The Secret Affidavit: The Justice Department yesterday filed a 13-page pleading in federal court asking that the affidavit used to justify the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is too sensitive to be released and contains information that, if public, could damage their investigation.

  Justice Department lawyers argued in the filing that, “the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps.” 

  Journalists, Republican politicians and even Trump have asked for the release of the document. Whether to release the affidavit is ultimately up to the federal magistrate who reviewed it and signed the search warrant.

  Justice Department lawyers also wrote that, “Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses.” 

  Trump has claimed that he declassified the materials found at his home with a kind of magic wave of the hand, but there appears to be no record of that. It’s a potential Constitutional dispute.

  It also appears that the FBI searchers scooped up three of Trump’s passports, two of them void. Trump complained about that on his Truth Social website and the feds said it was an accident and the passports would be returned. 

Rudy, Oh Rudy: Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was informed yesterday that he’s a target in the Georgia investigation of election interference. 

  Also yesterday, a federal judge in Atlanta has ruled that  Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify before the Fulton County grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Graham had claimed that his calls to Georgia election officials after the 2019 vote were legislative in nature and shielded from inquiry.

  For Giuliani, it’s an incredible turn of events. He was mayor of New York and once upon a time was a federal prosecutor who sent mobsters to prison. He’s scheduled to appear before a grand jury tomorrow in Atlanta and is likely to claim attorney-client privilege if he’s asked questions about his dealings with Trump.

  Giuliani has already had his law license suspended in New York and a 33-page report by the state’s appellate court mentions “numerous false and misleading statements regarding the Georgia presidential election results” he made. It also digs into claims made by Giuliani about the Pennsylvania election, including that as many as 30,000 dead people cast ballots.

Cast Out: Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who’s been a loud voice and a star in the January 6^thCommittee investigation of the insurrection, faces almost certain loss today in her party’s primary to nominate a candidate for the next term.

  With fellow Republicans refusing to face the reality of Donald Trump’s attempt to pull off a coup in 2020, Cheney has been stripped of her House leadership position, thrown out of her state’s Republican party, and generally banished for attempting to defend democracy from the former president and his followers. 

  On almost every other count, she’s right in there among the most-hard-nosed Republicans. She opposes abortion and supports virtually unlimited gun rights. She voted against President Biden’s big bill to fight global warming, lower the cost of prescription drugs, raise taxes on rich corporations, and reduce the federal deficit. But because she’s seeking the truth about January 6^th, she’s gone.

 The War Zone: A huge explosion today rocked a Russian ammunition depot on the occupied Crimean Peninsula, just a week after the destruction of fighter jets at an air base in the same region.  

  Ukraine says it was the work of an elite unit operating behind enemy lines. Claiming victimhood, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the explosion was an “act of sabotage.” 

The Obit Page: Pete Carril, who coached men’s basketball at Princeton for 29 years with teams comprised of actual students playing a textbook game, died on Monday. He was 92.

  Unable to award athletic scholarships in the Ivy League, Carril made magic out of players who were also at Princeton to go to college. He had only one losing season with a record of 514-261. Carril’s teams won 13 Ivy League titles, made 11 appearances in the NCAA tournament, and two in the NIT, winning it in 1975. 

— Nicholas Evans, the British journalist who wrote “The Horse Whisperer,” the novel that broke publishing and movie records and was a best seller around the world, died on August 9th of a heart attack at his London home. He was 72. The 1995 novel, a weepy tale about employing the art of calming a horse to heal a family struck by the death of a child, was the subject of a publishers’ bidding war before it was even finished. 

The Spin Rack: More than two million infant swings and rockers bearing the names MamaRoo and RockaRoo were recalled Monday because their straps are believed to pose a danger of strangulation after one baby died and another had to be untangled. —  Dr. Ricardo Cruciani, the 68-year-old neurologist found guilty last month of rape and sexually assaulting patients, appears to have hanged himself with a bedsheet at New York’s Riker’s Island jail. He was awaiting sentencing, which could have been life in prison. — Investigators have determined that the only way the gun could have fired in the fatal shooting on the set of the movie “Rust” is that actor Alec Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger. Baldwin says he didn’t. What has not been answered is who brought live rounds on the set and put them in the gun.

Heat: The US will have a central region of extreme heat by the year 2053 in which the temperature hits 125 degrees at least one day a year, according to a new report. The area affected would stretch from northern Texas and Louisiana to Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin and affecting a population of 100 million people. 

-30-