Trump FBI search overshadows Congress as it convenes to pass climate bill – live | US
The Washington Post broke the story last night that documents pertaining to nuclear weapons were among those the FBI investigators looked for at Mar-a-Lago.
Investigators arrived at the property on Monday after months of investigation into whether the former president unlawfully took papers from the White House, which he departed in January 2021. According to the Post, among the documents the FBI found were signals intelligence, which are intercepted phone or email communications that are among the most sensitive type of classified material.
The Post had few other details about the Mar-a-Lago search, but we may find out more this afternoon. Lawyer for the former president have until 3 pm eastern time today to tell a court whether he objects to unsealing the warrant allowing the search, which Trump said last night he would not do. It’s unclear when the document would then be released, but it may offer more insight into what the FBI expected to find at his Florida club.
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Here’s a rundown of what to expect today:
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Trump said he would not oppose the justice department’s effort to release the warrant and property inventory from the Mar-a-Lago search, though it’s unclear when the documents would actually be made public.
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The House will convene at 9am ET to consider the Inflation Reduction Act, and is expected to cast its final votes at around 3.30pm.
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Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, holds a press conference at 9:30 am eastern time, providing a glimpse into how the GOP views the latest developments around the former president.
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John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat, will return to the campaign trail for the first time since suffering a stroke.
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Key events
Further evidence that things are looking up for Democrats: Joe Biden’s approval rating is above 40 percent for the first time since early June, per RealClearPolitics’ polling average:
Biden job approval back over 40% in the RCP Average for first time since early June. https://t.co/Qq6Vf51qST pic.twitter.com/GbPuOABSoG
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) August 12, 2022
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Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned attacks by Donald Trump and other Republicans on the FBI following their search this week of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Speaking at a press conference before she was to preside over the House’s vote on her party’s landmark climate legislation, Pelosi reacted to the Thursday attack on an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio by a man who may have been present at the January 6 insurrection.
“You would think there would be an adult in the Republican room that would say just calm down, see what the facts are and let’s go for that instead of again instigating assaults on law enforcement,” Pelosi said.
Donald Trump is known to be mulling whether to announce another campaign for president at an early date, potentially before the November midterm election. Now, Reuters reports that Joe Biden’s advisers are also pushing him to make an early announcement that he’ll stand for office again in 2024.
According to the report, the rationale is that an earlier-than-usual announcement would allow Biden to build on what his advisers see as an increasingly favorable electoral landscape, with voters revolting against the supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade and Democrats in Congress having passed several notable pieces of legislation in recent weeks.
It would also quell speculation that Biden, whose approval ratings have plunged over the past year, won’t stand for re-election. A Biden announcement would however most likely come after the midterms, while Trump, in contrast, is weighing whether announcing his own bid before voters even go to the polls.
Here’s more from Reuters:
People involved in planning the president’s campaign told Reuters that an early announcement would be a smart step for Biden, sending a signal to political donors, potential rivals inside and outside the party, as well as the general public that Biden is no lame duck and that Democrats are unified behind his agenda, personality and leadership.
“The Republican campaign for president begins after the midterms and the president needs to make the announcement during the same time to satisfy concerns within the party,” one top Democratic official said.
The move also would outfit a vast and much-better-funded campaign operation designed to sell Biden’s agenda to the country than the White House alone could muster as their efforts to sell their legislative accomplishments over two years wilted under red-hot inflation and bitter partisanship.
Biden is having meetings with his political advisers, a source familiar with the president’s thinking said, and in those meetings he keeps stressing that the attention right now needs to be on the midterms, rather than the timing of any presidential campaign.
“There is no planned date or timeframe. As the president has said before, he fully expects to run for reelection,” that source said.
The White House and the Democratic National Committee declined to comment.
Michael Sainato
The Inflation Reduction Act is the Biden administration’s marquee plan to lower health care costs and fight climate change, but as Michael Sainato reports, it won’t tackle the high price of insulin in the United States – thanks to Republicans:
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Erin Connelly had to ration insulin while transitioning to a different health insurance plan. When Connelly heard the Biden administration was planning to cap the price of the life-saving drug, she was delighted. She was soon to be disappointed.
The prices of insulin has soared in the US in recent decades and is more than eight times higher in the US than in 32 comparable, high-income nations, according to a Rand Corporation study.
With an average list price of $98.70 per unit in the US, compared with $7.52 in the UK, US insulin sales account for nearly half the pharmaceutical industry’s insulin revenue, though the US makes up only about 15% of the global market.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have just offered some of the party’s first comments since last night’s report that Trump may have kept documents with details of nuclear weapons at Mar-a-Lago.
From the sounds of it, The Washington Post’s story hasn’t changed their view of the former president.
“President Donald Trump is Joe Biden’s most likeliest his political opponent in 2024 and this is less than 100 days from critical midterm elections. The FBI raid of President Trump is a complete abuse and overreach of its authority,” Elise Stefanik, the number-three House Republican, said at a press conference.
She and other lawmakers invoked old controversies such as the Hillary Clinton email scandal and Trump’s firing of FBI chief James Comey, as well as more recent matters such as Hunter Biden’s business dealings, to make the case that the bureau has a credibility issue.
“The American people are smart, and they have had enough. It is unfortunately why there is a fundamental lack of trust in these agencies, and the American people deserve answers,”…
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