Mike Pence and Mark Meadows Just Ruined Trump’s Defense in Classified Docs Case

Former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Sunday that they had no knowledge of then-President Donald Trump declassifying a large number of documents, completely undermining the former president’s main defense in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump’s main argument for his innocence is that as president, he could declassify whatever material he wanted. His allies had previously argued that he had a “standing declassification order” that would immediately declassify any document removed from the Oval Office. Trump himself claimed he could declassify things “just by thinking about it.”

But Pence and Meadows, two of Trump’s closest advisers in the White House, say differently. “I was never made aware of any broad-based effort to declassify documents,” Pence told ABC on Sunday.

Pence was quick to add it’s possible a sweeping declassification did happen without his knowledge. But his comments match Meadows’s testimony to Smith. Meadows told Smith’s investigators that he does not remember Trump ever ordering or even discussing declassifying huge swathes of classified documents, ABC reported Sunday, citing anonymous sources. Meadows also said he was unaware of any “standing order” to automatically declassify documents taken out of the Oval Office.

ABC also saw an early draft of the prologue to Meadows’s memoir about serving as Trump’s chief of staff. Meadows mentions a meeting Trump had at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club with Meadows’s ghostwriter and publicist, but not Meadows. The prologue mentions Trump had a classified war plan on the couch in his office, in plain view. Meadows later removed that detail because he knew it would be “problematic,” according to ABC.

This is the same meeting where Trump himself admitted he knew all his talk about automatic declassification was bunk. In an audio recording of the July 2021 meeting, Trump admits he had classified material and could not declassify it because he no longer holds office.

In the recording, Trump claims he has a “big pile of papers” that undermine previous reports that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had convinced Trump not to attack Iran near the end of his presidency. Trump refers to one document as if he has it in front of him, and at one point there is the sound of paper rustling as if he was showing off the document.

According to the recording transcript, Trump says, “This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is, like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information.”

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” he admits.

In addition to Pence and Meadows, 18 other former administration officials have said they knew of no standing declassification order. These officials include former Chiefs of Staff John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney. Notably, Trump’s lawyers do not mention a standing order in court documents because they could be penalized for making false statements.

Elon Musk on Friday declared he wants to remove the block feature on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter—despite frequently using the block button himself.

There’s also one other big problem: Musk’s desire to limit this blocking feature could also cost X its spot in various app stores.

The Tesla CEO said he wants to remove the block option, in response to discourse surrounding the difference between blocking versus muting users on the app.

“It makes no sense,” he wrote. “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs.”

Muting allows you to remove another user’s posts from your feed without unfollowing them, but blocking allows you to remove that user’s posts from your feed while also restricting contact and their ability to see your posts.

If Musk goes through with his promise, X may be removed from Apple’s App Store. The current guidelines state that apps with user-generated content must provide features such as blocking to protect users from abusive users on apps.

Google’s Google Play enforces similar user-generated content safety protocol.

“Apps that contain or feature UGC, including apps which are specialized browsers or clients to direct users to a UGC platform, must implement robust, effective, and ongoing UGC moderation that ... provides an in-app system for blocking UGC and users,” according to Google’s policy center.

If the block feature is only allowed for private messaging on X, users will also likely be at a higher risk of experiencing harassment or viewing harmful content on their timeline.

Musk has a history of using the block feature and even banning users from the app. Although Musk claims to be an advocate of free speech, he has banned numerous journalists from X. Earlier this week, a Washington Post report found that X has throttled traffic for social media competitors such as Threads and Substack, as well as news sites Musk simply doesn’t like.

This article has been updated.

As Hawaii reels from devastating wildfires and considers how to rebuild, far-right figures are… blaming wokeness for the whole thing.

The conspiracy theory essentially goes like this: An Obama-backed Hawaii official delayed the diversion of water to firefighters during the wildfires in Maui, because that official is a native Hawaiian who respects how water is used.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy helped fan the flames of the right-wing conspiracy theory on Thursday, arguing that “DEI,” or diversity, equity, and inclusion, is to blame for the whole thing.

“[W]e’re learning that the official who delayed the approval is an Obama Foundation ‘Asia Pacific Leader’ & a climate activist,” Ramaswamy tweeted. He’s a “climate activist who believes water should be ‘revered’ first and foremost. The DEI agenda is literally costing people their lives.”  

The theory targets M. Kaleo Manuel, the deputy director of the Hawaii Commission for Water Resource Management (CWRM), following reports that requests for more water were delayed by officials.

On August 10, West Maui Land Co. Inc. sent a letter addressed to Manuel alerting him of a communication issue that occurred the day before.

According to the letter, West Maui Land Co. had reached out to CWRM to alert officials that the reservoirs firefighters were using to combat the wildfires were near-empty, and to request access to nearby streams. While much of the initial fire was already contained by then, West Maui Land was seeking additional resources for fire control. In response, CWRM asked if the Maui fire department was requesting commission, and directed West Maui Land Co. to inquire with a downstream user to ensure that their use of the stream would not be impacted by the diversion.

Permission was eventually granted, but only five hours after the initial request, and by that time “a flare up had shut down the Lahaina Bypass.”

“We watched the devastation unfold around us without the ability to help,” the letter said.

Here is the part that has right-wingers up in arms: Manuel had previously made comments about how native Hawaiians consider water one of the “earthly manifestations of God.” In a 2022 panel on sustainability, Manuel said that people have become used to “looking at water as something which we use, and not necessarily something we revere as that thing that gives us life.”

That comment has become the basis for right-wingers’ attack.

Elon Musk, happy to fan the flames of conspiracy, responded to a tweet which contained a clip of Manuel at the 2022 panel, saying that Manuel “refused” to release water. “Doesn’t that make him in large part responsible for their deaths?” Musk tweeted.

The clip first began circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter, after Jeremy Kauffman, a libertarian activist, shared it with the caption: “Meet M. Kaleo Manuel, the official who refused to release water in Maui, contributing to up to 106 deaths.” Kauffman also made sure to note that Manuel was a “Hawaiian studies major” in college.

Charlie Kirk, president of Turning Point USA, also reshared the video from Kauffman on X. “I’m sure all the victims of the Maui fire are grateful their leaders were focused on worshipping water rather than using it to save their lives,” Kirk wrote.

Conservative media outlets, like The Washington Examiner and The Free Beacon, have elevated the smear campaign further.    

Again, Manuel’s comments are from nearly 10 months ago, and they’re not even that wild on their face: It does make sense to think about how we use water, as our planet deals with a spiraling climate crisis. But the right really loves its own conspiracy theories.

Donald Trump has officially decided he will not attend the Republican presidential debate. Instead, he’ll do an interview with Tucker Carlson, who has privately said he hates Trump “passionately.”

Trump made the decision within the last 24 hours, The New York Times reported Friday, citing anonymous sources briefed on his plan. A date has not been set for the interview yet, but if he goes through with it, then all of the buzz and attention is expected to be on him instead of his opponents.

The former president has been toying for months with passing on the debate. His decision-making process involved talking to aides and asking crowds at rallies whether he should participate or not. Trump’s logic is that he is the frontrunner, so there’s no need for him to debate. (Trump should, of course, have to participate in the debate and explain his policy ideas to voters.) He also said he won’t sign the Republican loyalty pledge required to participate.

“Why would I Debate? I’M YOUR MAN,” he wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.

Agreeing to an interview with Carlson is an extra poke in the eye for Fox News, which is broadcasting the debate. Trump has called Fox a “hostile network” and criticized his former favorite network for not covering his campaign events.

Carlson was the network’s star anchor, but he was unceremoniously fired earlier this year. He has since begun streaming a terrible show on Twitter, while Fox’s viewer numbers tanked. They have since bounced back somewhat, but nowhere close to the ratings that Carlson drew.

Fox never revealed why it fired Carlson, but it was likely due to private messages Carlson sent that were revealed during the network’s lawsuit with Dominion Voting.

Just two days before the January 6 attack, Carlson texted someone about Trump’s time in office. “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest,” he said. “But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” Carlson texted, adding, “I hate him passionately.”

A judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump’s fourth attempt to delay E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against him, slamming the former president’s arguments as “frivolous” and “without merit.”

Trump was unanimously found liable in May for sexual abuse and battery against Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her in 2022 while denying the assault. He was ordered to pay her about $5 million in damages. She has a second defamation lawsuit against him that is set to go to trial in January.

Trump has repeatedly tried to halt the second defamation suit. In December, he first began to argue that he has total presidential immunity against any lawsuits. The presiding judge rejected Trump’s three previous attempts to make this argument, and Friday was no different.

“Mr. Trump’s motion for a stay pending appeal…is denied. This Court certifies that the appeal itself is frivolous,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in the ruling.

Kaplan pointed out that Trump simply recycled arguments, sometimes verbatim, from his three previous unsuccessful appeals. Trump insists that the lawsuit should be delayed because he is likely to successfully appeal for presidential immunity and that he would be subjected to “irreparable harm” without a stay.

“Mr. Trump has not provided a single reason for the Court to find that there is any likelihood that he will succeed on appeal,” Kaplan said.

The judge also noted that Trump’s argument of irreparable harm is “entirely…without merit in the unusual circumstances of this case.” Trump waited three years before bringing up his presidential immunity defense, and then another seven months before he actually moved to use that defense. His actions prove that Trump is just fine continuing to litigate the case, Kaplan said, and he only began to argue about immunity when it became clear he would have to stand trial.

Carroll accused Trump in her 2019 memoir of raping her in the Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. She initially sued him twice for defamation: first in 2019, when he said she made up the rape allegation to promote her book, and again in November for posts he made about her on social media. Carroll is not the only woman to accuse Trump of sexual assault, but her first case was the first to make it to a courtroom.

Trump continues to vehemently deny all of the allegations and launched fresh vitriol at Carroll during the disastrous CNN town hall. She amended her second lawsuit, which is still pending, to include those comments.

Trump’s case for presidential immunity also recently lost a major argument in his favor: The Justice Department no longer considers him immune.