Judge mulls timing of Trump classified documents trial

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A federal judge heard lengthy arguments Tuesday over when to start a criminal trial for former President Donald Trump on charges that he hoarded classified information at his Florida home and then obstructed a grand jury investigation, but the hearing concluded without a trial date being set.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith squared off for nearly two hours in front of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon at the first hearing she has held in the case. Smith’s team obtained an indictment of the former president last month on 31 counts of willfully retaining national defense information and six counts of obstruction of justice.

Lawyers for Trump pleaded with Cannon, a Trump appointee, to put the trial off until after next year’s presidential election — in which their client is hoping to be returned to the White House. Prosecutors, for their part, urged the judge to schedule the trial for this December.

Trump attorney Tood Blanche ridiculed claims by prosecutors that the case, involving hundreds of sensitive national-security documents and thousands of hours of videos, does not qualify as “complex” under federal court rules.

“This is not a normal case,” Blanche said, calling prosecutors’ proposed schedule “pretty disingenuous.” He said pushing the trial off until next year was necessary to give the defense lawyers time to review huge volumes of evidence that the government has turned over.

“We’re not asking for special treatment — that’s the reality,” Blanche insisted.

Assistant Special Counsel David Harbach defended his office’s proposal for a trial starting December 11, saying that Trump should be treated like any other important person with a busy schedule facing serious criminal charges. He also declared that politics has had no impact on the handling of the case against Trump.

“There has been none,” Harbach said.

Cannon said she’d issue a written order later on the schedule for the case, and she did not clearly signal whether she plans to embrace prosecutors’ recommendations to get the case to trial this year or side with the defense’s claims that the former president cannot get a fair trial until the presidential election season winds down next fall.

However, the judge asked numerous probing questions of prosecutors and appeared to harbor doubts about whether their proposal to get the case ready for trial this year was realistic.

The court session took place just hours after Trump told supporters on his social media site that Smith’s team recently informed Trump’s lawyers that he is a target of a second federal criminal investigation: the probe by a Washington, D.C.-based grand jury into efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.

The so-called target letter is a signal that Trump’s already serious legal woes are likely to worsen in the coming weeks as he faces the prospect of as many as four criminal indictments as he pursues his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and for re-election to the White House.

In addition to the classified documents prosecution and a potential federal indictment related to interference with the tallying of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump has already been charged in a New York state court with falsifying business records involving payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. That trial is set for March 2024.

Meanwhile, a district attorney in Georgia has indicated she plans to present evidence to a grand jury this month and next about efforts to tamper with the 2020 presidential election results in that state. Trump’s lawyers have been aggressively, but successfully, trying to shut down that investigation — a sign that an indictment of Trump in state court there is also in the offing.

Trump was not present for the session Thursday, but his co-defendant and close aide, Walt Nauta, was in the courtroom. Nauta is accused of helping Trump conceal boxes of classified documents and then lying to investigators.

The relatively calm atmosphere that prevailed outside the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, about 60 miles north of Trump’s home and social club in West Palm Beach, was in sharp contrast with the raucous scene last month in Miami as Trump was arraigned on the classified-information and obstruction charges.

Hundreds of Trump supporters and journalists from across the globe gathered for that hearing, where the former president and current frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination went before a federal magistrate judge to plead not guilty to all 37 felony charges.

Nauta’s arraignment was delayed twice after he encountered difficulty finding a local attorney, but the Trump aide entered a not guilty plea earlier this month.

While the hearing Tuesday was Cannon’s first court session in the criminal case, she also oversaw a civil suit Trump filed last year after the FBI carried out a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago looking for classified documents and evidence of obstruction of the federal probe.

Although targets of such searches rarely get any relief before criminal charges are filed, Cannon cut off criminal investigators’ access to the records and appointed a so-called special master to consider claims Trump asserted that some of the records were protected by executive and attorney-client privilege.

The Justice Department won quick relief from aspects of Cannon’s decision, which drew unusually widespread criticism from legal experts. The conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay rejecting the restrictions on the government’s handling of documents marked classified. The appeals court later overturned Cannon’s decision and shut down the special counsel process entirely.

Most of the legal maneuvering around the search took place before Attorney General Merrick Garland named Smith last November to take over the probe into Trump’s possession of classified documents as well as federal probes related to the 2020 presidential election and the tallying of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.

So far, the only criminal charges to emerge from the investigations Smith is overseeing are those brought against Trump and Nauta in Florida last month over the retention of national security secrets and alleged efforts to stymie that probe.

Atterbury reported from Fort Pierce. Gerstein reported from Washington.

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Support builds in Congress for more flights at Reagan National

Key lawmakers and companies are lining up behind a plan that would add 14 flights a day at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, a possible resolution to a cross-partisan battle involving Congress' favorite flight station.

But the fight could still slow final passage of a larger bill needed to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, at a moment when the aviation system is straining to manage a post-pandemic travel surge.

Delta Air Lines, which now has only a minor presence at DCA, is the main proponent of adding more Reagan National flights. United Airlines, which controls the most gates at nearby Dulles International Airport, fiercely opposes the effort. Both airlines have spent the summer lobbying lawmakers and waging a campaign marked by dueling op-eds by former administration officials, ad campaigns atop newsletters and a constant barrage of press releases.

Now, other combatants are stepping in on the pro-expansion side.

Southwest Airlines, which hadn't previously taken a position, came out Tuesday in favor of adding flights. And American Airlines, which was previously aligned with United, said it considers the newest proposal for added flights more palatable than past versions because proponents reduced their ask from 56 flights per day to 14.

American spokesperson Amy Lawrence said the airline would still prefer that no flights be added. But she said, "We are pleased to see the proposed number of new flights lowering."

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), who sponsored an amendment adding flights to the FAA bill, said the increased number of flights should pass the House because his side was willing to lower its demands. The seven round-trip flights per day would be split among the seven airlines now operating at Reagan National, and would not be subject to a current 1,250-mile restriction that bars long-haul flights out of the airport without action from Congress.

"We started off with 28 [pairs of flights], then we had 13 or 14 and we ended up at seven," Owens said. "Seven is a number that ought to sail through the House."

United spokesperson Sam Coleman said the airline remains opposed to flight changes "as it would only serve to increase delays and cancellations for everyone flying in and out of DCA."

The fight over additional flights is likely to result in a House floor vote later this week as lawmakers consider a larger bill, H.R. 3935 (118), that would authorize approximately $103 billion for the FAA for the next five fiscal years.

The FAA, which oversees commercial aviation, faces major challenges with shortages of air traffic controllers as post-pandemic travel booms, a crunch that has contributed to waves of flight cancellations and delays that have angered consumers and lawmakers. The agency has also spent the past year without a Senate-confirmed leader, although former Deputy Administrator Mike Whitaker is the front-runner to receive the nomination for the FAA's top job and could get the nod in the coming days, according to news reports and a lobbyist who was granted anonymity to discuss their knowledge of internal White House conversations.

The fight over Reagan National has divided lawmakers by region and fealty to certain airlines instead of party affiliation — for instance, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) both favor expanding flights.

Owens predicted that the flights issue will come down to a "true vote" in which party leaders on both sides allow members to vote the way they please.

"We’ll be pushing as hard as we can to whip the votes," Owens said. "I feel confident we're going to pull this up."

The House FAA bill will also include additional amendment votes on a number of hot issues. Most notably, one bipartisan amendment would roll back a compromise endorsed by leaders of the House Transportation Committee, which would have allowed additional flight simulator time to count toward the 1,500 hours of flight experience that a prospective pilot must accrue during training.

The families of people who died aboard Colgan Air Flight 3407, which crashed in 2009 in western New York state, urged the House to adopt the amendment from Buffalo-area Reps. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) and Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is also adamant about not changing the pilot training requirements. The families said Transportation Committee leaders from both parties, Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and ranking member Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), are urging lawmakers to vote against the amendment.

"By eliminating the provision that allows flight simulator hours to replace cockpit experience, we can better ensure the expertise and skills of our pilots, ultimately safeguarding the lives of everyone on board," family member Scott Maurer said in a statement.

Other amendments would require the FAA to develop new safety training materials for airport ground crew workers in response to two incidents in Texas and Alabama within the last seven months in which airport workers died after being sucked into engines. Another amendment would require the Department of Transportation to provide passengers with more detailed information about the cause of a flight delay or cancellation. An amendment with dozens of cosponsors would prohibit DOT from buying Chinese- or Russian-made drones.

All those amendments, including the additional Reagan National flights, have bipartisan support. But the bill could also include GOP-only provisions that would shift the bill rightward and erode Democratic support for the final product.

Some of the Republican-only amendments would initiate a study into raising the retirement age of air traffic controllers, require airlines to hire back pilots who were fired because they had refused to take Covid vaccines, and repeal the Essential Air Service program that guarantees commercial service to rural airports.

A total of 104 amendments to the FAA bill could conceivably receive floor votes this week after the House Rules Committee cleared them Monday.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) said House Republicans risk losing votes for the bill if they include more of the GOP-only amendments, much as Republicans did last week on the National Defense Authorization Act.

"If that is what they choose to do with this FAA reauthorization, I think they're just doubling down on something that is very unpalatable to the American people," Sherrill said.

But one other big-ticket issue won't be changed in the bill. A bipartisan amendment to keep the commercial pilot retirement age at 65, led by former pilot Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), failed to survive vetting in the Rules Committee. Instead, the bill would keep in place a new retirement age of 67 after the provision passed in committee on a razor-thin 32-31 vote.

"It’s embarrassing and a shame that over 40 Members of Congress’ voices are being stifled in this process," Bergman said in a statement on Tuesday. "But the powers that be knew they didn’t have a leg to stand on and would have lost the vote in a landslide.”

Kierra Frazier contributed to this report.

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Russian command structure ‘confusing at best’ after Wagner mutiny, says top U.S. general

The Russian military’s command structure is “confusing at best” after last month’s failed rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner mercenary group, a top U.S. general said on Tuesday.

Thousands of Prigozhin’s soldiers have been deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict. But those troops are now handing over their weapons to the Russian military, in an apparent end to their operations in Ukraine.

The failed mutiny that ended with Prigozhin’s exile has thrown Russia’s military command structure into disarray, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley told reporters at the Pentagon.

“The command-and-control apparatus at the strategic level is certainly confusing at best and probably challenging,” Milley said.

The fallout from the rebellion, in addition to logistics problems, “significant” officer casualties and poor training, have contributed to eroding morale among Russian forces, Milley said.

Russian troops have had several months to boost their defenses in Ukraine, including laying complex minefields, installing barbed wire and digging trenches, Milley said. But Ukraine is working through the front lines “slowly and deliberately.”

Kyiv has so far struggled to retake significant territory during the much-anticipated counteroffensive, but Milley explained that Ukrainian forces are “preserving their combat power” and have not sent in their best soldiers.

“This is going to be long, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be bloody,” Milley predicted. But “it is far from a failure, in my view.”

The main challenge for Ukrainian troops is minefields, which are forcing soldiers to move slowly, Milley said. The coalition is focused on providing Ukraine equipment to help clear and defend against those mines, as well as air defenses to protect against Russian air attacks.

Milley’s comments echo those by another senior Pentagon official last week. Colin Kahl, who recently left his position as undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters that Ukraine has not yet brought the “majority of their combat power” to bear.

Ukraine’s strategy is to deliberately probe the Russian lines for weak spots across the east and south, Kahl said.

“I think the real test will be when they identify weak spots or create weak spots and generate a breach,” Kahl said. “How rapidly they're able to exploit that with the combat power that they have in reserve and how rapidly the Russians will be able to respond.”

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House GOP sets floor vote aimed at squeezing Dems on Israel

The vote would essentially rebuke recent comments from Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who called Israel a “racist” state.

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Russia’s war in Ukraine gate-crashes EU-Latin America reunion

Nicaragua and Cuba oppose proposed wording on Ukraine in draft communiqué amid talk they are taking orders from Moscow.

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White House calls anti-Semitic Covid conspiracy theory voiced by RFK Jr. ‘vile’

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sharply denounced a conspiracy theory floated by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that Covid-19 was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, calling the longshot Democratic candidate’s remarks “false” and “vile.”

“The claims made on that tape is false,” she said during a Monday press briefing about a video published over the weekend. “It is vile, and they put our fellow Americans in danger.”

In the video, Kennedy suggests that Covid was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.” He later added that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Kennedy has defended himself on Twitter, disputing the New York Post’s initial reporting of his comments, insisting he was just relaying others’ research, and denying that he said the virus was made to “spare Jews.” But after the video emerged, his remarks prompted condemnation across the Democratic Party and even from members of his own family.

“I STRONGLY condemn my brother's deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” wrote Kennedy’s sister, Kerry, on Twitter.

Jean-Pierre declined to discuss Kennedy directly, citing the legal constraints on the administration’s ability to address campaign matters. But she warned that Kennedy’s remarks amounted to encouraging racist theories around the virus.

“If you think about the racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those type of things, it’s an attack on our fellow citizens,” Jean-Pierre said. “And so it’s important that we essentially speak out when we hear those claims more broadly.”

Jean-Pierre also cited a statement from the American Jewish Committee that called Kennedy’s claims “deeply offensive” and reflective of “some of the most abhorrent antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout history.”

"This is something that this president, and this whole administration, is going to stand against," she added.

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Alabama Republicans, despite Supreme Court ruling, reject call for second majority Black House district

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Republicans, under orders of the U.S. Supreme Court to redraw congressional districts to give minority voters a greater voice in elections, rejected calls Monday to craft a second majority-Black district and proposed a map testing the judges’ directive.

Lawmakers must adopt a new map by Friday after the high court in June affirmed a three-judge panel's ruling that Alabama’s existing congressional map — with a single Black district out of seven statewide — likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

In a state where more than one in four residents is Black, the lower court panel had ruled in 2022 that Alabama should have another majority-Black congressional district or something "close to it" so Black voters have the opportunity to “elect a representative of their choice.”

Republicans, long resistant to creating a second Democratic-leaning district, proposed a map that would increase the percentage of Black voters in the 2nd congressional district from about 30% to nearly 42.5%, wagering that would satisfy the court — or that the state will prevail in a second round of appeals.

House Speaker Pro Tempore Chris Pringle, who serves as co-chairman of the state redistricting committee, said the numbers are sufficient to provide an opportunity for an African American candidate to get elected. He said the plan satisfies the court's instruction to give Black voters a greater opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.

"We took in consideration what the court asked us to do which was to provide an opportunity district that complied with Section 2 (of the Voting Rights Act,)" Pringle said.

The Permanent Legislative Committee on Reapportionment approved the proposal in a 14-6 vote that fell along party lines. The proposal will be introduced as legislation Monday afternoon as lawmakers convene a special session to adopt a new map by a Friday deadline set by the three-judge panel.

The National Redistricting Foundation, one of the groups that backed challenges to the Alabama map, called the proposal “shameful” and said it would be challenged

“It is clear that Alabama Republicans are not serious about doing their job and passing a compliant map, even in light of a landmark Supreme Court decision,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation.

She called that a pattern seen throughout the state's history "where a predominately white and Republican legislature has never done the right thing on its own, but rather has had to be forced to do so by a court."

Democrats accused Republicans of rushing the process and thwarting the court's directive.

Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, a Democrat from Mobile, said the court was clear that the state should create a second majority-Black district or something close to it.

“Forty-two percent is not close to 50. In my opinion 48, 49 is close to 50," Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, a Democrat from Mobile, said after the meeting. Figures had urged colleagues to adopt a proposal by the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case that would make the 2nd district 50% Black.

Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said he also doesn't think the GOP proposal would satisfy the court's directive. He said Republican lawmakers pushed through there proposal without a public hearing or producing a voter analysis of how the district will perform and how if it is a red, blue or swing district. Pringle said that information will be available Tuesday.

“The map that we adopted, nobody had any input on. There was no public input on it, not subject to a public hearing and now it's going to be the map of choice,” England said.

Deuel Ross, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund who argued the case before the Supreme Court, said lawmakers have yet to provide the information “necessary to evaluate whether these plans will in fact provide Black voters with opportunities to elect their candidates of choice in two districts.”

“Any plan with a low Black voting age population does not appear to comply with the Court’s instruction,” Ross wrote in an email.

Joe Reed, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference — the state’s oldest Black political organization —told urged lawmakers that the district will not elect a Black candidate to Congress unless it is a majority Black district.

Partisan politics underlies the looming redistricting fight. A higher percentage of Black voters increases the chances that a the seat will switch from GOP to Democratic control.

Pollster Zac McCrary said predicting a district's partisan leanings depends on a number of metrics, but “getting a district too far below the mid 40s in terms of Black voter composition could certainly open the door for Republicans.”

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