NEW: Donald Trump's hot vax summer is officially lit.
Since decamping to New Jersey from his Mar-a-Lago resort, the former president is filling his days with endless rounds of golf & emailed tirades against enemies. ($) @thisisinsider by @tomlobianco
Trump is likewise in entertaining mode, hosting a fundraiser for his super PAC last weekend at his Bedminster club. He also may be plotting a '24 comeback: issuing candidate endorsements, making quick NYC side trips, & planning campaign-style rallies over the coming month.
Nothing, it seems, will prevent Trump from doing Trump during his COVID-carefree summer: not even the massive legal storm clouds gathering on the horizon of Trump's gilded Garden State stomping grounds, nor the prosecutorial heat emanating from New York.
Trump has become an even more prolific golfer since leaving the WH, something advisors credit with him dropping weight. It's easier at his NJ estate.
"He walks out of what we call his apartment, he gets on the golf cart, and he's on the course," one Trump advisor said.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump also keep a "cottage" at the expansive Bedminster country club, which has led to speculation from some Rs that the power couple are reasserting their influence after pulling back from daily operations in the wake of Trump leaving the White House.
While the former president regularly meets with advisors at Bedminster and hosted a super PAC fundraiser there last weekend, he's also using it as a summertime springboard to New York City an hour away, where he can conduct business at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan.
"It's easier to hold court there," a second Trump advisor said, adding that Trump's office takes up an entire floor of his eponymous tower.
The continued pilgrimages by ambitious Rs seeking Trump's time & approval indicate that despite the former president's troubles, he still rules the Republican Party from Bedminster.
"Let's just say he's still king of the castle," the second Trump advisor said.
That "king" is now actively using that New Jersey vacation castle to plot a return to his trademark campaign rallies, which propelled him to prominence in 2016 but fell by the wayside in the summer last year after a false start in the middle of the pandemic.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson is unsealing and releasing documents from the Paul Manafort case this AM. Here's one doc she just released with fewer black boxes than when it first came out back in December 2018.
Here's a side-by-side of the two versions and what was previously redacted re. Manafort's lies about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik:
New version on left released today; old version on right released back in Dec 2018:
Among the many exclusive nuggets in this story is a 7+ minute video of @mtgreenee speaking to her constituents at the 14th District Republican Convention in Dalton on May 15. She recounts her run-in a few days earlier with @aoc - who she dubs "Alexandria Ocrazyo-Cortez."
Greene on the AOC incident: "She stopped, turned, & threw her hands in the air, & then she kept going. Well the press that was present said that I was screaming at her & that I had behavior that's not becoming of a member of Congress."
Insider traversed Greene's congressional district over two weeks in May, including attending two GOP events in Dalton: a Patriots Unite Rally graced by the election conspiracist and lawyer Lin Wood, as well as the 14th District Republican convention where @mtgreenee spoke.
Wood’s speech focused on Gov. Brian Kemp and Sec of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused to play ball when Trump was seeking to overturn the presidential election. "Put them in front of a firing squad, and send them straight to hell," the attorney told the crowd.
NEW: The next two election cycles in America could be a roller-coaster ride for Republicans as Donald Trump and his namesake company face the prospect of criminal charges. A team effort from the @thisisinsider DC bureau ($) businessinsider.com/trump-indictme…
Political insiders are only starting to grasp this increasingly real possibility after NY AG Letitia James' recent statement confirming she's now linked up with the Manhattan DA who has been digging into Trump's financial records after securing that authority from SCOTUS.
Interviews with more than a dozen members of Congress and political operatives this week elicited incredulous looks, knee-jerk reactions, and wild speculation about what prospectively sidelining Trump would mean to the political world.
NEW: Black conservatives are not a monolith. Or unicorns. Or traitors. "I am just a good, old-fashioned American who happens to be Black," is how Sen. Tim Scott summed things up to @thisisinsider at the US Capitol. by @WARojas ($) businessinsider.com/being-a-black-…
The folksy demeanor doesn't stop opponents from lambasting Scott every chance they get. He doesn't need to open Twitter for the hate, as he tends to catch hell any time he voices an unpopular opinion, be it on the Senate floor, the campaign trail, or rebutting President Biden.
"I get called Uncle Tom & the n-word by progressives, by liberals," Scott said in his response to Biden's joint address to Congress.
That same night Texas Democratic Party official Gary O'Connor posted a message on Facebook describing Scott as "an oreo with no real principles."
NEW: Joe Biden's administration still has no comprehensive strategy for identifying and removing federal law-enforcement officers who may have ties to white-supremacist groups, an @thisisinsider investigation reveals. by @cdechalus ($) businessinsider.com/white-supremac…
Insider surveyed 63 federal agencies that employ uniformed law-enforcement officers and personnel — who routinely carry firearms — to understand how they were each combating domestic-terrorism threats from within their ranks.
Insider found the federal agencies' applicant vetting processes varied greatly and sometimes contradicted each other.