Trump attacks prosecutors in Jan. 6 case, Tou Thao sentenced: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Trump launches new attack on judge and prosecutor in election case

Former President Donald Trump has launched a new attack on the judge and prosecutor in his Jan. 6 election case. USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer reports. Plus, severe thunderstorms turn deadly, a former Minneapolis police officer was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for his role in George Floyd's killing, President Joe Biden's student debt forgiveness for defrauded borrowers has been blocked by a conservative court, and USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at the link between smell and memory.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Tuesday, the 8th of August 2023. Today, Trump's attack on the judge in his election fraud case. Plus another Minneapolis police officer has been convicted in the killing of George Floyd, and we examined the link between smell and memory.

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Former President Donald Trump has launched an attack against the federal prosecutor and judge in his January 6th election fraud case. And his legal team responded yesterday to a 5:00 PM deadline surrounding a proposed protective order that would limit what evidence Trump can publicly share in the case. I spoke with USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer for more. Howdy, Josh, thanks for hopping on.

Josh Meyer:

Of course. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Trump has launched a new attack on the judge and prosecutor in his January 6th case. What is he saying specifically, Josh?

Josh Meyer:

On Friday, Trump took to Truth Social media and said, "If you go after me, I'm coming after you." That prompted the Justice Department and the special counsel to seek a protective order trying to reign Trump in and saying that he can't really just talk about the evidence and threaten witnesses and so forth. The judge in the case gave Trump's lawyers until 5:00 to respond. And in the meantime, Trump took to Truth Social again and said basically that he's not getting a fair or shake that they're unfair to him. And he said, "Deranged Jack Smith," who's the special counsel of course, "is going before his number one draft pick, the judge of his dreams who must be recused in an attempt to take away my first amendment rights." And he said, "That despite the fact that he, the DOJ and his many thug prosecutors are allegedly leaking everything and anything to the fake news media."

So Trump didn't provide any details for that, but he went on in further Truth Social posts to criticize the judge and the prosecutor in this case. And then right at the 5:00 deadline, Trump's lawyers did file a motion saying that they believe that the Justice Department is trying to stifle Trump and prevent him from talking about the case on the campaign trail.

Taylor Wilson:

And so Josh, what was in this formal response from Trump's lawyers yesterday?

Josh Meyer:

Trump's lawyers, John Lauro and Todd Blanche, they said that in a trial about First Amendment rights, the government is seeking to restrict Trump's First Amendment rights. Worse, it does so "against its administration's primary political opponent during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations."

So what they're saying is that basically the Justice Department and the special counsel are trying to keep Trump from talking about the indictment while everybody from Joe Biden and other people that are political adversaries of Trump's are talking about the indictment. And so what they proposed is a "more measured approach" that they say is consistent with other protective orders entered by the judge in this case concerning defendants that were charged with crimes on January 6th, 2021. And they said that what they're proposing appropriately balances the government's desire to protect highly sensitive sources and information and evidence in the case with the rights of President Trump and the public to free speech in an open proceeding.

So they're saying that basically they wanted to be more open. They seem to be acknowledging that there may be the need for some kind of protective order, but they want it to be much more narrow than what the Justice Department is seeking.

Taylor Wilson:

And Josh, shifting to some of the figures around this 2024 election, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in an interview that former President Trump lost the 2020 election. Is this a significant shift for him?

Josh Meyer:

I think that it is significant. We may be seeing some of his opponents in the 2024 GOP primary finally coming around to this where DeSantis said definitively that rival Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. I think he had been equivocating for years on this and even more recently, and he had to be pressed on it. Even in this interview with NBC News, DeSantis may be trying to preserve some sort of wiggle room there for saying that he lost unfairly or that there's reasons to question the integrity of the election. But it is a step forward, it is a significant development and we'll have to wait and see whether DeSantis goes further and whether any other candidates in this crowded field also start saying that Trump did indeed lose the election despite his many claims that he didn't.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Josh Meyer, thanks for your time and what's shaping up to be another busy week of news surrounding the former president. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure. Thanks.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

Severe thunderstorms turned deadly yesterday, killing at least two people and cutting power to more than a million homes and businesses as heavy winds and large hail slammed the Eastern U.S. Those killed in the storms included a 15-year-old boy who was crushed by a tree in South Carolina, while a 28-year-old man died in Alabama after he was struck by lightning, according to WAAY TV. Tornado watches and warnings were issued yesterday across 10 states from Tennessee to New York. The National Weather Service said that nearly 30 million people were under a tornado watch yesterday afternoon. And as of last night, more than 2,600 U.S. flights had been canceled, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. You can find the latest storm updates on usatoday.com.

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Former Minneapolis Police Officer Tou Thao has been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for his role in the killing of George Floyd. Thao kept bystanders away while Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes even as Floyd said he couldn't breathe. Thao was convicted in May in state court of aiding and abetting second degree manslaughter after he rejected a plea deal and waived his right to a jury trial. Thao previously received a three and a half year sentence in a federal civil rights trial. He'll serve both sentences at the same time. Chauvin was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison, while two other officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, are also serving multi-year prison sentences for their roles in the killing. Speaking in court, Thao again denied wrongdoing. Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill said, "After three years of reflection, I was hoping for a little more remorse."

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The federal court yesterday blocked Biden administration rules aimed at forgiving the debt of student borrowers who attended colleges that defrauded them. The move came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by a panel mostly made up of Republican presidential appointees. And it was a response to a request from Career Colleges and Schools of Texas or CCST for a nationwide injunction on the new version of so-called Borrower Defense Rules. The group represents private career oriented or trade schools in Texas, including a number of for-profit colleges. Individuals who attend for-profit schools are disproportionately likely to take and default on student loan debt often because they promise lucrative outcomes, but have a track record of rarely producing those same results.

Federal policies have been developed over the years in an effort to relieve such borrowers of that debt. The Biden Administration's latest effort was part of that push. Through Borrower Defense, students who have been defrauded by their schools have their loans discharged. But in its lawsuit, CCST argued that the Education Department's rule was created to further the administration's loan forgiveness agenda. Yesterday's ruling now delays the start of Biden's regulations, though relief has already come for some defrauded borrowers across a number of settlements. In all, the administration has forgiven nearly $15 billion in loans for defrauded student borrowers already. Nearly half a million borrowers had hoped to solve their borrower defense claims and had pending applications as of January of this year.

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Some might think of smell as the least important of their five senses, but a new study suggests that stimulating the sense of smell can boost memory. I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub for more. Thanks for hopping on, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So this new study suggests that stimulating smell can boost memory. What did the study find specifically, Karen?

Karen Weintraub:

A bunch of people were given a diffuser that spewed smells while they were sleeping. It was seven different scents at night for four months, smells like rose and eucalyptus and lemon, pleasant smells. As the researcher told me, who wants to have nasty smells in their bedroom? These scents seem to have stimulated their brains and their measures of verbal memory seem to have increased and changes were even seen on an MRI scan. So it wasn't just that they tested better, but also there was evidence on this brain scan.

Taylor Wilson:

What do we know about the biological connection between smell and memory?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah. So I thought this was really interesting. The wiring of your brain, your sense of smell is closer to the memory centers of the brain than the other senses are. So vision and hearing are further away in the brain from memory than smell is. So they think that's why there's this seemingly tighter connection or tight connection between the two.

Taylor Wilson:

And Karen, one professor in your piece said that pretty much everybody in the modern world is odor deprived. This surprised me. Is this a post COVID reality or has this been the case for some time?

Karen Weintraub:

I think it's probably the case for some time that we live in a very clean environment. We get rid of a lot of the smells of our world with hygiene and we're not out in the woods on a daily basis. We're in very clean septic environments and we're not living by our scent in the way that maybe our hunter-gatherer ancestors were.

Taylor Wilson:

And so how did COVID affect smell for millions of Americans?

Karen Weintraub:

A lot of people, as we know, particularly early in the COVID pandemic, the identifying symptom of COVID was a sense of loss of smell or taste. Most people regained that fairly quickly. Some people didn't for months or ever at all. And there's a big concern that those people in particular could be at risk for some neurodegeneration later on. It's way too early to know, but the hope is that by stimulating the diffuser with some kind of stimulation of the olfactory sense, that it could help prevent that.

Taylor Wilson:

Folks listening, can they stimulate smells themselves at home to try and boost memory?

Karen Weintraub:

Yes. So it's really... I mean, couldn't be any simpler, but it's hard to discipline yourself. So we all probably have some spices in our cabinets, cinnamon, nutmeg, oregano, whatever. And if you have the self-discipline to open those jars up carefully one at a time, several times a day and give a couple of snips, that might be enough. But I've tried it a few times and I don't do it consistently, personally. I should say that the lead researcher here is coming out with a product. Whether that makes you like him or dislike him more, it's up to you. This product will have 40 different smells. What he's found is that novelty matters. So you don't want to smell the same jar of cinnamon every day to get this benefit, that different smells make a difference. And you don't want to mix all the smells. So perfume that has 40 different smells in it is not as good as those 40 different smells separately.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Karen Weintraub covers health for USA TODAY. Thanks, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And if you have any comments, you can reach us at [email protected]. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.