"The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results"
"Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses... have asked in recent days about conversations w/ Trump, his lawyers, & others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won"
"The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 & January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers & advisers about fake electors"
"In addition, Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows"
"Federal criminal investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political figures are among the most closely held secrets at the Justice Department.
"investigators also want to understand... what Trump told his lawyers & senior officials to do.
Any investigation... must navigate complex issues of... when or whether a person’s speech could become part of an alleged conspiracy in support of a coup." washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
"Many elements of the sprawling Jan. 6 criminal investigation have remained under wraps.
But in recent weeks the public pace of the work has increased, with a fresh round of subpoenas, search warrants and interviews..."
"The DOJ probe began amid the smoke, blood & chaos at the Capitol and has led to criminal charges against more than 840 individuals, expanding to include an examination of events that occurred elsewhere in the days and weeks before the attack — including at the White House"
"There are two principal tracks of the investigation that could ultimately lead to additional scrutiny of Trump...
The first centers on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding...
"Recent subpoenas... show that 2 AZ state legislators were ordered to turn over communications w/ “any member, employee, or agent of Donald J. Trump or any organization advocating in favor of the 2020 re-election of Donald J. Trump, incl ‘Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.’ ”"
"Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that the Jan. 6 investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead and said that no one is exempt or above scrutiny, while refusing to divulge information outside of court filings."
"After Trump lost the election, lawyers and others close to him urged GOP officials in key states to submit alternate and illegitimate slates of electors to reject the results of the state vote totals."
"Last month, federal agents fanned out in multiple states to serve grand jury subpoenas, execute search warrants and interview witnesses — a significant escalation of overt investigative activity."
"Trump told acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen that he wanted his Justice Department to say there was significant election fraud, and said he was poised to oust Rosen & replace him with Clark, who was willing to make that assertion."
"Rosen told Trump that the DOJ could not “flip a switch and change the election”...
“I don’t expect you to do that,” Trump responded, according to the notes. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”"
"A majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices — 299 in all — have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election"
"most of the election deniers nominated are likely to win: Of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 173 are running for safely Republican seats. Another 52 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races."
Here are the election deniers running in Texas 2022:
Greg Abbott for Governor
Dan Patrick for Lt Gov
and the twice-indicted Ken Paxton for Attorney General.
"Donald Trump on Friday issued what can only be described as a threat against Mitch McConnell, declaring that the Senate minority leader’s support for bipartisan bills amounts to a “DEATH WISH.”"
News orgs fail to ask GOP pols about this threat by Trump.
First, they cannot leave these exchanges for the end of an interview, when the guest can filibuster until the commercial break. Do it upfront, and don’t allow them to move on"
"In the absence of higher authority backing them up, personnel in the staff secretary’s office could not be expected to remove documents from the president’s possession...
“They would have gotten their heads cut off by the president if they tried to take things from him.”
"Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev spent more than a month fighting in Ukraine after his poorly equipped unit was ordered to march from its base in Crimea for what commanders called a routine exercise."
Over the next 5 weeks, deeply troubled by the devastation caused by ... Putin’s bloody invasion, he wrote down his recollections in hopes that telling his country the truth about the war could help stop it."
"His damning 141-page journal... describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless & terrified, equipment old & rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled."
"On Election Day 2016, nearly 63 million Americans voted for Trump, giving him more than 300 electoral votes and the White House.
The takeaway?
They, too, knew where he stood and voted for him anyway."
The idea that legislatures stand unbound by any limit from their own founding documents is a fringe debating point invented for Republican political advantage."