allies about the blame he’s facing for elevating low-caliber candidates and suggesting that many of them could have run better campaigns, sources said.

“Conservatives across the country are tired of losing. 2024 is key to winning the future again. Choose well,” Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Iowa Republican who endorsed Trump’s 2020 reelection bid, wrote on Twitter late Tuesday as Walker appeared headed for defeat.

Erick Erickson, a Georgia-based conservative radio host who also endorsed Trump in 2020, said Tuesday’s outcome in his home state further demonstrated that voters “in the swing states that matter have kept rejecting candidates tied to Trump.”

“You want to win? Move on from an angry old man with nothing left but a knockoff Twitter feed. And move on from candidates who are objectively not good fits,” Erickson wrote in a Wednesday morning column, suggesting that Walker, a candidate besieged by domestic abuse allegations and claims that he paid for multiple abortions, didn’t lose solely because of Trump and but likely wouldn’t have entered the Senate race last summer had the former president not encouraged him to. Walker has denied the allegations from two separate women who claim he encouraged them to terminate their pregnancies.

‘I want to back a winner’

Members of Trump’s orbit had hoped for a Walker win to breathe new energy into the former president’s own stagnant campaign, but are now grappling with the reality that this has likely set them back farther.

One Mar-a-Lago member who is close to Trump said the former president’s 2022 scorecard has cemented his decision to financially support an alternative in the Republican presidential primary, most likely Ron DeSantis if the Florida governor runs.

“Donald’s got his problems right now and they are so numerous that I don’t think he can win and I want to back a winner,” this person said. “There are a lot of friends of mine who don’t want to have Trump at the top of the ticket because they feel it’s a killer.”

Thomas Peterffy, a billionaire GOP donor who lives just down the street from Trump in Palm Beach, said the former president “is to blame for many of the Republican losses in the gubernatorial and senatorial races” this cycle.

“Right now, I think his negatives are so much stronger than his positives,” said Peterffy, who has met with some of Trump’s potential 2024 rivals.

As of Wednesday, Trump’s team was bracing for a deluge of blame to be placed on the former president for the Georgia outcome, in addition to other party leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, National Republican Senatorial Committee chief Rick Scott, and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, all of whom have faced calls from fellow Republicans to either step down from their leadership roles or stop enabling Trump’s influence.

But while some Republican operatives have called for the party to reevaluate its election tactics and chart a new course, others said Trump’s grip on the GOP should never be underestimated.

The former president has faced a seemingly endless string of legal troubles since mounting his 2016 campaign for the White House and constantly attracts bipartisan scrutiny for his behavior – and still, throngs of grassroots Republicans remain besotted with the former businessman. Rarely has he seen a significant chunk of his supporters wander away from him.

“There is still a large portion of the Republican base who only care about Donald Trump,” one former Trump Republican told CNN.

Trump allies and advisers hope he can keep his grip on that portion of the party as the 2022 cycle reaches its conclusion and voters and rumored Republican presidential hopefuls shift their attention to the 2024 primary season. But some aren’t sure he still wields the same power that he did even just months ago, before the November midterms, when GOP lawmakers and candidates were flocking to his Mar-a-Lago club for meetings and fundraisers and polls showed him drawing steady support among Republican voters.

“(Trump is) still very popular in the party. People appreciate his presidency. They appreciate his fighting spirit. But there’s beginning to be a sense, can he win?” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, told CNN.

In the weeks since his campaign announcement, signs of Trump’s dwindling power over the party have been on full display as some Republicans seem emboldened to publicly distance themselves from the former president and former allies – including Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo – have indicated that they are prepared to potentially take him on in 2024.

“You just can’t deny what the results are. You can’t go around sincerely saying, ‘(Trump) is not a drag on the party,’ and won’t be a profoundly negative force if he winds up on the top of the ticket in 2024,” said a former Trump campaign official.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that the former president’s 2024 strategy “is being implemented even though the presidential calendar hasn’t been set yet and the 2022 midterm cycle just ended.”

“President Trump is the single most dominant force in politics and people – especially those who purport to be close to him – should never doubt his ability to win in a decisive and dominant fashion,” Cheung said.

Other hurdles

Even before Walker lost Tuesday’s runoff, Trump’s 2024 campaign had been confronted with setbacks.

Within days of Trump announcing his run, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to take over two criminal investigations into the former president and his associates surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and his retention of classified documents after leaving office. Then, shortly before Thanksgiving, Trump drew widespread backlash for dining with Kanye West, who has spent the past month publicly spouting antisemitic remarks, and White nationalist Nick Fuentes at his Palm Beach residence. He then drew a fresh round of criticism this week after calling for the “termination” of the US Constitution in a Truth Social post over the weekend to allow him to be reinstated as president. And on Tuesday, just hours before Walker’s defeat, Trump’s Manhattan-based real estate company was convicted by a New York City jury on multiple charges of tax fraud and other financial crimes.

“The special counsel wasn’t a huge surprise but the Kanye dinner was a completely avoidable mistake,” said one Trump adviser. “It made his campaign look completely incompetent and that’s catnip for potential rivals.”

Trump’s physical avoidance of Georgia also raised questions about his ability to appeal to crucial swing state voters, who will likely hold the key to another term in Washington if he emerges on the other side of the 2024 GOP primary as the party’s nominee. After not visiting Georgia ahead of the November midterm elections, Trump continued to keep his distance before the runoffs. The former president did host a tele-rally on Monday, hoping to galvanize Republican voters to support Walker the following day.

But that decision was welcomed by Georgia Republicans, given Trump’s relationship with the Peach State.

After winning Georgia in 2016, Trump’s record across the state has spiraled downward. In 2020, he became the first GOP presidential candidate to lose Georgia in nearly three decades, only to lash out at statewide Republican officeholders, baselessly accusing them of concealing widespread voter fraud for which he provided no evidence. Shortly after his defeat, the state’s two incumbent Republican senators – Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue – lost their respective runoff contests against Jon Ossoff and Warnock, handing Democrats a slim Senate majority at the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency. Many in the party blamed Trump’s election denialism and criticism of mail-in ballots for lower party turnout in those runoff contests.

“There were many in 2020 saying, ‘Don’t vote by mail. Don’t vote early,’ and we have to stop that and understand that if Democrats are getting ballots in for a month, we can’t expect to get it all done in one day,” McDaniel, the current RNC chairwoman, said in an apparent reference to Trump during a Fox News appearance just hours before polls closed on Tuesday.

And after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger refused to help Trump overturn Biden’s victory in the state, Trump waged an effort to exact political retribution, endorsing unsuccessful primary challenges against the two men. Kemp and Raffensberger went on to handily win their general election contests last month.

In part because of his losing record in the state, aides to both Walker and Trump believed the political risk was too great for Trump to appear alongside Walker. Still, the two men continued to speak by phone regularly in the lead up to the November midterms – and his ultimate defeat on Tuesday.

The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

CNN —

The race for the Senate is in the eye of the beholder less than six weeks from Election Day, with ads about abortion, crime and inflation dominating the airwaves in key states as campaigns test the theory of the 2022 election.

The cycle started out as a referendum on President Joe Biden – an easy target for Republicans, who need a net gain of just one seat to flip the evenly divided chamber. Then the US Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe v. Wade gave Democrats the opportunity to paint a contrast as Republicans struggled to explain their support for an abortion ruling that the majority of the country opposes. Former President Donald Trump’s omnipresence in the headlines gave Democrats another foil.

But the optimism some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer, on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins and the galvanizing high court decision, has been tempered slightly by the much anticipated tightening of some key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters tune in after Labor Day.

More on key Senate races Herschel Walker’s campaign fires its political director in key Georgia Senate race Trump’s Arizona slate risks turning off independent-minded voters in key Senate and governor’s races Wisconsin Senate race could hinge on voters’ views of economy, inflation See Senate race ratings by Inside Elections

Republicans, who have midterm history on their side as the party out of the White House, have hammered Biden and Democrats for supporting policies they argue exacerbate inflation. Biden’s approval rating stands at 41% with 54% disapproving in the latest CNN Poll of Polls, which tracks the average of recent surveys. And with some prices inching back up after a brief hiatus, the economy and inflation – which Americans across the country identify as their top concern in multiple polls – are likely to play a crucial role in deciding voters’ preferences.

But there’s been a steady increase in ads about crime too as the GOP returns to a familiar criticism, depicting Democrats as weak on public safety. Cops have been ubiquitous in TV ads this cycle – candidates from both sides of the aisle have found law enforcement officers to testify on camera to their pro-police credentials. Democratic ads also feature women talking about the threat of a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands, while Republicans have spent comparatively less trying to portray Democrats as the extremists on the topic.

While the issue sets have fluctuated, the Senate map hasn’t changed. Republicans’ top pickup opportunities have always been Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire – all states that Biden carried in 2020. In two of those states, however, the GOP has significant problems, although the states themselves keep the races competitive. Arizona nominee Blake Masters is now without the support of the party’s major super PAC, which thinks its money can be better spent elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, where retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is far from the nominee the national GOP had wanted. But this is the time of year when poor fundraising can really become evident since TV ad rates favor candidates and a super PAC gets much less bang for its buck.

The race for Senate control may come down to three states: Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all of which are rated as “Toss-up” races by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. As Republicans look to flip the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a “50-50 proposition,” they’re trying to pick up the first two and hold on to the latter.

Senate Democrats’ path to holding their majority lies with defending their incumbents. Picking off a GOP-held seat like Pennsylvania – still the most likely to flip in CNN’s ranking – would help mitigate any losses. Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is vying for a third term, looks like Democrats’ next best pickup opportunity, but that race drops in the rankings this month as Republican attacks take a toll on the Democratic nominee in the polls.

These rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising and advertising data, and polling, as well as historical data about how states and candidates have performed. It will be updated one more time before Election Day.

1. Pennsylvania

Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

The most consistent thing about CNN’s rankings, dating back to 2021, has been Pennsylvania’s spot in first place. But the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has tightened since the primaries in May, when Republican Mehmet Oz emerged badly bruised from a nasty intraparty contest. In a CNN Poll of Polls average of recent surveys in the state, Democrat John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, had the support of 50% of likely voters to Oz’s 45%. (The Poll of Polls is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan surveys of likely voters that meet CNN’s standards.) Fetterman is still overperforming Biden, who narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2020. Fetterman’s favorability ratings are also consistently higher than Oz’s.

One potential trouble spot for the Democrat: More voters in a late September Franklin and Marshall College Poll viewed Oz has having policies that would improve voters’ economic circumstances, with the economy and inflation remaining the top concern for voters across a range of surveys. But nearly five months after the primary, the celebrity surgeon still seems to have residual issues with his base. A higher percentage of Democrats were backing Fetterman than Republicans were backing Oz in a recent Fox News survey, for example, with much of that attributable to lower support from GOP women than men. Fetterman supporters were also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Oz supporters.

Republicans have been hammering Fetterman on crime, specifically his tenure on the state Board of Pardons: An ad from the Senate Leadership Fund features a Bucks County sheriff saying, “Protect your family. Don’t vote Fetterman.” But the lieutenant governor is also using sheriffs on camera to defend his record. And with suburban voters being a crucial demographic, Democratic advertising is also leaning into abortion, like this Senate Majority PAC ad that features a female doctor as narrator and plays Oz’s comments from during the primary about abortion being “murder.” Oz’s campaign has said that he supports exceptions for “the life of the mother, rape and incest” and that “he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic.”

2. Nevada

Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

CNN

Republicans have four main pickup opportunities – and right now, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat looks like one of their best shots. Biden carried Nevada by a slightly larger margin than two of those other GOP-targeted states, but the Silver State’s large transient population adds a degree of uncertainty to this contest.

Republicans have tried to tie the first-term senator to Washington spending and inflation, which may be particularly resonant in a place where average gas prices are now back up to over $5 a gallon. Democrats are zeroing in on abortion rights and raising the threat that a GOP-controlled Senate could pass a national abortion ban. Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt – the rare GOP nominee to have united McConnell and Trump early on – called the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling a “joke” before the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June. Democrats have been all too happy to use that comment against him, but Laxalt has tried to get around those attacks by saying he does not support a national ban and pointing out that the right to an abortion is settled law in Nevada.

3. Georgia

Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

Megan Varner/Getty Images

The closer we get to Election Day, the more we need to talk about the Georgia Senate race going over the wire. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in November, the contest will go to a December runoff. There was no clear leader in a recent Marist poll that had Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both under 50% among those who say they definitely plan to vote.

Warnock’s edge from earlier this cycle has narrowed, which bumps this seat up one spot on the rankings. The good news for Warnock is that he’s still overperforming Biden’s approval numbers in a state that the President flipped in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. And so far, he seems to be keeping the Senate race closer than the gubernatorial contest, for which several polls have shown GOP Gov. Brian Kemp ahead. Warnock’s trying to project a bipartisan image that he thinks will help him hold on in what had until recently been a reliably red state. Standing waist-deep in peanuts in one recent ad, he touts his work with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to “eliminate the regulations,” never mentioning his own party. But Republicans have continued to try to tie the senator to his party – specifically for voting for measures in Washington that they claim have exacerbated inflation.

Democrats are hoping that enough Georgians won’t see voting for Walker as an option – even if they do back Kemp. Democrats have amped up their attacks on domestic violence allegations against the former football star and unflattering headlines about his business record. And all eyes will be on the mid-October debate to see how Walker, who has a history of making controversial and illogical comments, handles himself onstage against the more polished incumbent.

4. Wisconsin

Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

Leigh VogelPool/Getty Images

Sen. Ron Johnson is the only Republican running for reelection in a state Biden won in 2020 – in fact, he broke his own term limits pledge to run a third time, saying he believed America was “in peril.” And although Johnson has had low approval numbers for much of the cycle, Democrats have underestimated him before. This contest moves down one spot on the ranking as Johnson’s race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has tightened, putting the senator in a better position.

Barnes skated through the August primary after his biggest opponents dropped out of the race, but as the nominee, he’s faced an onslaught of attacks, especially on crime, using against him his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting some funding from police budgets to social services. Barnes has attempted to answer those attacks in his ads, like this one featuring a retired police sergeant who says he knows “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.”

A Marquette University Law School poll from early September showed no clear leader, with Johnson at 49% and Barnes at 48% among likely voters, which is a tightening from the 7-point edge Barnes enjoyed in the same poll’s August survey. Notably, independents were breaking slightly for Johnson after significantly favoring Barnes in the August survey. The effect of the GOP’s anti-Barnes advertising can likely be seen in the increasing percentage of registered voters in a late September Fox News survey who view the Democrat as “too extreme,” putting him on parity with Johnson on that question. Johnson supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate.

5. Arizona

Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, is still one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in a state that has only recently grown competitive on the federal level. But Republican nominee Blake Masters is nowhere close to rivaling Kelly in fundraising, and major GOP outside firepower is now gone. After canceling its September TV reservations in Arizona to redirect money to Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has cut its October spending too.

Other conservative groups are spending for Masters but still have work to do to hurt Kelly, a well-funded incumbent with a strong personal brand. Kelly led Masters 51% to 41% among registered voters in a September Marist poll, although that gap narrowed among those who said they definitely plan to vote. A Fox survey from a little later in the month similarly showed Kelly with a 5-point edge among those certain to vote, just within the margin of error.

Masters has attempted to moderate his abortion position since winning his August primary, buoyed by a Trump endorsement, but Kelly has continued to attack him on the issue. And a recent court decision allowing the enforcement of a 1901 state ban on nearly all abortions has given Democrats extra fodder to paint Republicans as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.

6. North Carolina

Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

Demetrius Freeman/Pool/Getty Images

North Carolina slides up one spot on the rankings, trading places with New Hampshire. The open-seat race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr hasn’t generated as much national buzz as other states given that Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the state since 2008.

But it has remained a tight contest with Democrat Cheri Beasley, who is bidding to become the state’s first Black senator, facing off against GOP Rep. Ted Budd, for whom Trump recently campaigned. Beasley lost reelection as state Supreme Court chief justice by only about 400 votes in 2020 when Trump narrowly carried the Tar Heel state. But Democrats hope that she’ll be able to boost turnout among rural Black voters who might not otherwise vote during a midterm election and that more moderate Republicans and independents will see Budd as too extreme. One of Beasley’s recent spots features a series of mostly White, gray-haired retired judges in suits endorsing her as “someone different” while attacking Budd as being a typical politician out for himself.

Budd is leaning into current inflation woes, specifically going after Biden in some ads that feature half-empty shopping carts, without even mentioning Beasley. Senate Leadership Fund is doing the work of trying to tie the Democrat to Washington – one recent spot almost makes her look like the incumbent in the race, superimposing her photo over an image of the US Capitol and displaying her face next to Biden’s. Both SLF and Budd are also targeting Beasley over her support for Democrats’ recently enacted health care, tax and climate bill. “Liberal politician Cheri Beasley is coming for you – and your wallet,” the narrator from one SLF ad intones, before later adding, “Beasley’s gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents.” (The new law increases funding for the IRS, including for audits. But Democrats and the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner have said the intention is to go after wealthy tax cheats, not the middle class.)

7. New Hampshire

Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

Erin Scott/Getty Images

A lot has been made of GOP candidate quality this cycle. But there are few states where the difference between the nominee Republicans have and the one they’d hoped to have has altered these rankings quite as much as New Hampshire.

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who lost a 2020 GOP bid for the state’s other Senate seat, won last month’s Republican primary to take on first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem for him, though, is that he doesn’t have much money to wage that fight. Bolduc had raised a total of $579,000 through August 24 compared with Hassan’s $31.4 million. Senate Leadership Fund is on air in New Hampshire to boost the GOP nominee – attacking Hassan for voting with Biden and her support of her party’s health care, tax and climate package. But because super PACs get much less favorable TV advertising rates than candidates, those millions won’t go anywhere near as far as Hassan’s dollars will.

A year ago, Republicans were still optimistic that Gov. Chris Sununu would run for Senate, giving them a popular abortion rights-supporting nominee in a state that’s trended blue in recent federal elections. Bolduc told WMUR after his primary win that he’d vote against a national abortion ban. But ads from Hassan and Senate Majority PAC have seized on his suggestion in the same interview that the senator should “get over” the abortion issue. Republicans recognize that abortion is a salient factor in a state Biden carried by 7 points, but they also argue that the election – as Bolduc said to WMUR – will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular and out-of-touch incumbent.

Hassan led Bolduc 49% to 41% among likely voters in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The incumbent has consolidated Democratic support, but only 83% of Republicans said they were with Bolduc, the survey found. Still, some of those Republicans, like those who said they were undecided, could come home to the GOP nominee as the general election gets closer, which means Bolduc has room to grow. He’ll need more than just Republicans to break his way, however, which is one reason he quickly pivoted on the key issue of whether the 2020 election was stolen days after he won the primary.

8. Ohio

Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

TING SHEN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

Ohio – a state that twice voted for Trump by 8 points – isn’t supposed to be on this list at No. 8, above Florida, which backed the former President by much narrower margins. But it’s at No. 8 for the second month in a row. Republican nominee J.D. Vance’s poor fundraising has forced Senate Leadership Fund to redirect millions from other races to Ohio to shore him up and attack Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who had the airwaves to himself all summer. The 10-term congressman has been working to distance himself from his party in most of his ads, frequently mentioning that he “voted with Trump on trade” and criticizing the “defund the police” movement. Vance is finally on the air, trying to poke some holes in Ryan’s image.

But polling still shows a tight race with no clear leader. Ryan had an edge with independents in a recent Siena College/Spectrum News poll, which also showed that Vance – Trump’s pick for the nomination – has more work to do to consolidate GOP support after an ugly May primary. Assuming he makes up that support and late undecided voters break his way, Vance will likely hold the advantage in the end given the Buckeye State’s solidifying red lean.

9. Florida

Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

DREW ANGERER/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

Democrats face an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in an increasingly red-trending state, which Trump carried by about 3 points in 2020 – nearly tripling his margin from four years earlier.

Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who easily won the party’s nomination in August, is a strong candidate who has even outraised the GOP incumbent, but not by enough to seriously jeopardize his advantage. She’s leaning into her background as the former Orlando police chief – it features prominently in her advertising, in which she repeatedly rejects the idea of defunding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

10. Colorado

Incumbent: Democrat Michael Bennet

DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is no stranger to tough races. In 2016, he only won reelection by 6 points against an underfunded GOP challenger whom the national party had abandoned. Given GOP fundraising challenges in some of their top races, the party hasn’t had the resources to seriously invest in the Centennial State this year.

But in his bid for a third full term, Bennet is up against a stronger challenger in businessman Joe O’Dea, who told CNN he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. His wife and daughter star in his ads as he tries to cut a more moderate profile and vows not to vote the party line in Washington.

Bennet, however, is attacking O’Dea for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and arguing that whatever O’Dea says about supporting abortion rights, he’d give McConnell “the majority he needs” to pass a national abortion ban.

Analysis: Donald Trump offers chilling glimpse into possible second ...

CNN —

Former President Donald Trump conjured a vision of a second term that would function as a tool of personal vengeance, and become even more authoritarian than his first, when he vowed to pardon US Capitol insurrectionists if he runs for the White House again and wins.

His pledge at a Texas rally Saturday was accompanied by a call for demonstrations if prosecutors in New York, who are probing Trump’s business practices, and those in Georgia, looking into his attempts to reverse his election loss in the state, do anything that he defined as wrong or illegal. The comments underscore Trump’s obsession with delusional lies that he won the 2020 election, and his determination to put that falsehood at the core of the Republican worldview. As was often the case during his four years in office, Trump’s pardons threat shows that he still makes no distinction between his personal goals and the national interest or rule of law.

But the former President’s new rhetorical outburst also at times hinted at concern with his own legal position, and comes at a moment when various criminal and congressional lines of investigation seem to be tightening around him. The House select committee probing the January 6, 2021, riot has now penetrated deep inside Trump’s West Wing inner circle, and he lost a Supreme Court bid to keep key documents secret. The likelihood of a damning accounting from the committee, bristling with new details about Trump’s attempt to destroy American democracy, is growing, though the GOP has sought to thwart it at every turn.

As well as further threatening US democracy on Saturday night, Trump was preoccupied with his personal legal exposure. He fired off a wild attack, which looked to be racially-motivated, on two Black New York prosecutors investigating whether his business empire deliberately falsified accounts to get preferential treatment on loans and income taxes. He also alluded to potential legal peril he’s facing in Fulton County, Georgia, where a Black district attorney has been granted a special grand jury to examine his attempt to steal President Joe Biden’s win in the state.

In a sign of the potential impact of Trump’s incitement, District Attorney Fani Willis wrote to the FBI on Sunday asking for an immediate risk assessment for the Fulton County Courthouse and government buildings. She said that “security concerns were escalated this weekend” by the former President’s speech and added that her office had already received “communications” from people unhappy with the investigation before Trump’s rally.

Trump’s pressure on investigators prompted Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who sits on the House committee probing the insurrection, to warn that the ex-President had issued a “call to arms.”

“Calling out for demonstrations if, you know, anything adverse, legally, happens to him, is pretty extraordinary. And I think it’s important to think through what message is being sent,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Sunday.

In yet another sign of Trump’s incessantly consuming inability to accept his election loss, he issued a statement that same evening slamming former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing his demands to overturn the result of the democratic election in 2020, and falsely claimed that the then-vice president had the power to do so.

With Trump and his fans already referring to him as the 45th and the 47th President, his fixation with the 2020 election may also represent a growing problem for the Republican Party. In the midterm elections in November and beyond, the GOP wants to build a case that Biden is weak, flailing at home and abroad and has lost his grip on inflation. But Trump, who wants to use the elections to demonstrate his hold on the GOP grassroots, threatens to detract from that simple Republican message. While the ex-President remains wildly popular with the “Make America Great Again” crowd, his loss in 2020 poses the question of whether Republicans – and independents and suburban swing voters – want to get stuck forever in Trump’s unhinged 2020 feedback loop. Some other potential 2024 presidential candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are meanwhile demonstrating that Trump’s populist nationalism and assault on what supporters view as liberal elites will be waged long after the 45th President has left the scene.

Democrats failed in their attempt to make Trump the bogeyman in last year’s Virginia gubernatorial election, when Republican Glenn Youngkin kept his distance from the ex-President and tapped into voter concerns about education, Covid exhaustion and rising prices. But it will be an easier case for Democrats to make when Trump is holding wild rallies in swing states and again makes himself the face of the party in 2022, spreading his lies, spewing increasingly racist rhetoric and behaving like an autocrat in waiting.

Trump signals possible new abuse of power

Trump’s latest comment on pardons was in line with his attempt to whitewash the truth of a day when his mob, incited at his Washington rally, invaded the Capitol to try and disrupt the certification of Biden’s win, beat up police officers and sent lawmakers running for their lives. Throughout his presidency, he used the chief executive’s pardon power to shield his political cronies.

“If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly,” Trump said on Saturday. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.”

People dragged into the criminal justice system because they tried to stage a coup based on lies about a stolen election are not being treated unfairly. But it is characteristic of Trump’s democracy-threatening brand of politics to play up a sense of grievance and victimhood. He spent four years of his twice-impeached presidency sowing a narrative that opponents and subordinates who tried to check him were in fact the ones guilty of abusing power. And he repeatedly sought to force the Justice Department to embrace his anti-constitutional schemes.

Several high-profile Republicans quickly dismissed Trump’s offer to help January 6 insurrectionists. New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who disappointed the national party by passing on a Senate bid, said on Sunday that those responsible for the insurrection must be held accountable. Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” about the possibility of a pardon for such Trump supporters, Sununu, who is emerging as a standard bearer for a possible post-Trump GOP, said: “Of course not. Oh my goodness, no.”

One of Trump’s closest enablers, Sen. Lindsey Graham, also dismissed Trump’s promise in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I think it’s inappropriate. I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was okay. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future,” the South Carolina Republican said. His comments were notable since he has previously warned that the GOP needs to find a way to work with Trump if it wants to wield power. Another Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, also condemned Trump’s remarks. “I do not think … President Trump should have made that pledge to do pardons. We should let the judicial process proceed. January 6 was a dark day in our history,” said Collins, who just won reelection in 2020, speaking on ABC’s “This Week.” She also said it was “very unlikely” that she would support Trump if he does officially decide on a third presidential run.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the party’s most vocal critics of Trump and his hold on the Republican Party, tweeted Monday that “Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election. He’d do it all again if given the chance.”

This must have been a case of déjà vu for Republicans who often had their talking points overshadowed by the ex-President’s extremism when he was in power. But it is one thing for key Republicans to criticize the ex-President now. On every previous occasion when the GOP faced a choice between appeasing Trump to keep or win power and standing up for American democracy and the rule of law, it has chosen the first option. In a sense, Trump’s demagoguery this weekend was a fresh sign that he is convinced that his personality cult still holds his party in thrall.

The House Republican conference has already demonstrated that it would act as a vessel of Trump’s power and vengeance if it wins the majority in November. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has put the ex-President at the center of his efforts to become speaker of the House and has been put on notice by pro-Trump members like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that departures from the ex-President’s dogma could doom his hopes. And former Speaker Newt Gingrich encapsulated the extremism of the House GOP when he suggested last week that a new majority should throw members of the January 6 committee in jail.

Trump fires off racist attack on New York prosecutors

The ex-President’s speech was also notable for an extraordinary assault on prosecutors in New York who are investigating allegations of fraud at his business empire. The ex-President called for “the biggest protests we have ever had” if the prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal.” New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. are both leading investigations into Trump’s business empire. And both are Black, a point that Trump hinted at in his complaints about his treatment.

“These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They’re racists and they’re very sick – they’re mentally sick,” he said. “They’re going after me without any protection of my rights from the Supreme Court or most other courts. In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you,” he told his crowd.

It was the second recent occasion when Trump has sought to stir up racial hatred as part of his increasingly dangerous rhetoric. He claimed at a rally in Arizona two weeks ago that White people could not get Covid-19 treatment or vaccines in New York, grossly distorting a policy that says that race should be one factor in the use of limited therapies for a disease that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic populations.

Trump’s speech once again presented a conundrum about how much attention should be paid to an ex-President who is using his high profile to stir division and outrage in order to stay politically relevant. Yet given his power in the Republican Party and the intensity of those who follow a once and possible future President who has already incited a coup to overthrow an election, it would be unwise to ignore the implications of his rage.

Even out of office, Trump has convinced millions of Americans that the election was stolen and Biden is an illegitimate president. Multiple Republican-run states have passed laws that make it harder to vote and easier for political officials to interfere in election results rooted in his false claims of voter fraud. And Trump is touring the country inciting polarization and racial animus as the hot favorite for the GOP 2024 nomination.

John Dean, a former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, condemned Trump’s remarks on pardons in a chilling tweet.

“This is beyond being a demagogue to the stuff of dictators. He is defying the rule of law. Failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior,” Dean wrote. “If thinking Americans don’t understand what Trump is doing and what the criminal justice system must do we are all in big trouble!”

FBI boosts security; GOP wants Mar-a-Lago search details: Updates

FBI issues security bulletin after armed assailant attempted to breach Cincinnati office.

Despite revealing that 11 sets of documents were seized, the content of documents remains sealed.

Congressional committees seek info about search and its justification.

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department on Monday opposed releasing an affidavit in support of the warrant to search former President Donald Trump's home, saying its release could hurt the investigation and future probes.

News organizations had filed a motion to make public the affidavit, which would shed new light on the department's investigation into Trump's alleged removal of classified documents from the White House at the end of his term.

The department said in a court filing the affidavit contains "highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government; specific investigative techniques; and information required by law to be kept under seal."

Releasing it is "highly likely to compromise future investigative steps" and could "chill future cooperation by witnesses" in this investigation and others in the future, the department argued.

The filing came after a federal judge on Friday unsealed the search warrant at the department's request. The warrant was used in a search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 8, when the FBI seized 11 sets of documents.

Since then, the FBI has bolstered security at its offices across the country in wake of increasing threats to federal law enforcement officers, according to two sources familiar with the activity.

In new territory:The latest unprecedented Trump chapter brings mystery and political thorniness

Three Trump passports being returned

Federal authorities notified Donald Trump's attorneys Monday that three passports belonging to the former president that had been recovered in last week's search at Trump's Florida estate were being returned, a law enforcement official said Monday.

The notification was made in a Monday morning email, later made public by Trump's representatives.

The email, sent by Jay Bratt, a top official in Justice's National Security Division, said that "filter" agents identified the travel documents–two of them expired along with an active diplomatic passport.

"We are returning them, and they will be ready for pickup at (the Washington Field Office) at 2 pm today," Bratt wrote.

Earlier Monday, Trump claimed that the passports had been stolen, referring to it as as "assault on a political opponent..."

-- Kevin Johnson

ICYMI:Recap: DOJ search warrant shows Trump being probed in connection with espionage statutes

Pennsylvania man arrested after allegedly making death threats against FBI

A Pennsylvania man accused of making threats against the FBI, including a social media post threatening to kill agents, was arrested Friday.

Adam Bies, 46, of Mercer faces up to 10 years in prison over federal charges of influencing, impeding or retaliating against federal law enforcement officers. Bies allegedly posted death threats on Gab under the username “BlankFocus.”

“My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop,” Bies said in one post, according to the Justice Department. In another, he allegedly said “If you work for the FBI then you deserve to die.”

Bies allegedly wrote “We the people cannot wait to water the trees of liberty with your blood. I’ll be waiting for you to kick down my door.”

Justice Department officials have warned of a crush of new threats against federal law enforcement officials after the FBI conducted a search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate last week.

-- Rick Rouan

Earlier:FBI's Christopher Wray denounces threats following search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home

'Kill FBI on sight':Truth Social reveals the final days of the Cincinnati attacker

Short of affidavit, some additional Trump search documents could be made public

While the Justice Department urged that the affidavit supporting the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate remain under seal, government lawyers do not oppose releasing some other documents related to last week’s unprecedented law enforcement action.

Justice does not oppose the release of the government’s request to seal the search-related documents and the judge’s order to keep the material under wraps.

-- Kevin Johnson

Trump's other probes:Mar-a-Lago document inquiry is only part of a storm gathering around the former president

Text with USA TODAY politics reporters:Elections news right on your phone, from our top reporters

National Security Archive president raised red flags in 2020

Tom Blanton, president of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, raised red flags about the pack-up of presidential material immediately after the election on Nov. 13, 2020 in a letter to White House Attorney Pat Cipollone.

He pointed to Trump’s norm-breaking administration, which eschewed records of meetings with foreign leaders, reprimanded its own attorneys for taking notes during meetings and told the Secret Service to not keep logs of visitors to Mar-a-Lago or other Trump properties.

“This ongoing pattern of behavior raises a red flag that the records of the Trump presidency will not be properly preserved for the public, their rightful owner. With the Trump administration drawing to the close, it is critical that the American public receive adequate assurances that all the presidential records of this administration will be preserved and transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration by Jan. 20, 2021 as the law requires.”

-- Nick Penzenstadler

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Justice Dept opposes release of search warrant affidavit; would ‘irreparably harm’ criminal investigation

The Justice Department is opposing release of the affidavit supporting the search warrant issued for former President Donald Trump's Florida estate where FBI agents seized a trove of classified documents last week.

In court documents filed Monday, Justice lawyers countered a consortium of media companies seeking the document's release, saying that the unsealing of the document would "irreparably harm the government's ongoing criminal investigation."

"There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed," Justice attorneys argued.

– Kevin Johnson

What's in the search warrant? The search warrant for Trump's Mar-a-Lago home has been released. Here's what it says.

Justice filing: Affidavit contains 'critically important and detailed investigative facts'

The affidavit, according to a Justice filing contains "critically important and detailed investigative facts: highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government; specific investigative techniques; and information required by law to be kept under seal."

"If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps," Justice attorneys asserted.

Detailed information about witnesses, the government argued, "would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation"

"Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations," the filing states. "The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential for harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly."

– Kevin Johnson

The documents:Read the FBI's search warrant for Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property

Trump calls DOJ probe a 'hoax':Experts, citing the Espionage Act, have a grimmer assessment

House GOP tells DOJ to preserve documents about search

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrote Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and White House chief of staff Ron Klain, telling them to preserve documents related to the search of Donald Trump's estate.

The letters asked to preserve all documents relating to the execution of the search, all documents about communications related to the decision to conduct the search and all documents and communications referring to confidential human sources relating to the search. Garland has said he personally authorized the search.

Republicans are limited in how much they can investigate under Democratic House leadership. But Republicans are preparing multiple investigations of the Biden administration and Democrats, in anticipation of regaining control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections.

"The FBI’s unprecedented raid of President Trump’s residence is a shocking escalation of the Biden Administration’s weaponization of law-enforcement resources against its political opponents," wrote the lawmakers led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. "The American people deserve answers for the Biden Administration’s continued misuse of law-enforcement resources against its political opponents."

What was seized in search?

Despite the Justice Department releasing the search warrant of Donald Trump’s Florida resort, details remained unclear Monday about what federal authorities seized in the unprecedented criminal investigation of a former president.

The search warrant unsealed Friday said “secret” and “top secret” documents were among the 11 sets of documents removed from the Mar-a-Lago. The warrant said Trump was under investigation for potential improper removal of classified documents, obstruction of justice and violations of the Espionage Act.

But the department hasn’t said what sorts of documents were found. While Trump denounced the raid and supported the release of the search warrant, he hasn’t said what was taken, either.

The search came at a time when Trump and his associates are under scrutiny from the FBI, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies.

Two days after the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a deposition related to a separate civil fraud investigation into the Trump Organization's finances led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump investigations:Trump in midst of gathering storm of investigations. Mar-a-Lago document inquiry is one of many.

Congress has questions about search

Congressional committees want to know more about the search and what was found.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the search warrant disclosed “a serious risk” to disclosure of national secrets.

“That is among the highest of designation in terms of the extremely grave damage to national security that could be done if it were disclosed,” Schiff told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on CBS on Sunday. “So, the fact that they were in an unsecure place that is guarded with nothing more than a padlock or whatever security they had at a hotel is deeply alarming.”

Schiff and the head of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., have asked for a damage assessment from the director of national intelligence.

More:Trump calls DOJ probe a 'hoax'; experts, citing the Espionage Act, have a grimmer assessment

GOP seeks justification for search

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor, wants to learn more about what justified the search from the affidavit submitted to justify probable cause for the search, which remains sealed.

“It was an unprecedented action that needs to be supported by unprecedented justification,” Fitzpatrick told “Face the Nation.” “This has never happened before in our country's history.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., on NBC's "Meet the Press," said the Justice Department needs to lay out its case to "show that this was not just a fishing expedition."

Why did Trump keep the documents?

Another open question is why Trump kept the documents in the first place.

The Presidential Records Act says all presidential documents must be retained, both for current reference and the historical record. The documents are supposed to be retained even if they weren’t classified.

But the National Archives and Records Administration, which traditionally stores presidential documents, earlier discovered boxes of materials missing.

The agency in January obtained 15 boxes of presidential records that the former president had stored at his Mar-a-Lago club, including correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that Trump described as "love letters," as well as a letter former President Barack Obama left before Trump's inauguration.

Trump advisers denied "any nefarious intent" and told The Washington Post the boxes contained "mementos, gifts, letters from world leaders and other correspondence."

OnPolitics: Who else is searching their former offices?

Hey OnPolitics readers, in case you missed it, we have a daily live blog with the top news of the day!

Here's what you'll find in today's live blog:

After classified documents were found at the home of another high-profile politician, former VP Mike Pence, who else is searching their former offices?

Not Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, David Jackson reports for the blog: Aides for the former presidents say they are not searching their offices for classified documents because those items were turned over when they left office.

Bush's office said: “That search was conducted before he left the White House, when all of his Presidential records – classified and unclassified – were turned over to the National Archives."

“That search was conducted before he left the White House, when all of his Presidential records – classified and unclassified – were turned over to the National Archives." Obama's office responded: "Consistent with the Presidential Records Act, all of President Obama’s classified records were submitted to the National Archives upon leaving office. NARA continues to assume physical and legal custody of President Obama’s materials to date."

"Consistent with the Presidential Records Act, all of President Obama’s classified records were submitted to the National Archives upon leaving office. NARA continues to assume physical and legal custody of President Obama’s materials to date." According to Clinton's office: “All of President Clinton’s classified materials were properly turned over to NARA in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.”

👀 Keep reading the latest political news, including buzz around who's jockeying to be 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump's running mate.

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