| Are local officials — Democrats, mostly — to blame for the Los Angeles fires? “They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?” President-elect Donald Trump posted on social media this weekend. He and his allies have thrown out false and misleading claims to pin things on the left, like that Democrats misallocated water in the state. Elon Musk, a close Trump adviser, also elevated racist claims on his social media platform, including theories of a “globalist plot” to collapse the United States or that people of color — including firefighters — are somehow to blame for mismanagement. Whether local and state officials could have done more to fight these fires is up for debate, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation. But experts say the main culprits for why the blazes spread so quickly and destroyed so much aren’t political so much as unchecked urban sprawl and climate change. Here are the facts, from The Washington Post’s Anna Phillips, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Evan Halper and Joshua Partlow. Their full story is worth a read. Sprawling neighborhoods were built at the base of foothills that often burn: “The two communities decimated by fires, Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, were built decades ago at the foothills of mountains that frequently burn,” The Post reports. The reporting adds that many residents, particularly in wealthy areas, chafed at clearing out vegetation from their homes that could stop the fires from spreading so quickly. Climate change and water demands: Climate change is making fires — and many natural disasters — come on stronger and last longer. President Joe Biden on Monday referred to it Monday as “the single greatest existential threat to humanity.” Los Angeles’s water system wasn’t ready for so many all-consuming blazes. Nor are many communities: “The system was intended to supply water to homes and businesses,” The Post reports of L.A.’s water system “and to help fire crews defend a large structure or several homes, not multiple neighborhoods at once.” Reader question: Does Trump lose his right to vote now that he’s a felon? Let’s answer some of your remaining questions about Trump’s legal woes. Trump was officially declared a felon Friday when a New York judge sentenced him to nothing, basically for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment during his first presidential campaign. It means other than being the first U.S. president to be a felon, he’ll face no consequences for it. That includes his ability to vote. Trump is registered to vote in Florida, which has tough laws on allowing felons to vote. But Florida gives deference to out-of-state voting restrictions, and New York is more lenient to felons voting. Q: After Trump’s term ends, can he still be charged with trying to interfere in the 2020 election count in Georgia? What reason will they give for it to be dropped? Trump is currently charged in Georgia for trying interfering in that state’s election results, but he may not ever go to trial — and the charges might even be dropped. The complicated case never went to trial while he was running for president. Now that he won, the general legal consensus is that a sitting president can’t face prosecution. Georgia prosecutors could technically start up the prosecution in 2029 when he leaves office, says Barbara McQuade, a former United States attorney now at the University of Michigan Law school. But there are several things going for Trump as he tries to end his last-remaining legal case against him: - Trump’s attorneys are arguing the charges should be dropped entirely, even after he leaves office. They argue it is unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president “in any way,” reports The Post’s Holly Bailey. It’s not clear if the judge will agree. The Supreme Court ruled last year that Trump is immune from prosecution over his actions while in office, and legal experts told me last year that landmark ruling could filter down to other decisions about Trump.
- The lead prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, has been removed from the case over misconduct accusations. (She’s appealing it.) But if she loses, it’s not clear who, if anyone, in Georgia would take charge of this case. Legal experts told me last year that the next prosecutor could just drop it altogether. And they don’t need to give a reason other than their own prosecutorial judgment.
If the case does get back on track, Holly reports that Georgia prosecutors could put some of Trump’s 18 co-defendants on trial, like his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows or lawyer Rudy Giuliani. That could put Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election back in the spotlight. But legal experts told me that when Trump was first charged in 2023, the goal of a case like this was to nab the big fish — so, Trump. It’s unclear if that will ever happen. | 
_tstmp_1731088512-80-0.png){kind=small}
