Background Briefing: July 30, 2023

On By gram

 

More Indictments of Trump That Pro-Trump Jurors in Florida Could Agree Are Crimes

 We begin with the superseding indictments of Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case with 3 new charges bringing the total to 40 counts. We discuss how the new charges could be easily understood by jurors, in particular pro-Trump jurors in Florida, that the boss asking underlings to delete tapes is a non-no. Joining us to assess whether these new charges could delay a trial that has already been pushed back to May is Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. She is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the editor-in-Chief of The CNS Soufan Group Morning Brief and The Aon Cyber Brief. The author of Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State, her latest book is Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump.

 

Do the US and NATO Really Want Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Succeed?

Then we get an update on Ukraine’s counter offensive underway and discuss the vulnerability that large formations of men and armor have to Russian airpower since the promised F16s won’t come for a year and we question whether the US and NATO really want Ukraine to win since these series of delays in sending weapons could eventually lead to a Russian victory. Joining us is Michael Kimmage, a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America, chair of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. His latest book is The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy.

 

A Defiant Alito Tells the Congress He is Above the Law

Then finally we look into Justice Alito’s defiant response to the Senate’s passage of a bill that would require the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct. Alito was interviewed in the Wall Street Journal by David Rivkin who is with a law firm that is defending billionaires in a case before the Supreme Court that could decide whether a wealth tax is constitutional. Joining us is Lisa Graves, the Executive Director of the new corporate watchdog group True North Research.  She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government–as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief of the article 3 judges division for the U.S. Courts.