Nancy Lee Pierce Howes https://digitalalaskanews.com/nancy-lee-pierce-howes/
Nancy Lee Pierce Howes (85) went peacefully to be with her Lord on September 12, 2022. Beloved Wife, Mother, Grandmother and Great-grandmother, she will be sorely missed by her family and the community. Nancy was born December 3, 1936, in Gilroy, CA to George and Alice Pierce. She graduated from Gilroy High School and attended classes at Matanuska Community College in Palmer, AK. Nancy was a dedicated wife who served 20 years in the Navy, supporting her husband’s service. She kept the home fires burning and raised her two sons by herself whenever her husband was at sea. After he retired from the Navy, they moved to Alaska in 1973. In 1976, they bought the Idea Shop on the Parks Hwy. Nancy first taught ceramic classes and later, oil painting classes. Nancy ran the Idea Shop with her family until it closed in 2000. She continued to teach classes in the shop’s classroom for years after. Nancy was a painting teacher for many decades, loved by her students, many of whom continued to stay in contact with her. Even after health issues stopped classes, they would continue to visit her. Nancy also taught children’s painting classes for home schoolers for many years. Nancy was selected to create a painting for the 1984 US Constitution Bicentennial celebration by the Matanuska Valley US Constitution Bicentennial Commission. Nancy was a Raggedy Ann clown in the 80s to collect donations and volunteered to be jailed numerous times for Muscular Dystrophy fundraising. She loved doing floral arrangements for her beloved church, Fairview Loop Baptist Church.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 1 PM, October 1st, at Fairview Loop Baptist Church. Nancy will be interred with her loving husband, Richard, at Fort Richardson National Cemetery.
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EXPLAINER: Declassification In Spotlight During Trump Probe | News Channel 3-12
EXPLAINER: Declassification In Spotlight During Trump Probe | News Channel 3-12 https://digitalalaskanews.com/explainer-declassification-in-spotlight-during-trump-probe-news-channel-3-12/
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the weeks since the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and seized about 100 documents with classification markings, the former president has insisted he had declassified the information. He made that point again in a Fox News interview Wednesday when he said a president can declassify material just by thinking about it. Experts say that presidents do have broad authority to declassify material, but there is a detailed process unlike what Trump described. Even if the documents were declassified, that may not be a defense against any criminal charges that could come from the August search.
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Trump Said He Declassified Documents By Thinking It. Here's How The Process Really Works.
Trump Said He Declassified Documents By Thinking It. Here's How The Process Really Works. https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-said-he-declassified-documents-by-thinking-it-heres-how-the-process-really-works/
WASHINGTON — In the weeks since the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and seized about 100 documents with classification markings, the former president has insisted he did nothing wrong and argued he declassified the information.
He doubled down on that point Wednesday, saying in a Fox News interview that a president can declassify material “even by thinking about it.”
Trump has provided no evidence that he did declassify the papers, an appeals court noted Wednesday as it rejected his team’s legal arguments and cleared the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they consider whether to bring criminal charges.
A separate special master tasked with inspecting the documents also expressed skepticism when Trump’s lawyers hinted at the same defense earlier this week but declined to offer any support for the idea that the papers had been declassified.
Democrats on Thursday were more pointed: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff tweeted, “That’s not how any of this works. Not by any stretch of the imagination.” Committee member Joaquin Castro called the claim “false and absurd.”
Presidents do have broad authority to declassify material, experts say, but there is a detailed process unlike what Trump described. Here’s a look at how declassification works:
What can a president declassify?
Sitting presidents do have “unilateral and complete authority” to declassify material, though it doesn’t fully extend to information classified under the Atomic Energy Act, said national security attorney Bradley P. Moss.
Since the time of President Harry S. Truman there’s been a set process for protecting the nation’s secrets, including different levels of classification, said Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel for the National Security Agency.
“It’s critically important that we don’t accidentally release information that, especially in the case of top secret information, could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security,” he said.
How does declassification work?
There’s also a detailed process for declassification with rules laid out under executive order. Typically, if a president wants to declassify something, he checks with the agency in charge, which has broad say in whether the information becomes public, Gerstell said.
If documents are declassified, there’s usually a painstaking process of blacking out what information still stays secret. “It’s not a question of a concept being declassified, or boxes of documents. It’s a word by word determination,” he said.
The declassification order must be memorialized and any agencies that are affected have to be notified, Moss said. The individual documents then have to be re-marked to show they’re no longer considered classified.
“It’s not clear what Jedi-like lawyers said that you could declassify things with a thought, but the courts are unlikely to embrace that claim,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who was a Republican witness during the first impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019.
The Justice Department has said there is no indication that Trump took any steps to declassify the documents seized from his Florida home.
How has Trump declassified information before?
There’s no question that there were times during Trump’s administration when he took affirmative and very public steps to declassify information – particularly when he saw a potential political benefit.
His administration, for instance, repeatedly declassified information related to the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, in hopes of publicly affecting the perception of the probe.
The information included transcripts of phone calls between Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and the Russian ambassador, as well as a House Republican memo that alleged misconduct by the FBI in obtaining a secret national security surveillance warrant to monitor a former Trump campaign adviser.
Those actions raise questions about why he did not make similar public pronouncements for the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago, if he wished for them to later be regarded as declassified.
How could this affect the broader case?
The approximately 100 documents with classification markings were among about 11,000 documents that the FBI seized last month during a court-authorized search of Trump’s Florida club.
Federal agents are investigating potential violations of three different federal laws, including one that governs gathering, transmitting or losing defense information under the Espionage Act, according to the search warrant.
The declassification debate has been especially heated since the Justice Department included a photo in one court filing of some of the seized documents with colored cover sheets indicating their classified status.
But the question may not be the most important one in terms of whether criminal charges are filed since classification status isn’t part of the laws in question.
“Even if he declassified them, that would not necessarily be a defense against the charges that are under consideration,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a national security law expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.
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Poll: Majority Of Texans Reject Assault Weapons Ban
Poll: Majority Of Texans Reject ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban https://digitalalaskanews.com/poll-majority-of-texans-reject-assault-weapons-ban/
“Hell no.”
That’s what Texans appear to be saying about the idea of banning AR-15s and AK-47s, according to a new poll. 50 percent of likely voters told Spectrum News and Siena College they oppose efforts to ban “assault-style” weapons, a term the poll did not define but which is generally understood to include the rifles. In contrast, 46 percent said they support a ban. An equal number “strongly” opposed and supported the policy.
Beto O’Rourke (D.) has based much of his campaign against incumbent Governor Greg Abbott (R.) on the need for further gun restrictions in Texas. He is best known for his viral commitment to seize the guns Texans told the pollsters they don’t want to see banned.
“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke said during a September 2019 presidential primary debate. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”
And, while he has been consistently inconsistent on whether he stands by his famous call for confiscation, he has continued to advocate for stricter gun laws.
“Five of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history have taken place in this state in the last five years on Greg Abbott’s watch,” O’Rourke said in an ad featuring a Uvalde shooting survivor that was posted to his social media on Tuesday. “Those kids were not just up against that gunman and that AR-15 and those high-impact, high-velocity rounds that hit their body, they were up against a governor who would not lift a finger to prevent this from happening.”
The focus on gun control hasn’t benefited O’Rourke much in the polls, though. While the Siena poll found Texans were open to some new gun-control policies, with 85 percent supporting universal background checks, Abbott still holds a substantial lead in the race. Siena found 50 percent of respondents support Abbott while 43 percent support O’Rourke, moving Abbott’s lead in the Real Clear Politics average of the race down slightly to 7.5 percent.
O’Rourke hasn’t become any less brash in his approach either. He has crashed a post-Uvalde press conference to heckle Abbott and cursed out a man for laughing during one of his stump speeches on the topic.
The outcome of the race will provide a good guide for how American gun politics are playing out in the wake of a slew of major recent gun-related events. The Uvalde shooting and the first bipartisan federal gun restrictions in decades combined with two years of recording setting gun sales and the Supreme Court setting a new standard for reviewing gun laws as it struck down restrictive gun-carry permitting regimes have injected a lot of uncertainty into how the issue will impact voters’ decisions in November. With O’Rourke running on an aggressive gun-control platform against Abbott who has signed a number of reforms that removed gun-carry and ownership restrictions, how the candidates fare may indicate where things have settled after those significant shakeups.
The results of the election may also provide insight into the politics surrounding AR-15s and AK-47s in particular. O’Rourke wants to confiscate them or, failing that, ban their sale to adults under 21. Abbott has opposed both ideas as unconstitutional. The fight in Texas mirrors the national one, with Democrats recently passing an “assault weapons” ban through the House of Representatives despite opposition from all but two Republicans. The push to ban the popular rifles, of which there are estimated to be more than 24.4 million in circulation, has been facing increasing headwinds even as they have been used in recent high-profile mass shootings. If Abbott can hold off O’Rourke, it could pull further wind from the sails of those pursuing a ban.
Another recent poll in the state provides a slightly brighter picture for O’Rourke’s confiscation plan. Support for “a mandatory program where the government would buy back semi-automatic assault-style rifles from citizens who currently own them” was at 52 percent in the latest Dallas Morning News and University of Texas at Tyler poll. However, respondents were more likely to strongly oppose the idea than strongly support it.
As with the Seina poll, the confiscation scheme was the least popular gun policy polled. The Morning News poll also found 55 percent of Texans support arming teachers, which O’Rourke opposes and Abbott supports. That puts it in line with Seina which found support at 53 percent.
Seina’s results on issue importance were also similar to a recent poll from The Texas Tribune and the University of Texas. The Tribune poll found Texans said guns were only the sixth-most-important issue in the race. Siena found it was the fifth behind economic issues, threats to democracy, immigration, and abortion.
All three polls found Abbott maintained a significant lead over O’Rourke.
The Seina poll was conducted among 651 likely voters between September 14th and the 18th.
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Jan. 6 Twitter Witness: Failure To Curb Trump Spurred ‘terrifying’ Choice https://digitalalaskanews.com/jan-6-twitter-witness-failure-to-curb-trump-spurred-terrifying-choice/
In an explosive hearing in July, an unidentified former Twitter employee testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the company had tolerated false and rule-breaking tweets from Donald Trump for years because executives knew their service was his “favorite and most-used … and enjoyed having that sort of power.”
Now, in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, the whistleblower, Anika Collier Navaroli, reveals the terror she felt about coming forward and how eventually that fear was overcome by her worry that extremism and political disinformation on social media pose an “imminent threat not just to American democracy, but to the societal fabric of our planet.”
“I realize that by being who I am and doing what I’m doing, I’m opening myself and my family to extreme risk,” Navaroli said. “It’s terrifying. This has been one of the most isolating times of my life.”
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t believe the truth matters,” she said.
Twitter banned Trump two days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, citing fears he could incite further violence. By that time, he had sent more than 56,000 tweets over 12 years, many of which included lies and baseless accusations about election fraud. One month earlier, he had tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
Navaroli, a former policy official on the team designing Twitter’s content-moderation rules, testified to the committee that the ban came only Twitter executive for month had rebuffed her calls for stronger action against Trump’s account. Only after the Capitol riot, which left five dead and hundreds injured, did Twitter move to close his 88 million follower account.
Tech companies traditionally require employees to sign broad nondisclosure agreements that restrict them from speaking about their work. Navaroli was not able to speak in detail about her time at Twitter, said her attorney, Alexis Ronickher, with the Washington law firm Katz Banks Kumin, who joined in the interview.
But Navaroli told The Post that she has sat for multiple interviews with congressional investigators to candidly discuss the company’s actions. A comprehensive report that could include full transcripts of her revelations is expected to be released this year.
“There’s a lot still left to say,” she said.
Navaroli is the most prominent Twitter insider known to have challenged the tech giant’s conduct toward Trump in the years before the Capitol riot. Now in her 30s and living in California, she worries that speaking up about her role inside Twitter on Jan. 6 could lead to threats or real-world harm.
Committee member Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) cited those concerns to explain why Navaroli’s voice had been distorted to protect her identity in the segment of her testimony played during a nationally televised hearing in July. Raskin unveiled her name in a tweet Thursday, thanking her for her “courageous testimony” and “for answering the call of the Committee and your country.”
“She has constantly had to say to herself: This is important for the world to know, but it can compromise my safety. And she continually makes the patriotic choice,” Ronickher said. “The folks who do come forward and are willing to take these risks make such an impact for the rest of us.”
The hearings, which have been watched by millions, are expected to resume next week. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), said Tuesday that the hearing could feature “significant witness testimony that we haven’t used in other hearings.”
Twitter for years dismissed calls to suspend Trump’s account for posts that many people argued broke its rules against deceptive claims and harassment; as a political leader, Twitter executives argued, Trump’s tweets were too newsworthy to remove.
But if Trump had been “any other user on Twitter,” Navaroli told the committee, “he would have been permanently suspended a very long time ago.”
The banning has helped fuel a conflict over tech companies’ rules that is likely to be settled in the Supreme Court. More than 100 bills have been proposed in state legislatures that would regulate social media platforms’ content moderation policies, and on Wednesday, Florida asked the Supreme Court to determine whether the First Amendment prevents states from doing so.
Twitter executives have argued that Navaroli’s testimony leaves out the “unprecedented steps” the company took to respond to threats during the 2020 election. The company said it worked to limit the reach of violent extremist groups and ban accounts from organizers of the Capitol riots.
The company is “clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem,” Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, Twitter’s vice president of public policy for the Americas, said in a statement Thursday.
A Trump representative did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In the interview with The Post, Navaroli, who is Black, said she still remembers the first time she thought about the constant conflict between Americans’ rights of safety and free expression. She was a middle-school student, walking with her mother to a Publix grocery store near their home in Florida, when a man swerved his truck onto the sidewalk toward them, shouting racial slurs and demanding they go back to where they came from.
After the police arrived, she said, the officers refused to file charges, saying that no one had been hit and that his speech had been protected by the First Amendment.
“It was the first time I was understanding my identity could cause someone to … try to murder me,” Navaroli said. “And I was being told this man that tried to kill me did nothing wrong because this was his constitutional right. It didn’t make sense. So for a lot of my career and a lot of my life, I have been trying to understand this interpretation of this amendment and this right in a way that makes sense.”
In high school, she said, she became fascinated by constitutional questions in her debate class, which simulated mock congressional hearings — one of which took her, for the first time, to Washington, where years later she would sit and give congressional testimony.
In the years afterward, she graduated from the University of North Carolina’s law school and got her master’s degree at Columbia University, where in 2013 she wrote a thesis titled “The Revolution will be Tweeted” on how constitutional legal principles had expanded to social media.
She later helped study issues of race and fairness with a technology research group in New York, worked on media and internet privacy campaigns for the civil rights advocacy group Color of Change, and taught basic principles of constitutional law to high school students in Harlem.
As the power and prominence of social media expanded during those years, she said she grew fascinated with how online content moderation rules were helping shape real-world social movements, from the inequality campaigns of Occupy Wall Street to the protests over racial justice and police brutality.
She had a strong bias for protecting speech, she said, but she often questioned where some companies were drawing the lines around speech and privacy and what effect that could have on people’s lives.
“Regulating speech is hard, and we need to come in with more nuanced ideas and proposals. There’s got to be a balance of free expression and safety,” she said. “But we also have to ask: Whose speech are we protecting at the expense of whose safety? And whose safety are we protecting at the expense of whose speech?”
By 2020, Navaroli was working on a Twitter policy team helping the company design rules for one of the internet’s most prominent gathering places for news and political debate, according to congressional testimony revealed this summer.
By then, Trump had become Twitter’s inescapable force, capturing global attention and news cycles with a constant stream of self-congratulatory boasts and angry tirades.
Starting in 2011, he used the site as a major propellent for the racist “birther” claim that former president Barack Obama was born in Kenya. In one 2014 tweet, Trump asked cybercriminals to “please hack Obama’s college records (destroyed?) and check ‘place of birth.’ ”
During the 2016 campaign, his jotted-off insults helped undermine his critics and sink his political rivals as he captured the Republican nomination and then the presidency. And once in the White House, his tweets became a constant source of surprise and anxiety for even his own administration.
He used Twitter to fire people and belittle America’s geopolitical antagonists, including tweeting in 2018 to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that “I too have a Nuclear Button.” He also used it to announce sweeping executive actions, including his (failed) push to ban transgender people from the military. “Major policy announcements should not be made via Twitter,” the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said then.
Navaroli had argued that Twitter was acting too reluctantly to hold Trump to the same rules as everyone else and, by 2020, she had begun to worry that the company’s failure to act could lead to violent ends, she told congressional investigators.
After Trump told the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, at a September 2020 presidential debate to “stand back and stand by,” Navaroli pushed for the company to adopt a stricter policy around calls to incitement.
Trump “was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives,” she told the committee. “We had not seen that sort of direct communication before, and that concerned me.”
She had also seen how his tweets were quickly sparking replies from other accounts calling for “civil war.” After Trump’s “will be wild” tweet in December, she said, “it became ...
Putin Faces Fury In Russia Over Military Mobilization And Prisoner Swap
Putin Faces Fury In Russia Over Military Mobilization And Prisoner Swap https://digitalalaskanews.com/putin-faces-fury-in-russia-over-military-mobilization-and-prisoner-swap/
Russian families bade tearful farewells on Thursday to thousands of sons and husbands abruptly summoned for military duty as part of President Vladimir Putin’s new mobilization, while pro-war Russian nationalists raged over the release of Ukrainian commanders in a secretive prisoner exchange.
As women hugged their husbands and young men boarded buses to leave for 15 days of training before potentially being deployed to Russia’s stumbling war effort in Ukraine, there were signs of mounting public anger.
More than 1,300 people were arrested at anti-mobilization protests in cities and towns across Russia on Wednesday and Thursday, in the largest public protests since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed reports of booked-out flights and queues to leave Russia as “false.”
“The information about a certain feverish situation in airports is very much exaggerated,” Peskov insisted during his daily conference call with reporters on Thursday.
But there were other signs of increased public pushback against Putin and his war, despite the Kremlin’s harsh crackdown on dissent.
In the city of Togliatti, a local military recruitment office was set on fire, one of dozens of similar attacks across Russia in recent months.
Russia’s war hawks on the far right, meanwhile, had a different cause for fury: a prisoner exchange that freed commanders from Ukraine’s controversial Azov Regiment, long branded by Russia as “Nazis.” They were swapped for dozens of prisoners held in Ukraine, including Viktor Medvedchuk, reputed to be Putin’s closest Ukrainian friend and the leader of the country’s main pro-Kremlin political party.
The dual backlash over mobilization and the prisoner exchange showed Putin facing his most acute crisis since he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Not only is his country grappling with punishing economic sanctions imposed by the West, but his military has suffered dramatic setbacks, including an embarrassing retreat from the northeastern Kharkiv region.
With his options diminishing, Putin has made increasingly perilous decisions that could turn the Russian public against the war. In his national address Wednesday, he voiced support for steps toward annexing four Ukrainian regions that he does not fully control, which risks fierce fighting and further humiliation.
Putin also used his speech to make a thinly veiled threat that Russia would use nuclear weapons. On Thursday, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now the deputy head of the country’s Security Council, made the threat explicit.
“Referendums will be held, and the Donbas republics and other territories will be accepted into Russia,” Medvedev posted on Telegram, warning that Russia would be willing to use “strategic nuclear weapons” for the “protection” of those territories.
In New York, where world leaders are gathered for the annual United Nations General Assembly, the top U.S. and Russian diplomats clashed during a heated meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the council that every member should “send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately.” He also condemned the gruesome torture and murder of Ukrainian civilians discovered after Russia’s withdrawal from the cities of Izyum and Bucha.
“Wherever the Russian tide recedes, we discover the horror that’s left in its wake,” Blinken said. “We can not, we will not, allow President Putin to get away with it.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied the charges and accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilians in the eastern Donbas region “with impunity.”
Lavrov also said that countries sending weapons to Ukraine or training its forces “to deplete and weaken Russia” were direct parties to the war.
“Such a line signifies the direct involvement of Western countries in the Ukrainian conflict, and makes them a party thereto,” he said, walking out of the chamber as soon as he finished speaking.
Yet amid the escalating rhetoric, the secretive prisoner exchange deal announced Wednesday night, which involved the mediation of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, showed that some behind-the-scenes diplomacy was still possible.
The deal was celebrated in Kyiv, where the Azov commanders are widely regarded as heroes for their role in holding the line during the siege of Mariupol. The head of Ukraine’s chief military intelligence directorate, Kyryl Budanov, alleged that some of the liberated prisoners had been tortured. “There are persons who were subjected to very cruel torture, and unfortunately the percentage of such persons among whom we returned is quite large,” he said.
In Russia, the deal was so toxic that the Kremlin distanced itself from the decision and the Ministry of Defense would not confirm the details.
Medvedchuk, the apparent centerpiece of the deal, was chief of staff to former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma from 2002 to 2005 and has long played a Machiavellian role in Ukrainian politics.
Before the failure of Moscow to seize Kyiv and topple the elected government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Medvedchuk was seen as a potential puppet leader for the Kremlin. But he is known mainly as a close friend of Putin. Medvedchuk has said the Russian leader is godfather to his daughter and Putin has visited his palatial mansion in Crimea.
Asked whether Medvedchuk had been freed, Peskov said: “I can’t comment on the prisoner exchange. I don’t have powers to do so.” A statement from the Russian Defense Ministry also failed to mention Medvedchuk.
Eventually, Denis Pushilin, Moscow’s proxy leader in a separatist area of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, confirmed that he had agreed to the exchange for 50 Russian servicemen, five pro-Russian fighters from Ukraine and Medvedchuk.
Sending Russian men to fight in a war to “denazify” Ukraine, at the same time as releasing the Azov commanders and fighters, was difficult for Russia to explain — given that, for years, Kremlin propaganda has portrayed the Azov group as fanatical terrorists and “Nazi” ringleaders who must be destroyed.
The exchange deal took place “in difficult circumstances,” Pushilin told Russian state television. “We gave them 215 people, including nationalistic battalion fighters. They are war criminals. We were perfectly aware of that, but our goal was to bring our guys back as soon as possible.”
Hard-line nationalists branded the exchange as a betrayal that undercut the reason for the war, on the same day Russia was calling up men to fight.
Among the toughest critics of the Russian military approach — for being too soft — is Igor Girkin, a former Russian FSB agent who commanded Moscow proxy fighters in 2014. He called the exchange of the Azov fighters “treason,” in a post on social media Thursday, blaming “as yet unidentified persons from the top leadership of the Russian Federation.”
The release was “worse than a crime and worse than a mistake. This is INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY,” he complained. (Girkin is being tried in absentia by a court in The Hague over the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.)
In Chechnya, the regional dictator and close Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov said on Telegram that the Azov Regiment “terrorists” should not have been handed over.
“It is not right. Our fighters crushed the fascists in Mariupol, drove them into Azovstal, smoked them out of the basements, died, got wounded and shell-shocked. The transfer of even one of these Azov terrorists should have been unacceptable.”
Putin has relied on public apathy to continue his war, and has stopped short of declaring a full national draft. But his mobilization, which is supposed to call up at least 300,000 reservists, will force many more Russians to confront the brutal reality of the conflict in Ukraine.
In a speech posted online late Thursday, Zelensky, switching to Russian, addressed Russian citizens directly, invoking the thousands of their countrymen already killed and wounded in Ukraine. “Want more? No?” he asked. “Then protest. Fight. Run away. Or surrender to Ukrainian captivity. These are the options for you to survive.”
Some Russian protesters who were arrested while demonstrating against mobilization Wednesday were handed military summonses at police stations, a move designed to deter further dissent, especially by fighting-age men. Peskov said it was perfectly legal. “It does not contravene the law. Therefore, there is no violation of the law,” he said.
Questions about the partial mobilization swirled on Thursday, with confusion over who would escape being called up and who would be forced to fight.
The role of Peskov’s own son, Nikolai Peskov, underscored Russian suspicions that wealthy and politically connected figures would be spared from military service, and that the war would continue to be fought largely by men from impoverished regions, far from Moscow.
Nikolai Peskov was less than enthusiastic about the idea he could be sent to fight when he was phoned Wednesday by Dmitry Nizovtsev, a member of the team of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and an opposition YouTube channel anchor. Nizovtsev, posing as a military official, demanded that the younger Peskov appear at a local military commissariat the following day at 10 a.m.
“Obviously I won’t come tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” Nikolai Peskov said. “You have to understand that I am Mr. Peskov and it’s not exactly right for me to be there. In short, I will solve this on another level.”
Natalia Abbakamova in Riga, Latvia, and David Stern in Kyiv contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of troops in an address to the nation on Sept. 21, framing the move as an attempt to de...
White Woman Who Called 911 On Black Birder Loses Suit Over Termination
White Woman Who Called 911 On Black Birder Loses Suit Over Termination https://digitalalaskanews.com/white-woman-who-called-911-on-black-birder-loses-suit-over-termination/
A federal judge has dismissed a case brought by Amy Cooper, the White woman who in 2020 falsely called 911 on a Black man birdwatching in Central Park, against her former employer over her termination.
Southern District of New York Judge Ronnie Abrams on Wednesday dismissed Cooper’s lawsuit alleging her ex-employer, Franklin Templeton, discriminated against her based on her race and gender, defamed her and intentionally caused emotional distress.
The investment firm said on social media hours after video of the 2020 incident went viral that it was placing Cooper, without naming her, on administrative leave while it conducted an investigation. A day later, it announced the review had led to Cooper’s termination, also without naming her but adding that the company “does not tolerate racism of any kind.”
Cooper sued her ex-employer in 2021, alleging the company illegally fired her without performing a legitimate internal review and falsely portrayed her as a racist, while she was being labeled “Central Park Karen” by social media users for the incident. The suit also argued she was the victim of racial discrimination.
“Franklin Templeton’s alleged investigation and results provided legitimacy to the ‘Karen’ story, and appeared to provide justification for those who sought the destruction of the Plaintiff’s life,” Cooper’s suit claimed.
A spokeswoman with Franklin Templeton on Wednesday said the company was pleased the judge dismissed the case.
“We continue to believe the company responded appropriately,” Franklin Templeton spokeswoman Lisa Gallegos told The Washington Post in an email.
Attorneys representing Cooper did not immediately responded when reached out by The Post seeking comment. Cooper could not be reached by The Post.
On May 5, 2020, Christian Cooper — who is not related to Amy Cooper — was birdwatching in Central Park when he noticed Amy and her dog, an unleashed cocker spaniel, standing right by a sign saying all dogs must be leashed, he told The Post in an interview shortly after the incident.
When he approached her and asked her to leash her pet that early morning, she refused, he told The Post. Christian Cooper, who said he usually carries dog treats, then attempted to throw a treat toward her dog.
He began recording when she threatened to call the police on him.
“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she told him, pulling out her cellphone and dialing 911.
Christian Cooper chose to keep recording because he wasn’t going to become an active player of his “own dehumanization,” he told The Post.
“Please call the cops,” he said on video. “Please tell them whatever you’d like.”
The video quickly racked up millions of views after his sister posted it on Twitter.
The following day, Amy Cooper publicly apologized for her actions, saying she “reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions” when she should have leashed her dog.
“I was the one who was acting inappropriately by not having my dog on a leash,” she wrote. “I am well aware of the pain that misassumptions and insensitive statements about race cause. … I hope that a few mortifying seconds in a lifetime of forty years will not define me in his eyes.”
State prosecutors charged her with false reporting months later. The criminal charges were later dropped.
On May 5, 2o21, Amy Cooper filed a lawsuit alleging Franklin Templeton “performed no investigation” into the incident, did not interview her nor Christian Cooper, and made no attempt at obtaining her full 911 call.
The company, the lawsuit states, also failed to take into consideration her achievements as an “exceptional employee” who earned “high performer bonuses” for three consecutive years, instead defaming her and discriminating against her based on her race and gender. This cost the woman a “substantial loss of earnings and benefits,” and “severe emotional distress” in the near and long future, the suit said.
Teo Armus, Jaclyn Peiser and Michael Brice-Saddler contributed to this report.
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WSJ News Exclusive | Humana CVS Circle Cano Health As Potential Buyers
WSJ News Exclusive | Humana, CVS Circle Cano Health As Potential Buyers https://digitalalaskanews.com/wsj-news-exclusive-humana-cvs-circle-cano-health-as-potential-buyers/
Humana has a right of first refusal on any Cano sale, part of an agreement that was originally struck in 2019.Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News
Updated Sept. 22, 2022 5:45 pm ET
Humana and CVS Health are circling Cano Health according to people familiar with the situation, as healthcare heavyweights scramble to snap up primary-care providers.
The talks are serious and a deal to purchase Cano could be struck in the next several weeks, assuming the negotiations don’t fall apart, some of the people said. Cano shares, which had been down nearly 7%, turned positive and closed up 32% after The Wall Street Journal reported on the talks with Humana and other unnamed parties, giving the company a market value of roughly $4 billion.
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[LIVE] : West Valley Vs. Kodiak | High School Football 2022
[LIVE] : West Valley Vs. Kodiak | High School Football 2022 https://digitalalaskanews.com/live-west-valley-vs-kodiak-high-school-football-2022/
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STREAMING Today! Alaska High School Football, West Valley vs Kodiak
Wolf Pack @ Bears
Time 5:00:00 PM
The Kodiak (AK) varsity football team has a home conference game vs. West Valley (Fairbanks, AK) on Friday, September 23 @ 5p.
West Valley Alaska High School Football
Kodiak Alaska High School Football
West Valley vs. Kodiak
Kodiak vs. West Valley
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West Valley vs. Kodiak – Alaska High School Football
Kodiak vs. West Valley | Alaska High School Football
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Kenai River Goalie Marks Makes NCAA DI Commitment https://digitalalaskanews.com/kenai-river-goalie-marks-makes-ncaa-di-commitment/
September 22, 2022
The Kenai River Brown Bears of the North American Hockey League (NAHL) are pleased to announce that goaltender Bryant Marks has committed to play NCAA Division I hockey for the University of Alaska-Anchorage, an Independent NCAA Division I program.
Marks, 18, is in his second season playing junior hockey in the NAHL. The 5’11/170 lbs. native of Wasilla, AK, has appeared in one game so far during the 2022-23 season where he made 25 saves in a 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Rebels.
“I am proud to announce my commitment to play Division 1 hockey at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I would like to thank all my family, friends, and coaches who have helped me along the way,” said Marks.
Last season, Marks appeared in 26 games for the Brown Bears and posted a 5-16-2 record with a 3.84 goals against average and a .889 save percentage.
“Bryant is a great teammate, fantastic human, and a goalie on the rise. He believed and trusted in the process, and it has paid off for him,” said Brown Bears head coach Taylor Shaw.
Click here for an updated NAHL to NCAA commitment list
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US Forecast https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-forecast-71/
City/Town, State;Yesterday’s High Temp (F);Yesterday’s Low Temp (F);Today’s High Temp (F);Today’s Low Temp (F);Weather Condition;Wind Direction;Wind Speed (MPH);Humidity (%);Chance of Precip. (%);UV Index
Albany, NY;68;46;57;44;Partly sunny, cooler;NW;13;51%;0%;5
Albuquerque, NM;84;62;81;59;A t-storm around;SSE;5;49%;45%;4
Anchorage, AK;50;41;50;43;Rain and drizzle;SSE;4;80%;70%;1
Asheville, NC;80;48;72;48;Nice with sunshine;N;6;42%;3%;6
Atlanta, GA;91;58;78;54;Sunny and cooler;ESE;7;45%;1%;6
Atlantic City, NJ;82;53;66;51;Windy and cooler;NNW;22;44%;2%;5
Austin, TX;99;72;100;72;Record-tying heat;S;3;40%;3%;7
Baltimore, MD;84;55;69;53;Windy in the morning;NW;15;38%;2%;5
Baton Rouge, LA;97;73;95;72;Sunny and very warm;ENE;7;53%;5%;7
Billings, MT;71;56;76;52;Winds subsiding;W;18;31%;4%;4
Birmingham, AL;96;61;80;59;Sunny and cooler;E;7;44%;10%;6
Bismarck, ND;64;47;66;49;Showers around;W;9;69%;62%;3
Boise, ID;68;48;76;51;Sunny and pleasant;ENE;7;40%;0%;5
Boston, MA;70;48;60;47;Windy and cooler;NW;22;48%;2%;3
Bridgeport, CT;72;47;62;46;Windy and cooler;NW;20;44%;0%;5
Buffalo, NY;64;44;57;46;Mostly sunny, cool;NNW;9;51%;2%;5
Burlington, VT;68;44;54;45;Clearing and cooler;NW;15;60%;0%;4
Caribou, ME;59;44;51;41;Breezy in the a.m.;NNW;13;68%;5%;1
Casper, WY;73;46;72;40;Sunshine and windy;SW;19;35%;2%;5
Charleston, SC;93;63;77;60;Sunshine and cooler;NNE;8;40%;3%;7
Charleston, WV;73;46;66;49;Partly sunny, cool;E;5;61%;11%;5
Charlotte, NC;93;53;75;52;Partly sunny, cooler;E;7;38%;1%;6
Cheyenne, WY;57;48;73;48;Windy and warmer;WNW;20;25%;3%;5
Chicago, IL;63;55;64;56;Inc. clouds;S;8;53%;78%;5
Cleveland, OH;63;54;61;53;Breezy in the a.m.;SSW;11;62%;4%;5
Columbia, SC;96;59;79;51;Sunny and cooler;ENE;7;29%;2%;6
Columbus, OH;66;43;65;50;Partly sunny, cool;ENE;5;53%;40%;5
Concord, NH;65;44;55;39;Partly sunny, windy;NW;19;58%;3%;4
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX;97;72;97;77;Very warm;SSE;8;40%;4%;7
Denver, CO;66;51;81;50;Mostly sunny, warmer;WNW;6;28%;3%;5
Des Moines, IA;67;53;60;52;A couple of showers;S;12;78%;84%;1
Detroit, MI;63;45;66;49;Sun, some clouds;SSW;6;54%;5%;5
Dodge City, KS;64;53;86;57;Partly sunny, warmer;NE;13;56%;6%;6
Duluth, MN;58;43;55;48;A couple of showers;SSE;9;75%;99%;1
El Paso, TX;92;67;92;65;Sunny and very warm;SE;7;31%;0%;7
Fairbanks, AK;47;33;49;33;Inc. clouds;N;4;72%;33%;2
Fargo, ND;61;48;60;48;A couple of showers;SSE;15;86%;90%;1
Grand Junction, CO;74;51;77;49;Mostly sunny;SSE;6;48%;0%;5
Grand Rapids, MI;61;41;62;49;Partly sunny;SSE;5;61%;41%;5
Hartford, CT;72;47;60;45;Partly sunny, windy;NW;20;49%;0%;5
Helena, MT;64;49;69;50;Warmer;SW;11;43%;0%;4
Honolulu, HI;87;74;88;75;An afternoon shower;ENE;7;63%;68%;9
Houston, TX;98;76;97;75;Hot;S;7;57%;9%;7
Indianapolis, IN;69;47;66;56;Partly sunny;SE;6;52%;27%;5
Jackson, MS;96;68;87;66;Not as hot;E;5;46%;6%;7
Jacksonville, FL;96;75;81;68;Breezy and cooler;NE;15;55%;7%;7
Juneau, AK;53;46;52;48;Rain, heavy at times;SSW;14;89%;100%;1
Kansas City, MO;66;57;66;57;Cloudy with showers;ENE;9;79%;97%;1
Knoxville, TN;84;52;75;53;Sunshine and nice;NE;7;44%;10%;6
Las Vegas, NV;93;69;95;72;Sunny;NNW;6;12%;0%;6
Lexington, KY;73;47;69;54;Mostly sunny, nice;E;7;51%;27%;5
Little Rock, AR;89;62;85;65;Sunny and nice;ESE;7;47%;10%;6
Long Beach, CA;85;64;87;68;Sunny;SW;6;47%;0%;6
Los Angeles, CA;86;65;91;69;Sunny and very warm;SSW;6;46%;0%;6
Louisville, KY;74;49;70;58;Mostly sunny, nice;ESE;6;49%;27%;5
Madison, WI;62;42;60;50;An afternoon shower;SSE;7;68%;81%;3
Memphis, TN;85;62;84;67;Sunshine, pleasant;E;7;40%;12%;6
Miami, FL;89;77;90;79;Humid with sunshine;NE;7;62%;26%;8
Milwaukee, WI;64;50;64;53;Inc. clouds;S;8;60%;78%;4
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN;64;50;57;52;Cooler with showers;SSE;14;74%;99%;1
Mobile, AL;96;74;92;70;Sunny and less humid;NNE;7;46%;9%;7
Montgomery, AL;98;65;81;61;Sunny and cooler;E;7;50%;9%;7
Mt. Washington, NH;48;23;27;23;Very windy and cold;NW;53;97%;27%;1
Nashville, TN;81;54;75;57;Sunny and beautiful;ENE;7;42%;6%;6
New Orleans, LA;95;78;92;77;Sunny and humid;E;8;54%;5%;7
New York, NY;77;50;64;50;Windy and cooler;NNW;20;39%;0%;5
Newark, NJ;75;49;63;47;Windy and cooler;NW;20;41%;0%;5
Norfolk, VA;96;56;70;54;Cooler;NNW;14;39%;0%;5
Oklahoma City, OK;81;59;93;71;Warmer;S;13;48%;7%;6
Olympia, WA;70;50;69;49;Cloudy;SW;5;70%;15%;1
Omaha, NE;65;52;66;53;Showers around;S;14;83%;84%;2
Orlando, FL;93;75;89;74;A t-storm around;NE;11;69%;54%;8
Philadelphia, PA;79;52;66;50;Windy and cooler;NNW;20;37%;2%;5
Phoenix, AZ;96;81;100;80;Warm with some sun;SW;6;44%;34%;6
Pittsburgh, PA;66;46;63;47;Mostly sunny, cool;N;8;51%;5%;5
Portland, ME;65;47;58;44;Partly sunny, windy;NW;19;57%;3%;3
Portland, OR;73;50;74;53;Mostly cloudy;N;6;62%;4%;3
Providence, RI;70;47;59;44;Partly sunny, windy;NW;19;50%;2%;4
Raleigh, NC;95;54;73;49;Sunny and cooler;ENE;8;39%;1%;6
Reno, NV;70;45;77;49;Sunny and delightful;WSW;7;33%;0%;5
Richmond, VA;87;51;71;48;Sunny and cooler;N;10;43%;1%;5
Roswell, NM;89;63;92;63;Sunny and very warm;S;9;35%;6%;7
Sacramento, CA;81;58;87;60;Plenty of sunshine;NW;5;49%;0%;5
Salt Lake City, UT;74;53;76;54;Sunny and pleasant;ESE;6;36%;0%;5
San Antonio, TX;97;71;98;72;Mostly sunny and hot;SSE;7;49%;3%;7
San Diego, CA;75;67;80;70;Sunshine, pleasant;WNW;8;66%;0%;7
San Francisco, CA;74;58;76;59;Partly sunny;SW;8;63%;0%;5
Savannah, GA;95;66;79;59;Sunny and cooler;E;9;45%;2%;7
Seattle-Tacoma, WA;68;55;68;55;Cloudy;SSW;7;65%;31%;1
Sioux Falls, SD;68;51;66;51;Showers around;WSW;16;75%;63%;1
Spokane, WA;72;47;70;46;Mostly cloudy;S;7;49%;2%;3
Springfield, IL;69;47;60;53;An afternoon shower;SSE;7;66%;60%;2
St. Louis, MO;72;52;65;56;A p.m. shower or two;SE;6;58%;85%;4
Tampa, FL;93;75;92;73;A stray p.m. t-storm;NE;6;70%;56%;8
Toledo, OH;62;39;64;47;Sun, some clouds;SSE;3;56%;25%;5
Tucson, AZ;94;72;94;72;A t-storm around;SE;7;50%;55%;7
Tulsa, OK;73;61;94;71;Sunny and warmer;S;9;45%;15%;6
Vero Beach, FL;90;69;90;75;A t-storm around;NE;10;75%;99%;8
Washington, DC;78;53;69;51;Cooler;NW;13;37%;1%;5
Wichita, KS;64;54;80;57;Warmer;ENE;8;58%;29%;3
Wilmington, DE;80;51;66;49;Windy and cooler;NNW;19;40%;1%;5
_____
Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
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Rep. Chip Roy Blasts LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman Over Saudi Ties:
Rep. Chip Roy Blasts LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman Over Saudi Ties: https://digitalalaskanews.com/rep-chip-roy-blasts-liv-golf-ceo-greg-norman-over-saudi-ties/
Texas Republicans have mostly avoided taking sides in the professional golf showdown between the PGA Tour and the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, but not Texas U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, whose Hill Country district includes northwest San Antonio.
The upstart golf league is funded by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia as part of its decadelong plan to diversify its economy from reliance on oil and increase tourism. In contrast to other professional sports, professional golfers have traditionally not enjoyed guaranteed contracts irrespective of performance or health, instead earning winnings based on their tournament finishes.
IN-DEPTH: Rep. Chip Roy’s supporters are loyal, even when they’re angry. His 2020 election texts show why.
LIV has exploited that, offering tens or even hundreds of millions to poach some of the world’s top players. The CEO is Australian golf legend Greg Norman, who is also a longtime friend and supporter of former President Donald J. Trump.
Norman visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to address a conservative House caucus and press his case that the PGA Tour had violated federal antitrust laws in its efforts to keep players from jumping ship. He may have expected a friendly reception given his close ties to Trump, who has backed the Saudi league and hosted one of their tournaments at his New Jersey club this summer, but Roy was evidently having none of it.
“Don’t come in here and act like you’re doing some great thing while you’re pimping a billion dollars of Saudi Arabian money and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the United States,” Roy told reporters following the event, as reported by The Hill. Roy then described Norman’s visit to the Capitol as “PR for Saudi Arabia — it’s PR for LIV Golf.”
The LIV Golf and PGA Tour faceoff has defied neat political categorization.
Players who signed onto LIV have been banned from PGA Tour events, although they are still able to play in major championships or in certain international tournaments if they qualify. Trump and some of his allies have sided with LIV over the PGA Tour. And shortly before President Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia this year, news leaked that his Justice Department was investigating the PGA Tour for anticompetitive behavior against LIV.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, wrote to Biden shortly after, saying “the timing raises questions about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in both the underlying antitrust investigation and Monday’s media reports of the investigation, as well as potential foreign lobbying issues relating to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
While LIV Golf is set up as a for-profit, the PGA Tour is a nonprofit that has raised more than $3 billion for charity. Texas events include the Houston Open in the fall, a World Golf Championship event hosted each spring in Austin, as well as a Dallas event.
In Roy’s district just outside San Antonio, the PGA Tour hosts the Valero Texas Open each spring, which raised more than $20 million this year for children in need.
Trump has maintained a cozy relationship with the Saudis throughout his business career and presidency, making LIV Golf a natural ally.
His Bedminster golf course in New Jersey had been scheduled to host one of the four major golf tournaments, but shortly after the events of Jan. 6, 2021, it was taken away. Instead, Trump’s New Jersey club hosted a LIV Golf event this summer, which he and some of his closest political allies attended, and this fall Trump’s Miami Doral course will host the culminating tournament of LIV’s 2022 season.
At the New Jersey event, Trump spoke out against the PGA Tour and sided with LIV, saying the salaries of professional golfers would go up and that, “I’ve known these people for a long time in Saudi Arabia and they have been friends of mine for a long time.”
During Trump’s presidency, the U.S. intelligence community determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Salman ordered the execution of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in retaliation for his critical writings about the kingdom.
Critics of LIV Golf have also pointed to Saudi Arabia’s ties to the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks — 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabia and the full extent of Saudi Arabia’s alleged complicity in the attacks remains murky. Asked about this, Trump this summer responded: “Well, nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately.”
Roy has been critical of LIV throughout the year, writing this summer that “American professional golfers on the PGA Tour bolting for big checks on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League are doing themselves, their chosen sport, and the American communities that have supported them a deep disservice.”
“In the name of supposed competition and reform, they are selling themselves to the highest bidder — irrespective of that bidder’s character — reflecting a pervasive and deep-seated cultural rot in this country and in sports,” he wrote.
His office has not yet responded to a request for an interview today, and LIV Golf did not respond to a request for comment.
edward.mckinley@chron.com
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Trump's Legal Woes Mount Without Protection Of Presidency
Trump's Legal Woes Mount Without Protection Of Presidency https://digitalalaskanews.com/trumps-legal-woes-mount-without-protection-of-presidency/
WASHINGTON — Stark repudiation by federal judges he appointed. Far-reaching fraud allegations by New York’s attorney general. It’s been a week of widening legal troubles for Donald Trump, laying bare the challenges piling up as the former president operates without the protections afforded by the White House.
The bravado that served him well in the political arena is less handy in a legal realm dominated by verifiable evidence, where judges this week have looked askance at his claims and where a fraud investigation that took root when Trump was still president burst into public view in an allegation-filled 222-page state lawsuit.
In politics, “you can say what you want and if people like it, it works. In a legal realm, it’s different,” said Chris Edelson, a presidential powers scholar and American University government professor. “It’s an arena where there are tangible consequences for missteps, misdeeds, false statements in a way that doesn’t apply in politics.”
That distinction between politics and law was evident in a single 30-hour period this week.
Trump insisted on Fox News in an interview that aired Wednesday that the highly classified government records he had at Mar-a-Lago actually had been declassified, that a president has the power to declassify information “even by thinking about it.”
A day earlier, however, an independent arbiter his own lawyers had recommended appeared skeptical when the Trump team declined to present any information to support his claims that the documents had been declassified. The special master, Raymond Dearie, a veteran federal judge, said Trump’s team was trying to “have its cake and eat it,” too, and that, absent information to back up the claims, he was inclined to regard the records the way the government does: Classified.
On Wednesday morning, Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, accused Trump in a lawsuit of padding his net worth by billions of dollars and habitually misleading banks about the value of prized assets. The lawsuit, the culmination of a three-year investigation that began when he was president, also names as defendants three of his adult children and seeks to bar them from ever again running a company in the state. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Hours later, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit — two of them Trump appointees — handed him a startling loss in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
The court overwhelmingly rejected arguments that he was entitled to have the special master do an independent review of the roughly 100 classified documents taken during last month’s FBI search.
That ruling opened the way for the Justice Department to resume its use of the classified records in its probe. It lifted a hold placed by a lower court judge, Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee whose rulings in the Mar-a-Lago matter had to date been the sole bright spot for the former president. On Thursday, she responded by striking the parts of her order that had required the Justice Department to give Dearie, and Trump’s lawyers, access to the classified records.
Between Dearie’s position, and the appeals court ruling, “I think that basically there may be a developing consensus, if not an already developed consensus, that the government has the stronger position in a lot of these issues and a lot of these controversies,” said Richard Serafini, a Florida criminal defense lawyer and former Justice Department prosecutor.
To be sure, Trump is hardly a stranger to courtroom dramas, having been deposed in numerous lawsuits throughout his decades-long business career, and he has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to survive situations that seemed dire.
His lawyers did not immediately respond Thursday to a request seeking comment.
In the White House, Trump had faced a perilous investigation into whether he had obstructed a Justice Department probe of possible collusion between Russia and his 2016 campaign. Ultimately, he was protected at least in part by the power of the presidency, with special counsel Robert Mueller citing longstanding department policy prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president.
He was twice impeached by a Democratic-led House of Representatives — once over a phone call with Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the second time over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol — but was acquitted by the Senate on both occasions thanks to political support from fellow Republicans.
It remains unclear if any of the current investigations — the Mar-a-Lago one or probes related to Jan. 6 or Georgia election interference — will produce criminal charges. And the New York lawsuit is a civil matter.
But there’s no question Trump no longer enjoys the legal shield of the presidency, even though he has repeatedly leaned on an expansive view of executive power to defend his retention of records the government says are not his, no matter their classification.
Notably, the Justice Department and the federal appeals court have paid little heed to his assertions that the records had been declassified. For all his claims on TV and social media, both have noted that Trump has presented no formal information to support the idea that he took any steps at all to declassify the records.
The appeals court called the declassification question a “red herring” because even declassifying a record would not change its content or transform it from a government document into a personal one. And the statutes the Justice Department cites as the basis of its investigation do not explicitly mention classified information.
Trump’s lawyers also have stopped short of saying in court, or in legal briefs, that the records were declassified. They told Dearie they shouldn’t be forced to disclose their stance on that issue now because it could be part of their defense in the event of an indictment.
Even some legal experts who have otherwise sided with Trump in his legal fights are dubious of his assertions.
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who testified as a Republican witness in the first impeachment proceedings in 2019, said he was struck by the “lack of a coherent and consistent position from the former president on the classified documents.”
“It’s not clear,” he added, “what Jedi-like lawyers said that you could declassify things with a thought, but the courts are unlikely to embrace that claim.”
___
More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
_____
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
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Mar-A-Lago Special Master Orders Trump Team To Back Up Any Claims Of FBI planting Evidence KVIA
Mar-A-Lago Special Master Orders Trump Team To Back Up Any Claims Of FBI ‘planting’ Evidence – KVIA https://digitalalaskanews.com/mar-a-lago-special-master-orders-trump-team-to-back-up-any-claims-of-fbi-planting-evidence-kvia/
Mar-a-Lago special master orders Trump team to back up any claims of FBI ‘planting’ evidence KVIA
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Passenger Arrested After Seen Punching A Flight Attendant
Passenger Arrested After Seen Punching A Flight Attendant https://digitalalaskanews.com/passenger-arrested-after-seen-punching-a-flight-attendant/
FORT WORTH, Texas — A man who was apparently caught on video slugging a flight attendant in the back of the head during an American Airlines flight was arrested after the plane landed in Los Angeles.
Authorities charged Alexander Tung Cuu Le on Thursday with interfering with a flight crew. Le, of Westminster, California, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The incident happened Wednesday on a flight from San Jose del Cabo in Mexico to Los Angeles International Airport. Video posted by another passenger showed a man running up behind a male flight attendant and punching him as the crew member walked in the other direction.
According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, shortly after takeoff Le grabbed another flight attendant by the shoulders and asked for coffee. He was told to wait.
When Le, 33, moved from the back of the plane to an open seat near the first-class cabin, the male flight attendant asked him to return to his assigned seat. Instead, Le stood in a two-fisted fighting stance and swung an arm at the crew member but missed, according to the affidavit.
The flight attendant was on his way to report the incident to the pilot when he was struck in the back of the head.
Several passengers “apprehended” Le and cuffed his hands and legs with restraints provided by a different flight attendant, according to the FBI agent. The injured flight attendant, who spent the rest of the flight with an ice bag on his head, was taken to a hospital.
The president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union representing American’s cabin crews, said the passenger had exhibited “dangerous, life-threatening behavior.”
“Thankfully, the crew and passengers subdued the passenger, and the flight landed safely,” said the union official, Julie Hedrick. “This violent behavior puts the safety of all passengers and crew in jeopardy and must stop.”
Airline spokesman Curtis Blessing said American has banned the man from ever traveling on the airline. He said American was helping law enforcement investigate the incident.
According to Federal Aviation Administration figures, airlines have reported nearly 2,000 incidents involving unruly passengers this year, down from nearly 6,000 last year even with a 38% increase in U.S. air travelers.
Most of the incidents in 2021 and early 2022 involved passengers who refused to wear face masks, but the federal requirement for masks on planes and public transportation was struck down by a federal judge in April.
Government figures don’t indicate how often the incidents turn violent, although it appears to be rare. The most notorious case involved a young woman who punched a Southwest flight attendant, breaking some of her teeth, on a plane in California. The woman was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
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AK47: Katsina Police Distance Self As Ondo Gov Kicks Against Licensing Vigilantes To Bear Arms
AK47: Katsina Police Distance Self As Ondo Gov Kicks Against Licensing Vigilantes To Bear Arms https://digitalalaskanews.com/ak47-katsina-police-distance-self-as-ondo-gov-kicks-against-licensing-vigilantes-to-bear-arms/
Gov Rotimi Akeredolu (Left)
The Katsina Police Command has distanced itself from viral reports claiming that vigilantes in the state have been trained and licensed to use AK-47 riffles.
Speaking to THE WHISTLER on Thursday, the command’s spokesperson, Gambo Isah, reacted to a statement issued by the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, who accused the Federal Government of preventing South West’s security outfit from bearing arms but allowing vigilantes in the North to carry AK47.
Akeredolu revealed that the state had obtained the approval of the federal government to bear arms while hitherto denying the South West security outfit the same privilege to combat crime in the region using firearms.
“The video making the rounds showing the equivalent of the Western Nigeria Security Network (Amotekun Corps) in Katsina, obtaining the approval of the Federal Govt. to bear arms is fraught with great dangers.
“Denying Amotekun the urgently needed rights, to legitimately bear arms is a repudiation of the basis of true federalism which we have been clamouring for. That Katsina was able to arm its state security force, with the display of AK47 means we are pursuing one country, two systems solution to the national question,’ he said.
But speaking to THE WHISTLER, Isah revealed that the vigilantes in the state were not licensed to use AK-47, saying they were only trained on how to use it for self-defence.
“The Vigilantes were trained on other arms and combat manoeuvres. It is not that they were given a license or that the federal government has approved that they should use AK-47 Riffles. They were just trained on how to defend themselves.
“And to be categorically clear, there is no member of vigilante in Katsina that is using that kind of weapon. It wasn’t issued to them by the Federal Government or State Government. They were just trained on how to defend themselves.
“It wasn’t the police that trained them, the police were not there when they were trained, we didn’t participate in the training, but what I know Is what I am telling you.
“They were not issued with AK-47 riffles, but they were trained on how to defend themselves because bandits and terrorists are using AK-47 riffles,” he said.
The command further noted that the week-long training that commenced on Sunday was to enable the vigilantes to stand up to terrorists who also use AK-47s in their operations.
When asked what next after the training, Isah gave no further comment as this newspaper made an effort to unravel why vigilantes should be trained to use AK-47s only for operational knowledge.
Meanwhile, Akeredola noted the Ondo State Government has decided to fulfil its legal, constitutional and moral duty to the citizens of the State, by acquiring arms to protect its people.
“This is more so, given that the bandits have unchecked access to sophisticated weapons. The State government cannot look on while its citizens are being terrorized and murdered with impunity. We will defend our people,” the Governor said.
The Katsina State Government earlier in September disclosed plans to recruit 3000 individuals into the Special Vigilante Corps to fight terrorism in the state.
The government scheduled to train the first batch of 600 out of 3000 vigilante corps at the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps’ College of Peace and Disaster Management in the state.
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Donald Trump Accused Of Inflating Value Of Scottish Estate
Donald Trump Accused Of Inflating Value Of Scottish Estate https://digitalalaskanews.com/donald-trump-accused-of-inflating-value-of-scottish-estate/
Donald Trump recalls meeting Queen Elizabeth II
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Donald Trump has been accused of inflating the value of his golf course estate in Aberdeenshire as part of wide-ranging legal action alleging business fraud. The Trump International estate at Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, is mentioned in a lengthy court filing by New York’s attorney general.
It accuses the former US president, members of his family, his business organisation and its senior management of years of financial fraud in order to gain a number of economic benefits.
The allegations between 2011 and 2021 are part of a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by New York’s most senior lawyer.
Filed in state court in New York, the lawsuit is the culmination of US Democrat Ms James’s three-year, civil investigation into Mr Trump and the Trump Organisation.
In its 214 pages, the suit struck at the core of what made Mr Trump famous, shining a light on the image of wealth and opulence he has embraced throughout his career — first as a real estate developer, then as a reality TV host on ‘The Apprentice’ and later as President of the United States.
Donald Trump’s golfing estate in Scotland has been named in a lawsuit filed in the US (Image: Getty)
Donald Trump Jr. (L), along with Ivanka Trump (C) and Eric Trump (R) (Image: Getty)
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Find out what he had to say HERE.
A statement from the attorney general’s office said: “The valuation of this golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, assumed 2,500 homes could be developed when the Trump Organisation had obtained zoning approval to develop less than 1,500 cottages and apartments, many of which were expressly identified as being only for short-term rental.
“The 267 million US dollar value attributed to those 2,500 homes accounted for more than 80 percent of the total 327 million US dollar valuation for Aberdeen on the 2014 Statement of Financial Condition.”
Mr Trump’s coastal golf course in Aberdeenshire opened in 2012 after a controversial planning process. In February, a plan by the Trump Organisation to build up to 500 new homes and 50 cottages near the estate was granted permission in principle by Aberdeenshire Council.
However, a number of conditions were attached before any development could take place. One of these stated the number of houses should not exceed 550.
READ ABOUT PRINCESS CHARLOTTE BURSTING INTO TEARS
Donald Trump is escorted by Scottish pipers as he officially opens his estate in Aberdeenshire (Image: Getty)
Donald Trump plays a stroke as he officially opens his Trump International Golf Links course (Image: Getty)
Mr Trump’s three eldest children, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric Trump, have also been named as defendants along with two long-time company executives.
They are accused of lying to lenders and insurers by inflating the worth of nearly every one of their major properties, including Mar-a-Lago in Florida and Trump Tower.
The lawsuit alleges they were able “to obtain beneficial financial terms”, including lower interest rates and premiums by providing fraudulent statements to lenders and insurers. Ms James said this allowed the firm to make a quarter of a billion dollars.
In an eight page filing about Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, it said annual valuations of the golf course and undeveloped land were “derived each year using improper methods and based on facts and assumptions that were materially false and misleading”.
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Donald Trump’s family tree (Image: Express)
The lawsuit also claimed the valuations “were known by Mr Trump and others within the Trump Organisation” to be materially false and misleading.
In a further page about Trump Turnberry, the lawsuit added the resort operated at a loss and “should have been valued at a much lower figure.”
But Mr Trump, in a post to his Truth Social platform, decried the lawsuit as “Another Witch Hunt” and denounced Ms James as “a fraud who campaigned on a ‘get Trump’ platform.”
Later, in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Mr Trump said his company’s financial disclosures warned banks not to trust the information provided.
New York state attorney general Letitia James (Image: Getty)
He said: “We have a disclaimer right on the front,” which warned banks: “‘You’re at your own risk.’ … ‘Be careful because it may not be accurate. It may be way off.’ … ‘Get your own people. Use your own appraisers. Use your own lawyers. Don’t rely on us.'”
Mr Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said the allegations are “meritless” and the lawsuit “is neither focused on the facts nor the law — rather, it is solely focused on advancing the Attorney General’s political agenda.”
It comes after a judge at Scotland’s Court of Session rejected a legal bid to force lawmakers to investigate Mr Trump’s purchase of his two golf resorts in Scotland.
New York-based human rights organisation Avaaz had argued the Scottish Government should have embarked on an unexplained wealth order probe into how the deals were financed.
However, Lord Sandison ruled Scottish ministers had acted lawfully in declining to investigate.
Mr Trump opened his Aberdeenshire Golf Resort in Balmedie in 2012 amid huge opposition over potential environmental damage. He later tried to stop a wind farm being built off the coast and argued it would spoil the view.
The former US President brought Turnberry in 2014 from a Dubai-based company. Mr Trump, 76, resigned as a director from the golf businesses after being elected as president and handed over his controlling stake to a trust run by his family.
The former US head of state has connections to Scotland through his mum Mary MacLeod, who was from the Isle of Lewis.
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Special Master Asks Trump Team For Proof Of Claims That FBI Planted Evidence Live
Special Master Asks Trump Team For Proof Of Claims That FBI Planted Evidence – Live https://digitalalaskanews.com/special-master-asks-trump-team-for-proof-of-claims-that-fbi-planted-evidence-live/
Special master demands proof of tampering from Trump’s lawyers in Mar-a-Lago case
The special master appointed to filter out privileged materials from the documents taken by the government from Mar-a-Lago has asked Donald Trump’s lawyers to provide proof of their allegations that the FBI planted evidence.
In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.
Here’s more from Reuters:
The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.
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In a new court filing, Raymond Dearie, the senior federal judge tasked with separating out documents covered under executive or attorney-client privilege from the trove taken by the FBI as part of its investigation into whether Trump unlawfully possessed government secrets, also laid out a series of deadlines in the case.
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Here’s more from Reuters:
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The Mar-a-Lago special master is telling Trump's lawyers to say once and for all whether they really think the FBI planted evidence during its search, as the former president has publicly alleged. pic.twitter.com/hVF7fCTjIj
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1573010332146171908″,”id”:”1573010332146171908″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”905e5c45-f05e-4b13-8537-568c7372f5ef”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TweetBlockElement”,”html”:”
This isn't the first time Judge Dearie has told Trump's lawyers to essentially put up or shut up about the things they've been saying in TV but not in court.
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1573013231261679617″,”id”:”1573013231261679617″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”ea2aa302-4c19-48e8-a971-90034510dd21″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TweetBlockElement”,”html”:”
Judge Dearie is also setting some pretty short deadlines on the review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. He wants Trump's lawyers to decide by Monday whether to assert privilege over items singled as potentially privileged by the FBI filter team. pic.twitter.com/8BX6IT310f
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1573013550834098177″,”id”:”1573013550834098177″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”c38c6e26-2ac3-4951-a8f2-cdd4c2c2202b”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TweetBlockElement”,”html”:”
And he says Trump's lawyers need to lay out all of their claims of privilege in about three weeks. pic.twitter.com/rRCkwLjPuR
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) September 22, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1573013781927665665″,”id”:”1573013781927665665″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”57b0756c-e9b9-42eb-90cc-e67432dc67db”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
The demands regarding evidence planting appear to be a response to claims made without evidence by Trump and his allies after the August search of Mar-a-Lago.
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Indiana led the charge in tightening abortion access after Roe v Wade was overturned in June, but a judge today blocked the new law on grounds that the state’s constitution protects access to the procedure.
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The decision underscores the complications Republican-led states face as they move to take advantage of the conservative-led court’s decision, which cleared the way for states to ban the procedure.
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Here’s more from the Associated Press:
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n
Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.
n
The ban was approved by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.
n
The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.
n
Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement: “We plan to appeal and continue to make the case for life in Indiana.”
n
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke at the United Nations in New York earlier, seeking to “send a clear message” to Russia over its threats concerning the possible use of nuclear weapons during its war in Ukraine.
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Trump Faces Legal Setbacks With New York Attorney General's Lawsuit Mar-A-Lago Case (Video) Social News XYZ
Trump Faces Legal Setbacks With New York Attorney General's Lawsuit, Mar-A-Lago Case (Video) – Social News XYZ https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-faces-legal-setbacks-with-new-york-attorney-generals-lawsuit-mar-a-lago-case-video-social-news-xyz/
Posted By: Social News XYZ September 22, 2022
A federal appeals court ruled the Justice Department can resume using documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. Meanwhile, New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Trump and three of his children alleging more than a decade of fraud in the Trump Organization. The former president denied the allegations, calling it a “witch hunt.” CBS News Homeland Security and Justice reporter Nicole Sganga joined Anne-Marie Green and Vladimir Duthiers to talk more about the ongoing investigations.
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Summary
Title
Trump faces legal setbacks with New York attorney general’s lawsuit, Mar-a-Lago case (Video)
Description
A federal appeals court ruled the Justice Department can resume using documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. Meanwhile, New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Trump and three of his children alleging more than a decade of fraud in the Trump Organization. The former president denied the allegations, calling it a “witch hunt.” CBS News Homeland Security and Justice reporter Nicole Sganga joined Anne-Marie Green and Vladimir Duthiers to talk more about the ongoing investigations. CBS News Streaming Network is the premier 24/7 anchored streaming news service from CBS News and Stations, available free to everyone with access to the Internet. The CBS News Streaming Network is your destination for breaking news, live events and original reporting locally, nationally and around the globe. Launched in November 2014 as CBSN, the CBS News Streaming Network is available live in 91 countries and on 30 digital platforms and apps, as well as on CBSNews.com and Paramount+. Subscribe to the CBS News YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/cbsnews Watch CBS News: https://cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7c Download the CBS News app: https://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8 Follow CBS News on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cbsnews/ Like CBS News on Facebook: https://facebook.com/cbsnews Follow CBS News on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbsnews Subscribe to our newsletters: https://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T Try Paramount+ free: https://bit.ly/2OiW1kZ For video licensing inquiries, contact: licensing@veritone.com
Read More Here
Trump To Hannity: Presidents Can Declassify Documents 'by Thinking About It'
Trump To Hannity: Presidents Can Declassify Documents 'by Thinking About It' https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-to-hannity-presidents-can-declassify-documents-by-thinking-about-it/
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Presidents can declassify documents on a whim, even just by “thinking about it,” former President Donald Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
Trump appeared on Hannity’s show to discuss the ongoing federal investigation into classified documents found in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home during an FBI raid.
“Is there a process? What was your process to declassify?” Hannity asked.
“There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it,” Trump responded. “You know, different people say different things, but as I understand it there doesn’t have to be.”
DOJ ASKS 11TH CIRCUIT FOR PARTIAL STAY, ALLOWING ATTORNEYS TO USE CLASSIFIED DOCS DURING SPECIAL MASTER REVIEW
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Aug. 6, 2022 in Dallas, Texas.
(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“If you’re the president of the United States you can declassify just by saying: ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it,” he added. “There doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president, you make that decision…I declassified everything.”
NEW YORK AG SUES TRUMP OVER FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
Classification is system within the executive branch for privileging information, typically relying on three tiers: confidential, secret and top secret. Only those with proper clearance levels can handle or be told about the information in a classified document.
This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
(Department of Justice via AP)
Declassifying documents typically follows a process in which the agency to which the information pertains is consulted. Then, an officially designated “original classification authority” would move to declassify the document, according to the New York Times.
While presidents do have the authority to declassify documents on their own, the relevant agencies would still have to be informed of the move for a formal declassification to take place.
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice, Aug. 11, 2022, in Washington.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The FBI found roughly 100 documents marked to varying levels of classification inside Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ has opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of the files. A federal appeals court allowed investigators to continue inspecting the files in a Wednesday ruling, dealing a blow to Trump’s argument that the documents were no longer classified.
The files are being looked at by Judge Raymond Dearie, a special master appointed for that purpose at the request of Trump’s legal team.
Read More Here
Alabama Lawmakers Call DOJ's Subpoena Of Conservative Nonprofit 'Political Harassment'
Alabama Lawmakers Call DOJ's Subpoena Of Conservative Nonprofit 'Political Harassment' https://digitalalaskanews.com/alabama-lawmakers-call-dojs-subpoena-of-conservative-nonprofit-political-harassment/
Alabama lawmakers are alleging that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has engaged in political harassment after its subpoena of a conservative nonprofit that assisted in the writing of a bill prohibiting puberty blockers and transgender surgery on people under 19 years of age.
In a Sept. 20 letter (pdf) addressed to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Congressman Gary Palmer called the subpoena an attack on the nonprofit’s First Amendment right “to advocate for change in public policy.”
“However, through the DOJ’s subpoena you are seeking to limit those rights, by either intimidating Eagle Forum of Alabama from advocacy, or bankrupting or delaying the organization from doing additional good work through a burdensome document request,” Palmer said in the letter, which was signed by Republican Reps. Robert Aderholt, Barry Moore, Mo Brooks, Jerry Carl, and Mike Rogers.
Palmer called the subpoena “arbitrary and capricious.”
Kris Ullman, president of the D.C. office of the Eagle Forum that oversees the state chapters, told The Epoch Times, “It’s unprecedented that a 501(c)(4) group that was created in order to lobby legislators would have all of their records subpoenaed on an issue that went before the state legislature.”
The Eagle Forum Chapter of Alabama had been consulting with legislators since 2017 on writing the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, Ullman said, which was signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey in April.
The new legislation was met with lawsuits, one of which was Eknes-Tucker et al. v. Marshall et al. (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court on April 19, which challenged the constitutionality of the bill, claiming that the law violated the 14th Amendment right to equal protection, Ullman said.
Ten days later, on April 29, the DOJ filed a motion to join as an intervenor party to the lawsuit.
In May, Liles Burke, a U.S. Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, issued a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the law until the challenge is resolved.
In August, the DOJ subpoenaed Eagle Forum of Alabama, seeking over 5 years of records related to the organization’s work on the bill, despite the fact that the nonprofit is not a party in the legal action.
Warning from the White House
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ-advocate organization, and the White House have criticized the legislation, calling it discriminatory and antagonistic toward transgendered youth.
In April, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that lawmakers “who are contemplating these discriminatory bills have been put on notice by the DOJ and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that laws and policies preventing care that health care professionals recommend for transgender minors may violate the Constitution and federal law.”
On March 31, the DHHS Office of Population Affairs released a document titled “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People,” which endorses gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatment for minors.
Freedom of Speech Squelched
On Sept. 7, Eagle Forum of Alabama filed a motion to quash the DOJ’s subpoena.
“At stake here is the ability of all private citizen advocates and non-profit advocacy organizations to engage in the legislative process regardless of their viewpoint,” Ullman said. “If the DOJ can weaponize a subpoena, any American can be unduly burdened and prevented from engaging in our democratic republic form of government, freedom of speech, and freedom of association will be squelched.”
On Sept. 21, several conservative public interest law firms, special interest foundations, and legislators signed off on an amicus brief filed in the U.S. District Court in support of Eagle Forum of Alabama’s motion to quash the DOJ’s subpoena.
The subpoena follows a pattern of what Republicans have viewed as a double standard in how the DOJ treats Republicans as opposed to Democrats, such as with the Mar-a-Lago raid of former President Donald Trump’s home while downplaying the significance of Hunter Biden’s laptop and any investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of an email server.
The DOJ didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Right to Assemble and Petition at Stake
In the letter, Palmer requests that the DOJ demonstrate that the DOJ is not acting politically by providing evidence that it has issued subpoenas to liberal organizations, other third-party organizations not involved in underlying cases, the reasoning for the subpoena, and a clear explanation of “the constitutional authority you believe you possess to intimidate and harass individuals and organizations exercising their First Amendment rights.”
The case is not only about freedom of speech—the right of Eagle Forum of Alabama to speak out on an issue of public policy, Ullman said, but it’s also about the right to assemble, which for the Eagle Forum, takes place with their mailing list, among other methods.
“We believe once the DOJ has that mailing list, we think the subpoena could be read in such a way that it could be used to harass our members,” Ullman said.
The right to petition is also at stake in that the organization petitioned legislators to examine a trend they believe is dangerous for children, Ullman said, leading to the formulation of the bill, a process that has until this time been deemed legal and constitutional.
“If this subpoena is enforced and we have to turn over all of our records on this issue, then it won’t be just Eagle Forum, but all citizens and nonprofit groups that will be hurt,” Ullman said.
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Matt McGregor covers news and features throughout the United States. Send him your story ideas: matt.mcgregor@epochtimes.us
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Finland Mulls Barring Russians From Entering As Border Traffic Grows
Finland Mulls Barring Russians From Entering As Border Traffic Grows https://digitalalaskanews.com/finland-mulls-barring-russians-from-entering-as-border-traffic-grows/
Cars queue to enter Finland from Russia at Finland’s most southern crossing point Vaalimaa, around three hour drive from Saint Petersburg, in Vaalimaa, Finland September 22, 2022. REUTERS/Essi Lehto
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VAALIMAA, Finland, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Finland said on Thursday it was considering barring most Russians from entering the country as traffic across the border from its eastern neighbour “intensified” following President Vladimir Putin’s order for a partial military mobilisation.
Finnish land border crossings have remained among the few entry points into Europe for Russians after a string of Western countries shut both physical frontiers and their air space to Russian planes in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Thursday the government was assessing risks posed by individuals travelling through Finland, and was considering ways to sharply reduce Russian transit.
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“The government’s will is very clear, we believe Russian tourism (to Finland) must be stopped, as well as transit through Finland,” Marin told reporters.
“I believe the situation needs to be reassessed after yesterday’s news,” she added, referring to Putin’s partial mobilisation order.
The Russian president’s announcement raised fears that some men of fighting age would not be allowed to leave Russia and prompted one-way flights out of the country to sell out fast. read more
Finland opted to keep its frontier with Russia open following Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine although it has cut back the number of consular appointments available to Russian travellers seeking visas. read more
BORDER
At the Vaalimaa border crossing, roughly three hours’ drive from Russia’s second-largest city St Petersburg, three lanes of cars each stretched for 300-400 metres (yards) at around 1:15 p.m. local time (1015 GMT), a border official told Reuters.
The crossing is one of nine on Finland’s 1,300-km (800-mile) border with Russia, the longest in the European Union.
“Traffic at the Finnish-Russian border intensified during the night,” the border guard’s head of international affairs, Matti Pitkaniitty, said in a tweet. He told Reuters that border guards were ready at the nine checkpoints.
Although traffic from Russia was busier than normal, the border guards said in a statement that it had not changed “alarmingly” in recent days compared with pre-pandemic times.
The statement warned that “incorrect and misleading” information was circulating on social media.
At around 1730 local time (1530 GMT), traffic continued to flow, according to a Reuters witness, with cars stretching over four lanes, each for some 150 metres.
A 34-year-old Russian man called Nikita, who did not give his last name, told Reuters he was going on holiday in southern Europe and said he was not sure if he would return to Russia.
“I will make the decision when I’m there,” he said upon crossing the border.
Border officials told Reuters a significant amount of Russians arriving were travelling on tourist visas. Tourists must present visas and documents that prove their onward itineraries such as plane tickets, hotel bookings or an invitation from a friend.
As long as tourists can credibly show plans for return, such as return tickets, the border guards cannot check whether they actually plan to return, Elias Laine, the Vaalimaa border station’s deputy chief, told Reuters.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the other EU countries that border Russian territory, began turning away Russian citizens from crossings at midnight on Monday, saying they should not travel while their country is at war with Ukraine. read more
The three Baltic nations will offer no refuge to any Russians fleeing Moscow’s mobilisation of troops, their ministers said on Wednesday. read more
Pitkaniitty said 4,824 Russians arrived in Finland via the eastern border on Wednesday, up from 3,133 a week earlier.
In far northern Norway there had been no changes in the number of Russians crossing, a police official told Reuters. Norway is not a member of the EU.
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Reporting by Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Essi Lehto in Helsinki, Milla Nissi in Gdansk, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; writing by Stine Jacobsen and Gwladys Fouche, Editing by Terje Solsvik, Kim Coghill, Mark Heinrich, Catherine Evans, William Maclean
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Its Common To Charge Electric Vehicles At Night. That Will Be A Problem.
It’s Common To Charge Electric Vehicles At Night. That Will Be A Problem. https://digitalalaskanews.com/its-common-to-charge-electric-vehicles-at-night-that-will-be-a-problem/
As electric vehicles hit the road around the country, hundreds of thousands of Americans are beginning to learn the ins and outs of car charging: how to install home chargers, where to find public charging stations, and how to avoid the dreaded “range anxiety.”
But as EV owners plug in their cars, there is a looming problem: pressures on the electricity grid if most drivers continue to charge their electric cars at night.
According to a new study from researchers at Stanford University, if EV sales grow rapidly over the next decade — and most drivers continue to charge their electric cars at home — vehicle charging could strain the electricity grid in the Western United States, increasing net demand at peak times by 25 percent. That could be a problem as the West struggles to keep the lights on amid heat waves and rising electricity demand.
The first thing to know about EV charging is that it’s nothing like filling a car with gasoline. Charging an electric car takes time — while the fastest chargers can charge an EV battery by 80 percent in 20 to 30 minutes, most chargers are slower, taking somewhere between two and 22 hours to get to a full charge. That means that around 80 percent of EV charging happens at the owner’s home, overnight — when the driver doesn’t need the car and can leave plenty of time for a charge.
But that charging pattern is at odds with how electricity is increasingly being generated. The largest demand for electricity happens in the evening, between about 5 to 9 p.m. People come home from work, turn the lights on, watch TV and do other activities that suck up power. Solar panels, meanwhile, produce their energy during the middle of the day. The highest electricity demand, then, happens just when solar has begun to shut off for the day.
In the Stanford study, researchers modeled charging behavior of residents of 11 Western states, and then analyzed how that behavior would impact an electricity grid that is switching increasingly to renewables and other clean energy sources.
“Once 30 or 40 percent of cars are EVs, it’s going to start significantly impacting what we do with the grid,” said Ram Rajagopal, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and one of the study’s authors. Even if drivers wait until after peak hours and set their cars to charge at 11 p.m. or later, they will be using electricity at exactly the time when renewable energy is not readily available. That could lead to increased carbon emissions and a need for more batteries and storage in the electricity grid.
One solution, the researchers say, is if more EV owners shift to daytime charging, charging their cars at work or at public chargers. If electric cars are charged in the late morning and early afternoon, when the grid has excess solar capacity that’s not being used, there will be less pressure on the electricity system and less need for storage. According to the study, under a scenario where 50 percent of cars are electric, a shift from mostly home to a mix of home and work charging could almost halve the amount of storage needed on the grid. Adding workplace and public chargers has an added benefit of also helping renters or those who don’t own homes access EVs.
Siobhan Powell, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and the study’s lead author, says that the time to plan for expanding public and workplace charging is now. “We’re not saying, ‘Don’t have any more home charging’ or ‘limit home charging,’ ” she said. “We don’t want to discourage any charging because that’s really important for adoption. But there’s a lot of money going into charging, and we could make it as convenient to charge at work or in public as it is at home.”
The authors also recommend shifting electricity price structures to better incentivize charging in the middle of the day. At the moment, some utilities offer super-low electricity rates to consumers for charging their cars overnight. PG&E, for example, a California utility, offers EV owners electricity for 25 cents overnight between midnight and 7 a.m. and 36 cents between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. Ideally, Rajagopal and Powell say, the cheapest rates should be in the middle of the day to incentivize charging when the sun is out.
Gil Tal, the director of an electric vehicle research center at the University of California at Davis, who was not involved in the paper, said that current EV owners don’t need to worry about their charging patterns. “We don’t need to tap the brakes on adoption of electric cars,” he said. As more clean energy and storage is added to the grid, he argues, many of these issues will be resolved.
But he agrees that one of the benefits of EVs is the flexibility of when they can charge. Shifting to day charging will be helpful, whether that is through charging at home during the day (for those who work from home) or providing workplace chargers.
Policymakers need to “put the chargers where the cars are during the day,” he said.
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LIVE: Kodiak VS West Valley | Alaska High School Football
LIVE: Kodiak VS West Valley | Alaska High School Football https://digitalalaskanews.com/live-kodiak-vs-west-valley-alaska-high-school-football/
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LIVE: Kodiak vs West Valley
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The Kodiak (AK) varsity football team has a home conference game vs. West Valley (Fairbanks, AK) on Friday, September 23 @ 5p.
Thursday, September 22, 2022
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Opinion | Appeals Court Slams Judge Cannon: No Trump Is Not Above The Law
Opinion | Appeals Court Slams Judge Cannon: No, Trump Is Not Above The Law https://digitalalaskanews.com/opinion-appeals-court-slams-judge-cannon-no-trump-is-not-above-the-law/
All throughout the Mar-a-Lago documents saga, Donald Trump and his allies have pushed a topsy-turvy line of propaganda: Trump has been uniquely victimized by lawless state overreach. What makes this truly absurd is that in reality, Trumpworld is raging at the fact that the law is being applied to him as it would be to anyone else.
For now at least, this up-is-downism is failing Trump in spectacular fashion.
That’s the upshot of a new federal appeals court ruling that allows the Justice Department to continue accessing classified documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. That temporarily reversed District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s previous order in favor of Trump, dealing a blow to Trump’s efforts to evade accountability for his hoarding of state secrets.
Again and again, the ruling asserts in various ways that Trump is not entitled to privileged treatment, that he is not above the law. Meanwhile, in a jarring contrast, Trump appeared Wednesday night in Sean Hannity’s hermetically sealed-off Fox News universe, where actual legal arguments against him were treated as if they simply don’t exist.
The ruling’s upshot is that Trump’s tactics in court — which relied on a friendly judge to delay the investigation for as long as possible — have been decisively upended. The Justice Department had sought narrow relief from Cannon’s district court ruling by requesting continued access to approximately 100 classified documents seized in the search.
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The court granted that. But it also telegraphed with unusual clarity that in the long run, Trump’s arguments will fail, meaning the investigation will continue.
“It’s about as thorough a repudiation of the district court’s ruling as one could get,” Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Austin at Texas, told me.
The appeals court ruling systematically dismantled many of the dubious arguments that Cannon employed to halt the investigation.
First, the ruling rebuked the idea that Trump has a legitimate “interest” in the classified documents, which had been based on the specious claim that a handful of seized documents were personal. The ruling archly noted that this latter fact didn’t concern documents that were actually classified:
For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings.
Translation: What the bleedin’ heck is Trump even doing with all these highly classified secrets, anyway?
The ruling also knocked down the idea that Trump had declassified the documents, calling this a “red herring.” After all, it noted, even if Trump had declassified them (which he didn’t), that wouldn’t mean he had a legitimate interest in getting them back.
In short, the ruling reaffirmed that Trump is not entitled to these documents. They belong to the public. What’s more, the ruling declared that the public has a legitimate interest in the government investigating whether his hoarding of them posed a serious national security threat, and if so, how.
Meanwhile, the ruling also dismantled one of Cannon’s most contested arguments of all: That as an ex-president, Trump would face unusual “stigma” associated with an ongoing prosecution, giving the lower court cause to intervene in the investigation.
To knock this down, the ruling noted that Trump is not entitled to such a presumption. If the stigma associated with prosecution were an argument for a court to intervene, it said, that could be invoked by “every potential defendant.”
Of course, Cannon’s idea was in effect that Trump is not any old “potential defendant.” It was that he should get special treatment. The ruling said, in effect: No he should not.
Put this all together and the ruling affirms that the law should be applied to Trump, just as it is to everyone else. As a private citizen, he doesn’t retain magical declassification powers. He doesn’t get to keep classified documents that belong to the public. And he doesn’t get special treatment that places him above any other potential defendant.
“It’s restoring a sense of normalcy to a dispute that had gotten hijacked,” Vladeck told me.
In short, Trump is not being victimized here. He’s being subjected, at least for now, to the rule of law.
The lengths to which Trump and his propagandists go to cast him as uniformly a victim of lawless prosecutorial overreach is remarkable. Even as this ruling came out, journalist Aaron Rupar flagged the following exchange on Hannity, in which Trump accused the FBI of planting incriminating information at Mar-a-Lago:
TRUMP: Did they drop anything into those piles? Or did they do it later? There’s no chain of custody here with them.
HANNITY: Wouldn’t that be on video tape, potentially?
TRUMP: I’d — nah, I don’t think so. They’re in a room.
They’re in a room.
You may recall that for a time, Trumpworld threatened to release Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage that would expose the search’s truly jackbooted nature. Shockingly, he hasn’t released anything yet. Hannity correctly asked whether such footage would confirm Trump’s claims, but then accepted Trump’s dissembling and politely moved on.
Trump will no doubt rage at this new ruling. But he won’t be angry because the law is treating him differently. He’ll be angry because it isn’t.
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Trump Documents Probe: Court Lifts Hold On Mar-A-Lago Records
Trump Documents Probe: Court Lifts Hold On Mar-A-Lago Records https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-documents-probe-court-lifts-hold-on-mar-a-lago-records/
WASHINGTON — In a stark repudiation of Donald Trump’s legal arguments, a federal appeals court on Wednesday permitted the Justice Department to resume its use of classified records seized from the former president’s Florida estate as part of its ongoing criminal investigation.
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit amounts to an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they consider whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. In lifting a hold on a core aspect of the department’s probe, the court removed an obstacle that could have delayed the investigation by weeks.
The appeals court also pointedly noted that Trump had presented no evidence that he had declassified the sensitive records, as he maintained as recently as Wednesday, and rejected the possibility that Trump could have an “individual interest in or need for” the roughly 100 documents with classification markings that were seized by the FBI in its Aug. 8 search of the Palm Beach property.
“If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it…You’re the president, you make that decision,” Trump claimed in a Fox News Channel interview recorded Wednesday before the appeals court ruling.
The government had argued that its investigation had been impeded, and national security concerns swept aside, by an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that temporarily barred investigators from continuing to use the documents in its inquiry. Cannon, a Trump appointee, had said the hold would remain in place pending a separate review by an independent arbiter she had appointed at the Trump team’s request to review the records.
The appeals panel agreed with the Justice Department’s concerns.
“It is self-evident that the public has a strong interest in ensuring that the storage of the classified records did not result in ‘exceptionally grave damage to the national security,’” they wrote. “Ascertaining that,” they added, “necessarily involves reviewing the documents, determining who had access to them and when, and deciding which (if any) sources or methods are compromised.”
An injunction that delayed or prevented the criminal investigation “from using classified materials risks imposing real and significant harm on the United States and the public,” they wrote.
Two of the three judges who issued Wednesday’s ruling — Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher — were nominated to the 11th Circuit by Trump. Judge Robin Rosenbaum was nominated by former President Barack Obama.
Lawyers for Trump did not return an email seeking comment on whether they would appeal the ruling. The Justice Department did not have an immediate comment.
The FBI last month seized roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification markings, during a court-authorized search of the Palm Beach club. It has launched a criminal investigation into whether the records were mishandled or compromised, though is not clear whether Trump or anyone else will be charged.
Cannon ruled on Sept. 5 that she would name an independent arbiter, or special master, to do an independent review of those records and segregate any that may be covered by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege and to determine whether any of the materials should be returned to Trump.
Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, has been named to the role and held his first meeting on Tuesday with lawyers for both sides.
The appeals court ruling substantially narrowed the special master’s job duties, enabling the Justice Department to avoid providing him with classified documents to review. Responding to the order, Cannon on Thursday struck the parts of her order that required the department to give Dearie and Trump’s lawyers access to the classified documents. Instead, Dearie would review the much larger tranche of non-classified government documents.
The Justice Department had argued that a special master review of the classified documents was not necessary. It said Trump had no plausible basis to invoke executive privilege over the documents, nor could the records be covered by attorney-client privilege because they do not involve communications between Trump and his lawyers.
It had also contested Cannon’s order requiring it to provide Dearie and Trump’s lawyers with access to the classified material. The court sided with the Justice Department on Wednesday, saying “courts should order review of such materials in only the most extraordinary circumstances. The record does not allow for the conclusion that this is such a circumstance.”
Though Trump’s lawyers have said a president has absolute authority to declassify information, they have notably stopped short of asserting that the records were declassified. The Trump team this week resisted providing Dearie with any information to support the idea that the records might have been declassified, saying the issue could be part of their defense in the event of an indictment.
The Justice Department has said there is no indication that Trump took any steps to declassify the documents and even included a photo in one court filing of some of the seized documents with colored cover sheets indicating their classified status. The appeals court, too, made the same point.
“Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified,” the judges wrote. “In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.”
Colvin reported from New York.
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