Code Orange: Donald Trump spurned the proposal by one of his lawyers to compromise with the Justice Department and avoid indictment over his possession of classified documents, The Washington Post reports.

  The paper says Trump lawyer Christopher Kise, who was paid $3 million upfront to represent the former president, proposed the idea in the fall of 2022 to try arranging a settlement with the Justice Department. The Post says Trump listened instead to other lawyers who wanted to take a more combative approach.

  Trump still insists that, “Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the right to do so. It’s an absolute right. This is the law.” 

  To the contrary, the Presidential Records Act bluntly says, “The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records.”

  Even while crying that his indictment is politically motivated, Trump swears that if he’s re-elected he will use the justice Department to crush Joe Biden. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said in his Bedminster speech Tuesday night. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

  Criminal trouble is profitable, though. Hours after he pleaded not guilty to a 37-count federal indictment, Trump raised more than $2 million for his political campaign in his Bedminster event during which he called Justice Department prosecutors, “thugs, misfits, and Marxists.”  He has raised more than $7 million since his indictment.

  Also Tuesday night, Fox News posted a caption under a split screen of Joe Biden and Trump saying, “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” 

Econ 101: The Federal Reserve yesterday let interest rates stay where they are after raising them 10 months in a row to fight inflation.

  The Fed has raised rates to just over 5 percent, but of course you pay more when you borrow money. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference, “We’ve covered a lot of ground, and the full effects of our tightening have yet to be felt.” 

Dear God: The Southern Baptist Convention voted yesterday to finalize the expulsion of two churches with female pastors, handing a big win to the ultraconservative wing of the demionination that’s fighting what it sees as liberal drift.

  The ejected congregations are the Saddleback Church in Southern California, one of the denomination’s largest, and the Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  They were expelled in February and given a chance to appeal, but about 90 percent of the 10,000 delegates voted out Fern Creek and Saddleback, which was founded by the prominent preacher and author Rick Warren, who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life.”

  Before the vote, Warren pleaded with the delegates to loosen up. But they voted to strictly adhere to the church’s statement of beliefs, which says, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

Shopped Out:  Distressed San Francisco has seen the closing in recent months of a number of national chain stores including Nordstrom, Old Navy, Anthropologie, H&M, and Crate & Barrel. Now the Westfield shopping mall company says it’s pulling out of its Westfield San Francisco Centre, abandoning it to their lenders.

  Retail foot traffic, not just in San Francisco, has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Major stores have closed in New York, Portland, and Seattle. Chicago’s Water Tower Place is half empty.

  San Francisco has had dramatic economic ups and downs during the financial crisis 15 years ago and the dot-com market plunge around the turn of the millennium when commercial rents plunged 70 percent. This time, rents are down only around 15 percent.

   But San Francisco has serious problems with shoplifting, empty office space, and a drop in business conferences held in the city. Westfield is hitting “eject.”

 The Obit Page: John Romita Sr., the groundbreaking comic book artist who drew the original Spider-Man and helped create some of Marvel’s most popular characters including Kingpin, Luke Cage, and Wolverine, has died at age 93.

  “Millions came to know Marvel through his art, and millions more came to know Peter Parker through the unmistakable bold brushwork Romita brought to his pages,” Marvel said in a statement. Peter Parker, for those who don’t know, morphs into Spiderman.

  Romita was a commercial artist who started in comics by doing drawings for a friend who then passed them off as his own work to Stan Lee, the godfather of comics. When Lee found out, he gave Romita a job.

 John Romita Jr., a successful comic book artist himself, said on Instagram that his father is “a legend in the art world and it would be my honor to follow in his footsteps.” 

The Spin Rack: At least 79 people are known to be dead after a fishing boat crammed with migrants trying to reach Europe flipped and sank off the coast of Greece. The trawler’s engines are reported to have broken down around 1:40 Wednesday morning and went down just an hour later. — Former Marine Daniel Penny has been indicted in New York on charges of second-degree manslaughter for choking to death a homeless man on the subway. Penny has said he acted in self-defense because the man was threatening to kill people. — The morgue manager at Harvard Medical School and six other people have been arrested and charged with stealing and selling bodies and body parts from Harvard and the University of Arkansas. — Miami Republican Mayor Francis Suarez has filed to run for president. He’s unknown outside Miami but very handsome.

Below the Fold: Seen on the internet: “2/3 of Trump’s wives were immigrants, proving once again we need immigrants to do jobs most Americans wouldn’t do.”