CONVICTIONS: Jack Smith, the special counsel who drove the indictment of Donald Trump on charges of illegally attempting to overturn the 2020 election, said in his final report released overnight that Trump would have been convicted at trial but his election win not made it impossible to continue the prosecution.

  The report documented Trump’s “unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”

  The report was released after Federal Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, who dismissed the secret documents case against Trump and blocked release of the Special Counsel report on that and the election meddling case, yesterday allowed release of the report about the election prosecution.

  Smith wrote that, “The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,”.

  The report noted Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts and department employees, which required the office to engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment.”

  In her five-page order Cannon said that lawyers for Trump and the Justice department would have to appear before her on Friday to argue whether the report on the secret documents also should be released. Outgoing Attorney Genera Merrick Garland has already said he would release the report only to congressional leaders because Cannon’s dismissal of the case is still under appeal.

THE HUNTER FILES: In an even more blistering report, the special counsel who pursued presidential son Hunter Biden criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” about his inquiry that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole.” 

  In his report released yesterday, Special Counsel David Weiss criticized “Politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system.” 

THE FIRE LINE: High winds today are expected to bring renewed threat of wildfires in Southern California. The danger is listed as “extreme” in. the Ventura area, half way from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, where a new fire broke out last night.

  The scramble is on in Los Angeles for food, clothing and most of all, a place to sleep. With 92,000 people still under evacuation orders, the displaced have scrambled to find shelter beds, hotel rooms, rentals, and spare rooms with friends. 

  For thousands of fire refugees whose homes burned to the foundation it is not a temporary inconvenience. Residents of the burn areas don’t know where they will live, work, or send their children to school.

  With competition for few available rentals, one real estate agent said there were 1,000 applications for a single house. Another broker said a house owner offered a home for rental at $40,000 a month, four times the already steep rate in Los Angeles.

  Some people are living in their cars, or camper vans in a city where thousands of homeless people already live that way.

ALL GONE: The list of architectural and cultural treasures lost in the Los Angeles wildfires continues to grow. The latest announcement is that an estimated 100,000 scores by the 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg were destroyed where they were stored in the Pacific Palisades by Belmont Music Publishers. Arrangements by other composers of Schoenberg pieces also burned as well as Schoenberg photographs, letters, posters, and books.  

  No original Schoenberg manuscripts were destroyed, but the loss will make it difficult for orchestras and other performers to access Schoenberg scores. 

  Other Losses:

• Will Rogers’ ranch house
• The  Pasadena Waldorf School. 
• The Robert Bridges House, brutalist architecture 
• The Bunny Museum in Altadena
• Andrew McNally House, Queen Anne style
• Theatre Palisades.
• The Zane Grey Estate.
• Moonshadow’s restaurant on the Coast highway

PRESS MATTERS: Reporters and editors at national newspapers are bracing themselves  for a potential legal and political onslaught under the coming Trump administration, even going to the extent of using encrypted internal communications to protect themselves and their sources, according to reporters David Enrich and Katie Robertson for The NY Times.

  Enrich and Robertson report that media organizations are evaluating whether they have enough insurance to buffer themselves against a wave of litigation from libel and slander to labor regulations. Trump has attacked the press as “fake news”  and called reporters “the enemy of the people.” He has repeatedly sued news organizations and in his first occupation of the White House sometimes barred disfavored journalists from attending events.

  Most recently Trump won a $15 million defamation settlement from ABC News after anchor George Stephanopoulos referred to him repeatedly as a rapist. While ABC could have fought the case on the grounds of Supreme Court precedent involving coverage of public figures, The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, decided to fold their hand.

THE WAR ROOM: Israel and Hamas are reported to be close to a  cease-fire and agreement to exchange 33 hostages living and dead for prisoners held in Israel. President-elect Donald Trump has threated that there will be “ALL HELL TO PAY” in the Middle East unless the hostages are freed by the time he become president, although a lot of hell has already been paid. 

THE SPIN RACK: Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, will face questioning in confirmation hearings today. Expect Democrats to drill down on his personal life. —  A 55-year-old man has been arrested and charged with stalking Indiana Fever star basketball player Caitlin Clark pursuing “an imaginary relationship.”

BELOW THE FOLD: Television cameras on Sunday caught Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver AJ Brown sitting on the bench, reading a book. The book was “Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life.”

  The Eagles beat the Packers 22-10.

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