By Ankush Khardori

Authorities stand near barricades at the Fulton County courthouse on Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, part of additional security measures ahead of a possible indictment of former President Donald Trump. | Brynn Anderson/AP Photo

PREPARED TO LAUNCH — For much of the year, the political world and legal observers have been waiting for Fani Willis, the District Attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, to criminally charge Donald Trump in connection with a long-running probe into the effort by Trump and his allies to keep him in power after his loss in the 2020 election. On Monday, local law enforcement officials beefed up security measures around the Fulton County courthouse, suggesting that Trump’s fourth indictment of the year could come any day now.

For their part, Trump and his lawyers appear quite certain that Fulton County prosecutors plan to charge him. Trump has been publicly attacking Willis since last year, but even more telling has been a series of desperate efforts by Trump’s lawyers to derail the investigation and potential prosecution. Last month, they filed a petition with the Georgia Supreme Court accusing Willis’s office of a “contortion of legal processes whose object is [Trump’s] irremediable injury” and of putting Trump in the special grand jury’s “crosshairs.” The effort was promptly rebuffed by the state’s top court and, separately, by the judge who oversaw the special grand jury.

This was not surprising because, as a legal matter, the effort was borderline nonsense. You generally cannot get criminal charges dismissed before they have even been filed against you. The Trump team’s filing, however, was of a piece with similar longshot efforts by the former president’s lawyers — including, earlier this year, publicly attacking the foreperson of the special grand jury for the cardinal sin of answering questions that the media asked her.

The prospect of four simultaneously pending criminal cases in four separate jurisdictions would be a remarkable one for any person, much less a former U.S. president. Legal fees multiply, your calendar fills up with court hearings, and the risk of a loss in one or more cases goes up.

At this point, however, an indictment of Trump by Fulton County prosecutors may not have the impact — legally, politically or practically — that many had once hoped.

Much of the interest and excitement surrounding the investigation for the last couple of years appears to have been a result of the fact that it was far from clear whether the Justice Department would prosecute Trump over his effort to stay in power. As a result, it seemed in some quarters that Willis’s investigation might be the only available vehicle for pursuing criminal charges against Trump for his post-election conduct — including, of course, Trump’s infamous recorded phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The call, of course, is now referenced in the federal indictment filed last week in Washington, D.C. that charges Trump with a wide-ranging criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election. And it is safe to assume that the Justice Department’s prosecution will eclipse a parallel prosecution against Trump filed by a local prosecutor, particularly if the charges largely — if not entirely — cover factual terrain that is also being covered by the DOJ’s case.

Still, for some Trump antagonists, a prosecution by Fulton County would have a unique strategic benefit: The federal pardon power does not extend to state cases, so Trump could not pardon himself if he is reelected in 2024 or be pardoned by another U.S. president — whether that is Joe Biden or another GOP hopeful who might conceivably get the party’s nomination and defeat Biden in a general election matchup next fall.

Despite some pleas for Biden to step in and save Trump, the president does not currently appear interested in pardoning Trump for his alleged federal offenses. That means that as long as Biden is president, there is a meaningful chance that a new indictment in Fulton County will recede into the legal background as Trump continues to face his two federal prosecutions.

That is particularly the case given the fact that Trump already has two criminal trials on the calendar for next year — the trial in Manhattan is scheduled to start in March, while the federal trial in Florida in the documents case is scheduled to start in May — and special counsel Jack Smith appears to be preparing to push for a trial date in the federal election case against Trump so that it would also occur sometime next year. Squeezing in another trial in this crowded calendar would be challenging, to say the least, particularly if Trump is the Republicans’ general election nominee and is campaigning in parallel through next November while fending off prosecutors.

If Fulton County prosecutors proceed to charge Trump, they could manage to break new ground if they allege materially new facts concerning the former president’s conduct. But for the time being, we continue to wait for them to make their move as part of a remarkable story — an onslaught of legal problems unlike any that a former president has ever faced — that is unfolding before our eyes.

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— GOP faces conservative roadblock to ousting Tester: Top Republicans went all out to avoid a contentious primary in Montana’s Senate race by urging GOP Rep. Matt Rosendale to stay in the House. It’s not working. Rosendale, who lost a Senate bid in 2018, is moving closer toward another statewide run, hiring a well-connected fundraiser and working to lock up support from top conservatives. He’s also trying to silence any doubters after the Club for Growth walked back a previous plan to back his bid. “He’s running,” said former conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who has pledged to help Rosendale. “Of course he’s running.”

— Divided Supreme Court allows ‘ghost gun’ rule to take effect: The Supreme Court voted 5-4 today to allow the Biden administration’s regulations on so-called ghost guns to go into effect. The ruling is a temporary victory for the administration, but a lawsuit challenging the regulations will continue in the lower courts. Two conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — joined with the court’s three liberals to allow the government to begin enforcing the regulations that were celebrated by groups pushing for tighter gun laws. At issue are kits used to make homemade firearms, which are commonly called ghost guns because they don’t have serial numbers that make them traceable. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rolled out regulations on these kits last year that required them to have serial numbers and ordered sellers to keep transaction records and run background checks on buyers.

— Special counsel still scrutinizing finances of Trump’s PAC: Special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of efforts by Donald Trump and others to subvert the 2020 election remains ongoing — with at least one interview this week that focused on fundraising and spending by Trump’s political action committee. In a closed-door interview on Monday with Bernard Kerik, investigators asked multiple questions about the Save America PAC’s enormous fundraising haul in the weeks between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to Kerik’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who was present for the interview and shared details with POLITICO.

HITTING RESET, AGAIN — Ron DeSantis has replaced his campaign manager Generra Peck, in what is the third major reshuffling of his operations, a campaign spokesperson and a person familiar with the move confirmed to POLITICO’s Gary Fineout.

Peck will be shifted to a role of chief strategist as part of the new order. Taking her place atop the campaign will be James Uthmeier, who has served as chief of staff in DeSantis’ governor’s office. In a text message, Uthmeier said the change was happening “ASAP.”

The move comes just weeks after the DeSantis campaign and close advisers insisted that Peck’s job was secure, even after the team shed a third of its staffers amid a budget crunch and concern about the direction of the operation.

The governor’s team pledged to scale back, build an insurgent operation, and do more mainstream media outreach. They’ve done all that. But the results have yet to be reflected in the polls.

One person close to the campaign, who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the issue, said that Peck’s removal, which was first reported by The Messenger, was “no surprise. Should have happened a few weeks ago.”

EVENT PREPARATION — Minyon Moore, who served as an adviser to President Joe Biden during his nomination of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, has been named chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, reports POLITICO’s Shia Kapos.

The selection of Moore, a Chicago native and confidante of Hillary Clinton, reflects the significance Biden continues to place on Black women voters in the Democratic Party. Moore is credited with playing a role in helping get Vice President Kamala Harris on Biden’s 2020 presidential ticket.

Other members of the convention team are also closely aligned with Biden, the expected Democratic nominee.

Alex Hornbrook, who led the convention selection process, has been named executive director of the convention. Louisa Terrell will serve as a senior adviser to both the convention and the Biden-Harris campaign. Democratic National Committee Deputy Executive Director Roger Lau has been named a senior adviser to the Biden Victory Fund, which is part of an expanded role that includes advising the convention.

NEED SOME TLC — Iowa Democrats know they aren’t getting primary clout. They’re just asking Joe Biden for a visit or two, reports POLITICO’s Myah Ward.

Feelings among the state’s Democrats remain raw after the party gave South Carolina the first primary slot for 2024 earlier this year, dethroning Iowa after more than five decades in the top spot. With GOP hopefuls flocking to the Hawkeye state routinely — including for this month’s state fair — Democrats fear an already reddening Iowa could slip even further away.

Some Iowa Democrats say they’ve begged for more appearances from President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, visits they say could energize the state party and help down-ballot where the GOP message is dominating without pushback.

“It’s a one-sided argument right now. It’s all Republican. And for a state like ours that has been purple and has shifted red, it’s not helpful at all for us to just be inundated with Republicans. Republicans are out organizing, they have people going door to door. They are registering voters,” said Iowa-based Democratic consultant Jeff Link, Barack Obama’s media consultant during the 2008 election.

Democrats’ souring on Iowa has been in the works for years, and gained steam after the botched caucuses in 2020. The national party punished the state by removing it from its first place in the primary lineup. With the president not having a serious primary challenger, Biden has had little incentive to go there.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen listens as Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng speaks during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on July 8 in Beijing, China. | Pool photo by Mark Schiefelbein/Getty Images

TRADE CHILLED — U.S. goods imports from China fell 25 percent during the first six months of 2023, the Commerce Department reported today, as companies looked to other countries to de-risk and diversify their supply chains amid rising friction between Washington and Beijing, writes Doug Palmer.

The sharp decline in 2023 — one year after Russia’s war in Ukraine highlighted the close partnership between Moscow and Beijing — could mark a turning point where rising geopolitical tensions finally persuaded many American companies of the need to find other suppliers. The Biden administration and Congress have imposed new trade restrictions on China in recent years, ranging from export restrictions on U.S. microchips and other high-tech items that could fuel Beijing’s military to new scrutiny of Chinese-made clothing imports because of human rights violations.

“There’s a lot at play here, but I do think for the most part companies are really trying to move away,” said Beth Hughes, vice president trade and customs policy at the American Apparel and Footwear Association, a trade association that represents U.S. companies, many of which manufacture products in China. “They hear the message from Congress and the administration.”

The Commerce Department’s latest data shows China’s share of total U.S. goods imports in the first half of this year totaled only 13.3 percent, down from 16.5 percent last year and a peak level of 21.6 percent in 2017. If that trend continues, China’s share of the U.S. import market this year could be the lowest in nearly two decades.

ON HOLD — Canada’s threat to press ahead with a special tax on American tech giants could blow a big hole in President Joe Biden’s bid to remake the international tax system, writes Brian Faler.

It amounts to a vote of no confidence in the long-running effort, one the administration is worried could prompt other countries to follow suit — unraveling years of difficult negotiations.

Officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, are now furiously lobbying their Canadian counterparts to back off, so far without much progress.

That’s led to the spectacle of policymakers teeing off on one of the U.S.’s closest allies. “The Canadian government has repeatedly been warned,” said Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

NOT WELCOME HERE — When the war in Ukraine broke out, in addition to Ukranian war refugees, many Russians fled their homes as well, frustrated with the leadership of Vladimir Putin or fearful for their own lives because of the war effort or rising authoritarianism in Russia. Many of them ended up in Tbilisi, Georgia, where not all of the locals are happy they’re there. Graffiti around the city suggests that “Russians go home” or “Ruzzki not welcome,” among other notes. For The Guardian, Joshua Kucera reports on the complex political calculations of Russians in Georgia who themselves might not be happy with their home country, and what “home” really means.

On this date in 1991: Thousands of Albanians arrive in Bari, Italy seeking asylum after disembarking from the freighter Vlora. By August 1991, Albania's communist government had fallen, though a general strike and continued opposition to the government left the country mired in economic and social unrest. | Luca Turi/AP Photo

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