The Hill’s Morning Report — Trump to make historic court appearance today

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 06/13/23 6:20 AM ET

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Former President Trump may use the legal system to try to delay the government’s case against him, argue a reasoned defense under law about stockpiling secret U.S. documents at his club or try to influence the judicial system in the court of public opinion, reports The New York Times.

If the past is prologue, Trump will try it all.

▪ Washington Monthly: How delay and recusal might save Trump.

▪ Politico: Here’s how U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon could help Trump’s case.

▪ Bloomberg News: Trump indictment highlights the perils of being his lawyer.

The former president, who flew aboard his private jet to South Florida on Monday, will appear before a magistrate judge in federal court in Miami today to formally face 37 criminal charges brought by the government following a special counsel probe. Trump plans to plead not guilty, he told talk radio host Howie Carr (ABC News).

He’ll fly back to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he plans to deliver a speech tonight. On Wednesday, he’ll mark his 77th birthday as the first former president and current candidate to face separate criminal charges in two courts in little more than two months.

The Justice Department alleges that Trump violated the Espionage Act and other statutes when he took classified documents with him out of the White House, failed to relinquish all sensitive materials to the National Archives, conspired to interfere with a federal probe and knowingly shared national security secrets with individuals not authorized to see the information.

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage previews the day ahead with five things to watch.

▪ The New York Times: What to expect when Trump makes a court appearance today.

▪ The Washington Post: Trump aide Walt Nauta, alleged by the government to have conspired with Trump to try to defy a federal subpoena, also will be arraigned in Miami today.

Alert to combative rhetoric from some Republicans and vows of pro-Trump demonstrations and protests, police and security personnel will be out in force. The Miami Herald reports the city is prepared for protests and Proud Boys rallies.

Trump vowed Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Biden and his family if Trump wins another term as president. He wants to whip up his defenders and encourages supporters to join a planned protest at the Miami courthouse today (The Hill).

“We need strength in our country now,” Trump said Sunday, speaking to longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio. “And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go out.”

“Look, our country has to protest. We have plenty to protest. We’ve lost everything,” Trump said.

Expected to accompany the former president today are lawyer Todd Blanche and Boris Epshteyn, who has acted as a legal adviser (Politico). Trump’s search for an experienced Florida trial attorney to represent him is in flux, reports The Washington Post.

In a future trial, South Florida would provide the jury pool, although it’s unclear if the case would draw jurors from Miami-Dade or West Palm Beach counties, reports The New York Times during interviews with residents.

“From my personal perspective, up till now, they don’t have anything on him,” said Modesto Estrada, 71, a retiredMiamibusinessman, of Trump. “And nothing’s going to happen to him. He’s not going to jail. The case is going to fall apart and that’s what I’m hoping.”

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Dissecting Trump’s defenses: Allies test versions (Justice Department is politically motivated, classified documents weren’t sold, the Mar-a-Lago bathroom was locked, the former president is not a spy).

▪ The Hill: Trump-Gen. Mark Milley feud played role in classified documents case.

▪ The Hill: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) steers clear of defending Trump on indictment.

▪ Reuters: President Biden underwent root canal procedures at the White House on Sunday and Monday, which required local anesthetic and rescheduling of his official itinerary.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

House conservatives said Monday that they’re ready to end their blockade of the House floor — at least temporarily — while they continue discussions with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about ways to give the House Freedom Caucus members more power and curb deficit spending in future funding packages. The conservative rebels essentially held the floor hostage since last Tuesday, when 11 hard-liners blocked a procedural measure in protest of McCarthy’s handling of the debt limit negotiations with Biden, which led to the passage of a bipartisan debt limit deal last month.

While vague in their demands, the detractors were essentially asking for assurances that the Speaker would hold a harder line on spending in the budget fights to come. While the hard-liners said Monday evening that no firm agreement has been reached with the Speaker, they added they’re encouraged by the direction of the talks and will release their stranglehold on the House this week while those discussions continue (The Hill).

“Here’s what everyone understood: The power-sharing agreement that we entered into in January with Speaker McCarthy must be renegotiated,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said after leaving McCarthy’s office. “He understood that, we understood that. And it has to be renegotiated in a way so that what happened on the settlement vote would never happen again, where House conservatives would be left as the less desirable coalition partner than Democrats.”

The end of the blockade comes just in time — the Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to mark up a GOP tax-cut bill today, while the Appropriations Committee is poised to tackle the first of the 12 annual appropriations bills. Next week, the House Armed Services Committee is set to vote on the annual defense authorization bill (as is its Senate counterpart).

▪ Politico: Capitol Hill reckons with a government funding fight that just got tougher.

▪ Roll Call: Democrats call for investigation into Homeland Security watchdog.

▪ The Daily Beast: McCarthy rolls out his Trump defense: “A bathroom door locks.”

➤ POLITICS

As a number of states are seeking further restrictions to abortion access, the next big battle in the reproductive rights fight is set to take place in August in Ohio, where voters will consider a ballot measure that could make it harder for the state to enshrine protections for the medical procedure, writes The Hill’s Caroline Vakil.

Ohioans are set to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that, if passed, would require at least 60 percent of voters to pass any amendment to the state’s constitution – up from the current threshold of more than 50 percent. Though the amendment doesn’t explicitly mention abortion, the election, which has sparked bipartisan backlash, comes as Democrats seek to put an abortion measure on the ballot this November that would enshrine abortion protections in the state’s constitution. Should the proposed constitutional amendment pass, it could make it harder for abortion rights advocates to pass their own initiative.

“It’s such a power grab on so many levels, and I think it really is an attempt to silence the voice of the people,” Ohio state Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D) told The Hill.

▪ The Hill: Ohio’s top court rules parts of ballot measure at center of abortion fight must be rewritten.

▪ The Washington Post: In post-Roe Virginia, a doctor-state senator stakes out a nuanced abortion stance.

▪ Rolling Stone: Former Vice President Mike Pence may have inadvertently protected abortion rights in Indiana.

2024 headlines: GOP presidential candidate former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said he believes the indictment against Trump was “a very tight, very detailed, evidence-laden indictment, and the conduct in there is awful.” During a CNN town hall on Monday, Christie characterized Trump as “angry” and “vengeful” and said he believes prosecutors have more evidence than put forward so far (CNN). … Presidential primary contender Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) counts endorsements from more than 140 politicians in the Palmetto State (The Associated Press).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv’s forces are launching a counteroffensive against an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills. The changing Russian tactics along with increased troop numbers and improved weaponry could make it challenging for Ukraine to score any kind of quick decisive victory, threatening to turn it into a long battle of attrition (The Associated Press).

Civilians were killed in an overnight attack on a residential building in the city of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, according to a regional governor (The Washington Post and Reuters).

▪ The New York Times: Attacks from Ukraine have killed at least a dozen Russian civilians and displaced thousands. But they have not fundamentally changed the calculus for President Vladimir Putin.

▪ The New York Times: South Africa is accused of helping supply Russia with weapons for the Ukraine war, a charge that the country denies.

▪ The Associated Press: Using high-tech laser gear, a U.N.-backed team scans Ukraine historical sites to preserve them amid war.

▪ Al Jazeera: NATO’s largest air force drill prepares for a “crisis situation.”

As Beijing and Washington move gingerly toward restoring high-level exchanges, Xi Jinping is stepping up his effort to gird China for conflict — including “extreme” scenarios. As the U.S. and China set plans for a rescheduled visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Beijing is playing up the possibility of worsening ties between the two countries (The Wall Street Journal).

▪ The Guardian: China concerns prompt U.S. move to rejoin UNESCO.

▪ The New York Times: How Silvio Berlusconi changed Italy, for better or worse.

▪ The Washington Post: Berlusconi’s testosterone-filled politics have been overtaken by women in Italy.

▪ Politico EU: Berlusconi’s nine most controversial moments.

OPINION

■ Another Biden defense, by James Freeman, columnist, The Wall Street Journal.

■ Rep. Jim Jordan’s tortured defense of Trump points to a coming GOP split, by Greg Sargent, columnist, The Washington Post.

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 at 10 a.m. for a vote to override the president’s veto of a joint resolution blocking a policing reform law in the nation’s capital.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will meet (after Monday’s postponement for unscheduled dental work) with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at 1 p.m. at the White House. Biden will speak at 5:15 p.m. at an East Room reception for Chiefs of Mission conferees (principal officers in charge of State Department diplomatic offices and missions from around the world). The president and first lady Jill Biden will host a Juneteenth concert at 7 p.m. on the South Lawn (the federal holiday is Monday, June 19).

Vice President Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will attend the evening’s Juneteenth concert at the White House.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends Chiefs of Mission Conference events throughout the day. He will meet with Stoltenberg at 11 a.m. at the State Department, then join the president and the secretary general at the White House in the afternoon. Blinken will participate in the White House reception this evening for the Chiefs of Mission conferees.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will testify before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m.

First lady Jill Biden will be in San Francisco to headline a political fundraiser for the Biden Victory Fund at 5:15 p.m., followed by another one at 6:45 p.m. She will speak at 8 p.m. PT at the Giffords Law Center’s 30th anniversary celebration in San Francisco. The Associated Press reports on the first lady’s three-day campaign swing, which began in New York.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, who plans to leave the agency this month, will testify at 10:30 a.m. about COVID-19 policies to the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Economic indicators: The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting before announcing monetary policy direction on Wednesday. The Fed faces a complicated situation (The Wall Street Journal). Separately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics at 8:30 a.m. will release the Consumer Price Index for May and a report on real earnings in May, both closely examined by the central bank.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1:30 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ TRENDS

🔥 In the past 20 years, California’s northern forests have experienced a stark increase in lands burned by fire — and now scientists have a better idea why. The culprit is a familiar one, reports The Hill’s Saul Elbein: human-caused climate change, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, according to findings published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But other aspects are new, and the paper presents a portrait of fires in an alternate California, in which human-caused climate change hadn’t happened. It offers a sobering warning for any ecosystem — notably Canada and the Western U.S. — in which temperature, not the availability of trees, is the primary factor limiting the size of fires.

▪ Axios: Canadian officials warn historic wildfires could “last all summer.”

▪ The Washington Post: California’s 2020 smoke storm was horrific. What did the state learn?

🌎 Melissa Hoffer is the first state climate chief in the nation, appointed by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D). If things go as Hoffer hopes, she will be the first in a long line of similar officials across other states, Hoffer told The Hill’s Zack Budryk.

“Whether you are a state or local or federal government, or whether you run an institution or a business, you need to begin to have a formalized structure in place to consider climate change,” Hoffer said. “So our hope is that this will be a replicable model that could be used by other states, that it could also be adapted to other local governments.”

The Boston Globe: “A defining issue of our time”: Massachusetts’s first climate chief is bringing an all-of-government approach to climate change.

🏥 A range of factors conspire to determine who dies from cancer, including genetics and where people live. U.S. cancer death rates have decreased over the past 25 years, according to the American Cancer Society, but the sharpest decrease in cancer deaths has occurred among Black people, Native Americans and Alaskan natives, according to a February 2022 report from Kaiser Family Foundation, The Hill’s Alejandra O’Conell-Domenech reports. This is in part due to improvements in cancer screening, treatments, early diagnosis and changes in behavior like reduced cigarette smoking, according to Latoya Hill, a senior policy analyst at KFF’s Racial and Health Policy Program.

But even though white Americans have higher rates of new cancer diagnoses, some people of color, especially Black people, are still more likely to die from the disease, National Cancer Institute data shows.

NBC News: Experimental brain cancer vaccine may slow growth of glioblastoma tumors.

👷 Manufacturing construction is surging across the country as legislative efforts to reinvigorate the U.S. industrial base are bearing fruit. As The Hill’s Tobias Burns reports, experts say these changes — led in part by administration’s policies — represent a watershed moment for U.S. heavy industry and a shift toward more environmentally friendly methods of production amid an ongoing climate emergency.

“We waited for so long to have these kinds of initiatives,” Miki Banu, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, told The Hill. “This is probably the first time in my life when I’ve seen so many resources become available, which are able to let us put our ideas into practice.”

🗞️ Washington Post publisher and chief executive Fred Ryan, 68, announced Monday he will step down in August to lead a new Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Owner Jeff Bezos appointed Patty Stonesifer, the founding chief executive of the Gates Foundation and more recently the director of the Amazon board, to be interim Post CEO. Bezos provided the initial funding for planning and design of the Public Civility center. Ryan helped found Politico and early in his career was a Reagan aide both in the White House and when the former president returned to private life (The Washington Post).

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🌌 Many of us saw Matt Damon’s character survive (barely) on potatoes grown in an indoor, controlled-climate shelter on Mars. Hollywood’s adventure depicted in “The Martian” actually tracked science. “Let there be dark” is the catchy headline for new details about ongoing research to grow plants without sunlight to feed astronauts bound for the red planet (Science). It’s a journey that can take manned spacecraft nine months to years, although NASA’s Rover needed seven months to get to Mars.

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