“Special counsel’s office prosecutors have asked a federal judge in Florida to place a gag order on Donald Trump that would limit his ability to comment about law enforcement that searched his Mar-a-Lago resort,” CNN reports.

“The request – a first in the classified documents mishandling case – comes after the former president has been repeatedly and falsely criticizing the FBI for having a policy in place around the use of deadly force during the search and seizure of government records at his resort in August 2022.”

“Peter Navarro, a former top White House adviser to Donald Trump, isn’t interested in a pardon should ‘the boss’ return to power,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Navarro: “I will not give the Supreme Court any excuse to duck what is otherwise a landmark constitutional case regarding the separation of powers and executive privilege.”

“Perhaps no one has demonstrated loyalty to Trump like Navarro, the polarizing, wiry former White House China hawk and pandemic troubleshooter. And no one has quite paid the same price: Navarro is the first White House official in history to be imprisoned for contempt.”

“I was sort of like a hot guy. I was hot as a pistol. I think I was hotter than I am now and I became president. Okay. I don’t know. I said to somebody, was I hotter before or hotter now? I don’t know.”

— Donald Trump, at a campaign rally in the South Bronx.

A new CBS News poll finds 56% say Donald Trump is definitely or probably guilty of a crime in his recent trial, in which he has been charged with falsifying business records to hide a “hush money” payment and influence the 2016 election.

The public is more split on what they think the jury will decide, with about half expecting jurors to find Trump guilty and half saying the opposite.

A reporter staked out Penn Station in New York City to look for GOP lawmakers who had attended Donald Trump’s criminal trial “so I could observe the party that my editors assured me members would be having in the bar car,” NOTUS reports.

“There was no party. No one seemed to be having a good time. They weren’t laughing or drinking, at least not socially. And they weren’t chatting about Trump or the trial. They were commuting. They were making their way to House votes after spending the day 200 miles north in a dreary courtroom. The trial had turned Trump’s most loyal congressmen into sullen super-commuters.”

ProPublica: “At least four women of color involved in the 2016 operation have been embroiled in legal fights with the campaign over workplace harassment, discrimination or violations of nondisclosure agreements. They have been subjected to scorched-earth tactics. For years, the Trump campaign has persisted, despite losing consistently, in at least some cases after it was clear that its efforts had damaged the women.”

“Trump was regularly updated on the women’s cases… In one, he wanted to escalate the dispute by filing a federal defamation lawsuit against the former employee, but his lawyers persuaded him it was best handled through confidential arbitration.”

Harry Littman: “After 20 days, 22 witnesses and intermittent courtroom fireworks, the evidence in Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial is all in. The case will soon be in the hands of the jury.”

“Who holds the advantage at this critical juncture? My assessment, after attending much of the trial in person, is that it’s the prosecution’s case to lose.”

“With the standing caveat that it takes only one juror to block a unanimous guilty verdict — and that the law puts the greatest burden on prosecutors — the case as it has come in puts the district attorney’s office in the driver’s seat going into next week’s closing arguments.”

Donald Trump explained his rationale for not taking the stand in his hush money trial despite saying for months he would be willing to do so, The Hill reports.

Said Trump: “Because he made rulings that makes it very difficult to testify. Anything I did, anything I did in the past they can bring everything up. And you know what, I’ve had a great past.”

He added: “The other reason is because they have no case. In other words, why testify when they have no case… There’s no crime … so when you say, ‘Why not testify,’ they have no case, other than it’s a corrupt system.”

“The judge hates Donald Trump. Just take a look. Take a look at him. Take a look at where he comes from. He can’t stand Donald Trump. He’s doing everything in his power.”

— Donald Trump, outside the courthouse yesterday, referring to Judge Juan Merchan who moved to Queens from Bogota, Colombia when he was six years old.

“Special counsel Jack Smith appears to have suspected additional efforts by former President Donald Trump to obstruct the government’s investigation of his handling of classified documents, a newly unsealed court filing revealed Tuesday,” ABC News reports.

Politico: Lawyers found classified docs in Trump’s bedroom 4 months after Mar-a-Lago search.

The Bulwark: “Whenever Donald Trump brandishes a stack of papers or reads a printout of a social media post, he’s relying on the work of Natalie Harp.”

“Harp occupies a unique role in the history of presidential campaigns: aide who travels with a portable printer (plus paper and rechargeable batteries in a large bag) whose job is to feed Trump a steady stream of information on 8.5 x 11 pieces of paper.”

“That way, the 77-year-old doesn’t have to strain his eyes on a smartphone to read all the news that’s fit to print in MAGAville.”

“Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed in a campaign fundraising email that President Biden was ‘locked & loaded ready to take me out’ during a 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents, an extraordinary distortion of a standard FBI policy on the use of deadly force during such operations,” the Washington Post reports.

“Rudy Giuliani has agreed to no longer accuse two Georgia poll workers of tampering with the 2020 election,” the Washington Post reports.

“The agreement bars Giuliani — who has for years amplified election falsehoods as a staunch ally of former president Donald Trump — from publishing or assisting to publish false statements that the two workers “engaged in wrongdoing” related to the 2020 election.”

“Two of the most prominent figures in the Georgia criminal case against former president Donald Trump easily won their respective elections Tuesday in their first appearance on the ballot since the inception of the high-profile election interference case,” the Washington Post reports.

“Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis defeated challenger Christian Wise Smith in Georgia’s Democratic primary as she seeks another four-year term as the Atlanta-area’s top prosecutor, according to an Associated Press projection.”

“Meanwhile, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the election case, was elected to his first full term since being appointed to the court last year, defeating challenger Robert Patillo.”

“The testimony in the trial of Donald Trump has been riveting and salacious, focusing on a tryst with a porn star and a hush-money payment that paved the road to the White House,” the New York Times reports.

“On Tuesday afternoon, the trial will take a decidedly less dramatic — but critically important — turn, as prosecutors and the defense dig into the dry legalities that will guide the jurors as they deliberate.”

“During the charge conference, the two sides are expected to lay out their dueling visions for how the judge should instruct the jury as it prepares to weigh the charges against Mr. Trump — 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.”

New York Times: “From the moment Trump Media was founded in 2021, Mr. Trump has treated it as a low-cost, low-effort venture. While he once served as chief executive and owns nearly 65 percent of the company, he has been only marginally involved in its day-to-day operations, mostly posting on Truth Social and delegating the business to others. At times, he considered working on competing ventures.”

“Mr. Trump now finds himself in a strange position, with his financial future hinging on an endeavor that he sometimes seemed indifferent toward. Trump Media’s Wall Street debut in March turned Mr. Trump’s stake into a more than $5 billion bonanza. It has tripled his net worth, providing a potential monetary lifeline as he runs for president and grapples with steep legal bills tied to the civil and criminal cases against him.”

“Yet his newfound fortune is precarious.”

“Rudy Giuliani and 10 others pleaded not guilty in an Arizona court Tuesday to charges of allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results,” CNN reports.

And unsealed filing in Donald Trump’s classified documents case says there were two rounds of documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago after the FBI conducted its search.