Home invader shot by DeKalb County resident

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. – An alleged home invader is recovering in the hospital after police say they were shot by a DeKalb County resident early Friday morning.

Officials say the shooting happened around 4 a.m. on the 3000 block of Bedevere Circle.

Police responding to the scene found a person who had been shot.

According to investigators, it appeared like the two people involved in the shooting had gotten into a fight earlier in the evening. After they separated, police say the suspect tried to break into the home and was shot.

The allegedly wanna-be home invader is expected to survive their injuries, police say.

Officers are not charging the homeowner at this time.

ECSO investigating fatal shooting in Warrington as self-defense

A man was shot and killed during an alleged robbery at the Forest Creek Apartments in Warrington on Friday evening, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.

ECSO spokesperson Morgan Lewis told the News Journal that they are investigating the shooting as self defense.

“We don’t anticipate any charges at this time,” she told the News Journal.

Investigators discovered a video of two men getting into a confrontation with one another. The now-deceased man pulled out a firearm, and according to Lewis used it to rob the second man of his firearm.

Unbeknownst to alleged robber, the second man had another firearm and used it to shoot and kill the other individual, according to Lewis.

Lewis said the investigation remains open.

Observation O’ The Day – Glenn Reynolds

Earlier today, Trump called for RFK to get Secret Service protection, and a friend messaged me: “Haha, when they do that, our crazy orange former president official becomes shadow chief executive. Making the common sense calls the Biden admin can’t quite manage.”

And later today, they did that, with Sec. Mayorkas announcing that RFK will get Secret Service protection. To which my friend comments: “Prediction: Here through Jan 20  will be the first six months of the second Trump admin.”

The dynamism is all on one side here.

Trump Dodges Another Bullet: Jack Smith

Everything really is going Donald Trump’s way in the six weeks since his conviction on May 30. Trump pulled in a vast fundraising haul after the conviction, jumping ahead for the first time in the campaign cash race while his conviction barely dented his standing in the polls. The intermediate appeals court in Georgia issued a stay order halting Fani Willis’s prosecution of Trump.

\The Supreme Court took two big bites out of Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump in D.C., with an immunity ruling and a decision on the obstruction-of-a-proceeding statute that will both require further, time-consuming litigation to see how they have narrowed the case. Acting Justice Juan Merchan delayed Trump’s state-court sentencing in New York from mid July to mid September in order to consider whether Trump’s conviction violated his immunity from having evidence of official acts introduced at his trial. His opponent melted down so badly in their first debate that Joe Biden is still fending off calls to drop out of the race, and has reportedly seen his fundraising dry to a trickle with big donors.

Then, Trump survived an assassination attempt and emerged looking vigorous and defiant. He will probably raise another mountain of cash after the shooting in Butler, Pa., which left a flustered Biden scrambling to pause his attack ads and reconsider the vitriol of his attacks on Trump. MSNBC even sidelined Morning Joe for the day out of fear of going overboard against Trump. And now, rolling into today’s curtain-opening of the Republican convention and announcement of Trump’s running mate, Judge Aileen Cannon has thrown out what once seemed the strongest of the cases against the former president: the retention of boxes of classified and sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office.

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Trump Scores Major Legal Victory!

Donald Trump received a major legal victory Monday morning when U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Biden administration’s classified documents case against him.

Cannon granted former President Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment against him, citing the unlawful appointment and funding of Special Counsel Jack Smith. The judge ruled that Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, leading to the dismissal of the superseding indictment. Additionally, the court found that Smith’s use of a permanent, indefinite appropriation violated the Appropriations Clause, though it did not address the remedy for this violation.

In early April, Judge Cannon had rejected Trump’s previous attempt to dismiss the case, which was based on the argument that the documents found at his estate were personal records. Trump had filed multiple motions for dismissal back in February, employing various arguments, such as asserting presidential immunity and questioning the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment.

Merrick Garland handpicked Jack Smith in November to investigate former President Donald J. Trump over the alleged mishandling of classified documents and the ridiculous case over the Capitol riot.

Cannon’s new ruling is limited to this specific case.

Garland called Smith the “right choice to complete these matters in an evenhanded and urgent manner.” But in reality, Smith is a hardcore partisan with a shoddy record whose sole purpose was to get the result the Biden administration wanted.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against former President Donald Trump had been on shaky ground for months. As far back as March, it appeared to be falling apart.

In April, Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents in the case, revealing that an FBI agent had testified that the General Services Administration (GSA) was in possession of Trump’s boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump’s team to retrieve them. These same boxes, which the GSA had held and then ordered Trump’s team to retrieve, ended up being the ones containing classified markings. This raised questions about whether the Biden administration had set up Trump.

In May, Smith’s team admitted to misleading Cannon and tampering with the evidence used to support his case against Trump.

The case against Trump was widely seen as political because Joe Biden had classified information that he was never entitled to have stored in boxes in his garage for years but was not charged, even though he had never had the authority to declassify them.

In February, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen” and that his actions “presented serious risks to national security.” However, Hur wouldn’t bring charges against him because Biden “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

You can read the entire ruling here.

NY AG Outlines What She Wants for NRA

New York Attorney General went after the National Rifle Association not out of concern for its members, but because she has ideological issues with the organization. She might claim otherwise, but her own rhetoric on the NRA in the past suggests otherwise.

However, there were, in fact, serious problems with the organization. There was actual corruption at the top of the NRA, which has now been dealt with.

The NRA is far from out of the woods. There is still a trial ongoing.

Stephen Gutowski, writing at The Reload, has an outline of what James wants for the NRA. First, Wayne LaPierre would have to be kept well away from the organization, which I don’t think anyone disagrees with at this point. There would also be an overseer, someone nominated by the NRA but approved by the court, in consultation with the NY state attorney general. Then there’s more (paywalled):

A second filing provided greater detail on how the oversight process would work and exactly how much access the court-appointed official would have. The AG proposed that the new official serve for three years after being nominated by the NRA and approved by the court. They would primarily be responsible for watching how the NRA spends its money, especially in areas that lead to the corruption central to the case—like related-party transactions and travel arrangements.

“This entails ensuring that the NRA implements and enforces its internal controls, policies, procedures and practices governing financial transactions and matters, including without limitation for purchasing, procurement, conflicts of interest and related party transactions, business ethics, expense reimbursements, travel expenses and gifts, gratuities and entertainment, are effective,” the second filing said. “This means that they are in place, compliant with governing law, communicated to staff, directors, vendors and NRA members, and consistently executed and enforced by the NRA’s management, and the NRA Board has knowledge of the content and operation and exercises reasonable oversight to ensure compliance.”

The filing also laid out what the overseer wouldn’t have authority over. It said the court-appointed official wouldn’t have a say over the “NRA’s Core Fundamental Mission Operations.” Those operations include the “political, legislative and advocacy activities of the NRAILA, including, without limitation, management of donor-restricted funds, the substance of programs comprising the NRA’s nonprofit mission,” as well as “mission-related (meaning advocacy) litigation.”

In other words, it looks like the oversight authority wouldn’t extend to anything involved in fighting for gun rights in this country, only in making sure that money is spent how it’s meant to be spent.

In theory, this shouldn’t be an issue. We have reform candidates who won some seats on the NRA board, so there are at least some people internally who are going to fight to make sure the NRA does what it said it would do, so having a third party from the outside also makes sure shouldn’t be a huge issue.

I’d love to say that this sets a precedence that I’m uncomfortable with, though I don’t know that this establishes a precedence at all. If this has happened before with other non-profits, then so be it.

My hesitancy stems mostly from not trusting Letitia James not to try to find some kind of loophole through which she and those who come after her can monkey with the NRA fulfilling its mission.

But if there are safeguards on that, then this is hardly the worst thing in the world. It would also allow the NRA to refocus its efforts on something other than defending itself in a court of law. It can then really buckle down on defending gun rights, which has been lacking.

Yeah, I still think other groups will fill the void, but that’s taking longer than I’d like or than we can afford. 

So long as this doesn’t allow anyone to prevent the NRA from spending money on its actual mission, then so be it. However, I will qualify all of this to say that I’m not remotely equipped to evaluate whether that’s the case or not.

Local officer encountered gunman just before he shot toward Trump at rally, sources tell AP

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — On the heels of an attempt to kill him, former President Donald Trump called Sunday for unity and resilience as shocked leaders across the political divide recoiled from the shooting that left him wounded but “fine.”

A former fire chief attending the rally with family was killed, as was the gunman. Two other people were also critically wounded.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting. His aides said he was in “great spirits” and doing well.

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” he wrote on his social media site. “Much bleeding took place.”

In a subsequent social post Sunday, Trump said “it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”

“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” his post said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Sunday identified the rallygoer who was killed as Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief from the area, and said he “died a hero.”

“His wife shared with me that he dove on his family to protect them,” Shapiro said. He declined to discuss the condition of two others who were wounded.

The FBI identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, which is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the scene of the shooting. An FBI official said investigators had not yet determined a motive.

Secret Service agents fatally shot Crooks. The gunman attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue at a farm show in Butler, the agency said.

Not long before shots rang out, rallygoers noticed a man climbing to the roof of a nearby building and warned local police, according to two law enforcement officials.

One local police officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder, and Crooks quickly took a shot toward Trump, and that’s when Secret Service snipers shot him, said the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

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Trump rally attendee remembered as “hero” who died protecting his family

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro identified the victim who was killed in an attempted assassination of former President Trump as Corey Comperatore on Sunday.

Driving the news: Comperatore, the former Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company chief, dove on his family members to shield them from the attack, Shapiro said at a press conference after speaking to Comperatore’s wife and daughters.

  • Shapiro said the “girl dad” of two attended church every Sunday and was an “avid supporter” of the former president who was “so excited” to rally with members of his community at Saturday’s campaign event.

What they’re saying: Family members remember Comperatore as a loving father and dedicated community member.

  • “The PA Trump Rally claimed the life of my brother, Corey Comperatore,” Facebook user Dawn Comperatore Schafer wrote in a post shared Sunday. “The hatred for one man took the life of the one man we loved the most.”
  • “My baby brother just turned 50 and had so much life left to experience,” she continued on the post, which showed Comperatore smiling with gold birthday balloons. “Hatred has no limits and love has no bounds.”
  • A post written by his daughter, Allyson, that circulated online described how her father, who she called a “hero,” “threw my mom and I to the ground” and “shielded my body from the bullet that came at us.”
  • “He loved his family,” she wrote. “He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us.”

Zoom out: A GoFundMe started Sunday to raise money for his family has already accumulated over $171,000 in donations.

Donald Trump Just Won
The shooter wasn’t just evil, but stupid

Regular readers of this newsletter, and people who hate my guts, don’t need to be told my opinion of Donald Trump. And speaking as someone who has managed to stay off the Trump Train for the past eight years:

This kicks ass.

Photo by Evan Vucci

The guy almost gets his brains blown out on live TV, and he stands up with blood on his face and pumps his fist in defiance. I think he said, “Fight!” Or maybe some other F-word. Whatever it was, it was awesome.

It may be the most American thing I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.

Whatever you may think of him as a person, or a past and probably future president, Trump showed us who he is in a moment of crisis.

And not a “crisis” like global warming or a Supreme Court ruling or the price of almond milk at Starbucks, but the crisis of actually getting hit in the head by a would-be assassin’s bullet.

Remarkable. My non-MAGA hat is off to him.

I’m glad the assassin missed his target, I’m angry that he killed a bystander, and I look forward to finding out how the hell the Secret Service allowed it to happen.

The shooter wasn’t just evil, but stupid. He just handed the election to the guy he wanted to kill.

How does Trump lose after this?