August 28, 2024

• Mr. Smith Goes Back to Washington: As part of yesterday’s post, I mentioned that Special Counsel Jack Smith had filed an appeal in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump. It looks like that wasn’t the only thing he was working on recently: He also filed a superseding indictment against Trump in regards to the January 6 case. The new indictment is extremely similar to the prior one, containing the same four criminal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. The primary change is to pull out references to other members of the Executive Branch, which the Supreme Court ruled last month would be covered under the new broad immunity powers that they’ve bestowed to the office of the POTUS. It seems that this was designed to remove some of the now-questionable stumbling blocks from the case, but still means that there most likely won’t be a trial before this fall’s election. LINK
• What Happened at Arlington? Speaking of Trump, there seems to have been a bit of a dust-up at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. This comes on the heels of other stories involving Trump snubbing the U.S. military, so the short-short version of the situation is this: Trump had a wreath-laying ceremony at the cemetery yesterday, to commemorate the third anniversary of a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, and dozens of Afghans. One rule about the cemetery, though, is that only cemetery staff members are allowed to take photos or video in the area where soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried. Trump’s team disregarded this rule, and an “altercation” between Trump’s people and an Arlington staff member occurred. There is some disagreement as to the nature of the altercation, but a report has been filed. There’s the potential for more news on this front in the coming days. LINK
• Ready for Prime Time: On the other side of the political aisle, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have agreed to their first long-form interview with CNN anchor/correspondent Dana Bash, set to air tomorrow night at 9 PM, EST. This will be in the midst of their just-begun bus tour through Georgia, and marks Harris’ first significant interview since President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid. Republicans, who have criticized the lack of Harris’ media availability continue to complain, pointing to Trump’s and running mate Senator J.D. Vance’s frequent media interactions. However, those interactions have featured both the Republican candidates’ struggling to explain (or just refusing to explain) past misogynistic and racist comments. LINK