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'Disaster' Kevin McCarthy slammed by local newspaper editorial for his 'threats' against Merrick Garland
August 10, 2022
On Wednesday, the editorial board of The Sacramento Bee tore into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for his threat to go after Attorney General Merrick Garland if he becomes Speaker of the House next year — a threat he made in retaliation for the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida on Monday.
In response to that search, McCarthy tweeted, "When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts and leave no stone unturned. Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar." The board noted the irony of the demand to "preserve your documents" when Trump repeatedly flushed protected presidential records down the toilet.
This sort of attack on an independent investigation, warned the board, would be a "disaster."
"When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield threatened Attorney General Merrick Garland on Twitter Monday night for deploying FBI agents to search the Florida resort of former President Donald Trump, it was a political declaration of war," wrote the board. "McCarthy once swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic, but that oath clearly means little to him as he unilaterally disregards the work of a sitting attorney general before Garland even has a chance to make his case against Trump."
READ MORE: 'It's going down': CNN legal analyst thinks latest DOJ moves show indictment of Trump is 'imminent'
"Whether McCarthy is serious or not, we should take him at his word: If Republicans take back the House in November, McCarthy would use his office to target Garland because the attorney general’s pursuit of facts is a threat to McCarthy’s pursuit of misinformation," wrote the board. "McCarthy’s threat to go after Garland if he gains power in November is even more disturbing because it would set up the Republican House leadership as agents of Trump with the goal of using their power to protect Trump no matter the evidence against him."
"Every House race in America this fall should be viewed in this context. A vote for GOP leadership in the House would be a vote to support McCarthy’s vow to use his power to fight the rule of law and defend his choice of party over country," concluded the board. "McCarthy told us what he would do if he comes to power, so for the good of democracy, we must prevent that from happening."
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Fascism is history, Italy's far-right leader Giorgia Meloni declared Wednesday in a video message aimed at international critics alarmed by her predicted victory in September 25 elections.
The 45-year-old, whose Brothers of Italy party is topping opinion polls, recorded a monologue in English, Spanish and French that rails at "the left" and defends her fight for "stability, freedom and prosperity for Italy".
"I have been reading that the victory of Fratelli d'Italia in the September elections would mean a disaster, leading to an authoritarian turn, Italy's departure from the euro and other nonsense of this sort. None of this is true," she said in the video sent to international journalists.
She also condemned as "absurd" the notion she would put at risk far-reaching structural reforms agreed with the European Union in return for billions of euros in post-pandemic recovery funds.
Brothers of Italy, which Meloni founded in 2012, is a political descendant of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed by supporters of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after World War II.
But she insisted in her video: "The Italian right has handed fascism over to history for decades now, unambiguously condemning the suppression of democracy and the ignominious anti-Jewish laws."
Brothers of Italy was the only main party not to join the national unity government formed by Prime Minister Mario Draghi in February 2021 -- and has since seen its poll ratings soar.
Since the coalition collapsed and Draghi resigned last month, it has remained in pole position with around 23 percent of support.
Meloni has agreed an alliance to form a government with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini's anti-immigration League, but reiterated this week she plans to be prime minister if her party comes out on top.
Her rise has prompted a slew of negative headlines at home and abroad, to which her team is starting to respond, including with an interview to Fox News in English last month.
Meloni emphasizes her Christian and family values, backs more defense spending, lower taxes and an end to mass immigration.
In her video, she says the "Italian conservatives" she leads are "a bastion of freedom and defense of Western values".
While backing the EU's tough response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, she is highly critical of the bloc and has ties to Spain's Vox and Poland's Law and Justice parties.
In her video, she emphasized the "shared values" with Britain's Conservatives, the US Republicans and Israel's Likud.
© 2022 AFP
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‘We’re not releasing a copy of the warrant’: Trump allies ‘circling the wagons’ after Mar-A-Lago search
August 10, 2022
Former President Donald Trump has no plans to release a copy of the search warrant FBI agents obtained for his residence at Mar-A-Lago.
The former president is free to share a copy of the warrant to clear up confusion about what investigators were looking for, but a source close to the president told NBC News that it's the DOJ's responsibility to notify the public, but not Trump's.
“No, we’re not releasing a copy of the warrant,” the source said, adding that there was a “complete circling of the wagons” by the Republican Party around the former president.
\u201c\u201cNo, we\u2019re not releasing a copy of the warrant.\u201d\n\n~A source close to Trump suggested last night to me that the burden of transparency rests with the DOJ to lay out its reasoning for the search warrant.\n\nThe source noted the \u201ccomplete circling of the wagons\u201d around Trump by GOP.\u201d— Vaughn Hillyard (@Vaughn Hillyard) 1660130028
Trump's legal team had been in discussions with the Justice Department as recently as early June about classified records stored at Mar-A-Lago, and his attorney Christina Bobb said the FBI removed about a dozen boxes from a basement storage area.
READ MORE: Trump allies scrambling to figure out if someone 'flipped' on him ahead of FBI search: report
Bobb also said the search warrant indicated they were investigating possible violations of laws covering the handling of classified material and the Presidential Records Act.
She said DOJ officials said they did not believe the storage unit was properly secured, but she said Trump officials added a padlock to the door that FBI agents later broke when they executed the search warrant.
Trump had already returned 15 boxes of documents that the National Archives and Records Administration said had been improperly removed from the White House at the end of his presidency.
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