INDICTMENT #3: A federal grand jury issued Donald Trump’s third criminal indictment, this one for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and whipping up the January 6th insurrection to intimidate Congress.

  The indictment filed by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington accuses Trump of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding, and conspiracy to deprive citizens of civil rights. Trump is also charged with a fourth count of obstructing an official proceeding.

  In a brief public comment, Smith said, “The attack on our nation’s Capital on January 6^th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. It was fueled by lies.” 

  The indictment goes beyond just the lies, listing actions by Trump and co-conspirators, including creating slates of fake electors to reverse the results.

  Trump issued a statement saying, “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.” 

  Trump has already been indicted by a federal grand jury for holding and mishandling secret documents, and for business fraud by a New York grand jury. 

  The latest indictment says that the conspiracies “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.” The indictment includes six so-far unindicted co-conspirators, three of whom have been identified as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, constitutional lawyer, John Eastman, and lawyer Sidney Powell. 

  Trump’s lawyers are already making a case that the former president was only exercising his right to free speech, that his unfounded claims about election fraud were protected speech under the First Amendment, and that he was getting bad advice from his personal lawyers.

DEAD HEAT: Before yesterday’s third criminal indictment, Trump was in a dead heat in elective popularity against President Joe Biden, according to a new New York Times/Siena poll which found them locked at 43 percent each.

  Trump has a big lead among white voters without a college degree. Biden’s people are nonwhite voters and white college graduates.

  And, according to the poll, 14 percent of voters don’t want either man to be president in 2025.

  The poll was not intended to plumb the lack of sense among American voters, but that’s part of what it reveals. Just 41 percent of registered voters say they have a favorable view of Donald Trump, while a majority do believe he committed serious federal crimes and that his conduct after the 2020 election threatened American democracy.

  Given that, you’d expect Biden to be the golden boy, but he’s not. He’s been unable to turn Trump’s criminal troubles against him. Biden’s favorability rating is only two points higher than Trump’s. Despite the improving economy, his approval rating is just 39 percent. 

RECOUNT BY INDICTMENT: Prominent Michigan Republican Matthew DePerno, a primary figure in efforts to help Donald Trump try to overturn the 2020 election results in his state, was arraigned yesterday on four felony charges including undue possession of a voting machine, and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to an election computer or computer system.

  Former Michigan state Rep. Daire Rendon also was charged with conspiracy to illegally obtain a voting machine. 

  Together, DePerno and Rendon were two of the loudest Michigan voices claiming fraud in the 2020 election.

  DePerno failed to win the race for Michigan attorney general last fall. His lawyer told The Detroit Free Press, “He maintains his innocence and firmly believes that these charges are not based upon any actual truth and are motivated primarily by politics rather than evidence.”

THE IMMORTAL LIFE: The family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cancer cells were taken without her permission in the 1950s and used for scientific breakthroughs and patents for which she was never paid, have reached a settlement with a science and technology that used the cells for profit.

    The terms of the settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts-based science and technology firm, are being held confidential. 

  Lacks was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951 when doctors removed cells from her tumor without her knowledge or permission. Those cells now referred to as HeLa cells had the unusual property that allowed them to be endlessly reproduced. They’ve been used for a variety of scientific breakthroughs, including research about the human genome and the development of the polio and COVID-19 vaccines.

    The story was the subject of a book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and later a movie starring Oprah Winfrey. Ben Crump, an attorney for the family said yesterday, “Not only were the HeLa cells derived from Henrietta Lacks, the HeLa cells are Henrietta Lacks.” 

EDISON RETIRED: Under new energy efficiency rules that took effect yesterday, the incandescent lightbulb patented by Thomas Edison in the late 1800s is no longer for sale in the US.

  They have been replaced by LED lights … light emitting diode … that are much more energy efficient and have already been reducing power bills. The Department of Energy expects Americans to save nearly $3 billion a year on electricity, but the LEDs put out a harsher light and are not all that popular. They do last 25 to 50 times longer. 

  Some incandescent bulbs like bug and oven lights will continue to be available, but the age of the Edison light is pretty much over. 

THE OBIT PAGE: Sheila Oliver, New Jersey’s lieutenant governor and the first Black woman to hold statewide elected office in that state, died yesterday after being rushed to the hospital on Monday. She was 71.

  Oliver was standing in as governor while Gov. Phil Murphy and his family had left for a vacation in Italy. Oliver had previously served 15 years in the New Jersey legislature.

BELOW THE FOLD:  The city of Phoenix ended a 31-day streak of 110 degrees yesterday with a day that peaked at 108.

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