The Mar-a-Lago investigation heats up Until a deal is final, or there's a default, I'll update you on the latest about the debt ceiling. The latest: We're halfway to averting financial catastrophe. A deal to let the government issue debt to pay its bills passed the House on Wednesday night. Now it has moved to the Senate, where it will still take some time to come to a vote. (Congress moves slowly like that.) We're not out of the woods yet, though. Any senator can stop up proceedings, but that can be overcome if there are enough senators willing to vote for this deal. Meanwhile, the drop-dead date to avert a default and likely recession is Monday. "Time is a luxury the Senate does not have," warned Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). This debt deal is a reminder that, much like in America, there is a middle in Congress. The deal passed in the House on the strength of centrist lawmakers who you don't normally hear about, those who aren't regularly on MSNBC or Fox News catering to their bases. Names such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), co-chair of what's known as the Problem Solvers Caucus. They usually can be relied on to come through on politically tough votes. "In divided government, you have to actually work together to find a solution that can make it across the finish line," he said. Actually, even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), arguably the most hyperpartisan lawmaker in Congress, voted to avert a default. Here's how your representative voted, by the way. Zooming in on a Trump investigation: The classified documents at Mar-a-Lago Among Donald Trump's looming criminal investigations is the federal government's examination of whether he took and hid government secrets after he left the presidency. And that appears to be heating up with some new, big evidence. How we got here: After Trump left office, the government noticed that high-profile items such as his letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were missing from its records. The National Archives asked for everything back and found many other classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. A months-long battle to get more documents the government suspected were at Trump's clubhouse culminated last year in an FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, where plainclothes agents carted away thousands of documents, including about 100 marked classified. Now federal investigators are looking at whether Trump hid more from them after they issued a subpoena demanding he return the documents.  Documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago. (Justice Department/AP) | The new evidence: The Washington Post reported last week that investigators have seen security footage from Trump's clubhouse that appears to show boxes of papers being moved around in Mar-a-Lago before FBI agents visited in June. Now, The Post has reported this week that investigators also have a recording of Trump bragging about having a classified document on Iran while on his golf course in New Jersey a few months after he left office. In this recording, Trump appears to want to share the information with someone he's talking to but acknowledges he probably shouldn't, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has maintained he hasn't done anything wrong by taking classified documents with him after he left office, but it's possible this audio undercuts that — in his own words. President Biden just fell down. He says he's fine. On Thursday, Biden was delivering a commencement address to Air Force Academy graduates in Colorado Springs. He spent the next two hours shaking hands with 920 cadets. As he was heading back to his seat, the president tripped and fell, reports The Post's Cleve Wootson, who was there. You can see it in the video above. Biden's staff said there was a sandbag in his way and that he's fine. Any stumble, physically or mentally, of course, is going to be seized upon by Biden critics who say he's too old to be president again. (At 80, he's already the oldest president ever.) Biden's doctor said he's healthy and fit. | 
Email
No comments:
Post a Comment