‘This is war’: Protester arrested as KC approves change to housing affordability rate


Anna Spoerre, Kevin Hardy
Thu, August 18, 2022

 Kansas City, Missouri, United States


Chaos erupted Thursday at City Hall as Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas shouted for his colleagues to keep voting over the chanting of KC Tenants members who overpowered the council meeting.

One leader with the advocacy group was arrested and escorted out of council chambers as dozens of KC Tenants members demonstrated against an ordinance proposed by Lucas that would grow the city’s housing inventory.

Lucas’ proposal eases the requirements for developers to create affordable housing. Opponents have balked at the city’s calculation for affordability, which would classify nearly $1,200 a month for a one-bedroom apartment as affordable. Critics have said this cost doesn’t reflect affordable rent options for most working class Kansas Citians. Others have said the plan was too rushed. An attempt by Councilwoman Andrea Bough, District 6 at-large, to hold the ordinance a week failed.

Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, who represents District 3 on the East Side, voted in favor of the ordinance, arguing that it would make way for more homes and a growing middle class in the district.

Robinson grew up in the district where she shared a block with professionals like doctors and a judge. She wants to see that again.

“We need people to come back home to the 3rd District,” she said.

Yet, she acknowledged that the ordinance is not going to improve living situations for those most vulnerable.

“This is not affordability for everyone,” she said. “But it’s affordability for some people, especially middle-class people.”

Maya Neal, a member of KC Tenants, was handcuffed and led out of the Kansas City Council chamber Thursday afternoon after protesters began shouting as city council members debated legislation on affordable housing. About 50 members of the city wide tenant union were on hand to protest the passing of housing legislation despite tenants showing strong opposition to the current definition of affordability.

But Councilman Brandon Ellington, District 3 at-large, noted that the ordinance does nothing to incentivize development in distressed parts of the city.

“This ain’t for the East Side,” he said. “This ain’t for the 3rd District.”

Ellington underscored that all the ordinance does is change the affordability threshold for developers.

“Anything else is theory,” he said.

The ordinance ultimately passed 9-4 before the overwhelming chants of KC Tenants forced council members to prematurely adjourn the meeting and hold over remaining agenda items until next week.

Ellington voted against the ordinance alongside Bough, Councilman Eric Bunch, District 4, and Heather Hall, District 1.

The council also moved legislation putting a $175 million bond issue before voters in November. If approved, the new debt would fund improvements to Bartle Hall, city pools and add $50 million into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. All council members but Ellington voted in favor.
The housing plan

The housing plan will create more lenient affordable housing requirements for private developers seeking city incentives. Under this change, the city will need to set aside fewer affordable units or the cost of units marked affordable will be raised.

Lucas’ legislative package is in response to a measure unanimously approved by council in January 2021 requiring that real estate developers seeking government financial aid include affordable units in most apartment projects, or pay into the housing trust fund. That legislation required one-fifth of the units in most taxpayer-subsidized apartment buildings to be affordable. Half of those had to be affordable to families earning 70% of the area median income and the other half to those earning 30%.

The new proposal changes that. In exchange for incentives, developers will have to set aside one-fifth of their units to those earning 60% of the area median income.

At that rate, the city would deem a one-bedroom apartment that costs $1,172 per month affordable to a single person. A family of three earning about $53,000 per year, for example, would qualify for a subsidized two-bedroom apartment that rents for $1,319 per month.

In the past 18 months, since that legislation passed, no new apartment complexes seeking taxpayer-funded incentives were proposed in Kansas City. Lucas has said he hopes the latest legislation will boost the supply of housing in the city and help slow the rapid rise in rents for people who can least afford it.

“We’re a city that needs to build more housing, and I’m concerned when people aren’t building housing in Kansas City,” Lucas said in an earlier interview. “We need more product to make sure that we can have places for people to live in our city, and I think this is a bold proposal that does that.”

A second piece of the mayor’s legislative package was held Wednesday. That piece, if passed, would fundamentally alter the approval process for projects receiving taxpayer incentives by giving the city manager power to approve standardized incentives for projects, rather than the City Council and economic development boards that now have oversight.

The mayor has said this change would help “fast track” projects, adding that developers have said it’s too difficult to build in Kansas City. Affordable housing advocates have argued that this ordinance would reduce opportunities for debate through public meetings.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas struggled to communicate with City Council members while members of KC Tenants protested Thursday afternoon in council chambers at City Hall. The council left the chamber to continue their meeting elsewhere.

KC Tenants opposes mayor’s plan

KC Tenants has been among the most vocal opposition to the ordinance.

The advocacy group conducted a survey with more than 700 participants who reported earning $2,500 a month, on average, and spending about $1,400 of it on housing expenses.

This comes out to more than half of their monthly earnings.

Those who put more than 30% of their income towards housing are considered cost-burdened, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those who put more than half their income towards housing are considered “severely cost-burdened.” This can affect people’s ability to afford other essential items, like groceries.

In Kansas City, the median cost of rent is $1,326, up 13% since July 2021. In certain ZIP codes, the median rent price is up by 42%. For many, these housing costs are rising much faster than incomes, Michael Frisch, urban planning professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, previously told The Star.

KC Tenants has pointed to inflation as a reason for affordability numbers looking higher than expected.

Tiana Caldwell, an organizer with the group and a member of the city’s health commission, was the sole person arrested Thursday, KC Tenants leaders said.

“I helped to found KC Tenants three and a half years ago and the mayor looked me in the face and promised he would fight for me. Now he’s selling me out,” she said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “They showed me I have to fight to survive. I’ll keep fighting. I’m going to be here and they’re going to have to face me every time. I have no fear. This is war.”

The Star’s Kynala Phillips and Mike Hendricks contributed.

Members of KC Tenants disrupted a City council meeting Thursday afternoon at City Hall. The protesters began shouting as city council members debated legislation on affordable housing. About 50 members of the city wide tenant union were on hand to protest the passing of housing legislation despite tenants showing strong opposition to the current definition of affordability.

Kansas City relaxes rules for housing developers. Here’s what that could mean for rent


Kynala Phillips
Sat, August 20, 2022 

In a heated Thursday meeting, the Kansas City Council voted to relax affordable housing requirements for developers seeking tax incentives from the city, walking back on a set of rules that the council approved unanimously about a year and a half ago.

Passed in a 9-4 vote, the ordinance allows tax incentives to go to developers without the requirement of setting aside “extremely affordable” units for tenants with low incomes. Developers will still have to set aside some units as affordable, but the rent rate for these units is higher: about $1,200 a month for a one-bedroom apartment.

The ordinance received intense pushback from housing groups, namely the citywide tenant union KC Tenants, but also Kansas City Public Schools because of the way tax breaks for developers affect how much potential property tax revenue will go to city schools.

Kansas City tenants make an average monthly income of $2,500 and pay more than half of that to housing costs, according to early findings from a KC Tenants online survey with 700 respondents. Paying the city-deemed affordable rent of $1,200 for the average survey respondent would still take up nearly half of their income, which the federal government considers a “severe cost-burden.”

This new ordinance was just a piece of a package of housing policies Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas proposed recently. Here’s what it actually means for renters, and how other recent city council decisions could affect rent, too.

What exactly did the city council pass?

The city council passed one piece of a new housing plan, also known as ordinance 220700.

In exchange for tax incentives from the city, the new ordinance requires housing developers to set aside one-fifth—or 20%—of the housing units in a new development as “affordable” for people who are earning 60% of the median family income. The remaining majority of housing units in proposed developments can be market rate.

The council also voted to add a $175 million bond issue for Kansas City voters to decide on in November. If approved, $50 million of that money would go toward the city’s affordable Housing Trust Fund—more on that in a second.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas struggled to communicate with city council members while members of KC Tenants protested Thursday afternoon in council chambers at City Hall. About 50 members of the citywide tenant union were on hand to oppose the passing of housing legislation.

How does the city decide what rent is affordable?

The city calculates what’s considered “affordable” based on the federally-set median family income for the Kansas City metro area. This median income number factors in the incomes of homeowners and renters in both rich and poor areas in the metro, including areas like Johnson County.

For a single person, the area median income is about $68,000. For a family of four, It’s about $98,000.

The city uses this federally-set number to come up with what the income limits and rent caps will be for specially set aside “affordable” apartments in new developments.

Affordable housing advocates criticize this method because they argue that including higher income homeowners and jurisdictions skews the median income higher than what many city tenants actually make. They argue that with this kind of calculation, even rents that are deemed “affordable” by the city are still unaffordable to many Kansas City tenants.

What’s so different about the new affordability rules from the old ones?

The main change is that the city raised the income threshold it will use to calculate what rent is affordable for the specially set aside units in new developments.

Under the newly passed rules, the city will base the rent caps and income limits for affordable apartments on 60% of the median income.

The past requirements included apartments for those making up to 30% of the median income, as well as those making up to 70% of the median income.

That change from the previous rules setting aside apartments for those making 30% of the median income, to the new rules setting aside apartments for those making 60% of the median income, almost doubles the cost of rent that the city now considers affordable.

The mayor’s reasoning for changing these rules is that no developers applied for tax incentives in the first year and a half these affordability rules were in place.

District 3 Councilwoman Melissa Robinson voted in favor of the relaxed requirements, but she acknowledged that the new rules won’t benefit Kansas Citians with lower incomes.

“This is not affordability for everyone,” she said on Thursday. “But it’s affordability for some people, especially middle-class people.”

Last week, Mayor Quinton Lucas unveiled a legislative package that relaxes affordability requirements for developers building new housing in Kansas City.

What do these new rules actually mean for rent?

When developers get money from the city to build new housing, they will need to keep the rent for a certain number of apartments affordable to those making up to 60% of the median income. Then after that, the majority of the units in these new tax-backed developments will be market rate.

According to the city’s calculations, 60% of the median income for a two-person household in the Kansas City metro is about $47,000. One of these set aside affordable one bedroom apartments for that household would have a rent around $1,200.

The benchmark for affordable rent changes depending on the size and income of the household.

A family of four earning around $59,000 per year, for instance, could qualify for a three bedroom apartment with rent around $1,500.

What’s the reason behind the change?

Since those previous regulations were put in place in 2021, the city didn’t get any applications from developers looking to receive tax incentives and build affordable housing. The mayor suggested that relaxing the requirements would encourage developers to break ground throughout the city.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation did receive 31 applications for housing projects looking for tax breaks right before the council passed the 2021 ordinance for affordability regulations. That was the most applications received for projects seeking tax breaks in over three years.

“Unfortunately, since that time we’ve not seen the production of units,” Lucas said during the Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee on Wednesday.
Did the council pass anything else that will affect housing?

Yes, council also voted to put a $175 million bond issue on Kansas City voters’ November ballot.

This money would be coming from a general obligation bond, which is almost like a loan for local governments.

If voters approve the bond, it would put money toward a number of projects in the city.

Those projects include $45 million in repairs to Bartle Hall, $80 million in community center renovations (think swimming pools, playgrounds and other amenities) and $50 million toward the city’s Housing Trust Fund.

City residents voted on a similar GO bond in 2017, which went toward repairing the city’s infrastructure. The $800 million bond will be paid back by way of city taxes, including property taxes.
What is the Housing Trust Fund, and how will the extra money be used?

The Housing Trust Fund is a pot of government money that the city has reserved for helping fund affordable housing projects throughout the city.

Last month, 14 affordable housing projects were approved for $8 million in funding.

The Housing Trust Fund currently does not have close to the amount of money in it that it was designed to have. The fund is made up of $12.5 million of federal COVID relief funds from the American Rescue Plan, and an additional $10.5 million in local money that will be distributed over the next 25 years.

If voters approve the upcoming $175 million bond issue in November, the Housing Trust Fund will receive $50 million, which will put it closer to its intended $75 million budget.

Projects applying to receive money from the trust fund are screened and reviewed by a board of local housing advocates and experts. Those proposals are then sent to the city council for approval.

So what’s next?

The mayor’s original housing plan also included a measure that would fundamentally change the way new development projects getting tax breaks are approved in City Hall by giving the city manager power to approve standardized incentives for projects, rather than the City Council and economic development boards that now have oversight.

The mayor has said this change would help “fast track” projects, adding that developers have said it’s too difficult to build in Kansas City. Affordable housing advocates have argued that this ordinance would reduce opportunities for debate through public meetings.

This piece of the plan was put on hold during Wednesday’s Neighborhood Planning and Development committee meeting, as well as an ordinance that would regulate accessory dwelling units.

The Star’s Kevin Hardy and Anna Spoerre contributed reporting.

This story was republished to change the headline from “Here’s how that could raise rents” to “Here’s what that could mean for rent” because the ordinance only directly changes the rules and raises the rent caps for future developments. It does not directly change current rents in Kansas City development projects.

DeSantis teacher shortage plan: 'Shortcutting the process' won't work, Florida union president says

Seana Smith

·Anchor

Fri, August 19, 2022 at 11:51 AM·3 min read

Tens of thousands of teacher openings are going unfilled as students head back to the classroom across the country, prompting school districts to do everything they can to address the dire teacher shortage.

Florida, which has about 8,000 open teaching positions, is taking an unusual approach to fill the vacancies. The state is allowing military veterans without a bachelor’s degree and no prior experience to apply for a temporary five-year teaching certificate while they finish their bachelor's degrees.

Not everyone is on board with the new plan, though. Teachers' unions across the state are against the idea, warning it will not help solve the long-term staffing issue.

“This doesn't really get at the root of the problem,” Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “We want to make sure that we have fully-trained, fully-credentialed teachers in our classroom with the experience and support they need to teach every child. This idea of shortcutting that process doesn't work. It never has."

Gov. DeSantis speaks at a press conference to discuss Florida's civics education initiative of unbiased history teachings in Sanford, FL, June 30, 2022. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The idea was spearheaded by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who criticized union bosses for "insisting teachers get certain credentials" in a video posted to his Twitter account.

Through his new plan, veterans in the teacher roles are required to pass subject tests and have completed 60 college credits in order to qualify for the certificate.

"I appreciate out veterans," Spar said. "I think we all do, and honor them for the work and service they've done to our country, keeping us safe, and protecting our freedoms."

And while there are veterans that end up working in schools and become teachers through the traditional process, he said, "you can't just say because someone has been in the military or someone has been in a classroom even, that makes them a highly qualified teacher. It takes skill, it takes training, and it takes a desire to be there."

Still, the teacher shortage has reached crisis levels. There are currently 300,000 fewer teachers nationwide compared to before the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as teachers are leaving the profession in droves. A recent survey from the American Federation of Teachers found that 74% of teachers were dissatisfied with their job, up from 41% two years ago.

The main reasons, according to Randi Weingarten, president of the second-largest teachers' union American Federation of Teachers (AFT), are low pay, unsafe working environments stemming from COVID guidelines, and the politicization of education.

For example, the average teacher salary in the U.S. was roughly $66,397 for the 2021-22 school year, which is more than $2,000 less than a decade ago when adjusted for inflation, according to the National Education Association (NEA).

And in Florida specifically, Gov. DeSantis has banned the teaching of critical race theory in classrooms, putting teachers in difficult situations when it comes to discussing TKTK.

"If you're constantly maligning teachers and staff who work in our schools, if you're underpaying them, under-resourcing them, then they're not going to stay," Spar said. "And that's what we're seeing here in the state of Florida."

Seana Smith is an anchor with Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @SeanaNSmith.

Calmes: The little-known Senate race that could make a big difference for Democrats

Jackie Calmes
Fri, August 19, 2022 

Cheri Beasley, North Carolina's former Supreme Court chief justice, is now the state's Democratic nominee for Senate. (Ben McKeown / Associated Press)

If Democrats can keep control of just one chamber of Congress in November’s midterm elections, as many analysts have long predicted, it’s best that the house they’re favored to hold is the Senate.

The Senate has the power over a president’s judicial nominees. God forbid that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell gets another turn at blocking a Democratic president’s picks for the federal bench, and thus ends President Biden’s effort to offset the right-wing tilt to that third branch of government.

All year Democrats have despaired of keeping their House majority, though a few politicos in and out of the party are starting to sound optimistic, given a spate of positive breaks and the backlash against the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights. The Senate, however, has been another story all along: Democrats have been cautiously confident — and Republicans fretful — that they could hold their 50 seats and perhaps even add to them.

To that end, it’s fitting that one of the candidates who could help keep Democrats in power to confirm judges is herself the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Cheri Beasley.

Beasley is running against North Carolina Rep. Ted Budd, a gun store owner who won former President Trump’s endorsement last year. “A lot of you don’t know him well,” Trump said of Budd when he conferred his blessing. “He will fight like hell.”

Fight like hell — just what Trump told the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021. Indeed, after that day’s Capitol rampage, Budd voted against certifying Biden’s election. He said the insurrectionists were “just patriots standing up.”

Trump was right about Budd’s low profile. Beasley, too, isn’t well known. She’s, well, judicious rather than provocative, and he’s been merely a backbench belligerent for Trump in Congress, overshadowed by blowhards like his fellow North Carolinian Madison Cawthorn. That’s one reason this contest hasn’t gotten more national attention.

That should change. If Beasley wins, it would be a Democratic pickup: She and Budd are vying to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard M. Burr.

Beasley, who would be the only Black woman in the Senate if elected, is a proven vote-getter. She was first appointed to the state judiciary in 1999 by a Democratic governor and then twice elected to the district court seat. In 2008 she won election to the state Court of Appeals, defeating an incumbent judge.

Another Democratic governor named Beasley to a vacancy on the state’s Supreme Court in 2012, and two years later she won statewide election to the seat. In 2019, the current Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, appointed her as chief justice. While she lost reelection by just 401 votes in 2020, Beasley still got about 11,000 more votes than Biden received in North Carolina.

The bigger Senate attention-getters have been races in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and, to a lesser extent, New Hampshire, where incumbent Democrats — Mark Kelly, Catherine Cortez Masto, Raphael Warnock and Maggie Hassan, respectively — are fighting to keep their seats. Kelly, Cortez Masto and Warnock all lead in the polls over their weak Trumpist rivals.

Then there’s Wisconsin, where MAGAt conspiracist Sen. Ron Johnson is one of the few Republican incumbents who’s endangered.

Also higher-profile than North Carolina’s Senate contest are the open-seat races in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which feature Democrats with records as populist champions of the working class — Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman — against celebrity converts to Trumpism, bestselling author J.D. Vance in Ohio and TV personality and crudite fancier Mehmet Oz.

As Politico reported Thursday, “Republicans’ hopes of retaking the Senate rest on a slate of Donald Trump's hand-picked nominees. And, across the board, they appear to be struggling.”

Budd has struggled less than the other Trumpian Republicans, yet he still has just a slight lead in the few public polls on the race; Beasley led in a June poll. Analysts call the contest a toss-up. North Carolina is no red state; the governor has been a Democrat for 26 of the last 30 years.

As usual, however, Democrats in North Carolina and elsewhere have a bigger challenge than Republicans in getting their voters out for non-presidential elections, especially those who are young and Black. The party's recent gains may help send more Democrats to the polls — enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, with its healthcare benefits for lower drug costs, insulin price caps for Medicare recipients and Obamacare subsidies; as well as new laws providing care to veterans exposed to toxins and making unprecedented, job-creating investments in the computer chip industry.

As crucial as what Democrats have done is what Republicans are doing to themselves: opposing those popular measures, taking extreme antiabortion positions and keeping the unpopular Trump front and center.

The bombshells from the Jan. 6 House select committee’s hearings have contributed to the party’s stench of antidemocratic extremism. The year’s shooting massacres have turned many voters against pro-gun politicians; Budd voted against the bipartisan gun control law, even as both sitting Republican senators from North Carolina backed it.

Still, inflation remains high and Democrats know an onslaught of well-financed Republican attacks are coming. Beasley, for example, already has weathered false, racially tinged assaults much like those Senate Republicans leveled against Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her confirmation hearing; in each case, Republicans distorted the Black jurists’ records and prior careers as public defenders to paint them as soft on criminals.

But here’s the thing: Jackson won confirmation. And Beasley can win election. It’s indicative of the improved climate for Democrats that they can, in fact, look to a place like North Carolina for a possible Senate win. The state deserves better in the Senate, and so do we.

@jackiekcalmes

Mandela Barnes has a seven-point lead over Sen. Ron Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race, while Tony Evers and Tim Michels are in a tight contest for governor: poll

John L. Dorman
Sat, August 20, 2022 

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, left, appears at a rally outside the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on July 23, 2022.AP Photo/Scott Bauer

Barnes has a 51%-44% lead over Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race, per a new Marquette Law poll.


Johnson is running for reelection to a third term, while Barnes hopes to topple the GOP incumbent.


The Wisconsin Senate race remains one of the best Democratic pickup opportunities this year.

Wisconsin Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has a seven-point lead over two-term Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in one of this year's marquee Senate races, according to a new poll conducted by Marquette University Law School.

The survey showed Barnes with 51% support among registered voters in the Badger State, while Johnson received 44% support; three percent of respondents were unsure of which candidate they would support in November.

Among likely voters, Barnes led Johnson 52%-45%.

(A Fox News poll released on Thursday showed Barnes leading Johnson 50%-46% among registered voters.)

In Wisconsin, both Barnes and Johnson are performing well among their respective bases. But the swing state, which has backed Democratic nominees in seven of the last eight presidential contests, has become sharply polarized in other statewide races.

Among the pool of registered voters, Barnes received the support of 95% of Democrats, with 4% of party voters crossing over to back Johnson.

Johnson earned the support of 92% of Republicans, with 7% of GOP voters indicating they would vote for Barnes.

Independents gave a clear edge to Barnes in the latest survey, with the Democratic challenger ahead of Johnson 52%-38%, a significant shift from June, when both men were tied at 41% support among this pivotal voting group.

Voter enthusiasm is quite high among members of both parties. Eighty-three percent of Republicans indicated they will vote with absolute certainty this fall, compared to 82% of Democrats, per the poll. Sixty-six percent of Independents said they are certain to cast a ballot in the upcoming election.

Last week, both Barnes and Johnson performed strongly in their respective Senate primaries.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Johnson has long enjoyed strong support among grassroots conservatives and remains a political ally of former President Donald Trump — making his renomination as the Republican Senate nominee a no-brainer. But Barnes has spent most of the year locked in a competitive primary.

Until last month, Barnes' top challengers were state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, but all three left the race within the span of two weeks and threw their support behind the lieutenant governor — who since 2019 has been the governing partner of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a state with a GOP-controlled legislature.

Evers, who is running for reelection to a second term, leads GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels 45%-43% among registered voters and 46%-44% among likely voters.

Barnes, a former state lawmaker, has gained a high level of visibility crisscrossing the state to visit localities from his native Milwaukee to rural Bayfield County in his capacity as lieutenant governor.

But despite the polling lead, it won't be easy to topple Johnson, who despite having a 38% favorability rating in the survey, was able to defeat former three-term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold in both 2010 and 2016 and is running for reelection is what could be a strong Republican midterm cycle.

While Barnes has emphasized his plan to expand the Child Tax Credit and touted his support of federal voting rights legislation, Johnson has continually criticized President Joe Biden over the economy and immigration, among other issues.

The race presents a major opportunity for both parties. Trump won the state in 2016, but Biden flipped it back to the Democrats in 2020 — highlighting its political competitiveness.

And in the evenly-divided Senate, where Democrats control the upper chamber by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris' tiebreaking vote, a net gain in seats for the party would give them the breathing room to pass bills without having to receive mandatory buy-in from moderate Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

While Manchin played a key role in crafting the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes record funding for climate initiatives, the lawmaker also single-handedly dismantled the more expansive Build Back Better Act, the now-defunct social-spending package that was backed by most Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Marquette Law School polled 811 registered voters from August 10 through August 15; the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Biden’s chief of staff says president is comparable to historic predecessors

Martin Pengelly
Fri, August 19, 2022 

Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA

In a bullish interview, the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, compared Joe Biden’s achievements in his first two years in office to historic successes under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.

Related: ‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark bill

Speaking to Politico, Klain said: “The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since [Dwight D] Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.”

Klain’s comments, aimed at voters contemplating the midterm elections, are an indication that Democrats plan to campaign heavily on their accomplishments in the less than two years they have been in power. He also pointed to “the first time we’ve done gun control since President Clinton was here, the first time ever an African American woman [Ketanji Brown Jackson] has been put on the US supreme court.

“I think it’s a record to take to the American people.”

Klain’s references to historical figures chimes with Biden’s own interests. The president has regularly consulted historians, among them Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and Eddie Glaude Jr, while Jon Meacham, a biographer of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and George HW Bush, has been a close adviser in shaping Biden’s effort to restore “the soul of the nation” after the presidency of Donald Trump.

Democrats control Congress by narrow margins. Opposition parties commonly do well in the first elections of a presidential term, and Republicans remain favoured to take control of one or both chambers. But legislative successes, most recently the passage of a major domestic and climate crisis spending plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, have given Democrats hope.

One senator, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, pointed to the need to communicate better, writing: “I feel like the media is having a hard time metabolising the fact that this Congress has been historically productive. And acknowledging the size of these accomplishments, and the degree of difficultly – it’s just hard to do accurately without sounding a bit left-leaning.”

There is some indication that Democrats are becoming more popular. They have established polling leads in key Senate races including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio, against Trump-endorsed Republicans who are struggling to attract moderates and independents.

In Kentucky on Thursday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, seemed to downplay expectations. McConnell said: “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different – they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.

“Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”

In his Politico interview, Klain said: “Elections are choices, and the choice just couldn’t be any clearer right now.

“Democrats have stood up to the big special interests. They stood up to the big corporations and insisted that all corporations pay minimum taxes, stood up to the big oil companies and passed climate change legislation. They stood up to Big Pharma and passed prescription drug legislation. They stood up to the gun industry and passed gun control legislation.

“Things that [Washington DC was] unable to deliver on for decades because the special interests had things locked down, Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been able to deliver on.”

Asked about the Republican counter-offer, he cited issues Democrats hope can galvanise voters, prominently including attacks on abortion access after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling which protected the right.

“We have an extreme Maga group in the Republican party that has no real plan to bring down inflation,” Klain said, referring to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. “They obviously want to pass a nationwide ban on abortion. They sided with big pharma. They sided with the climate deniers … most of them sided with the gun lobby.

“And so I think that choice [is] between a party that’s standing up to the special interests and delivering change and … an extreme party, a party that’s talking about … abolishing social security and Medicare every five years.

“The extreme nature of our opponents, whether it’s with regard to democracy or social security, are all part of a movement that is just very different than we’ve seen in recent years in this country.”

Klain said the worst day of the presidency was 26 August 2021, when 13 US service members were killed by a suicide bomb during the evacuation of Kabul.

That, he said, was “just a terrible tragedy and certainly the darkest day”.

Questions have been raised, including by Democrats, about whether Biden is too old to run for a second term. Klain said Biden’s experience – he will turn 80 in November – helped make him an effective leader.

Related: Judge orders DoJ to prepare redacted Trump search affidavit for possible release

Biden, he said, has “a personal history of tremendous, joyous successes and devastating tragedies. And I think that helps moderate his spirit at all times.

“There is nothing I can ever walk into the Oval Office and tell him that’s any bigger than the bigger things he’s already experienced in life. And nothing I could ever tell him is any sadder than the saddest things he’s already experienced in life. And I think that gives him a very level temperament as president.”

Klain was also asked about complaints, particularly from Republicans, that Biden does not maintain a high public profile.

“I don’t think it’s true he’s out there less than his predecessors,” Klain said. “I just think Donald Trump created an expectation of a president creating a shitstorm every single day.”

Russia probe memo wrongly withheld under Barr, court rules


FILE - Attorney General William Barr appears before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 9, 2019. The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr improperly withheld portions of an internal memorandum Barr cited in publicly announcing that then-President Donald Trump had not committed obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation. That's the ruling by a federal appeals court Friday. 

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

MEG KINNARD
Fri, August 19, 2022 at 10:38 AM·3 min read

The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr improperly withheld portions of an internal memo Barr cited in announcing that then-President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, a federal appeals panel said Friday.

The department had argued that the 2019 memo represented private deliberations of its lawyers before any decision was formalized, and was thus exempt from disclosure. A federal judge previously disagreed, ordering the Justice Department to provide it to a government transparency group that had sued for it.

At issue in the case is a March 24, 2019, memorandum from the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and another senior department official that was prepared for Barr to evaluate whether evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation could support prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice.

Barr has said he looked to that opinion in concluding that Trump did not illegally obstruct the Russia probe, which was an investigation of whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

A year later, a federal judge sharply rebuked Barr’s handling of Mueller's report, saying Barr had made “misleading public statements” to spin the investigation’s findings in favor of Trump and had shown a “lack of candor.”

Friday's appeals court decision said the internal Justice Department memo noted that “Mueller had declined to accuse President Trump of obstructing justice but also had declined to exonerate him.” The internal memo said “the Report’s failure to take a definitive position could be read to imply an accusation against President Trump” if released to the public, the court wrote.

The Justice Department turned over other documents to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as part of the group’s lawsuit, but declined to give it the memo. Government lawyers said they were entitled under public records law to withhold the memo because it reflected internal deliberations before any formal decision had been reached on what Mueller’s evidence showed.

Sitting presidents are generally protected from criminal charges on grounds it would undermine their ability to perform the office's constitutional duties. The Justice Department, like Mueller, “took as a given that the Constitution would bar the prosecution of a sitting President,” the appeals court wrote, which meant the decision that Trump wouldn't be charged had already been made and couldn't be shielded from public release.

Had Justice Department officials made clear to the court that the memo related to Barr's decision on making a public statement about the report, the appellate panel wrote, rulings in the case might have been different.

“Because the Department did not tie the memorandum to deliberations about the relevant decision, the Department failed to justify its reliance on the deliberative-process privilege,” wrote the panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Appellate judges also noted that their ruling was “narrow,” saying that it should not be interpreted to “call into question any of our precedents permitting agencies to withhold draft documents related to public messaging."

Attorneys for the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email message seeking comment. The department can appeal the ruling to the full appeals court.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

I Taught My 4th Grade Class About White Privilege And Their Response Was Eye-Opening


Justin Mazzola
Sat, August 20, 2022 

One of the author's students taking the Louisiana Literacy Test from the 1960s. 

(Photo: Courtesy of Justin Mazzola)

Take a look at a photo of the 46 U.S. presidents. What do you notice?

When I’d ask my students this at the beginning of each school year, someone always said they look old. Another would point out that most of them aren’t smiling, and I’ll never forget the boy who said matter-of-factly that a lot of them are not handsome.

Students would also realize they’re all men, and, except for President Barack Obama, they’re all white. I’d then ask the natural follow-up questions: Why do you think that is and how do you think it’s affected our country? After discussing with a partner, they’d suggest that only white men were allowed to vote (previously true), while another would theorize the elected leaders made laws that favored white men (mostly true, specifically the wealthy). Like our presidents, almost every student in my class was white.

To be clear, this is not critical race theory, despite what many conservatives will have you believe. They argue that teaching kids about race sows segregation and shame, even if the history lesson involves events long before they were born. Some critics go so far as to claim we live in a colorblind society where racism no longer exists, citing Oprah and Obama as proof everyone has a fair shot at success. Many of those critics also have children who are likely to adopt their views, unless professional educators teach them to think for themselves.

I was one of those kids, a Xennial growing up lower-middle class in a small New Hampshire city with my parents and younger brother. In 1990, the state was 98% white. In my high school graduating class of 264, only three students were nonwhite. Needless to say, I was not exposed to meaningful discussions about race. Instead, my family was indoctrinated by Rush Limbaugh, whose radio show provided a soundtrack for our home. My Republican father criticized affirmative action because it gave minority groups an unfair advantage in a country where, he claimed, everyone has an equal opportunity “as long as they work hard.” My mother, a French immigrant, adopted his views by osmosis. I did too, and held on to them throughout my 20s, until one professor changed everything.

While obtaining my master’s degree in education in 2009, I was required to take a course called “Language, Power and Democracy.” The monthlong class explored white privilege and America’s ongoing racial divide, and was taught mostly through documentaries and discussions. Redlining and Reconstruction were just some of the topics covered. My belief that class outweighed race in determining opportunities began to erode. After a month of evidence-based lectures and thoughtful conversations with my racially diverse classmates, I began to see America’s institutional racism.

Upon graduating, I taught at an independent school in San Francisco for nearly a decade. Autonomy over the curriculum allowed me to incorporate current events and marginalized voices into developmentally appropriate fourth grade content. Drawing inspiration from my graduate course, as well as authors Howard Zinn and James Loewen, I provided various perspectives while teaching social studies.

Each October, my students reviewed what they learned in third grade about Christopher Columbus. Then I would read “Encounter” to provide them with a different point of view. The children’s book is told through the eyes of a young Taino boy recounting the Italian explorer’s arrival, and the ensuing enslavement and brutality he unleashed on the native people. My students were simultaneously fascinated and shocked, leading most to write essays about why Columbus Day should no longer be celebrated.

During our World War II unit, students questioned a U.S. propaganda video, then analyzed photos of Japanese Americans being forcibly removed from the West Coast and images from the camps where they were incarcerated. They asked how Japanese Americans could be imprisoned based on their ethnicity, and why German Americans were spared the same treatment. This is not critical race theory, but students certainly raised critical questions about race in American history.

Artistic representations of various constitutional amendments created by students in the author's class. (Photo: Courtesy of Justin Mazzola)

Artistic representations of various constitutional amendments created by students in the author's class. (Photo: Courtesy of Justin Mazzola)

Students learned about the Greensboro Four, Bloody Sunday and the Birmingham Children’s March during our study of the civil rights movement. They empathized with Ruby Bridges and drew inspiration from the Little Rock Nine. They compared old photos of segregated Black and white schools, wondering how anyone could claim they were “separate, but equal.” Students even tackled the Louisiana literacy test, which was given to would-be Black voters in the 1960s. Every student failed. The ensuing conversation led them to draw parallels between past and present, comparing literacy tests and poll taxes to current voter-ID laws and the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies in certain states.

The unit’s summative assessment was an essay in which students responded to this prompt: Did the civil rights movement lead to equality for African Americans? They then defended their position during a class debate, and were given the choice to switch sides if they were swayed by an opposing argument. Perhaps Congress would be more effective, and popular, if its members approached debates with the open mind of a 10-year-old.

As disinformation and “alternative facts” divide our country, teaching children how to think for themselves has never been more crucial — even if their conclusions run counter to their parents’ beliefs. Showing kids America’s complete history allows them to see how fear and greed can draw our leaders down dark paths, and how those choices impact people and the planet. If we ignore these missteps to instead focus solely on American exceptionalism, we face future generations of nationalistic leaders preying on voters’ ignorance and xenophobia.

Whitewashing American history lessons parallels Holocaust denialism, and poses a similar threat to the threads of our union. Pushing historical negationism to perpetuate the antiquated goal of a colorblind society only silences the continued macro- and microaggressions and injustices that people of color have endured since our nation’s founding. Kids can handle the truths of history — even if their parents can’t — and benefit from the lesson that criticizing their country doesn’t mean they don’t still love it.

Occasionally, I hear from parents who thank me for teaching their kids America’s history through various lenses. In a recent email, a father wrote that I taught his daughter “history is not black and white, but a wide range of grays, [which] sets a valuable perspective for life and learning.”

This mindset enabled their family to have a nuanced discussion about Afghanistan last year. “It allowed us … to feel OK that we don’t have clear winners and losers, or right and wrong,” he wrote.

Another former student recently said her biggest takeaway was realizing how mistakes by past American leaders helped shape current systemic inequities. Learning about the concept of privilege isn’t about blaming students for actions in the past, she said, but more about understanding how hundreds of years of history have contributed to modern society.

Our nation’s best chance at progress is for professional teachers to shed light on its complicated past while empowering students to formulate their own fact-based opinions ― and politicians shouldn’t be standing in the way. Teaching our youth all of America’s triumphs and failures will empower them as adults to strive toward a more perfect union. A few of those kids may even end up with their photos alongside our past presidents. And if they ascend to leadership, they’ll be far more prepared than their predecessors to ensure our country is working for everyone.

Justin Mazzola incorporated diversity and social justice into his curriculum for nearly a decade before leaving the classroom to seek new challenges. He now works as a freelance writer focusing on creative nonfiction and children’s books. He holds degrees in education and journalism, and is proud of his years serving the country with AmeriCorps. He lives in San Francisco. You can read more of his work at www.justinmazzola.com.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
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Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo spoke at a 'Moonies'-affiliated event, despite Japan controversy


Alia Shoaib
Sat, August 20, 2022 

Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich.

John Raoux/AP, Allison Joyce/Getty Images, AP

Trump and Pompeo were US politicians who appeared at a Unification Church-affiliated event in Seoul.


The Japanese government is currently examining its ties to the group following the assassination of Shinzo Abe.


The group has been described as a cult by former members and has ties to right-wing politicians.

Former President Donald Trump and ex-CIA chief Mike Pompeo spoke at an event affiliated with the Unification Church in Seoul, South Korea.

The Unification Church, formed in South Korea in the 1950s by self-declared messiah Sun Myung Moon, is known to have deep-rooted ties with conservative politicians worldwide. Its followers are often colloquially referred to as "Moonies."

Former CIA director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke in person at a conference affiliated with the church in Seoul on August 12 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the death of Sun Myung Moon.

Pompeo and Gingrich's speeches spoke about the value of religious freedom and the dangers of communism – a view they share with the church.

The controversial religious organization – formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification – has been in the spotlight following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The assassin told police that he was motivated by anger towards Abe and his links to the church. It is widely described as a cult by former members.

Former President Donald Trump recorded a video message played during the meeting, per Japanese outlet NTV News 24. During his speech, Trump said that Abe was a "good friend and a great man" and praised Reverend Moon's widow Hak Ja Han, who now heads up the church.

Other billed speakers included former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former US ambassadors and generals.

According to Dr. Steven Hassan, an expert on cults and a former Moonie, the ties between right-wing politicians and the church are due to a shared hatred of communism and the group's vast wealth and influence.

The Moon empire has been estimated to be worth billions of dollars and includes ownership of the conservative newspaper The Washington Times.

"It doesn't shock me that Pompeo, the former head of the CIA and the State Department, spoke for them. I'm sure he got a lot of money. I'm sure Trump got a lot of money," Hassan told Insider, speculating about their speaker's fees. "I'm sure they don't believe Moon was the Messiah."

Rev. Moon and his wife perform a Blessing at New York City's 

Madison Square Garden on July 1, 1982.Bettmann/Getty Images

Former President George H.W. Bush donated his speaking fee after being scrutinized for appearing at a church-sponsored event in the 1990s, which was around $80,000, according to The Washington Post.

Representatives for Trump, Pompeo, and Gingrich did not respond to Insider's queries about why they appeared at the conference and what compensation they received.

Hassan describes the church as a "dangerous, destructive cult," citing allegations and lawsuits by former members claiming they were brainwashed. The church has denied the allegations and says members joined of their own free will.

The group gained notoriety for hosting mass weddings, and the church currently claims to have hundreds of thousands of members worldwide.

The Moonies-affiliated Network organizing last week's Seoul conference, the Universal Peace Federation, did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Shinzo Abe's assassination shines a light on Japan's ruling party's links to the church

Trump virtually spoke at one of their events last year, and other GOP politicians have appeared at their events for decades). This conference comes when the church is facing a reckoning in Japan.

Tetsuya Yamagami, Abe's assassin, told police that he believed his mother's donations to the church had caused her to become bankrupt and had ruined their family.

A candlelight vigil to pay tribute to the late former prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe.

Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images

He blamed Abe for promoting the group, whose family had ties to the church and just last year delivered a speech at an event affiliated with them.

The church confirmed that Yamagami's mother was a member of its Japanese branch but declined to comment on her donations.

In response to Abe's killing, Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), began re-examining its longstanding ties to the church. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has reshuffled the cabinet to remove ministers associated with it.

Japanese media have been actively shining a light on the LDP's relationship with the church, and the church has responded by accusing coverage of being biased.

Hassan told Insider that the Japanese government's moves to re-examine its ties with the group are positive but queries why US politicians are not doing the same.

"It's an authoritarian cult. There's behavior, information, thought, and emotional control. And there are a lot of people born into the Moonies from these mass weddings that are now exiting and talking about it. And it's horrible."

The Classified-Files Scandal Is the Most Trumpy Scandal of All

Quinta Jurecic - The Atlantic

The iron law of scandals involving Donald Trump is that they will always be stupid, and there will always be more of them. Trump scandals—the Russia investigation; Trump’s first impeachment, over his efforts to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; the insurrection on January 6—have something else in common: All these catastrophes result from Trump’s refusal to divorce the office of the presidency and the good of the country from his personal desires.


© James Devaney / GC Images / Getty; The Atlantic

Now Trump’s apparent squirreling away of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and his outrage over the Justice Department’s investigation of that conduct, speaks once more to his vision of his own absolute authority—even after he has departed the presidency. It’s a vision that places Trump himself, rather than the Constitution and the rule of law, as the one true source of legitimate political power.

A great deal remains unclear about the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago—among other things, why and how the material arrived at the estate in the first place instead of remaining in the custody of the National Archives, where it belonged. Reporting, though, suggests that Trump may have understood those documents—material that, under the Presidential Records Act, belongs to the American people—to be his own, to do whatever he liked with. “It’s not theirs; it’s mine,” Trump reportedly told several advisers about the misplaced documents. One “Trump adviser” told The Washington Post that “the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term … are now his personal property.” Another adviser to the former president said to the Post, “He didn’t give them the documents because he didn’t want to.”

[Graeme Wood: Not even the president can declassify nuclear secrets]

This childlike logic reflects Trump’s long-running inability to distinguish between the individual president and the institutional presidency, a structure that existed before him and that persists even after he unwillingly departed the White House. In his view, he is the presidency (which … is not what legal scholars typically mean when they talk about the “unitary executive.”) The same logic surfaces in the bizarre arguments made by Trump’s defenders that Trump somehow declassified all the sensitive documents held at Mar-a-Lago before he left office. Under the Constitution, the president does have broad authority over the classification system. But as experts have noted, it makes little sense to imagine a president declassifying information without communicating that decision across the executive branch so that everyone else would know to treat the material in question as no longer classified—unless, that is, you understand presidential power not as an institution of government, but as the projection of a single person’s all-powerful consciousness onto the world.

The approach of separating the presidency from the individual president evolved for a good reason: The vision of the man inextricable from the office he holds tips quickly into monarchy. Again and again during his presidency, Trump did his best to transform executive power into a resource from which to extract personal benefit. He likewise sought to use that power to extend his own time in office—either by seeking damaging information to harm the political chances of an opponent, as in the Ukraine scandal that led to his first impeachment, or by attempting to overturn an election outright on January 6. That tendency to collapse the institutional presidency into a reflection of his own desires often took the form of clashes between Trump and federal law enforcement, as officials tried with varying success to resist Trump’s efforts to turn the Justice Department and the FBI into a Praetorian Guard tasked with going after the president’s political enemies and protecting his friends.

The idea that law enforcement cannot and should not be the tool of the leader’s individual whims is central to the divide between the president and the institutional presidency, and therefore to the idea of “rule of law.” The concept’s roots trace back to the origins of liberal political theory: As John Locke wrote, governmental power “ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers, too, kept within their due bounds.” Authority, in this view, stems not from the person of the ruler but from the broader structure of law and the consent of the people.

In his terse public comments about the Mar-a-Lago search, Attorney General Merrick Garland has emphasized this understanding of law and power, which runs so counter to Trump’s. “Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy,” Garland said in his August 11 press conference announcing that the department would move to unseal the warrant for Trump’s estate. “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor.”

Trump, obviously, disagrees with this characterization. In posts on his social-media platform, Truth Social, he has returned to familiar tropes, calling the search warrant and related investigation a “hoax,” a “scam,” and a “witch hunt.” During his presidency, attacks such as these on the Russia investigation followed naturally from his own understanding of absolute presidential power. After all, if the president’s authority is total and unbound by law, then how can the DOJ investigate him? As Trump liked to say during his time in office, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

[David Frum: Stuck with Trump]

The additional twist of the Mar-a-Lago scandal, though, is that Trump is now implicitly claiming that total authority even out of office. If, before, Trump was furious that Special Counsel Robert Mueller could investigate him even when he was the president, now he is outraged that the DOJ would investigate him even though he is Trump. Supporters of Trump incensed by the search of Mar-a-Lago, Adam Serwer writes, “simply believe that Trump should not be subject to the law at all.”

Following the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump’s Republican supporters in Congress have called to “defund the FBI.” Meanwhile, the former president’s aggressive denunciation of the agency and the Justice Department has coincided with a flood of threats against law enforcement, including the magistrate judge who approved the Mar-a-Lago warrant. A bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security announced that, following the Mar-a-Lago search, the agencies “have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities.” Last week, a man attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati; recent posts on Truth Social under the name of the attacker, Ricky Shiffer, had called for people to “get whatever you need to be ready for combat” following the FBI’s arrival at Mar-a-Lago. On Monday, prosecutors brought a case against another man, Adam Bies, who had posted threats against federal agents days after the search of Trump’s estate.

Such threats reveal the disturbing logic behind the GOP calls to defund the agency. The goal is not to critique law-enforcement overreach, but rather, as Zeeshan Aleem argues in MSNBC, to make the bureau “completely subordinate to the authoritarian political project.” And this project is authoritarian, because it locates total power in one person—even, it seems, when he has been voted out of office. This vision of Trump’s authority sets up a parallel structure of political legitimacy that competes with the Constitution.

This is the logic of insurrection. “HEY FEDS,” Bies apparently wrote on the social-media platform Gab two days after the Mar-a-Lago search. “We the people cannot WAIT to water the trees of liberty with your blood.” Meanwhile, Representative Bennie Thompson—the chair of the House committee investigating the insurrection—warned that such apocalyptic comments “are frighteningly similar to those we saw in the run-up to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.”

After all, if power flows not from structures of law and consent but from the will of a single person, then the measure of whether violence is justified and legitimate no longer turns on whether force is channeled through the proper processes of state authority. Rather, it boils down to a single question: Is that violence wielded on behalf of Trump? Or against him?

Newly unsealed documents from the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago put Trump in even worse legal peril, experts say

Tom Porter

Fri, August 19, 2022 

Trump supporters waved flags outside a legal hearing in West Palm Beach, Florida, on August 18, 2022, which considered the unsealing of documents from the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images

• New legal documents were unsealed Thursday by a federal judge in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid.

• They show new details about the possible crimes the FBI was investigating with the search.

• They hinted at ways of prosecuting Trump that do not rest on whether documents he kept are classified.

Former President Donald Trump has offered a shifting array of defenses in response to the August 8 FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which uncovered a trove of secret documents.

Among them is the claim that he declassified all of the documents while in office under the president's sweeping powers over national secrets.

But procedural documents unsealed Thursday by federal judge Bruce Reinhart, including the cover sheet of the warrant used in the search, revealed that this defense may not be as effective as Trump hoped, legal experts say.

One implication of the new information is that even if Trump is right about the documents being declassified, he still could have broken the law, Lawrence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law scholar, tweeted.

Prior to Thursday, the only information about the laws agents believed Trump may have broken came from the warrant itself, which was unsealed last Friday.

It listed broad federal statutes Trump may have violated, including the Espionage Act. More specific information was found in Thursday's documents.

They showed that the FBI believes that Trump may be guilty of the willful retention of national defense information, concealment or removal of government records, and obstruction of federal investigation.

Bradley P. Moss, a national security attorney, told Insider that the new documents "clarify but ultimately do not change much" of what we previously knew.

A striking detail, he said, is that the FBI believes Trump has obstructed its probe.

"Clearly, the FBI currently believes Mr. Trump not only took properly marked classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, but he kept them and resisted turning them over when confronted by the government," Moss said.

The FBI could theoretically use a charge of obstruction to pursue Trump, he said, even if the information does turn out to have been declassified.

Moss did suggest, though, that it is unlikely that prosecutors would choose to make that case, even if they technically could.

"I have no reason to suspect the government would pursue a charge if they concluded there was sufficient evidence the records were in fact declassified, as Trump keeps claiming," he said. "Even if the Espionage Act charge falls through, the government could pursue an obstruction charge.

"It is unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility, they would do so on its own. After all, our jails are filled with people who were caught up in charges lesser than the original aim of what law enforcement was investigating."

The affidavit underpinning the warrant would likely detail the grounds the FBI used in pursuing the warrant.

Reinhart said Thursday that he is leaning toward releasing the affidavit in a redacted form, because it contains sensitive information relating to the ongoing investigation. This could come as soon as August 25, the date of the next hearing.

Insider contacted Trump's office for comment.

His attorney, Alina Habba, in an interview on Newsmax, pushed back on the charges described in the sheet, saying Trump had cooperated with investigators and again said that he declassified the information.

Several figures from the Trump administration have described that claim as implausible or even "a lie."