White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is holding a briefing Wednesday, which is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. (ET).
The briefing, which was scheduled earlier in the day, comes shortly after news broke that Trump's former attorney John Dowd had raised the possibility of pardoning Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort.
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Fox News host Sean Hannity suggested on Tuesday's edition of his radio show that the possibility of former President Donald Trump getting charged with obstruction of justice is unfair because President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton never had their homes "raided" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"So you know, and here's the other problem, you know, with top secret classified documents. So what they're doing here is they're not going to go after what they thought was the crime. Because they didn't raid Hillary Clinton's residences. They didn't raid Joe Biden's four places where he had top secret classified information. No," Hannity complained.
Both Clinton and Biden cooperated with federal investigators. Refusing to do so, or impeding their work, is considered obstruction, which is a felony.
READ MORE: Trump’s attorneys just walked into DOJ amid swelling indictment anticipation
"So they'll look to something obscure," Hannity continued. "'Well, as a result of the investigation, it is alleged that Donald Trump obstructed justice' — blah blah blah blah blah. Which, by the way, I would argue, legally, he doesn't have any obligation to cooperate with, and nor can anyone give a real definition of whether or not, you know, exactly how one president is supposed to declassify the materials anyway."
Trump has claimed that he declassified documents psychically and that they automatically had that status once he took them from the White House. Those statements are not just false — Trump was recorded acknowledging the limits to his power to declassify certain items, such as war plans for an attack on Iran.
Hannity then said that "it's not going to have anything to do with the documents themselves, except it'll be a process crime. That is my prediction."
There are many indicators that Trump could facing an espionage charge (among a litany of others), as recently highlighted by experts.
READ MORE: 'Nihilistic moron' Trump heading for another indictment: George Conway
"They're gonna go down the process crime route and they won't apply the same standards to Joe, just like they didn't apply the same standards to the Hillary, and whatever bone they throw you on Hunter is the low-hanging fruit that does not get to the heart of the family business with a multitude of countries that they were paid a fortune from," Hannity added. "And we still haven't gotten the final numbers, and clearly, Hunter Biden with no experience was leading up the effort and implicates his own father. They're gonna stay as far away from the real crux of what legality would impact Joe Biden and just go after Donald Trump, to just continue their policies of politicizing or criminalizing political differences."
A former spokesman and advocate for former President Donald Trump will testify Wednesday before a federal grand jury in Florida as part of the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
Taylor Budowich, who now runs the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA, Inc., arrived with his attorney Stanley Woodward at the federal courthouse in Miami to testify to a grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith in his investigation of the former president's handling of sensitive government records, reported CNN.
The grand jury in southern Florida has heard testimony from multiple witnesses in recent weeks, following months of testimony in the investigation before grand juries based in Washington, D.C., leading to speculation that Trump could be charged in both jurisdictions or that some of his associates may be charged.
Trump's attorneys met Monday with officials at the Department of Justice to argue that he should not be indicted, which is widely considered to be a sign that Smith's investigation may be nearing its conclusion.
A New Hampshire judge delivered a blow to state officials trying to curtail a neo-Nazi group that has been recruiting across New England, reported WBUR on Wednesday.
"The ruling handed down Monday came after Attorney General John Formella brought a civil rights petition against the group, NSC-131, and two of its members, Leo Cullinan and Christopher Hood, in January," reported Todd Bookman. "The defendants are accused of trespassing onto a bridge in Portsmouth last summer, and hanging a banner that read 'Keep New England White.' The civil case, which had been scheduled for trial in late July, came with potential fines for Hood and Cullinan, but no jail time."
NSC stands for Nationalist Social Club — a reference to the far-right populist ideology of National Socialism, from which the original Nazis in Germany derived their name. The group seeks to turn New England into a whites-only ethnostate.
"The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing their actions were protected on free speech grounds, and that they removed the banner as soon as they were notified by law enforcement that they were potentially violating a Portsmouth ordinance," said the report. "In a 21-page opinion released Monday, Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff dismissed the petitions, ruling that the state’s interpretation of the trespass ordinance, as well as the Civil Rights Statute, was overly broad as it applied to the banner."
READ MORE: Trump-loving lawyer asks Jan. 6 jail protesters to go home 'before something bad happens'
“The conduct alleged in the complaints, while reprehensible by most civilized standards, does not fit any definition of ‘trespass’ other than the one the Court has concluded is unconstitutional,” concluded Ruoff. Formella has already vowed to appeal the decision.
In recent years, NSC-131, along with other neofascist groups like Patriot Front, have ramped up their recruiting efforts in the Northeast, which is famous for its liberal politics due to high college education rates and low rates of organized religion — but is also one of the whitest regions of the country, making it attractive for white nationalists as a location for ethnic enclaves. Boston, too, has seen extremist activity, with white supremacists conducting marches and dropping fliers around the city.
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