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MORNING REPORT

Monday, August 14

by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch

Will Trump be indicted in Georgia this week?

Former President Trump and his lawyers this week have Georgia on their minds as a prosecutor investigating efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election — and Trump's role, along with allies — begins Tuesday to present her case to a grand jury.

Trump has been charged in three other criminal cases — one in New York and two federal cases, one of which alleges conspiracy to try to subvert the election — and many observers familiar with the Georgia evidence believe the case investigated for two years and brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) could result in the former president's fourth felony indictment (The Hill, The New York Times, Reuters). Trump has pleaded not guilty in each case.   

Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals, including several people involved in a voting systems breach in rural Coffee County, Ga. She and her team have text messages and emails connecting members of Trump's legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach, CNN reported. 

Willis has been eyeing conspiracy and racketeering charges, which would allow her to bring a case against multiple defendants, including for felony computer trespass. Her wide-ranging criminal probe focuses on efforts to pressure election officials, the plot to put forward fake electors for the Electoral College tally of states, and the voting systems event. Trump was audiotaped in Georgia asking state election officials including the Republican secretary of state to "find" enough votes, which would deliver the state's 16 electoral votes to him.

"I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," Trump said on the phone call.

Trump allies who took part in each of those alleged schemes believe they will face charges this week in the Peach State, and Trump also believes he will be charged in the case, CNN reported.

Trump, speaking in New Hampshire last week, used innuendo and unfounded assertions to dismiss Willis, who is Black, as "racist."

I probably have another [indictment]," Trump told his supporters.

"They say there's a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta. She's a racist," he added. "And they say, I guess, they say that she was after a certain gang, and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang, or a gang member. And this is the person that wants to indict me."

Trump has described federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who manages the government's election prosecution in the nation's capital, as biased. "There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge 'assigned' to the ridiculous freedom of speech/fair elections case," he wrote on social media before she received heightened security this month. Last week she warned that the former president's First Amendment rights are not "absolute" when it comes to public disclosure of trial evidence and witnesses. The former president has repeatedly described Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith as "deranged."

The bottom line: Trump has a menu of potential political and legal avenues in which he could escape conviction or punishment as the defendant in the Justice Department's prosecutions, which could come to trial next year. If he wins the presidency, he could clear himself or halt the investigations. But if elected, he has less overt legal sway to dismiss a state criminal case, if it alleges he conspired with allies to try to cling to power.

Geoff Duncan, former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, who confirmed he will give closed-door testimony on Tuesday before the Fulton County grand jury, told The Washington Post he looks forward to cooperating. "I will certainly answer any questions put in front of me," he said. "Let's hear the truth and nothing but the truth about Donald Trump's actions and the surrounding cast of characters around him."

▪ The Associated Press: How Willis oversaw what might be the most sprawling legal case against Trump.

▪ The Hill: How a Georgia Trump indictment would differ from the federal Jan. 6 case.

▪ The Hill: Trump blames Democrats for his mounting legal fees, paid for by a super PAC supporting his campaign.

The Hill's The Memo, Niall Stanage: Legal chaos engulfs President Biden and Trump.
The Hill: Tracking Trump's tangled web of legal troubles. 
The Hill: Long-shot bid for Trump courtroom cameras highlights need for public access.
The Hill: Trump steals the show at the Iowa State Fair as legal troubles swirl. 
The Hill: Trump creates a spectacle with his debate guessing game.

Leading the Day

➤ POLITICS 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) allies are banking on the candidate to perform well at the first Republican primary debate of the year later this month as his presidential campaign shows signs of struggling. Earlier this week, DeSantis's campaign announced a new campaign manager, following news of multiple sets of layoffs — part of a campaign reset in an effort to boost DeSantis in the polls. 

It's unclear whether Trump, who is dominating the GOP primary field in the polls, will attend the debate. The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Trump leading the field with 54.2 percent support, while DeSantis trails at 15.1 percent. Every other candidate is polling at single digits. However, DeSantis's allies expect him to face attacks from the rest of the GOP field gunning for second place. 

"In particular, this is going to be the Ron DeSantis show," said New Hampshire House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R), who has endorsed the governor's presidential bid. "Every single one of them will be gunning for Gov. DeSantis and he'll have to pull the pins on those grenades and lob them back as quickly as he can. Hopefully at the end of the day he'll come away with two or three scalps, if not six or seven."

DeSantis, who like the rest of the Republican presidential field, spent his weekend at the Iowa State Fair, faced tough crowds — many of them supporters of the former president (The Hill).

"We love Trump!" the crowd chanted while DeSantis flipped pork chops at the fair, while others joined in silently with "Trump won" hats or signs. Someone also flew above the fairgrounds with a banner that read "Be likable, Ron!"

▪ The Hill: The GOP faces a judicial showdown over Alabama's congressional map.

▪ The Hill: Some Republican strategists worry that if Trump isn't on the ballot, it could spell a turnout disaster in 2024.

The long-running federal investigation of Hunter Biden entered a new phase with Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of a special counsel last week, after an initial plea deal failed at the last minute. Delaware's U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who has run the investigation from the beginning, now has full authority over the case. 

Republicans in Congress had long been calling for a special counsel to be appointed for the case, but now that Weiss has been elevated to the position, they publicly reacted with outrage. "David Weiss can't be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family's corruption," Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The reaction was notable, underscoring how Weiss, himself a Republican, has fallen out of favor in conservative circles, and how far the GOP will go to oppose the Justice Department at every turn.

But privately, The New York Times reports, some Republicans welcomed the appointment, which is sure to cause the president a political headache in the leadup to the 2024 election — especially if the case heads to trial (CNN).

▪ NBC News: Hunter Biden's growing legal woes throw a new wrench into the 2024 election. Democrats will have a harder time highlighting Trump's indictments, and the president's allies worry Republicans will try to exploit his son's predicament the same way they weaponized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails.

▪ PBS NewsHour: What the special counsel appointment means for the Hunter Biden case.

▪ The Hill: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): Hunter Biden special counsel does not please Democrats or Republicans.

Politics roundup: MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a Trump ally, will hold an "Election Crime Bureau Summit" in Springfield, Mo., on Tuesday and Wednesday. The false message at 2022's summit was that the 2020 election was stolen (News-Leader). … Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Trump's former White House doctor, allegedly threatened to beat a law enforcement officer and to bury a local sheriff in the next election prior to being arrested last month (Newsweek). … Quiller, a new startup founded by Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, aims to use artificial intelligence to give Democratic campaigns a first draft of fundraising emails (The Hill). … Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's campaign strategy in the 2024 Republican primaries: getting under Trump's skin (The Hill).

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Complexities at the border have left the Biden administration torn between the desires of the left and the cries of the right, and Blas Nuñez-Neto has helped the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) develop policies that have fueled criticism from both. As The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch reports, an administration that has been pushed toward the middle on immigration, Nuñez-Neto, 49, the acting assistant secretary for border and immigration policy, has been central to helping the Biden White House navigate a topic he sees as so often dominated by the extremes.

"I feel like these days in the world of immigration, that's actually not a bad place to be when both sides are kind of upset because it means that you're actually doing something that is middle of the road," he told The Hill in an interview in his office at the DHS campus. "This is one of those issues where the ends of the political spectrum tend to dominate the debate. But I think most Americans are actually somewhere in the middle."

▪ The Associated Press: What's behind the tentative U.S.-Iran agreement involving prisoners and frozen funds.

▪ Politico: How Postmaster General Louis DeJoy went frrom Trump villain to Biden's clean energy buddy.

There's been diplomatic courtship, there have been trilateral meetings on the sidelines of major global summits. Now the U.S., Japan and South Korea are trying to make their three-way relationship more permanent — with a particular focus on military matters with annual joint exercises. Biden is set to host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David on Friday, marking his first summit at the woodland retreat in Maryland.

Washington is looking to encourage closer cooperation with its two main allies in Asia amid shared concerns about China's growing power and North Korea's nuclear and missile programs (The Wall Street Journal and Reuters). 

"When the U.S., Japan and Korea are in lockstep, it changes the strategic landscape in a fundamental way," said Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan.

The Economist: Why Biden will host Japan and South Korea's leaders at Camp David.

In Focus / Sharp Takes

➤ INTERNATIONAL

With the world's attention on Ukraine's counteroffensive in the south, Russia has quietly launched a new offensive in the eastern Luhansk region, which analysts say is aimed at undermining the Ukrainian operation. As The Hill's Brad Dress reports, while the operation is much smaller in size and scope than the winter offensive, Russia is making some progress and appears to be narrowing in on the city of Kupiansk, where Ukraine ordered an evacuation this week. The Russian advance could pressure Ukraine in the midst of a major offensive of its own and divide its attention, but the wider aim is likely a political objective to contrast any progress in Luhansk against what appears to be a stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive in the southeastern Zaporizhizhia region. 

Ukraine's current counteroffensive could still have many months to run, but military strategists and policy makers across the West are already starting to think about next year's spring offensive, The Wall Street Journal reports, a shift that reflects a deepening understanding that, barring a major breakthrough, Ukraine's fight to eject Russia's invasion forces is likely to take a long time. When the counteroffensive began in the spring, optimists hoped Kyiv's troops could replicate last year's success. Instead, progress has been slow and painful, relying on small-unit tactics.

A Russian warship on Sunday fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the southwestern Black Sea as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark United Nations-brokered grain deal last month. Moscow claimed the ship was heading toward a Ukrainian port, but shipping data shows the vessel, bearing the flag of Palau, was bound for a port in Romania (Reuters). Meanwhile, seven people – including a 23-day-old baby girl – were killed in Russian shelling in Ukraine's southern Kherson region on Sunday (The Associated Press). 

▪ The Washington Post: Tensions between Ukraine and Poland over grain hint at exhaustion from the war.
▪ The New York Times: Would F-16s have made the difference in Ukraine's counteroffensive? Most military experts doubt it and say that Kyiv can still prevail without them.

▪ The Washington Post: Russia's new history textbooks teach President Vladimir Putin's alternate reality.

A week has passed since the deadline the West African bloc ECOWAS gave mutinous soldiers in Niger to reinstate the country's ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, or face military intervention, and the junta has not acquiesced. But no military action has been taken and analysts say the coup leaders appear to have gained the upper hand over the regional group that issued the threat.

On Thursday, the bloc ordered the deployment of a "standby" force to restore constitutional rule in Niger, with Nigeria, Benin, Senegal and Ivory Coast saying they would contribute troops. But it's unclear when, how or if the troops will deploy — and it could take weeks or months to set into motion (The Associated Press). Meanwhile, the junta has said it will prosecute Bazoum, who has been held under house arrest, for high treason over his exchanges with foreign heads of state and international organizations (Reuters).

▪ The Washington Post: As an ISIS affiliate expands in central Africa, escapees recount horrors.

▪ Bloomberg News: The party of assassinated Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has chosen journalist Christian Zurita to run in the nation's strained elections.

▪ The Associated Press: Ecuador was calm and peaceful. Now hitmen, kidnappers and robbers walk the streets.

➤ HAWAII & MAUI

The death toll in Maui this morning is 96 and morgues on the island were reportedly running out of room. Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez (D) launched a review of the decision-making and policies leading up to, during and after the wildfires on Maui, and also the wildfire-affected island of Hawaii. Survivors complained that the state's vaunted outdoor emergency siren alert system did not sound (CNN). They want answers about why so few in Lahaina were warned in time to find evacuation routes and escape the wildfires, which leveled the historic Maui town to smoldering ash on Tuesday, trapping many in their homes and vehicles (Star-Adviser; drone footage HERE).

The New York Times: How highly flammable, non-native grasses that took over after the closure of plantations caused the Maui wildfires to rage.

Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D) on Sunday told CNN that the ongoing priority is helping residents who lost loved ones, businesses that lost employees and a community that lost everything, through a combination of help from the state, federal government and charitable organizations. 

"From what I can see, the government agencies are there. They are going to set up areas where people can come and get their driver's license restored, all of those kinds of things," she said, "but, yes, they are going to need a lot of help. And, from what I saw, there is a pledge. President Biden called me directly to pledge his support, because we know that recovery will be long and the resources will be necessary. I have also heard from my Senate colleagues, [Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] and others, pledging their support. … There are still people who are unaccounted for. They need to be identified. There is a call for people to come in to provide DNA. So we are in the -- still, I would say, the initial phases, but we're going to do everything we can to provide the kind of support that people will need."

Biden was asked by a pool reporter on Sunday while bike riding in Delaware whether he will go to Maui to respond to the major disaster, the worst in the state's history. "We're looking at it," he replied. The White House said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell updated the president on the situation in Hawaii on Sunday evening.

Opinion

In Iowa, Mike Pence delivers a powerful message against Trump, by Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post columnist (who interviewed the former vice president).
The lost boys of the American right, by David French, columnist, The New York Times.

Where and When

The House will convene for a pro forma session at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. Lawmakers return to Washington Sept. 11. 

The Senate is out until Sept. 5 and will hold a pro forma session on Tuesday at noon.

The president will return to the White House at 11:25 a.m. from Rehoboth Beach, Del. Biden will have lunch with the vice president.

Vice President Harris and Biden will meet for lunch at 1 p.m. at the White House.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet at 7:30 p.m. virtually with Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and Republic of Korea Foreign Minister Park Jin.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be in Las Vegas today to speak at 1:45 p.m. PT at a training center operated by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union after touring its clean energy training programs where workers learn how to install solar panels. In her prepared remarks, she describes a risk of relying too much on a few countries for clean energy supplies (Reuters).

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 3 p.m.

Elsewhere

➤ ECONOMY & CONSUMERS

Many Americans who serve as caregivers are consumed by the immense cost of tending to ailing or aging family members, The Hill's Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech reports, and as the baby boomer generation ages, more Americans are in for a rude awakening as to just how expensive caring for older adults has become. According to data from the health research group Altarum Institute, the price of nursing home care increased by an average of 2.4 percent each year between 2012 and 2019, for a cumulative increase of 20.7 percent. 

▪ The Washington Post: Millennials, the "unluckiest generation" are faltering in a boomer-dominated market for homes.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: For consumers, costs for hazard insurance policies are up, or insurers are exiting certain markets, because of wildfires, storms and more frequent catastrophes. 

▪ The Hill: Legal challenges to Biden's student loan plans have borrowers anxious ahead of payment restart.

▪ The Associated Press: Yes, inflation is down. No, the Inflation Reduction Act doesn't deserve the credit.

▪ Vox: When it comes to the economy, everything's great and no one's happy. Why a supposedly good economy is making so many people miserable.

The Closer

And finally … Then-President Franklin Roosevelt signed the transformative Social Security Act, a cornerstone of his New Deal, into law on this day in 1935, creating a system of payroll taxes shared between employers and workers that guarantees pensions to those who retire at age 65. His Depression-era idea, controversial then and now, was that the current working generation would pay into the program and finance the retired generation's monthly allowance. About 25 percent of the U.S. population receives Social Security benefits today.

Fourteen months after enacting what he called a "splendid" law, FDR continued to sell it. He warned an audience of business leaders to cease "coercion in politics" with disinformation about the Social Security Act. 

"A few employers are spreading half-truths," Roosevelt continued, "that tell the workers only of the workers' contribution and fail to mention the employers' contribution. … They conceal from the workers the fact that for every dollar which the employee contributes, the employer also contributes a dollar, and that both dollars are held in a government trust fund solely for the social security of the workers," he added.

Despite attempts to bolster its solvency, the Social Security program faces a major long-term shortfall. Unless Congress acts, beneficiaries beginning in 2034 won't see the monthly benefits to which they are entitled, according to forecasts (The Wall Street Journal). The retirement age to receive full benefits continues to increase and many beneficiaries are claiming benefits much later in life to receive maximum payouts, often at age 70 (The History Channel).

Social Security payments are the primary source of retirement income for older people, and nearly one-third of older African Americans in families that receive Social Security rely on it for more than 90 percent of their family income, according to the AARP.