Closing summary
The United States’ top infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci announced he would step down in December, ending his nearly four decades of service after becoming a national name during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, a new poll showed Republicans coalescing around Donald Trump following the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, while Democratic voters showed surprising enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump’s legal problems could actually hurt him among Republicans, The Washington Post posited, reasoning that other GOP candidates might offer voters the same policies with less political baggage.
A federal magistrate judge now looks to be leaning against releasing much of the affidavit justifying the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
Conservatives cheered Fauci’s departure announcement, while House Republicans signaled they expected answers from him if they retook the chamber following the midterms.
Rusty Bowers, formerly a top Arizona Republican state lawmaker who was ousted by GOP voters for defying Trump, talked to The Guardian about his decision.
In rural Texas, the climate for polling officials has become so bad the entire election department of a rural county resigned weeks before the midterm elections, the Associated Press reports.
The officials said they’d been threatened and harassed for their work in Gillespie County, which is heavily Republican and overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the 2020 election, and didn’t want to relive the experience. Across the state, voters are struggling to cast valid ballots following the passage of a strict election law last year that led to thousands of mail-in ballot applications being rejected in recent polls.
Here’s more from the AP:
Part of why Terry Hamilton says he abruptly left his job running elections deep in Texas wine country is by now a familiar story in America: He became fed up with the harassment that followed the 2020 election.
But this was no ordinary exit.
On the brink of November’s midterm elections, it was not just Hamilton who up and quit this month but also the only other full-time election worker in rural Gillespie County. The sudden emptying of an entire local elections department came less than 70 days before voters start casting ballots.
By the middle of last week, no one was left at the darkened and locked elections office in a metal building annex off the main road in Fredericksburg. A “Your Vote Counts” poster hung in a window by the door.
A scramble is now underway to train replacements and ground them in layers of new Texas voting laws that are among the strictest in the U.S. That includes assistance from the Texas Secretary of State, whose spokesperson could not recall a similar instance in which an elections office was racing to start over with a completely new staff. But the headaches don’t stop there.
The resignations have more broadly made the county of roughly 27,000 residents — which overwhelmingly backed former President Donald Trump in 2020 — an extraordinary example of the fallout resulting from threats to election officials. Officials and voting experts worry that a new wave of harassment or worse will return in November, fueled by false claims of widespread fraud.
Hamilton, who has clashed with poll watchers in Gillespie County in past elections, said he didn’t want to go through it again.
“That’s the one thing we can’t understand. Their candidate won, heavily,” Hamilton said. “But there’s fraud here?”
The top House Republican Kevin McCarthy has given the clearest indication yet that the GOP intends to call Anthony Fauci to testify, should they gain control following the November elections:
Dr. Fauci lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of COVID.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) August 22, 2022
He owes the American people answers. A @HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable.
A magistrate judge indicates he may be leaning towards keeping the affidavit justifying the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago away from public eyes, HuffPost reports.
Bruce Reinhart is the magistrate judge handling requests from news organizations and others to make public the affidavit justifying the FBI’s entry into Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, where they were investigating potentially unlawful keeping of government secrets by former president Donald Trump. At a court hearing last week, he sounded sympathetic towards at least partially releasing the document, but now seems to have changed his mind. Here’s more from HuffPost:
“Having carefully reviewed the affidavit before signing the warrant, I was — and am — satisfied that the facts sworn by the affiant are reliable,” Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in a 13-page order based on a hearing in his courtroom last week.
Reinhart said during the hearing that he was leaning toward publicly releasing a redacted version of the affidavit — with names of FBI agents, witnesses and investigative details blacked out. He ordered prosecutors to provide him such redactions by Thursday, and said he would then decide whether to release that version or propose his own.
On Monday, Reinhart said he may decide prosecutors were correct when they argued that the necessary redactions would make what was left lacking in both content and context.
“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the government,” Reinhart wrote.
Releasing the entire affidavit, the judge said, would hurt the ongoing criminal investigation by revealing names of witnesses and investigative techniques, which could lead to “obstruction of justice and witness intimidation or retaliation” in the first instance and damage prosecutors’ ability to continue gathering information in the second.
Both of those arguments were laid out by Department of Justice lawyers in their written filing and during last week’s hearing. Reinhart added one new argument of his own: that releasing the affidavit would make public details about the physical layout of Mar-a-Lago, which would make the Secret Service’s job of protecting the former president more difficult.
“This factor weighs in favor of sealing,” he wrote.
Updated
The Democratic-controlled Congress has in recent months managed to pass major legislation addressing health care costs, fighting climate change and boosting semiconductor production, on top of last year’s Covid-19 relief bill and overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure.
So what will Democrats do when they return from recess to start what could be their final months controlling both chambers of Congress? According to Politico, the Senate will likely be stepping up the process of confirming federal judges, giving Joe Biden the chance to leave his mark on the nation’s judiciary.
While the confirmations wouldn’t undo the conservative majority on the supreme court, appointing Democratic-aligned judges to the lower ranks of the federal judiciary improves the chances that laws and policies from across the country survive court challenges. It’s also a tacit recognition that high inflation and Biden’s low approval ratings mean the party could lose control of the chamber in a few months time, and the new Republican majority may stop confirming judges altogether.
Here’s more from Politico:
While President Joe Biden has seen more judges confirmed at this point in his presidency than his three White House predecessors, some Senate Democrats and progressive advocacy groups want the chamber to start picking up the pace. Judicial confirmations will come to a standstill if Republicans win back the Senate in the fall, they warn.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) put it this way: “Democrats really need to step up on judges.”
Warren added that she’s spoken to Majority Whip and Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), “who I know feels the urgency of this moment, and he was talking about how much we’re going to have to double down in September,” she said. “We need more days, more hearings, more everything but we need to get these judges through.”
The prospect of a September dominated by judicial confirmations comes as the Senate continues to openly mull the rest of its fall legislative agenda. The chamber is expected to vote again on legislation to cap the cost of insulin and could take up a same-sex marriage bill. Government funding also runs out at the end of September. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Democratic leaders say they’ve reached an agreement to include permitting reform as part of a funding package to keep the government open.
But the focus on judges, in addition to a boon for progressives who want to see a faster pace, is a clear sign that the legislative agenda is slowing down ahead of November. Nominees had to compete for summer floor time with Democrats’ other priorities, including their signature climate, prescription and tax package, legislation to increase semiconductor manufacturing and a veterans health care bill. With those bills now sent to Biden’s desk, the Senate can spend more floor time on confirmations.
The top Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress are pressing the Biden administration to allow them access to documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound earlier this month, Politico reports.
The request comes from the so-called “gang of eight”, which consists of the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate, plus the heads of the chambers’ intelligence committees.
Here’s more from the story:
Privately, Capitol Hill aides have expressed frustration about the fact that Congress has learned little about the investigation into the former president, especially since it reportedly involves matters of national security. The executive branch has historically resisted congressional inquiries about ongoing law-enforcement actions, arguing that it could compromise the investigation.
The FBI search warrant unsealed earlier this month revealed that the Justice Department was investigating potential violations of the Espionage Act, the Presidential Records Act and obstruction of justice in relation to Trump’s storage of White House materials at his home.
At a hearing last week in south Florida, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, Jay Bratt, said the investigation is still in its “early stages.”
James Comer, the Republican most likely to become the party’s top watchdog in the House of Representatives if the party takes the chamber in the upcoming midterms, has joined in the chorus threatening Fauci with investigations, even if he leaves his job:
Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight.
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) August 22, 2022
The American people deserve transparency and accountability about how government officials used their taxpayer dollars, and @GOPoversight will deliver.
Discussed this and more on @foxandfriends👇 pic.twitter.com/deZtP2RJ5a
Republican senator Lindsey Graham has been fighting a subpoena compelling his appearance before a Georgia special grand jury, and over the weekend won a temporary reprieve.
A judge hearing the case has given a timeline for both Graham and the district attorney in Fulton County, which is investigating the attempt by Donald Trump’s allies to disrupt the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, to settle the matter, Politico reports:
BREAKING: Judge overseeing Lindsey Graham effort to quash Fulton County subpoena sets expedited schedule to resolve remaining dispute. pic.twitter.com/u3dn6INBtp
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 22, 2022
Rand Paul threatens Fauci with investigation
Perhaps to the surprise of no one, Kentucky senator Rand Paul greeted Anthony Fauci’s resignation news with a threat of investigation and a hefty dose of conspiracy theory as to Covid-19’s origins.
He tweeted: “Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak.”
Yet another Democrat has cast aspersions on Joe Biden’s plans to run for a second term. This time, it’s Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
In an appearance on Fox News, he said he would “duck the question” of whether the president should stand again in 2024:
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) when asked Friday whether or not Biden should run in 2024:
— The Recount (@therecount) August 22, 2022
“I’m gonna duck that question, if you don’t mind. We don’t have any candidates yet for 2024, and I’m not picking amongst them.” pic.twitter.com/kX1ZzAFNzU
Earlier this month, Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney found herself in hot water for saying she didn’t think Biden would be back on the ballot:
McConnell downplays Republican midterms expectations
The art of politics is often as much about setting expectations as describing reality and so any predictions from people like senate minority leader Mitch McConnell should be taken with a pinch of salt.
But the Republican party boss does seem to be tamping down ideas of an easy capture of the senate by his side this November.
He told NBC News:
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
McConnell added: “Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”
Read analysis of his remarks here on the Washington Post.
The day so far
The United States’ top infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci announced he would step down in December, ending his nearly four decades of service after becoming a national name during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, a new poll showed Republicans coalescing around Donald Trump following the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, while Democrats got a surprise enthusiasm boost.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump’s legal problems could actually hurt him among Republicans, The Washington Post posited, suggesting that other GOP candidates could offer their voters the same policies with less political baggage.
Conservatives cheered Fauci’s departure announcement. He’d earned their enmity for breaking with Trump during his administration, as well for his policies meant to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Rusty Bowers, formerly a top Arizona Republican state lawmaker who was ousted by GOP voters for defying Trump, talked to The Guardian about his decision.
With Covid-19 less of a concern for many Americans, Anthony Fauci’s public profile has decreased recently, but that doesn’t mean conservative have let go of their issues with him.
Many, in fact, cheered his departure. Here’s Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation:
Commissar Fauci’s reign should have ended long ago. pic.twitter.com/udPyr5BmkU
— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) August 22, 2022
Rightwing radio host Buck Sexton linked his decision to the upcoming midterms:
Sociopathic liar and political hack Fauci is making a run for it before Republicans can take over the House https://t.co/90utmxYYxm
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) August 22, 2022
Diamond and Silk, the erstwhile Fox News guests who are now with Newsmax, had one of the more outlandish reactions:
Fauci doesn't need to just step down, he should be arrested for Crimes Against Humanity!
— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) August 22, 2022
The departure of Anthony Fauci comes amid what is looking to be a major shake-up of American public health institutions. Last week, the head of the CDC announced reforms to the agency, which was criticized for its response to Covid-19 and, more recently, monkeypox:
The head of the top US public health agency on Wednesday announced a shake-up of the organization, intended to make it more nimble.
The planned changes at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – CDC leaders call it a “reset” – come amid ongoing criticism of the agency’s response to Covid-19, monkeypox and other public health threats. The changes include internal staffing moves and steps to speed up data releases.
The CDC’s director, Dr Rochelle Walensky, told the agency’s staff about the changes on Wednesday. It is a CDC initiative, and was not directed by the White House or other administration officials, she said.
“I feel like it’s my responsibility to lead this agency to a better place after a really challenging three years,” Walensky told the Associated Press.
The enmity that developed between Anthony Fauci and Donald Trump – along with, by extension, his supporters – was a striking symptom of how Covid-19 managed to widen America’s partisan divisions even further. Ramon Antonio Vargas reported in May that Fauci said he would not stick around if Trump returns to the White House:
The US’s top infectious disease expert has said he would resign if Donald Trump retakes the presidency in 2024.
Dr Anthony Fauci bluntly said “no” when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked him during an interview on Sunday if he would want to stay on as the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the event that voters gave Trump a second stint as president.
Fauci, 81, has led the institute since 1984, serving under seven presidents. He said he wasn’t confident in Trump’s ability to lead the country through a public health emergency like the coronavirus pandemic, and his administration’s response at the beginning of the crisis in early 2020 was “less than optimal”.
Anthony Fauci to step down as chief US medical adviser in December
Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top doctor who became perhaps the most recognizable face of the White House’s response to Covid-19 during the Trump and Biden administrations, announced that he will step down from his post in December.
“I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as the position of Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career,” Fauci said in a statement.
He highlighted his 38 years heading NIAID and his work combatting several diseases, including HIV/Aids, Zika and Ebola, in addition to Covid-19. While he appeared alongside Donald Trump in the news conferences during the pandemic’s early days, the president and his supporters soured on Fauci, and Trump at one point referred to him as “a disaster”.
“I am particularly proud to have served as the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden since the very first day of his administration” Fauci wrote.
In a statement, Biden said, “Because of Dr Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved. As he leaves his position in the US government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next. Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work. I extend my deepest thanks for his public service.”
While Fauci had previewed a potential retirement last month, he clarified that he is “not retiring”.
“After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field,” Fauci said.
Updated
What might a country that’s on the wrong track look like? You could argue it would be a place where schools resorted to issuing panic buttons in case an emergency – like a mass shooting – occurs.
The Associated Press has published a report on the spread of these technologies, which have existed for years and are remain in demand as schools look to reassure parents and students following recent massacres such as at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Here’s more from the AP’s report:
Multiple states now mandate or encourage the buttons, and a growing number of districts are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars per school for them — part of a widespread scramble to beef up school security and prevent the next tragedy. The spending spree includes metal detectors, security cameras, vehicle barriers, alarm systems, clear backpacks, bullet-resistant glass and door-locking systems.
Critics say school officials are scrambling to show action — any action — to worried parents ahead of the new school year, but in their haste may be emphasizing the wrong things. It’s “security theater,” said Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services. Instead, he said, schools should focus on making sure teachers are implementing basic safety protocols such as ensuring doors aren’t propped open.
The attack in Uvalde illustrated the shortcomings of panic-alert systems. Robb Elementary School had implemented an alert app, and when an attacker approached the school, a school employee did send a lockdown alert. But not all teachers received it because of poor Wi-Fi or phones that were turned off or in a drawer, according to an investigation by the Texas Legislature. And those who did may not have taken it seriously, the Legislature’s report said: The school sent out frequent alerts related to Border Patrol car chases in the area.
The NBC News poll released today bolsters the case that something is afoot when it comes to the trends shaping the midterms.
For one, it finds most voters naming “threats to democracy” as the most important issue facing the country, which polls at 21 percent compared to the 16 percent tallied for “cost of living”. In the previous survey conducted in May, that concern had taken the top spot.
It also found 58% of voters disapproving of the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, versus the 38% who approve. Considering Republicans generally oppose abortion rights, that would signal strength for the Democrats. Indeed, the survey finds the party’s voters nearly even with the GOP in terms of enthusiasm, with 66% of Democrats showing high interest in the midterms’ outcome, against 68% of Republicans.
Democrats were expected to have a rough election, as the party controlling the White House and Congress historically does in their first midterm, but the surge in enthusiasm is an unusual sign of Democratic strength. Nonetheless, the party has plenty of problems. Joe Biden’s approval rating is a grim 42 percent in the poll, while 74 percent of respondents said they viewed the country as on the wrong track – both data points that auger poorly for the party in power.
Signs are mounting that Roe v. Wade’s overturning could have a transformative effect on the dynamics of the midterm elections and potentially give Democrats an advantage, Lauren Gambino reports:
For years, Democrats warned that abortion rights were under grave threat. Across the US, antiabortion activists in red states chipped away at access and pushed for conservative judges to secure their gains. Yet for many Americans, the prospect of losing the constitutional right to abortion that had existed since 1973 remained worrying but remote.
That all changed in June, when in Dobbs v Jackson, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the 49-year-old ruling which had established the right.
Since then, bans have taken effect in at least 10 states. Republicans are rushing ahead with new restrictions and stirring fears that other rights, including same-sex marriage and access to contraception, could be vulnerable too.
Arizona Republican Rusty Bowers stood up to Donald Trump and was booted from his long-held seat in the state legislature for it. Ed Pilkington traveled to the southwest state to find out more about what happened:
Rusty Bowers is headed for the exit. After 18 years as an Arizona lawmaker, the past four as speaker of the state’s house of representatives, he has been unceremoniously shown the door by his own Republican party.
Last month he lost his bid to stay in the Arizona legislature in a primary contest in which his opponent was endorsed by Donald Trump. The rival, David Farnsworth, made an unusual pitch to voters: the 2020 presidential election had not only been stolen from Trump, he said, it was satanically snatched by the “devil himself”.
Bowers was ousted as punishment. The Trump acolytes who over the past two years have gained control of the state’s Republican party wanted revenge for the powerful testimony he gave in June to the January 6 hearings in which he revealed the pressure he was put under to overturn Arizona’s election result.
This is a very Arizonan story. But it is also an American story that carries an ominous warning for the entire nation.
Six hours after the Guardian interviewed Bowers, Liz Cheney was similarly ousted in a primary for her congressional seat in Wyoming. The formerly third most powerful Republican leader in the US Congress had been punished too.
Updated
Donald Trump has been busy in court following the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, and The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has the latest on what his lawyers are looking to accomplish:
Donald Trump is strongly considering seeking the appointment of a special court official to determine whether materials that the FBI seized from his Florida resort can be used in a criminal investigation, according to his lead attorney Jim Trusty and two sources familiar with the matter.
The motion – if actually filed – would be the first formal legal action by the former president after federal agents last week confiscated about 30 boxes of highly-sensitive documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort in an investigation into the unauthorized retention of government secrets.
Trump would argue that the court should appoint a special master – usually a retired lawyer or judge – because the FBI potentially seized privileged materials in the search, and the justice department should not itself decide what it can use in its investigation, the sources said.
Here’s a counterfactual to the case that the Mar-a-Lago search caused Republicans to rally around Donald Trump.
The Washington Post has released its quarterly rankings of who the Republican presidential front runners are for 2024, and while acknowledging that Trump is indeed the leader in the polls, they conclude, for the first time, that he’s no longer the most likely nominee. Unseating him is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, which isn’t too much of a surprise. DeSantis has been eagerly courting Trump voters and is seen as the ex-president’s most likely challenger.
But what knocked Trump from the top spot? The Post concludes that his ever-amounting legal troubles and other political baggage could ultimately turn voters off, and convince them to try someone else out. And unlike his previous successful White House run in 2016, several other politicians are today promising voters many of his same policies and rhetoric.
Polls show renewed Republican rally around Trump following Mar-a-Lago search
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month is potentially the most serious legal problem yet for Donald Trump, but it has also brought Republicans together around the former president. His approval rating ticked up in an NBC News poll released over the weekend, confirming an earlier survey that found GOP voters viewing him more favorably following the search. That Trump was planning a second run for the White House has been known practically since he left office, but the big outstanding question now is whether he will declare a new campaign before the November midterm elections – and whether the investigation into his handling of classified materials will change his plans.
Here’s what we can expect today:
Expect more legal wrangling over Lindsey Graham’s subpoena from a special grand jury in Georgia investigating election meddling by Trump officials. Over the weekend, a court temporarily stayed the summons, giving the Republican senator a reprieve from appearing before the panel.
A federal judge has again signaled his willingness to unseal at least part of the affidavit justifying the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, though a portion of it is likely to be redacted.
Congress is in recess and Joe Biden is on vacation, which is why Washington is so quiet.
