The Hill’s Morning Report — Trump to be arraigned Tuesday. What’s next?

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 06/12/23 6:20 AM ET

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Trump to be arraigned Tuesday. What’s next?

Former President Trump has begun his first week as a candidate for the presidency and, now, a federally indicted criminal defendant. There is nothing like it in the history books or in American politics, and there are many more chapters to come.

Trump will be arraigned in a Florida court on Tuesday and hours later, from his New Jersey golf club, give a speech during which he is expected to restate his innocence and assail his accusers in the face of 37 charges that include alleged national security violations, conspiracy and obstructing a federal investigation after leaving office. He’s been planning to mark his 77th birthday with supporters on Wednesday.

In a nutshell, for those unplugged from the news since Thursday, the former president is charged by a grand jury with willfully possessing documents clearly marked with national secrets, refusing to return them to the government and conspiring to obstruct related investigations. He is also accused of sharing sensitive U.S. secrets with individuals who had no security clearances. There is no reference in the indictments to any business attempts to profit using the classified data.

While in possession of sensitive materials, according to the Justice Department’s 49-page indictment and photographs, Trump stacked cartons, which should have been safeguarded by the National Archives and Records Administration, inside his Mar-a-Lago estate “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom and a storage room.”

Just Security: National security implications of Trump’s indictment: A damage assessment.

Trump, who campaigned during GOP events in Georgia and North Carolina over the weekend, is defiant while recasting his narrative, which includes disputed assertions that he cooperated in returning all classified materials to the government and complied with the Presidential Records Act.

He told Politico on Saturday during an interview that being a criminal defendant is new and uncomfortable.

“Nobody wants to be indicted,” Trump said. “I don’t care that my poll numbers went up by a lot. I don’t want to be indicted. I’ve never been indicted. I went through my whole life, now I get indicted every two months. It’s been political.”

Rivals for the GOP presidential nomination have staked out positions as swan-diving or back-flipping Trump defenders (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis), or critics (former Gov. Asa Hutchinson), or Justice Department bashers or semi-fence-sitters. Many but not all Republican lawmakers are eager to support the former president, and a few are using violent rhetoric while condemning federal investigators and prosecutors. Democrats want to keep Trump dangling in the headlines to mobilize the progressive base while hoping that President Biden, who has vowed “no comment,” will let the judicial system work its will without creating headlines of his own.

▪ Politico: Trump allies and critics battle over impact of case, political narratives.

▪ The Washington Post: Trump indictment thrusts Biden into uncharted territory.

Trump remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024 while 20 percent of likely GOP primary voters think he should be barred from serving as president if he’s convicted in any of the detailed charges he faces, according to a CBS News-YouGov poll released on Sunday (The Hill). Survey respondents said they are more concerned that the charges are politically motivated, as Trump asserts, than worried about his alleged conduct.

Here are a few questions and some answers (with more questions) to start the week:

Why is Trump being prosecuted for mishandling classified documents (in comparison with Biden, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton)? Experts say the cases, based on the facts, differ (The Washington Post and The Associated Press).

What was Trump’s motive in retaining the classified documents sought by the National Archives, then by the Justice Department? It’s unclear, but theories abound: talismans, greed, hubris, legacy, status retention, defiance, preservation of his own secrets, insurance for paybacks (The Washington Post and The New York Times).

How soon will the case of the United States v. Donald J. Trump go to trial? It is possible the former president could face a jury before the 2024 general election. The Southern District of Florida is known to be a “rocket docket” court, a term used by legal professionals for venues that adhere to swift trials (ABC News). Trump, if convicted, could seek bail pending appeal. Penalties for violations of the Espionage Act historically are steep (Forbes). Indictment in a criminal case and even conviction would not bar Trump from election to serve again as president. Hypothetically, if the case continues and Trump is elected and sworn in, he could dismiss the Justice Department case against himself.

Who is the alleged co-conspirator charged with Trump? Waltine Nauta, a Navy veteran who initially served the former president in the White House and continued working for him in Florida (The Hill, The New York Times). Who is the former Trump lawyer who appears in the indictments and could become a key witness at trial? M. Evan Corcoran (The New York Times).

How does Trump pay for his many legal representatives (two of whom quit on Friday)? A super PAC supporting his campaign and donors foot the bills (The New York Times).

Related Articles

▪ The Atlantic: Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), the congressman telling supporters to “buckle up” following the Trump indictments.

▪ The New York Times: Trump supporters, including in Congress, use violent rhetoric in defense of the former president.

▪ CNN: Anita Dunn, Biden’s brawler-in-chief, looks to 2024.

▪ The Hill: Democratic fears grow over third-party candidates.

▪ CNN: GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, will headline a CNN town hall tonight in New York at 8 p.m. ET.

▪ Philadelphia Inquirer: An accident involving a tanker truck filled with gasoline on I-95 in east Philadelphia resulted in a fiery emergency and the collapse of an overpass section Sunday that has shut down a portion of the interstate through the city. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) will issue a disaster declaration today ahead of repairs that he said will take “months” (NBC10). President Biden was briefed. Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) tweeted updates and salutes to first responders, noting their respective aides were in contact with state and federal officials. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

News about Trump’s indictment is fueling Republican attacks that the federal government is weaponized, giving GOP lawmakers more ammunition in their months-long crusade against the Biden administration. As The Hill’s Mychael Schnell reports, in the eyes of Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill, the indictment of Biden’s chief political opponent is the ultimate piece of evidence that the Department of Justice has been politicized — and they are vowing to hold it accountable.

“The American people are smart and understand this is the epitome of the illegal and unprecedented weaponization of the federal government against Joe Biden’s leading opponent, President Donald J. Trump,” House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) said late Thursday.

In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the indictment of Trump “is going to disrupt the nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all which is not being seen today.”

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, haven’t been as quick to defend the former president, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. Senate Republican leaders, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are staying quiet, letting Trump twist in the wind.

McConnell, who is careful not to comment on Trump or even repeat his name in public, has said to his GOP colleagues that he wants his party to turn the page on the former president, whom he sees as a flawed general election candidate and a drag on Senate Republican candidates. The Senate GOP leader’s top deputies — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — have also indicated they don’t want Trump to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

“They want him to go away so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out,” a former Senate Republican aide told The Hill about the Senate Republican leaders’ silence.

Meanwhile, Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday firmly defended the former president, calling a federal indictment centering on the Espionage Act “absolutely ridiculous.”

“Donald Trump — you may hate his guts, but he is not a spy. He did not commit espionage,” Graham told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” (The Hill).

▪ Politico: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) defended Trump, saying a president can control access to classified material “however he wants,” and “If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, in a box on the stage, he can do that.”

▪ The Hill: CNN’s Dana Bash spars with Jordan over Trump indictment.

Beyond Trump’s indictment, McCarthy is facing headaches concerning his own conference this week. House Freedom Caucus members brought the chamber to a standstill last week, foiling votes on GOP priorities and rekindling questions about the Speaker’s to guide his party through the tough policy fights in the months ahead, writes The Hill’s Mike Lillis. Republican leaders have scheduled a series of suspension votes on Monday evening, featuring non-controversial bills expected to pass easily with Democratic support. But the real test will come Tuesday, when they’ve slated floor action on a second series of proposals — including the four bills that never reached the floor last week — that will require cooperation from the same conservative firebrands who blocked them the first time around.

Across the Capitol, Senate Republicans are growing increasingly concerned with the House conservatives’ antics as key legislative battles loom in the coming months. As the Hill’s Al Weaver reports, in the near term, lawmakers still need to pass government funding bills, the farm bill and the annual National Defense Authorization Act, among other things.

“They’re going to have to sort it out over there. Maybe there’s some bruised feelings. … There’s a lot of governing to do,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a former House member, told The Hill. “If you’re just going to pull the lever for the sake of pulling the lever — yes or no — as a protest, there’s too many important things out there that we need to have addressed with thought.”

▪ Roll Call: Trump’s indictment could further test the House GOP majority’s unity.

▪ The Hill: Tensions between McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) bubble into public over GOP rebellion.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his military commanders are in a “positive mood” as a long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia gets underway. Official details on the counteroffensive are limited, as Ukraine’s military has repeatedly said it wants to preserve the element of surprise.

Analysts, meanwhile, said Ukraine appears to be attacking on several fronts, including Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk region and Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region (BBC). Ukrainian military officials said Monday their troops have retaken another southeastern village from Russian forces, among the first, small successes in the stepped-up counteroffensive (The Associated Press).

The Dnieper River dam collapse last week caused a major humanitarian crisis in southern Ukraine, but who, if anyone, was behind the breach is still shrouded in mystery. Both Ukrainian and Russian officials are pointing the finger at each other, accusing the opposing side in the war of carrying out an attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam to further their aims on the battlefield. The U.S. is investigating the incident but has not reached a formal conclusion yet. “People are continuing to assess how this could have happened,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a Thursday briefing. “At this point, it’s all speculation.”

The Hill’s Brad Dress breaks down the three theories that have been floated thus far.

▪ The Washington Post: Ukraine’s current counteroffensive may dictate the fate of the war.

▪ The Associated Press: Ukraine’s dam collapse is both a fast-moving disaster and a slow-moving ecological catastrophe.

China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence-gathering capabilities, a Biden administration official said Saturday. The confirmation comes after The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that China had reached a secret deal with Cuba to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island roughly 100 miles from Florida, a report both the U.S. and Cuban governments cast strong doubt on. On Saturday, citing newly declassified information, the National Security Council clarified that the spy facility was in fact “well-documented in the intelligence record” (The Washington Post).

“It’s not a new, more aggressive action” by the Chinese, the official said. “It’s certainly a troubling and concerning pattern of behavior. We have a problem with it and are working to counter it.”

▪ The Guardian: “Miracle, miracle”: Lone children survive 40 days in the Amazon jungle.

▪ The Nation: Spain’s Left is in turmoil — and now it’s facing a huge electoral test.

▪ The Associated Press: Ex-Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon released after arrest by police in party finance probe.

▪ Reuters: Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s ex-prime minister and media mogul, dies at 86.

▪ NPR: Rain may soon help put out flames in Canada’s worst recorded wildfire season.

On Friday, Boris Johnson, Britain’s former prime minister and one of the most divisive leaders of his generation, resigned as a member of Parliament after accusing a committee of attempting to “drive me out,” he said in a letter. The former Conservative party leader said he was “bewildered and appalled” after receiving a letter from a House of Commons committee, which is investigating whether he lied to British lawmakers over lockdown-breaking parties during the pandemic (CNN).

OPINION

■ DeSantis thinks Trump didn’t go far enough, by Ezra Klein, columnist, The New York Times.

■ The high stakes of Ukraine’s offensive, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet for a pro forma session at noon.

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. to resume consideration of the nomination of Elizabeth Allen to be under secretary of State for public diplomacy.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden at 11:30 a.m. will host College Athlete Day at the White House, celebrating women’s and men’s NCAA champion teams from the 2022-2023 season. Biden will welcome Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to the White House at 3:15 p.m. to discuss the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, scheduled July 11-12. The president at 6 p.m. will deliver remarks at a Chiefs of Mission Reception in the East Room.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public events.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken at 1 p.m. participates in a signing ceremony at the department for a memorandum of understanding with #AfghanEvac Coalition. The secretary at 3 p.m. meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and the two will hold a joint news conference at 4 p.m. Blinken at 6 p.m. will be at the White House with the president for a Chiefs of Mission Conference reception. The secretary will speak at 7:30 p.m. during the U.S.-India Business Council’s India Ideas Summit held in Washington.

First lady Jill Biden will speak at 2 p.m. at the Military Women’s Memorial in Arlington, Va., will pay tribute to the nearly 3 million women who have served the nation during a Women Veterans Recognition Day event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act. She will travel to New York City to speak at 6 p.m. during a fundraiser for the president’s reelection campaign

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ COURTS

As the Supreme Court’s term comes to an end, justices have yet to issue opinions in 27 cases that the court has heard this term. NPR and NBC News are tracking the major cases that are still undecided, from affirmative action to student loan forgiveness.

When the court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, civil-rights advocates saw the future of affirmative action and other longstanding precedents as similarly bleak. But the conservative-leaning court’s Thursday verdict that Alabama discriminated against Black voters by redrawing its congressional districts, those advocates saw a brief glint of hope.

The surprise ruling, which reinforced the Voting Rights Act’s power to protect voters from racial discrimination, represented a promising omen for the preservation of race consciousness in other arenas, according to legal experts who spoke with The Guardian. Of particular note is the court’s upcoming decision on whether to end race-related affirmative action in colleges and universities.

▪ The New Yorker: Why the Supreme Court declined an opportunity to diminish the Voting Rights Act.

▪ Yahoo Finance: IRS gets major power to request private tax info after Supreme Court decision.

Meanwhile, a first-of-its-kind climate trial is set to kick off Monday in Montana, where a judge will determine whether the state’s constitution obligates public officials to do more to address global warming. Brought by more than a dozen residents who were between 2 and 18 years old when it was filed in March 2020, the case is among a wave of similar suits brought by youth across the country who argue that future generations will bear the consequences of a warming planet. The plaintiffs argue that the state’s reliance on fossil fuels and their production violates the right to “a clean and healthful environment” (The Wall Street Journal).

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

Morning read: The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid was stolen or wasted. The loss represents 10 percent of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid, according to a detailed analysis by The Associated Press.

More than 50 years since the United States declared a war on cancer, the disease remains the second leading cause of death among Americans, The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel reports. According to federal data, cancer killed nearly 608,000 Americans in 2022, behind only heart disease.

Yet researchers, oncologists and advocates say the scientific and political landscapes today are dramatically different than in 1971, when then-president Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law. Cancer was an “uninterpretable black box” throughout much of the early 20th century, said George Demetri, an oncologist and director of the Sarcoma Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston — but that’s changed in recent years.

“The thing about cancer is we’re starting to understand it so that we really can engineer a solution. That’s what’s so exciting,” Demetri said. “We get down to the mechanism of how cancer works. We see the short circuits. And then we can say, how do we fix that short circuit so that people can live much longer or we can even cure this disease?”

Meanwhile, cancer centers are contending with shortages of key chemotherapy drugs, with potentially dire consequences once the scarcity starts hitting patients. As The Hill’s Joseph Choi reports, a new survey released last week by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) found that 93 percent of cancer centers are reporting shortages of carboplatin and 70 percent are reporting shortages of cisplatin. These two drugs are commonly used together to treat a wide variety of cancers — of the breast, lungs, prostate and many types of leukemias — often with the aim of curing them.

Much of these shortages stem from a major interruption in manufacturing that occurred when a facility in India, run by Intas Pharmaceuticals, halted production in March after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discovered a “cascade of failures” in the plant’s quality control.

▪ Vox: We finally have malaria vaccines. The next hurdle: Distributing them.

▪ The Atlantic: More parents are buying anti-allergy baby formula. Do their infants really need it?

▪ The Washington Post: It felt like I had indigestion. I was having a heart attack.

▪ The New York Times: Nearly three-quarters of hospice organizations are now for-profit. Complaints of fraud and profiteering are growing.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🎾 Serbian champion Novak Djokovic, 36, won his 23rd Grand Slam and the French Open men’s title on Sunday. Djokovic beat Norway’s Casper Ruud to win the men’s singles championship, passing Spaniard Rafael Nadal for the most major tournament titles in the Open era. Djokovic has spent most of the past two decades chasing his rivals — Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Nadal — two other giants who have defined this era of modern tennis. That race has come to an end, at least for now (The New York Times).

“Those two guys, the past 15 years, were occupying my mind quite a lot,” Djokovic said as he sat next to the championship trophy.

Djokovic’s win at Roland Garros in Paris on Sunday marked a stunning turnaround from a year and a half ago, when he was deported from Australia ahead of the first Grand Slam tournament of 2022 for a lack of COVID-19 vaccination. Now, he has won the first two Grand Slam events this year .

“The journey is still not over,” Djokovic said. “If I am winning Slams, why even think about ending the career?”

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