“Notebooks that President Joe Biden wrote in during his time as vice president are among the items the FBI took from one of his Delaware homes during a search there last week,“ NBC News reports.
“The notebooks were seized because Biden’s writings on some of the pages relate to his official business as vice president, including details of his diplomatic engagements during the Obama administration, and may reference classified information.”
Mother Jones: “The contributions are among more than a dozen major donations to the 2020 Santos campaign for which the name or the address of the donor cannot be confirmed, a Mother Jones investigation found. A separate $2,800 donation was attributed in Santos’ reports filed with the Federal Election Commission to a friend of Santos who says he did not give the money.”
“Under federal campaign finance law, it is illegal to donate money using a false name or the name of someone else.”
“The Justice Department has asked the Federal Election Commission to hold off on any enforcement action against George Santos, the Republican congressman from New York who lied about key aspects of his biography, as prosecutors conduct a parallel criminal probe,” the Washington Post reports.
“The request, which came from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, is the clearest sign to date that federal prosecutors are examining Santos’s campaign finances.”
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“Republican members of the newly created House subcommittee investigating the ‘weaponization’ of the federal government discussed the possibility of issuing subpoenas during their first closed-door meeting on Friday,” Axios reports.
“It’s a clear indication of the aggressive posture and approach that the committee has been expected to take in probing federal law enforcement including the Justice Department and FBI.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Jennifer Dorow, and her husband Brian, are developing an indoor gun range that would not only host weddings and other events, but would also serve alcohol, Yahoo News reports.
The couple requested a Class B liquor license to sell beer and wine to members and guests in the ‘clubhouse.’ The range would also sell firearms and accessories on-site.
“A federal judge sentenced the Pennsylvania man who pepper sprayed U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick on Jan. 6, 2021, to six years and eight months in prison Friday, saying he found his assault on outnumbered officers inexusable,” WUSA reports.
The RNC approved a resolution at their annual meeting Friday condemning antisemitism — including specifically calling out Kanye West and Nick Fuentes — but made no mention of their infamous dinner meeting with Donald Trump.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he had been previously unaware classified documents were at his Indiana home but that “mistakes were made” and he takes full responsibility, CNN reports.
“The Republican National Committee on Friday voted to reelect Ronna McDaniel to a fourth two-year term as party chair, opting not to punish her for the GOP’s recent string of electoral defeats,” the Washington Post reports.
“McDaniel fended off a challenge from Harmeet Dhillon, a California lawyer who has represented former president Donald Trump and the unsuccessful Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, seizing on grass-roots furor demanding new leadership. McDaniel positioned herself as a steady hand and honest broker who can hold together the party’s factions and continue building out the RNC’s financial and field resources. She prevailed on the first ballot, 111-51.”
David Axelrod: “Crisis communications, at its core, is pretty simple: Discern where the story is going. Fully disclose the facts. Admit where mistakes were made. And do it all as quickly and thoroughly as possible.”
“So it’s been a little confounding to watch Joe Biden’s White House deal with the discovery of classified documents from his years as vice president and in the Senate casually stored in a variety of locations, including his garage in Wilmington, Delaware, beside his prized 1967 Corvette.”
Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) campaign committee “is facing new questions from federal regulators after submitting paperwork listing a new treasurer who says he never took the job,” the AP reports.
“The Federal Election Commission sent a letter Thursday to the Devolder Santos for Congress campaign seeking clarity on the switch. It’s the latest scrutiny for the New York congressman who has been caught fabricating many elements of his life story.”
Rocky Hayes, the former Jones County South Dakota Republican party chairman, has been charged with three counts of possession of child pornography, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.
“After relentlessly crying for Congress to intervene because DirecTV dumped it, pro-Trump channel Newsmax has received a promise from a top Republican to hold congressional hearings on the matter,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Newsmax, which had been with DirecTV since the channel’s launch in 2014, was dropped by the pay-TV carrier this week after demanding license fees in a new deal. DirecTV balked at the request, noting that the network provided it on-air content for free on several different platforms and its own app.”
“A Senate race pitting the man who spearheaded former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, Adam Schiff, against fundraising powerhouse and wonk superstar Katie Porter would guarantee fireworks and a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” NBC News reports.
“But add a candidate representing the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, Ro Khanna, and a living legend who got her start with the Black Panthers and would become the only Black woman in the Senate, Barbara Lee — now you’re talking about a California Senate race for the ages.”
“And Democrats are just getting started.”
Washington Post: “Just a few months ago, Arizona Republicans lost nearly every major statewide midterm race after campaigning for months on false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.”
“That was not always a winning strategy in Arizona nor in many other states, but many Republican leaders and their supporters here are still clinging to election fraud falsehoods, refusing to acknowledge their candidates lost and resisting attempts to lessen the extreme divisions in the state.”
“Republicans in Arizona’s Legislature have voted along party lines to approve new rules that will allow state lawmakers to destroy emails after 90 days and delete text messages as quickly as they arrive,” the AP reports.
“Video released publicly Friday shows the husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fighting for control of a hammer with his assailant during a brutal attack in the couple’s San Francisco home last year,” the AP reports.
Politico: “The break-in and attack stunned San Francisco and reverberated through national politics, punctuating a torrent of violent rhetoric directed at Nancy Pelosi and other elected officials.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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