Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday filed motions to dismiss both the federal election interference and classified documents cases against President-elect Donald Trump

The Morning Dispatch

Nov 26, 2024

By Mary Trimble, Grayson Logue, and James P. Sutton

Happy Tuesday! We thought we might have found the next Homeward Bound story when we heard about the mysterious appearance of Patagonian Mara—rabbit-like creatures native to Argentina—in the United Arab Emirates. But the pack seems to be thriving in their new home. 

Maybe they’re just trying to avoid Javier Milei’s chainsaw and brood of English mastiffs. 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday filed motions to dismiss both the federal election interference and classified documents cases against President-elect Donald Trump. Trump’s legal team made no objections to the requested dismissals. “It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” Smith wrote in the election interference case motion. Such prohibitions “apply to this situation and that as result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” he wrote. Smith requested that the classified documents case continue for Trump’s two co-defendants “because, unlike defendant Trump, no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.” 

Officials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said Monday that police had arrested three Uzbek nationals in connection to the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, an Israeli-Moldovan dual citizen whose body was found over the weekend following a four-day search. Israeli media outlets have suggested that the trio could have been working under the direction of Iran. The Iranian embassy in the UAE denied involvement, and Emirati officials have not named any sponsor group or country as responsible for the suspected terrorist attack.  

Cǎlin Georgescu, an independent, far-right Romanian presidential candidate, advanced on Sunday to the presidential election run-off after winning a surprising plurality in the first round of voting. Georgescu is a fierce critic of NATO, has lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin, and was previously expelled from the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians for praising leaders of the World War II-era fascist Iron Guard movement. He will face pro-NATO, pro-Europe conservative Elena Lasconi in a December 8 vote. 

Russian missiles and drones struck the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia on Monday, killing 23 people and injuring 41. Russian troops also pressed assaults along the front in eastern Ukraine, attacking the settlement of Kozacha Lopan and initiating an amphibious assault across the Oskil River in eastern Kharkiv. 

Supporters of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attempted to break through police barricades around the capital of Islamabad on Monday, as the city remains on lockdown following Khan’s calls for a “final protest” against his detention. Khan, who has been imprisoned for more than a year on 150 criminal charges that he claims are politically motivated, is still a popular figure with the Pakistani public who see him as challenging the military’s power. Pakistani authorities said one policeman had been killed and 50 injured in the clashes.

Some workers represented by the Service Employees International Union at Charlotte International Airport went on strike Monday, seeking higher wages as the country enters one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. The strike is scheduled to last 24 hours, and American Airlines—for which Charlotte is a main hub—has said it does not expect dramatic disruptions.

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Of Warrants and War

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attend a press conference on October 28, 2023, in Tel Aviv. (Photo by ABIR SULTAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Last Thursday, just after the 79th anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg trials, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with war crimes. In a statement, the court said that it found “reasonable grounds” to suspect that Netanyahu and Gallant “each bear criminal responsibility for … the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

On the one hand, the warrants were a bombshell: The ICC, which is charged with investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity, for the first time issued an arrest warrant for the sitting head of state of a well-established democracy. On the other, little is expected to come of the charges, issued by a court with a contested jurisdiction and no police force. The warrants may ultimately serve primarily as a distraction at a moment when the focus of Israel’s war is shifting from Hamas in Gaza and toward direct conflict with its most powerful ...

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,693-word item on the ICC warrants amid an ongoing war is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

Reporter Oliver Roeder has questions about time. “Caesium is a soft, silvery-gold metal that becomes liquid when stored in a warm room,” he explained for the Financial Times. “Its main commercial use is as an ingredient in drilling fluids for petroleum exploration. But thanks to quirks of chemistry and history, caesium is also the metronome of the world, the ultimate source of all modern time.” The vibration of one atom of Caesium became the international standard for the length of a second in 1967. But that could be changing. “Modern timekeeping has improved by about an order of magnitude per decade, Moore’s law for clocks. We now measure time to its quintillionth part. At this level of particularity, the latest principles of physics, and those yet to be discovered, are laid bare on tables in small rooms in otherwise unremarkable basements. Reckoning with this new precision, the world’s foremost timekeepers and clockmakers, the men and women who maintain the measure of our days, are also grappling with a fundamental question of international political importance. How long is a second?”

Writing for Persuasion, Michał Kranz argued that Donald Trump’s election and the potential end of the war in Ukraine present both challenges and opportunities for Eastern European security. “The likely conclusion of the war in Ukraine during Trump’s first year in office will only be the tip of the iceberg of the transformations on the horizon for Eastern Europe,” Kranz wrote. “States in the region, most notably Poland and the Baltics, are already looking beyond Ukraine to a scenario in which Russia might soon be ready to unleash its war machine on NATO’s East itself, which, without ironclad American security guarantees, would be more vulnerable than ever. And yet, for Eastern Europe, this tense moment offers surprising opportunities. In the absence of America’s guiding and often constraining hand, they will have the chance to redefine their own defense future, reap the rewards of the post-war economic order in Ukraine, and finally force Western Europe to confront the realities of the multipolar world head-on.”

Presented Without Comment  

New York Times: Regulator Sues Anti-Police Activist Who Spent Charity Funds on Himself

The District of Columbia’s attorney general on Monday sued an activist known for his calls to abolish the police, saying that he diverted $75,000 from a charity to pay for mansion rentals, a trip to Cancún and designer clothes.

Also Presented Without Comment 

Reuters: Brawl Erupts in Serbian Parliament

In the Zeitgeist

Netflix released the trailer for part one of its adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning—and Encanto-inspiring—1967 novel. But this, unlike Wicked, is actually advertised as the first of, presumably, two parts. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude: Part 1 | Official Trailer | Netflix

Netflix

Toeing the Company Line

In the newsletters: Kevin suggested (🔒) that arguments over process vs. outcomes are the ultimate dividing line between classical liberalism and populism, and Nick unpacked (🔒) the reaction on the right to Trump’s selection for secretary of labor. 

On the podcasts: Sarah and David explore the realities of the Department of Government Efficiency on Advisory Opinions. 

On the site today: Chris looked back at Huey Long, 1930s populism, and the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay and Mike interviewed Steve Bannon. 

   

   

   

   

 

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