Brief Nooz

Some gusts could rekindle parts of the two major blazes that are still burning in Los Angeles County. Others could start new fires. That is what happened on Monday night, when the Auto fire grew to more than 50 acres within hours of igniting in a river bed in Ventura County, northwest of the city. It was burning uncontrolled in the early morning hours, although firefighters said its progress had stopped.

Another concern is that electrical infrastructure could spark new fires, as it has in California’s past. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s largest municipal utility, warned on Monday night that it could shut off power for customers in areas with high fire risk as a safety measure. Another utility, Southern California Edison, said it had already shut off power to more than 60,000 customers.

A NYT graphic; the big fire is only 17% contained:

*The WSJ reports that had not federal prosecutors been forced to drop the case of Trump interfering with his loss of the election for yours ago, he likely would have been convicted. For want of a nail . . .

Special counsel Jack Smith defended his decision to bring charges against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, writing in a report made public early Tuesday that prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to convict him had they not been forced to drop the case after his re-election in November.

“Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith wrote in the 174-page report, the release of which marks the end of an unprecedented chapter in U.S. history.

Smith dismissed the federal election-interference case and one alleging Trump unlawfully retained classified documents, citing longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.

“While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,” Smith wrote in the report, which Attorney General Merrick Garland sent to Congress just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, shortly after a court order barring its disclosure expired. “The facts, as we uncovered them in our investigation and as set forth in my Report, matter. Experienced prosecutors know that you cannot control outcomes, you can only do your job the right way for the right reasons,” Smith said.

Although many of the details in the report have been previously revealed, the document represents the most detailed assessment to date of the decision-making by Smith’s team leading up to the unprecedented move to federally charge a former president. Its release less than a week before Trump is set to return to the White House further infuriated the president-elect, who repeatedly attacked the prosecutions as a politically motivated effort to derail his candidacy.

In six days we will have a convicted felon as President, and someone who would have likely served jail time had they not dropped the charges outlined above.  Despite the pessimism of those who aver that democracy is at an end in America, I think our Republic will stand, and will withstand the next four years. After all, we survived one Trump presidency already. I just hope the Democrats can get their house in order and proffer some electable candidates. Their chances depend, of course, on what Trump does in this coming term.

*Although I don’t believe in capital punishment, if ever there was a case for it, it would be this one:

BREAKING Read More