Three sections of the Fulton County Special Grand Jury’s report have been released. No names were named. This is from the Guardian:

The Fulton County special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn his electoral defeat in Georgia says they found that there was “no widespread fraud” in the state’s 2020 presidential election.

The report’s introduction and conclusion, along with a section in which the grand jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath, were released Thursday. But any recommendations on potential criminal charges will remain under wraps for now.

I’ll keep an eye out for more detailed commentary.

CNN reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith is locked in at least eight secret court battles in the Trump investigations.

Special counsel Jack Smith is locked in at least eight secret court battles that aim to unearth some of the most closely held details about Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election and handling of classified material, according to sources and court records reviewed by CNN.

The outcome of these disputes could have far-reaching implications, as they revolve around a 2024 presidential candidate and could lead courts to shape the law around the presidency, separation of powers and attorney-client confidentiality in ways they’ve never done before.

Yet almost all of the proceedings are sealed, and filings and decisions aren’t public.

You probably heard the news last night that Jack Smith subpoenaed Mark Meadows. This was followed by a grumbling chorus of “Why’d it take so long for the DOJ to subpoena Mark Meadows?”

The sickest thing I’ve read this week:

The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, appears to have thwarted an attempt to stop law enforcement obtaining menstrual histories of women in the state.

A bill passed in the Democratic-led state senate, and supported by half the chamber’s Republicans, would have banned search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices.

Advocates feared private health information could be used in prosecutions for abortion law violations, after a US supreme court ruling last summer overturned federal protections for the procedure.

This is Handmaid’s Tale stuff. There is no benign reason for the state to track anybody’s menstrual cycle.

Josh Marshall had an interesting talk with Paul Krugman:

We talked to economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman today in a TPM Inside Briefing. The full interview will be available for members tomorrow. But the biggest surprise for me came when we spoke about the debt ceiling. I think most of us assume that minting trillion dollars coins or invoking the 14th amendment amount to a kind of politics nerd fanfic — cool and probably the right thing to do but not at all things that are actually going to happen. Krugman told TPM he assumes that that’s exactly what will happen. They’ll deny it till the last moment. But if it comes down to the wire and the White House has to choose between default and one of several legal stratagems to save the full-faith-and-credit hostage from the House radicals’ firing squad they’ll do just that.

To be clear, he didn’t say he was sure or that it was guaranteed. But the fact that it’s his working assumption came as a pretty big surprise to me. He also points so much less discussed strategies as ones that may be more likely than boffo ideas like the trillion dollar coin.

 

There doesn’t seem to be a paywall on this bit, so you can read the whole thing. And here’s a video.

Finally, I was reminded today that sometime in January Kevin McCarthy had the metal detectors outside the House of Representatives removed. That means it’s only a matter of time before somebody with a gun gets into the House and shoots somebody else. I just want to be on record predicting this now.

Update: I was not expecting this. Proud Boys move to subpoena Trump in seditious conspiracy trial —

Leaders in the far-right Proud Boys group, accused in federal court of plotting to use violence to keep Donald Trump in power, are asking the Justice Department to help them force the former president to testify.

Good luck with that.