Russia's Wagner Boss: It's Prisoners Fighting In Ukraine Or Your Children
Russia's Wagner Boss: It's Prisoners Fighting In Ukraine, Or Your Children https://digitalarizonanews.com/russias-wagner-boss-its-prisoners-fighting-in-ukraine-or-your-children/
Media caption,
Watch: Russian mercenary group recruits detainees
A Russian mercenary boss has defended the idea of sending prisoners to fight in the Ukraine war after a video showed him recruiting at a prison.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, said those who do not want to send convicts to fight should send their own children instead.
Earlier, leaked footage showed him telling inmates they would be freed if they served six months with his group.
The Wagner group is believed to have been fighting in Ukraine since 2014.
In a statement published on social media after the video went viral, Mr Prigozhin said that if he were in prison he would “dream of” joining the Wagner group to “pay my debt to the Motherland”.
He added a message to those who do not want mercenaries or prisoners to fight.
“It’s either private military companies and prisoners, or your children – decide for yourself.”
However, the statement did not explicitly address the video or admit that it was genuine.
The UK’s defence ministry said the recruitment of prisoners indicated that Russia was suffering from a “critical” shortage of combat infantry troops.
The video – verified by the BBC – would confirm long-held suspicions that Russia hopes to increase troops by recruiting prisoners.
Russian law does not allow prisoners to be freed in exchange for military or mercenary service, but Mr Prigozhin said in the video that “nobody goes back behind bars” if they serve with the Wagner group.
“If you serve six months, you are free,” he said. But he warned potential recruits against desertion, adding: “if you arrive in Ukraine and decide it’s not for you, we will execute you”.
The video appears to have been taken in the prison’s exercise yard. It is not known who filmed it, when, or how it was released.
The BBC geolocated the footage to a penal colony in Russia’s central Mariy El Republic. Facial recognition tools suggested the recruiter was Mr Prigozhin, and this was separately confirmed by multiple sources.
The BBC has previously identified links between the group and Mr Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” – so-called because he rose from being a restaurateur and caterer for the Kremlin.
In the past, the Putin ally has denied a connection with the organisation.
But in the leaked prison video, the oligarch can be seen telling inmates that he is a “representative of a private war company”.
“Perhaps you heard the name – Wagner Group,” he asked the group of prisoners.
The group, whose origins are shadowy, has been deployed in Ukraine, Syria and several African conflicts.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Yevgeniy Prigozhin with Vladimir Putin in 2010
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Gilbert Family Wants Answers After Alleged Ongoing Discrimination Leads To Assault
Gilbert Family Wants Answers After Alleged Ongoing Discrimination Leads To Assault https://digitalarizonanews.com/gilbert-family-wants-answers-after-alleged-ongoing-discrimination-leads-to-assault/
GILBERT, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) — A Gilbert family is looking for answers after a senior student and football player claims months of discrimination ended with him being assaulted earlier this week. Gilbert Police and the Gilbert Public School District are investigating.
Deion Smith is a senior on the Gilbert High School football team. He spent Thursday getting dental work done on a tooth he says was knocked out by a teammate. “He had hit me in my jaw, and caused my tooth to fall out,” Smith said. “So then I’m noticing, I’m bleeding, I’m leaking.”
Smith says he quickly became outnumbered in a physical altercation with his Gilbert Tigers teammates. But he ways it’s what happened next with his head coach Derek Zellner that’s led him to not plan on returning to the Tigers or in general, Gilbert High School.
“I said ‘no I’m not ok, look at my tooth,’” Smith said. “And he just patted me on my shoulder and said to just keep it in the locker room. That everything is going to be ok.”
Deion’s mom April Miles says this is the latest example of months of hostile, even racist treatment towards her son, including multiple verbal abuse instances. “The lack of consideration for human life, not just a black human life, but a human being, the lack of consideration is phenomenal at this school,” she said.
Miles says she’s contacted the Gilbert School District and Gilbert Police about what happened. But so far, no actions have been taken. A district spokesperson tells Arizona’s Family that as soon as they were informed of these allegations, the Gilbert High School administration and the Gilbert Police Department began an investigation that is currently ongoing.
As for what Miles wants moving forward? “I want Coach Z fired,” she said. “I don’t want him to be able to neglect another child in the way that he’s neglected mine.”
Copyright 2022 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.
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Trump Offered Control Of West Bank To Jordanian King In 2018 New Book Reveals
Trump Offered Control Of West Bank To Jordanian King In 2018, New Book Reveals https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-offered-control-of-west-bank-to-jordanian-king-in-2018-new-book-reveals/
According to a new book which is set to be published soon, former US president Donald Trump offered Jordan’s King Abdullah II control over the occupied West Bank in 2018.
Citing Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s book titled The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, the Washington Post points to the Jordanian king’s reaction as he told a friend: “I thought I was having a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over.”
According to the book, Trump made this offer in January 2018. This is one of the several new details about his 4-year tenure as revealed by the two White House reporters.
Amman had control over the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 before it was illegally occupied by the Israeli regime. Nearly half of Jordan’s population of 9.5 million is comprised of the descendants of the Palestinians who escaped the war and many of those refugees still live in camps in the country.
Since the start of the occupation, the Israeli regime has been building settlements in the West Bank that are considered illegal under international law. The settlements are said to be one of the main impediments to peace in the region.
Despite signing a peace treaty with Tel Aviv, Amman has not recognized Israel’s 1967 occupation of east Jerusalem al-Quds and other parts of the West Bank.
Trump’s offer came as Washington had no authority to give away this Palestinian land. The former US president had been condemned by Palestinians for his pro-Israel stances. Among his controversial measures with regard to Palestine was relocating the US embassy to Al-Quds, not considering settlement inconsistent with international law, and pushing for a peace plan which had not included Palestinian rights.
The book says Trump’s offer was made in January 2018 and is among several new details about his presidency revealed by Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, and Glasser, staff writer for the New Yorker.
Earlier, the Guardian had also cited the book, reporting that Trump was afraid Iran would try to kill him in revenge for the assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander, General Qassem Soleimani,
General Soleimani was targeted in a US drone strike directly ordered by Trump near the Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. The attack also killed the deputy chief of Iraq’s anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis among others.
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AP News Summary At 1:21 A.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-121-a-m-edt/
Ukrainian president: Mass grave found near recaptured city
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities have found a mass burial site near a recaptured northeastern city previously occupied by Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the discovery late Thursday in his nightly address to the nation. The grave was found close to Izium in the Kharkiv region. Associated Press journalists saw the site in a forest. Amid the trees were hundreds of graves with simple wooden crosses, most of them marked only with numbers. A larger grave bore a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. Investigators with metal detectors were scanning the site for hidden explosives. Zelenskyy said more information would be made public Friday.
Florida, Texas escalate flights, buses to move migrants
EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) — Republican governors are escalating their practice of sending migrants without advance warning to Democratic strongholds, including a wealthy summer enclave in Massachusetts and the Washington, D.C., home of Vice President Kamala Harris. They are taunting leaders of immigrant-friendly “sanctuary” cities and highlighting their opposition to Biden administration border policies. The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington in recent months. But the latest surprise moves — which included two flights to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday paid for by Florida’s governor — were derided by critics as inhumane political theater.
Veteran NY judge named as arbiter in Trump Mar-a-Lago probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has appointed a veteran New York jurist to serve as an independent arbiter in the criminal investigation into the presence of classified documents at Donald Trump’s Florida home. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has also refused to permit the Justice Department to resume its use of the highly sensitive records seized in an FBI search last month. Cannon on Thursday empowered the newly named special master, Raymond Dearie, to review all the documents taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and set a November deadline for his work. The sharply worded order from Cannon sets the stage for a challenge to a federal appeals court.
Mourners wait for hours, miles to farewell Queen Elizabeth
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Donald Trump Returning To Youngstown For J.D. Vance Rally
Donald Trump Returning To Youngstown For J.D. Vance Rally https://digitalarizonanews.com/donald-trump-returning-to-youngstown-for-j-d-vance-rally/
By DAVID SKOLNICK
Staff writer
YOUNGSTOWN — Former President Donald Trump will return Saturday to Youngstown’s Covelli Centre — the site of a rally he held five years ago — to campaign for J.D. Vance, the GOP Senate nominee, as well as Republican congressional candidates.
Trump’s July 25, 2017, rally drew about 7,000 people. Saturday’s rally is likely to reach that level. Trump is scheduled to start speaking at 7 p.m.
The doors to the Covelli Centre will open at 2 p.m. with guest speakers delivering remarks starting at 4 p.m.
Vance is likely to be the final speaker before Trump, but the former president’s organization only provided a list of speakers and not the order in which they’ll address the audience.
Other speakers on the list are U.S. Reps. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, and Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, as well as Republican congressional candidates Max Miller in the 7th District, Madison Gesiotto Gilbert in the 13th District and J.R. Majewski in the 9th District.
Among top Ohio Republicans who won’t be at Trump’s rally is Gov. Mike DeWine.
DeWine said three of his granddaughters are participating in an evening cross country meet in Cedarville at the same time as the rally and he’ll be there to support them.
“It’s a special night for us,” he said. “They’re running under the lights, which is kind of unusual for cross country.”
Free tickets for the Trump rally are available online on the events link at donaldjtrump.com. People can register for up to two tickets per cell phone number and entry is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Traffic could be an issue for those heading to the Trump rally because Front Street, where the center is located, is currently restricted to one lane as the result of an ongoing street improvement project.
Front Street also is also where much of the parking for events at the Covelli Centre is located.
There is no parking at the Covelli Centre site, said Eric Ryan, president of JAC Management Group, which operates the center as well as the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre and Wean Park for the city.
“But there shouldn’t be a problem with parking,” he said. “We did 21,000 for Y-Live without our parking lot. People found parking, including downtown.”
Ryan was referring to the July 16 outdoor concert with Luke Bryan at the park, which is adjacent to the Covelli Centre.
Trump backed Vance in the crowded Republican primary for the open Senate seat, endorsing him a few weeks before the May 3 primary and holding an April 23 rally for him at the Delaware County Fairgrounds.
Polls show a tight race between Vance, a venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” and Democrat Tim Ryan, a 10-term House member who represents much of Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
Luke Schroeder, a Vance campaign spokesman, said: “J.D. looks forward to welcoming President Trump to the Buckeye State. Tim Ryan pretends to be a moderate in his slick TV ads, but behind closed doors, he admits he’s a progressive. He claims to be an independent voice, but in D.C., he votes with (President Joe) Biden and (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi 100 percent of the time.”
Schroeder added that Ryan lied about wanting to ban gas cars and flip-flopped on his position on Biden running for re-election.
“J.D. was born and raised in Ohio — he knows Ohioans are smarter than Tim Ryan thinks they are — he knows they won’t fall for Ryan’s despicable lies and will reject him come November,” Schroeder said.
Jordan Fuja, a Ryan campaign spokeswoman, said: “Out-of-state fraud J.D. Vance is bring his out-of-state allies to Ohio for a rally at the exact same time as the Buckeyes football game in the hopes that no one actually tunes in to watch him do damage control after he’s been cheerleading an extreme and wildly unpopular national abortion ban, suggesting women stay in violent marriages, calling rape ‘inconvenient,’ and bringing a Big Pharma mouthpiece to Ohio on part of his sham nonprofit’s self-promotional tour.”
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox
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AP News Summary At 12:42 A.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-1242-a-m-edt/
Ukrainian president: Mass grave found near recaptured city
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities have found a mass burial site near a recaptured northeastern city previously occupied by Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the discovery late Thursday in his nightly address to the nation. The grave was found close to Izium in the Kharkiv region. Associated Press journalists saw the site in a forest. Amid the trees were hundreds of graves with simple wooden crosses, most of them marked only with numbers. A larger grave bore a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. Investigators with metal detectors were scanning the site for hidden explosives. Zelenskyy said more information would be made public Friday.
Florida, Texas escalate flights, buses to move migrants
EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) — Republican governors are escalating their practice of sending migrants without advance warning to Democratic strongholds, including a wealthy summer enclave in Massachusetts and the Washington, D.C., home of Vice President Kamala Harris. They are taunting leaders of immigrant-friendly “sanctuary” cities and highlighting their opposition to Biden administration border policies. The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington in recent months. But the latest surprise moves — which included two flights to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday paid for by Florida’s governor — were derided by critics as inhumane political theater.
Veteran NY judge named as arbiter in Trump Mar-a-Lago probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has appointed a veteran New York jurist to serve as an independent arbiter in the criminal investigation into the presence of classified documents at Donald Trump’s Florida home. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has also refused to permit the Justice Department to resume its use of the highly sensitive records seized in an FBI search last month. Cannon on Thursday empowered the newly named special master, Raymond Dearie, to review all the documents taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and set a November deadline for his work. The sharply worded order from Cannon sets the stage for a challenge to a federal appeals court.
Biden, Dems see both political, economic wins in rail deal
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Charles' History With US Presidents: He's Met 10 Of Past 14
Charles' History With US Presidents: He's Met 10 Of Past 14 https://digitalarizonanews.com/charles-history-with-us-presidents-hes-met-10-of-past-14/
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hanging out with Richard Nixon’s daughter Tricia at a White House “supper-dance.” Swapping stories with Ronald Reagan about horseback riding. Bending the ears of Donald Trump and Joe Biden about climate change.
King Charles III, who became head of state following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has made the acquaintance of 10 of the 14 U.S. presidents who have held office since he was born in 1948.
He was just 10 when he checked off his first president in 1959. That was when Dwight Eisenhower visited the queen and her family at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where she died on Sept. 8 after a 70-year-reign.
“I guess you can’t start too early,” said Barbara A Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. She noted that Charles’ grandson, Prince George, was a toddler when Kensington Palace released a photograph of him shaking hands with Barack Obama during the president’s trip to London in 2016.
Charles never met Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, Perry said.
FILE – First lady Pat Nixon leads Princess Anne Thursday, July 16, 1970, from welcoming ceremonies at the White House. President Richard Nixon and Prince Charles walk with them. In the background are Julie and David Eisenhower. (AP Photo, File)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS
FILE – President Barack Obama meets with Britain’s Prince Charles, March 19, 2015, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Jacquelyn Martin
FILE – President George W. Bush, right, greets Britain’s Prince Charles on Nov. 2, 2005, on the South Portico of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Ron Edmonds
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His encounters with U.S. presidents included what he recalled as an “amusing” weekend visit to Nixon White House in 1970 with his sister Anne, when the 20-year-old future king — one of the world’s most eligible bachelors — sensed there was an effort afoot to set him up.
“That was the time when they were trying to marry me off to Tricia Nixon,” he later recalled.
The king has chatted up presidents on his visits to the U.S. and met others when they traveled in the United Kingdom. He was in the company of Donald Trump, Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush when he represented the British monarchy at the state funeral for former President George H.W. Bush in 2018 in Washington.
Charles met President Joe Biden last year at a climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
The royal has visited America about 20 times since that memorable first trip in the Nixon years, he told CNN last year.
The royal siblings had been invited to Washington by Nixon’s daughters and son-in-law, Tricia Nixon, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and her husband, David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower, for that three-day visit in July 1970.
The young VIPs had a packed schedule that included frolicking at the Camp David presidential retreat, a nighttime tour of Washington’s monuments, museum visits, a luncheon cruise down the Potomac River to George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia, a dance on the South Lawn for 700 guests, and a Washington Senators baseball game.
Charles and Nixon also met in the Oval Office. But if the president had his heart set a union between his family and the royals, it wasn’t meant to be.
In June 1971, less than a year after Charles’ visit, Tricia married longtime beau Edward Cox in the White House Rose Garden. A decade later, in July 1981, Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. They divorced in 1996.
Nixon, himself, had pushed for Charles to visit the U.S. for the perceived public relations bonanza, according to a January 1970 memo he sent his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
“I think this could do an enormous amount of good for U.S.-British relations,” Nixon said. He wrote that he’d been told that Charles “is the real gem” of the royal family and “makes an enormously favorable impression wherever he goes.”
Charles returned the praise in a thank-you note.
“The kindness shown to us at the White House was almost overwhelming and for that we are immensely grateful,” the prince wrote to Nixon. “Both my sister and I take back to Britain the most heartwarming evidence of what is known as the special relationship between our two countries and of the great hospitality shown to us by you and your family.”
Many of the former Prince of Wales’ conversations with recent U.S. presidents centered on his interest in tackling climate change. Charles has campaigned for the environment for 50 years, but he acknowledged after becoming king that his new role requires that he set aside his activism on that and other issues.
Charles, 73, and Biden, 79, discussed global cooperation on the climate crisis last year while both attended a summit in Glasgow, Scotland. They also met at Buckingham Palace in June 2021 at a reception the queen hosted before a world leaders’ summit in Cornwall.
Biden rejoined the 2015 Paris climate agreement after Trump as president withdrew the U.S. from the accord.
Biden and the king spoke on Wednesday, with Biden offering his condolences over the queen.
Trump has said that during his visit with Charles, the former prince “did most of the talking” and pressed him on climate during a scheduled 15-minute meeting that stretched to 90 minutes in 2019 at Charles’ residence in London.
During a three-day visit to Washington in 2011, Charles, an advocate of environmentally friendly farming, met with President Obama. In a speech, he praised Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity and hunger, and U.S. manufacturers’ efforts to produce healthier foods.
He criticized U.S. government subsidies for large-scale agriculture and encouraged increased business and government support for organic and environmentally friendly food production.
In his toast at a White House dinner in 2005, the future king told President George W. Bush that the world looks to the United States “for a lead on the most crucial issues that face our planet and, indeed, the lives of our grandchildren.
“Truly, the burdens of the world rest on your shoulders,” he said.
In the remarks, Charles also said the trip reminded him of his first visit to America, “when the media were busy trying to marry me off to Tricia Nixon.”
Visiting with Reagan in the Oval Office in 1981, the two discussed their interest in horseback riding as a steward brought tea. But it was not served the British way.
Of the experience, Reagan later wrote in his diary:
“The ushers brought him tea — horror of horrors they served it our way with a tea bag in the cup. It finally dawned on me that he was just holding the cup and finally put it down on the table. I didn’t know what to do,” Reagan confessed.
___
AP News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Stock Futures Fall As Wall Street Heads For Losing Week Weighs FedEx Warning
Stock Futures Fall As Wall Street Heads For Losing Week, Weighs FedEx Warning https://digitalarizonanews.com/stock-futures-fall-as-wall-street-heads-for-losing-week-weighs-fedex-warning/
U.S. stock futures fell Friday morning as Wall Street headed toward a losing week, and traders absorbed an ugly earnings warning from FedEx.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dropped by 181 points, or 0.58%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.75% and 0.93%, respectively.
Shares of FedEx plunged 15% in extended trading after the shipments company withdrew its full-year guidance, and said it will implement cost-cutting initiatives to contend with soft global shipment volumes as “macroeconomic trends significantly worsened.”
The three major averages were on pace to notch their fourth losing week in five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 3.70% this week, while the S&P 500 is 4.08% lower. The Nasdaq Composite is down 4.62%, headed toward its worst weekly loss since June.
During the regular session Thursday, the Dow dropped 173 points, or 0.56%, for its lowest close since July 14. The Nasdaq Composite slid 1.43%, while the S&P 500 fell 1.13%.
Traders are concerned that markets will retest June lows after a surprisingly hot reading in August’s consumer price index report indicated an increasingly difficult pathway to bring down inflation by the Federal Reserve.
“They might have a hard choice to make,” iCapital’s Anastasia Amoroso said Thursday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.”
“Before they were saying, we’re going to try to have a soft landing and bring down inflation. Now they may have to make a choice. It’s either a soft landing or bringing down inflation. In other words, they may have to engineer more of a crackdown on economic growth to bring down inflation,” she added.
On the economic front, traders are expecting the latest consumer sentiment data on 10 a.m. ET Friday.
U.S. 2-year Treasury yield briefly touches 3.9%
CNBC Pro: Top tech investor Paul Meeks picks between Apple and Samsung
Tech stocks suffered yet another sell-off this week as investors digested a hotter-than-expected August inflation report.
Amid a tough year for the sector, some investors are seeking refuge in the relative safety of mega-cap stocks. Top tech investor Paul Meeks weighs in on two such stocks and reveals which he prefers in the current environment.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Zavier Ong
China’s retail sales, industrial production for August beat estimates
China’s latest economic data release showed growth accelerated in August.
Retail sales increased 5.4% in August from the same period last year, much higher than July’s 2.7% and also above the Reuters forecast of 3.5%.
Industrial production grew 4.2% last month compared with a year ago, topping the prediction of 3.8% in a Reuters poll. Industrial output came in at 3.8% in July.
Fixed asset investment for January to August this year increased by 5.8%, beating the 5.5% estimate from Reuters.
— Abigail Ng, Evelyn Cheng
Major averages on pace for fourth losing week in five
All three major averages are on track to post their fourth losing week in five. Here are where markets stand through Thursday:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 3.7%
The S&P 500 is down 4.08%
The Nasdaq Composite is down 4.62%, heading toward its worst week since June 17
— Sarah Min
FedEx shares plunge after withdrawing guidance
Shares of FedEx tumbled 15.3% in after hours trading after the transport company withdrew its full-year guidance, and said it will implement cost-cutting initiatives to contend with a worsening macro.
“Global volumes declined as macroeconomic trends significantly worsened later in the quarter, both internationally and in the U.S. We are swiftly addressing these headwinds, but given the speed at which conditions shifted, first quarter results are below our expectations,” FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam said in a statement.
The company said it is closing 90 office locations, shutting down five corporate office facilities and pausing hiring efforts, as part of those cost-cutting measures.
— Sarah Min
Stock futures open lower
U.S. stock futures opened lower on Thursday night as Wall Street headed toward its fourth losing week in five.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dropped by 137 points, or 0.44%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.51% and 0.60%, respectively.
— Sarah Min
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Trump Returning To Youngstown For Vance Rally https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-returning-to-youngstown-for-vance-rally/
YOUNGSTOWN — Former President Donald Trump will return Saturday to Youngstown’s Covelli Centre — the site of a rally he held five years ago — to campaign for J.D. Vance, the GOP Senate nominee, as well as Republican congressional candidates.
Trump’s July 25, 2017, rally drew about 7,000 people. Saturday’s rally is likely to reach that level. Trump is scheduled to start speaking at 7 p.m.
The doors to the Covelli Centre will open at 2 p.m. with guest speakers delivering remarks starting at 4 p.m.
Vance is likely to be the final speaker before Trump, but the former president’s organization only provided a list of speakers and not the order in which they’ll address the audience.
Other speakers on the list are U.S. Reps. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, who represents a portion of Mahoning County, and Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, as well as Republican congressional candidates Max Miller in the 7th District, Madison Gesiotto Gilbert in the 13th District and J.R. Majewski in the 9th District.
Among top Ohio Republicans who won’t be at Trump’s rally is Gov. Mike DeWine.
DeWine said three of his granddaughters are participating in an evening cross country meet in Cedarville at the same time as the rally and he’ll be there to support them.
“It’s a special night for us,” he said. “They’re running under the lights, which is kind of unusual for cross country.”
Free tickets for the Trump rally are available online on the events link at donaldjtrump.com. People can register for up to two tickets per cell phone number and entry is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Traffic could be an issue for those heading to the Trump rally because Front Street, where the center is located, is currently restricted to one lane as the result of an ongoing street improvement project.
Front Street is also where much of the parking for events at the Covelli Centre is located.
There is no parking at the Covelli Centre site, said Eric Ryan, president of JAC Management Group, which operates the center as well as the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre and Wean Park for the city.
“But there shouldn’t be a problem with parking,” he said. “We did 21,000 for Y-Live without our parking lot. People found parking, including downtown.”
Ryan was referring to the July 16 outdoor concert with Luke Bryan at the park, which is adjacent to the Covelli Centre.
Trump backed Vance in the crowded Republican primary for the open Senate seat, endorsing him a few weeks before the May 3 primary and holding an April 23 rally for him at the Delaware County Fairgrounds.
Polls show a tight race between Vance, a venture capitalist and author of Hillbilly Elegy,and Democrat Tim Ryan, a 10-term House member who represents much of Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
Luke Schroeder, a Vance campaign spokesman, said: “J.D. looks forward to welcoming President Trump to the Buckeye State. Tim Ryan pretends to be a moderate in his slick TV ads, but behind closed doors, he admits he’s a progressive. He claims to be an independent voice, but in D.C., he votes with (President Joe) Biden and (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi 100 percent of the time.” Schroeder added that Ryan lied about wanting to ban gas cars and flip-flopped on his position on Biden running for re-election.
“J.D. was born and raised in Ohio — he knows Ohioans are smarter than Tim Ryan thinks they are — he knows they won’t fall for Ryan’s despicable lies and will reject him come November,” Schroeder said.
Jordan Fuja, a Ryan campaign spokeswoman, said: “Out-of-state fraud J.D. Vance is bring his out-of-state allies to Ohio for a rally at the exact same time as the Buckeyes football game in the hopes that no one actually tunes in to watch him do damage control after he’s been cheerleading an extreme and wildly unpopular national abortion ban, suggesting women stay in violent marriages, calling rape ‘inconvenient,’ and bringing a Big Pharma mouthpiece to Ohio on part of his sham nonprofit’s self-promotional tour.”
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox
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Large Fire Damages Phoenix Repair Shop https://digitalarizonanews.com/large-fire-damages-phoenix-repair-shop/
Sept. 16, 2022—A fire that created smoke visible for miles damaged an auto repair shop in Phoenix, Arizona.
According to AZ Family, the fire started at AZ Master Mechanics around 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday. It was categorized as a first-alarm response, and this meant calling on additional crews to help battle the fire. More than 50 firefighters were on the scene to battle the blaze.
During the battle, concerns rose over materials inside the building catching fire, such as the various oils used in automotive repair. It took around 45 minutes to control the flames, and the cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
All of the shop employees were able to exit the building safely, and no one was hurt in the fire.
The Ratchet+Wrench staff reporters have a combined two-plus decades of journalism and mechanical repair experience.
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U.S. Expects Months Of Intense Fighting In Ukraine-Russia War
U.S. Expects Months Of Intense Fighting In Ukraine-Russia War https://digitalarizonanews.com/u-s-expects-months-of-intense-fighting-in-ukraine-russia-war/
Despite Ukrainian forces’ startling gains in the war against Russia, the Biden administration anticipates months of intense fighting with wins and losses for each side, spurring U.S. plans for an open-ended campaign with no prospect for a negotiated end in sight.
The surprise success by Ukrainian forces in areas of the country occupied by Russian troops during the weekend generated euphoria among Ukrainians sapped by months of fighting. It also fueled hopes among many of Kyiv’s foreign backers that its scrappy military might be able to expel Russia’s larger, better-armed force.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, raising his country’s blue-and-yellow flag Wednesday over the liberated city of Izyum, promised it would be “definitely impossible to occupy our people, the Ukrainian people.”
Officials in Kyiv said forces recaptured some 3,000 square kilometers in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions. Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry described its forces’ disorderly withdrawal as a tactical “regroup.”
U.S. officials, providing a quiet check to Ukrainian exuberance, said that while Ukraine troops have performed better in offensive operations than even their American backers had anticipated, those forces will encounter a period of intense fighting in the lead-up to winter as part of what they expect to be a “nonlinear” trajectory for the war.
A senior State Department official, who like other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said Thursday that while Ukrainian forces had proven they can reverse advances made by Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion, Russia retained a potent force.
“They have significant equipment and arms and munitions positioned in the occupied territories, not to mention what they have in Russia,” the official said. “And so it is far from over, despite the momentum.”
Those expectations undergird a U.S. strategy of attempting to hold together international support and gradually expanding American military aid without the immediate injection of heavier weaponry that might trigger a wider war.
The advances in Izyum and other areas — which allowed shellshocked local residents to venture out of their homes, sharing stories of occupation and abuse — were all the more rousing following Ukrainian setbacks, including the withdrawal from the city of Lysychansk in July. After the weekend advances around Kherson, Russia hit electricity plants and other infrastructure, illustrating its willingness to strike civilian targets in an attempt to weaken Ukrainian resolve.
U.S. officials expect intense fighting for the remainder of the fall, as both sides attempt to put themselves in the best possible position before the onset of winter makes transport and combat more difficult.
Russian forces still control vast sections of Ukraine — including the cities of Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 — and U.S. officials anticipate Putin may use the coldest months to refit his spent, demoralized military before launching a renewed campaign in the spring.
Putin has remained defiant, threatening to cut off gas supplies to Europe even as hints of public dissent raise questions about how long he can keep Russia behind what the Kremlin has dubbed its “special military operation.”
Pentagon officials have said they are looking at ways to assist Ukraine’s evolving defense needs, focusing on areas including air defenses, surveillance and fighter capability. So far, the total of U.S. security aid to Ukraine amounts to some $15 billion since Russia’s invasion.
Despite Ukraine’s ongoing calls for new, more sophisticated military hardware, U.S. officials don’t plan to immediately expand the array of weaponry they are providing, which has included High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems armed with midrange Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. So far, the officials have stopped short of authorizing systems with much longer ranges, including the Army Tactical Missile Systems.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry illustrated the stakes of such decisions on Thursday when it warned that supplying longer-range missiles to Ukraine would cross a red line for Russia and make nations providing them a “party to the conflict,” reinforcing earlier suggestions that Russia could strike NATO nations if they authorized shipments of more potent arms.
Russia’s setback in Kharkiv has prompted speculation about whether Putin would be forced to resort to a general mobilization to fuel his war — a possibility the Kremlin has dismissed for now — or even use a nuclear device as Russia seeks to compensate for its defeat.
Samuel Charap, a Russia expert at at Rand Corp., said the counteroffensive success was shaping the dynamics around the conflict, in part by illustrating Ukraine’s ability to successfully conduct complete offensive operations.
“We had no evidence of that before,” Charap said. “That very fact is likely to disincentivize them to seeking compromise because they think they can do more of that.”
To date, the U.S. strategy has been informed partly by what U.S. officials see as the remoteness of any possible negotiations to halt the fighting. A flurry of attempts to kindle substantive talks early in the fighting fizzled out as each side embraced a harder line.
“Right now the Ukrainians do not have a viable map from which to negotiate. Twenty percent of their territory has gone; something like 30 percent of their industrial and agricultural potential is gone,” a senior State Department official said last week. “That’s why we’re supporting this counteroffensive.”
U.S. officials expect it would be difficult for Zelensky to negotiate a settlement even if he wanted to do so, after Russian abuses have hardened public opinion against possible concessions to Moscow’s war aims. Moreover, officials say, Russia remains an untrustworthy negotiating partner and Putin’s war aims have shifted repeatedly as the tactical situation has evolved.
The U.S. goal remains helping Ukraine make battlefield advances that will strengthen its negotiating position should eventual negotiations with Russia occur.
The current moment draws attention to a tension that underlies America’s strategy for the war, as officials channel massive military support to Ukraine, fueling a war with global consequences, while attempting to remain agnostic about when and how Kyiv might strike a deal to end it.
President Biden has vowed to support Ukraine in asserting its independence and sovereignty, promising in an opinion piece this spring to do so without pressuring Kyiv to make territorial concessions. He did not however explicitly back the goal of recovering all territory occupied by Russia, including areas taken or contested since 2014.
The first senior State Department official said another key part of the Biden administration’s plan for propelling the conflict toward a settlement was its efforts to weaken Russia’s economic and technological edge through sanctions and other means.
“But telling a sovereign country what success looks like for them, or what a negotiated solution looks like, that just isn’t where we want to be,” the official said.
So far, U.S. officials appear to have kept to that pledge, taking a hands-off approach that marks a sharp contrast to U.S. actions in places where officials have at times adopted a much more expansive approach in dealing with foreign leaders supported by U.S. aid.
“For both political and strategic reasons, they’ve been uninterested in drawing lines on the map and I think they’re absolutely justified in that reluctance,” Daniel Fried, a veteran diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Poland, said this week.
Biden will attempt to stiffen international support for Ukraine’s self-defense at the United Nations next week, seizing the annual General Assembly meetings as a chance to smooth over friction caused by global inflation and food insecurity linked to the war. The resolve of European nations in particular, which have been among Ukraine’s biggest backers, will be tested this winter by high energy prices.
But experts including Alexander Vershbow, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia and deputy secretary general of NATO, say that tension may eventually come to a head, for example if Ukraine faces a choice between settling for territory it controlled before Feb. 24 and embracing a longer conflict with the goal of recapturing all areas under Russian control since 2014.
“The Ukrainians are right now adamant that they would say we won’t concede one inch, but at some point difficult choices will be needed,” Vershbow said Thursday. Right now, however, “the administration doesn’t want to take a position.”
Fried said the Biden administration was right to approach the months ahead with caution, but said Ukraine was different than other recent U.S. conflicts.
“We’ve been so traumatized by our failures in Afghanistan and, partially, in Iraq. This is a situation where an actual success is possible — not inevitable — and it’s not a long shot,” Fried said. “Leaning into that prospect is in our national interest.”
Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Grain shipments from Ukraine are gathering pace under the agreement hammered out by Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations in July. Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports had sent food prices soaring and raised fears of more hunger in the Middle East and Africa. At least 18 ships, including loads of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, have departed.
The fight: The conflict on the ground grinds on as Russia uses its advantage in heavy artillery to pummel Ukrainian forces, which have sometimes been able to put up stiff resistance. In the south, Ukrainian hopes rest on...
Kenneth W. Starr Obituary (2022) The Washington Post
Kenneth W. Starr Obituary (2022) The Washington Post https://digitalarizonanews.com/kenneth-w-starr-obituary-2022-the-washington-post/
STARR
KENNETH W. STARR
Former Federal Judge and
U.S. Solicitor General Dies at 76
A Reagan judicial appointee and Solicitor General under George H.W. Bush, Ken Starr also served as Independent Counsel, President and Chancellor of Baylor University and Dean of the Pepperdine School of Law. Starr had a distinguished career in academia, the law and public service. After leaving Baylor, Starr was Of Counsel to The Lanier Law Firm, where he continued to practice appellate law. He also taught courses in constitutional law, negotiation and religious liberty plus authored several books and served as a commentator for Fox News. Starr died on September 13, 2022 at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston of complications from surgery.
Starr argued 36 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including 25 during his service as U.S. Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993. He served as United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989, as Counselor and Chief of Staff to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith from 1981 to 1983, and as a law clerk to both Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (1975-1977) and to Fifth Circuit Judge David W. Dyer (1973-1974). He was appointed by a three-judge panel to serve as Independent Counsel for five investigations, including Whitewater, from 1994 to 1999.
For 25 years, Starr taught constitutional law as an adjunct or visiting professor at New York University, George Mason School of Law, Pepperdine School of Law, Chapman Law School and as the Louise L. Morrison Professor at The Baylor Law School. More recently, Starr taught courses at Regent Law School and Hillsdale College. Starr was a partner at two national law firms: Kirkland & Ellis and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, specializing in appellate law. He joined The Lanier Law Firm in 2017 as Of Counsel. Mark Lanier said of Ken, “Over four decades I have known Ken as “Judge Starr,” “Dean Starr,” “President Starr,” “Uncle Ken,” but most importantly “dear friend,” to me, my family, our firm, our clients, American justice, and world justice. The world has lost a super Starr, and the world is rightly in mourning.”
He served as the Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean of the Pepperdine School of Law from 2004 to 2010 and as President and Chancellor of Baylor University from 2010 to 1016. According to the current president of Pepperdine, Jim Gash, “Starr’s vision for Pepperdine was global…I am profoundly grateful for Ken’s friendship, mentorship, counseling, guidance and encouragement.” Starr also held leadership roles on many non-profit boards, including Advocates International, Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defending Freedom Advisory Board. Throughout his professional career, he championed the cause of religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all persons.
Other boards on which he served were: The Council for Court Excellence (past President); Institute of Judicial Administration (past President); Southern Presidents Conference (past President; the Philosophical Society of Texas (past President); American Judicature Society; American Law Institute; American Association of Law Schools; American Bar Association Journal of Editors; American Inns of Court; Institute for United States Studies; Supreme Court Historical Society; Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU); Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas (ICUT); the Baylor College of Medicine, the Baylor Scott & White Healthcare System, American University, Shenandoah University, TPUSA Advisory Board, and the House DC, a faith-based after school program for inner city youth.
Kenneth Winston Starr was born July 21, 1946, to William D. Starr and Vannie Trimble Starr. He grew up in San Antonio where his father was a barber and minister. After graduating from San Antonio’s Sam Houston High School, he earned his B.A. from George Washington University (while working part-time on Capitol Hill for Congressman Bob Price). He earned a Master of Arts in Political Science from Brown University and his Juris Doctor degree from Duke University Law School where he was Order of the Coif and served as Note and Comment Editor on the Duke Law Journal. He and Alice Jean Mendell of Mamaroneck, New York were married on August 23, 1970, one week before he began law school. He was admitted to practice law in Texas, California, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and the United States Supreme Court.
Starr was author of many articles and several highly acclaimed books: Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty was described by best-selling author Os Guinness as “seasoned, wise, magisterial, and gracefully written — a comprehensive judge’s tour of the religious freedom horizon;” First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life, was praised by U.S. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle as “eminently readable and informative…not just the best treatment to-date of the Court after Chief Justice Earl Warren, it is likely to have that distinction for a long, long time;”Bear Country: The Baylor Story and Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation (a New York Times best seller in 2018).
He received numerous honors and awards, including the Edmund Randolph Award for Outstanding Service in the Department of Justice, the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, the J. Reuben Clark Law Society 2005 Distinguished Service Award, the 2004 Capital Book Award, and the Jefferson Cup award from the FBI. He received honorary doctoral degrees from American University, Hampton Sydney College, Shenandoah University, and Pepperdine University.
Starr is survived by his beloved wife, Alice Mendell Starr, to whom he was married for 52 years. They lived in Northern Virginia, California and most recently Waco, Texas. In addition, he is survived by his three children, Randall P. Starr married to Melina T. Starr, Carolyn S. Doolittle married to Cameron M. Doolittle, and Cynthia S. Roemer married to Justin M. Roemer, plus nine precious grandchildren: Grace, Christiana, Hewson and Sandhana Doolittle; William and Charlotte Starr; and Sienna, Madison and Colton Roemer. Starr is also survived by his sister, Billie Jeayne Reynolds and brother, Jerry Starr. Speaking for all of Ken’s children, Randall said: “We are deeply saddened with the loss of our dear and loving Father and Grandfather, whom we admired for his prodigious work ethic, but who always put his family first. The love, energy, endearing sense of humor, and fun-loving interest Dad exhibited to each of us was truly special, and we cherish the many wonderful memories we were able to experience with him. He is now with his Lord and Savior.”
Starr was beloved by many treasured colleagues and friends. Tommye Lou Davis, who served as Starr’s Chief of Staff at Baylor University, said of her time serving with Ken, “It was a great honor to serve Baylor alongside Ken Starr. His warm, inclusive personality brought the campus uniquely together. He was deeply loved by students, highly respected by faculty and staff, and greatly admired by alumni and the broader Baylor family. Judge Starr’s brilliant mind, affable personality, and tireless efforts on behalf of the University have left an indelible mark on all of us fortunate enough to have worked with him. I will always be grateful for his friendship, dynamic leadership and selfless service to Baylor University.”
Robert Vagley, former President of the American Insurance Association and a friend of nearly four decades, said to an inquiring reporter that he deeply admired “Ken’s absolute decency, his rock solid faith, his love for his wife and children, his loyalty to family and friends, his devotion to our country and Constitution, his belief in the rule of law and an ordered and civil society, his willingness to serve for the greater good without regard for his own plans and wishes, his always sunny disposition, his charity and good will to all, his humility and selflessness, his charming and jocular personality, and his Texas-bred and Texas sized strength of character.”
Starr will be buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Visitation will be held at Wilkirson Hatch Bailey in Waco on Friday, September 23 from 4 to 7 p.m.. A memorial service will be held at Antioch Community Church in Waco on Saturday, September 24 at 3 p.m. Jimmy Seibert, senior pastor of Antioch, said of Ken’s life, “The world will remember Ken Starr as a brilliant thinker, leader, and defender of truth and justice. I will remember Ken Starr as a devoted personal friend and a man of sincere and deep faith. Thank you, Ken, for your love of God, your love of family and your love for all of us. You will always be remembered in American history, but you will be specifically remembered in our hearts.”
In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Ken Starr can be made to:
Alliance Defending Freedom 15100 N. 90th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260
or
Religious Freedom Institute 316 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 501
Washington, DC 20003
Published by The Washington Post on Sep. 16, 2022.
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Special Master Appointed To Review Documents From Mar-A-Lago Search
Special Master Appointed To Review Documents From Mar-A-Lago Search https://digitalarizonanews.com/special-master-appointed-to-review-documents-from-mar-a-lago-search/
(CNN)A Brooklyn-based federal judge was selected on Thursday to serve as an independent arbiter to review the materials seized in the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.
The special master will be Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, who was put forward as a possible candidate for the special master role by Trump, who had sued in court to obtain the review. The Justice Department also endorsed Dearie’s appointment.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon also rejected the Justice Department’s bid to resume its criminal investigation into classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago last month. The denial sets the stage for the department’s dispute with Trump over the search to move quickly to an appeals court and potentially the US Supreme Court.
An intelligence community review of the documents has been paused since last week when Cannon ordered the criminal investigation to stop for the moment. DOJ says the two reviews cannot be separated and plans to appeal.
The denial of the government’s request was the latest example of Cannon, nominated by Trump in 2020, showing extreme skepticism to the Justice Department’s handling of records it says should be in the government’s hands because they own them.
Cannon gave the special master a deadline of November 30 to finish his review of potentially privileged documents.
The schedule delays the review’s ending until after the midterm congressional elections — essentially guaranteeing the Mar-a-Lago investigation will move slowly for the next two months, unless a higher court steps in. The appeals process could mean the fight over the documents goes on into the 2024 presidential election cycle.
Appointed by Reagan, Dearie takes center stage
Dearie sits on the district court for the Eastern District of Brooklyn, where he has taken senior status — meaning his workload has been lightened significantly as he nears the end of his time on the federal bench.
He was appointed as a judge by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was for a time the chief judge of the Brooklyn-based district court. He also served a seven-year term, concluding in 2019, on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
In his role as a FISA judge, Dearie was one of the judges who approved one of the Justice Department’s request to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page as part of the federal inquiry into Russia 2016 election interference.
The department’s process for securing FISA warrants for Page was riddled with errors and sloppiness, a DOJ inspector general review later found. The IG’s review pointed to omissions and mistakes in the FBI’s court filings supporting the FISA applications, including in filings submitted to Dearie.
Trump has railed over how the FISA warrants against Page were obtained, making his recommendation of Dearie to review the Mar-a-Lago search notable. Legal observers across the ideological spectrum, including vocal Trump critics, also backed the choice.
Cannon not convinced pausing criminal probe put national security at risk
Cannon on Thursday also rejected several other requests the Justice Department made about how the special master review should proceed. She shoved off the Justice Department’s argument about the national security risks that would come with pausing the criminal investigation into the classified documents — in a break with how judges usually view such claims by the government.
However, she also seemed to create a vague and undefined loophole for the Justice Department to take some steps in the criminal investigation if those steps were necessary and inextricable from the assessment that the intelligence community on the national security risks around disclosure of the documents.
That possible wiggle room aside, her order — if left intact by higher courts — stands to slow down the criminal investigation by at least several weeks.
In her ruling, Cannon said she was unconvinced that pausing the criminal investigation’s review of the documents would cause irreparable harm.
The department argued that the intelligence community’s assessment of national security risks — which Cannon previously said could go forward — was being impeded by the hold she had put on the criminal probe’s use of the documents.
“First, there has been no actual suggestion by the Government of any identifiable emergency or imminent disclosure of classified information arising from Plaintiff’s allegedly unlawful retention of the seized property. Instead, and unfortunately, the unwarranted disclosures that float in the background have been leaks to the media after the underlying seizure,” she wrote.
She also rejected the argument the department had made that the intelligence community assessment could not be decoupled from the criminal probe.
While it may be “easier” Cannon said, “for the Government’s criminal investigative work to proceed in tandem with the Security Assessments,” the Justice Department had not convinced her that the intelligence community’s assessment was being impeded by it.
Pointing to examples that prosecutors had offered of how the national security assessment would rely on the criminal probe’s work, Cannon said that the prosecutors “do not firmly maintain that the described processes are inextricably intertwined, and instead rely heavily on hypothetical scenarios and generalized explanations that do not establish irreparable injury.”
Still, while she rebuffed the department’s claims that the two reviews were inseparable, she seemed to acknowledge that there were situations in which the intelligence community assessment might rely on investigative activity happening in the criminal probe, and she vaguely seemed to give the Justice Department wiggle room to take those steps.
Cannon wrote that “to the extent that the Security Assessments truly are, in fact, inextricable from criminal investigative use of the seized materials, the Court makes clear Order does not enjoin the Government from taking actions necessary for the Security Assessment.”
She did not spell out what sort of criminal investigative activity would be acceptable for that purpose, saying only in a footnote she would trust the government to decide when the tasks of the intelligence review and criminal probe were truly “inextricable.”
Steps laid out for special master review
Denying a DOJ request that the special master view conclude by mid-October, Cannon set a November 30 deadline for the process — putting it on timeline closer to the 90 days the Trump team proposed be given to the review.
Cannon is also allowing Trump’s lawyers to review — in a highly controlled setting — the documents marked as classified. The Justice Department had wanted those documents excluded from the special master process entirely. In another rebuff to DOJ, the judge is also instructing the special master to review all of the documents that were seized,.
The judge however sided with the DOJ in how the special master is compensated, ordering that Trump pay the costs, rather than split it 50-50 with Justice Department, as Trump had proposed.
More than 100 documents marked as classified seized
Trump filed the lawsuit seeking the special master two weeks after the Justice Department executed the search on his Florida residence and resort. Prosecutors are investigating at least three potential crimes: violations of the Espionage Act, illegal handling of government records and obstruction of justice.
During the search, according to court filings, investigators seized more than 100 documents marked as classified, which were obtained after Trump’s representatives were served a subpoena in May demanding they return to the government all such documents. When the FBI traveled to Mar-a-Lago in June to collect the documents, one of his lawyers signed a certification asserting the subpoena had been complied with.
Trump, in his filings in the special master case, argued that his constitutional rights had teen trampled upon with the August 8 search, though Cannon herself had previously said she did not agree that the judicially authorized search amounted to a “callous disregard” of the former President’s rights.
According to her order on September 5 initially granting Trump’s request for a special master review, Cannon decided it was necessary to bolster public trust in the search and because Trump, as a former president, faced increased risks of reputational harm if an indictment was wrongfully brought against him.
Trump claimed on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Thursday that he declassified the government records that were taken to Mar-a-Lago, but that’s not an argument that he’s made in any legal setting.
Cannon’s order on Thursday also raised doubts all the documents with classification markings were actually classified.
“The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” she said, referring to the Justice Department’s assertions that the documents are presumably classified and that Trump could not possibly have a possessory interest in any of them.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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World News | Ahead Of Nov Mid-Term Trump Coins India-US Friendship Slogan In Hindi | LatestLY
World News | Ahead Of Nov Mid-Term, Trump Coins India-US Friendship Slogan In Hindi | LatestLY https://digitalarizonanews.com/world-news-ahead-of-nov-mid-term-trump-coins-india-us-friendship-slogan-in-hindi-latestly/
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Former US president Donald Trump has coined an India-US friendship slogan in Hindi as part of his efforts to woo the influential Indian-American community before the mid-term elections in November.
Agency News PTI| Sep 16, 2022 08:16 AM IST
Washington, Sep 16 (PTI) Former US president Donald Trump has coined an India-US friendship slogan in Hindi as part of his efforts to woo the influential Indian-American community before the mid-term elections in November.
“Bharat and America sabse achhe dost” Trump is seen rehearsing and saying in a video released by the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC). The slogan in English means “India and the United States are best friends”.
Also Read | Russian Forces Tortured Ukrainian Detainees, Often to Death, Captured Medic Tells US Lawmakers.
In the short 30-second video, Trump is seen seated with his supporter Chicago-based businessman Shalabh Kumar from the Republican Hindu Coalition.
The new slogan is inspired by the phenomenal success of the 2016 slogan of Trump in Hindi “Abki Baar Trump Sarkar” which had caught the imagination of the Indian Americans then and had played a key part in his victories in some of the key swing states.
Also Read | Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton May Wear Veils to Queen Elizabeth’s Funeral, Here’s Why!.
Kumar who has been instrumental in both Trump’s slogans “Abki Baar Trump Sarkar” and “Bharat and America sabse achhe dost” told PTI in an interview this week that he and the RHC plan to run the former president’s latest slogan in the ethnic Indian media to gain Indian-American support and vote for the November 8 mid-term elections.
Political observers and the latest polls indicate that Republicans are most likely to regain the majority in the House of Representatives.
“The end goal is to heavily support five (GOP) candidates for Senate” where the margin of victory is going to be “less than 50,000 votes. Some might be even 10,000 votes or 5,000 votes,” Kumar said.
These Senate races are in the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, he said, adding that the small Hindu community in these States can make that difference.
“The Hindu vote will make the difference. That’s the biggest block of independent voters,” Kumar said in response to a question.
“We are going to have a (national) campaign (with focus on these states) which is going to be close to what the 2016 campaign was,” he said.
Kumar and the RHC were an important part of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. However, the two fell apart in the 2020 presidential elections.
Kumar says early this year he met Trump at the latter’s initiative at Mar-a-Lago on March 21. There have been a few meetings after that as well.
Indian-Americans comprise slightly more than 1 per cent of the total US population-and less than 1 per cent of all registered voters.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
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A Teen Who Killed Her Alleged Rapist Must Pay His Family. Donors Raised It All.
A Teen Who Killed Her Alleged Rapist Must Pay His Family. Donors Raised It All. https://digitalarizonanews.com/a-teen-who-killed-her-alleged-rapist-must-pay-his-family-donors-raised-it-all/
A Des Moines teenager convicted of killing a man she said raped her got what the judge described as a second chance: a sentence of probation and the possibility of having her record cleared.
But there was one major hitch. Due to an Iowa law, Polk County District Judge David M. Porter said he could not avoid requiring Pieper Lewis to pay $150,000 to the man’s family.
This week, supporters raised it for her — and then some.
A GoFundMe started by one of Lewis’s former teachers, Leland Schipper, topped $400,000 as of Thursday.
More than 10,000 donors contributed, mostly in small amounts, raising the sum within a matter of days of the teen’s Tuesday sentencing hearing.
“I am overjoyed with the prospect of removing this burden from Pieper,” Schipper wrote in an update on the site.
Lewis, now 17, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury in the 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks. In her plea, she laid out a harrowing series of events that led her to that night. She said she ran away from an unstable home life and was then taken in by a 28-year-old man.
He portrayed himself as her boyfriend, but forced the then-15-year-old to have sex with men. Brooks, she said, was one of them. She said that after he sexually assaulted her repeatedly between May 30 and June 1, 2020, and then fell asleep, she became overcome with rage.
“I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks had raped me yet again,” Lewis wrote in her plea. She grabbed a knife from his bedside table and stabbed him dozens of times.
Prosecutors did not dispute her allegations that she was trafficked, and a Polk County judge wrote that evidence existed that seemed to support her claims. Yet no charges have been filed against the man she accused of trafficking her. The Des Moines Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Post into whether investigators looked into her account.
In court this week, Lewis faced up to 20 years in prison. But Porter chose probation to be completed at a women’s facility. He also deferred her judgment, meaning that if she completes probation, her record will be expunged.
“Ms. Lewis, this is the second chance that you’ve asked for,” he said. He added, “I wish you the best of luck.”
Watching from inside the courthouse, Schipper was heartened by the ruling. He told the Des Moines Register that he felt the judge made a fair decision, “giving compassionate justice, and using the system for what it should be designed for.”
But he was stunned at the payment required of her.
“I think that people are in shock that Iowa has this law the way we do regarding the $150,000,” Schipper told the newspaper. “This is a clear example of where it’s completely unjust.”
The law mandates that a person convicted of a felony that results in the death of another person must pay at least $150,000 to the victim’s estate.
Matthew Sheeley, one of Lewis’s lawyers, had argued in court that Brooks was more than 51 percent responsible for his death. Because of that, he said, she should not have to pay. He called the requirement cruel and unusual.
“I don’t believe that the Iowa Legislature intended to require a 15-year-old girl … to pay her rapist’s estate $150,000,” he said.
While acknowledging that Lewis and her supporters would be frustrated, Porter said he had no discretion to waive restitution. The Des Moines Register noted that he cited a 2017 case in which the Iowa Supreme Court ruled it was not unconstitutional to require juveniles found guilty of homicide to make the payment.
“This court is presented with no other option, other than which is dictated by the law of this state,” he said.
After the hearing, Sheeley told told the local NBC affiliate that the judge’s ruling was overall a victory and that restitution was not Lewis’s most important concern. He said she wanted to move on with her life, adding that “she has got her entire life ahead of her. She has all these opportunities ahead of her.”
Schipper, her former teacher, was eager to ease the burden and thrilled that the fundraiser may be able to do so. Lewis’s lawyers told the Register they want to look into the legality of using donated money to pay the restitution.
Robert Rigg, a criminal law professor at Drake University Law School, said it was unclear what steps the court would want Lewis or the fundraiser’s organizers to take to allow the money to cover her restitution payment. He said the organizers were free to gift the money to Lewis, but they may encounter hurdles if they try to make the payment directly from the fund itself.
“I would definitely recommend that her defense counsel get guidance from the court. Then the court could say, ‘This is how we’re going to do this,’ ” Rigg told The Post.
“That way you’ve got a buffer. You’re acting at the direction in a judge, and that way you’re covered,” Rigg said.
After the first $150,000 paid toward the restitution, the fund’s organizer can decide what to do with the rest of the money. Rigg said they could set up a nonprofit corporation to gift the money to Lewis, or create a trust in her name “to be distributed for her health, welfare and education.”
In an earlier interview with The Post, Sheeley and another member of Lewis’s defense team, Paul White, described her as full of limitless potential. She has dreams of becoming a designer, telling her story and advocating for other girls like her.
“I have no doubt in my mind that whatever obstacles are thrown in her path, she’ll step right over them,” Sheeley said. “She is not going to let anything get in the way. In my core, that’s how I feel.”
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Biden Set To Talk Ukraine Russia With S.Africa's Ramaphosa
Biden Set To Talk Ukraine, Russia With S.Africa's Ramaphosa https://digitalarizonanews.com/biden-set-to-talk-ukraine-russia-with-s-africas-ramaphosa/
By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – President Joe Biden will discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine with South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, who has avoided condemning Russia, when the two leaders meet at the White House on Friday, according to a U.S. official.
“The goal is to have a conversation about the conflict in Ukraine: how we got there, and how we get out of it, and in hearing from President Ramaphosa about his thoughts on the best way forward, sharing ours on how to manage the conflict and to reach a conclusion,” said the senior Biden administration official.
Biden, who has led an international coalition to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for the near-seven month war in Ukraine, wants South Africa’s help in efforts that include forcing Moscow to sell its oil at below-market rates.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade, climate and energy as Biden ramps up engagements with African countries and casts a wary eye on investments and diplomacy by rivals Russia and China on the continent.
Ramaphosa has resisted calls to directly condemn Russia for the war, instead opposing the use of force generically. In March, he blamed NATO’s eastward expansion for regional instability and said the conflict should be solved through United Nations-mediated negotiations rather than Western-led sanctions that hurt “bystander countries.”
South Africa was one of 17 African countries to abstain from the U.N. vote condemning Russia’s assault.
Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party, which has governed South Africa since white minority rule ended in 1994, had strong ties to the former Soviet Union, which trained and supported anti-apartheid activists during the Cold War.
However, South Africa still enjoys a high level of diplomatic clout among Russia’s rivals in the West relative to its economic size since its peaceful transition to democracy.
Last month, during his visit to South Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would not dictate Africa’s choices, following an earlier pledge to “do things differently,” after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s insulting remarks about African countries.
Africans often resent being a theater for competition between China, Russia and the Western order. The Ukraine crisis has exacerbated the longstanding rivalry over Africa’s natural resources, trade and security ties.
The war and global inflation have put pressure on South Africa, where half of the population lived below the poverty line even before the crisis limited grain and fertilizer exports from Russia and Ukraine.
Declining natural gas and oil exports from those warring countries has also boosted South African coal, a top domestic resource, and set back decarbonization goals for one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economies.
Biden is due to host more leaders from the continent in December, when ANC members will also chose whether to keep Ramaphosa as their party leader.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Tim Cocks in Johannesburg; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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Putin Concedes China Has 'questions And Concerns' Over Russia's Faltering Invasion Of Ukraine
Putin Concedes China Has 'questions And Concerns' Over Russia's Faltering Invasion Of Ukraine https://digitalarizonanews.com/putin-concedes-china-has-questions-and-concerns-over-russias-faltering-invasion-of-ukraine/
Hong Kong (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised China’s “balanced position” on the Ukraine war, though he conceded Beijing had “questions and concerns” over the invasion, in what appeared to be a veiled admission of their diverging views over the protracted military assault.
Putin made the comments when meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in person for the first time since the invasion at a regional summit in Uzbekistan, days after Russia suffered a series of major military setbacks in Ukraine. Russian troops are retreating en mass, having lost more territory in a week than they captured in five months.
China has so far refused to outright condemn Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine while stepping up economic assistance to its neighbor, boosting bilateral trade to record levels in a boon to Russian business amid Western sanctions.
“We highly appreciate the balanced position of our Chinese friends in connection with the Ukrainian crisis. We understand your questions and concerns in this regard,” Putin said in an opening speech of the meeting. “During today’s meeting, of course, we will explain in detail our position on this issue, although we have spoken about this before.”
Xi said China would “work with Russia to extend strong mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests” and “play a leading role in injecting stability and positive energy into a world of change and disorder,” according to a readout from the meeting provided by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Xi also said he appreciated “Russia’s adherence to the one-China principle and stressed that Taiwan is a part of China.”
The two authoritarian leaders have emerged as close partners in recent years, propelled by growing conflict with the West and a strong personal bond.
China has offered tacit support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, while Moscow has backed Beijing and criticized Washington over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August. Beijing responded to her trip with unprecedented military drills around the self-governing democratic island, which it claims as its own territory.
The White House sought to downplay the meeting between Putin and Xi on Thursday, saying Beijing had not yet violated Western sanctions on Moscow nor provided direct material assistance to Russia.
“Our message to China, I think, been consistent: that this is not the time for any kind of business as usual with Mr. Putin, given what he’s done inside Ukraine. This is not the time to be isolated from the rest of the international community, which has largely condemned what he’s doing in Ukraine and not only condemned it, but stepped up to help the Ukrainians defend themselves and their territorial integrity,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told CNN.
Kirby said Putin was “very much under strain and stress. In Ukraine, his army is not doing well, and I think it certainly behooves the Kremlin to want to cozy up to Beijing with respect to what’s going on there.”
In their meeting Thursday, Putin condemned the United States for what he said were “provocations” in the Taiwan Strait, and criticized what he claimed were attempts to “create a unipolar world.” Those attempts, he said, have “recently taken an ugly shape and are absolutely unacceptable to most states on the planet.”
The two are holding talks on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security-focused grouping that also includes India, Pakistan and four Central Asian nations.
In a symbolic show of force and unity, Russian and Chinese navies conducted joint patrols and exercises in the Pacific Ocean just hours before their leaders’ meeting, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
At the start of the meeting Thursday, Putin stressed the deepening economic ties between China and Russia, noting bilateral trade exceeded $140 billion last year. “I am convinced that by the end of the year we will reach new record levels, and in the near future, as agreed, we will increase our annual trade turnover to $200 billion or more,” he said.
Putin last met with Xi during a visit to the Chinese capital for its Winter Olympics in February this year. It was at that meeting that the two leaders framed their “no-limits’ partnership, and released a 5,000-word document voicing their shared opposition to the “further enlargement of NATO.”
For Xi, meanwhile, Thursday’s meeting comes as part of his first trip outside of China’s borders in more than two years, and just weeks before he seeks to secure a norm-breaking third term at a major political meeting in Beijing — a move that will cement his status as China’s most powerful leader in decades.
China has turned increasingly inward since the beginning of the pandemic, and continues to maintain a strict zero-Covid policy that limits outbound travel.
Xi’s trip to Central Asia is a return to the world stage and offers him an opportunity to show that despite growing tensions with the West, China still has friends and partners and is ready to reassert its global influence.
Before arriving at the summit, Xi visited Kazakhstan, where he unveiled in 2013 his flagship Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project that stretches from East Asia to Europe.
In a meeting with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Wednesday, Xi said China would like to partner with Kazakhstan to “remain pioneers in Belt and Road cooperation.”
Xi also told Tokayev that “China will always support Kazakhstan in maintaining national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese state media reported.
The Chinese leader traveled to Uzbekistan on Wednesday evening and met with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. He also met the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan Thursday.
CNN’s Anna Chernova, Betsy Klein and Ivana Kottasová contributed to this report.
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Players Ownership And Phoenix Representatives React To Robert Sarver Suspension
Players, Ownership And Phoenix Representatives React To Robert Sarver Suspension https://digitalarizonanews.com/players-ownership-and-phoenix-representatives-react-to-robert-sarver-suspension/
(AP Photo/Ralph Freso, File)
It’s been two days since the NBA released their findings from the investigation into Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver.
The investigation findings included that Sarver on at least five occasions repeated the N-word when recounting statements of others. He engaged in “instances of inequitable conduct toward female employees, made many sex-related comments in the workplace, made inappropriate comments about the physical appearance of female employees and other women, and on several occasions engaged in inappropriate physical conduct toward male employees.”
The report also included that Sarver engaged in demeaning and harsh treatment of employees.
The full 43-page report can be found here.
Many key figures in the basketball world and the city of Phoenix have voiced a common opinion: a year-long suspension and $10 million fine is not enough.
Chris Paul and LeBron James released statements on Wednesday saying the league got it wrong.
I am of the view that the sanctions fell short in truly addressing what we can all agree was atrocious behavior. My heart goes out to all of the people that were affected.
— Chris Paul (@CP3) September 15, 2022
behavior. I love this league and I deeply respect our leadership. But this isn’t right. There is no place for misogyny, sexism, and racism in any work place. Don’t matter if you own the team or play for the team. We hold our league up as an example of our values and this aint it.
— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 14, 2022
On Thursday, Phoenix mayor Kate Gallego and members of Phoenix city council released a statement inquiring if further action can be taken toward Sarver.
“We have asked city staff to investigate any actions we, as leaders of the City of Phoenix, can take in light of the details substantiated in the report,” a portion of the statement read.
“The actions are outlined in this report do not represent the values of this city. We call on the NBA to take all actions required to ensure this behavior is stopped and to reform the culture that allowed these actions to occur.”
Statement from Mayor Gallego and members of the Phoenix City Council: pic.twitter.com/zV5GaJpQWv
— Mayor Kate Gallego (@MayorGallego) September 15, 2022
Later Thursday afternoon, Suns vice chairman Jahm Najafi, who possesses the second-largest stake in the Suns, called for Sarver’s resignation.
“I cannot in good judgment sit back and allow our children and future generations of fans to think that this behavior is tolerated because of wealth and privilege. Therefore, in accordance with my commitment to helping eradicate any for of racism, sexism and iasi, as Vice Chairman of the Phoenix Suns, I cam calling for the resignation of Robert Sarver.”
“Therefore, in accordance with my commitment to helping eradicate any form of racism, sexism and bias, as Vice Chairman of the Phoenix Suns, I am calling for the resignation of Robert Sarver”
– Suns vice chairman Jahm Najafi @FOX10Phoenix pic.twitter.com/XO4Nz5afJG
— Robby Baker (@RobbyBakerTV) September 16, 2022
Najafi also stated he has no interest in becoming the managing partner of the franchise.
Sam Garvin has reportedly been appointed interim governor of the team. Garvin was vocal in disputing ESPN’s initial report of Sarver’s investigation back in November 2021.
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TPD Investigating Misconduct Allegations Against Former Officer
TPD Investigating Misconduct Allegations Against Former Officer https://digitalarizonanews.com/tpd-investigating-misconduct-allegations-against-former-officer/
TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) – Tucson police are investigating after they were notified of possible misconduct by an off-duty officer last month.
According to a news release from TPD, the allegations, which were of sexual misconduct, prompted an administrative investigation by the department’s Office of Professional Standards.
TPD detectives also began a separate criminal investigation.
The officer was immediately removed from duty and placed on leave. The officer later resigned.
Both investigations are ongoing and, once complete, the findings will be presented to the Pima County Attorney’s Office for review.
Copyright 2022 KOLD News 13. All rights reserved.
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Judge Denies DOJ Request To Regain Access To Some Documents Seized In Trump Search
Judge Denies DOJ Request To Regain Access To Some Documents Seized In Trump Search https://digitalarizonanews.com/judge-denies-doj-request-to-regain-access-to-some-documents-seized-in-trump-search/
Washington — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a request from the Justice Department to allow its investigators to regain access to the roughly 100 documents marked classified that were seized by the FBI during its search at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon declined to put on hold any part of her Sept. 5 ruling that stopped the Justice Department from using any of the approximately 11,000 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago during the Aug. 8 search for investigative purposes, pending the review of the materials by an independent arbiter known as a special master.
In her 10-page order, Cannon pushed back on two of the premises outlined by the Justice Department in its motion: that the roughly 100 documents at the center of the request are classified records and that Trump could not have a “possessory interest in any of them,” and that Trump does not have a plausible claim of privilege as to any of these records.
“The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” she wrote.
DALLAS, TEXAS – AUGUST 06: Former U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. CPAC began in 1974, and is a conference that brings together and hosts conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders in discussing current events and future political agendas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Cannon said in her order that while she agrees with the Justice Department that “the public is best served by evenhanded adherence to established principles of civil and criminal procedure,” regardless of who is involved, “it is also true, of course, that evenhanded procedure does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice.”
Federal prosecutors asked Cannon last week to allow the government to access a batch of just over 100 documents bearing classification markings for use in its ongoing criminal probe into Trump’s handling of sensitive records, but the judge’s order keeps those materials from being used by investigators for now.
The Justice Department also asked Cannon to lift a second part of her Labor Day order that required the government to disclose the records with classification markings to a special master for review.
Cannon authorized the appointment of a special master to sift through the materials seized by the FBI during the Aug. 8 search for any that may be subject to claims of attorney-client or executive privileges and named Judge Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, to the role.
Federal prosecutors argued in their motion for a stay that if Cannon’s ruling shielding the documents was allowed to stand, the government and broader public would suffer “irreparable harm from the undue delay to the criminal investigation.” The Justice Department lawyers, including its top national security officials, also said temporarily halting their investigation risked harming the nation’s national security and intelligence interests.
But Trump’s legal team opposed the Justice Department’s request, claiming in a filing Monday that some of the seized records with classification markings may not be classified anymore. They also characterized the controversy surrounding Trump’s alleged improper removal and storage of classified information as a “document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control.”
Cannon’s decision to decline the Justice Department’s request for a stay paves the way for the government to file an appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as prosecutors told the court it intended to do.
The decision from Cannon not to restore the Justice Department’s access to the seized records is the latest turn in the long-running effort by the National Archives and Records Administration to retrieve records taken by Trump to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency in January 2021.
When the FBI conducted its search at the South Florida property on Aug. 8, agents seized 33 items, boxes or containers from a storage room and from desks in Trump’s office that contained 103 documents marked “confidential,” “secret” or “top secret,” according to a detailed property list made public this month.
Federal investigators also took empty folders with classified banners, along with printed news articles, books, photographs and articles of clothing, government lawyers said.
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Judge Proposed By Trump Named To Vet Records Seized By FBI
Judge Proposed By Trump Named To Vet Records Seized By FBI https://digitalarizonanews.com/judge-proposed-by-trump-named-to-vet-records-seized-by-fbi/
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By Jacqueline Thomsen
The FBI raided former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida (pictured) in August, seizing more than 11,000 records, some of which were marked classified. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP
A senior federal judge with experience handling US national security matters was named on Thursday as an independent arbiter to vet records seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.
Senior US District Judge Raymond Dearie, based in Brooklyn, was appointed by Florida-based US District Judge Aileen Cannon to serve in a role called a special master in the case.
Dearie, 78, is tasked with deciding whether any of the documents are privileged – either due to attorney-client confidentiality or through a legal principle called executive privilege – and should be off limits to federal investigators.
Cannon granted a request by Trump’s lawyers on 5 September to name a special master to vet the seized records, and Dearie was one of two candidates for the post that the former president proposed.
Trump is under investigation by the Justice Department for retaining government records – some of which were marked as highly classified including “top secret” – at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach after leaving office in January 2021.
FBI agents seized more than 11,000 records including roughly 100 marked as classified.
The department also is looking into possible obstruction of the probe after it found evidence that records may have been removed or concealed from the FBI when it sent agents to the property in June to try to recover all classified documents.
Dearie served as US attorney in Brooklyn before being appointed to the federal bench there by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986, and was chief judge of that court from 2007 to 2011. He assumed what is called senior status – a sort of semi-retirement with a reduced case load – in 2011, a role he continues to serve.
The Justice Department said in a court filing on Monday that Dearie’s experience as a judge qualified him for the special master role, but it opposed the other candidate proposed by Trump’s team, private attorney Paul Huck. Trump’s lawyers opposed the two retired federal judges who the department proposed as special master.
On the bench, Dearie was one of multiple judges presiding over cases against several men accused in 2009 of plotting to bomb New York City’s subway system at the direction of al Qaeda leaders.
He was appointed in 2011 to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews warrant applications from the US government on matters of national security, where he served until 2019.
In 2017, Dearie was one of four federal judges who approved warrants used to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page amid concern about Trump campaign contacts with Russians, according to papers released to media outlets that sued for the records.
The surveillance of Page has been a point of contention for Trump and his allies, who have seized upon it to claim that US intelligence agencies are biased against them.
The Justice Department’s inspector general in 2019 faulted the department for its handling of the Page warrant applications but said there appeared to be no bias against Trump in the opening of a federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election to boost the businessman-turned-politician’s election prospects.
The Justice Department opposed Trump’s request for a special master to review the seized documents to see if any should be withheld from investigators as privileged. Attorney-client privilege involves legal advice between Trump and his attorneys. Under executive privilege, certain confidential presidential communications can be shielded from disclosure to lawmakers and the courts.
In ruling in favour of Trump’s request for a special master, Cannon rejected Justice Department arguments that the records belong to the government and that because Trump is no longer president he cannot claim executive privilege. Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020.
The documents probe is one of several federal and state investigations Trump is facing from his time in office and in private business as he considers another run for the presidency in 2024.
– Reuters
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House Jan. 6 Committee Releases Oath Keepers https://digitalarizonanews.com/house-jan-6-committee-releases-oath-keepers/
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Thursday released walkie talkie communications from the far-right group Oath Keepers on the day of insurrection. In the audio, the group says that former President Donald Trump did not tell the rioters to “stand down” when he tweeted to support Capitol police amid the attack.
At about 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump tweeted “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
The House Jan. 6 committee tweeted Thursday said that the released walkie talkie communication was between some members of the Oath Keepers who were at the Capitol, and some who were monitoring intelligence elsewhere.
In the recording, a member of the Oath Keepers read the tweet and said, “That’s saying a lot. But what he didn’t say, he didn’t say not to do anything to the congressmen.”
There is laughter, and then another person said, “Well, he did not ask them to stand down. He just said to stand by the Capitol Police.”
Members of the Oath Keepers on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
The same person then added they were watching CNN and “it’s looking pretty friggin radical to me. CNN said that Trump has egged this on, that he is egging it on, and that he is watching the country burn two weeks before he leaves office. He is not leaving office. I don’t give a s— what they say.”
Someone then burst onto the communication, saying they were “in the mezzanine” and in the “main dome.”
“We are rocking it,” the person said, adding that “they are throwing grenades.”
Another voice said to “be safe” and then said the riot is “everything we f—— trained up for.”
The House committee did not identify any of the voices, or disclose how it obtained the audio.
The tweet comes on the heels of the House Jan. 6 committee asking U.S. District Judge David O. Carter on Wednesday to review 3,200 pages of emails from Trump-allied attorney John Eastman to see if they fit his claims of executive privilege. In the filing, House counsel Douglas Letter said their questions to Eastman’s counsel have largely gone unanswered, and “it seems clear that further consultation with plaintiff’s counsel will not result in the select committee receiving the material that it seeks in a timely manner.”
In July, Carter ordered Eastman to turn over 159 documents to the committee, ruling that another 440 were privileged and protected from disclosure.
The Jan. 6 committee has focused on Eastman as the alleged architect of a dubious legal strategy, following the 2020 election, to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes from key battleground states won by President Biden. Pence ultimately rejected the plan, arguing he did not have the authority to carry it out.
The Jan. 6 committee met again this week, after taking a hiatus following a series of public hearings this summer aimed at revealing what they have found out during their yearlong investigation into the attack. Earlier this week, committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said the committee’s “goal” to have another public hearing on Sept. 28.
Thompson said Tuesday that the committee intends to put together an interim report in mid-October, two weeks after a proposed late September hearing, and will finalize the report before the end of the year.
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Dearie Named Special Master To Review Trumps Mar-A-Lago Documents
Dearie Named Special Master To Review Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Documents https://digitalarizonanews.com/dearie-named-special-master-to-review-trumps-mar-a-lago-documents/
A federal judge has appointed Raymond J. Dearie, a former chief federal judge in New York, to sort through the more than 11,000 documents — including classified materials — that FBI agents seized from former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence last month, to see if any should be shielded from criminal investigators because of attorney-client or executive privileges.
The decision could significantly slow a high-profile investigation of the former president, one which prosecutors say has already been paused at a key juncture by the judge’s skepticism that the Justice Department has acted fairly in investigating Trump.
Trump’s legal team proposed Dearie as a candidate to be the special master in the high-profile case, and the Justice Department agreed with the selection last week. But the two sides still disagree on whether searching through the highly sensitive classified documents should be part of the special master’s responsibilities.
Ultimately, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon ruled in Trump’s favor and said the special master should examine the classified documents, though she said Dearie should prioritize those materials. She denied a bid by prosecutors to allow them to use the seized material in their ongoing criminal investigation before Dearie conducts his review.
In her Thursday night ruling, Cannon rejected Justice Department arguments that her decision to prohibit investigators from using the seized information while the special master conducts his review will cause serious harm to the national security investigation.
Even-handed application of legal rules “does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice,” Cannon wrote in a decision that is almost certainly to be appealed by the government.
Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed by the U.S. Senate just days after Trump lost his bid for reelection, added that she still “firmly” believes that the appointment of a special master, and a temporary injunction against the Justice Department using the documents, is in keeping “with the need to ensure at least the appearance of fairness and integrity under unprecedented circumstances.”
Prosecutors had previously signaled that if Cannon did not amend her restrictions on the criminal investigation of Trump and his aides for possibly mishandling national defense information, or hiding or destroying government records, they would file an appeal. Prosecutors had also asked that any special master review not include the roughly 100 classified documents the FBI found among the confiscated materials when it executed a court-approved search warrant on Aug. 8. The government said that delaying investigators’ access to those documents could pose national security risks.
In asking the judge to walk back at least part of her special master ruling, prosecutors had argued that Trump could not possibly have an attorney-client or executive privilege claim over classified documents, which by definition are the property of the federal government.
Cannon roundly rejected those arguments in her filing, saying that whether the documents marked classified were actually classified is a matter of dispute. Trump’s lawyers have suggested the documents may not be classified, but have not asserted in their court appearances or court filings that Trump declassified them.
The judge said she did not necessarily believe the prosecutors, writing, “The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.”
Dearie, 78, was nominated to the federal bench in Brooklyn by President Ronald Reagan after serving as U.S. Attorney in the same district. Fellow lawyers and colleagues describe him as an exemplary jurist who is well suited to the job of special master, having previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees sensitive national security cases.
Patrick Cotter, who served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said he was surprised Trump’s team suggested such a smart, low-key judge.
“There wasn’t much personality, and I mean that as a compliment. Ray wasn’t chummy, and he wasn’t a good ol’ Brooklyn boy or high-falutin’ guy trying to impress you,” Cotter said. “He was a very matter-of-fact, down to earth judge with a minimum of pomposity. He will do a credible job, and will do it quickly.”
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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September 15 2022 Newscast Cronkite News Arizona PBS
September, 15 2022 Newscast – Cronkite News – Arizona PBS https://digitalarizonanews.com/september-15-2022-newscast-cronkite-news-arizona-pbs/
A soldier killed during the Korean War finally is identified and put to rest, Phoenix inflation rate is the highest in the country
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A Second Trump Term Would Be A Scary Rerun Of The First
A Second Trump Term Would Be A Scary Rerun Of The First https://digitalarizonanews.com/a-second-trump-term-would-be-a-scary-rerun-of-the-first/
On Thursday morning, Donald Trump did a phone interview with the radio host Hugh Hewitt, one of many conservative commentators who started out as harsh critics of Trump only to change their view of him once he came to power. Hewitt asked the former President, who was promoting a campaign rally this weekend for candidates he’s endorsed in Ohio, whether he feared being indicted by the Justice Department for bringing top-secret classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left office and refusing to return them.
Well, Trump responded, there was no reason for them to charge him, except “if they’re just sick and deranged, which is always possible.” When Hewitt helpfully reminded him that he had previously claimed to have verbally ordered all the documents at issue declassified, Trump agreed. “I have the absolute right to declassify,” the former President said. “Absolute.”
Then Hewitt asked the question that, nearly two years after Trump exited the White House, has, perhaps inevitably, come to dominate American politics since he became the first President in American history to refuse to accept his electoral defeat: “Will you run for President anyway, even if you’re indicted?”
Trump’s response left little doubt that the answer is yes, before he proceeded to issue the kind of threat that, had the violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021—and all the rest—not happened, might have been dismissed as the idle but reckless bluster for which he has long been famous. “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it,” he said, of an indictment. Trump added, “I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.”
Once again, Hewitt tried to play cleanup. “You know that the legacy media will say that you’re attempting to incite violence with that statement,” the host warned the former President. Seemingly unconcerned, Trump blithely repeated the threat. “That’s not inciting,” he insisted. “I don’t think the people of this country would stand for it.”
This remarkable exchange says pretty much everything you need to know about Donald Trump in 2022: he wants to run again for President, and he has little apparent hesitation about calling forth a mob all over again if that’s what it takes. The past, in other words, is prologue. With Trump, it always is.
As Trump threatens to mount a comeback campaign to become the only President aside from Grover Cleveland to return to the Presidency after losing, it is a supercharged moment to publish a book on his four years in the White House. The book, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” began as an effort, with my husband, Peter Baker of the Times, to better understand the uniquely disruptive four years we’d just been through. A history, in other words.
But it’s hard to write history when the subject of the book refuses, unlike any other modern President, to leave the stage. He has not retired to the ranch to paint portraits, like George W. Bush. He is not writing a memoir and posing for celebrity selfies, like Barack Obama. Trump is still our present, and may be our future, too. Perhaps that’s why our publisher insisted we add the dates of Trump’s term in office to the book title. Who knows—were they anticipating a second term? A sequel?
Writing the book, though an exercise in looking back, did offer some strong hints about what another four years of Trump in office might look like. I am thinking in particular of a chilling conversation I had with a former senior national-security official who regularly observed Trump in the Oval Office. The official compared him to the velociraptors in the movie “Jurassic Park,” horror-movie monsters who proved capable of learning while hunting their prey—a terrifying fact the audience learns when one of the predators chases a child into a kitchen by turning the handle to open the door.
Through four years in the White House, Trump adapted. He failed and he tried again. In hiring and firing all those chiefs of staff and national-security advisers and Cabinet secretaries, Trump moved consistently in the direction of those he thought would let him do what he wanted, no matter how disruptive it was. Over time, he figured out how to work through staff to use levers of government that eluded him when he first came to office as a novice in all things Washington. After reporting and writing “The Divider,” it seems quite clear to me that if John Kelly, the former Marine general who often defined his role as obstructing Trump from committing harmful acts, were still White House chief of staff in 2021, he would have tried to stop Trump from going forward with January 6th—a stark contrast indeed to the chief of staff Trump actually had at the time, Mark Meadows, the far-right former congressman who served as the enabler and facilitator that Trump had long craved.
Since he’s left office, Trump’s desire for personal loyalty above all other qualities has only grown. He has made willingness to go along with his election denialism a litmus test for Republican candidates in this year’s midterms, making his endorsements and money conditional on it. And, as Jonathan Swan of Axios reported this summer, Trump’s allies have talked openly of reimposing a sweeping executive order that would allow the President to purge the federal government of tens of thousands of career civil servants and hire loyalists to replace them. Trump first issued that order late in 2020, too late to be implemented before Joe Biden took office and reversed it. But Trump wouldn’t wait four years if given a do-over.
As for what policies he would impose if he had the unquestioning personnel in place to do it, there, too, the first term offers an alarming preview of what a second could look like. From the start, Trump’s preoccupations were the same preoccupations, whether he got them implemented or not. He wanted to get out of NATO and Afghanistan and to withdraw U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula. He attacked allies like Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau and praised adversaries like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. He pushed for protectionist trade policies and eagerly adopted the far right’s reactionary social agenda and cultural grievances as the price of their support for him.
Most starkly, from the start of his tenure, he sought to weaponize and politicize the institutions of the U.S. government to serve his personal and political interests. In the fall of 2020, he even explicitly demanded that the Justice Department jail Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, weeks before the election. “Where are all the arrests?” he tweeted on October 7th, 2020. We are on notice. He will try this again if given the chance.
But Trump somehow keeps challenging our ability to believe he will really do the things he openly says he will do. He spent months in 2020 complaining that any result that did not have him as the winner would be “rigged.” So why were so many people, including some of his own advisers, so surprised when he refused to accept the election results, and spent the weeks that followed seeking to overturn them?
When we went to interview Trump in Mar-a-Lago for our book, a year after his defeat, the first thing he told us was a lie. We met him upstairs in his Mar-a-Lago office, the one subsequently made famous by the F.B.I. search to retrieve the classified documents. We began the interview, our second, by asking about something he told us during our first session, seven months earlier: that he was asked to tape a public-service announcement urging Americans to get the COVID vaccine. Months later, the ad had not materialized. We asked why. “Nope,” he said, flatly. “They have not asked me.” But Trump was the one who said they had asked in the first place. “No,” he insisted, shaking his head. Was he telling the truth the first time? The second? Neither? Either way, he had made something up—even if, with Trump, one could never really tell what.
And that, in a way, is the point. The man who finished his Presidency with a total of 30,573 false and misleading claims while in office, according to the Washington Post’s fact-checking project, is not going to suddenly return to power as a truthteller. He will seek vengeance and vindication. He will run the same plays again and again. He will find aides and advisers who will do his bidding, unlike the faithless traitors who surrounded him before. The velociraptor will have learned to open the door.
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The Justice Dept.s Jan. 6 Investigation Is Looking At Everything
The Justice Dept.’s Jan. 6 Investigation Is Looking At … Everything https://digitalarizonanews.com/the-justice-dept-s-jan-6-investigation-is-looking-at-everything/
Dozens of subpoenas issued last week show that the Justice Department is seeking vast amounts of information, and communications with more than 100 people, as part of its sprawling inquiry into the origins, fundraising and motives of the effort to block Joe Biden from being certified as president in early 2021.
The subpoenas, three of which were reviewed by The Washington Post, are far-reaching, covering 18 separate categories of information, including any communications the recipients had with scores of people in six states where supporters of then-President Donald Trump sought to promote “alternate” electors to replace electors in those states won by Biden.
One request is for any communications “to, from, or including” specific people tied to such efforts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Most of the names listed were proposed fake electors in those states, while a small number were Trump campaign officials who organized the slates.
Taken together, the subpoenas show an investigation that began immediately after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and has cast an ever-widening net, even as it gathers information about those in the former president’s inner circle.
“It looks like a multipronged fraud and obstruction investigation,” said Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor. “It strikes me that they’re going after a very, very large group of people, and my guess is they are going to make all of the charging decisions toward the end.”
After being told the various categories of information sought in the indictment, Walden noted the focus on wide categories of communications among the individuals. He said he suspected it was part of a prosecutorial strategy to try to blunt any claims that Trump activists were just following the advice of lawyers in seeking to block the certification of Biden’s victory.
“It’s hard to say you were just relying on all these lawyers if there are text chains showing conspirator conversations, or consciousness of guilt,” Walden said.
A subpoena is not proof or even evidence of wrongdoing, but rather a demand for information that could produce evidence of criminal conduct. The new batch of subpoenas point to three main areas of Justice Department interest, distinct but related:
the effort to replace valid Biden electors with unearned, pro-Trump electors before the formal congressional tally of the 2020 election outcome on Jan. 6, 2021
the rally that preceded the riot that day
the fundraising and spending of the Save America political action committee, an entity that raised more than $100 million in the wake of the 2020 election, largely based on appeals to mount pro-Trump legal challenges to election results.
Even those three prongs don’t capture other, important parts of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, in which more than 870 people have been arrested for alleged crimes of violence, trespass and — in the case of two extremist groups who prosecutors say played key roles in the chaos — seditious conspiracy. Hundreds more are still being sought for crimes related to the riot.
The Justice Department inspector general is investigating a former senior Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, for possible conspiracy, false statements and obstruction, according to a new letter filed in his bar disciplinary case. According to emails and public testimony, Clark tried to get the Justice Department to publicly express doubts about the election results, even going so far as to be willing to take over the department from his then-boss, Jeffrey Rosen, to do so. He has denied wrongdoing.
In another sign that the Justice Department’s own role in 2020 is also part of the ever-growing investigation, the recent subpoenas seek any communications with “any member, employee, or agent of the United States Department of Justice, or any component, branch, litigating unit, or office” of the agency.
The subpoenas reviewed by The Post also seek broad categories of additional information from the recipients, who include former Trump aides and Republican activists. The subpoenas demand that recipients produce, within two weeks, all documents and communications “relating to Certification” of the election, as well as anything “relating to or constituting any evidence (a) tending to show that there was fraud of any kind relating to the 2020 Presidential Election, or (b) used or relied upon to support any claim of fraud in relation to the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Also requested is any documentation “relating to any information conveyed to you or any other person challenging, rebutting, undercutting, tending to show, or claiming that there was not fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election, or claiming or tending to show that any allegation of fraud was unfounded, baseless, or incorrect in whole or in part,” as well as anything sent to any local, state, or federal official about claims of election fraud, or efforts to persuade government officials to “change or affect” the election results, “or delay certification of the results.”
Some of the people who have received subpoenas said there was no way to comply within the two-week time frame, because there were so many categories of information and so many things to review, and some of the recipients don’t even have lawyers yet. It is not uncommon for recipients of subpoenas to seek and receive more time to produce all the requested information. Two Trump advisers said more than 30 people received subpoenas in the probe, including some who were low-level administrative staff. Trump’s team is arranging lawyers for at least some of the aides under subpoena, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
Trump himself has not received a subpoena, according to a person close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.
The burst of subpoenas comes about two months after a similar flurry in mid-June, which sought communications with dozens of individuals, including Trump lawyers and advocates such as Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik and others.
Kerik is among those who were hit with a subpoena this month, showing that the Justice Department, which was criticized by some lawyers earlier this year for not aggressively investigating those close to Trump, is now examining the conduct of many different categories of people — including some very close to the former president.
Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows received a subpoena earlier in the summer seeking documents he had already turned over the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, and has turned over responsive records, said a person familiar with the subpoena, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The subpoena did not seek Meadows’s testimony or documents he had withheld from the committee citing executive privilege, the person said.
CNN reported late Wednesday that Meadows provided documents to a Justice Department subpoena. Another former senior Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, also received a subpoena. His subpoena was first reported by the New York Times.
After turning over thousands of emails and text messages to the House committee in response to a congressional subpoena, Meadows ended his cooperation with that panel, citing executive privilege. He also sued the House, seeking to quash the congressional subpoena; that case remains pending in federal court.
“Without confirming or denying any interaction with the Justice Department investigation, Mr. Meadows’ posture has been to meet his legal obligations as to both the production and privilege of documents or testimony,” George Terwilliger III, Meadows’s lawyer, said.
Meadows is far from the only subpoena recipient who has been asked to provide the Justice Department with records they have already provided to the House committee.
But the new batch of subpoenas ask others not only for whatever they have turned over to the committee but whatever documentation they have that would be responsive to the committee’s request — indicating that federal prosecutors are trying to make sure that if witnesses have come across new material, that they should provide that, too.
The request for copies of what was already given to the Jan. 6 committee also points to a long-festering problem for the Justice Department — the House committee has been slow to provide the department access to the committee’s evidence, a potentially critical issue as prosecutors prepare to go to trial against members of the Oath Keepers group and others. The new subpoenas appear to be an attempt by the department, at least in part, to gather that evidence by other means.
The subpoenas also seek all “documents and communications relating to the Save America PAC, including, but not limited to, documents related to the formation of the Save America PAC, the funding of the Save America PAC, and/or the use of money received by the Save America PAC.”
By seeking information about the political action committee, the Justice Department appears to be looking for evidence of fraud. Prosecutors must meet a high legal threshold to bring criminal charges in such cases.
“You have to prove they knew it was a lie, and fraudulently raised money off it anyways,” said a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. “I’m not sure any of the people [who donated to the PAC] would want action.”
The Justice Department has added fraud and public corruption experts to its investigative team, this person said, and is “fully staffed for business,” though, as the subpoenas reflect, that work is still in the early stages.
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WHUT? An Obviously Addled Trump Utterly Misconstrues Report That The FBI Paid A Russian Informant
WHUT? An Obviously Addled Trump Utterly Misconstrues Report That The FBI Paid A Russian Informant https://digitalarizonanews.com/whut-an-obviously-addled-trump-utterly-misconstrues-report-that-the-fbi-paid-a-russian-informant/
September has been a bad month, so far, for the twice-impeached, former reality TV game show host, Donald Trump. The fallout from his having stolen, hoarded, and lied about having highly sensitive national security materials stashed at his Mar-a-Lago bunker continues to pose significant legal peril for him and his anti-American crime syndicate.
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In addition to being the subject of criminal and civil investigations from New York, to Georgia, to Washington, D.C., to the federal Department of Justice, his pitiful Twitter ripoff, Truth Social is floundering. His lawsuit against Hillary Clinton was laughed out of court. His buddy and co-conspirator Mike Lindell had his phone confiscated at a Hardee’s. And even Fox News has been shying away from their role as knee-jerk Trump defenders.
RELATED: Fox News Publishes Brutal NY Times Story that a GOP House ‘Could Plunge US and World Into Chaos’
Consequently, Trump is sinking ever further into an abyss of incoherence and desperation. On Thursday Trump posted comments on his alt-Twitter that parroted some recent contrivances in the ultra-rightist press. These stories are badly distorted versions of the news that special counsel John Durham’s investigation is wrapping up with almost nothing to show. It took 29 months and $40 million dollars to produce goose eggs, rather than the mother lode of incriminating evidence they hoped for against Hillary Clinton or whoever they are obsessing over. As reported by CNN…
“In all, Durham has prosecuted just three people: [Igor] Danchenko, the acquitted Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, and a low-level FBI lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith, who avoided jail by pleading guilty in 2020 to doctoring an email in 2017.”
For the record, the Mueller probe took only 22 months and resulted in 34 indictments and eight convictions of close associates of Trump including Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone.
Trump’s comments took a decidedly deranged turn by latching unto the only case still pending from Durham’s inquisition. Trump wrote that…
“FBI working with Russia to get Trump. If this were reversed, it would be the biggest story in 50 years. The Fake News Media does everything possible not to cover it – but the people know!”
And that…
“The biggest story of them all. They worked with the Russians, not “Trump.” It was all made up by the FBI and their SleazeBag friends. Then we’re supposed to trust them?”
So Trump is now whining that the “FBI [was] working with Russia to get Trump.” And he wonders what would happen “if this were reversed.” But Trump apparently doesn’t know what “reversed” means. If this were reversed it would be “Trump is working with Russia to get the FBI.” Which, ironically, is true. Everything Trump is doing and saying is anti-FBI, who he has called “disgraceful,” “dishonest,” and “completely corrupt.” That’s an assessment that Russia not only agrees with, but has worked tirelessly to promulgate.
The allegation by Trump and his lickspittle media mouthpieces is that a source for the infamous “Steele Dossier” was briefly paid by the FBI as an informant. From that morsel of unsupported info, the Trump faction concludes that the FBI was working “with” Russia to take down Trump.
What they fail to grasp is that the FBI often pays informants for information about crime suspects. That doesn’t mean they are working with the crime bosses. In fact, it means just the opposite. They are working with people who turned against the bosses. If the FBI pays a mob informant they are working against the mob, not with it.
The informant in this case is an example of that. Danchenko was not a Russian ally. He was a dissident who left Russia to live in the U.S., and he was ratting out his former associates in the Kremlin. By disparaging Danchenko it’s Trump who is, in effect, working with Russia. Again. So…same as it ever was.
NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.
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Obituary | Walter Zimmerman https://digitalarizonanews.com/obituary-walter-zimmerman/
Originally Published: September 15, 2022 4:46 p.m.
Walter Zimmerman is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Walter Zimmerman, on Monday, Sept. 5, 2022.
Walter was born on Oct. 22, 1948 to Walter A. Zimmerman and Constance Stelmack-Zimmerman in Cleveland, Ohio. He married Rosalie Ann Sury and moved to Kingman, Arizona in March 1970. He is now in the loving arms of our Lord and Savior.
Walter grew up on a farm and always had a place in his heart for animals. While attending Mentor High School in Ohio, he played football and was on the wrestling team. He played linebacker on the three-time conference championship team. Walter worked for Penn Central Railroad in Ohio, which spurred his love of trains and led to his collection of many models and gauges of trains.
Walter was a craftsman in woodworking and construction building custom furniture and homes in Ohio and Arizona. He was a general contractor for both residential and commercial building for most of his life. Walter was a master mechanic and enjoyed solving challenges through machining and fabricating unique components to restore vehicles and machines to working order.
In the Kingman Community, Walter shared his passions and talents with several youth organizations. He volunteered as a coach for Kingman Youth football, mentor for the KHS first Robotics Team 60, sponsor for Kingman Youth Soccer League, and project leader and mentor for Mohave County 4-H and Kingman Future Farmers of America. Most recently, Walter, worked with 4-H youth helping them to learn leathercrafting. Walter served the congregation of Grace Lutheran Church as a greeter.
Walter’s family meant everything to him and he enjoyed spending time playing cards and board games with his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He was a passionate connoisseur of old Western movies, had his favorite game shows to watch, and always had a model that he was working on. Walter always looked forward to sharing his knowledge and skills with his children and grandchildren, setting them up for success. He loved to decorate the house for holidays knowing that he would share those specials times with family and friends. He especially loved the big Christmas gatherings with family, food and fun. Walter enjoyed practical jokes and making people laugh. Most of all, Walter was a great provider and patriarch who is and always will be cherished and loved by family and friends.
Walter is survived by the love of his life, his wife of 52 years, Rosalie Sury-Zimmerman. He is the father to six adult children: Stephanie Angle (Cliff), Rosalie Kennon (Clint), Augusta Forsse (Michael Joe), Walter Zimmerman (Julianna), Jason Zimmerman and Nicole Cates (Raleigh). He is the grandfather to many grandchildren: Benjamin Angle (Meghan), Geoffrey Angle, Elizabeth Angle, Catherine Angle, Tyler Kennon, Brooke Forsse, Gracie Forsse, Wesley Forsse, James Pope, MaKenna Zimmerman, Chandler Zimmerman, Alissa Quattlebaum (Shawn), Austin Cates and Hannah Cates. He is the great-grandfather to Oliver Angle, William Walter Quattlebaum and Brynlie Cates. Walter has additional family members and friends who have shared in his life and love.
A celebration of life ceremony will be held at Grace Lutheran Church in Kingman, Arizona on Sunday, Sept. 25 at 4 p.m.
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