THE CASE AGAINST TRUMP: The judge in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case released a 165-page filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith in which he lays out his case against the former president, saying Trump “resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”

  The document argues that Trump acted as a private citizen running for office, not as President, leaving him uncovered by last June’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity. The document says, “Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.”

  Trump immediately posted on his Truth Social website that he’s being persecuted by the Biden/Harris administration. He wrote, “The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.” 

   Smith’s voluminous brief describes plots by Trump and his allies, including efforts to strong-arm state officials to overturn election results, create false slates of electors for key states he had lost, and to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block certification of the election.

  The Supreme Court ruled that a president, Trump in that case, is immune from prosecution when acting in official capacity. The prosecution brief says that, “Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant

acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.”

  The brief recounts that long before the election Trump laid groundwork for declaring victory even if he were to lose and followed through with that on election day. 

  Told by his 2020 campaign staff that he had no legal recourse, the brief says Trump then turned to a private attorney … not a government lawyer … “who was

willing to falsely claim victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

  In one damning moment, according to the brief, when Trump was told he would be unable to prove election fraud in court he responded, “The details don’t matter.”  In another, an aide tells Trump during the January 6^th insurrection that Vice President Mike pence was in danger for his life and Trump responded, “So what?” 

THE WAR ROOM: Israel says eight of its soldiers were killed in ground combat in southern Lebanon as the military attempts to clear stocks of weapons and tunnels that hide and provide cover for movement of Hezbollah fighters.

  At least nine people were killed in Beirut by an Israeli strike on a health authority building.

  The question still hangs in the air as to when or how Israel will retaliate against Iran for Tuesday’s missile barrage. 

  Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under some internal pressure to wipe out Iran’s nuclear and oil production facilities. Israel’s standard procedure is to hit back harder than it’s been hit and a year after the October 7^th massacre as well as a year of rocket attacks coming out of Lebanon, Israel could go bigger than ever

  There’s a chance Israel might do nothing until Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year holiday, ends tomorrow at sundown.

AFTERMATH: After surveying damage in the Carolinas yesterday, President Biden is expected today to visit Georgia and Florida. 

  The number of people killed as risen to 190. “In a moment like this, we put politics aside,” Biden said on Wednesday during his visit to the Carolinas, where the storm nearly destroyed whole communities. He said, “Our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly as we can.”

IT’S POLITICAL: Former republican member of Congress Liz Cheney, one of the most prominent Republicans to endorse Kamala Harris, is set to campaign with the Vice President today in Ripon, Wisconsin, where the Republican Party has its roots. The two plan to make an appeal to loyal Republicans who are repelled by Donald Trump.

  Continuing his anti-immigrant campaign, Donald Trump yesterday in an interview with the right wing NewsNation said he would deport the Haitians living under protected status in the Springfield, Ohio area. He said, “You have to remove the people, and you have to bring them back to their own country. They are, in my opinion, it’s not legal.”

  Trump also backed out of an interview he agreed to do with Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes” for an election special next week. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung posted on X that Trump had never agreed to the interview and called the program’s version of events “fake news.”  

THE SPIN RACK: Mark Chavez, one of the two doctors charged in connection with the drug death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry’s pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. — A 500 pound World War II bomb dropped by the US exploded yesterday beneath the runway of an airport in Japan once used by Kamikaze pilots. — The Annual “Fat Bear Week”, at Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska, a competition to pick the bear that put on the most weight for hibernation, was delayed after a male bear, #469, killed a female, #402, on live stream under the observation of a webcam. 

BELOW THE FOLD: A prominent American woman is about to publish a memoir in which she defends the right to abortion. She writes, “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.”

  The author is Melania Trump, wife of the former president who takes credit for ending the universal right to abortion.

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