| Good morning, Early Birds. We hope you had a restful Juneteenth weekend if you were fortunate enough to have Monday off. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here. Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition … What we're watching: Schumer talks AI … How Ron DeSantis and Leonard Leo flipped Florida's Supreme Court … but first … | | |  | On the Hill | | Durham to testify as GOP portrays Trump as victim in cases both old and new |  Special counsel John Durham leaves federal court in Washington on May 16, 2022. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) | | | Special counsel John Durham will testify before Congress twice this week on his recently released report investigating the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election: today before the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session and Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. His testimony will cap a four-year investigation launched by Attorney General William P. Barr in 2019 that former president Donald Trump and his supporters hoped would find crimes and show Trump was unfairly targeted by federal law enforcement officials biased against him. Durham's report was highly critical of the FBI, arguing the agency showed confirmation bias when investigating the former president and rushed to investigate him. But it did not find the type of widespread abuse or criminal activity inside the bureau that Trump and his allies alleged. | | Durham released his highly anticipated report last month and it landed largely with a thud. | | | | | | | | JPMorgan Chase is helping small businesses bring their passions to local communities. Flavorture brings healthy food options to DC and beyond.
Learn more | | | |  | | | | | But his appearances this week before Congress may be as much about the present as they are about the past. | - With Trump under federal indictment for his alleged mishandling of classified documents — and with more indictments possibly still to come — Republicans have sought to portray the former president as the victim of an FBI and Justice Department out to get him at all costs.
| | They will almost certainly seek to use this week's testimony to try to buttress this argument. Democrats are likely to focus on what Durham didn't find about FBI malfeasance and present it as proof that Trump has only been the subject of criminal investigations then and now because he engages in potentially criminal behavior. | | Durham's report concluded there was no political bias against Trump but that there was "confirmation bias" at the FBI, and he suggested the FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation into the Trump campaign and not a full investigation. Even so, Republicans have leaned into one suggestion in the report as proof that the FBI treated Hillary Clinton differently than Trump. | - The report argues "that the FBI rushed to investigate Trump in a case known as Crossfire Hurricane, even as it proceeded cautiously on allegations related to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton," our colleagues Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein reported last month when the report came out.
| | Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), are expected to lean into the idea that there is one set of rules for Trump and one set for others. | - They note that Clinton wasn't charged for having classified documents in her email and that President Biden hasn't been charged for possessing classified documents.
| | Clinton and Biden cooperated with the investigations, as did former vice president Mike Pence regarding his possession of classified material. Prosecutors allege Trump tried to obstruct their efforts. | | Even though Durham didn't find any criminal activity or politicization of the FBI, distrust of the federal law enforcement agency has grown since Trump sought to discredit the FBI over the Russia investigation, which led Barr to appoint Durham. This is expected to be a big topic in this week's hearings. "When your government's lying to you, when your government is telling you that something has happened that has not happened, that's when our committee has to be involved, and that's when we have to look at what happened here," Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. The Intelligence Committee hearing will be closed to discuss the 29-page classified appendix attached to the report. | | Reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — and especially Section 702, which is used to surveil foreigners but under which Americans' communications are also sometimes swept up, too — has become a key priority for Republicans. The surveillance powers expire at the end of the year. The Durham report did not directly address FISA or Section 702. "In making our observations, the Office considered but did not include proposals that would curtail the scope or reach of FISA or the FBI's investigative activities," Durham wrote in the report. Still, Republicans have said that the report provides strong incentive that FISA needs to be reformed. | - "We're pulling him in to our committee to say, 'OK, now that we have seen that there were abuses, that this was wrong, and that there are problems with FISA itself, what are the recommendations that you think we should pursue?'" Turner said on CNN.
| | Turner has created a bipartisan committee led by Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) to come up with FISA recommendations. "There are never any consequences when they get caught lying to the court under oath and because it's a secret court none of the institutional safeguards are in place," said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who said the Durham report further proves his concerns and supports removing FISA authorization from the FBI. | | |  | Programming Note | | | For Washington Post Live, Leigh Ann will interview House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the panel, at 11 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday. It will focus on the Durham report's recommendations, his testimony before Congress and questions about the mishandling of classified material. Watch and register here. | | |  | What we're watching | |  Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is focusing on artificial intelligence. (Julia Nikhinson/The Washington Post) | | | Wednesday Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) will join the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to reveal his SAFE Innovation framework and outline his vision for how the Senate can harness the potential of artificial intelligence and protect society from its potential harms. | - Schumer will deliver remarks detailing the need for an all-hands-on-deck approach to AI that brings together industry experts, stakeholders and Senate committees to develop a bipartisan policy proposal to help shape AI in the United States.
| | The Senate Armed Services Committee is marking up Sen. Joni Ernst's (R-Iowa) bill to restrict the Defense Department from paying for travel-related expenses for female service members to receive an abortion. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has been holding up Pentagon nominees over the policy. We'll see if this is enough to persuade Tuberville to drop his hold. (We think probably not.) | - The Senate Armed Services Committee will also spend Wednesday and Thursday continuing to mark up its version of the defense authorization bill.
| | The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the annual defense authorization bill. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell will testify before the House Financial Services Committee. Thursday The Senate Appropriations Committee will meet to settle on the top-line numbers for its annual spending bills. The committee is expected to follow the agreed-upon numbers negotiated between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Biden. The House is planning to use the numbers from fiscal 2022, which portends the spending fights ahead. This week, we're also watching Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's (R-Fla.) revised resolution denouncing Rep. Adam B. Schiff (R-Calif.), which is not expected to have enough Republican votes after she removed the $16 million fine from the bill. McCarthy already removed Schiff from the House Intelligence Committee, and we're wondering why, if Republicans dislike Schiff so much, they are indirectly helping him in his primary to be California's next senator. Schiff has been trying to use the attacks to fire up the state's Democratic voters and boost his fundraising. Schiff's office declined to say how much he has raised over the Republican attacks. | | Tuesday Biden, who is still in California, will discuss the administration's commitment to managing the risks of artificial intelligence. He is also scheduled to participate in two campaign receptions before returning to Washington on Wednesday. Wednesday Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in town for a state visit. Biden and first lady Jill Biden will welcome Modi to the White House and host him for the state dinner. Thursday Modi will address a joint session of Congress. Vice President Harris will preside over the address. | | Friday Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley will deliver a major address on China at the center-right American Enterprise Institute. | Here's what else is happening this week: | | Tuesday Virginia voters head to the polls today in the hotly contested General Assembly primary elections. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London today after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and top Chinese officials over the weekend. He is expected to meet with his British and Ukrainian counterparts. Thursday The Supreme Court will announce decisions. More than a dozen cases remain, including seven major ones. Saturday Saturday is the first anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling that led to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. | | |  | From the courts | | How Ron DeSantis and Leonard Leo flipped Florida's Supreme Court |  A day after taking office, Gov. Ron DeSantis announces that Barbara Lagoa will be appointed to the Florida Supreme Court. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) | | | Our colleagues Beth Reinhard and Josh Dawsey take a look at a secret judicial panel led by conservative activist Leonard Leo — the architect of the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority — that helped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) flip the Florida Supreme Court from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 6-1 conservative one, thus becoming one of the most conservative state Supreme Courts in the country. Here's who was on the panel with Leo, per Beth and Josh: | - Chris Kise, a Florida lawyer who is currently the top member of Trump's defense team in his Mar-a-Lago documents case
- George LeMieux, a former U.S. senator who is chairman of the board of a major Florida law firm
- Joe Jacquot, DeSantis's general counsel and former deputy chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
- Robert Giuffra, a nationally known litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell, a New York-based white-shoe law firm
- Ben Gibson, a Tallahassee lawyer who has served as counsel to the Florida GOP
| | How it happened: "After DeSantis narrowly won election as governor in 2018, one of his first moves was to bring in Leo to help him replace the high court's three most liberal justices, who were stepping down in accordance with the state's mandatory retirement age of 70," our colleagues report. DeSantis received a list of 11 nominees from the judicial nominating commission in the final weeks of Republican Gov. Rick Scott's term, but the governor-elect didn't trust Scott's commission or its choices, "so he turned to Leo for an ideological backstop." | - "When Leo and his unofficial panel met with the finalists in Orlando over two days in mid-December 2018, neither the press nor the public was invited."
- "Leo and the panel asked the finalists about interpreting the Constitution according to its original intent and without applying more-current social, political or cultural lenses, as the Federalist Society advocates," people familiar with the process told Beth and Josh.
- "Soon after his inauguration, with the panel's recommendations in hand, DeSantis established a new conservative supermajority on the court at the same time Republicans dominated the state legislature."
| | |  | The Media | | | |  | Viral | |  Juneteenth Ambassador Madison Swain tosses candy toward children during the Juneteenth Parade in Galveston, Tex., on June 17. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) | |  Participants in a Juneteenth parade on Monday. One placard shows Crispus Attucks, commonly thought to be the first person killed by British troops during the Boston Massacre. (Steven Senne/AP) | |  Imani Baucom takes part in a dance-based exercise class Monday in Franklin Square in D.C. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) | | | | AM/PM | | Looking for more analysis in the afternoon? | | | | Weekday newsletter, PM |  | | A lunchtime newsletter featuring political analysis and a global perspective on the stories driving the day. | | | | | | | |
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