Sarah Matthews: Trump Is A Threat To Democracy https://digitalarizonanews.com/sarah-matthews-trump-is-a-threat-to-democracy/
Greg Nash
Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary, testifies during a House Jan. 6 committee hearing on Thursday, July 21, 2022 to focus on former President Trump’s actions during the insurrection.
Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews on Wednesday said former President Trump is a threat to democracy and called out his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
“I do think that he poses a threat to democracy. I think that January 6th showed that, and that was part of my reason for resigning,” Matthews said of the former president to host Jake Tapper on “CNN Tonight.” Matthews resigned from the White House on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“He failed to act that day. He had every opportunity to call off the mob and condemn the violence. We’ve seen from taped testimony from several of my colleagues that folks were pleading with him to do that. And he didn’t ever pick up the phone once,” Matthews said.
Matthews testified in July before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, saying that Trump greenlit the rioters by tweeting to criticize then-Vice President Mike Pence for not rejecting the Electoral College vote in the 2020 election.
“Furthermore than just January 6th, he’s continued to push the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him with zero evidence of that. And I think that does pose a threat to our democracy,” Matthews said in the CNN interview.
She posited that some members of her party “know better” but stick by Trump’s election claims in order to “stay in the good graces of Trump world,” while other election deniers “truly are detached from reality.”
On CNN Wednesday, Matthews said she felt circumstances throughout her tenure in the Trump White House built up in a “slow burn” to her resignation, but that she felt spurred to make the decision when Trump in a video on Jan. 6 told his supporters that he loved them and called them “very special.”
“That was really the moment for me when I knew that I was going to resign,” Matthews said.
She said she’s hopeful that speaking out to say “Donald Trump is lying to the American people about the 2020 election” will encourage others to reject the former president’s lies from within the Republican party.
“I think that the more people that are willing to stand up and speak the truth will save the Republican party, but I’m not encouraged by the direction that it’s headed right now,” Matthews said.
The Jan. 6 committee is set to hold a public hearing Thursday, possibly its last.
Read More Here
Fox News Contributor Says Trump Supporters Don't Answer Polls Because They Worry The FBI Will Arrest Them Over Responses
Fox News Contributor Says Trump Supporters Don't Answer Polls Because They Worry The FBI Will Arrest Them Over Responses https://digitalarizonanews.com/fox-news-contributor-says-trump-supporters-dont-answer-polls-because-they-worry-the-fbi-will-arrest-them-over-responses/
By Michael LucianoOct 12th, 2022, 10:34 pm
Fox News contributor and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said conservative White men are so concerned about being politically persecuted, they refuse to participate in polls, lest they be arrested by the FBI for their beliefs.
Appearing on Wednesday’s edition of Hannity, Huckabee said current polling data may be an unreliable indicator of where close Senate and House races stand ahead of next month’s midterm elections.
“We’re 27 days away from what I believe an inflection point, a tipping point election, midterm election in this country,” Sean Hannity stated. “Where do you see the result going?”
Here’s how Huckabee responded:
I honestly think Republicans are gonna have a much better night than anybody predicts largely because the polling information is simply unreliable. And there’s a reason that it’s unreliable.
Right now if you’re pro-life, if you’re Christian, if you’re a conservative, if you are a MAGA Republican, which means you just think that America’s a great country and we ought to preserve it and protect it and pass it on that way.
If you’re one of those people, you’re kind of thinking that any given day the FBI may show up, bang your door down, and haul you in. If not, they may put you on a list, call you a domestic terrorist, a threat to democracy. So, conservatives simply don’t answer polls. So, I think we’re seeing something that really can’t be factored in.
Huckabee then claimed a pollster from the conservative Trafalgar Group said that “no White men between 30 and 50 will answer a poll question, and for the most part, most all of the Trump supporters simply will not answer a poll.”
He went on to state this pollster told him, “They don’t put yard signs up anymore. They don’t put a lot of bumper strips. They will vote because it’s the last line of defense that they have to protect their country and their families.”
Watch above via Fox News.
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
Read More Here
Durham Inquiry Trial: FBI Wanted To Suspend Analyst Who Interviewed Steele Source
Durham Inquiry Trial: FBI Wanted To Suspend Analyst Who Interviewed Steele Source https://digitalarizonanews.com/durham-inquiry-trial-fbi-wanted-to-suspend-analyst-who-interviewed-steele-source/
October 12, 2022 10:34 PM
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia —The FBI’s internal investigation unit sought to discipline and suspend the FBI analyst who interviewed Igor Danchenko in January 2017 and who was special counsel John Durham’s first witness this week in the false statements trial against the main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited anti-Trump dossier, new court testimony revealed.
FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, who disclosed Wednesday that Durham informed him in 2021 that he was a “subject” of the special counsel’s criminal review of the Trump-Russia investigation, confirmed that the FBI had recommended he receive a suspension due to his actions as a member first of the Crossfire Hurricane team and then of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russian government.
Durham said the FBI’s inspection division investigated Auten’s conduct and recommended that he be suspended. “That is being appealed,” Auten countered from the witness stand.
Auten had been referred by FBI Director Christopher Wray to the Office of Professional Responsibility for disciplinary action following the December 2019 release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. Wray has said those proceedings were slowed down to cooperate with Durham’s criminal investigation.
Auten was the “Supervisory Intel Agent” in Horowitz’s report and is mentioned 106 times by the internal watchdog. The FBI analyst repeatedly downplayed his involvement in the FISA process to obtain search authority to snoop on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who was never charged with any wrongdoing, admitting only that he reviewed the Page FISA on an “ad hoc basis” and reviewed the application’s footnotes.
Durham contended that Auten’s refusal to be completely honest about the full extent of his involvement in the Page FISAs was one of the reasons he was recommended for suspension, but Auten disputed that characterization. Durham seemed openly frustrated with Auten’s testimony about how dossier claims were used in the application for surveillance, but the FBI analyst insisted, “I wasn’t the one who carried it over into the FISA application.”
FBI OFFERED STEELE UP TO $1 MILLION IF HE COULD PROVE DOSSIER CLAIMS
The FBI analyst briefly discussed Horowitz’s report, which Durham described as “scathing,” with the FBI analyst using much softer language. Auten noted that “the report was quite extensive” and detailed “quite a number of errors and omissions.” Auto added: “I believe the [Office of Inspector General] described [the errors] as significant.”
Horowitz’s report undermined the Steele dossier claims, and the watchdog criticized the DOJ and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau’s “central and essential” reliance on Steele’s dossier.
John Durham and Igor Danchenko.
AP
Auten, who interviewed Danchenko in early 2017 and was there when the Justice Department set up a partial immunity agreement with the Steele source, was also among the FBI employees who interviewed Steele overseas in early October 2016 as the FBI sought more details on the dossier. Auten revealed the FBI had offered Steele an incentive of up to $1 million if he could prove the allegations of collusion in his dossier, but the FBI analyst said the former MI6 agent was unable to corroborate the claims. Steele also declined to provide the identity of his sources, including Danchenko.
The FBI analyst circulated a February 2017 intelligence memo to top FBI officials about the Danchenko interview he had conducted a month prior, but Horowitz said it “did not describe the inconsistencies” from the FBI interview in January 2017.
The FBI soon made Danchenko a paid confidential human source starting in March 2017 through October 2020, as revealed by Durham in court filings. Horowitz said FBI interviews with Danchenko “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting.”
During his Wednesday court testimony, Auten agreed with Danchenko’s defense lawyer, Danny Onorato, that it was “scary” to be told that he had been named a subject of Durham’s investigation during his first meeting with the special counsel team in late July 2021. The FBI analyst claimed that when he had met with Horowitz’s investigators, it had been as a “witness” and not a “subject.” Auten said he understood the term “subject” to be “somewhere between a witness and a target” of an investigation.
The FBI analyst added that he was not directly threatened with possible prosecution but said that is understood to be a possibility when you are the subject of a criminal investigation. Auten said he had never been the subject of an investigation prior to that point. The FBI analyst said he ended up meeting with Durham’s investigators three or four times total, including twice last week.
The dossier was created after Steele was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself hired by Perkins Coie through Marc Elias, the general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Steele hired Danchenko.
According to Durham, Danchenko anonymously sourced a fabricated claim about Trump 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to Charles Dolan, a Clinton ally who spent years, including 2016, doing work with Russian businesses and the Russian government.
Durham’s indictment also said Danchenko lied to the FBI about a phone call he claimed he received from Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born U.S. citizen and businessman who the Steele source had said told him about a conspiracy of cooperation between Trump and the Russians — which the special counsel said is false.
Auten testified Wednesday that he believed Danchenko should have handed over to the FBI relevant emails he had sent to Millian and exchanged with Dolan but said the Russian lawyer did not do so.
Shortly after being referred to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Auten was involved with the bureau’s inquiry into Hunter Biden, the adult son of now-President Joe Biden, with his August 2020 analysis being used in part to justify the decision to “shut down investigative activity.”
Wray said this summer that he found the whistleblower claims that the FBI had improperly labeled the younger Biden evidence as disinformation to be “deeply troubling.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Danchenko’s October trial comes after Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann was found not guilty in May on a false statements charge of concealing his representation of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign from the FBI when he pushed since-debunked Trump-Russia collusion claims about Alfa-Bank to the bureau in 2016. Testimony during the trial revealed Hillary Clinton personally signed off on her campaign sharing the Alfa-Bank claims with the media.
Horowitz said in 2019 that Auten “told us that he factored the Alfa-Bank/Trump server allegations into his assessment of Steele’s reporting.”
Read More Here
Trump Employee Says Ex-President Told Him To Move Boxes Of Papers At Mar-A-Lago After Subpoena: Report
Trump Employee Says Ex-President Told Him To Move Boxes Of Papers At Mar-A-Lago After Subpoena: Report https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-employee-says-ex-president-told-him-to-move-boxes-of-papers-at-mar-a-lago-after-subpoena-report/
An employee of former President Donald Trump working at his Mar-a-Lago residence told the FBI that Mr Trump asked him to move boxes of papers ahead of the FBI’s search of the residence in August, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Several people familiar with the investigation into Mr Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents told the Post that after Mr Trump recieved a subpoena for any classified materials at Mar-a-Lago in May, the former president told people to move boxes to his residence at the property.
Security camera footage reportedly shows people moving boxes. The FBI ultimately searched Mar-a-Lago on August 8, seizing a number of documents as it looked for evidence that Mr Trump engaged in obstruction, destruction of government records, or the mishandling of classified information.
Mr Trump and his political and media allies fumed at the search, despite evidence that the FBI did in fact find classified information improperly stored at his personal residence.
In a statement to the Post, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich called the leak of the information that Mr Trump ordered boxes of documents moved “un-American.”
“The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power,” Budowich said in a statement. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified.”
In its initial interview with the Mar-a-Lago employee, they reportedly claimed that they never moved any potentially sensitive material. But when the witness was interviewed for a second time, their story is said to have changed significantly as they described moving boxes at Mr Trump’s direction.
Mr Trump’s response to the subpoena and his repeated unwillingness to cooperate with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department suggest that he may have been attempting to impede the federal government’s attempts to recover classified documents.
The employee’s testimony about Mr Trump’s response to the subpoena sheds further light on the bureau’s decision to search Mar-a-Lago, which came only after Mr Trump and his legal team failed to respond to the subpoena by turning over the documents. A judge signed off on a search warrant for the Florida property, which was executed in August.
The FBI ultimately seized 103 classified documents, including one that reportedly described another country’s military defences and nuclear capabilities, as well as some 11,000 documents not marked classified.
The Justice Department’s investigation into Mr Trump’s handling of classified documents is just one of a number of legal headaches for the former president, who is believed to weighing another White House run in 2024 alongside a number of other Republicans including Florida Gov Ron DeSantis.
He has offered several different explanations for his handling of the classified documents, including a baseless allegation that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. The property does not include an authorised space for the storage of classified documents, a fact that Justice Department officials reportedly communicated directly to Mr Trump’s team.
Read More Here
O’Reilly: Trump Investigations Are ‘BS’ https://digitalarizonanews.com/oreilly-trump-investigations-are-bs/
NewsNation Staff
Posted: Oct 12, 2022 / 08:34 PM CDT | Updated: Oct 12, 2022 / 08:34 PM CDT
(NewsNation) — A new report from CNN and the Washington Post say that according to a source, former President Donald Trump directed an employee at Mar-a-Lago to move boxes of records that were from the White House.
In an interview with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, commentator Bill O’Reilly called investigations into Trump “BS” and suggested that anonymous sourcing in stories about the former president is “garbage.”
In the video above, Cuomo and O’Reilly speak about the importance of context and corroboration in reports.
Read More Here
Biden Says He can Beat Donald Trump Again ReutersFGN News
Biden Says He ‘can Beat’ Donald Trump Again – ReutersFGN News https://digitalarizonanews.com/biden-says-he-can-beat-donald-trump-again-reutersfgn-news/
– Advertisement
FreshGoogleNews Updated News,
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday said he was confident he could beat his predecessor Donald Trump in a rematch in 2024 – even though he acknowledged the country could slide back into recession under his direction.
The 79-year-old Democrat was asked if he would announce a run for a second term after November’s midterm elections – and if Trump would be a factor in his decision.
“I believe I can beat Donald Trump again,” Biden replied, though he paused before confirming another tilt to the Oval Office in 2024.
Biden defeated Trump in both the state-by-state “electoral college” and in the popular vote in 2020 – leading to relentless false allegations of widespread voter fraud by the defeated president.
Biden told reporters at a NATO summit in March that he would be happy for Trump to be his opponent again.
Biden’s popularity took a hit last year amid soaring inflation, rising violent crime in cities and a seemingly intractable migrant crisis on the southern border.
But his approval ratings still top the numbers seen in the polls for Trump, who routinely mocks Biden — three years his senior — for his age.
CNN asked Biden what he would say to voters who consider him too old to be reelected.
“Name me a president in recent history who did as much as I did in the first two years. No joke. You may not like what I did, but the vast majority of Americans do. what I did,” Biden replied.
“And so…it’s a question of, can you do the job?” And I believe I can do the job.
In an extensive interview that focused on the war in Ukraine and the Saudi-led oil production cuts that are expected to push gas prices up again, Biden was asked about fears for the economy amid gloomy projections of growth.
Biden played down the likelihood of a recession, but admitted a “mild” slowdown was possible.
“I don’t think there will be a recession. If so, it will be a very mild recession. That is to say, we will go down slightly,” he said.
Trump, 76, came to power during the longest economic expansion in US history, although the economy fell into recession in 2020 as the world grappled with the Covid outbreak -19.
Biden frequently answers questions from the media, but he has held few one-on-one press conferences or television interviews.
He has been more visible recently as he takes to the road to speak about Democratic legislative achievements and criticize “MAGA Republicans” – supporters of former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” program – in the final weeks of the mid-term election campaign.
He also spoke with CBS in September, making headlines for declaring the end of the pandemic and confirming the United States’ commitment to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.
.
Read More Here
Jury Awards Nearly $1 Billion To Sandy Hook Families In Alex Jones Case | CNN Business
Jury Awards Nearly $1 Billion To Sandy Hook Families In Alex Jones Case | CNN Business https://digitalarizonanews.com/jury-awards-nearly-1-billion-to-sandy-hook-families-in-alex-jones-case-cnn-business/
CNN reporter describes ‘release’ from Sandy Hook families as verdict was read
02:20
A Connecticut jury awarded nearly $1 billion in compensatory damages to Sandy Hook families in the defamation case brought against Alex Jones over his lies about the 2012 elementary school massacre.
Jones was not in the courtroom but said on air that he doesn’t have the money. His attorney Norm Pattis said he intends to appeal the decision.
The relieved families praised the jury’s decision. “This is sending the right message that people are good and that good does prevail,” said Nicole Hockley, the mother of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley, who died in Sandy Hook.
Judge Barbara Bellis, who presided over the case, must next consider whether to award punitive damages.
Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the verdict in the posts below.
Alex Jones leaves the courthouse in Waterbury, Connecticut on September 22.
(Michelle McLoughlin/Reuters)
Alex Jones’ day of reckoning has arrived.
A jury in Connecticut decided that the right-wing conspiracy theorist should pay eight families of Sandy Hook shooting victims and a first responder a staggering $965 million.
The decision comes shortly after a trial in Texas where a jury found that the Infowars founder should pay a separate pair of Sandy Hook parents who sued him in the Lone Star state nearly $50 million.
In total, the lies told by Jones about the Sandy Hook shooting have so far cost him more than $1 billion.
With its punishing awards, the juries’ decisions could shrink or even doom Jones’ Infowars media empire, which has been at the center of major conspiracy theories dating back to former President George W. Bush’s administration and was embraced by President Donald Trump.
The reckoning for Jones comes at a pivotal moment in American society, where lies and conspiracy theories have flourished in recent years, often enriching and empowering those who peddle them to the public.
Jones has been an avatar for such behavior. He amassed both great influence and wealth by poisoning the online information well, writing a playbook that has been employed and executed throughout the years by others seeking wealth, fame, and political power.
While Jones may face a reckoning, nearly a decade after his heinous lie about the Sandy Hook shooting, the corrosive blueprint that catapulted him to fame and fortune on the political right is here to stay.
It is impossible to unwind.
To read more, click here:
William Sherlach, left, hugs attorney Josh Koskoff while Nicole Hockley hugs attorney Chris Mattei following the jury verdict on Wednesday.
(Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media/AP/Pool)
A Connecticut jury decided far-right talk show host Alex Jones should pay eight families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages.
The decision was read in court on Wednesday, but the legal process is not over yet.
The next step is for Judge Barbara Bellis to consider punitive damages, according to Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
Wednesday’s decision from the jury was for compensatory damages — meant to compensate the plaintiffs for what they lost. Punitive damages are to punish the defendant for what they did wrong.
In Connecticut, punitive damages are capped at attorneys’ fees and litigation costs, according to CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson. The judge will need to decide, first, if they should be awarded and for how much.
Plaintiff Francine Wheeler wipes away tears on Wednesday.
(Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media/AP/ Pool)
It’s also unclear when or how much of the money the plaintiffs will ultimately see. Jones has said that he will appeal the decision and during his Wednesday broadcast said that there “ain’t no money” to pay the massive figure the jury awarded the plaintiffs.
Jones has also attacked the judicial process, even acknowledging in court that he had referred to the proceedings as those of a “kangaroo court” and called the judge a “tyrant.”
Jones’ other legal trouble: The decision in Connecticut comes two months after a jury in Texas determined that Jones and his company should award two Sandy Hook parents who sued in that state nearly $50 million. Later this month, the judge in that case will consider whether to reduce the punitive damages awarded under Texas law.
Once the process of punitive damages is concluded in Connecticut, Mattei said they are heading to Texas, regardless of whether Jones makes an appeal.
“We’ll be active down in Texas in an action we brought to track any fraudulent transfer of assets he’s made, and in bankruptcy court where we are now very significant creditors of Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, his business,” Mattei said on Wednesday.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy contributed to this report
(Pool/WFSB)
Erica Lafferty, the daughter of Sandy Hook Elementary principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed during the school shooting, told reporters Wednesday that the verdict against Alex Jones is a moment “years in the making.”
Lafferty recounted how difficult it was for her and her family to deal with the threats fueled by the conspiracy theories led by Jones.
“As I was upstairs testifying about the rape threats that were sent to me, Alex Jones was standing right here holding a press conference. After almost a decade of threats and messages from conspiracy theorists led by Jones, this is a moment years in the making,” she said.
Lafferty went on to say how she wished she could tell call her mother to tell her about the verdict and the years leading up to it.
“And in this big moment, like in every big moment, since the shooting, I wish I could just call my mom and tell her about it. I would tell her about the horror of watching Alex Jones hold court with the press outside, right here. About the disappointment of so many news outlets who’ve known us since 12-14 run his words unfiltered. The heartbreak of reliving the shooting as so many families shared stories of their slain loved ones. But I would also like to tell her about the bright spots. News stations, like NBC Connecticut, refused to give a dangerous conspiracy theorist a platform throughout this trial, and I thank them. The jury bravely bore witness to our pain, sitting through hours upon hours of testimony that will never leave their minds,” she said.
Lafferty then thanked the people in her life who were by my side throughout this trial… You guys were my guideposts and my shining lights throughout all of this and I cannot thank you enough for your compassion, extreme expertise, and your friendship. I wish I could tell ,my mom about all of this. I wish I could tell her about so many things that can happen, that have happened since she was murdered. Mostly that I’ll never stop missing her.”
She added that while she hopes to put this chapter of her life behind her, she and her family are aware of the stain Jones’ actions have left on their lives.
“I wish that after today, I could just be a daughter grieving her mother and stop worrying about conspiracy theorists sending me threats or worse. But I know that this is not the end of Alex Jones in my life. I know that his hates, his hate, lies and conspiracy theories will follow both me and my family through the rest of our days. But I’m also hopeful for what happened here today. That it may save other families from high-profile tragedies from the cycle of abuse and re-traumatization that we have all been put through as we simply tried to survive the hardest days, weeks, and years of our lives,” Lafferty said.
She continued, “I’m incredibly proud and thankful for the message that was sent here today. The truth matters. And those who profit off of other people’s pain and trauma will pay for what they have done. There will be more Alex Joneses in this world, but what they learned here today is that they absolutely will be held accountable.”
(Pool/WFSB)
Robbie Parker, the father of 6-year-old Emilie Parker who was killed during the Sandy Hook shooting, said he was proud to stand among his fellow plaintiffs who got on the stand and told the truth.
“Everybody that took the stand told the truth, except for one. The one who proclaims that that’s what he does,” Parker said, referring to Alex Jones.
He credited his lawyers with helping to give him “the strength to finally find my voice and to fight and to stand up to what had been happening to me for so long.”
Speaking to the media after the verdict, Parker continued: “I let my voice be taken away from me and my power be taken away from me. At the expense of my daughter and at the expense of my family. So I have to thank them for helping me get the strength. And the families that I’ve been associated with for 10 years through this tragedy are the most beautiful people you’ll ever encounter, and their children and their moms and their wives are the most beautiful people you could ever get to know.”
“All I can really say is that I’m just proud that what we were able to accomplish is just to simply tell the truth and it shouldn’t be this hard, and it shouldn’t be this scary.”
Parker thanked the jury, not only because of the verdict, “but for what they had to endure, what they had to listen to.”
The jury awarded Parker $120,000,000 in compensatory damages in the case.
Some background: In emotional testimony, Parker recounted the violent threats and harassment he and his family have suffered in the years after Jones called him a crisis actor.
The day after Emilie was murdered in the mass shooting, Parker gave a statement to the press. Hours later, Jones was on his InfoWars show describing Parker as a crisis actor to his audience of millions.
Later that night, unable to sleep, Parker said he saw the start ...
Valley Cookie Business Owner Looking For Sweet Success After Theft At First Friday
Valley Cookie Business Owner Looking For Sweet Success After Theft At First Friday https://digitalarizonanews.com/valley-cookie-business-owner-looking-for-sweet-success-after-theft-at-first-friday/
Owner of Mr. K’s Cookies plans to continue at the popular event after thieves stolen $200 from him
PHOENIX — A Valley business owner is whipping up a sweet new recipe for success after cookie capers recently ripped him off.
Since 2019, Mr. K’s Cookies have provided a fix for people with a sweet tooth across the Valley.
You can find owner Kurt Yusuf and his cookie concoctions at farmer’s markets and at Phoenix’s First Friday.
“First Friday is the best event that we do. The people are amazing, and the energy reminds you of Mardi Gras,” says Yusuf.
During the last event this past Friday, Yusuf says he was at the corner of 3rd Street and Roosevelt, and business was booming until someone tried to burn his success.
“A girl behind me watching the band behind the tent ran up and says, ‘A man ran up on his bike and took your cash box,’” says Yusuf.
Yusuf says he was distraught over the $200 taken from the box.
Phoenix police say officers patrolling in the area tried finding the person but had no luck.
Instead of putting his dough and cookie sheet away, Yusuf found a new batch of help.
“People at First Friday are so supportive and because of that, we were able to recoup the losses,” Yusuf said.
With the help of fellow vendors and even more customers, he quadrupled his profits. Yusuf says he’s overwhelmed by the response.
“I don’t know how this got out, but I’ve been having people sending me 10, 20 bucks on Venmo just showing support.”
While the money will likely never be found, he says he will be back at Frist Friday and is now in the process of gathering the right ingredients to open a brick-and-mortar location on Roosevelt Row.
Hoping to turn a bitter pill into sweet success.
“This event has made me want to go even harder. That part of Phoenix is the best part of Phoenix. So vibrant and so much character,” he says.
Up to Speed
Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe today.
Read More…
25 Deals From Amazons Fall Prime Day Event That Make For Great Gifts
25 Deals From Amazon’s Fall Prime Day Event That Make For Great Gifts https://digitalarizonanews.com/25-deals-from-amazons-fall-prime-day-event-that-make-for-great-gifts/
Looking to get a head start on your holiday shopping? Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale offers an excellent opportunity to do so ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There are currently a bunch of fun gifts you can buy that are on sale at record lows, whether you’re looking to gift a pair of the new AirPods Pro or an instant camera like Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 11. If you’re in need of ideas, we’ve curated a guide to some of the best deals on popular presents you can buy right now. What’s more, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart are matching Amazon’s prices in many instances, meaning you don’t need to be a Prime member to take advantage of the discounts elsewhere.
Also, if you want to check out even more deals besides the ones we’ve listed here, be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to the best Prime Early Access deals overall. We also recently published our fall gift guide, which is filled with new items as well as seasonal picks.
Choose a price range
Gifts under $50
$9.98
This puck-like Echo Dot is the third generation of Amazon’s smart speaker. It offers better sound than its predecessor, a compact design, and all the smarts that come with owning an Alexa device.
You can gift your loved ones the third-gen Echo Dot — which offers decent sound and Alexa functionality — so they can set alarms, get weather reports, and carry out a range of other voice-enabled tasks. Prime members can buy it right now with a month of Amazon Music Unlimited for $9.98 ($39 off) or with a free Amazon Smart Plug for $17.99 ($22 off). If you’re not a Prime member, it’s also available at Target for $17.99 ($22 off. Read our review.
You can also buy the latest Echo Show 5 smart display with an Amazon Smart Plug for just $34.99 ($75 off). It’s a small smart display, but it shares the same Alexa functionality as other devices in the Echo lineup and makes for a good smart alarm clock you can quickly snooze by tapping the top. Read our review.
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max is available at Amazon for just $34.99 ($20 off) right now. This is a terrific streaming stick, one that supports Wi-Fi 6 and boasts a large app selection. Read our review.
With the myQ smart garage controller, your giftee can open and close their garage door remotely. The device also works with Amazon Key In-Garage Delivery, meaning it will allow Amazon drivers to securely deliver packages to their garage if they wish. Right now, it’s on sale at Amazon for $16.98 instead of $29.99.
$42.49
Razer’s Switch-like controller is designed for mobile gaming and cloud-based gaming services.
If your giftee loves to game, they may appreciate receiving the Android-compatible Razer Kishi mobile controller, which works with cloud gaming platforms like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It’s currently available on Amazon for $42.49 instead of $99.99.
Lego’s ultra-cute Succulents kit is on sale at Amazon right now for $41.99 ($8 off), matching the set’s best price to date. It’s a great gift for a dorm or home office, namely because you can’t kill it like you might normal cacti.
The Amazfit Band 7 can help your giftee keep track of their health and fitness goals and offers features like SpO2 monitoring, 5ATM of water resistance, Alexa compatibility, and long battery life. Right now, Amazon is taking $10 off the tracker, selling it for $39.99.
Exploding Kittens, a popular party-pleaser from the team behind The Oatmeal, is on sale right now for $16.49 (about $7 off). Unlike the base game, the apt-titled Party Pack accommodates up to 10 players.
You can’t go wrong gifting a gift card, especially when it’s one that gives you, the person giving the gift, $10 in Amazon credit. Right now, Amazon is throwing in $10 in credit when you buy a $50 gift card and use promo code NEWGC2022 at checkout. You can also get $10 in Amazon credit when you buy $50 gift cards you can redeem at other places like Grubhub and AMC Theatres using promo code YOU22.
Gifts between $50 and $150
$59.99
Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 11 is the best instant camera for most people. While it lacks more advanced features, the simple instant camera takes good quality shots quickly and easily and offers a built-in selfie mode.
We consider Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 11 to be the best instant camera for most people, one that’s fun and easy to use for all ages and prints good photos. Right now, you can gift it for just $59.99 instead of $76.99 — an all-time low — at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy.
The 10-ounce Ember Mug 2 is available in the copper colorway for $109.49 instead of $149.99. The ceramic mug wirelessly charges using the included coaster and can maintain the temperature of your choice for a maximum of 90 minutes.
You can buy Amazon’s second-gen Echo Show 8, which is our favorite smart display, at Amazon and Target for $69.99 ($60 off). In addition to getting weather updates and news, you can use the latest Echo Show 8 to make Zoom calls, stream shows, and more. Read our review.
$99.99
Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite has a 6.8-inch E Ink display with adjustable color temperature for nighttime reading. It also boasts a faster processor, additional battery life, IPX8 waterproofing, and — finally — a USB-C port.
For bibliophiles, you can gift Amazon’s latest ad-supported Kindle Paperwhite with 8GB of storage, which is on sale for $99.99 instead of $139.99 at Amazon and Target. You can also buy the ad-free model for $119.99 ($40 off). The newest Paperwhite is waterproof and outfitted with a crisp, 300ppi resolution display, not to mention months-long battery life. Read our review.
$149
The Bose Frames Tempo are Bluetooth-equipped audio sunglasses that are designed to fit right in with an active lifestyle.
Bose’s Bluetooth-equipped Frames Tempo could make for a fun, more interesting gift for music lovers than a traditional pair of earbuds. The unique sunglasses offer good sound quality and a steady fit. You can currently buy them for $100 off at Amazon and Best Buy, where they’re available for $149. Check out our review.
Amazon’s Fire HD 10 stands out from the rest of Amazon’s budget-friendly Fire tablets, thanks to its sharp 1080p display and good performance. Right now, you can buy it with ads and 32GB of storage for $74.99 (50 percent off) or without ads for $89.99 ($75 off). Read our review.
Verge Deals on Twitter /
Join over 50,000 followers and keep up with the best daily tech deals with @vergedeals
Follow us!
Gifts between $150 and $350
$223.24
Apple’s latest AirPods Pro take after the last-gen model but include swipe controls and a new H2 chip that allows for improved noise cancellation. They also come with a water-resistant charging case that offers support for Apple’s robust Find My network.
The second-gen AirPods Pro are on sale today for $223.24 instead of $249. Apple’s newest pair of wireless earbuds sport a similar design to their predecessor but make use of swipe-based controls and better noise cancellation. Read our review.
You can buy the entry-level iPad with 64GB of storage and Wi-Fi for $268.99 instead of $329 at Amazon. Just be mindful that this model may soon become outdated if Apple announces a newer version, which may happen relatively soon.
The Peloton Guide is a great gift for those trying to get in shape. The camera can track your movements to make sure you’re exercising with perfect form and is currently on sale at Amazon for $250 ($45 off).
Eufy’s terrific Dual video doorbell with HomeBase 2 will help your giftee monitor package deliveries without needing to fork out extra money on monthly fees. For a limited time, it’s on sale for an all-time low of $179.99 ($80 off). Read our video doorbell buying guide.
$348
With a fresh design, improved comfort, refined sound, and even better active noise cancellation, Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones offer a compelling mix of features for their premium price.
The Sony WH-1000XM5 are some of the best headphones on the market, thanks to their fantastic noise cancellation, tight sound, and solid voice call quality. You can currently buy them on Amazon for $348 ($51.99 off).
Gifts over $350
$679.99
This mopping / vacuum hybrid robot is one of the best double-duty vacuums on the market. Its sonic-mopping tech scrubs your floors but lifts up the mop to vacuum your carpets without getting them wet. In its Plus configuration, it comes with an auto-emptying cleaning and charging station — the “Rock Dock.”
A high-end robot vacuum like the Roborock S7 Plus makes for a good gift and is a little less expensive today now that it’s selling for $679.99 at Amazon ($270 off). This is one of our favorite robot vacuums, one that can lift up its mopping pad when it goes over carpet. This model also comes with an auto-empty dock for sucking debris out of the bin.
If you’ve got the money, LG’s C2 Evo OLED is a present that will certainly be well received. Right now, you can buy the 42-inch model at Amazon for just $996.99 ($400 off), which is its lowest price ever. This is LG’s latest OLED TV, one that features a brighter display than its predecessor, as well as the best image processing.
It may not be as fast as the new M2-powered model, but Apple’s M1-powered MacBook Air is still an excellent laptop that delivers great performance and battery life. You can buy it right now at Amazon with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for just $799 instead of $999, which is its lowest price to date. Read our review.
For gamers, you can gift Samsung’s 49-inch Odyssey G9 for $999.99 instead of $1,499.99. The behemoth ultrawide monitor boasts ultrawide QHD resolution and up to a 240Hz refresh rate. Read our review.
Verge Deals
/ Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we’ve tested sent to your inbox daily.
Read More Here
Myanmar Court Extends Aung San Suu Kyi's Prison Sentence To 26 Years | CNN
Myanmar Court Extends Aung San Suu Kyi's Prison Sentence To 26 Years | CNN https://digitalarizonanews.com/myanmar-court-extends-aung-san-suu-kyis-prison-sentence-to-26-years-cnn/
CNN —
A court in military-run Myanmar has sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s deposed former leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to three additional years in jail for corruption, a source familiar with the case told CNN, extending her total prison term to 26 years.
Wednesday’s verdict is the latest in a string of punishments meted out against the 77-year-old, a figurehead of opposition to decades of military rule who led Myanmar for five years before being forced from power in a coup in early 2021.
Suu Kyi was found guilty of receiving $500,000 in bribes from a local tycoon, a charge she denied, according to the source. Her lawyers have said the series of crimes leveled against her are politically motivated.
Suu Kyi is currently being held in solitary confinement at a prison in the capital Naypyidaw.
Last month, Suu Kyi was found guilty of electoral fraud and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor, in a trial related to the November 2020 general election that her National League for Democracy won in a landslide, defeating a party created by the military.
It was the first time Suu Kyi had been sentenced to hard labor since the 2021 military coup. She was given the same punishment in a separate trial under a previous administration in 2009 but that sentence was commuted.
Suu Kyi has also previously been found guilty of offenses ranging from graft to election violations.
Rights groups have repeatedly expressed concerns about the punishment of pro-democracy activists in the country since the military seized power.
Also sentenced Wednesday was Toru Kubota, 26, a Japanese journalist who received an additional three years in prison on charges of violating an immigration law, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told CNN.
That sentence comes in addition to the 10 years Kubota received last week on charges of sedition and violating a law on electronic communications. Those charges relate to his filming of an anti-government protest in July, a Japanese diplomat said.
The ministry said the Japanese government will continue to ask Myanmar authorities to release Kubota “at the earliest possible date.”
Kubota was arrested by plainclothes police in Yangon, where he was filming a documentary that he had been working on for several years, according to a Change.org petition calling for his release.
In July, the military junta executed two prominent pro-democracy activists and two other men accused of terrorism, following a trial condemned by the UN and rights groups.
Read More Here
Google Allows Donald Trump https://digitalarizonanews.com/google-allows-donald-trump/
Washington [US], October 13 (ANI): Former President Donald Trump’s social media app Truth Social is now available for download on the Google Play Store, as per The Verge.
The outlet has shared that Truth Social, which was banned by Google over “insufficient” content moderation policies, offers a Twitter-like social experience and markets itself as a platform that “encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation.”Before attempting to launch on the Google Play Store, Trump’s social media app first launched on the Apple App Store in February.
According to The Verge, in a statement, Google said that apps on the Google Play Store are permitted as long as they “comply with our developer guidelines. This includes the requirement to effectively moderate user-generated content and remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence.”The company added that Truth Social has agreed to enforce the moderation measures on user-generated content that Google requires.
Previously, after issuing a ban following the Capitol riots, Google had also reinstated Parler, a similarly focused app.
Apart from policy violations that initially prevented its app launch on Android, the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) owned Truth Social has also been facing financial issues related to its repeatedly delayed SPAC, as per The Verge.
The outlet reported that Digital World Acquisition Corp, the shell company set to merge with TMTG and take it public, delayed the process and has now scheduled its shareholder vote on November 3. (ANI)
Read More Here
Google Approves Trump's 'Truth Social' For Download After Content Moderation Updates WWAYTV3
Google Approves Trump's 'Truth Social' For Download After Content Moderation Updates – WWAYTV3 https://digitalarizonanews.com/google-approves-trumps-truth-social-for-download-after-content-moderation-updates-wwaytv3/
Google approves “Truth Social” for Play Store (Photo: Pexels / Andrea Hanks / White House)
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (CNN) – Google has approved the app for former President Trump’s social media platform for the Google Play Store.
“Truth Social” will now be downloadable to Android smart-phones through Google’s proprietary app store.
This follows the social media’s platform’s implementation of stronger content moderation policies.
Specifically, Google had insisted on policies that sufficiently address incitement and threats of violence.
The search giant had also said social media apps on the Google Play Store must provide an in-app system for reporting objectionable content.
Truth Social was already available to some Android devices through non-Google sources like the Samsung Galaxy Store.
Under Truth Social’s policies, user content encouraging violence “may result in” the content or the account creating it being removed from the platform.
Read More Here
Oath Keeper Testifies That Large Weapons Cache Was Prepared In Virginia Ahead Of Jan. 6 Riot
Oath Keeper Testifies That Large Weapons Cache Was Prepared In Virginia Ahead Of Jan. 6 Riot https://digitalarizonanews.com/oath-keeper-testifies-that-large-weapons-cache-was-prepared-in-virginia-ahead-of-jan-6-riot/
Terry Cummings, a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, told a jury on Wednesday that members had put together a large weapons cache in a Virginia hotel room the night before rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cummings, a 21-year military veteran from Oregon who has not been charged with a crime, was in Washington on the day of the attack and testified in court after receiving a subpoena.
The weapons cache is a key component of the Justice Department’s case against Oath Keepers leadership, including founder Stewart Rhodes and codefendants Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Thomas Caldwell. Each is on trial for multiple felony counts, the most serious being seditious conspiracy, and all have pleaded not guilty.
Cummings — the first Oath Keepers member who was actually in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 to testify at trial — said he brought an AR-15 and ammunition box with him to Virginia in case of rioting in the district, calling the weapon a “show of force,” but he claimed he did not intend on using it offensively. He kept the firearm with others brought by fellow Oath Keepers in a hotel room in Virginia, according to his testimony, because he knew bringing the weapon into the District of Columbia would be illegal.
“I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,” Cummings told the jury. Prosecutors presented his rifle and ammunition box to the jury as evidence.
The Justice Department alleges the Oath Keepers amassed the stockpile to aid them in an armed rebellion against the government, targeting the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden. Their plan, prosecutors say, was to store the weapons in Virginia and transfer them across state lines into D.C. using a “Quick Reaction Force,” or QRF.
Members of the Oath Keepers on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
Cummings testified that he had joined the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6 with the intention of joining a “security detail” for attendees of Trump’s Stop the Steal rally, which immediately preceded the Capitol attack. During the rally, he and other Oath Keepers in his group stood yards away from the former president and followed the crowd to the Capitol building with Harrelson.
Later, Cummings said he split from the mob for a bathroom break, and during that time, he says Harrelson and other Oath Keepers left their positions to enter the Capitol building. Cummings did not enter the Capitol building on Jan. 6, and regrouped with the other militia members after they exited.
During cross examination, Cummings reiterated his reasoning for being around the Capitol on Jan. 6 was to serve as security detail for a person he understood to be a state representative.
Cummings testified that he recalled no mention of the certification of the Electoral College votes occurring at the Capitol. Nor did he hear any discussion of entering the Capitol, adding that if he had, he would have notified authorities. And while he heard Meggs say the Capitol had been breached, he said didn’t hear the whole context of Meggs’ conversation.
FBI Special Agent Kelsey Harris – normally tasked with investigating international and domestic terrorism – took the stand on Wednesday. He said he has investigated several dozen cases involving the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
Using video evidence played for the jury, Harris said that Meggs and four others, including Meggs’ wife, Connie – who faces Jan. 6 charges of her own and pleaded not guilty – participated in several combat training exercises at the end of 2020.
Thursday’s proceedings began with testimony from two FBI special agents, Justin Eller and Joanna Abrams. Eller first took the stand on Wednesday and told the jury of Meggs’ communications before the Jan. 6 attack. In one message exchange in December 2020, Eller said Meggs and a recruit to her Ohio militia group allegedly discussed getting comfortable “with the idea of death.” Messages also revealed she discussed weaponry.
During cross examination, also on Wednesday, Eller revealed Meggs stored weapons in defendant Thomas Caldwell’s Virginia home during the Jan. 6 attack and did not bring them to the D.C. area. At times, Eller also struggled to answer questions from some of the defense attorneys regarding his memory of digital evidence uncovered during the investigation.
For her part, Special Agent Abrams testified about a group chat among members of the Georgia Oath Keepers planning to travel to Washington.
In the weeks leading up to the attack on Jan. 6, Rhodes and others allegedly sent messages predicting civil war and comparing their endeavor with Revolutionary War figures. “If he doesn’t use the Insurrection Act to keep a ChiCom puppet out of the White House, then we will have to fight a bloody revolution/civil war to defeat the traitors,” Rhodes wrote of Trump, claiming falsely that then-President-elect Biden was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
The encrypted messages presented as part of Abrams’ testimony included those sent by two one-time members of the Oath Keepers who have since agreed to cooperate with investigations and pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, the most severe charge any defendants currently on trial face.
Joshua James and Brian Ulrich, among others, were discussing the organization of Oath Keepers ahead of Jan. 6.
“Trump acts now maybe a few hundred radicals die trying to burn down cities. Trump sits on his hands, Biden wins, millions die resisting the death of the 1st and 2nd amendment,” Ulrich wrote.
The messages also showed that the Oath Keepers were cognizant of D.C. gun laws and left their firearms in the Virginia hotel instead of bringing them into the capital city, waiting for Trump to call upon them to use arms. And during cross examination, Abrams said the text messages presented during her testimony did not explicitly discuss an offensive plan to enter the Capitol building.
Rob Legare contributed reporting
.
Read More Here
Witness Contradicts Theory Against Trump Dossier Analyst
Witness Contradicts Theory Against Trump Dossier Analyst https://digitalarizonanews.com/witness-contradicts-theory-against-trump-dossier-analyst/
Witness contradicts theory against Trump dossier analyst – CBS19 News
Read More Here
Trump Worker Told FBI About Moving Mar-A-Lago Boxes On Ex-Presidents Orders
Trump Worker Told FBI About Moving Mar-A-Lago Boxes On Ex-President’s Orders https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-worker-told-fbi-about-moving-mar-a-lago-boxes-on-ex-presidents-orders-2/
A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account — combined with security-camera footage — offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material.
The witness description and footage described to The Washington Post offer the most direct account to date of Trump’s actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of the Florida residence and private club, in which agents were looking for evidence of potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information.
The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer detailed questions for this article. “The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power,” Budowich said in a statement. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified.”
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
Budowich accused the Justice Department of a “continued effort to leak misleading and false information to partisan allies in the Fake News,” and said that to do so “is nothing more than dangerous political interference and unequal justice. Simply put, it’s un-American.”
The employee who was working at Mar-a-Lago is cooperating with the Justice Department and has been interviewed multiple times by federal agents, according to the people familiar with the situation, who declined to identify the worker.
In the first interview, these people said, the witness denied handling sensitive documents or the boxes that might contain such documents. As they gathered evidence, agents decided to re-interview the witness, and the witness’s story changed dramatically, these people said. In the second interview, the witness described moving boxes at Trump’s request.
The witness is now considered a key part of the Mar-a-Lago investigation, these people said, offering details about the former president’s alleged actions and instructions to subordinates that could have been an attempt to thwart federal officials’ demands for the return of classified and government documents.
Multiple witnesses have told the FBI they tried to talk Trump into cooperating with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department as those agencies for months sought the return of sensitive or historical government records, people familiar with the situation said.
But entreaties from advisers and lawyers who pushed for Trump to hand the documents back fell on deaf ears with Trump, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump grew angry this spring after a House Oversight Committee investigation was launched, telling aides they’d “screwed up” the situation, according to people who heard his comments. “They’re my documents,” Trump said, according to an aide who spoke to him.
The details shared with The Post reveal two key parts of the criminal probe that until now had been shrouded in secrecy: an account from a witness who worked for and took directions from Trump, and the way that security footage from Mar-a-Lago has played an important role in buttressing witness accounts.
Together, those pieces of evidence helped convince the FBI and Justice Department to seek the court-authorized search of Trump’s residence, office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, which resulted in the seizure of 103 documents that were marked classified and had not been turned over to the government in response to the May subpoena. Some of the documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. The Aug. 8 search also yielded about 11,000 documents not marked classified.
The failure or possible refusal to return the classified documents in response to the subpoena is at the heart of the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation, which is one of several high-profile, ongoing probes involving Trump. The former president remains the most influential figure in the Republican Party and talks openly about running for the White House again in 2024.
Within Trump’s orbit, there have been months of dueling accusations and theories about who may be cooperating with the federal government. Some of the former president’s closest aides have continued to work with Trump even as they have seen FBI agents show up at their houses to question them and serve subpoenas.
Within the Justice Department and FBI, the witness’s account has been a closely held secret as agents continue to gather evidence in the high-stakes investigation. In addition to wanting to keep the information they have gathered so far under wraps, people familiar with the situation said, authorities are also concerned that if or when the witness’s identity eventually becomes public, that person could face harassment or threats from Trump supporters.
In a filing to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers appeared to allude to witness accounts and the video footage when they wrote: “The FBI uncovered evidence that the response to the grand jury subpoena was incomplete, that additional classified documents likely remained at Mar-a-Lago, and that efforts had likely been taken to obstruct the investigation.”
Since the Aug. 8 search, Trump has offered a number of public defenses of why documents with classified markings remained at Mar-a-Lago — saying he declassified the secret documents, suggesting that the FBI planted evidence during the search, and suggesting that as a former president he may have had a right to keep classified documents. National security law experts have overwhelmingly dismissed such claims, saying they range from far-fetched to nonsensical.
Officials at the National Archives began seeking the return of documents last year, after they came to believe that some presidential records from the Trump administration — such as letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — were unaccounted for, and perhaps in Trump’s possession.
After months of back-and-forth, Trump agreed in January to turn over 15 boxes of material. When archivists examined the material, they found 184 documents marked classified, including 25 marked top secret, which were scattered throughout the boxes in no particular order, according to court filings.
That discovery suggested to authorities that Trump had not turned over all the classified documents in his possession. In May, a grand jury subpoena demanded the return of classified documents with a wide variety of markings, including a category used for secrets about nuclear weapons.
In response to that subpoena, Trump’s advisers met with government agents and prosecutors at Mar-a-Lago in early June, handing over a sealed envelope containing another 38 classified documents, including 17 marked top secret, according to court papers. According to government filings, Trump’s representatives claimed at the meeting that a diligent search had been conducted for all classified documents at the club.
That meeting, which included a visit to the storage room where Trump’s advisers said the relevant boxes of documents were kept, did not satisfy investigators, who were not allowed to inspect the boxes they saw in the storage room, according to government court filings.
Five days later, senior Justice Department official Jay Bratt wrote to Trump’s lawyers to remind them that Mar-a-Lago “does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information.” Bratt wrote that it appears classified documents “have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location.”
“Accordingly, we ask that the room at Mar-a-Lago where the documents had been stored be secured and that all of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago (along with any other items in that room) be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.”
Agents continued to gather evidence that Trump was apparently not complying with either government requests or subpoena demands. After significant deliberation, aware that it would be highly unusual for federal agents to search a former president’s home, they decided to seek a judge’s approval to do so.
That Aug. 8 search turned up, in a matter of hours, 103 documents marked classified, including 18 marked top secret, according to court papers. The stash included at least one document that described a foreign country’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.
Read More Here
Google Lets Donald Trump's Truth Social Into Play Store
Google Lets Donald Trump's Truth Social Into Play Store https://digitalarizonanews.com/google-lets-donald-trumps-truth-social-into-play-store/
The Donald Trump-backed Truth Social is live in Google’s Play Store following a months-long delay due to concerns over its content moderation policies. The two sides had been going back and forth about the app’s approval since late August, according to Axios.
Truth Social launched in Apple’s App Store back in February, but up until now Android users either had to use the web version of the service or sideload the app. Google had reportedly flagged content moderation issues on the app, including physical threats and content that incited violence.
Google requires that apps with user generated content have policies to prevent abusive behavior, like violent threats, as well as mechanisms for enforcing those rules. Truth Social’s service apparently didn’t meet those standards when it first tried to launch on Android in August. But the company has apparently now resolved those concerns.
“Apps may be distributed on Google Play provided they comply with our developer guidelines, including the requirement to effectively moderate user-generated content and remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
Truth Social isn’t the only app that’s received extra scrutiny over this policy. Google cited the same conditions when it took Parler out of its app store last January. The app was reinstated last month.
Read More Here
Trump Supporters Convicted Of Bringing Guns To Philadelphia After 2020 Election
Trump Supporters Convicted Of Bringing Guns To Philadelphia After 2020 Election https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-supporters-convicted-of-bringing-guns-to-philadelphia-after-2020-election/
WASHINGTON — Two Donald Trump supporters who traveled to Philadelphia with guns after the 2020 presidential election were convicted on weapons charges on Wednesday, but acquitted on three election-related counts.
Joshua Macias and Antonio LaMotta, both of Virginia, were arrested in Philadelphia on Nov. 5, 2020, near the Philadelphia Convention Center, where votes were being counted following the presidential election. The pair traveled to Philadelphia in a silver Hummer bearing a QAnon sticker and were found to be carrying a Beretta 9mm pistol and a concealed Beretta .40 caliber handgun, while storing an AR-15 style weapon inside their truck, along with around 160 rounds of ammunition.
A judge convicted both Macias and LaMotta on gun charges on Wednesday, but the duo were acquitted on the election-related counts, according to Lauren Mayk of NBC10 in Philadelphia, who was in the courtroom. The pair had faced three elections-related charges: interference with primaries/elections, hindering performance of duty, and conspiracy-interference with primaries/elections.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said it believed the case was the most serious state election-related prosecution in Pennsylvania that grew out of the 2020 election.
District Attorney Larry Krasner said the felony convictions under the Uniform Firearms Act would prevent Macias and LaMotta from owning firearms under both Virginia law and federal law. Both were convicted on two counts, he said, while praising the “collaborative investigative work” that led to their arrest.
“While we respect the court’s authority and decision today, it seems clear that post-January 6th, the decades-old statute regarding Interference with Primaries and Elections ought to be revisited and improved by the Pennsylvania Legislature,” Krasner said. “I encourage every Pennsylvanian who loves democracy and equality to vote this November for legislators who will seek to extend democratic participation to all Americans — not seize it by force or impeachment from political opponents.”
LaMotta, as NBC News previously reported, was arrested on separate charges in August after online sleuths spotted him in footage that showed him inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Macias has not been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, but was present at a meeting between Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys head Enrique Tarrio that took place in a Washington, D.C., parking garage the night of Jan. 5, 2021.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Read More Here
AZ Supreme Court Schedules Execution For Murray Hooper
AZ Supreme Court Schedules Execution For Murray Hooper https://digitalarizonanews.com/az-supreme-court-schedules-execution-for-murray-hooper/
Hooper is expected to be the third death row inmate to be executed this year after Arizona went eight years without carrying out executions.
PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court has granted the warrant of execution for death row inmate Murray Hooper, scheduling him to undergo lethal injection on Nov. 16.
The 76-year-old Hooper could be the third inmate put to death this year after Arizona recently resumed carrying out executions. The state hadn’t executed anyone for eight years until Clarence Dixon was put to death on May 11.
Hooper was one of three suspects convicted of killing two people at a Phoenix residence in 1980.
Hooper, William Bracy, and Edward McCall (a former Phoenix police officer) had invaded the home of Patrick Redmond as he and his family were preparing for a New Year’s Eve party.
The trio held the family at gunpoint as they snatched jewelry and money from the residence. Redmond’s throat was slashed, and his wife and mother-in-law were both shot in the head. Redmond’s wife survived the attack.
The state’s high court granted the motion for a warrant of Hooper’s execution on Wednesday.
Kelly Culshaw, an assistant federal public defender representing Hooper, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
When Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced in July he intended to seek the warrant, he called death “the appropriate response … for the victims, their families and our communities.”
The state hadn’t executed anyone for nearly eight years before Clarence Dixon died by lethal injection in May for the 1978 murder of a 21-year-old Arizona State University student.
Frank Atwood was executed in June at the state prison in Florence for the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old Tucson girl.
There are 111 inmates on Arizona’s death row, and 22 have exhausted their appeals, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
Up to Speed
Catch up on the latest news and stories on our 12News YouTube playlist here.
Read More…
Ukraine War: UN General Assembly Condemns Russia Annexation
Ukraine War: UN General Assembly Condemns Russia Annexation https://digitalarizonanews.com/ukraine-war-un-general-assembly-condemns-russia-annexation/
Image source, EPA
Image caption,
A screen at the UN in New York shows how some nations voted with green, red and yellow markers
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s attempts to annex four regions of Ukraine.
The resolution was supported by 143 countries, while 35 states – including China and India – abstained.
As well as Russia, four countries rejected the vote, namely Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Nicaragua.
Although symbolic, it was the highest number of votes against Russia since the invasion.
Last week, in a grand ceremony in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin signed documents to make the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson part of Russia.
The agreements were signed with the Moscow-installed leaders of the four regions, and came after self-proclaimed referendums in the areas that were denounced as a “sham” by the West.
The resolution calls on the international community not to recognise any of Russia’s annexation claim and demands its “immediate reversal”. It welcomes and “expresses its strong support” for efforts to de-escalate the conflict through negotiation.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was grateful to the countries that supported it.
“The world had its say – [Russia’s] attempts at annexation is worthless and will never be recognised by free nations,” he tweeted, adding that Ukraine would “return all its lands”.
Dame Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the UN, said Russia had failed on the battlefield and at the UN, adding that countries had united to defend the world body’s charter.
“Russia has isolated itself, but Russia alone can stop the suffering. The time to end the war is now,” she said.
The General Assembly vote was triggered after Russia used its veto power to prevent action at the Security Council – the body in charge of maintaining international peace and security. As permanent members, China, the United States, France and the United Kingdom also hold vetoes on the council.
There have been calls for Russia to be stripped of its veto power after the Ukraine invasion.
Read More Here
The Sicilian Butcher Signs Deal With Savory Fund To Fuel Growth AZ Big Media
The Sicilian Butcher Signs Deal With Savory Fund To Fuel Growth – AZ Big Media https://digitalarizonanews.com/the-sicilian-butcher-signs-deal-with-savory-fund-to-fuel-growth-az-big-media/
The Scottsdale-based restaurant group, The Maggiore Group, and private equity firm Savory Fund announced today the companies have formed a capital growth partnership to expand restaurant concepts The Sicilian Butcher with sister company The Sicilian Baker with an undisclosed investment amount. Within the next four years, The Maggiore Group and Savory will grow from three locations of The Sicilian Butcher and The Sicilian Baker and open nearly 20 new units in Arizona and beyond.
“Both The Sicilian Butcher and The Sicilian Baker have filled a void in the Italian restaurant segment with a fresh, forward-thinking, experiential approach,” said Andrew K. Smith, managing director and co-founder of the Savory Fund. “It’s an elevated, family-friendly, home-away-from-home dining experience that is both unique and unforgettable.”
READ ALSO: Ranking Arizona: Top 10 best places to live for 2022
The Maggiore Group’s co-founders Joey and Cristina Maggiore, along with business partner Flora Tersigni, debuted The Sicilian Butcher and its sister concept The Sicilian Baker in 2017. Its first locations were in the North Phoenix/Paradise Valley area, and then added additional locations in Chandler and Peoria. The Sicilian Butcher is a unique fast-casual dining concept with quality Italian and Sicilian-inspired bruschetta and charcuterie boards, pizza alla palla, pasta dishes, and a create-your-own meatball experience where guests choose from a variety of craft meatballs, sauces, and bases such as risotto, polenta, and fresh handmade pasta. Connected next door to The Sicilian Butcher is the cannoli bar, coffee bar, and bakery at The Sicilian Baker, where guests can order post-dinner espresso drinks, customize their own cannoli creations, and grab authentic Sicilian and Italian pastries, gelato and desserts.
“The Savory Fund will take The Sicilian Butcher and The Sicilian Baker to the next level with their growth strategies, savvy restaurant operations plans, and proven track record in successfully scaling from coast to coast,” said Joey Maggiore, co-founder of The Maggiore Group. “With every opening of The Sicilian Butcher, we have honored my Sicilian father and legendary chef with a photo wall dedicated to him, and we will continue his legacy in each state we bring these concepts to.”
The Savory Restaurant Fund comes with leadership guidance from industry veterans including Savory Co-founders and Managing Directors Andrew K. Smith and Greg Warnock and operating veterans from the Savory Management team led by Chief Executive Officer, Shauna Smith. The Savory management team will assist The Sicilian Butcher and The Sicilian Baker’s real estate selection and negotiation, leadership training and development, supply chain/procurement, human resources, accounting, strategic financial planning, facilities management, and sales and marketing. Co-founders and husband-and-wife team, Joey and Cristina Maggiore, will continue to be involved with the restaurant brands’ growth. Joey will be instrumental in food and beverage consistency, kitchen operations, and creative menu development and Cristina Maggiore will oversee the restaurant design and brand marketing as the concepts broaden their locations.
Prior to this joint venture, Savory Fund became partners of The Maggiore Group’s brunch-centric and Bloody Mary bar concept, Hash Kitchen, which will open two new Phoenix area locations in Gilbert and in Glendale by end of year and beginning of 2023 and has seven upcoming locations outside of Arizona.
Read More Here
Premium Granite LLC Is Providing Free Estimates To Homeowners In Mesa AZ Digital Journal
Premium Granite, LLC Is Providing Free Estimates To Homeowners In Mesa, AZ – Digital Journal https://digitalarizonanews.com/premium-granite-llc-is-providing-free-estimates-to-homeowners-in-mesa-az-digital-journal/
Premium Granite, LLC is a business that provides countertop services in Mesa, AZ. These professionals are currently providing free estimates to homeowners for these countertop services.
Mesa, AZ – Premium Granite, LLC is providing free, no-obligation estimates to residents in the city. This team comes to each person’s home to create an accurate estimate before getting started.
Premium Granite, LLC is a family-owned and operated business in the city of Mesa, AZ. This team describes itself as a one-stop shop for all countertop needs. As a Mesa Kitchen Remodeler that is a buyer, supplier, fabricator, and installer of countertops, they seek to make the entire process simple for each customer.
For the countertop services provided by Premium Granite, LLC, they shared that they are providing free, no-obligation estimates to customers that are seeking to invest in Mesa Kitchen Remodeling. When providing an estimate to the homeowner, this remodeling team comes to the person’s home to provide accurate pricing for the services.
Premium Granite, LLC states that they bring samples and take exact measurements of each kitchen to supply the customer with a free estimate that they can trust. With custom measurements and accurate templates, the Mesa Kitchen Remodeling Contractor ensures that the project is properly planned out and executed.
About Us
Premium Granite, LLC is a family-owned and operated business that is located in the city of Mesa, AZ. This business was established in the year 2004 when it began providing services to residents throughout the area. With nearly 20 years of home improvement assistance, this experienced team provides countertop services to homeowners in the state of Arizona. When starting the business, this team sought to eliminate the middleman to provide a more seamless experience for the customer. With quality materials and competitive pricing, these professionals leave customers with the peace of mind that they need in these projects.
Media Contact
Company Name: Premium Granite LLC
Contact Person: Clint Ray
Email: Send Email
Phone: (480) 527-0925
Address:748 S Drew St
City: Mesa
State: AZ 85210
Country: United States
Website: http://www.premiumgranite.com/
Read More Here
Jan. 6 Panels Likely Final Hearing To Focus On Trumps state Of Mind
Jan. 6 Panel’s Likely Final Hearing To Focus On Trump’s ‘state Of Mind’ https://digitalarizonanews.com/jan-6-panels-likely-final-hearing-to-focus-on-trumps-state-of-mind/
The House committee investigating last year’s attack on the Capitol will assemble Thursday for what could be its final public hearing ahead of the midterms, promising to delve into former President Trump’s state of mind in a presentation designed to tie up a host of loose ends before the panel dissolves at the end of the year.
Through eight hearings in June and July, the committee had aired damning evidence revealing the extent to which Trump and members of his inner circle had sought to leverage the powers of the presidency to keep him in office despite his election defeat — a campaign that crescendoed in the violent rampage at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But 16 months into the probe, investigators face the daunting task of crunching evidence gleaned from tens-of-thousands of documents and more than 1,000 witness interviews, packaging it into a concise closing argument and delivering it in the form of a compelling narrative capable of convincing voters that Trump and his supporters pose an ongoing threat to America’s democratic institutions.
For more than two hours on Thursday, they will begin that process.
“We’re going to bring a particular focus on the former president’s state of mind and his involvement in these events as they unfolded,” a committee aide told reporters Wednesday.
“So what you’re going to see is a synthesis of some evidence we’ve already presented with that new never before seen information to illustrate Donald Trump’s centrality from the time prior to the election,” the aide said.
Such information could be key for Trump’s legal culpability, as many potential charges relating to the insurrection rely on demonstrating intent. As a separate matter, the committee still has to decide whether it will make criminal referrals based on its findings to the Justice Department, which is conducting its own wide-ranging investigation.
“We have not reached a conclusion on that at this point,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the committee, told CNN on Friday.
In a departure from prior hearings where one or two members were primarily responsible for walking through evidence and witness questions, in Thursday’s hearing, each participant on the nine-member panel will have a role. The panel is also not planning to have any live witness testimony for the hearing.
“In June and July, we zeroed in for the most part on a particular topic as we laid out a multi-step plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election and block transfer of power,” the aide said.
“Tomorrow what we’re going to be doing is taking a step back.”
The hearing comes after the panel rescheduled what was originally slated to be a late September event due to Hurricane Ian, delaying by two weeks their presentation and pushing it closer to the midterm elections.
The panel has pledged to offer up details on the evidence they collected throughout the summer, with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) saying the committee was struggling with how to present an “avalanche” of new information.
Among the details the committee is expected to share Thursday are new information gleaned from documents turned over by the Secret Service as well as clips from a documentary crew that followed Trump confidant Roger Stone.
The Secret Service turned over more than a million digital communications to the committee, far exceeding the information the panel requested.
Emails obtained by The Washington Post that were given to the committee by the Secret Service show that the agency was concerned about the armed supporters who were resistant to going through security to enter the Ellipse for Trump’s speech, a detail first revealed during the committee’s hearing with witness Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide.
The emails also reportedly show the extent the White House was warned of the deteriorating situation at the Capitol, including resistance to Trump’s desired plan to make the journey to Capitol Hill alongside his supporters.
Other emails discuss Trump’s anger at being blocked from making the trip, though it is not clear whether the panel will be able to corroborate Hutchinson’s account – recounted to her in the presence of Trump’s lead security officer that day – that he lunged at his security detail on a drive from the Ellipse to the White House.
Additional evidence collected over the summer includes footage obtained following an international journey by investigative staff, who traveled to Denmark in August to meet with a documentary film crew that spent three years following Stone.
The crew was with Stone in Washington on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, capturing some of his phone conversations as he stayed at the Willard Hotel, which the Trump team used as its “war room” ahead of Congress’s vote to certify the election results.
A March report from The Washington Post details how Stone was arranging pardons, and expressed resentment toward “lily-livered, weak-kneed” lawyers in the special counsel’s office for blocking some of them, including preemptive pardons.
Additional footage from the documentary obtained by CNN shows Stone condoning violence and stressing the need to claim victory in the election.
“F— the voting, let’s get right to the violence,” he says in another clip shot the day before the election.
Days earlier, Stone laid out his strategy. “I really do suspect it’ll still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory,” he said. “Possession is nine tenths of the law. ‘No, we won.’”
That strategy was not limited to the fringes of the GOP, but adopted by Republicans up and down the ranks, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who went on Fox News two days after the election to claim that “Trump won this election.”
According to CNN, the committee secured an agreement with the filmmakers, Christoffer Guldbrandsen and Frederik Marbell, to show some eight minutes of footage at the hearing.
For his part Stone has disputed “the accuracy and the authenticity of these videos and believe they have been manipulated and selectively edited.” He also said the clips “do not prove I had anything to do with the events of Jan. 6.”
“That being said,” he added, “it clearly shows I advocated for lawful congressional and judicial options.”
The Stone footage could bring the panel one step closer to addressing loose ends. The Trump ally used Oath Keepers as security guards, suggesting at least a tangential connection between the former president and the far-right militia group.
“Different members have been focused on different loose ends that might need to be wrapped up and out so, again, speaking just for myself, I would hope that the hearing would allow us to make some overall synthetic judgments about what took place and why and the culpability of different key actors,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters in September.
“And I hope that we would be able to speak to the question of the ongoing threats that are still out there… I think that that is something that we need to address before it’s all over.”
The panel is not, however, expected to release any information from its sit-down interview with Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Lofgren said this week.
Expectations are high for the panel that went on hiatus during August recess after generating significant momentum with their slate of eight hearings earlier this year.
“We need to meet or exceed hearings that we’ve had in the past. … It won’t be a repeat of any earlier hearings, and we’re trying to be as strategic as we can in not repeating ourselves,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters in September.
“Whatever we do will be new information. Some of it we continue to collect on almost a daily basis,” he said.
Read More Here
Trump Worker Told FBI About Moving Mar-A-Lago Boxes On Ex-Presidents Orders
Trump Worker Told FBI About Moving Mar-A-Lago Boxes On Ex-President’s Orders https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-worker-told-fbi-about-moving-mar-a-lago-boxes-on-ex-presidents-orders/
A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account — combined with security-camera footage — offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material.
The witness description and footage described to The Washington Post offer the most direct account to date of Trump’s actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of the Florida residence and private club, in which agents were looking for evidence of potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information.
The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer detailed questions for this article. “The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power,” Budowich said in a statement. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified.”
Budowich accused the Justice Department of a “continued effort to leak misleading and false information to partisan allies in the Fake News,” and said that to do so “is nothing more than dangerous political interference and unequal justice. Simply put, it’s un-American.”
The employee who was working at Mar-a-Lago is cooperating with the Justice Department and has been interviewed multiple times by federal agents, according to the people familiar with the situation, who declined to identify the worker.
In the first interview, these people said, the witness denied handling sensitive documents or the boxes that might contain such documents. As they gathered evidence, agents decided to re-interview the witness, and the witness’s story changed dramatically, these people said. In the second interview, the witness described moving boxes at Trump’s request.
The witness is now considered a key part of the Mar-a-Lago investigation, these people said, offering details about the former president’s alleged actions and instructions to subordinates that could have been an attempt to thwart federal officials’ demands for the return of classified and government documents.
Multiple witnesses have told the FBI they tried to talk Trump into cooperating with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department as those agencies for months sought the return of sensitive or historical government records, people familiar with the situation said. The former president was adamant in private conversations that he would resist those efforts.
Among the chief proponents of the cooperation strategy was Alex Cannon, a Trump lawyer who repeatedly argued his client should hand the documents back, people familiar with the matter said. But entreaties from advisers and lawyers fell on deaf ears with Trump, who grew even angrier this spring after a House Oversight Committee investigation was launched, telling aides they’d “screwed up” the situation, according to people who heard his comments. “They’re my documents,” Trump said, according to an aide who spoke to him.
The details shared with The Post reveal two key parts of the criminal probe that until now had been shrouded in secrecy: an account from a witness who worked for and took directions from Trump, and the way that security footage from Mar-a-Lago has played an important role in buttressing witness accounts.
Together, those pieces of evidence helped convince the FBI and Justice Department to seek the court-authorized search of Trump’s residence, office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, which resulted in the seizure of 103 documents that were marked classified and had not been turned over to the government in response to the May subpoena. Some of the documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. The Aug. 8 search also yielded about 11,000 documents not marked classified.
The failure or possible refusal to return the classified documents in response to the subpoena is at the heart of the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation, which is one of several high-profile, ongoing probes involving Trump. The former president remains the most influential figure in the Republican Party and talks openly about again running for the White House in 2024.
Within Trump’s orbit, there have been months of dueling accusations and theories about who may be cooperating with the federal government. Some of the former president’s closest aides have continued to work with Trump even as they have seen FBI agents show up at their houses to question them and serve subpoenas.
Within the Justice Department and FBI, the witness’s account has been a closely held secret as agents continue to gather evidence in the high-stakes investigation. In addition to wanting to keep the information they have gathered so far under wraps, people familiar with the situation said, authorities are also concerned that if or when the witness’s identity eventually becomes public, that person could face harassment or threats from Trump supporters.
In a filing to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers appeared to allude to witness accounts and the video footage when they wrote: “The FBI uncovered evidence that the response to the grand jury subpoena was incomplete, that additional classified documents likely remained at Mar-a-Lago, and that efforts had likely been taken to obstruct the investigation.”
Since the Aug. 8 search, Trump has offered a number of public defenses of why documents with classified markings remained at Mar-a-Lago — saying he declassified the secret documents, suggesting that the FBI planted evidence during the search, and suggesting that as a former president he may have had a right to keep classified documents. National security law experts have overwhelmingly dismissed such claims, saying they range from far-fetched to nonsensical.
Officials at the National Archives began seeking the return of documents last year, after they came to believe that some presidential records from the Trump administration – such as letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – were unaccounted for, and perhaps in Trump’s possession.
After months of back-and-forth, Trump agreed in January to turn over 15 boxes of material. When archivists examined the material, they found 184 documents marked classified, including 25 marked top secret, which were scattered throughout the boxes in no particular order, according to court filings.
That discovery suggested to authorities that Trump had not turned over all the classified documents in his possession. In May, a grand jury subpoena demanded the return of classified documents with a wide variety of markings, including a category used for secrets about nuclear weapons.
In response to that subpoena, Trump’s advisers met with government agents and prosecutors at Mar-a-Lago in early June, handing over a sealed envelope containing another 38 classified documents, including 17 marked top secret, according to court papers. According to government filings, Trump’s representatives claimed at the meeting that a diligent search had been conducted for all classified documents at the club.
That meeting, which included a visit to the storage room where Trump’s advisers said the relevant boxes of documents were kept, did not satisfy investigators, who were not allowed to inspect the boxes they saw in the storage room, according to government court filings.
Five days later, senior Justice Department official Jay Bratt wrote to Trump’s lawyers to remind them that Mar-a-Lago “does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information.” Bratt wrote that it appears classified documents “have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location.”
“Accordingly, we ask that the room at Mar-a-Lago where the documents had been stored be secured and that all of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago (along with any other items in that room) be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.”
Agents continued to gather evidence that Trump was apparently not complying with either government requests or subpoena demands. After significant deliberation, aware that it would be highly unusual for federal agents to search a former president’s home, they decided to seek a judge’s approval to do so.
That Aug. 8 search turned up, in a matter of hours, 103 documents marked classified, including 18 marked top secret, according to court papers. The stash included at least one document that described a foreign country’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.
Read More Here
Abortion Is Motivating Voters But Republicans Would Rather Change The Subject
Abortion Is Motivating Voters, But Republicans Would Rather Change The Subject https://digitalarizonanews.com/abortion-is-motivating-voters-but-republicans-would-rather-change-the-subject/
MERION STATION, Pa. — Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state’s Jewish community, alarming liberal Jews with his remarks and far-right associations, and giving pause to more conservative ones.
Some of those voters have recoiled from Mr. Mastriano’s opposition to abortion rights under any circumstance, or from his strident election denialism. But the race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro — a Jewish day school alum who features challah in his advertising and routinely borrows from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish ethics — has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Mr. Shapiro’s religion.
Mr. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a “privileged, exclusive, elite” school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro’s “disdain for people like us.”
It is a Jewish day school, where students are given both secular and religious instruction. But Mr. Mastriano’s language in portraying it as an elitist reserve seemed to be a dog whistle.
“Apparently now it’s some kind of racist thing if I talk about the school,” Mr. Mastriano said at a recent event as he cast himself as a champion of school choice for all. “It’s a very expensive, elite school.”
The focus on Mr. Shapiro’s religion has freighted one of the nation’s most consequential elections with an unusually raw and personal dimension.
“You have a candidate who is Jewish, an observant Jewish candidate, who puts his observance and his faith in his campaign ads,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “And then you have someone who associates with unapologetic, unabashed antisemites running against him.”
In a closely divided state where races are often won on the margins, Mr. Mastriano is now losing ground with a small but significant part of the Trump coalition, squandering opportunities with more conservative and religiously observant Jews who embraced the former president and his party because of his often-hawkish stance concerning Israel, but who now express grave reservations about Mr. Mastriano.
This summer, Mr. Mastriano’s campaign came under scrutiny for paying $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab. The man accused of perpetrating the Pittsburgh shooting had posted antisemitic screeds on Gab, and Mr. Mastriano’s payment drew bipartisan condemnation. The platform’s founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mr. Mastriano and declared that “we’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore,” an apparent reference to American Jewry.
Only after significant pressure did Mr. Mastriano release a statement saying that he rejected “antisemitism in any form,” appearing to leave the site and stressing that Mr. Torba did not speak for him.
But a late September campaign finance report showed that Mr. Mastriano had accepted a $500 donation from Mr. Torba in July. His campaign did not respond when asked whether he planned to return the money, and he and his aides ignored a reporter’s shouted questions about the donation during an event on a recent Friday.
Mr. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator.
And Mr. Mastriano has baselessly accused Mr. Shapiro of holding a “real grudge” against the Roman Catholic Church. That may have been part of a misleading reference to debates over enforcement of contraception coverage. But Mr. Shapiro’s office also led a bombshell investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sexual abuse of children. Mr. Mastriano’s campaign did not respond when asked what he was referring to.
In the final weeks of the midterm elections, candidates across the country are clashing bitterly over the threat posed by extremism. But no major contest this year has been shaped more prominently, persistently or explicitly by concerns over antisemitism than the Pennsylvania governor’s race.
Taken together, Mr. Mastriano has left even conservative swaths of Pennsylvania’s otherwise liberal-leaning Jewish community feeling deeply uncomfortable.
“The Orthodox community would generally swing more toward Republican,” said Charlie Saul, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer from the Pittsburgh area. A registered Democrat, Mr. Saul said he voted twice for former President Donald J. Trump and plans to back Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee, as well as Mr. Shapiro. “But in this situation,” he added, “because of the association of Mastriano with antisemites, I think that they’ll swing Democrat.”
Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, suggested that because of Mr. Shapiro’s “relationship with the Jewish community and the fact that Mastriano’s not doing any outreach to the Jewish community, and has these issues hanging over his head,” Mr. Shapiro stood to overperform with center-right Jewish voters. The coalition is supporting Dr. Oz but has criticized Mr. Mastriano over his Gab associations.
Recent polls show Mr. Mastriano trailing Mr. Shapiro by double digits, though Pennsylvania polling has been substantially wrong before and the political environment is challenging for Democrats.
His campaign did not respond to three requests for comment or provide the names of any Jewish surrogates. Representatives for the Republican National Committee did not respond to questions, and several other Republican leaders declined interviews.
Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who has campaigned for Mr. Mastriano, defended the candidate, calling him a “strong Christian Zionist” and saying he did not see any “antisemitic concerns at all.”
“I just don’t think, necessarily, being a strong Christian necessarily makes you someone who’s intolerant of other faiths,” he said. But he acknowledged he did not know Mr. Mastriano well.
As explosive as antisemitism can be, and even as antisemitic incidents are on the rise, it is seldom openly displayed by candidates for high office. But responding to someone who uses tropes or dog whistles but stops short of baldfaced hate speech can be challenging, and there is the risk of getting derailed by focusing too much on one’s identity and not enough on what concerns the broader public.
The key is to discuss such “corrosive” matters in a way that resonates with a broad audience, said the veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod. He noted that former President Barack Obama positioned himself as both proudly of the Black community, and a president for all.
“Josh Shapiro isn’t running to be the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, he’s running to be the governor of Pennsylvania,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Your job, as prospective leader of a state, is to speak to it in a larger context.”
To that end, Mr. Shapiro portrays Mr. Mastriano’s antisemitic associations as evidence that he is dangerously extremist, with a governing vision that excludes many Pennsylvanians, an argument he has amplified in ads. (During the primary, Mr. Shapiro also ran an ad that appeared to elevate Mr. Mastriano, a move he has defended.)
“There is no question that he is courting antisemites and white supremacists and racists actively in his campaign,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview, though he stopped short of calling his opponent an antisemite.
He said that Mr. Mastriano “draws on his view of religion” to press policies that would have significant consequences for others, citing Mr. Mastriano’s blanket opposition to abortion rights, for instance.
“Unless you think like him, unless you vote like him, unless you worship like him or marry like him, then you don’t count in his Pennsylvania,” Mr. Shapiro said last week. “I want to be a governor for all 13 million Pennsylvanians.”
At the same time, Mr. Shapiro’s Jewish identity is a defining aspect of his public persona.
His first television ad this year featured him at Sabbath dinner with his family, challah on the table and a hamsa — a hand-shaped symbol often seen in the Middle East, including in Israel — on the wall.
“It was important to let people know who I am and what I’m all about,” said Mr. Shapiro, saying that his faith “has played a central role to me and has motivated me to do service.” “That’s an important part of who we are.”
As he discusses civic engagement on the campaign trail, he frequently deploys a version of a line that, he said, resonated as he studied religious texts with a rabbi years ago: “No one is required to complete the task — but neither are we free to refrain from it.”
It helps him connect with people of diverse faiths, and is a flash of his own day school roots.
He keeps kosher, he said, is “always” home for Sabbath dinner and admires how former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an observant Jew, practiced his faith in his long career in politics, a subject the men have discussed over the years.
He works on Saturdays — the Jewish day of rest — but observed Rosh Hashana in synagogue and fasted and attended Yom Kippur services last week.
Mr. Shapiro will have a significant national platform if he wins. Asked whether he aspired to be the first Jewish president, he insisted, “No!”
“God willing, I’ll have the chance to serve as governor,” he said, “and that is all I am focused on doing.”
At Hymie’s Delicatessen in Merion Station, Pa., Democratic-leaning diners brought up antisemitism concerns unprompted during a recent lunchtime rush.
Mindy Cohen, 64, said she opposed Mr. Mastriano “because of his st...
A Federal Judge Said He Wasn't Convinced The Parents Who Brought Their Kids To The Capitol Riot Wouldn't Break The Law Again
A Federal Judge Said He Wasn't Convinced The Parents Who Brought Their Kids To The Capitol Riot Wouldn't Break The Law Again https://digitalarizonanews.com/a-federal-judge-said-he-wasnt-convinced-the-parents-who-brought-their-kids-to-the-capitol-riot-wouldnt-break-the-law-again/
A mother, father, and their three adult children were sentenced for their roles in the Capitol riot.
The parents, Thomas and Dawn Munn, were sentenced to 14 days in jail, 3 years probation, and 90 days of confinement.
Thomas Munn said he was “caught up” by messaging on Fox News, which is why he went to D.C. on January 6.
Loading
Something is loading.
Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go.
A federal judge said she wasn’t convinced parents who brought their kids with them to Washington D.C. for the Capitol riot would not break the law again.
“This is not the kind of remorse that indicates some assurance that they’re not going to engage (again), after being susceptible to being egged on for political violence once,” Judge Beryl Howell said at the Munn Family’s sentencing hearing Tuesday, CBS Correspondent Scott MacFarlane reported.
Thomas and Dawn Munn were both sentenced to 14 days in jail, three years probation, and 90 days of home confinement — less than the 30 days of jail time prosecutors sought for the couple.
The family, including the parents and their three adult children, had all previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegally entering a government building.
Thomas Munn, while asking for leniency, said he has “never been political before” and “kept watching what was happening on the news.” He added that he watches Fox News and got “caught up” in what they were saying, MacFarlane reported.
While Dawn Munn asked for leniency, she repeated Donald Trump’s election fraud lies.
“I’m sorry for what happened on January 6,” Dawn Munn said, according to MacFarlane. “I understand this country has been divided between conservative and non-conservative values.”
“I do not understand why our election is not secure,” Munn continued. “If we don’t have a secure election, we don’t have a country.”
Neither appeared to apologize for their actions in court.
Their adult children were each sentenced to three years of probation. Their oldest child, Kristi, is facing an additional 90 days of house arrest for bragging about her involvement in the riot on Facebook afterward.
Read More Here
Opinion | Kanye. Elon. Trump. What Do These Men Have In Common?
Opinion | Kanye. Elon. Trump. What Do These Men Have In Common? https://digitalarizonanews.com/opinion-kanye-elon-trump-what-do-these-men-have-in-common/
“Kanye. Elon. Trump.”
These three names hovered in the ether late last week. They had emanated, somewhat implausibly, from the Twitter account of the House Judiciary Committee GOP — but what they were supposed to mean remained somewhat cryptic. Until, suddenly, the code cracked before our eyes.
Kanye West: rapper, record producer, apparent antisemite. Now legally named Ye, he was in the news for wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt to his runway show at Paris Fashion Week, telling Tucker Carlson in an extended interview that he thought the garb was “funny.” Yet things really took off later — after the GOP tweet — when he complained on Instagram that another rapper who disapproved of him was being controlled by Jewish people.
Instagram didn’t like this, and it disabled his account. So he tried Twitter, just before bedtime: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” Oh.
Next comes Elon Musk, serial entrepreneur and richest man in the world. Lately, he has been attracting attention for his on-again-off-again agreement to purchase Twitter for $54.20 per share (a marijuana joke, by the way, ha ha) so that he can restore “free speech” to the social-media site. Plus, there’s those wacky suggestions about how Ukraine and Russia might miraculously resolve the ongoing war — mostly, it seems, by Ukraine giving up almost everything and Russia giving up almost nothing.
Follow Molly Roberts’s opinionsFollow
Add
Again, however, it wasn’t until after the GOP tweet that Musk and West became co-stars in the Defcon 3 drama. “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!” Musk greeted West when the songwriter initially reappeared on the platform, only hours before he announced his intention to raise the national state of alert. Later: “Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart.” We’ll see!
And Donald Trump? Trump needs no introduction. Precisely what he was doing at the time — retrospectively praising insurrectionists, or crying out to “BRING BACK COLUMBUS DAY,” or declassifying documents through telepathy — doesn’t really matter because he is doing more or less those same things all the time. What matters is what he represents: the MAGA agenda of grievance blended with grandiosity, where owning the libs is the highest calling.
That’s where Ye’s T-shirt trolling fits in. It’s where Musk’s purported crusade against cancel culture, embodied in his “welcome back” to a man booted from peer platforms for an antisemitic conniption, is most at home.
This is what really cracks the code. How on earth could the House Judiciary Committee GOP, of all entities, have foreseen the confluence of events that would cast Kanye and Elon so neatly in the roles of MAGA avatars? Obviously it couldn’t have. But it didn’t have to.
Think of one of those tweets where someone seems to have correctly predicted the score of a far-off Super Bowl — but it turns out the person also posted hundreds or even thousands of other guesses of different outcomes, then deleted all but the ultimately correct one. Now think of the exact opposite: one guess, endless ways for it to be right.
West and Musk’s MAGA status doesn’t depend on their actions, their words or any other day-to-day occurrence — not anymore. The right-wing has already claimed them, thanks to Ye’s would-have-voted-for-Trump vow and Musk’s slow-burn flirtation with extreme online conservatism. The two could have tweeted memes about brainwashed wokeism instead; or quit all social media in a stand against cancel culture; or, let’s face it, said anything to Tucker Carlson. The House Judiciary tweet would have still eventually have made sense.
So instead of asking why the House Judiciary GOP tweeted those names, ask: Why not? Whichever aide is in charge of posting basically reached into the MAGA grab-bag and pulled these two guys out. Because once you’re in the bag, you’re never getting tossed out, no matter how many Jews you vow to go “death con 3” on or how many dictators you propose to appease. Better yet, with the die-hards, your sins will redound to your credit. After all, MAGA Republicanism has never been about substance, and it certainly hasn’t been about anything as highfalutin as values. Personality is the word.
West and Musk are nothing if not personalities. They are always making news, and nowadays whatever news they make tends to look a lot more MAGA than it used to. And it looks even more so when their names are on the lips of the House Judiciary Committee GOP, spoken in succession with no other words to accompany them, as if they were saints.
Kanye. Elon. Trump. They’re all part of each other’s stories, now.
Read More Here
Dasha Burns Defends NBC News Interview With John Fetterman
Dasha Burns Defends NBC News Interview With John Fetterman https://digitalarizonanews.com/dasha-burns-defends-nbc-news-interview-with-john-fetterman/
News Television
CNN announced that it was ending Vault by CNN, a program that sold historical footage from the cable news channel’s vault.
Published
9 hours ago
on
October 12, 2022
The non-fungible tokens business has come and gone, which is why CNN is jumping out of the digital market.
CNN announced that it was ending Vault by CNN, a program that sold historical footage from the cable news channel’s vault.
The cable news channel began selling the NFTs, which it calls Moments, in June 2021, after the unique digital tokens took off in popularity.
Vault by CNN stated that while working alongside collectors, artists and journalists worldwide was a privilege, it was time to “say goodbye” to the program.
“Vault was originally launched as a 6-week experiment, but the support and engagement from our community let us expand this project into something much larger,” the group said in a statement.
“Thank you to each of you for your interest and engagement in what we built together.”
Despite Vault by CNN dissolving, the NFT collection intends to “live on,” the statement said, and more details on the digital tokens are available on the program’s Discord channel.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
News Television
Lipof has been with ABC News since Aug. 2021
Published
15 hours ago
on
October 12, 2022
ABC News announced on Tuesday that it has a new full-time New York-based correspondent as Phil Lipof takes over the position.
Lipof has been with ABC News since Aug. 2021 but was working as a freelance reporter for the network, but that all is changing.
Nonetheless, during his time as a freelancer, he reported for “World News Tonight with David Muir,” “Good Morning America,” ABC News Live, “Nightline,” and more.
“Phil is a smart, dogged journalist,” ABC News President Kim Godwin said in a press release. “Just days before the war in Ukraine started, Phil traveled to Poland to report on what developed into a devastating refugee crisis.
“While in Poland, he spent three weeks anchoring in the field for ABC News Live, reporting on those seeking safety as they crossed the border. Phil was also on the ground in Uvalde, Texas, in the wake of the tragic school shooting.”
Before arriving at ABC News, Lipof spent time as the main anchor of the Boston NBC affiliate. Additionally, he served as an anchor/reporter for Boston’s WCVB and WABC in New York for eight years.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
News Television
Trump filed a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN on Oct. 3, but he might not be down going after media outlets.
Published
15 hours ago
on
October 12, 2022
Former United States President Donald Trump filed a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN on Oct. 3, but he might not be down going after media outlets.
Although Trump didn’t name any news media platforms in particular, in an email to his supporters (h/t Next TV), the former president did say that some are with CNN regarding the defamation they have brought upon him.
Trump stated that these outlets are providing “lies, defamation, and wrongdoing,” including as it pertains to “The Big Lie, “a vague explanation of Trump’s unsupported claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
As for CNN, Trump’s lawsuit claims that the network is using its influence to defeat him politically by recently ramping up their attacks on their network.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,’” the lawsuit claims.
Former CNN president Jeff Zucker stated on Friday that the network wasn’t anti-Trump during his time as the leader of the cable news channel.
“As I said all the time, we were not anti-Trump,” Zucker said at The Un-Convention 2022.
“We were pro-truth. If that came off as anti-Trump because he didn’t tell the truth, I’m not going to apologize for that. You gotta hold both sides accountable. And kick the shit out of both sides.”
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
Read More Here
Zelenskyy Asks For Aid To Rebuild Ukraine; Power Restored At Occupied Nuclear Power Plant
Zelenskyy Asks For Aid To Rebuild Ukraine; Power Restored At Occupied Nuclear Power Plant https://digitalarizonanews.com/zelenskyy-asks-for-aid-to-rebuild-ukraine-power-restored-at-occupied-nuclear-power-plant/
Nine vessels to leave Ukraine carrying more than 150,000 metric tons of agricultural products
An aerial view shows ships at the anchorage area of the Bosphorus southern entrance in Istanbul, on October 12, 2022.
Yasin Akgul | AFP | Getty Images
The organization overseeing the export of grain from Ukraine said it has approved nine vessels to leave the besieged country.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal among Ukraine, Russia, the United Nations and Turkey, said the vessels are carrying 150,459 metric tons of grain and other crops.
Two ships are destined for Turkey and are carrying wheat and rapeseed. One ship will depart from Ukraine’s Yuzhny-Pivdennyi port for France and is carrying 5,700 metric tons of sunflower seed.
Another ship will leave from Chornomorsk to Lebanon and is carrying 13,400 metric tons of corn. The fifth vessel will sail to Italy from Odesa and is carrying 7,560 metric tons of corn. One ship will leave for India carrying 42,000 metric tons of sunflower oil and another will depart for Spain carrying 27,100 metric tons of corn.
Two more vessels will depart from Odesa for Greece and Egypt carrying rapeseed meal and soy beans.
Read more about the Black Sea Grain Initiative here.
— Amanda Macias
Zelenskyy asks for financial support for reconstruction projects in Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Lviv, Ukraine on August 18, 2022.
Emin Sansar | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on financial leaders to provide more support to his war-weary country as it fights off Russia’s assault.
Zelenskyy asked those at the second ministerial roundtable discussion for $2 billion in order to rebuild the electric energy infrastructure destroyed during the war. He also asked for financial credit in order to purchase gas and coal for future heating systems, as reliance on Russia is not an option.
He also asked for the World Bank to guarantee approximately $17 billion to finance reconstruction projects across Ukraine.
The government of Ukraine, European Commission and the World Bank assessed that it will cost at least $349 billion to reconstruct Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
— Amanda Macias
Putin’s nuclear saber rattling ‘reckless and irresponsible,’ U.S. Defense secretary says
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrives for a two-day meeting of the alliance’s Defence Ministers at the NATO Headquarter in Brussels on October 12, 2022.
Kenzo Tribouillard | Afp | Getty Images
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber rattling “reckless and irresponsible.”
“We don’t expect to see and hear that kind of behavior from a major nuclear power. And so that’s very dangerous,” Austin told reporters at NATO headquarters, adding that “we take this very seriously.”
Austin said that the U.S. was watching the situation closely but had not found cause to change Washington’s strategic nuclear posture.
“We’ve not seen any indicators at this point that would lead us to believe that. But again, it’s not something we look at once and leave alone. This is something we remain focused on 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Austin said, referring to Putin’s decision on whether to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
— Amanda Macias
U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley slams Russia’s strikes against civilians, saying they could be war crimes
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley arrives for a two-day meeting of the alliance’s Defence Ministers at the NATO Headquarter in Brussels on October 12, 2022.
Kenzo Tribouillard | AFP | Getty Images
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley slammed Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure as the Kremlin’s brutal assault in Ukraine marches into its eighth month.
“Russia has purposely struck civilian infrastructure with the intent to harm civilians,” Milley told reporters at NATO headquarters.
Milley added that targeting civilians, an allegation Moscow has previously denied, is a war crime under the international rules of war.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a retaliatory strike for an explosion over the weekend on the Kerch bridge, which links Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.
The Kremlin placed the blame squarely on Ukraine and vowed a “harsh” response.
— Amanda Macias
IAEA chief Grossi will return to Kyiv following meetings in Russia
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said that he will return to Kyiv after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The work on the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant continues,” Grossi wrote in a tweet, pictured next to a Ukrainian train.
Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said in a statement that the nuclear power plant was running on diesel generators after a Russian rocket damaged part of the facility.
In an update, Grossi said that power had been restored to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after a brief outage.
— Amanda Macias
A Russian nuclear strike would almost certainly draw ‘physical response,’ NATO official says
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the plenary session of the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, Russia September 7, 2022.
Sergey Bobylev | Tass Host Photo Agency | via Reuters
A Russian nuclear strike would change the course of the conflict and almost certainly trigger a “physical response” from Ukraine’s allies and potentially from NATO, a senior NATO official said on Wednesday.
Any use of nuclear weapons by Moscow would have “unprecedented consequences” for Russia, the official warned. It would “almost certainly be drawing a physical response from many allies, and potentially from NATO itself,” he said.
The official added that Moscow was using its nuclear threats mainly to deter NATO and other countries from directly entering its war on Ukraine.
— Reuters
U.S. Defense Secretary Austin hails Ukrainian counteroffensive at NATO
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin (L) shakes hand with Ukraine’s Defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov (R) ahead of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence contact group as part of a NATO Defence Ministers Council at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels on October 12, 2022.
Stephanie Lecocq | Afp | Getty Images
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley held the sixth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at NATO headquarters.
The Ukraine Defense Contact group, a coalition of nearly 50 countries supporting Ukraine’s military needs, has met six times since it was formed in April.
During opening remarks, Austin hailed Ukraine’s counteroffensive as Russia’s brutal assault enters its eighth month.
“He [Russian President Vladimir Putin] assumed that he could roll into Kyiv. He assumed that Ukraine could never mount a counteroffensive to retake its sovereign territory in Kharkiv and beyond. He assumed that the world would stand idly by as he attempted to annex four additional regions of Ukraine and he assumed that we wouldn’t summon the unity and resolve to stand up to his imperial war of choice,” Austin said before the group.
“Despite Putin’s new assaults, Ukrainian forces have changed the dynamics of this war. They’ve liberated hundreds of towns from Russian occupation and they’ve retaken thousands of square kilometers of their land,” he added.
— Amanda Macias
Death toll from Russian missile strikes rises to 20, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service says
A firefighter extinguishes a fire after a flat was hit by a missile strike in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on Sept. 15, 2022.
Juan Barreto | Afp | Getty Images
Russian missile strikes on Monday have killed 20 people and injured at least 108 others, said Ukraine’s State Emergency Service in a Telegram post providing the latest figures on the human toll of the multi-city attacks.
“In total, 205 objects were damaged – 45 buildings, 30 high-rise buildings and other objects of various fields, including critical infrastructure,” said Oleksandr Horunzhy, press officer for the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, according to an NBC News translation.
Separately, the spokesman of the State Emergency Service noted that restoration works are still ongoing.
— Amanda Macias
Power restored at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, IAEA says
This photo taken on Sept. 11, 2022, shows a security person standing in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia, amid the Ukraine war.
Stringer | Afp | Getty Images
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the power at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was restored following a brief outage.
“I’ve been informed by our team on site that external power to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is restored,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in a tweet.
“Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant operator says this morning’s outage was caused by shelling damage to a far off sub-station, highlighting how precarious the situation is. We need a protection zone ASAP,” he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said in a statement that the nuclear power plant was running on diesel generators after a Russian rocket damaged part of the facility.
As a result of the shelling, the transmission line was disconnected and the plant went into “full black-out mode.”
— Amanda Macias
Putin suggests U.S. stood to benefit from Nord Stream pipeline leaks
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with members of the Security Council via a video link in Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 10, 2022.
Gavriil Grigorov | Sputnik | Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin sugges...
Finchem Wants To Ban Voting Machines And Do Hand Counts That Is 'unrealistic'
Finchem Wants To Ban Voting Machines And Do Hand Counts, That Is 'unrealistic' https://digitalarizonanews.com/finchem-wants-to-ban-voting-machines-and-do-hand-counts-that-is-unrealistic/
There were 3,420,565 ballots cast in 2020 in Arizona — and if Mark Finchem had his way, every single one of them could be counted by hand.
As secretary of state, he would have unilateral authority to make that happen.
While the secretary of state oversees Arizona’s elections, many of the role’s duties are ministerial or dependent on other branches of government. The actual elections are conducted and managed by the state’s 15 counties, and its officials there who are responsible for tallying votes. And election laws are written by the state legislature and must be approved by the governor.
But state law gives sweeping powers to the secretary of state to regulate election equipment. The secretary has the ability to say what standards any equipment must meet, to certify equipment that meets those standards and to decertify any equipment that doesn’t.
Finchem, a state legislator from Oro Valley who is the GOP nominee for secretary of state, has long made it clear that he does not support the use of machine tabulation to count votes. Earlier this year, he and Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake even filed a federal lawsuit to try to stop their use in the state.
As secretary of state, he could force counties to count ballots by hand if he decertified the election machines — setting up a nightmare scenario for elections officials.
“Hand counting all the ballots in Arizona is impossible,” said Jennnifer Marson, the executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties. “It’s impossible, it’s impossible.”
In Maricopa County alone in 2020, there were 74 selections for voters to choose from on the smallest version of the ballot sent out, she said. When multiplied by the number of ballots cast, that equates to over 154 million selections that would need to be counted and tallied by hand. Statewide, the number is estimated to be around 201 million, Marson said.
“If you’re going to do a hand count, you’re probably going to have to hand count twice,” Marson said, adding that the logistics of a hand count on such a massive scale are unknown. “Literally, how will they do it? Will they tick marks on paper? Will they use Excel? Because that is a machine.”
Then there are questions of how much it would cost to hire enough workers to manually tally every vote in every race on millions of ballots.
And aside from being less accurate than electronic tabulation machines, hand-counting is slow — and it could jeopardize the ability of counties to canvass their elections in the 20 days that state law allows. State law requires a canvass of legislative and statewide elections within 27 days, a task that could be difficult if not impossible.
“The possibility for error is massive. It’s massive when you have humans doing it,” Marson said. “They lose their place, they have to start over.”
Finchem has already hinted at his intentions to change the standards for election machines to something that would be impossible to meet.
“I do not believe that we should be using equipment that we cannot inspect the software,” Finchem said in a recent interview with CBS News. In the lawsuit with Lake, trying to inspect the software on the machines currently used was a key part of their litigation.
Finchem said he would seek to prohibit the use of voting equipment with software that is not “open source.”
But there is no such election equipment. All election equipment used in Arizona must first be certified by the federal Election Assistance Commission. And because the equipment is considered “critical infrastructure,” none of it uses open-source software.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which certifies all election equipment in the United States, has not had any open source software submitted for certification through their Testing and Certification program, according to EAC spokesperson Kristen Muthig. If any open source software was submitted, it would be evaluated in the same way any other system is evaluated, Muthig said.
Arizona law establishes a voting equipment certification committee, but it doesn’t have any real power. All three of its members are appointed by the secretary of state, and it is tasked with making recommendations about electronic voting and tabulation machines to the secretary of state.
And while the secretary of state is required to consult with this committee for developing standards to decertify machines, determining what those standards will be is solely the secretary of state’s duty. If he or she wants to ignore the committee’s recommendations, nothing in law stops that from happening.
Based on those standards, the secretary of state then can revoke the certification of any device already in use that doesn’t comply — and ban the use of them for up to five years.
Since the 2020 election, Finchem has opposed electronic ballot tabulators and has sought to prohibit their use. In the interview with CBS, Finchem cited long debunked claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines in Colorado had high error rates, among other claims.
He also reiterated that he would “follow the law.”
Finchem did not respond to a request for comment.
His stance is part of a growing movement, driven by election fraud conspiracy theorists across the country, that aims to push for the total ban of electronic voting equipment and move to hand counts of ballots. Doing so just isn’t possible in many cases, experts say.
“It is extremely unrealistic in all but the tiniest of jurisdictions,” Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy program, told the Arizona Mirror. Ramachandran said that hand counts generally are part of the recount process and usually include counting one contest, not every race on every ballot.
Many of the groups pushing for hand counts also have been pushing for a “one day, one vote” style of voting as well that would do away with early voting. A bill that was killed by Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers and co-sponsored by Finchem would have done just that. It also would have required all ballots in Arizona to be counted by hand within 24 hours, among many other provisions.
In that scenario, Marson said that the state would likely need 8,000 more poll workers and another 8,000 to be hand counters.
Additionally, hand counting is rife for error and moving to machine tabulation was because of this issue, Marson said.
In most cases, hand counts are performed as a way to double-check the performance of a machine tabulator or when a race is extremely close. But those instances are still generally for one race.
“It is a way of making sure there are no programming errors,” Ramachandran said. “Doing those routine audits to catch any problems is one of the best practices.”
In Arizona, state law requires audits of the machines’ performance be done both before and after an election. And a sample of ballots cast in the election is audited by hand to ensure the electronic count is accurate.
Maricopa County had nine tabulators for the August primary election and will have 16 for next month’s general election, according to Maricopa County Elections Department spokeswoman Megan Gilbertson.
One county is already considering hand counting all the ballots it will see cast in its election this year, Cochise County. The effort is being pushed in part by county supervisor Peggy Judd who attended the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and posted QAnon conspiracy theories on her now defunct Facebook page.
While the Cochise County Board of Supervisors approved the push in a vote Tuesday, attorneys for the board disapproved and said no to the effort.
But this hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists — even those in power — from pushing to “ban the machines.”
On Oct. 1, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor hosted some of the loudest voices in the ban the machines movement at a movie theater in Tempe.
“These machines are from the devil,” O’Connor, whose office has no oversight of elections, said to the small crowd.
Earlier in the week, O’Connor had used his position as an Arizona Corporation Commissioner to mail out flyers for the event to county recorders across the state.
Received today by a county recorder, using government resources from the Arizona Corporation Commission. It follows an August letter to the recorder and others from Jim O’Connor, a utility regulator who opposes voting machines. pic.twitter.com/2CJ1mxvdtk
— YvonneWingettSanchez (@yvonnewingett) September 29, 2022
The event was a who’s who of election deniers who have taken aim at election equipment in Arizona and across the country, spreading falsehoods about their performance to explain how Trump lost in 2020. Chief among them was former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is currently facing 10 felony charges after she allowed conspiracy theorists to copy and access sensitive voting software.
Peters lamented that the judge in her case was using his “political power” to keep her from anything dealing with elections.
“My only crime is for backing up the election files,” Peters claimed, communicating to the crowd via Zoom. Peters also celebrated that, after the breach was discovered, the voting equipment was decertified by the state — something she is on the hook to pay for.
“I was thinking, great, take them out, we will just hand-count everything,” Peters said. “There is no reason we can’t hand count these ballots.”
O’Connor, who in September said he wanted to bring in 13 experts to testify to the Corporation Commission about voting machines, blamed the courts for not wanting to take on the “political question” and compared the situation to Nazi Germany.
“It appears that all the courts in our states at the federal and state level don’t want to handle the political question,” O’Connor said after a spe...
Tucson Man Sentenced To 33 Months For Sexual Abuse Of A Minor
Tucson Man Sentenced To 33 Months For Sexual Abuse Of A Minor https://digitalarizonanews.com/tucson-man-sentenced-to-33-months-for-sexual-abuse-of-a-minor/
TUCSON, Ariz. – On September 27, 2022, Eric Christopher Segundo-Antone, 22, of Tucson, Arizona, was sentenced by United States District Judge John C. Hinderaker to 33 months in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release. Segundo-Antone previously pleaded guilty to Sexual Abuse of a Minor.
Sometime between June 1, 2018, and December 31, 2018, Segundo-Antone, an enrolled member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, engaged in a sexual act with the victim, who was 14 years old at the time. The offense occurred on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in the village of Topawa.
The Tohono O’odham Nation Police Department and the FBI conducted the investigation in this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frances M. Kreamer Hope, District of Arizona, Tucson, handled the prosecution.
CASE NUMBER: CR-21-00796-TUC-JCH-BGM
RELEASE NUMBER: 2022-175_Segundo-Antone
# # #
For more information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/
Follow the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, on Twitter @USAO_AZ for the latest news.
Read More Here
