David A. Graham

Donald Trump was determined to make one more scene in his fraud trial in New York today, and he succeeded.
After a Fox News town hall last night in Iowa, Trump flew to Manhattan, where he rose to speak during closing arguments in the trial—or perhaps more accurately, to rant.
“There wasn’t one witness against us,” Trump said, as The New York Times reported. He called the case a “political witch hunt” and said he was “an innocent man.” He said his financial statements were (naturally) “perfect.

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When the Civil War is in the news, it’s almost never a good sign about the health of the republic.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Trump’s lawyer walked into a trap.

Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries? No, not the current president. The former one.House Republicans recently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, premised on the claim that he is hiding, in the words of Speaker Mike Johnson, “millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” As yet, they have produced no evidence to back up the idea that Biden profited.

Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.

For all the focus on recent changes in the political mood on college campuses, the downfall of Harvard President Claudine Gay turns out to be a story about some of the oldest values of academia.Gay, a political scientist, resigned today, making her the second president of an Ivy League institution to bow out in the past month. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down on December 9, but the cases are not as similar as they might initially seem.

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present, surface delightful treasures, and examine the American idea. Sign up here.Not so long ago, an Atlantic writer set out to defend the former president, a notorious liar with a knack for escaping jams—and one who derived an unseemly joy from impunity. Hand-wringing about this sort of behavior, Roy Blount Jr.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

Bill Clinton sometimes joked that the White House was “the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system,” a sentiment shared by a few other presidents. In the 2024 presidential election, the winner will be remanded to the facility. But in a unique set of circumstances, the loser—whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden—might also face incarceration, in a real federal prison.

Donald Trump is an old man.He’s 77 years old. When Trump was born, Harry S. Truman was president and Perry Como topped the year’s pop charts. Betty White hadn’t yet started her career in film. Israel and Pakistan didn’t exist. Korea was a unified country, and Vietnam was not. The pioneering computer ENIAC was just four months old.Trump’s cultural references are dated, and only getting more so. Elton John and the Rolling Stones headline his rally playlists.

Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.

Fiction can be riveting, as the many lies that supported Representative George Santos’s political career have demonstrated. But facts can also be entertaining too—a point made by the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into the New York Republican, released today.The report is full of language that, even in the formal tone of congressional documents, is scorching.

Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

The symmetry is striking: two lawyers, two different eras of Donald Trump’s career, and two courtrooms in different regions of the country. The lessons from Jenna Ellis and Michael Cohen, however, are the same. Loyalty to Trump is seldom returned, with disastrous results for those who offer it.In an Atlanta courtroom today, Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements.

Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.

Three down, 16 to go.With the attorney Kenneth Chesebro agreeing to plead guilty to a single felony today, the Fulton County, Georgia, racketeering case against Donald Trump and others for attempting to steal the 2020 election has one more conviction and one fewer defendant.As part of the deal, Chesebro pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to file false documents. He’ll pay $5,000 in fines, write an apology letter, and face five years of probation.

When Judge Tanya Chutkan of the federal district court for D.C. was assigned the trial of Donald Trump for his attempt to steal the election, according to the journalist Robert Draper, she asked a friend to pray for her. Chutkan’s decision today to impose a gag order on the former president, her most consequential pronouncement in the case so far, shows why she’ll need prayer, if not outright divine wisdom, to navigate the challenge before her.

Let no one say that Donald Trump has lost his edge. His speech Wednesday evening, amid the roiling violence in the Gaza Strip, shows he’s still got it, whatever it is.In Florida, the former president and GOP presidential front-runner blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a supposed disagreement over a 2020 U.S. missile strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. “I’ll never forget,” Trump said.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

This might be Nikki Haley’s moment.Not her moment to become the Republican presidential front-runner. (Don’t be silly.) Not even her moment to nip at Donald Trump’s heels. But it could be her chance to consolidate the anti-Trump support in the GOP, and to make a solid play for the silver medal and maybe a good speaking slot at the RNC in Milwaukee next summer.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

In a court of law, defendants are entitled to a presumption of innocence. In the court of public opinion, Senator Bob Menendez enjoys no such indulgence.The Democrat from New Jersey was indicted today—along with his wife, Nadine, and three others—on three counts of corruption. Federal prosecutors say the group accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes to assist the Egyptian government. Among other allegations, they say Menendez gave sensitive U.S.

Once upon a time, presidential impeachment was a rare event. But with four of the five inquiries in U.S. history coming in the past 25 years, people seeking to understand and explain the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, launched Tuesday, have looked to the 2019 impeachment of President Donald Trump as an analogy. Both center on allegations of using elected office for personal gain, and both have been divided sharply along partisan lines.

Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was indicted today on three counts of gun-related crimes. Federal prosecutors in Delaware allege that Hunter Biden lied on paperwork when he bought a revolver, saying he did not use illegal substances, and then possessed the pistol while on narcotics.This is one of two major stories about the younger Biden in the headlines this week.

Say this for the Proud Boys: They abide by their own creed. “Fuck around, find out!” members of the group, with Joseph Biggs in front, chanted as they marched down the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021.Over the past week, they’ve found out. Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman, was sentenced today to 22 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy.

Updated at 10:18 a.m. ET on September 4, 2023You don’t often see someone turn down $346 million in free money. But that’s effectively what Florida’s Ron DeSantis is doing.The Republican governor and presidential candidate has blocked his state from getting energy-efficiency incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature Biden-administration policy that passed in 2022, Politico noted last week.

To borrow a phrase from the man himself, Rudy Giuliani had a theory, but not a lot of evidence.The lack of evidence—or more specifically, the failure to hand it over—caught up with him today, when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that Giuliani was liable for defaming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter who served as election workers in Fulton County, Georgia.