Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is planning a “rapid response operation” to respond to President Biden’s State of the Union address in real-time, the New York Times reports.

Trump also plans to release his own video response immediately after Biden’s speech.

Slate: “As a baseline matter, the evidence that the former president committed crimes seems powerful. In Cohen’s guilty plea, he stated under penalty of perjury that Trump ‘directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election.’ That testimony is supported by an audio recording in which Cohen and Trump discussed the hush money payment to McDougal and how it could be accomplished surreptitiously through a shell company.”

“Trump has also indicated more than once that he was directly involved in the payments to Clifford, including saying in 2018 that the payments ‘came from me.’ He made a further admission last week on his social media platform, Truth Social, apparently acknowledging that he coordinated with Cohen to make the payments.”

“And all of this is backed up by the Trump Organization’s internal business records, falsely describing the reimbursements to Cohen as ‘legal expenses.’ Trump himself signed six of the repayment checks, including while in the Oval Office.”

“The first major criminal charges that Donald Trump could face for interfering in the 2020 election might come from Atlanta — and what happens in Georgia isn’t expected to stay in Georgia,” Bloomberg reports.

“Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said her decision is ‘imminent’ on whether to indict the former president, which would make him the first US president charged with a crime. That decision will have a ripple effect on the Justice Department’s special counsel probe and other investigations circling Trump.”

“If Willis goes first, that case would road-test possible testimony, helping to determine what evidence holds up in court and providing a blueprint for prosecutions involving other battleground states where Trump and his supporters tried to undermine President Joe Biden’s win.”

“Legal experts say nothing stops a US special counsel overseeing the federal Trump probe from pursuing similar charges at the federal level, regardless of what Willis ultimately does.”

Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, had drafted a charging document against Donald Trump for “a scheme to create and use false financial statements to obtain bank financing and other business advantages”—but the charges were never officially filed against the former president, the Daily Beast reports.

“Alleged Chinese spy balloons were spotted on several occasions during President Donald Trump’s administration, including three instances where they traveled near sensitive US military facilities and training areas,” Bloomberg reports.

“The balloons were spotted near Texas, Florida and Hawaii, as well as the Pacific Ocean island of Guam, where the US has naval and air force bases – according to the people who requested anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. The balloons also flew near Norfolk, Virginia, and Coronado, California – two ports where the US stations its prized aircraft carriers.”

Donald Trump and one of his lawyers said they are appealing nearly $1 million in sanctions slapped on them for what a federal judge called their “frivolous” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and more than two dozen other defendants, CNBC reports.

“I’m the target of Donald Trump’s new tantrum. None of his lies about me today bothered him when he asked me to prep him for every general election debate or offered me three different cabinet posts. He’s the only man to lose to Biden outside Delaware. That loss to Joe still stings.”

— Former Gov. Chris Christie (R), on Twitter.

“The transiting of three suspected Chinese spy balloons over the continental US during the Trump administration was only discovered after President Joe Biden took office,” CNN reports.

“The official said that the intelligence community is prepared to offer briefings to key Trump administration officials about the Chinese surveillance program, which the Biden administration believes has been deployed in countries across five continents over the last several years.”

Associated Press: “U.S. officials said Saturday that similar Chinese balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the Trump administration and once that they know about earlier in the Biden administration.”

Nonetheless, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted last night that she just spoke with Trump and he said “would have shot it down before it entered the U.S.”

“Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign will pay $450,000 as part of a settlement of a long court fight over its use of nondisclosure agreements,“ the New York Times reports.

“The proposed settlement with Jessica Denson, a former campaign aide whom the campaign tried to silence as she claimed she was the target of abusive treatment and sexual discrimination by another campaign member, effectively invalidates the nondisclosure agreements that hundreds of officials from Mr. Trump’s first presidential run signed.”

“As they prepared to potentially indict Donald Trump for relentlessly lying to banks about his wealth, Manhattan prosecutors were forced to consider whether the former American president was a criminal mastermind or had just lost his mind, according to a new tell-all memoir by a member of that team,” the Daily Beast reports.

Rolling Stone: “The Manhattan District Attorney’s office right now is laying out its case against Trump, arguing that the $130,000 paid to Daniels, an adult-film actress, in 2016 constituted violations of election and business-records laws. But according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, multiple Trump advisers — including at least one of his lawyers — have told him in recent months that he has a stronger case if he argues the payments had nothing to do with the election. Instead, these advisers would have Trump argue that the payments were entirely about preventing conflict with his wife, Melania.”

“In order to bring felony charges, New York law requires that prosecutors prove defendants falsified records in order to cover up a separate crime. In Trump’s case, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is reportedly attempting to prove that the paperwork detailing Trump’s reimbursement of former fixer Michael Cohen amounted to an effort to cover up an illegal campaign contribution. Trump’s advisers hope that by casting the payments as marriage-related, they could remove any basis for the felony charge Bragg reportedly has in mind.”

“But the argument would leave Trump facing some tough questions. Because if the payments to Daniels had nothing to do with the election, then Trump would have to explain why he was willing to spend six figures to prevent his wife from hearing about an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star — a tryst that he for years has claimed never happened.”

“Manhattan prosecutors this week warned that they might file new fraud charges against Allen Weisselberg, a longtime top executive at Donald Trump’s real estate business — increasing pressure on Mr. Weisselberg to cooperate in a broader investigation into the former president,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, is already serving a five-month sentence in the Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to unrelated tax fraud charges. While he testified against the company at its trial on the same charges last year, he has for years refused to turn on Mr. Trump directly.”

“But as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, jump-starts his office’s effort to indict Mr. Trump, his prosecutors are using the prospect of additional charges to exert leverage over Mr. Weisselberg.”

“When Donald Trump left office in early 2021, he was apparently on much thinner financial ice than almost anyone knew,” the Daily Beast reports.

“That revelation, which three accounting experts confirmed upon reviewing Trump’s 2020 tax return, may help explain some of the financial and political moves the former president has made in the intervening years. Snowballing legal fees, along with other possible legal settlements and judgments, threaten to consume the cash pile he needs to bankroll his business activity, as well as fund a lavish lifestyle and maintain his image of excess—an emperor atop a golden toilet.”

“Donald Trump’s long-estranged former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, says Manhattan prosecutors recently took his cellphones to preserve evidence related to a hush-money payment he made to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign,” the AP reports.

“The payment to Daniels, which Cohen says was intended to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, has been the subject of law-enforcement scrutiny for years, but a new grand jury is giving it a fresh look.”

Jeffrey McConney, the controller of the Trump Organization, is expected to appear Thursday before a Manhattan grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged role in a hush money payment scheme, CNN reports.

“Donald Trump’s political operation has spent more money since he left office on lawyers representing the former president and a pair of nonprofits staffed by former Cabinet members than it has on Republican congressional campaigns,” the Washington Post reports.