Donald Trump is in Ireland doing lazy ass shit probably, don’t know, don’t care, but he’s been real unhappy with how things have been going with E. Jean Carroll’s civil rape trial against him back in New York. So he got all cranky with reporters on his golf course over there yesterday and started blabbering for four solid minutes about how “I’m going to go back [to New York] and I’m going to confront this woman. This woman is a disgrace.” You betcha. He said he’s cutting his trip short. He doesn’t want to. He has to.
So pissy:
Trump said he was the victim of “false accusations against a rich guy. Or in my case against a famous, rich and political person that’s leading the polls by 40 points.”
Okeydoke, false accusations against a rich guy, or in his case a famous rich political person that’s leading the polls by 40 points. Uh huh. Cool.
After striking his shot, Trump claimed it had travelled about 280 yards. “Biden can’t hit it 80 down the middle,” he said.
OK. Is Trump actually coming to America to appear at the trial?
“No,” [Trump lawyer Joe] Tacopina responded when asked if Trump would appear in person.
Figured.
(Yesterday, the judge took the basically unprecedented step of giving Tacopina and Trump a little time to MAKE EXTRA CERTAIN they’re on the same page regarding whether Trump will testify. Mind you, Carroll’s lawyers have rested and Trump’s lawyers were just about to. So when he bitches about how UNFAIR BIASSSS this judge is against him, keep that in mind.)
But maybe Trump’s gonna have to make some empty threats to come confront Special Counsel Jack Smith, because the New York Times broke a bunch of news about all Smith’s criminal investigations into Trump and his pals last night.
Maggie Haberman and about 8,000 other reporters are bylined, so you know it’s full of words and news.
First thing!
In the classified docs investigation into why Trump stole state secrets and hid them under Eric’s spare floaties next to the pool at Mar-a-Lago, and why he obstructed efforts by the feds to get them back, Haberman and Co. report that they have a new confidential cooperating witness, somebody who has “worked for him at Mar-a-Lago,” which seems like interesting phrasing from the reporters. Just last month we were learning that there’s a major focus on whether Trump personally touched documents himself in an effort to pull things back and hide them after the feds demanded them in May 2022.
We’ve talked about Walt Nauta, Trump’s very loyal valet, who has done some testifying on this subject. Well, regarding Walt, who was apparently a real pain in the ass with investigators:
[P]rosecutors appear to be trying to fill in some gaps in their knowledge about the movement of the boxes, created in part by their handling of another potentially key witness, Mr. Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta. Prosecutors believe Mr. Nauta has failed to provide them with a full and accurate account of his role in any movement of boxes containing the classified documents.
What? A Trump loyalist being less than forthcoming, allegedly? We might need a minute to process.
Second thing!
Buncha new people being subpoenaed in that investigation. “At least four more Mar-a-Lago employees,” says the Times, using different phrasing from how they talked about the secret cooperating witness. According to their sources, that brings the count of Mar-a-Lago employees subpoenaed to pretty much ALL OF THEM KATIE. Also, a subpoena for “another person who had visibility into Mr. Trump’s thinking when he first returned material to the National Archives.” And some subpoenas for the Trump Organization for more surveillance tape. And Matthew Calamari, his head of security at the company, and Calamari’s son Little Matthew Calamari, who also does security stuff there.
So many subpoenas!
Also:
But hoping to understand why some of the footage from the storage camera appears to be missing or unavailable — and whether that was a technological issue or something else — the prosecutors subpoenaed the software company that handles all of the surveillance footage for the Trump Organization, including at Mar-a-Lago.
Oh dang. Funny how in these days of Internet Dot Com nothing really is ever all the way deleted. We imagine sometimes Boomers get to learn that the hard way. Womp womp.
Third thing!
Still talking about new subpoenas, but UH OH SKETTI OH, pretty sure this is a whole new wang to this investigation that we didn’t know about before:
One of the previously unreported subpoenas to the Trump Organization sought records pertaining to Mr. Trump’s dealings with a Saudi-backed professional golf venture known as LIV Golf, which is holding tournaments at some of Mr. Trump’s golf resorts.
It is unclear what bearing Mr. Trump’s relationship with LIV Golf has on the broader investigation, but it suggests that the prosecutors are examining certain elements of Mr. Trump’s family business.
Oh shit! It’s the Saudi stuff! Oh shit!
Well, since we have no idea how exactly that pertains to the investigation, we’ll just have to wait and see.
But oh shit!
Maybe Trump is just one of those guys where you’re investigating one set of crimes and then you don’t even mean to but you find some other crimes and it’s like huh what’s that?
Shut up, there’s no “maybe” about it, that’s exactly how it is.
Anyway, Haberman and pals have more good backgrounder, if you need to refresh, so read it all.
Also remember that Jack Smith is also investigating Trump’s role in January 6 and his months-long campaign to overturn the election he lost and overthrow the government.
Oh shit!
Have a fun day and week and month and rest of life, Donald Trump! Things are just really looking up for you.
[Politico / New York Daily News / New York Times]
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