Next in our reported-out 2025 Trump policy stakes series went up this a.m. and will be Sunday NYT front: the prospect of withdrawing the USA from or gutting NATO, abandoning Ukraine and a retreat from Europe. w/ @jonathanvswan & @maggieNYT
Gift link: nyti.ms/3uSNafa
We've been working on this series for 6 months & have been gratified lately to see others start to join in the conversation. We have been determined to stay grounded in what Trump & his truly close advisers have said & to add substantive reporting. Gift links to other chapters:/2

Seeing folks portraying it as a problem or gotcha that Garland appointed Weiss – a sitting US attorney – special counsel even though a 1999 regulation for special counsels has a provision that envisions them being appointed from outside government. Here's an explanation. /1 Takeaway up front: that part of the reg hasn't been understood to impose a controlling limit. It’s a tell that a commentator is not a credible & good-faith source of info if he doesn’t mention that Durham was *also* a sitting US attorney when Barr made him special counsel. /2

It occurred to me that one of the dishonest things about @marcthiessen’s column that I pointed out yesterday was actually even more egregious and is another affirmative factual error (a charitable word choice) that the WP should correct./15

https://twitter.com/charlie_savage/status/1659277865068687366

When he backed his criticism of the FBI's decision to open a full investigation by misleadingly citing a passage about warrant renewal applications, Thiessen inserted "[the Trump campaign]” into a quote from the report. In context, "the target" instead meant Carter Page./16

.@marcthiessen wrote a shoddy Washington Post column using as a foil the headline of my piece yesterday assessing how the Durham inquiry fell flat after years of political hype. (He didn’t engage with its substance, of course.) A dissection follows. /1
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/… As an initial matter, Thiessen got his start at a lobbying firm that included two named partners – Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – who were convicted of felonies in the Russia investigation & pardoned by Trump. He does not disclose that conflict to the WP’s readers. /2

DOJ detention memo for Jack Teixeira storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… /1 DOJ says he smashed his electronics /2

As Alberto @Ibarguen -- the head of the Knight Foundation @knightfdn and former publisher of The @MiamiHerald -- retires, I would like to add a public note of personal appreciation to the encomiums. /1 philanthropy.com/article/knight… In 1999, when I went to work for The Miami Herald as a cub reporter just out of college and he was its publisher, he took a mentor-like interest in me. We got to know each other over occasional dinners/drinks, a Miami Heat game, etc. /2

The Biden administration is formally launching its effort to persuade Congress to reauthorize Section 702, the warrantless surveillance law set to expire 12/31/23, this morning this letter to Congress from Merrick Garland and Avril Haines. (Story to come.) int.nyt.com/data/documentt… As part of the 702 push Matt Olsen, the head of the DOJ national security division, is giving this speech at the Brookings Institution this morning, streaming now. brookings.edu/events/a-conve…

The Wall Street Journal opinion section published a meandering column by Holman Jenkins today riffing off last week's article on the Durham investigation that I wrote with @ktbenner and @adamgoldmanNYT. It was weirdly filled with ad hominem attacks on me (just me) by name. /1 Besides the unnecessary personal attacks, Jenkins claimed I had written something last August that I did not remember writing and could not find in the archives. So I wrote to him requesting a correction./2

For months, @ktbenner @adamgoldmanNYT & I have been scrutinizing the Durham investigation into the Russia investigation. It just went online. nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/… Among the highlights:
1.Durham opened a criminal investigation into possible financial crimes involving Trump, based on a tip from Italian officials. While it had nothing to do w/ the Russia inquiry, Barr decided Durham should keep control of it. He never brought charges.

Good morning. ICYMI, House Dems released Trump's tax returns & revealed that the IRS had failed to audit Trump his 1st 2 years in office - despite a rule requiring it to audit presidents - & only started 1 when they asked for his tax/audit data in 2019. /1 nytimes.com/live/2022/12/2… I wrote the above re the vote & dysfunctional audit program w/ @ESCochrane, @arappeport & @stephaniealai. Overnight, my colleagues @mmcintire @russbuettner & @susannecraig took this first cut at assessing what we learned about Trump's finances. /2 nytimes.com/2022/12/21/us/…

Discussed post-11th Circuit ruling status of Trump MAL docs investigation last night w/ @alexwagner & @neal_katyal, including issues related to whether Florida is a potential venue option along with DC if someone ends up getting charged. msnbc.com/alex-wagner-to… /1 Here is a piece on @lawfareblog by @bvangrack thinking through considerations about Florida v. DC as potential venue -- some pro's and con's of each. /2 lawfareblog.com/wheres-venue-r…

Leaders of NYT & 4 European news outlets have called on the US govt to drop charges against Julian Assange for soliciting/publishing classified information. (Case is about the 2010 @xymanning-leaked DOD/State files, not the 2016 Russia-hacked Dem emails). nytimes.com/2022/11/28/us/… Here is the joint open letter:
nytco.com/press/an-open-…
NYT company spokesperson says the institutional decision to participate was made by the publisher (@AGSNYT) in consultation with the legal department (@davidmccraw). The newsroom (@nycscribe) was not involved.

There's been discussion, arising from Mar-a-Lago docs, re whether DOJ in practice would ever charge Espionage Act for unclassified info. It's an outlier, but in 2014 a navy engineer pleaded guilty to §794 re unclassified schematics for an aircraft carrier. justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/n… @secretsandlaws @jacklgoldsmith

A letter to the special master overseeing a review of files seized from Mar-a-Lago has opened a window on disputes between Trump and DOJ over an initial batch. nytimes.com/2022/10/20/us/… Trump team letter to special master today says DOJ letter last night incorrectly said Trump wasn't claiming exec privilege over four clemency docs, but he is. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

New: Several dozen prominent lawyers, organized by @LDADemocracy, filed an ethics complaint in NY against Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump lawyer who worked w/ Eastman and Giuliani and was “the apparent mastermind behind key aspects of the fake elector ploy.” nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/… One is @tribelaw, who is obv no fan of Trump, but there's a personal twist. As a law student in 1985-86, Chesebro was Tribe's assistant & later worked with him on pro bono litigation -- including helping him represent Al Gore in Bush v. Gore. (Friendship ended some years ago.)

My take on the 11th Circuit's granting of DOJ's expedited appeal request is that the only concrete effect for now is not that important per se, but it does raise the potential for ripple effects that could be important later./1 The schedule the 11th Circuit sets for briefings is not much different from the non-expedited one Trump proposed. Trump's response brief is now due Nov. 10 instead of 14, and DOJ's reply brief, if any, is due a week later, so Nov. 17 instead of 21. Four days isn't a big deal./2

There was apparently a docketing error and two still-sealed lists of potentially privileged FBI-seized MAL docs (A is gov docs & B is personal Trump docs) were briefly exposed; copy made its way to @ZoeTillman of Bloomberg who published them last night s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2311… The "medical documents" plural that Judge Cannon cited as part of the justification for imposing a special counsel appears to be the letter the Trump campaign made public in 2016 claiming Trump was in excellent health (h/t @emptywheel) nytimes.com/interactive/20…

In MAL docs special master litigation, Team Trump is filing complaints under seal for some reason, but DOJ is discussing it not under seal, so we can largely infer what Trump is upset about. 1/ pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/42/618763/0511… First, Dearie wants Trump to say whether the inventory of stuff the FBI says it took from MAL is complete and accurate (no planted evidence!) before Trump's team has had access to scans of the material. Team Trump apparently wants to wait and see it first. /2

In the Mar-a-Lago docs special master matter, DOJ filed a revised property inventory. They went back & recounted each box & a lot of the #s shifted a bit for the stacks of unclassified records & news clippings (but not the count of docs marked classified). pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/42/618763/0511… Page 2 has two boxes in which Trump actually had more unclassified government records than the first inventory

BREAKING: DOJ files notice of appeal in case where judge effectively froze the Trump documents investigation and imposed a special master to filter material for executive privilege. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… DOJ is asking judge to stay the part of her order that halted the investigation and would require showing classified docs to special master, and says will appeal if she doesn't do that. Willing to let a master be appointed and see the unclassified docs. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

BREAKING: DOJ has released the full memo to then Attorney General Bill Barr analyzing why Trump should not be charged with obstruction-of-justice based on the Mueller report. DOJ had fought but lost a @CREWcrew FOIA lawsuit seeking this disclosure. int.nyt.com/data/documentt… 2/ Vol II of the Mueller report detailed numerous episode raising potential obstruction of justice concerns. Barr purported to clear Trump of all of them, but never publicly discussed many of them. Here are some of the most important ones from the report: nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/…