Charles Ogletree, longtime legal and civil rights scholar at Harvard Law School, dies at 70

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a law professor and civil rights scholar with a distinguished career at Harvard Law School and whose list of clients ranged from Anita Hill to Tupac Shakur, died Friday after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 70.

A California native who often spoke of his humble roots, Ogletree worked in the farm fields of the Central Valley before establishing himself as a legal scholar at one of the nation’s most prominent law schools, where he taught Barack and Michelle Obama.

Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning shared news of Ogletree’s death in a message to the campus community Friday.

“Charles was a tireless advocate for civil rights, equality, human dignity, and social justice,” Manning said in the message that the law school emailed to The Associated Press. “He changed the world in so many ways, and he will be sorely missed in a world that very much needs him.”

Ogletree represented Hill when she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during the future U.S. Supreme Court justice’s Senate confirmation hearings in 1991.

He defended the rapper Tupac Shakur in criminal and civil cases. He also fought unsuccessfully for reparations for members of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black community who survived a 1921 white supremacist massacre.

Ogletree was surrounded by his family when he died peacefully at his home in Odenton, Md., his family said in a statement.

Ogletree went public with the news that he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016. He retired from Harvard Law School in 2020. The Merced County courthouse in California’s agricultural heartland was named after him in February in recognition of his contributions to law, education and civil rights.

Ogletree didn’t attend the ceremony unveiling his name on the courthouse. His brother told the crowd that gathered in the town in the San Joaquin Valley that his brother was his hero and that he would have expected him to say what he’d said many times before: “I stand on the shoulders of others.”

“He always wants to give credit to others and not accept credit himself, which he so richly deserves,” Richard Ogletree told the gathering.

Charles J. Ogletree Jr. grew up in poverty on the south side of the railroad tracks in Merced in an area of Black and brown families. His parents were seasonal farm laborers, and he picked peaches, almonds and cotton in the summer. He went to college at Stanford University before Harvard.

Manning said in his message Friday that Ogletree had a “monumental impact” on Harvard Law School.

“His extraordinary contributions stretch from his work as a practicing attorney advancing civil rights, criminal defense, and equal justice to the change he brought to Harvard Law School as an impactful institution builder to his generous work as teacher and mentor who showed our students how law can be an instrument for change,” he said.

Ogletree is survived by his wife, Pamela Barnes, to whom he was married for 47 years; his two children, Charles J. Ogletree III and Rashida Ogletree-George; and four grandchildren.

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Kentucky candidates trade barbs at Fancy Farm picnic

FANCY FARM, Ky. — In front of a raucous crowd at Kentucky's premier political event on Saturday, the Democratic incumbent governor talked about the state's high-flying economy while his Republican challenger hammered away on social issues.

Both sides stuck largely to scripts written in the early months of their general election showdown as they campaigned at the Fancy Farm picnic, traditionally seen as the jumping-off point for fall elections in Kentucky. This year, however, both Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron have been going at it for weeks, pounding away at many of the same notes they struck Saturday.

Beshear declared Saturday that he's led Kentucky's economy on a “historic winning streak” worthy of a second term, while Cameron slammed the incumbent on social issues and said he was out of touch with Kentucky values.

Political speaking is as much a tradition at the picnic as the barbecue. The crowd is divided between Republicans and Democrats, and both sides tried to outdo the other with chants.

With a statewide television audience watching, Beshear and Cameron drew distinct contrasts in the high-stakes encounter with about three months to go before the election. They endured the summer heat and cascades of boos and taunts from partisans backing their rival — a rite of passage for statewide candidates in Kentucky.

The Kentucky governor's race is one of the nation's most closely watched contests and could provide clues heading into 2024 campaigns for the White House and Congress.

Beshear touted his stewardship of the state's economy, pointing to job creation from record-high economic development and record-low unemployment rates. The incumbent Democrat tried to tamp down partisanship in his pitch for a second term in the GOP-trending Bluegrass State.

“When you’re on a historic winning streak, you don’t fire the coach," the governor said. "You don’t sub out the quarterback. You keep that team on the field.”

Reprising another of his main campaign themes, Cameron tried linking Beshear to President Joe Biden, who was trounced by Donald Trump in Kentucky in 2020 and remains unpopular in the state. Cameron slammed Beshear for vetoing legislation that restricts transgender people's participation in school sports, part of a strategy focused on social issues to fire up conservative voters.

"His record is one of failure, and it flies in the face of true Kentucky values,” Cameron said.

Beshear has vowed not to cede so-called family values issues to his Republican opponent, accusing Cameron and his allies of running a strategy based on dividing Kentuckians.

“Let’s remember we’re told not just to talk about our faith, but to actually live it out,” the governor. “I’m reminded of the Golden Rule, which is that we love our neighbor as our self.”

Beshear — who has presided over a series of disasters, from the Covid-19 pandemic to tornadoes and floods — pointed to his efforts to bring aid to stricken regions to rebuild homes and infrastructure.

Cameron took aim at Beshear's pandemic policies that he said favored corporations over small businesses.

“He closed down Main Street and bent over backwards for Wall Street,” Cameron said.

Beshear has countered that his pandemic restrictions saved lives.

The governor also touted massive infrastructure projects moving ahead, including a new Ohio River bridge for northern Kentucky and a highway expansion in the state’s Appalachian region.

“People here know there’s no Democrat or Republican bridges. That a good job isn’t red or blue," Beshear said. "And the most important thing for a governor is getting the job done.”

Meanwhile, the drumbeat of GOP criticism of Beshear on social issues continued. The governor has come under attack from GOP groups for vetoing legislation aimed at transgender people. Cameron noted Beshear vetoed a bill that barred transgender girls and women from participating in school sports matching their gender identity. The state's Republican-dominated legislature overrode the veto.

“Governor, I know you guys are obsessed with pronouns these days. But come November, yours are going to be: has and been,” Cameron said.

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Trump: Pence has ‘gone to the Dark Side’

Donald Trump hit back at Mike Pence on Saturday, saying his former running mate and GOP presidential race rival has “gone to the Dark Side.”

Trump's renewed criticism of the former vice president came as Pence has sharpened his attacks on his former boss over the events surrounding the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and charges Trump faces over the mishandling of classified documents.

“WOW, it’s finally happened!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday. “Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him V.P., has gone to the Dark Side.”

“I never told a newly embolded … Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was ‘too honest.’ He’s delusional, and now he wants to show he’s a tough guy,” Trump added.

The Pence campaign began selling merchandise emblazoned with the “Too Honest” phrase in reference to the Jan. 6 indictment unsealed against Trump this week, in which prosecutors say the then-president called out his vice president with the words over his refusal to reject electoral votes during the 2020 election certification process.

Prosecutors on Friday night called a judge’s attention to another social media post from Trump in which they say the former president appeared to declare that he’s “coming after” those he sees as responsible for his legal challenges, raising the specter that he might use evidence to target witnesses.

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote in all caps.

Pence defended certifying the 2020 election for Joe Biden in response to jeers and insults from a crowd of Trump supporters outside a campaign event in New Hampshire on Friday.

“Why’d you sell out the people?” a man called out as Pence arrived for a town hall in Londonderry. “Why didn’t you uphold the Constitution?”

“I upheld the Constitution,” Pence said in response. “Read it.”

Pence further criticized Trump this week — without saying his name — over his repeated attempts to overturn the election.

“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” Pence said in a statement.

On Saturday, Pence emphasized the gravity of mishandling classified materials at a national security event in New Hampshire.

“We’ve got to be deadly serious about handling classified materials in this country,” Pence said. “I owned up to it,” the former vice president said of his own “inadvertent” handling of documents found at his home in the wake of searches of Trump’s properties.

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McConnell is warmly embraced by Kentucky Republicans amid questions about his health

MAYFIELD, Ky. — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell received a rousing welcome from the party faithful Saturday at a high-profile home-state political gathering amid renewed scrutiny of his health after the 81-year-old lawmaker froze up midsentence during a recent Capitol Hill news conference.

“This is my 28th Fancy Farm, and I want to assure you it’s not my last,” McConnell said at the top of his breakfast speech before the annual picnic that is the traditional jumping off point for the fall campaign season. It was his only reference, however vague, to his health.

McConnell, who is widely regarded as the main architect of the GOP’s rise to power in Kentucky, arrived to a prolonged standing ovation and promoted the candidacy of a protege running for governor this year.

McConnell has been a fixture on the stage at Fancy Farm, where he long has relished jousting with Democrats. His health has drawn increased attention since he briefly left his own news conference in Washington on July 26 after stopping his remarks midsentence and staring off into space for several seconds. GOP colleagues standing behind him grabbed his elbows and escorted him back to his office. When he returned to answer questions, McConnell said he was “fine.” Asked if he is still able to do his job, he said, “Yeah.”

McConnell was out of the Senate for almost six weeks earlier this year after falling and hitting his head after a dinner event at a Washington hotel. He was hospitalized for several days, and his office later said he suffered a concussion and fractured a rib. His speech has sounded more halting in recent weeks, prompting questions among some of his colleagues about his health.

He has said he plans to serve his full term as Republican leader — he was elected to a two-year term in January and would be up for reelection to that post again after the 2024 elections. McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has been the Republican leader since 2007. He would face reelection to the Senate in 2026.

At the breakfast event Saturday, McConnell did not delve into national issues or comment on former President Donald Trump's legal entanglements, and he did not meet with reporters afterward. In his nine-minute speech. McConnell accused Democrats of having “turned their backs on rural America.”

McConnell also praised Daniel Cameron, the state's attorney general who is challenging Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in one of the nation's most closely watched elections this year. McConnell said he first met Cameron when Cameron was a student at the University of Louisville. Cameron went on to serve on McConnell's staff as legal counsel.

“I’ve watched him over the years," McConnell said. "And now you have. And you’ve seen his leadership skills, his ability to rally people together.”

A rift between Trump and McConnell has reverberated in Kentucky, where both men are popular with Republican voters. The split grew after the senator publicly refuted Trump's claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, ending an uneasy partnership that had helped conservatives establish a firm majority on the Supreme Court.

McConnell has been mostly silent since then and has been loath to comment on any of the three indictments of Trump this year. The two have found common cause again in the candidacy of Cameron, who was the beneficiary of Trump’s endorsement during the hard-fought Republican primary for governor.

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‘We have to take it seriously’: Dems brace for a ’24 Biden-Trump rematch

When Barack Obama sat down with Joe Biden this summer and conveyed his concerns about the strength of Donald Trump going into 2024, the warning was not the first to come from within the president's own party.

Nor would it be the last.

The message from one of the Democratic Party’s top voices came with a promise to do everything he can to help Biden stay in the White House. Obama’s concerns may carry more weight as a former president and trusted Biden confidant, but his fears about the formidability of another face-off with Trump reflect a growing sentiment among Democrats.

“Donald Trump can win, number one. … Number two, I think that the third parties can take away enough votes to make Donald Trump win. Number three, we cannot underestimate the dissatisfied mood of the public and his ability to mobilize voters,” said Celinda Lake, a 2020 Biden pollster. “I think there’s going to be a very close race. He seems impervious no matter how many indictments. You can run for president from jail.”

Democrats both inside and on the outskirts of the Biden world increasingly believe Trump will be the 2024 GOP nominee. Not only have Democrats taken note of a more organized Trump team, but a number of factors point to the growing reality that it would likely be a challenging, tight rematch for Biden.

Trump’s “support is still very much organic, so I’m very clear-eyed about it,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) in an interview. “I hear some Republicans who are not on the Trump train say that it’s a ticket to defeat — that it’s not a threat. The threat is that he could come back. We have to take it seriously.”

Despite the mounting legal troubles facing the former president, Democrats have noticed that Trump’s campaign, led by longtime GOP operatives Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, is more organized and disciplined than ever. Among the examples Democratic operatives and strategists point to are Trump’s visit to union-friendly East Palestine earlier this year, his attempts to reel in an endorsement from United Auto Workers and efforts to support early voting that Republicans — including Trump — once decried.

“My impression is that they are far more disciplined as a staff around him, making decisions, getting out content, moving quickly,” while also being “nimble” and purposeful in decision-making, said Faiz Shakir, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager.

But Shakir has doubts about whether a stronger team matters with Trump, who delights his firm base of supporters with his tendency to go off script and focus more on his personal grievances than policy issues. Shakir also said Democrats would normally be nervous about Trump’s fundraising numbers but argued it’s a wash since a large chunk of the money is going to legal bills, a figure only expected to grow with his latest indictment.

Ammar Moussa, national press secretary and rapid response director at the DNC, said Trump’s team can’t “erase the stain of the MAGA extremism” Trump has pushed on a number of fronts, including his record on the economy and his moves to pave the way for Republicans to strip away access to abortion.

“We’ll beat Donald Trump regardless of the team he has around him,” he said.

It’s also too early to know whether Trump’s various legal proceedings — as the cases move to trial — will affect his standing in the Republican Party, said Democratic strategist Mike Trujillo, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.

“Living under all these indictments is going to be an interesting, uncharted, walking on fresh snow that no one’s ever walked on before. There’s no playbook here. You can’t go to some episode that happened in ‘96 of Dole or 2012 with Romney or any of the other folks. That Rubik’s Cube, that episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ doesn’t exist,” Trujillo said.

Democrats are thinking less about Trump’s campaign apparatus, said Lake, the Biden pollster, and more about Trump the candidate and the factors that continue to make him a formidable opponent: His ability to mobilize voters, his domination of the news cycle and his stronghold on his base and the Republican Party. While Trump continues to hold a hefty lead in the GOP field, a New York Times/Siena College Poll this week — taken before the latest indictment — had Biden and Trump tied at 43 percent each in a hypothetical 2024 rematch.

“You can often say, ‘Oh a team prepared their candidate well for the debates.’ [Trump] doesn’t prep. He’s going to go out there, and he’s going to win the debate just because he’s going to go out there and absolutely overshadow them by force of nature,” said former Clinton adviser Philippe Reines. “Trump is dominating now just by dint of who Donald Trump is to the Republican Party. Not because of any strategy and tactics that his organization is employing.”

While the DNC and Biden campaign continue to contrast the president with the field of GOP candidates, there’s also a growing feeling that 2024 will likely see the ugly rematch many in the party fear the most, mainly because it opens the possibility of another Trump presidency. The Biden campaign has for the most part sat back, hoarding cash and building its team while Republicans battle it out, but general election planning inside the campaign and among outside spending groups is already underway.

“Looking back at 2020, we do have a playbook that works against the guy. But you can’t rest on your laurels about it,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, a top Dem super PAC. “For us, it is: We know how to beat this guy. Let’s beat him again. Let’s take him extremely seriously. Do not underestimate him for a second.”

Until Republicans indicate otherwise, Trujillo said, Democrats should assume the GOP nominee will be Trump and focus on what can help secure a Biden win: Increasing voter turnout and meeting Democratic voters where they are, key efforts at a time when voters’ moods are sour and there’s a risk that lower turnout among some key blocs could threaten Biden’s path to reelection.

“All Trump does is touch hot stoves all the time,” Trujillo said. “For Democrats, we can’t touch that hot stove with him.”

Adam Cancryn contributed to this report. 

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House committee chair on China warns of 'relentless' spying campaign

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), one of the Chinese Communist Party’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, warned Saturday that the U.S. does not fully grasp the extent of China’s espionage within American borders.

“The CCP has continued its relentless espionage campaign against America,” Gallagher said Saturday afternoon on Fox News. “We are slowly waking up to it. But we’re just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of this activity on American soil.”

The comments from Gallagher, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, come amid an uptick of concern among national security observers about Chinese espionage efforts in recent months. The DOJ on Thursday announced that it arrested two U.S. Navy sailors for allegedly spying on behalf of China.

The Wisconsin Republican warned against the powerful influence of the secretive Chinese Ministry of State Security and the similarly mysterious United Front Work Department, both of which have a role in gathering intelligence at home and abroad. The two units also sit behind the opaque veil of the Chinese government, often making the extent and breadth of their roles and power poorly understood by Western observers.

China has hundreds of suspected covert police stations across the world that enable Beijing to monitor regime critics across the world. In April, federal prosecutors charged two men with operating one such substation in downtown Manhattan.

The Chinese MSS recently announced that it would pursue efforts to enlist citizens in counterespionage efforts in response to a rule that has expanded the scope of Chinese surveillance over documents and data that could cross party expectations. That rule has drawn concern from American officials that it could allow Beijing to interfere with businesses that operate in China.

“In China, there is no such thing as a private company. Everybody, everything, every entity is subject to the whims of Xi Jinping,” Gallagher said.

On Tuesday, the House Select Committee on China sent letters to the leadership of Blackrock and MSCI — two prominent investment companies — questioning whether they have steered American dollars into blacklisted Chinese companies. Both companies say that they follow all relevant laws in their business practices.

Gallagher said that the country needs to work toward decoupling, while ensuring that critical American sectors do not have any dependencies on China. He warned that China’s intelligence efforts perhaps had an end goal.

“I believe that Xi Jinping's lifelong ambition is to take Taiwan,” Gallagher said. “It makes sense they would seek to gather as much information as possible in preparation for such a conflict, and also in order to weaken our ability to surge men and material from the domestic United States to the Indo-Pacific if we did find ourselves in a shooting war with China, which we should be moving heaven and Earth to try and avoid to deter, to prevent. Because it would be incredibly destructive.”

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'No wonder Trump is kicking his ass': Newsom camp hits DeSantis on debate proposal

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s camp on Saturday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposed rules for a long-touted debate, arguing that they are an attempt to hide his weaknesses as a candidate.

“What a joke,” Newsom spokesperson Nathan Click said in a statement. “Desantis’ counterproposal is littered with crutches to hide his insecurity and ineptitude — swapping opening statements with a hype video, cutting down the time he needs to be on stage, adding cheat notes and a cheering section.”

“Ron should be able to stand on his own two feet,” he added. “It’s no wonder Trump is kicking his ass.”

POLITICO Playbook exclusively reported on Saturday the DeSantis team’s rules proposal, which includes a prerecorded video in lieu of opening remarks and a live audience instead of an empty room.

Newsom has publicly challenged DeSantis to debate him on policy for months, and the Florida governor told Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he would agree to the event. With DeSantis currently on the presidential trail, and Newson floated as a potential future candidate, a matchup of the two governors would symbolize a battle between how America could be run from opposing ends on the ideological spectrum — and the country's dueling coasts.

The two sides’ proposed rules detail a number of similarities. They both agree on Hannity being the lone moderator, a 90-minute run time, equally divided speaking time and two minutes of closing statements.

Between the two governors’ proposals, Nov. 8 is the only date in common, while Georgia is the only location in common.

Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.

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