Today's News: Going Nuclear

Ain't we havin' some fun now?  

So Garland threw down the gauntlet to Trump - put up or shut up. 

He told Trump he was applying to the court to release the search warrant and evidence list from Monday's raid, and dared Trump to oppose it - which I fully expect he will try to do somehow.

NEW: A federal judge in Florida has ordered the federal government to give the filing to Trump immediately and then advise the court by 3 p.m. on Friday if he will object to the motion to unseal the warrant. https://t.co/XyqXHh29Fg

— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) August 11, 2022

Two days ago, I said this raid was either: 

-a major national security scandal about a trove of top-secret documents that Trump was trying to sell to Putin or the Saudis; OR 

 -a nothing-burger Got Junk? cleanup of old presidential souvenirs that the Trumps had been too lazy to box up themselves and get to the National Archives. 

On Tuesday, it seemed like the nothing-burger story might be credible, By Wednesday the GOP started realizing maybe it wasn't so they started smearing the FBI. 

Today, the seriousness of the national security scandal came into focus.

In his nightly newsletter, CNN's Brian Stelter provides a timeline of commentary from Garland's press conference at 3 pm. Up until 8 pm, it was business as usual for the GOP and their sycophant networks -- defund the FBI, Trump is just a memento guy, "This was just a fishing expedition." etc. 

Then at 8 pm, BOOM - the Washington Post broke the news that the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for stolen nuclear documents. 

All of a sudden, the story changed - even though Fox News still tried to minimize it, the whole world took the story much more seriously:

There are reports that when they raided the place, the FBI was looking for stolen nuclear secrets.
On the off chance it’s true, we’ve got technicians making sure our ‘caps lock’ buttons are working.

— Oak Bay Gazette 📰 🇺🇦 (@OakBayGazette) August 12, 2022

The article does not say what kind of nuclear documents, whether about American nuclear weapons or other nations'. It also does not say whether the documents relate to the deployment or the design of nuclear weapons. All that makes a difference in classification. 1/

— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) August 12, 2022

https://t.co/bUX0bRuZv7

— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) August 12, 2022

Government officials have expressed concern that allowing highly classified materials to remain at Mr. Trump’s home could leave them vulnerable to efforts by foreign adversaries to acquire them, a person familiar with DOJ thinking said. https://t.co/es0aah5WpN

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 12, 2022

1/3 Sources tell me the FBI took dozens of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago including TS/SCI information. That stands for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. It is among the most top secret level.

— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) August 12, 2022

3/3 The storage room – I am told – is about 10x6 feet and there “were boxes everywhere.”

— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) August 12, 2022

*Sighs, moves goalposts back to actual storage of nuclear weapons in closet*

— PerilousPlatypus (@PerilPlaty) August 12, 2022

11. But the point here is it is NO WONDER that the FBI executed a warrant. The focus now should be not on the search, but why the 🤬 Trump hung on to these documents, and why his supporters think that is very legal and very cool /END

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 12, 2022

"We fully support you Mr. Trump and we will defend whatever caused the FBI to raid your home to a hilt!"

Trump: pic.twitter.com/NUda6Dtwf7

— Nied (@B_Nied) August 11, 2022

Now people are also remembering all the sketchy Trump and Kushner behaviour we saw ever since 2016. With Trump, its a truism that every story will always be worse than it looks at first:

Trumps presidency started w Kushner discussing establishing a back channel at Russian embassy to avoid US intel, Flynn’s secret talks w Russia & potential Saudi nuke deal, Trump handing secrets to Russians at Oval Office. Naturally it would end w theft of nuclear secrets & more

— Olga Lautman 🇺🇦 (@OlgaNYC1211) August 12, 2022

2016 long game https://t.co/CPMeT8qAT2

— Kathleen Herzog (@KthlnHrzg) August 12, 2022

It’s not just Trump. It’s every single person who could obtain access to those records. And there have been so many financial interactions between the Trump family and the Saudis, to the tune of billions, I can’t help but be uncomfortable.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) August 12, 2022

there’s a nonzero chance the feds found out about nuke shit in a safe because trump strutted around to people at bedminster and boasted he had nuke shit in a safe

— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) August 12, 2022

Maybe now they have.

— Heather Thomas (@HeatherThomasAF) August 12, 2022

Trump also met with Orban at CPAC.

Then there’s the 2 billion Saudi Arabia invested in Jared Kushner’s private equity firm last year, even though nobody understood why they did it. The House Oversight Committee recently started an investigation into that as well.

— Jax Persists (@LadyJayPersists) August 12, 2022

Remember that Trump blabbed closely guarded secrets about Israel's penetration of ISIS in order to impress the Russian ambassador and Russian foreign minister? https://t.co/sCgMDbOV5d

— David Frum (@davidfrum) August 12, 2022

Yeah, my gut says this is it. This was the game plan all along. https://t.co/Z67aSAwdQw

— Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) (@HC_Richardson) August 12, 2022

Why would Trump want to keep nuclear documents?
It is time to review the 2019 House Oversight Committee’s stunning allegations of nuclear corruption between Trump World (Flynn Kushner etc) & Saudi/Qatar.

My thread from 2019: https://t.co/J123fJp34C

— Jed Shugerman 🇺🇦 (@jedshug) August 12, 2022

He's been selling secrets. Just wait and see. Kremlin has a lockdown on the story. Nothing at all in TASS and the reporting in other media has apparently been suppressed. Looks like operation Mar-a-Lago was penetrated and the Kremlin is in damage control. Enjoy the two-hop rule.

— Tim Hogan 浩勤 (@TimInHonolulu) August 11, 2022

As I understand it, the Two Hop Rule in an investigation of a subject allows additional investigation of people contacted by the subject and also of anyone THOSE people contact.

And boy oh boy if his planned trial defense to a serious federal felony indictment is “they planted this signals intelligence and these nuclear documents on me” he is well and truly cooked https://t.co/v953hh51PP

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) August 12, 2022

To reiterate👇🏽 https://t.co/XyxeIYuy6s

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 12, 2022

Something tells me Republicans are really going to regret not giving Merrick Garland a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) August 12, 2022

not that it matters but if obama left the white house with so much as a stray post-it note stuck to the bottom of his shoes they'd try to put him in gitmo

— ya girl (@goldengateblond) August 12, 2022

It’s only “espionage” if it comes from the Espionage region of France. Otherwise, it’s “sparkling treason.”

— Lestje B. Juddged (@JuddgyOne) August 12, 2022

Gee Ari, I guess Garland just didn't want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud. https://t.co/MLxmNLBUOk

— zeddy (@Zeddary) August 12, 2022

Let me get this straight libs. When you laughed at him for not knowing about the nuclear triad he was unpresidential. But then, when he takes time and effort to better himself and study the nukes on his own time in his own home it suddenly becomes a problem? Hypocrisy much…

— Conner Hafen (@Conblob) August 12, 2022

Here's the tweet of the day:

Launch code: c0vf3f3

— Tim Dickinson (@7im) August 12, 2022

Moving on to the latest news from Ukraine, the impact of that Ukraine strike on the Crimea airfield is significant:

Ukraine has archived a mega goal. Ukrainians have attacked Crimea: Russia’s “holy trophy” and “invulnerable fortress”. The attacked took place amid daylight with visible devastating results. This is why the reaction of Russian tourists is so precious: they are overwhelmed /2

— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) August 9, 2022

Here is the British Defense Intelligence summary:

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 12 August 2022

Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/dhjmqN4njE

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/RDQ0ItNA6c

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) August 12, 2022

The spirit of Ukraine is extraordinary:

This extraordinary poll result is worthy of note. Six months into the war, and having experienced the best that Russia could produce militarily, Ukrainians almost unanimously believe that they can win https://t.co/Wcy7cqR8A7

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) August 11, 2022