by ti-amie The antics of the "parents" of the Michigan school shooter have added a new layer of WTF to their son's case. This is what happened overnight.









The perp walk



They are being held on $500k bail (!) each. It seems that they're now in the same jail their son is.

by ti-amie Today's "Sure Jan" moment.



There is video of the police chief's presser from this morning but I can't find it now.

by ti-amie Michigan school shooting suspect’s parents held on $500,000 bond each as judge expresses flight-risk concerns
Acting on a tip, police found the pair hiding in a commercial building, authorities said

By Jennifer Hassan, Timothy Bella, María Luisa Paúl and Meryl Kornfield
Today at 4:30 a.m. EST|Updated today at 12:23 p.m. EST

The parents of a 15-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four classmates at a Michigan high school were ordered held Saturday on $500,000 bond each, hours after they were found hiding in a commercial building in Detroit and taken into custody.

Jennifer and James Crumbley each pleaded not guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter, appearing separately via webcam at a 35-minute virtual arraignment in which the prosecution and defense clashed over whether the parents had provided easy access to the weapon authorities say was used in the crime.

“This is a serious, horrible, terrible shooting, and this has affected the entire community,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said, adding that the likelihood of conviction is “strong.” “And these two individuals could have stopped it.”

The arraignment capped a stunning series of events in the aftermath of Tuesday’s shooting, which left Tate Myre, 16, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Justin Shilling, 17, dead.

Prosecutors allege that the parents bought the gun for their son, and that Jennifer Crumbley boasted on social media about taking her son to a shooting range to try it out. Authorities also say 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley’s parents left the gun unlocked and neglected to act on concerns expressed by school officials that he might act violently.

Hours after announcing that the pair was being charged — an extraordinarily rare move to hold parents accountable when a minor uses a weapon in a school shooting — police officials said that the couple had gone missing. They were located overnight in a commercial building after an extensive search involving police dogs, local law enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service, authorities said.

Jennifer Crumbley fought back tears when asked by the judge if she understood that she faces the charges while her husband shook his head as McDonald recounted some of the accusations, including that the parents had provided “total access” to the weapon. Their defense attorneys, Shannon Smith and Mariell Lehman, denied that allegation and said the pair had always planned to cooperate with the investigation.

“This case is absolutely the saddest, most tragic, worst case imaginable, there’s no doubt,” Smith said. “But our clients were absolutely going to turn themselves in.”

Oakland County Judge Julie A. Nicholson agreed with the prosecution’s request for a $500,000 bond, stating that the couple could pose a flight risk, and ordering parents to hand over all weapons to sheriff’s office if they are released from jail.

“Obviously, these charges are very, very serious, there is no question about that,” Nicholson said. “The court does have some concern about the flight risk along with the public safety, given the circumstances that occurred yesterday and the fact that the defendants did have to be apprehended in order to appear for purposes of arraignment.”

Ethan Crumbley faces multiple charges as an adult in the attack Tuesday at Oxford High School: one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm.

The shooting has torn apart the small Michigan community, located about 45 minutes outside Detroit, and reignited calls for tighter gun laws, with more states considering laws to punish parents if children fire unsecured guns. It appears to be the deadliest episode of on-campus violence in the United States in more than 18 months. Seven others were wounded.

Charging parents is unusual in a school shooting. A Washington Post review of 145 school shootings committed by children in the two decades after the Columbine High massacre in 1999 found that the weapon’s source had been publicly identified in 105 cases. In total, the guns those children used were taken from their own homes or those of relatives or friends 80 percent of the time.

However, in just four instances did the adult owners of the weapons face any criminal punishment for not having locked them up — and none of those prosecutions stemmed from negligent-storage laws.

“While the shooter was the one who entered the high school and pulled the trigger, there were other individuals who contributed to the event,” McDonald said Friday as she announced the charges against the parents.

Jennifer and James Crumbley were located after a 911 call from a business owner who spotted the couple’s car in his parking lot in Detroit, Chief Deputy Mike McCabe of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office. He added in an emailed statement that a female observed near the car fled on foot when he called 911. Detroit Police Chief James White said police found “video of one of the two fugitives entering the building” and that police had quickly “set up a perimeter” at the location.

The pair “did not break in” at the building but “were aided,” White said, adding that police were investigating one other person who may have helped the couple. He thanked the community, saying that “it was a tip that led us to this location” and that officers responded “in a matter of minutes,” arriving on scene at 10:30 p.m. local time Friday.


Image
Law enforcement officers outside the building where James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of suspected Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, were arrested on Dec. 4 in Detroit. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)

When asked about the pair’s emotional state as they were taken into custody, White said that they were “very distressed” and that one of them left the scene with head bowed.

Attorneys for the Crumbleys had earlier said the couple left town the night of the shooting “for their own safety,” adding that they would return to be arraigned on the manslaughter charges. They repeated that at the arraignment Saturday, saying that the couple had planned to meet their attorneys outside the court at 7:30 a.m.

“We did not announce it because unlike prosecution we weren’t attempting to make this a media spectacle,” Smith said.

But police and prosecutors disputed that account, with White telling reporters Saturday: “This isn’t indicative of turning themselves in, hiding in a warehouse.”


The pistol, purchased by James Crumbley on Nov. 26, was stored in an unlocked drawer in the parents’ bedroom, according to officials.

A day before the fatal shooting, a teacher noticed Ethan Crumbley using his cellphone to search for information on firearm ammunition. Jennifer Crumbley did not respond when the school contacted her via voice mail about her son’s “inappropriate” search, McDonald said. Instead, she exchanged a text message with her son that read, “LOL I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”

On the morning of the shooting, both parents were summoned to a meeting by school administrators after a teacher found a troubling note in their son’s desk, McDonald said. It contained a drawing of a semiautomatic handgun pointing at the words “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”

The note included a drawing of a bullet with the words “blood everywhere.” There was also a drawing of a bloody figure with two gunshot wounds, McDonald said, and another drawing of a laugh emoji.

Ethan altered the note, McDonald said, scratching out the most disturbing parts of it by the time the meeting with his parents began shortly after 10 a.m. on Nov. 30. McDonald said the teen brought his backpack to the counselor’s office for the meeting and noted that at no point did his parents ask about the recently purchased gun. McDonald said neither the Crumbleys nor school officials searched the teen’s backpack.

The Crumbleys “resisted the idea of their son leaving the school at that time,” McDonald said. Instead, Ethan returned to class with his backpack.

Karin Brulliard, Kim Bellware, John Woodrow Cox and Paulina Firozi contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... s-custody/

Video of the arraignment.

<iframe width='480' height='290' scrolling='no' src='' frameborder='0' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of the alleged Michigan high school school shooter, were held on $500,000 bond each on Dec. 4. (The Washington Post)

by ponchi101 Meanwhile, somewhere in Hollywood, Chuck Engag, a young, promising scriptwriter sat down in front of his terminal and started typing a story about a teenage mass shooter whose parents had fostered all his life to commit a heinous crime and, after reaching page seventy two, thought to himself "Nah, nobody is going to believe his parents actually were proud of what he did", and deleted his work.
He looked around and thought to himself "let me turn on the news and see what's going on. Maybe I will think of something..."

by JazzNU I assume it's being reported as $500k bond or bail because the writers don't know the difference that their wording makes here. But they are actually being held on $500k CASH bond. Much different. Means they aren't going anywhere unless a very wealthy (and very dumb) NRA benefactor wants to enter the fray.

by ti-amie
JazzNU wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:10 pm I assume it's being reported as $500k bond or bail because the writers don't know the difference that their wording makes here. But they are actually being held on $500k CASH bond. Much different. Means they aren't going anywhere unless a very wealthy (and very dumb) NRA benefactor wants to enter the fray.
I think that in the video you can clearly hear the judge say "cash bond not 10%" or whatever the percentage is.

What gets me is that they were running - there is a lot of speculation as to whether they were headed to someplace in Michigan or Canada - and leaving their still minor child to face the rap alone. This is not said out of sympathy but in astonishment since the mother, in her rant, went on about how "illegal alien" parents don't care about their children.


by ti-amie This is when local knowledge can illuminate a situation. They kept saying that they were going to Canada but in my brain I was asking why to Detroit then? Now I know.


by JazzNU Oh yeah, you don't have to be local to know they were trying to get to Windsor (dumb plan) since they stayed in Detroit. For anyone that doesn't know, the busiest crossings from the US into Canada are the tunnel and bridge in Detroit to Windsor.

by ti-amie
JazzNU wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 8:30 pm Oh yeah, you don't have to be local to know they were trying to get to Windsor (dumb plan) since they stayed in Detroit. For anyone that doesn't know, the busiest crossings from the US into Canada are the tunnel and bridge in Detroit to Windsor.

Wait it's a 13m drive? Were they waiting for someone to take them? I guess customs at the other end would've snagged them if they didn't have fake id.
13 min (1.8 mi) via Detroit Windsor Tunnel
Image

by ti-amie Also don't forget I'm a native NY'er. Everything past the Hudson River is a blur! :lol:

Image

by ti-amie The other big trail this week is taking place in Chicago. Actor Jussie Smollett is being tried for wasting the CPD's time by staging an attack on himself and saying that it was done by MAGA sympathizers. The consensus seems to be that he shouldn't have taken the stand.

Via @Dave Byrnes via @threadreaderapp
24 tweets, 4 min read

Cross examination of Jussie Smollett by the state prosecutors now starting. Prosecution asking Smollett if he just said he knowingly withheld useful evidence from the police. Smollett saying he wouldn't know, at least regarding what is "useful" evidence. #Smolletttrial
However, Smollett denies ever lying to the police. "I told them the truth, that I was the victim of a hate crime," he said.
Smollett claims that the news about one of his alleged attackers wearing a MAGA hat was a lie; a leak in the investigation that he says worried detectives as much as himself. Smollett denies ever mentioning a MAGA hat in his initial report to police.

Smollett now saying he didn't withhold anything from police to cover anything up. Maintains that there was no hoax.
Prosecutor Dan Webb counters that the lead investigator in the case, Michael Theis, testified last week that in 30 years doing his job, "You are the only victim of a crime that refused to turn over a cell phone."
Prosecution asking Smollett if he turned over only a small amount of phone records to police because he was worried the police thought he was lying. Smollett denies this, citing that his staff changed his phone number after the attack for security reasons.
Due to this change of a number, Smollett said, the relevant phone records weren't available until the next billing cycle. Smollett also added that the change to his phone number was done without his consent.

Prosecution still going over Smollett's level of police compliance in the investigation with a fine-tooth comb. We're on to Smollett's medical records now.
"Were you concerned that if you produced your medical records, that it would show that you did not suffer significant injuries?" - Prosecutor Dan Webb
Defense objects to the question, and Smollett is incensed by it. "My injuries are real." he says, citing a scar under his eye that he says came from the attack.
Webb, undeterred, points out that Dr. Robert Turelli, who examined Smollett following the alleged attack, testified last week that Smollett had no significant injuries at the time of the examination.
Defense once again objects that this is a mischaracterization of testimony, saying that Turelli's comments referred to Smollett's MRI and CAT scan, not to the bruising and cuts he suffered in the alleged attack.

Into DNA evidence now. Smollett says he "[doesn't] even do Ancestry.com" because he's that hesitant to give out DNA samples.

On to the noose rope now. Smollett says he took it off after getting back to his apartment following the alleged attack, but also says he put it back on when police arrived so as not to unintentionally soil potential evidence.
Smollett denies doing anything to deliberately alter the rope's appearance, but also says it had become slightly unraveled in taking it off and putting it on again.
Michael Theis, the lead investigator into Smollett's case in 2019, said last week that detectives found it suspicious that the rope's appearance differed between Smollett's apartment lobby security camera and the responding police officer's body camera.
Smollett, looking at the two images together, argues that the rope looks less like a noose in the body camera footage. This is counter to Theis' assessment last week that Smollett made the rope look *more* like a noose for when the police arrived.

On to the text messages between Smollett and Abimbola Osundairo, wherein Smollett asked for Abimbola's help "on the low."
Smollett maintains that he wanted to ask Abimbola to bring him back an herbal steroid from Abimbola's trip to visit family in Nigeria. Smollett said Abimbola told him the steroid was illegal in the U.S.
"What steroid do you think is legal in Nigeria that you can't get in the U.S.?" prosecution asks Smollett. Smollett asserts that there *are* steroids that are legal in Nigeria that aren't legal in the U.S., but says he doesn't know their names.
"I trusted [Abimbola] to know what it was... he said it was an herbal steroid," Smollett says.

Prosecution asking why they had to be in a car to discuss this issue. Smollett says it's because the discussion was just a small part of the two hanging out; that the two often drove around together.

Judge Linn wants to end the day at 6 p.m., so prosecution wraps up its questioning there. Linn says that, despite his prior prediction that the jury will begin deliberation on Tuesday, he now thinks it may start Wednesday.

I'm going to end the livetweeting now as well. The trial will pick back up tomorrow, hopefully around 9:15 a.m.

by JazzNU
Avoiding trial, a former hedge fund manager turns over $70 million in stolen antiques


by JOE HERNANDEZ

A ceremonial cup from Turkey in the shape of a stag's head. Three death masks, likely unearthed from the mountains of Israel, dating back to 6000 or 7000 B.C. An ancient Greek chest for human remains.

Those are among the 180 stolen antiquities that former hedge fund manager and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt turned over under an agreement with New York City prosecutors. The deal, reached after a multiyear investigation into his activities, also slaps Steinhardt with a lifetime ban on collecting any other historical relics.

In exchange, Steinhardt will avoid prosecution for what authorities have called his "rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts" that crossed legal lines.

"His pursuit of 'new' additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers, and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a statement on Monday.

Steinhardt, who is also known for his work as a co-founder of Birthright Israel, which pays for young Jewish adults to visit Israel, has denied any wrongdoing in acquiring the antiques. He said many of the dealers who sold him items claimed that they were the objects' lawful owners. "Mr. Steinhardt is pleased that the District Attorney's years-long investigation has concluded without any charges, and that items wrongfully taken by others will be returned to their native countries," read a statement from his attorneys provided to NPR.

Authorities say they'll return the 180 antiques, valued at around $70 million, to their "rightful owners" in the 11 countries where they originated.

Vance said the decision not to prosecute Steinhardt meant that the relics could be returned more quickly and that witnesses and other parallel investigations would remain secret.

The investigation into Steinhardt, who is also known for his work as a co-founder of Birthright Israel, which pays for young Jewish adults to visit Israel, began in 2017. It revealed that he had purchased some items from known antiquities traffickers without any information about their provenance. At least 100 of the pieces Steinhardt has agreed to turn over appeared covered in dirt before he bought them, which authorities said was a sign of looting.

During one exchange with investigators over a subpoena related to a different antique, Steinhardt reportedly pointed to the Larnax — the Greek chest he agreed to forfeit — and said: "You see this piece? There's no provenance for it. If I see a piece and I like it, then I buy it."


https://www.npr.org/2021/12/07/10621110 ... hedge-fund

by JazzNU ^^^ TLDR?:



by JazzNU ^^ A good contrast to Jussie's trial on so-called wasted time and resources.

by ti-amie Antiquities looting, buying and selling is one of the least looked at crimes because back in the day it was done without a concern for the needs or wants of the people the antiquities were stolen from. The Elgin Marbles and the Benin Bronzes come to mind.

by ti-amie As for Jussie I don't know. Saying he should've known better doesn't seem to be enough.

by JazzNU That's not a garden variety antiquity theft if you read the article, it is highly egregious and he's serving no time and people are in prison for years for stealing from the corner store without a weapon or selling counterfeit goods on the street.

And I don't care even a little bit what happens to Jussie, but given the number crimes that get falsified, and have not been prosecuted, the narrative from CPD acting as if this is about wasted time and resources is a monumental stretch. A 4-year investigation involving 60 investigators that ends with no jail time ought to show that is rarely a concern.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

Amazing how quiet all the folks who were raving about child porn rings in the basement of a pizza shop with no basement have been about this isn't it?

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:44 pm ...

Amazing how quiet all the folks who were raving about child porn rings in the basement of a pizza shop with no basement have been about this isn't it?
:clap: :clap: :clap: I had not thought about it.

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:28 pm
I know that she has the right to file this suit, and she deserves compensation, but this is attacking the problem at a place where nothing will change for the better. Bankrupting a county will not stop these events one bit.

by ti-amie I thought the same thing ponchi. In suburban areas aren't the schools funded through taxes the residents pay? Then I thought that maybe the insurance company is who she's really suing? I really don't know.

by dmforever
ti-amie wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:35 pm Antiquities looting, buying and selling is one of the least looked at crimes because back in the day it was done without a concern for the needs or wants of the people the antiquities were stolen from. The Elgin Marbles and the Benin Bronzes come to mind.
You mentioned learning from each other's posts. I agree 100%. I will look these two things up later. Thanks for the post.

Kevin

by JazzNU Highly unlikely to bankrupt the school, district, town or county. the school in Parkland is operating fine following their settlement, for instance. Yes, this will mostly be insurance that is paying the lion's share, but yeah it could also fall to taxpayers too. But also, they have to win, which is not a slam dunk and most assuredly won't be for the ridiculous amount they are suing for, one of which is about trauma not wrongful death.

Lawsuits get filed against those with deep pockets. At least right now, these are the deepest pockets they can find. Other possibilities might present themselves in the future. They will likely also sue the parents, but at least right now, it's getting blood from a turnip.

I don't remotely know the finances of the school or district, but know that Oakland is a rich county, unless the school or district is poorly run, this should not bankrupt them and shouldn't result in some massive tax bill to residents.

by ponchi101 Serious question. How meritorious will the lawsuit be, in the sense that in the USA, finding, buying and having a gun, or many, is supported by the constitution, there is a group focused exclusively in delivering guns to the hands of civilians, and there is an entire gun culture that supports such ownership? It would be, if I may bring in the simile, as suing the Afghan or Yemeni governments, two countries were a man owning a gun is almost mandatory.
Yes, thanks to the posts here we know that the school was in knowledge that this kid was suffering considerable bouts of rage, which does not mean they could have stopped all this.
And, again, it is a serious question. Remember, this is almost an exclusively American phenomenon.

by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:34 pm Serious question. How meritorious will the lawsuit be, in the sense that in the USA, finding, buying and having a gun, or many, is supported by the constitution, there is a group focused exclusively in delivering guns to the hands of civilians, and there is an entire gun culture that supports such ownership? It would be, if I may bring in the simile, as suing the Afghan or Yemeni governments, two countries were a man owning a gun is almost mandatory.
Yes, thanks to the posts here we know that the school was in knowledge that this kid was suffering considerable bouts of rage, which does not mean they could have stopped all this.
And, again, it is a serious question. Remember, this is almost an exclusively American phenomenon.
Not certain I understand your question. Are you asking if there is merit to a lawsuit at all because of the amount of gun ownership there is in the US? Or something else?

by ponchi101 The gun culture in the USA is unlike any other in the Americas, Europe or Asia (as I said, Afghanistan and Yemen come to mind like places where there is also a "peculiar" relation between guns and men). After every single event like this one, the government of the USA does nothing about the problem: no laws, not even discussion in the chambers of power in the Congress. To us looking from the outside, it is very indicative that not only members of congress and the senate, belonging to the GOP, simply could not care less about this issue. Actually, it would seem that at least a fraction of the population is by now immune to these events and they have become normal.
So, IF THE GOVERNMENT AND THE POWERS THAT BE, do nothing about the main issue (gun ownership by people that simply should not own a gun) or implement safety and security measures to protect the population, why should individual, civilian organizations with no mission statement regarding this issue be held accountable and responsible for the events? We have seen what other countries have done after events like this: Dumblane, Utoya and Port Arthur were met by swift response by the governments. In the USA, nothing ever happens.
Why should the school be liable when the government approves de facto these events?

by ti-amie @Dave Byrnes is the only account I've seen doing day by day coverage of Smollets trial. To no one's surprise he was found guilty on five of six counts.
via @threadreaderapp

Follow up on the #JussieSmollett trial: special prosecutor Dan Webb says he and his legal team worked this case pro bono. "We made the decision, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it for the public," Webb says.

He also clarifies the one count on which Smollett was found not guilty: it was a count of falsely reporting an aggravated battery. Specifically it was for the report he made to detectives two weeks after his initial report, that his attackers were wearing masks.

The press scrum around Webb is asking if Smollett should face perjury charges for lying on the stand. Webb says he'll bring it up at sentencing, but otherwise doesn't know.

Abimbola Osundairo's spokesperson now making a statement, thanking Retired appellate judge Sheila O'Brien for filing a motion to ask for a special prosecutor in this case, way back in 2019.

"You are still your mother's child... people will forgive you... just come clean." - Abimbola' spokesperson, in a statement to #JussieSmollett.
Abimbola Osundairo now speaking. Wishes his brother luck in his boxing match, says "Nigerian American lives matter." Leaves after that.
Smollett himself now coming down to leave the courthouse.

Defense attorney Nenye Uche now speaking. "We feel 100% confident this case will be won on appeal," he says.

Uche saying that he remains convinced of Smollett's innocence. He calls the verdict "inconsistent." Also decries that Smollett was charged multiple times for, essentially, one incident. "He is absolutely, 100% innocent." Uche says.

"Jussie is dissappointed, but he is 100% confident this will be won on appeal," Uche says.

Uche also saying he doubts Smollett will see jail time, even if he loses his appeal. "This is a class 4 felony. It's right above a misdemeanor," he says.
Uche also chiding reporters a bit for asking if Smollett will speak tonight. "Come on... let's be human."

"We were facing an uphill battle where Jussie had already been tried and convicted in media," Uche says, of how the trial went.

Seconds after Uche finished speaking, #JussieSmollett quickly left the building without giving a statement, flanked by his family and chased by reporters who frankly remind me of vultures. And that's all folks. Well and truly this time. Good night all.

by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 12:49 am The gun culture in the USA is unlike any other in the Americas, Europe or Asia (as I said, Afghanistan and Yemen come to mind like places where there is also a "peculiar" relation between guns and men). After every single event like this one, the government of the USA does nothing about the problem: no laws, not even discussion in the chambers of power in the Congress. To us looking from the outside, it is very indicative that not only members of congress and the senate, belonging to the GOP, simply could not care less about this issue. Actually, it would seem that at least a fraction of the population is by now immune to these events and they have become normal.
So, IF THE GOVERNMENT AND THE POWERS THAT BE, do nothing about the main issue (gun ownership by people that simply should not own a gun) or implement safety and security measures to protect the population, why should individual, civilian organizations with no mission statement regarding this issue be held accountable and responsible for the events? We have seen what other countries have done after events like this: Dumblane, Utoya and Port Arthur were met by swift response by the governments. In the USA, nothing ever happens.
Why should the school be liable when the government approves de facto these events?
Being honest here. I'm not sure if you're interested in a real answer. If you want me to try to break down what I think at least some of the disconnect is here, I can try. But if you're really not asking for that, that's fine too. But I can't tell.

by ponchi101 I did say it was a serious question. And your answers are always read.

by ti-amie Supreme Court says Texas abortion providers may proceed with challenge of six-week ban, leaves law in effect for now

By Robert Barnes
Today at 1:00 p.m. EST

The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks, but provided a path for abortion providers to challenge what is the nation’s most restrictive law on the procedure.

The court’s splintered decision allows the providers to return to a district judge who once blocked the law, saying it violated the constitutional right to abortion.

That restarts the legal process that has seen the law remain in effect since Sept. 1, when the Supreme Court refused to step in to block it.

Eight justices said the abortion providers may bring the challenge. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for himself and the court’s three liberals, said the district judge should act quickly.

“Given the ongoing chilling effect of the state law, the District Court should resolve this litigation and enter appropriate relief without delay,” Roberts wrote.

The decision was both a partial victory and a disappointment for abortion rights supporters. They had asked the court to block the law while the legal process continued, but have not found the necessary five votes.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, who as president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, is lead plaintiff in the case, said that while Wednesday’s outcome offered “hope,” the legal process has been “excruciating” for patients and staff alike.

“We’ve had to turn hundreds of patients away since this ban took effect, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to block the law means the heartbreak doesn’t end,” she said in a statement, imploring the lower court judge to act expediently. “ … We hope this law is blocked quickly so we can resume the full scope of abortion care we are trained to provide.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, an avowed critic of the court’s abortion jurisprudence, wrote that he would not have allowed the lawsuit to continue. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, on the other hand, issued a blistering statement on the court’s refusal to block the law, called S.B. 8.

“The Court should have put an end to this madness months ago, before S.B.8 first went into effect,” wrote Sotomayor, who was joined by fellow liberal justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan.

The court’s refusal to block the law “betrays not only the citizens of Texas, but also our constitutional system of government,” she wrote.

While the case over Texas’s law is procedural, the Supreme Court has signaled it is ready to make dramatic changes in the judicial rules governing abortion rights. In debating a Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks, some justices earlier this month indicated they are open to overturning Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years has said there is a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List reacted saying: “We celebrate that the Texas Heartbeat Act will remain in effect, saving the lives of unborn children and protecting mothers while litigation continues in lower courts.”

“Meanwhile,” she added, “we anxiously await the Court’s decision in the [Mississippi] case in which the court is directly considering the constitutionality of laws that protect unborn children and mothers prior to viability.”

Access to abortion in Texas has been dramatically curtailed, and abortion providers said many who wanted the procedure were forced to leave the state.

Nancy Northup, who heads the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the providers, chastised the court for having “abandoned its duty to ensure that states do not defy its decisions.”

“For 100 days now,” Northup said in a statement, “this six-week ban has been in effect, and today’s ruling means there is no end in sight.”

The court’s decision, wrote Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, was a procedural one.

“In this preliminary posture, the ultimate merits question — whether S.B.8 is consistent with the Federal Constitution — is not before the Court,” he wrote. “Nor is the wisdom of S.B.8 as a matter of public policy.”

The Texas cases raised complicated questions about legal procedure precisely because S.B. 8 was intended to avoid federal court review.

The issue for the justices was whether the law could be challenged in federal court, where judges compelled to follow Supreme Court precedent have stopped other states from enacting similar bans on early abortions.

Texas officials said the challenges must come in Texas courts after the civil suits have been adjudicated, but the law sets up obstacles that could delay a final decision for years.

Texas calls S.B. 8 a “heartbeat” bill — it prohibits abortions after cardiac activity is noted in the embryo. There is no exception for rape or incest, and the abortion patient cannot be sued.

The law is enforced by private citizens rather than the state government. Any individual can sue anyone who aids or abets a prohibited abortion. Successful lawsuits would result in an award of at least $10,000 to the person who filed the complaint — at oral argument, some justices referred to the award as a “bounty.”

Gorsuch wrote that the state’s judges, clerks and attorney general were not proper defendants in the case. But he said it could go forward against executive licensing officials who have regulatory authority over the providers.

Roberts wrote that was too cramped a view of the state’s responsibility for the law. His opinion in the case, joined by the court’s liberals, focused on what he called Texas’s attempts to undermine the judiciary’s role in determining the constitutionality of laws.

“Texas has employed an array of stratagems designed to shield its unconstitutional law from judicial review,” Roberts wrote. He quoted from an 1809 Supreme Court opinion that said attempts by state legislatures to annul judgments of the courts make a “mockery” of the Constitution.

“The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake,” he added.

The case presumably returns to U.S. District Judge Robert L. Pitman, who previously rejected a request from Texas officials to dismiss the lawsuit from abortion providers and scheduled a hearing to consider whether to block the six-week ban before it took effect.

But he was preempted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which called off the hearing pending further review and declined to halt the law. Pitman is likely to quickly issue an injunction while the renewed litigation is pending.

In a separate proceeding brought by the Biden administration, Pitman characterized the six-week ban as an “unprecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right,” adding that he would not “sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”

But Pitman’s order would be reviewed by the 5th Circuit, which already has overruled him twice. And that could return the issue to the Supreme Court.

A stay from Pitman “will provide a reprieve for abortion providers, though for how long?” said Melissa Murray, a New York University law professor, who is closely following the litigation.

On Friday, the court said it should not have granted review of the case brought by Biden’s Justice Department, and dismissed it in the court’s parlance as “improvidently granted.” Sotomayor dissented from that decision.

Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the department, said in a statement that the administration became involved in the case because Texas’s law “was specifically designed to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights while evading judicial review.” The department, Coley said, “will continue our efforts in the lower courts to protect the rights of women and uphold the Constitution.”

The cases are Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas.

Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.

by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:17 pm I did say it was a serious question. And your answers are always read.
Got really busy with work today, sorry about that. I'll post something tomorrow.

by JazzNU
JazzNU wrote: Sat Dec 11, 2021 1:57 am
ponchi101 wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:17 pm I did say it was a serious question. And your answers are always read.
Got really busy with work today, sorry about that. I'll post something tomorrow.
And then I was busy yesterday being Aunt Jazz. So instead you're going to get deep thinking on a football Sunday. 😊

by ti-amie This is both legal and political news but in the end it has to do with a SCOTUS ruling so I put it here. I hope New York State follows suit although with Gov Hochul having to run on a ticket that bot upstaters and downstaters (read NYC) she can't do anything until the election is decided. Great move by Newsom.


by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 12:49 am The gun culture in the USA is unlike any other in the Americas, Europe or Asia (as I said, Afghanistan and Yemen come to mind like places where there is also a "peculiar" relation between guns and men). After every single event like this one, the government of the USA does nothing about the problem: no laws, not even discussion in the chambers of power in the Congress. To us looking from the outside, it is very indicative that not only members of congress and the senate, belonging to the GOP, simply could not care less about this issue. Actually, it would seem that at least a fraction of the population is by now immune to these events and they have become normal.
So, IF THE GOVERNMENT AND THE POWERS THAT BE, do nothing about the main issue (gun ownership by people that simply should not own a gun) or implement safety and security measures to protect the population, why should individual, civilian organizations with no mission statement regarding this issue be held accountable and responsible for the events? We have seen what other countries have done after events like this: Dumblane, Utoya and Port Arthur were met by swift response by the governments. In the USA, nothing ever happens.
Why should the school be liable when the government approves de facto these events?

Splitting this into 2 posts.

So this is an attempt to answer some of this, but I doubt you'll be happy with the majority of this, so I'll say that up front, because it's not going to magically become New Zealand here. What you're making is more of a philosophical argument in large part than a legal one. I barely know where to start, but will begin here. First and foremost, the government doesn't approve of these events. When something like this happens, there are efforts to make changes, at the state and national level most times. There is a numbness to them, but not a desire to keep the status quo. There is majority public support for making changes to the gun laws. But there is a powerful gun lobby that limits or flat out derails what is done every time legislation is put forth. And I don't know enough about the governments you're referencing, but I'd guess that they don't have the constitutional wording and history associated with the Right to Bear Arms as the US does. And I'd also guess that they don't have the similar a similar gun lobby and as powerful gun manufacturers in their countries that are contributing to slow changes in gun laws.

There's also just a misunderstanding of how gun laws are written here. Why can't we just do what the UK and many other countries do? The UK doesn't give gun rights in their Constitution like the US does. Limiting ownership and rights is much easier because of this. Now, our forefathers didn't count on any of the modern guns we are dealing with, but the gun manufacturers and gun enthusiasts and in turn the NRA doesn't care about that. They take any limitation proposed as an infringement that will result in the road to no guns.

You can take Mexico as another example and it's indicative of quite a few countries. They once had the right to bear arms in their Constitution in a similar manner to the US, but have since adopted a newer constitution (coming out of a Revolution) that altered that right to something much more limited and controlled. But the US? We still have our 1776 Constitution (and 1791 Bill of Rights) with the mindset to match it where the Right to Bear Arms is concerned. When you're comparing the US to other countries, you'd need to look at that countries' constitution. More often than not, they've been forced to update their Constitution, typically for a great good reason, for having gained independence most often, within the last 100 years where gun ownership means something much different than it meant to our forefathers and the wording reflects a more modern sensibility because there's much greater knowledge of how guns can and have been used. Our republic's comparative stability has been a detriment on this issue.

When you say "simply should not own a gun" that is a philosophical argument or an opinion, not a legal argument. Basically every sane non-criminal has the right to bear arms here. Should they? Different question. For that to be a reality, where most people would not be able to own a gun, or for instance, to be allowed to own something like "no more than 5 hunting rifles unless an active member of the armed forces or a officially recognized local, state, or federal police or protection agency", in the current mindset, that basically means a Constitutional Amendment, which is a herculean task. Not remotely what other countries have done to get rid of guns following shootings to my knowledge, which is essentially to pass a piece of legislation with a majority or a supermajority of their legislative body. To take away the right to gun ownership entirely is not that simple here. It requires the same effort that was necessary to remove slavery from the books in the US (hopefully without a war). In the 230 years since the first set of Amendments to the Constitution (aka the Bill of Rights), there have only been 17 Amendments to the Constitution.

Now, that doesn't mean there isn't support for change. There is, which is another reason there has been an attempt by every recent administration to reign in gun laws, it is on politically solid ground to advocate for it in many parts of the country. Public support tipped over when school shootings became less isolated, and has steadily risen since I believe Sandy Hook with it being a good deal over the majority since Parkland at the latest. That support isn't for the banishment of guns though, it's for increased gun control. But it still requires getting it past the gun lobby. And for the time being, the best we might get are some parameters on gun ownership, a few more limitations, more concrete background checks, and closing of loopholes. But even that has been very difficult, because like I said, any challenge to gun ownership, even a minute one, causes the gun lobby to close ranks.


If you're interested in more information about the NRA and their successful tactics, I recommend watching this Last Week Tonight segment, it's a good rundown of how they operate and defeat even small legislation.


by JazzNU Second part, specifically speaking to Oxford, Michigan and the school shooting. I think your (and many others) objection to the idea of this lawsuit is potentially more about it being a public school.

So let's change the fact pattern slightly. Let's say that there's a active shooter situation at Lehman Brothers that results in 4 people dead and 20 people are injured. The shooter is found to be a disgruntled employee whose biggest client was recently reassigned to another broker. And let's also say that Lehman Brothers commissioned a safety report 5 years ago, after several concerning workplace incidents in general but specifically in the financial services industry, on actions they could take to make their workplace safer and the recommendations included installing metal detectors at all entrances. None of these major recommendations were acted upon despite their Chief of Security bringing up the subject within the last year following an incident with an employee threatening their department director. After the investigation of the mass shooting, it's found that there were complaints made to HR by multiple employees about increasingly erratic and bizarre behavior of the employee and 4 other official complaints made to department heads about the mass shooter, including an angry blowup at the company Christmas party where the incident was witnessed by more than 50 employees, including several senior executives. On the day of the shooting, the employee was acting erratic, more so than usual, and it was reported to higher ups by several of his colleagues.

So let's stop there. If one of the victims or victim's families sue Lehman Brothers, do you think there's a fundamental issue with the lawsuit? Do you think there's something wrong with holding Lehman Brothers responsible for not taking precautions to better protect their employees?

Now, let's change out Lehman Brothers. And instead let's say this occurred at the headquarters, where there are offices and nothing else, so no manufacturing of any kind of the following - Smith and Wesson, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin or the NRA. Does the same objection to suing them remain as nothing other than a workplace that was supposed to keep you safe?

If you think it's okay to sue Lehman, Lockheed, etc, then your objection is really that you're uncomfortable with the school being the entity that someone wants to hold responsible, not so much the concept of the organization where the shooting taking place bearing some responsibility to keep those there safe.

by ponchi101 I wanted to give your posts some thought and read them again, before posting some more.
What I find interesting borders on cultural divisions. Because I am applying for Colombian citizenship I had to read their constitution, and there lies the difference in views. Your example about a shooter at Lehman Brothers makes a good case. But down here, it would not be Lehman Brothers responsibility. The constitution clearly states that the security of the population resides with the Government. I suspect that if events like these were to happen here (and I come back to the fact that these shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon, as nothing like that has ever happened in L. America) the population would immediately ask about the government's role, not what the location where such an event would take place could have done.
Perhaps I did not use proper words when saying that the Government (USA) APPROVES of these events, but there I gather we would be in disagreement. The GOP certainly DOES NOT care about these events, and the NRA has enough senators in their pocket to make it sure no amendment will be considered, much less passed. One last item that you mention is the impossibility to change the constitution in the USA. By now an almost 250 yo document, it may be outdated in many aspects, specially that second amendment. Here, the constitution dates from 1991, when the country decided it was time to review the previous one (1896). Maybe an exercise worth taking: constitution should be written or at least reviewed once a century. But that is a different conversation.

by ti-amie The people in the US who are always howling about the Second Amendment have a hit list of Amendments they'd like to do away with. I really hope no one here decides to open the can of worms that amending/updating the US Constitution would become.

by ponchi101 Of course right now it would be impossible, because you are so divided, but how open would you be for a NEW constitution? Written not by lawyers, senators or politicians, but by philosophers, humanists, people of renowned intellect? Would that be acceptable?

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 7:00 pm Of course right now it would be impossible, because you are so divided, but how open would you be for a NEW constitution? Written not by lawyers, senators or politicians, but by philosophers, humanists, people of renowned intellect? Would that be acceptable?
Don't get me wrong. I think it's a great idea that the Constitution be updated. It's the GQP that worries me. There is no way they would accept "philosophers, humanists, people of renowned intellect" to do such a thing since they've been conditioned to think that people who fall into the categories you list think that they're better than them and don't have their interests at heart. It would be a s**t show.

by ti-amie

TFG has 14 days to appeal.

by ponchi101 Which he will, again and again, until he dies at age 90 and will never spend one day in prison.

by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 4:09 pm Here, the constitution dates from 1991, when the country decided it was time to review the previous one (1896).
Decided it was time to review the previous one (1896)... after decades of violent conflict and political turmoil.

A large part of my political science focus was on Latin America and I also worked as a grad assistant on large-scale research project that was studying world constitutions. Maybe Colombia has reframed the reasons for their newer Constitution these days. It happens. But academics surely don't view it as merely thinking it was time to review the previous one.

by JazzNU I think updating the US Constitution is a terrible idea. Amendments are fine, starting from scratch as an update would be a fundamental mistake.

Keep in mind that to this day, other democracies still use that 1776 US Constitution and it's 1791 Bill of Rights as a template. Also keep in mind the way that the country held despite the attempts to attack this democracy in the last 5 years, it did not crumble because the US Constitution is a very strong one for democratic ideals. Many other similar attempts have been successful in other countries because they had lesser frameworks than the US does. The level of checks and balances others had weren't enough.

The way to remedy things is through legislation and through the Courts as has been done in the past. There are plenty of ways to correct or reign in what is imperfect through those means when fewer self-serving, self-righteous, antiquated, or bought-and-paid for morally bankrupt individuals are serving in those positions.

by ponchi101
JazzNU wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 2:40 am ...

Decided it was time to review the previous one (1896)... after decades of violent conflict and political turmoil.

A large part of my political science focus was on Latin America and I also worked as a grad assistant on large-scale research project that was studying world constitutions. Maybe Colombia has reframed the reasons for their newer Constitution these days. It happens. But academics surely don't view it as merely thinking it was time to review the previous one.
No. That was just my phrasing, not what academics say it was. The 1991 Constitution was spurred not because of decades of political violence; Colombia had been waging one civil war after another since it independence and the 1896 constitution was heavily influenced by religious principles. The Conservatives in Colombia wanted the country to be openly a RELIGIOUS democracy, with Catholicism firmly entrenched in the constitution, while the liberals wanted the country to be secular. For example, under the 1896 constitution, divorce was forbidden. So that makes it a century and a half of political turmoil.
So by 1990 the population wanted a new constitution because the old one had really become obsolete. As a matter of fact, the move for the constitutional change started with a popular movement in which newspapers printed the NEW CONSTITUTION ballot in their daily editions and people clipped it, filled it in and deposited in the voting booths. Because so many people did, the movement was successful.
But remember, when I write stuff, I am usually trying to make it light. So, again, I am sure that most historians will not use my phrasing to describe what happened.

by ti-amie Today in Big Pharma


by ti-amie


by ti-amie

by JazzNU The replies to that tweet show just how ignorant people are to how the law and legal system works. That is a great play by his lawyer's and it does not smack of desperation to file such a motion, nowhere near. I love the high and mighty who if they had anything charged against them, their friends, or their family, would want every one of these things explored and more to get something reduced or dismissed, but let it be someone famous and they want a Hollywood about-face and full confession captured on tape.

by ti-amie I feel that way about the implied criticism of the Maxwell jury. This is not a TV show. It would've been easy to go in, get fed on the court's dime, and come back with a verdict. I don't know if Federal juries have to be unanimous but this jury is taking its time and that, to me, is a good thing.

by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 11:01 pm I feel that way about the implied criticism of the Maxwell jury. This is not a TV show. It would've been easy to go in, get fed on the court's dime, and come back with a verdict. I don't know if Federal juries have to be unanimous but this jury is taking its time and that, to me, is a good thing.
Yes, federal juries must be unanimous, even in civil cases.

by Deuce
ti-amie wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 11:01 pm I feel that way about the implied criticism of the Maxwell jury. This is not a TV show. It would've been easy to go in, get fed on the court's dime, and come back with a verdict. I don't know if Federal juries have to be unanimous but this jury is taking its time and that, to me, is a good thing.
I beg to differ. It IS a TV show.
Every high profile trial in the U.S. is a TV show.
The lawyers - and even the judges - play to the cameras.
I suppose the O.J. trial really started this disturbing trend, and it will sadly continue for a long time to come in the celebrity obsessed U.S.A.

On the other topic, guilty is guilty, regardless of irrelevant details like jurisdiction. Allowing arguments like this is precisely why the law is so often referred to as being "an ass".
If a lawyer finds a loophole to exploit in order to get his or her GUILTY client off, the lawyer may be referred to as 'a good lawyer' - but in my book, they are bad human beings.
Only RELEVANT facts should be considered in determining guilt or innocence.
Guilty is guilty. Period.

by ti-amie The verdict(s) in the Maxwell trial show why Tiny is filing his frivolous suits outside of NYC. We ain't stupid.

by ti-amie There is other Maxwell/Epstein news that's not directly related to the just completed trial.


by ti-amie


by ti-amie

by Deuce
ti-amie wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:49 pm
I'd say it's pretty obvious that he's sweating now...

by ti-amie Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes found mostly guilty in epic fraud trial
The three-month trial featured intense lawyering and testimony, including from Holmes herself — possibly to her detriment with the 12-person jury.

MATTHEW RENDA / January 3, 2022

Image
FILE- In this Nov. 2, 2015, file photo, Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, speaks at the Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) — Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes faces decades in prison after a federal jury on Monday found her guilty on 8 of 11 counts of fraud and criminal conspiracy, bringing to an end a trial filled with technical details that began in early September.

This is a developing story.

https://www.courthousenews.com/theranos ... aud-trial/

by ti-amie Elizabeth Holmes found guilty of four counts of fraud.

By Erin Griffith and Erin Woo
Jan. 3, 2022, 7:20 p.m. ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the failed blood testing start-up Theranos, was found guilty of four charges of fraud on Monday, in a case that came to symbolize the pitfalls of Silicon Valley’s culture of hustle, hype and greed.

Ms. Holmes was the most prominent tech executive to field fraud accusations in a generation of high-flying, money-losing start-ups. A jury of eight men and four women took 50 hours to reach a verdict, convicting her of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was found not guilty on four other counts.

Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, terms that are likely to be served concurrently. Ms. Holmes is expected to appeal.

The verdict stands out for its rarity. Few technology executives are charged with fraud and even fewer are convicted. If sentenced to prison, Ms. Holmes would be the most notable female executive to serve time since Martha Stewart did in 2004 after lying to investigators about a stock sale. And Theranos, which dissolved in 2018, is likely to stand as a warning to other Silicon Valley start-ups that stretch the truth to score funding and business deals.

The verdict suggested that jurors believed the evidence presented by prosecutors that showed Ms. Holmes lied about Theranos’s technology to get money and fame. They were not swayed by her defense of blaming others for Theranos’s problems and accusing her co-conspirator, Ramesh Balwani, the company’s chief operating officer and her former boyfriend, of abusing her.

The guilty verdict arrived in a frenzied period for the tech industry, with investors fighting to get into hot deals and often ignoring potential red flags about the companies they were putting money into. Some have warned that more Theranos-like disasters loom.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/tech ... 2afbcd939d

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie Interesting




by ponchi101 The worst part for him, since he is in London, is that buses down there are double deckers. So being thrown under one by your own family... ouch.

by ti-amie

by JazzNU The personification of a douchebag. Never has a more punchable face existed.



by JazzNU And let's hope Manchin's soulless daughter is next!

by ti-amie

by ti-amie I don't know if Andrew deserves his own thread yet...

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:34 pm I don't know if Andrew deserves his own thread yet...
I don't know when his topic will merge with Ghyslaine's...

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:41 pm
ti-amie wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:34 pm I don't know if Andrew deserves his own thread yet...
I don't know when his topic will merge with Ghyslaine's...
Good point. It's all connected.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie






by ti-amie Top Jan. 6 Investigator Fired From Post at the University of Virginia
Democrats in Virginia denounced the action as a partisan move aimed at helping former President Donald J. Trump undercut the investigation of the Capitol riot.

By Michael S. Schmidt
Published Jan. 23, 2022
Updated Jan. 24, 2022, 7:06 a.m. ET

The top staff investigator on the House committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has been fired by the state’s new Republican attorney general from his position as the top lawyer for the University of Virginia, from which he was on leave while working on the congressional inquiry.

The office of the Virginia attorney general, Jason S. Miyares, said the firing of the investigator, Timothy J. Heaphy, was not related to the Jan. 6 investigation, but the move prompted an outcry from Democrats in the state, who accused him of taking the highly unusual action as a partisan move to further former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to undermine the committee’s work.

“This is purely payback for Jan. 6 — there is no other reason that makes any sense,” said Scott Surovell, a top Democrat in the Virginia State Senate, who said that he knew of no other similar example in recent history where a new attorney general had immediately removed a school’s top lawyer. “In our state, we normally leave those decisions to the school’s board of visitors and president.”

Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for Mr. Miyares, said: “The decision had nothing to do with the Jan. 6 committee or their investigations.”

In Virginia, the attorney general oversees a range of lawyers across the state, including the top lawyers at the colleges and universities that make up the vast public higher education system. The posts are typically held by career lawyers who are rarely replaced when new attorneys general take over.

In addition to dismissing Mr. Heaphy, Mr. Miyares also had the top lawyer at George Mason University removed.

Mr. Heaphy, a Democrat...had been the top lawyer at the University of Virginia since 2018. He served as a United States attorney in Virginia during the Obama administration and is married to the daughter of Eric K. Shinseki, the retired chief of staff of the Army who served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of veterans affairs. In 2017, on behalf of the City of Charlottesville, he completed a highly critical report of how the police handled the white nationalist rally that turned violent and led to the death of one woman and injured dozens.

In a written statement, the University of Virginia sidestepped the issue of whether his dismissal had been motivated by politics, but made clear that it had no role in it.

“University leaders are grateful to Tim for his outstanding service to our community and disappointed to see it come to an end,” said Brian Coy, a spokesman for the university. “If you have further questions about this matter, I would check with the attorney general’s office, as this was their decision to make.”

Mr. Heaphy — who attended undergraduate and law school at the University of Virginia, who has long lived in Charlottesville and whose son attends the school — declined to address why he was dismissed, saying that he was “disappointed” that his time at the university had come to an end and that he was confident that the school would continue “to thrive in the days to come.”

In two statements released on Sunday, the attorney general’s office said the firing was unrelated to the Jan. 6 inquiry. In the first, to The Associated Press, Ms. LaCivita said that Mr. Heaphy had been a “controversial” hire and that the “decision was made after reviewing the legal decisions made over the last couple of years.”

“The attorney general wants the university counsel to return to giving legal advice based on law, and not the philosophy of a university,” she added.

In a subsequent statement, Ms. LaCivita said: “It is common practice for an incoming administration to appoint new staff that share the philosophical and legal approach of the attorney general. Every counsel serves at the pleasure of the attorney general.”

One top Virginia Republican said that Mr. Heaphy had angered some Republicans in the state by acting too independently in his job at the university and for his role in the university’s decision in 2020 to allow a student to post a highly critical sign about the school on their door. Mr. Heaphy had privately made the case to the school’s president that while the profanity on the sign was offensive, removing it would have infringed upon the student’s First Amendment rights.

On the House committee, Mr. Heaphy has worked behind the scenes, overseeing a staff of dozens of investigators who are examining how Mr. Trump and his allies sought to overturn the election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Mr. Heaphy is close to the committee’s vice chairwoman, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, who has taken a highly aggressive approach to the inquiry.

Correction: Jan. 23, 2022
An earlier version of this article misstated a previous position of Eric K. Shinseki. He is the retired chief of staff of the Army, not the secretary.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/23/us/p ... ginia.html

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:52 pm
Excuse me for my ignorance in legalese, but: why ALLEGED? Isn't it clear that he was the shooter? Whatever defense they are planning on using?

by ti-amie Also, if it can be shown that he planned this can he be found insane?

And don't forget his "Parent's of the Year" who were going to leave him to face his fate alone.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie

by ti-amie Summary from @KlasfeldReports of the AUSA and Michael Avenatti's closing remarks. Avenatti is representing himself.

Good morning from New York.

It’s Groundhog Day… again, which means proceedings in yet another federal trial against Michael Avenatti.

Closing arguments are expected to start this morning in the Stormy Daniels case.

Follow along here, @lawcrimenews
"All rise"

The jury is entering.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Sobelman is up:

"The defendant was a lawyer who stole from his own client. She thought that he was her own advocate, but he betrayed her."

And he told lies to cover it up, the AUSA says.

"The defendant's lies and betrayal were exposed."
That line very much echoes that the one by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Rohrbach during opening statements a little more than a week ago. lawandcrime.com/uncategorized/…
AUSA:

"He lied to Ms. Daniels for months to cover it up."

In February 2019, Avenatti got caught up in his own "web of lies," he adds.

The prosecutor says the jury has a "mountain of evidence" before it.
AUSA: Why did the defendant lie in those messages? He knew that [the money] did not belong to him. He stole it.
Prosecutors show this text exchange between Avenatti and Daniels to the jury, noting that the publisher wasn't late with the payment, as she thought.

Avenatti had it and didn't tell her, he notes.

Good morning from New York.

It’s Groundhog Day… again, which means proceedings in yet another federal trial against Michael Avenatti.

Closing arguments are expected to start this morning in the Stormy Daniels case.

Follow along here, @lawcrimenews
"All rise"

The jury is entering.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Sobelman is up:

"The defendant was a lawyer who stole from his own client. She thought that he was her own advocate, but he betrayed her."

And he told lies to cover it up, the AUSA says.

"The defendant's lies and betrayal were exposed."
That line very much echoes that the one by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Rohrbach during opening statements a little more than a week ago. lawandcrime.com/uncategorized/…
AUSA:

"He lied to Ms. Daniels for months to cover it up."

In February 2019, Avenatti got caught up in his own "web of lies," he adds.

The prosecutor says the jury has a "mountain of evidence" before it.
AUSA: Why did the defendant lie in those messages? He knew that [the money] did not belong to him. He stole it.
Prosecutors show this text exchange between Avenatti and Daniels to the jury, noting that the publisher wasn't late with the payment, as she thought.

Avenatti had it and didn't tell her, he notes.

Image

The prosecutor shows the jury a similar exchange from October 2018.

AUSA: That was false. The publisher didn't owe Ms. Daniels anything. It was the defendant who took her money.

Image

AUSA: Another category of lies was telling Daniels that he would threaten litigation against the publisher to get the money.

In fact, he says, the publisher sent Avenatti the money and he spent it by that time.

Image

Note: I deleted an old version of the previous tweet for clarity and grammar.
Prosecution slide—

"The Defendant Broke Rules to Steal Money"

"When a lawyer receives any money on behalf of a client, the lawyer must deposit the money into a bank account labeled as a client trust bank account, and must promptly notify the client of the receipt of the funds."
AUSA says that Avenatti also broke notification rule.
Prosecution slide: "The Defendant Was Desperate for Money"

Avenatti's assistant testified that his law firm couldn't afford the basics, like rent and health insurance, the prosecutor noted.
AUSA: "The defendant's law firm was broke. That is one of the reasons that he stole Ms. Daniels's money."
AUSA: "That explains why he stole Ms. Daniels's money, but it doesn't excuse his crimes."
AUSA says that another reason the jury should know Avenatti is guilty is that he "played dumb when he got caught."
AUSA says of Daniels: "She could not believe that her trusted lawyer could have lied to her every day for months."

He shows this text message as an example of Avenatti "playing dumb."

Image

The exchange continues.

AUSA: "She told you that this was her 'mic drop' moment."

That moment is illustrated in these texts from Feb. 19, 2019.

Image

Avenatti claims that he was entitled to a portion of Daniels's book advance, but the prosecutor says that text messages demolish that defense.

AUSA: "If he thought the money was actually his, he would have just said so."
The prosecutor skewers what he calls Avenatti's "'I deserve it' defense."

Whatever work Avenatti did for Daniels does not give him a "free pass" to defraud her, he tells the jury.
AUSA Sobelman takes on Avenatti's "distraction" about Stormy Daniels's belief in the paranormal:

"Has she had some unusual experiences? Yes. Does she have some unusual beliefs? Sure."
Defense summation begins.


P1

by ti-amie Defense Summary

Avenatti: "Ladies and gentlemen, good morning."

He talks about his father selling hot dogs at a ballpark.

Objection.
Sustained.
Avenatti: "The government just told you a lot of things. They just represented to you a lot of things. So let's deal with one of the things that they just represented to you moments ago."

He focuses on the claim that he kept Daniels away from her agent, Luke Janklow.
Avenatti quotes Janklow calling Stormy Daniels "impulsively mercenary" in November 2018.

"Now, let's talk about Ms. Daniels. Some of you may admire Ms. Daniels," Avenatti says.

He says that he understands that because he did,too.
Avenatti:

"I was her advocate. I was her champion. The evidence shows that I put it all on the line for Ms. Daniels because I believed in her, and I waned to help her. I too admired her, perhaps more than anyone else in her life."

Avenatti: "Let's talk about attorneys. A lot of people don't like attorneys."

But when you need one, you need one, he says.
Avenatti says that Daniels needed one who wouldn't be scared off to go up against Trump.

"I didn't agree to do it for free. Attorneys, like most professionals, cost money."
Michael Avenatti: "Let me be clear: Michael Avenatti never committed the crime of wire fraud. Michael Avenatti never committed the crime of aggravated identity theft."
Michael Avenatti adds later:

"There is insufficient evidence to show that Michael Avenatti ever intended to harm Stormy Daniels."
(Note: There was a long exchange yesterday about how Michael Avenatti's use of the third person could avert lapsing into testimony, which would not be permitted during summations.)
Avenatti: "People expect to be paid for what they do. There is nothing controversial, or should not be anything controversial, about that basic concept."
Avenatti: "The evidence shows that we took the fight to Donald Trump, and the evidence shows that we had success in doing shows."

He says that the evidence shows that was the reason for the book deal.
Avenatti: "The evidence shows that I was instrumental in securing the book deal, finalizing the book deal," working with Daniels's agent and working on PR to make sure the book showed.

Michael Avenatti:

"According to the government, Michael Avenatti could never have believed that he had the right to be paid. That is ludicrous, and it is not supported by the evidence."
Avenatti: "Ladies and gentlemen, this was my money. This was the firm's money. This wasn't Ms. Daniels's money."
Typo: ***sold, not "showed."
Catch up on summations so far, with relevant background, here. lawandcrime.com/live-trials/li…
A saying that Avenatti repeats throughout summations—and previously in the trial:

"Once again, a trial is a fight for credibility."
He tells the jury that the judge will instruct them if the defendant has a reasonable belief that the money is his, even if that belief is mistaken, they must find him not guilty.
Throughout Avenatti's summation, the government objects whenever he appears to lapse into testimony.

Judge Furman repeatedly reminds the jury that his remarks are not evidence.
Avenatti: "Then we get to the big lie."

He points to questions from Judge Furman to Daniels.

Judge Furman: Is it correct that you never said to Mr. Avenatti that this account was closed?

He points to questions from Judge Furman to Daniels.

Judge Furman: Is it correct that you never said to Mr. Avenatti that this account was closed?

Daniels: No.

Court: No?

Daniels: I didn't tell him it was closed.
That answer from Daniels was completely false, Avenatti claims.
Avenatti: "Ms. Daniels lied on the stand."

He claims that Daniels was trying to keep money hidden from her then-husband.
Avenatti asks for proof that he said he wouldn't take any portion of the book deal.

"Where is that text message? Where is that email? Where is that voicemail?"

"It doesn't exist."
Repeated prosecutorial objections on the grounds that the government is not on trial.
Avenatti says the evidence shows that he could have communicated better with Ms. Daniels.

"There is no question about that, and I accept responsibility for that."

Objection.
Sustained, and the jury will disregard that statement.

"We were drowning in work," he says, comparing that that period to "drinking out of a firehouse."

During this soliloquy, the government objects, and the judge reminds the jury this is argument, not testimony.
Avenatti: "Ladies and gentlemen, failing to communicate effectively is not a crime."
Avenatti emphasizes the presumption of innocence.

"I don't even have to be up here speaking to you now. The entire burden rests with the government. It is their obligation, and it is their obligation to prove this case and every element of the case beyond a reasonable doubt."
(Deleted a prior version of the above tweet to correct an obvious typo—and then took a big sip of my morning coffee.)
Avenatti: "To conclude, I will leave you with this. I'm Italian. I like Italian food."

Objection.
Sustained.
Avenatti:

"The case the government is trying to feed you has a giant cockroach in the middle of the plate. Would you eat that dish or would you send it back? I submit that you would sent it back."
Back from the lunch break.

AUSA Podolsky is up for the prosecution rebuttal summation.

"The defendant's arguments in this case do not make sense."
AUSA to Avenatti: "That man took someone else's money. That's what this case is about."
AUSA:

"One of the things you would not do" if you thought you deserved the money "is lie."
Podolsky notes that Avenatti did get paid—via the crowdfunding method provided in the contract.

He wasn't entitled to more, he adds.
Podolsky on Avenatti attacking Stormy Daniels's paranormal beliefs:

"Ask yourself: What does any of that have to do with anything, anything?"

"She can believe whatever she wants and still be stolen from by the defendant and still deserve not to be."

AUSA: "The defendant cannot even articulate what she might be lying about."
Referring to Avenatti's text messages claiming not to know about Stormy Daniels's payment, the AUSA asks: "Ask yourself one simple question, why did he lie?"

The prosecutor says there's only one answer to that question: because Avenatti is guilty.

Rebuttal summations conclude.

by ti-amie


by ponchi101 A porn star sues her own lawyer.
And I can't find the jokes. Damn, I am getting old...

by ti-amie from Matthew Russell Lee for/as @InnerCityPress

OK - now Sarah Palin v. NYT starts with Judge Rakoff hearing arguments on what can be included in opening statements. Inner City Press, on alert for Avenatti verdict, is covering Palin v. NYT innercitypress.com/sdny44krakoffp… and will live tweet, thread below

Lawyer: I have a question on voir dire. Do you allow back striking?

Judge Rakoff: I don't know what that is. Let me explain how I choose juries, as they were in this court for 50 years, good enough for Learned Hand, good enough for me.

Judge Rakoff: We have 82 jurors. Because of COVID, some in a separate room. We're choosing 9. I question the first 9. Maybe 1 or 2 is excused for cause. Number 10 moves up. Then each side gets three challenges, in rounds. See you at 10. Thread will continue.
Judge Rakoff is back, and says: I thought I had excluded The Atlantic article(s), or said he'd have to deal with them as they come up. Do you want to use them in openings?

Answer: Yes.

Judge Rakoff: OK. If they end up not coming in, your adversary can use it.

Judge Rakoff: The idea, I guess, is that since Mr. Bennet was the big honcho at The Atlantic, he should be expected to know what's in the magazine. But didn't he say he had read the articles?

A: He only said it was possible he read it. That's not enough of a link

A: They were in an Andrew Sullivan blog that was Atlantic-adjacent. There's another by the National Journal, under the Atlantic's corporate rubric. There's no connection that suggested Mr. Bennet read them.

Judge Rakoff: I want to hear from plaintiff's counsel.

Palin's lawyer: We asked Mr. Bennet at his deposition and he said it was possible he read them.

Judge Rakoff: I just heard he said No, No, Maybe. That's a think reed.

Palin's lawyer: That goes to a credibility issue. This was a significant event at the Times.

Palin's lawyer: While these were technically blogs, they were all published through The Atlantic.

Judge Rakoff: I'm inclined to think that you can at opening argument says that Mr. Bennet made no effort to check out the prior state of knowledge.
NYT's lawyer: We hope they don't try to bring up Mr. Bennet's brother.
[Apparently they won't bring up the Senator. Here's another Senator, @SenJeffMerkley, who yesterday rightly called UNSG @antonioguterres "shameful" on China: innercitypress.com/genocidegames6…

Now in Jury Assembly Room for Palin v NYT jury selection. SDNY staffer tells prospective jurors, Now is the time to silence your phone, if you don't want to be the center of attention with your special ring tone. It's jury duty time. Voir dire below #CourtCaseCast

Judge Rakoff: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Before we begin, we're going to swear you in.

[It's done, by Courtroom deputy]
Judge Rakoff: This is a civil case that will take 2 weeks at most, probably less. We're picking a jury of 9. Please pay close attention
Judge Rakoff: The parties in this case are well known. You may have views. But that's an irrelevancy. What's important is the American sense of fair play - jurors put aside their views and look at the facts.
Judge Rakoff: Let me address jurors 1 through 9. Let me tell you about this case. The plaintiff is Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and former VP candidate. The defendant is the NYT. Ms. Palin claims the Times libeled her.
Judge Rakoff: The Times says while they may have made one or two errors in editorial but they quickly corrected it. Anyone can't be fair? Very good. We'll sit from 9:30 to 3:30. The lawyer will have to be here at 9. We want you to avoid rush hour.
Judge Rakoff: We have had, in the SDNY during the pandemic, 106 jury trials. Not a single juror has come down with COVID 19. We're very proud of that. We're going to have our first witnesses today. What we can't control is how long the jury takes. [See, Avenatti]
Judge Rakoff's courtroom deputy announces that Juror 1 is excused, (former) Number 11 moves up to take the place.
Judge Rakoff: Congratulations, you've moved up from 11 to 1.

[After a time]

Deputy: Juror 11 is excused.

Update: The jury is selected - before lunch, as Judge Rakoff predicted, and contrary to multiday US v. Ghislaine Maxwell process which is now, post verdict, embroiled in scandal of Juror 50 / Scotty David.

Judge Rakoff's deputy says, Pick up your boxed lunch

And now, in Palin v NYT, opening arguments.

Palin's lawyer: Your feelings about Governor Palin or the NYT are irrelevant. Just give us a fair shot. This case involves a very specific false narrative about Gov Palin that was debunked. Let's go through the editorial
Palin's lawyer: Against a backdrop of a liberal shooting going after Republicans, there was a kneejerk reaction by some to say it was all political. But Governor Palin said, Don't blame Bernie Sanders. I know. This has happened to me. But the NYT did the opposite
Palin's lawyer: The NYT called the VA shooting, and the 2011 AZ shooting a sickening pattern. You'll learn from Mr. Bennet himself when he testifies that that is false. There was no evidence.
Palin's lawyer: Mr. Bennet in his email says, "I don't know what the truth is." That's the day after he published. That's reckless. Now he sends people to research it. He'll claim it was just a mistake. But then why do the research?

Judge Rakoff: Counsel, just so that you know, you have two minutes.

Palin's lawyer: We're going to show you a history of bias by the New York Times. You'll learn that the NYT has a policy against apologizing. They don't have to. They are the New York Times.
NYT lawyer: The NYT apologized. But it was not actual malice. Let's look back at 2010 - a PAC associated with Governor Palin, SarahPac, published a map with cross-hairs
NYT Lawyer: It was natural to try to connect those two shootings... Ms. Palin's name was not in the headline. A casual reader might skip right by it. There were four paragraphs about gun policy. This was not a political hit job. It praised President Trump
NYT lawyer: You're going to hear that Ross Douthat wrote to Mr. Bennet at 11 pm. Mr. Bennet said he never intended to convey that message. James started a process - the Times did not try to defend it, the Times tried to set the record straight in 12 hours.
NYT lawyer: Governor Palin is not claiming she suffered any economic harm as a result of the editorial. She went on to write books, she made paid speeches. She talked about running for office, just a few weeks ago. She was a TV star.
Judge Rakoff: Soon you can take your lunch, then hear my legal instructions to help frame things. But first, some housekeeping: don't discuss the case. Don't read or listen to the media about this. Don't try to do your own research. You'll get the real stuff here
OK - Palin v. NYT jurors are back from lunch.

Judge Rakoff: The plaintiff Sarah Palin claims she was libeled by an editorial largely written by the defendant, James Bennet. It would published online, then in the print edition the next day.
Judge Rakoff: Starting at 11:15 am, the Times published two corrections, stating no such link was established... Call your first witness.

Elizabeth Williamson, NYT reporter since 2018. "Now I'm a feature writer, based in DC." Previously on the editorial board.
Palin's lawyer: You were in a documentary?
Williamson: Yes, a Frontline piece about conspiracy theories. And another one about our post-truth culture.
Palin's lawyer: What do you mean by that?
Williamson: People disregarding established truths.
Palin's lawyer: Did you write about Governor Palin?
Williamson: I traveled to Wasila and wrote a blog piece.
Palin's lawyer: Have you ever met her?
Williamson: No.
Palin's lawyer: Then how did you write about her?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Re Avenatti jury deliberations:






by ti-amie Definition of an Allen Charge:

https://fija.org/library-and-resources/ ... harge.html

by ti-amie More from Avenatti jury:








by ti-amie More details about what happened in the courtroom via @InnerCityPress










by ti-amie P2


by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:52 pm Re Avenatti jury deliberations:





It is not very early in the deliberations process for that kind of note, it means they've polled and there's a wide divide and no movement. And I can't begin to tell you how bad of a comparison Maxwell's trial is to use for anything that isn't damn near a capital offense.

by ti-amie Everyone's nightmare. This might be why the note was sent yesterday.






by ti-amie

They have alternate jurors I would think? Get rid of her.

by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 6:24 pm
They have alternate jurors I would think? Get rid of her.
Hastily getting rid of a juror during deliberations is great grounds for mistrial or appeal. That's not how alternates are supposed to be used. Several more steps needed by the judge before that juror should be dismissed. AUSA knows that, they just think they are about to win if they get rid of that juror.

There's bias present here in the coverage obviously and maybe by the judge a bit too, there doesn't seem to be a note about why the AUSA is so swift to want to get rid of the juror in the way that there is towards Avenatti wanting to keep them, for instance. And inserting the term "wryly".

by ti-amie
JazzNU wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:16 pm
ti-amie wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 6:24 pm
They have alternate jurors I would think? Get rid of her.
Hastily getting rid of a juror during deliberations is great grounds for mistrial or appeal. That's not how alternates are supposed to be used. Several more steps needed by the judge before that juror should be dismissed. AUSA knows that, they just think they are about to win if they get rid of that juror.

There's bias present here in the coverage obviously and maybe by the judge a bit too, there doesn't seem to be a note about why the AUSA is so swift to want to get rid of the juror in the way that there is towards Avenatti wanting to keep them, for instance. And inserting the term "wryly".
Thank you for the explanation as to why this obstructive juror hasn't been immediately removed. I've served on cases where alternates were dismissed at the beginning of deliberations so maybe that 's why I was a bit confused about the situation. Those may have been civil cases though. It's been a while.

I don't quite understand your point re bias. Bias against Avenatti or bias against prosecutors?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie
ti-amie wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:59 pm
This just goes to show jury rooms are not for the faint of heart.

by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:44 pm
Thank you for the explanation as to why this obstructive juror hasn't been immediately removed. I've served on cases where alternates were dismissed at the beginning of deliberations so maybe that 's why I was a bit confused about the situation. Those may have been civil cases though. It's been a while.

I don't quite understand your point re bias. Bias against Avenatti or bias against prosecutors?
This doesn't sound like an obstructive juror, not yet at least. Calling a woman emotional is about the worst way I can think of to bring up the issue of her not deliberating. Her not agreeing with them so they can go home now and not keep this going isn't a reason to replace a juror. There needs to be a reason for the move, essentially, good cause for the change, something that will stand up to appeal. You dismiss a juror based on that note and the appeal paperwork would be filed by end of day today. It's a very rash decision to just boot a juror because they don't agree with you, that's the point of the jury, if there's one holdout, that might speak to the veracity of the evidence not clearing the hurdle of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yes, it may have been civil cases, but also, just may not have been federal. There are clear rules and decent case law on how you are supposed to dismiss a federal juror to hold up on appeal. Hastily is not the way.

Honestly, I'd advocate for a closed court on matters like this. The public does not need to know that it was a woman. The reporters will pounce. There are some very sexist comments already about her.

by ti-amie TBH I was surprised the sex of the juror was revealed. I've never served on a Federal jury and I would guess that the rules are different.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie From the "No Lies Seen" Files:




by ti-amie

They're up to #5 James Bennett

by ti-amie








by ti-amie
ti-amie wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 8:31 pm From the "No Lies Seen" Files:




by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Adam Klasfeld @KlasfeldReports
Feb 9 • 26 tweets • https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1491 ... 90691.html
Ex-NYT editor James Bennet's second day of testimony continues in Sarah Palin's defamation suit.

NYT's counsel is up now.


Some highlights so far:

Q: When you used the word “incite,” were you intending to convey only that “incite” meant direct orders?

A: No, no. You can incite hate. You can incite anger. You can incite passion. You can even incite doubt. [...] Incite requires an object as a verb.
Bennet:

"We were focused on [...] rhetoric on the left, which had become much hotter in the period. Things were worse. Things are worse today than they were then in 2017. [...]

We were focused on rhetoric on the left—and the right, but particularly on the left that day."
Bennet:

"The absolute drop-dead deadline was about 8 o’clock."

But he said that he was trying to get it in at around 6 and 7.
Asked why he didn't research the link between the Loughner shooting and the Sarah PAC map, Bennet gives multiple answers.

"I was functioning as the editor, not the reporter on this piece."

Also: "I didn’t think then & don’t think now that the map caused Jared Loughner to act."
Bennet on readers interpreting it that way:

"It didn't enter my mind."

He adds: "I was very conscious of the deadline."
Questioning turns to parsing this line of the editorial: "The sniper, James Hodgkinson, who was killed by Capitol Police officers, was surely deranged, and his derangement had found its fuel in politics."

Bennet says he added a "surely" to the draft, as a "hedge."
Little was known about the 2017 congressional baseball shooting at the time, and Hodgkinson's derangement was an "opinion,' Bennet said.

He adds he thought Hodgkinson was because only a deranged person would do such a thing.
Now they're parsing the line at the heart of the defamation suit: "the link to political incitement was clear."

Bennet says that if he thought the Sarah PAC map "caused" the Giffords shooting, he would have written that. It would have saved words.
Bennet says he thought the lines about "derangement" would have made that clear.

"I don't personally believe that anybody but that person is responsible—and their derangement—for an act like this."
Asked whether he knew readers would interpret his words differently, Bennet again says no.

"That's on me. That's my failure. I didn't."
Questioning turns to this passage about how "liberals should of course hold themselves to the same standards of decency."

Bennet: "It's true of opinion journalists, who are allowed to venture such judgments. News journalists aren't allowed to do such a thing."
Image

Q: When you published "America's Lethal Politics," did you have any ill-will toward Ms. Palin?

A: No.
Asked whether he meant to convey that Loughner acted because of the crosshairs map, Bennet replies: "I did not."
After a morning recess, the Times counsel asks Bennet about him receiving an email by Ross Douthat criticizing the link to Palin.

"I was very concerned," Bennet says, noting that he saw similar and "quite harsh" criticism at the NYT editorial page on Twitter.
Bennet on the night that the editorial ran:

"I couldn't sleep."
Q: Why didn't you have anyone do that research [on Loughner's motivations]?

A: As I said, he was deranged. He was a lunatic. [...] His motives were his own. They were his own responsibility, and I thought that was clear.
Q: Did you know it was a mistake when you published this?

A: No.
(As the NYT's attorney shows Bennet a Twitter thread.)

Q: Can you explain what threading the tweets like this means for the jury?

Bennet explains what threading is.
Asked how he felt after learning he made a mistake, he said: "I felt terrible."

Q: Why is that?
A: It's just a terrible thing to make a mistake. I've edited and written hundreds of pieces on deadline, thousands of pieces overall.

Full transcript:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1491 ... =real_time

by ti-amie





There are questions about who is footing her legal bills.

by ti-amie From @KlasfeldReports via @threadreaderapp

Good morning from New York.

Sarah Palin's testimony continues in her lawsuit against the New York Times.

I'm covering the proceedings for @lawcrimenews.
During pre-trial arguments, the NYT's lawyer argues that someone known for saying "Don’t retreat, reload" will have a hard time arguing that she sustained emotional damage in the face of criticism about her gun rhetoric.
The NYT wants to grill Palin on rhetoric like that to establish that Palin "plays in the public field" and "uses hyperbole" to make her points.

Judge Rakoff says he'll allow it.
Everyone rises, and Judge Rakoff sends in the jury.
Palin returns to the witness box.
Today's testimony continues with more biographical details, including her education (journalism degree from the University of Idaho).

Testimony then turns to Sarah PAC.

"Sarah PAC was Sarah, Sarah Palin. It was the tool, the forum, to have my voice heard."
Palin says that the Tucson shooting was "a huge concern to me personally."

Asked about her response to being blamed for it, she responds: "I wasn't going to politicize, like the way the media was politicizing at that time, the deaths of a 9-year-old girl."
Palin:

"I just felt for the family more than I could express. Also the federal judge."

She rattles off the names of the other victims.

"I felt for them, and I wanted to get the message out that there needed to be fairness."
Palin:

"It was mortifying because I knew what the truth was."

Asked whether the blame affected her, she says: "Absolutely, the death threats really ramped up. Disturbing death threats against my children. There seemed to be a campaign out there from my daughter, Piper."

Palin:

"I feared for my family's safety and my supporters' safety because of those threats."

Loughner's nine-year-old victim was Christina-Taylor Green, and Palin said that some wanted her daughter Piper to be harmed in the same way.
Right now, Palin's testimony is about the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Loughner shootings—well before the NYT editorial.

Palin, pressed by the judge, claims that the NYT linked her to incitement before the editorial at issue.

She can't specify what.

NYT moves to strike.

The parties are at sidebar because Palin just alleged a generic, amorphous claim against the NYT not specified in her defamation case — essentially accusing the paper of linking her to incitement before the 2017 editorial that's the subject of this lawsuit.
Reminder:


The testimony so far has not touched upon the NYT's "America's Lethal Politics" editorial. These are her grievances against the media writ large for linking her to the Loughner shooting post-2011.

NYT wasn't alone.
From 2011, 6 years earlier

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' blood is on Sarah Palin's hands after putting cross hair over district
Here is what Sarah Palin said on the Facebook page where she depicted Gabrielle Giffords in the cross hairs of a rifle scope: "Don't retreat! Instead - RELOAD!" Well, the guy who shot Giffor…

Unlike that Daily News editorial, the NYT later issued a correction over the false link.
(Long sidebar ends)

Rakoff explains to the jury why they took a long break to resolve legal issues.
Questioning turns to the publication of "America's Lethal Politics" in 2017.

Q: Do you remember where you were when you first found out this editorial was being published.

A: No.

Palin:

"I remember feeling immediately, 'Oh, no.' First, in realizing how significant and horrible the incident was."

She says she was "mortified."

Asked if she was in politics at the time, she says: "No."
Q: Was your profile as high?
A: Not at all.

After the editorial's publication, she says she thought: "Oh, no. Not again!

Palin talks about defending Bernie Sanders after the 2017 shooting.

"I did not want to see more untruths printed. I wanted Bernie Sanders not to be blamed" in a "knee-jerk reaction," trying to "score political points" by those who wanted to "capitalize" on violence.
Palin says "the media" would let "no tragedy go to waste."

"The New York Times, the be all end all, the loud voice in media had already taken a knee-jerk reaction, and I felt [...] tried to score political points" over the "horrific violence."
Palin:

"There was no mention of me in what they called a correction."

(NYT staffers previously testified that's by design: The paper doesn't want to compound the error to dragging out the person's name out with it.)

Image

The NYT dropped language about the incitement, but Palin claimed that the after version wasn't much better:

"Nothing changed. They doubled down."

(See before and after.)

Image

Image

Palins says that she felt that the NYT was “Goliath” and she, representing “the people,” was “David.”
Palin: "There I was up in Wasilla, Alaska, up against those who buy ink by the barrel, and here I was with my No. 2 pencil."
On cross-ex, the NYT's lawyer presses Palin on her experiences facing criticism in the political arena.

Q: You have felt political animus from the political left since the 2008 election.
A: Some.

Asked if she's been described as "polarizing," she responds: "I've heard that."
NYT's lawyer asks about her payment for her appearance on "The Masked Singer."

"It paid some bills," Palin acknowledges.
Q: You have 1.3 million followers on Twitter?
A: I don't know. I don't tweet.

NYT's lawyer shows her the account. She acknowledges it shows just that—and her infrequent tweeting.

Image

NYT's lawyer says that she'd agree the markings on the map look like crosshairs.

She responds a "reasonable person could and would" see it that way.

"They also look like other things that you could perceive those as, the surveyor markings"
NYT's counsel David Axelrod asks about this tweet.

Image

Morning recess.

P1

by ti-amie P2

After the jury leaves, Rakoff incredulously asks Palin about her comments that she doesn't dance or sing.

Rakoff: "You are missing one of the great joys in life. I am encouraging you to reconsider."
Rakoff discloses that his wife, who is an "expert" in ballroom dancing, is in the courtroom.
Notably:

Palin appeared to describe little tangible impact from the 2017 editorial.

She testified about death threats **preceding** the 2017 editorial from the Loughner connection, but not about threats, lost wages, or other consequences—other than lost sleep—*following* it.
Her direct examination is over—and her lawyer spent little time trying to thread that needle.
We're back.

Questioning turns to Jan. 8, 2011, the date of the Loughner shooting.

Palin agrees that some in the press criticized her after that, and she put out a statement. The NYT's lawyer David Axelrod shows her the statement for identification.

It's received as an exhibit.
Q: Did you write this last statement?

She says yes, but adds a couple of people were helping her.
Part of her statement:

"My heart broke for the innocent victims [...] We do mourn for the victims' families as we express our sympathies."

It also states.

"Vigorous and spirited debate during elections are among our most cherished traditions."
Palin's statement at the time continued:

"If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas."

It also, much more controversially, compared criticism of her to a "blood libel."
The "blood libel" was the antisemitic lie that Jews used the blood of Christian babies in their matzoh, leading to centuries of persecution and massacres against Jewish people.


Palin's invoking the phrase for herself sparked widespread condemnation.

Sarah Palin's 'Blood Libel' Charge Stirs New Controversy
Palin's use of "blood libel" has drawn criticism because it recalls a vicious anti-Jewish lies. J Street, the Jewish organization, asks her to retract her statement and use something less inflammatory…
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpoli ... -blood-lib

Palin ducks a number of questions from the NYT's attorney about whether she meant "blood libel" to refer to news outlets tying her to the Loughner shooting.

She says it's about "the power of the pen, the power in words."
Q: Did any journalists say 'Go out there and hunt Sarah Palin because of the crosshairs map'?

Palin says she's seen her face in crosshairs, "so yes."

Q: Who?
A: I don't have it in front of me, but I have years of that kind of graphic or statement or death threats.
Q: Your use of the [phrase] "blood libel" created more criticism, yes?

A: Correct.
Asked whether she hired a PR firm to repair her image after the Loughner controversy, Palin replies that she never hired PR firms.

It's not her practice, she said.

Axelrod asked Palin whether one of her first reactions to the editorial was to consider a lawsuit.

She agrees: "I knew something had to be done."
The NYT's attorney David Axelrod refers to her tweet saying she's "exploring options" regarding litigation.

Before tweeting that, Axelrod asks: "You didn't reach out to the Times to ask for a correction, did you?"

She agrees she didn't.


Image

Palin:

"No, they just accused me of inciting murder. I didn't think I would get a friendly response."

Later:

"I did not personally reach out an unfriendly recipient of what I'd be requesting of them. It was common sense. They knew that they were printing an untruth."
Q: Fair to say, you never sought an apology from the Times, did you?

She didn't.
Palin quibbles over the language that she "circulated" the crosshairs map.

"It was on a website," she says, noting it was months before the shooting.

(No link was established.)
"Sarah Palin Tells a Jury That Her Defamation Suit Against the New York Times Is Just Like David vs. Goliath"

Axelrod asks her whether she recalls speaking to family about the editorial.

"As I sit here today, in the penalty box, I don't recall specifically," Palin said, amusingly referring to the Plexiglas enclosure that are witness stands in the age of COVID-19.
Q: In this case, you're not seeking to recover any lost income, correct?
A: Not lost income, but [...]

Rakoff interjects to tell the jury that it's a legal matter and not something sought in her lawsuit.
Q: You can't identify anybody who's shied away from you as a result of the editorial?
A: I can't name names.
Q: You can't specifically identify any candidates who's shied away from you as a result of the publication of the editorial?

She says generally "things changed" after the editorial.
"I can't specifically give you any name of someone who told me that they didn't want me to help them," Palin said.
Axelrod asked whether she spent any money on a PR firm or other such professional to try to repair Palin's reputation.

Palin's lawyer objects, asking for a sidebar.

Rakoff grants that request, and they huddle.

Confronting about her claim of lost sleep, Palin insists that it was "hard to lay my head peacefully on the pillow at night, yes."

Q: Did you see a doctor about that?
A: No.

Q: Did you take any medication?
A: No.

Palin: "I holistically remedied any issues caused by stress."
Q: You believe Americans should have the right to voice their opinions, right?

A: Yes.

Q: Even if it's an unpopular opinion?

A: Absolutely.
Q: That's the beauty of the First Amendment, right?
A: Right.


She adds later: "As long as everyone's speaking truthfully."
Axelrod notes that part of the faith of the First Amendment is that the truth will eventually win out, setting the stage for his questions about the NYT's prompt correction.
Q: Gov. Palin, isn't it true that you've recently talked about running for office again?

Palin responds that: "The door's always open."
NYT's counsel notes that, since the editorial, she's been Fox News and appeared on Turning Point USA.

She says she's appeared twice for the latter.
Cross-examination ends.

Redirect by her lawyer begins.
Palin on her "blood libel" remark: "I did not expect that anybody would take such issue with it."

We resume after the lunch recess.

Palin's attorney asks her about "Don't retreat, reload."

"It was a bumper sticker on my dad's truck forever."

She credits it to her dad's motivational saying. Her parents were marathon runners, she says.
Q: Were sports important in your family?
A: Extremely important.
Palin makes a passing remark about how the Times "circulated" their erroneous editorial.

(She previously claimed her crosshairs map wasn't circulated—because it was just put on her website.)
Recross:

NYT's counsel says that Palin said in August 2021 that she contemplated running for office this year.

She reiterates she may have said at the time: "The door's always open."
Palin notes she sued a couple weeks after the editorial.

She previously testified that she wasn't in politics at the time, but Axelrod has her acknowledge that she hit the trail with a couple Georgia senate candidates.
Palin tweeted this a couple months after filing suit:

"Hitting the trail... stay tuned for details!"
(Note: FB Image and I can't post)

The link touted her bus tour with Judge Roy Moore.

See Who Gov. Palin is Campaigning For In The South
Q: This was September 2017.
A: I think so.

Q: About three months after the publication of the editorial.

She acknowledged that's true.

She left the witness box after that question and answer, ending her testimony

by ti-amie @InnerCityPress has more detail than @KlasfeldReports. May be more than one post due to quotation limits.












P1

by ti-amie P2









Inner City Press
@innercitypress
·
10m
Judge Rakoff: Does the plaintiff rest its case?
Palin's lawyer: Yes.
Judge Rakoff: And defense?
NYT lawyer: I have to check 1 thing with my team
Judge Rakoff: Outside presence of the jury. Jurors, you may leave. You'll deliberate late Friday, and/or Monday morning

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Inner City Press@innercitypress·OK - now Sarah Palin v. NYT closing arguments @SDNYLIVE Inner City Press is covering the case http://innercitypress.com/sdnytrial6pal ... 01022.html… and will live tweet, thread below









P1

by ti-amie P2







Inner City Press@innercitypress·1hNYT lawyer: Look at James Bennet here at 5:08 am, rally his people to make a correction. If Mr. Bennet knew that was false, why would he fall on his sword? And like Linda Cohn told you, the Times has a policy of not repeating the error in a correction.

by ti-amie This trial is going to be very, very interesting. P1

Inner City Press@innercitypress·48m OK - now in #Bitfinex hack case of US v. Lichtenstein, now 2d bail hearing, before DDC Chief Judge Beryl Howell. Inner City Press the 1st hearing (which J. Howell stayed)and will live tweet, thread below










by ti-amie P2











Inner City Press@innercitypress
Judge Howell: So was it the same ISP that posted to the cloud account?
AUSA: No, a different one. Let me consult with my colleague. We have a medium degree of confidence. Let me address of Ms. Morgan has been tricked. No, she is sophisticated & could buy dark IDs

by ti-amie Meanwhile:


by ti-amie P3 from @InnerCitypress re Bitcoin hack trial










by ti-amie The back story:


by ti-amie P4 of Bitcoin Hack trial










by ti-amie There is also this lovely couple:


by ti-amie The previous Bitcoin hack hearing summation that's referred to by Judge Howell and the lawyers today.

http://www.innercitypress.com/crypto2li ... 20822.html

by ti-amie P5 of Bitcoin Hack Hearing







Inner City Press@innercitypress·43s
Judge Howell: If anything, the delay gave the defendants false confidence. Defendant Lichtenstein will remain in detention, given his access to the private keys. As to Defendant Morgan, she will be released on the NY conditions.

Enzer: Your Honor, the government consents for Lichtenstein to be moved (back) to jail in NYC.
Judge Howell: No, he is a DC defendant. He will stay here. Acela is running. You are excluded.

by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:35 pm Meanwhile:


Was it a surprise though? If so, it shouldn't have been. It was always a weak case.

by ti-amie AND the judge said exactly that. the big question is who is paying her legal fees and who is paying for her stay in NYC? I hope the judge makes "her" pay all costs for wasting time.

by ti-amie And now the verdict re Palin:


by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie


by ti-amie


by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Lock him them all of them every single one of them up.
But I really don't know by now who should go first.

by ti-amie Larry Ray, the guy who set up a sex club on the campus of Sarah Lawrence where his daughter was a student, is obvious trying for an oscar


by ti-amie Maybe this is why?

EXCLUSIVE: NYC's elite are in a tizzy after Justice Department 'inadvertently' publishes list of 121 'clients' - including lawyers, businessmen, and socialites - who solicited Sarah Lawrence 'sex cult victim' who was forced into prostitution

The US Attorney's Office on Tuesday accidentally published a list of alleged clients of the student prostitute in the Sarah Lawrence 'sex cult' case
DailyMail.com acquired a copy of the list of 121 names which was taken down nearly as fast as it was put up
The list, which was entered into evidence in the trial under seal, includes lawyers and businessmen and socialites throughout the Tri-state area
Alleged clients include a Metropolitan Transit Authority executive, an account executive at Amazon, and a former New York State Supreme Court judge
The Justice Department later sent out an email admitting the file was shared in error, adding: 'Please do not reproduce, share, or use this exhibit in any way'
Alleged cult victim Claudia Drury, 31, took the stand Friday and Monday to tell jurors how she was forced into prostitution by accused leader Larry Ray, 62
Ray is charged with sex trafficking, extortion, money laundering, violent crime in aid of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy and forced labor
The ex-convict is accused of running a sex cult out of his daughter Talia's dorm at Sarah Lawrence College
By KAREN RUIZ and GREG WOODFIELD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and LAURA COLLINS, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER IN MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 10:50 EDT, 22 March 2022 | UPDATED: 12:52 EDT, 22 March 2022

New York's business elite was left shaking in its boots Tuesday after a list of alleged clients of the student prostitute in the Sarah Lawrence 'sex cult' case was inadvertently published online.

The list, which was entered into evidence under seal in the ongoing trial of accused cult leader Larry Ray, includes lawyers and businessmen and socialites throughout the Tri-state area.

DailyMail.com acquired a copy of the list of 121 names which was taken down nearly as fast as it was put up.

A top executive at The Gap clothing firm and her husband was one of two married couples included. A former New York State Supreme Court judge is also named.

Another alleged client is a painter who has studios in Manhattan's East Village and in Italy. A third is an architect, famous for designing college and university buildings.

An investment executive who was also in pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's infamous little black book of contacts is also listed.

Other names include a hedge fund manager who has donated millions to charity and has his name on a museum building in New York, a Washington DC, lobbyist who has worked for a foreign resistance movement and an international diamond dealer.

Also included is an executive at the Metropolitan Transit Authority, an account executive at Amazon and a veteran travel writer.

The document is among the government exhibits admitted in the federal case against 62-year-old Ray, who is on trial in New York, charged with operating a sex cult out of his daughter's dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College.

The list is said to have been compiled and included in an email by former Sarah Lawrence student Claudia Drury, 31, who has been on the stand giving evidence against Ray, whom she claims coerced her into becoming a prostitute.

But somehow the government posted the 'sealed' document online and then immediately scrambled to stop the information getting out.

'Per order of the Court, government exhibit #3217 (GX 3217) was admitted under seal,' a spokesman for the Department of Justice wrote in an email soon after the document was taken offline.

'This file was inadvertently loaded to the U.S. v. Ray file share. Please do not reproduce, share, or use this exhibit in any way, if you have downloaded this file, please delete it.'

But the department's plea is unlikely to be successful as the document has already been posted on Twitter.

The list is included in an email said to be from Drury to the Department.

'This is not an exhaustive list but it includes all my main clients/regulars and many others,' she wrote.

Drury is one of at least five cult members who were students at the elite liberal arts college in Bronxville, just north of Manhattan, when they met Ray.

Ray was introduced to the group in the fall of 2010 when he began living in his daughter Talia's on-campus dorm, where he persuaded her friends to stay the next summer at his city apartment.

Prosecutors say Ray coerced the students to join his 'family' as he accumulated power, sex and money, forcing one woman into a sex work enterprise so lucrative that she turned over more than $1million to him in a single year.

Drury, 31, began her testimony Friday, telling jurors at Manhattan Federal Court how Ray's campaign of charisma resulted in her being hospitalized in a psychiatric facility and ultimately led her into a life of prostitution.

She described how she went from a naïve student to soliciting sex, ultimately handing over $2.5million in earnings to Ray, his daughter Talia and his 'lieutenant' and co-accused Isabella Pollok.

Drury admitted that she had always been very uncomfortable and lacked confidence about her body and couldn't believe that anybody would find her attractive.

She credited this insecurity along with Ray's coercion with her decision to have sexual encounters with 'Sam', a married man from whom Ray bought power tools.

Earlier in the trial jurors were also shown texts between Drury and Pollok and Pollok and Talia apparently discussing Drury's prostitution, her clients, payment and transfers of cash into Pollok's bank account.

In the texts read aloud, Drury listed meetings and sums of money she expected in payment.

One read: 'I'm seeing Joe, the $3,500 guy at 3:30pm. I believe that will be another $8k though maybe less.'

Sums of money ranging from a few hundred to more than $17,000 in cash and bank accounts were discussed.

In a follow up text exchange between Pollok and Talia allegedly regarding the transfer of money earned by Drury through prostitution, Talia reassures Pollok: 'We got the moollah.'

On Monday, the court was shown emails in which Drury praised Ray's selflessness and the supposed psychological 'help' he was providing to her and college friends including Santos Rosario, Dan Levin, Felicia Rosario and Ray's co-accused and alleged 'lieutenant' Isabella Pollok.

At the time, she referred to Ray as, 'the hero of the story.'

Taking the stand for a second day on Monday, she continued her account of the alleged gas-lighting, physical and sexual abuse that she claims she suffered at Ray's hands.

On one occasion, she recalled, Ray showed her a photograph of friend and fellow student Levin.

She explained: '[Ray] told me that he was having a confrontation or conversation with Dan about Dan's sexuality and that in the course of this Isabella was folding laundry and Dan kept eyeing a dress.

'Larry asked Dan, "Do you want to wear the dress?" He told me Dan really did and so he made Dan put on the dress and go down to get mail wearing the dress.'

On his return to the Upper East Side apartment in which the students and Ray were, for the most part, living, Drury said the confrontation 'escalated.'

'From there it escalated to Larry telling Isabella to go get her bag of sex toys and dildos and to get the biggest one, and he [Ray] showed me a picture of Dan trying to fit it in his mouth,' she added.

'This was all framed as something Dan wanted – that was helpful and clarifying for Dan.'

But according to Drury, Levin's face was 'contorted' in the photograph in which he was looking directly at the camera.

She said: 'He looks panicked and questioning and scared. It's not a look I've actually ever seen on anyone's face again.'

During another incident recalled by Drury in court, Ray made a 'noose' out of tinfoil and had Levin place it round his testicles while he interrogated him – tightening the noose whenever he deemed the younger man to be 'playing with the truth.'

Image
Ray is accused of 17 counts including sex-trafficking, extortion, money laundering, violent crime in aid of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy

She went on to tell the court how the campaign of control escalated during the summer of 2013, when she and several others travelled to Pinehurst, North Carolina, to help with yardwork at Ray's stepfather's property.

At this point, she said, Ray was controlling what students ate – forbidding carbohydrates – and forcing them to work sometimes until three or four in the morning to re-do mistakes that he found in their work.

'Someone went out and got hamburgers and fries and milkshakes. [Ray] said, "This is your last meal, Felicia. You can have carbs; you can have whatever you want,"' she told the court.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors began their opening statements alleging that Ray, an ex-convict, had used 'violence, fear, sex and manipulation' to get sex, power and money.

After learning the students' secrets and insecurities and gaining their trust, Ray exploited them, 'profiting off their labor, their money and even their bodies,' Assistant US Attorney Lindsey Keenan said.

'Once he gained control of their lives, ... he took over their lives.'

Ray's lawyer told the jury that Ray committed no federal crimes as he encircled himself with college-age 'storytellers' who claimed to have poisoned him and arranged to have him physically attacked.

'You'll see that Larry Ray is not guilty,' attorney Allegra Glashausser said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... trial.html

by ti-amie


His own dime? Silly wabbits. The RNC will pay.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Republicans are labeling everyone a pedophile lately. Here's some legal news that clarifies why that could be...







Image

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Document: Law Enforcement Seizure and Takedown of Two Major Cybercrime Forums
By Alvaro Marañon Tuesday, April 12, 2022, 11:52 AM
The Department of Justice announced two indictments this past week relating to the seizure and shutdown of two major cybercrime forums and marketplaces. Both operations were the result of extensive collaborations and efforts between numerous U.S. agencies and departments that included the DEA, FBI, IRS, Postal Inspection Service and several more.

On April 5, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California announced the seizure of Hydra Market, “the world’s largest and longest-running darknet market” and an indictment against Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov, an alleged operator and administrator of the servers used to run Hydra. The seizure of the Hydra servers and cryptocurrency wallets with an estimated $25 million in Bitcoin were made in Germany by the German Federal Criminal Police, in coordination with U.S. law enforcement.

Hydra “accounted for an estimated 80% of all darknet market-related cryptocurrency transactions and since 2015, the marketplace has received approximately $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency.” Hydra operators, like the alleged Pavlov, would receive a commission for every transaction conducted on Hydra which included illegal drugs, stolen financial information, fraudulent identification documents and more. Hydra vendors also offered a comprehensive display of money laundering options that enabled their users to convert their Bitcoin into other forms of currency and this feature was “so-in-demand that some users would set up shell vendor accounts” for this service.

Pavlov is alleged to have operated a company “starting in or about November 2015” that administered Hydra’s servers. Pavlov is also alleged to have conspired with other operators of Hydra to provide critical infrastructure to allow Hydar to operate and expand its services on the darknet. The grand jury charged the defendant with conspiracy to commit money laundering and distribute narcotics in relation to his activity with Hydra.

On April 12, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia announced the seizure of the RaidForums website, “a popular marketplace for cybercriminals to buy and sell hacked data” and unsealed an indictment against Diogo Santos Coelho, the alleged founder and chief administrator of the site.

U.S. authorities were able to obtain judicial authorization to seize three domains that hosted the RaidForums website. The seizure of this online marketplace disrupts “one of the major ways cyberminals profit from the large-scale theft of sensitive personal and financial information.” From its founding in 2015, Raidforum members were able to offer the sale of databases with stolen data that contained more than “10 billion unique records for individuals residing in the United States and internationally.” RaidForums also served as a platform for orchestrating and supporting various forms of electronic harassment, including “raiding” or “swatting.” RaidForums also had tiered pricing models for its members that included selling “credits” to privileged areas of the websites that granted access to various stolen financial information. Members could also earn credits through a variety of means that included “posting instructions on how to commit certain illegal acts.”

Between Jan. 1, 2015 and Jan. 31, 2022, Coelho and his co-conspirators were alleged to have “designed and administered the platform’s software and computer infrastructure, established and enforced rules for its users, and created and managed sections of the website dedicated to promoting the buying and selling of contraband.” The grand jury charged Coelho with six counts—“conspiracy, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with his role as the chief administrator of RaidForums.”

You can read both the Pavlov and Coelho indictments here or below. (at the link)

https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-la ... ime-forums

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Ponchi, :notworthy: You said that the US system is broken the other day and I, foolishly, tried to say not completely.






by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie


by ti-amie This is an interesting approach to try and kill two birds with one stone.

Federal Judge Refuses to Block Effort to Disqualify Marjorie Taylor Greene from Office Under 14th Amendment ‘Insurrection’ Prohibition
ADAM KLASFELDApr 19th, 2022, 10:13 am

Donald Trump loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) cannot block efforts to disqualify her from running for re-election on the grounds that she allegedly engaged in insurrection, a federal judge ruled.

The ruling does not itself stop Greene’s re-election campaign, but it means a federal court will not grant Greene’s lawyers request to end-run a challenge submitted to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) assessing that question. A challenge, brought by five Georgia voters, will now go before an administrative law judge in Atlanta on Friday.

“This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import,” U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, a Barack Obama appointee who is the sister of NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg, wrote in a 73-page opinion. “The novelty of the factual and historical posture of this case – especially when assessed in the context of a preliminary injunction motion reviewed on a fast track – has made resolution of the complex legal issues at stake here.”

Reaching a sharply different conclusion than a Trump-appointed judge did in early March, Totenberg found that the 1872 Amnesty Act passed by Congress during Reconstruction was never meant to protect future insurrectionists from being disqualified from public office. It only applied to the then-recent insurrection that was the Confederacy, she ruled.

That’s just “common sense,” the judge found.

“Strains Credulity”

Since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the non-profit group Free Speech for People has gone on a legal blitz across the nation seeking to disqualify elected officials they believe to have aided or participated in the siege. The group previously filed similar actions against Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) on the same grounds, citing the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause. Here, the group represents five registered voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

“No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress… who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress… to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” the third section of the amendment reads.

Attempting to fend off such efforts, Greene and Cawthorn turned to the same prominent Republican lawyer: James Bopp Jr., who has argued that the Amnesty Act effectively nullified that penalty against former Confederates. Bopp argued that the law applied not only to the past insurrection that was the Civil War, but prospectively shielded future ones, too. The Georgia voters seeking to disqualify Greene became intervenors in the federal litigation.

As Judge Totenberg noted, however, the phrase “shall have engaged” is the future perfect tense, and the text of the Amnesty Act uses the past tense.

“Moreover, as intervenors argue, it strains credulity for plaintiff to argue that Congress can ‘remove’ something that does not yet exist,” Totenberg noted.


For Cawthorn, that argument prevailed in the court of Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers, II, who leads the Eastern District of North Carolina. Myers, a Trump appointee, ruled that the Amnesty Act shielded Cawthorn just as surely as it did insurrectionists of old. Cawthorn denies having taken part in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, as does Greene.

Greene’s challengers point to her extreme rhetoric in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 suggesting that violence might be necessary to keep Trump in power, calling the date “our 1776 moment.”

“You can’t allow it to just transfer power ‘peacefully’ like Joe Biden wants and allow him to become our president because he did not win this election,” Greene is quoted as saying. “He’s guilty of treason. It’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”

Judge Totenberg skewered her colleague’s finding on the applicability of the Amnesty Act.

“Suffice it to say, the Court is skeptical,” Totenberg wrote. “It seems much more likely that Congress intended for the 1872 Amnesty Act to apply only to individuals whose disabilities under Section 3 had already been incurred, rather than to all insurrectionists who may incur disabilities under that provision in the future.”

“This reading is supported not only by the text of the statute and the practical limitations on Congress’s authority, but also by pure common sense,” the ruling continues. “As Intervenors’ counsel pointed out, it would make little sense for Congress to have prohibited Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the Confederacy from serving in Congress in 1872 while simultaneously granting blanket amnesty to all future insurrectionists regardless of their rank or the severity of their misconduct. But that is precisely the reading that Plaintiff asks this Court to adopt. The far more plausible reading is that Congress’s grant of amnesty only applied to past conduct.”


Bopp did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s press inquiry.

“All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”

The challenge against Greene claims that she “aided and engaged in insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power, disqualifying her from serving as a Member of Congress under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and rendering her ineligible under state and federal law to be a candidate for such office.”

The challengers’ lawyer Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech for People, wrote that he looks forward to proving that case.

“It’s rare for any conspirator, let alone a Member of Congress, to publicly admit that the goals of their actions are preventing a peaceful transfer of power and the death of the president-elect and Speaker of the House, but that’s exactly what Marjorie Taylor Greene did,” Fein wrote in a statement. “The Constitution disqualifies from public office any elected officials who aided the insurrection, and we look forward to asking Representative Greene about her involvement under oath.”

One of his clients, Georgia voter Michael Rasbury, echoed those remarks.

“I believe in democracy. When I served in the Army, I had to take an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Rasbury said. “Everything I’ve read says Rep. Greene was involved in the Jan. 6th insurrection that was trying to override everything I believe in – Our Constitution, how we run elections, and how our government is set up. She should not be on the ballot.”

Georgia’s primary election is scheduled to take place on next month on May 24. Counties may start mailing absentee ballots by April 25.

Without a federal judge’s shield, Greene could be kept off the candidate list if Raffensperger validates the challenge against her. The proceedings before Raffensperger are expected to start on Wednesday, leaving little time to appeal any ruling against her.

“These ballots have to be printed in advance of mailing,” Bopp wrote in his federal complaint. “As a practical matter, it is virtually impossible to fully adjudicate the Greene Challenge, including all appeals as of right, before at least these absentee ballots are printed, and likely not before they are mailed.”

Bopp also argued that the efforts to disqualify Greene violated her First Amendment rights, but the judge noted that the citizens undertaking this process are also asserting their rights.

“However, plaintiff’s claim here wholly ignores citizens’ own First Amendment rights to file complaints regarding the operation of the electoral process that the Challenge Act recognizes,” the judge replied.

Greene’s challengers will now face off against her on at an administrative hearing in Atlanta on Friday, April 22 at 9:30 a.m.

Read the ruling, below:

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/fe ... ohibition/

by ti-amie

by meganfernandez Amber Heard reminds me of Paula Badosa (today anyway). Yes, I'm watching the trial.

by ti-amie









Inner City Press @innercitypress 42m
Judge Torres: I accept the guilty pleas and set sentencing for September 6, 1 pm in NYC.

by ti-amie
meganfernandez wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:56 pm Amber Heard reminds me of Paula Badosa (today anyway). Yes, I'm watching the trial.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ponchi101 He truly opens his mouth a bit too much, too frequently.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie How it started



How it's going...



The second Tweet was literally at the top of my Time Line and I wondered to myself what happened to make the FBI post that.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie South Africa does have an extradition treaty with the US. I just checked it for no reason.

https://www.congress.gov/treaty-documen ... %2C%201999.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie






by ti-amie





P2/L

I expect this will happen in a lot of cases like this.

Verdict watch begins in trial on ‘We Build the Wall’ fraud
Summations for Timothy Shea concluded Tuesday with smoking-gun evidence: texts from a group chat in which Shea appears well aware that he and the other organizers of a crowdfunding effort called We Build the Wall were breaking the law.

JOSH RUSSELL / May 31, 2022

Prosecutors showed evidence that Shea misappropriated $34,000 from We Build the Wall to buy 50,000 cans of the Trump-themed beverage. Though he and Kolfage “papered it as a loan,” the government questioned what kind of loan doesn’t come with interest. “No repayment, no collection, that’s how you know it wasn’t a real loan,” Roos said.

Shea’s attorney John Meringolo did not call any witnesses in the trial, instead choosing to rest his brief defense last Thursday on about a dozen exhibits entered into evidence, including a pixelated video of We Build The Wall board member Kris Kobach speaking at one of the border wall construction sites.

https://www.courthousenews.com/verdict- ... all-fraud/

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie A bit of a rant about the sentencing of R Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell. Seth writes these really long Twitter narratives so what I posted is the end of his comments on the people mentioned.






by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie


by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by patrick The defendant team will file an appeal on February 5, 2023 to delay proceedings.

by ponchi101
patrick wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:30 am The defendant team will file an appeal on February 5, 2023 to delay proceedings.
And on and on. Like Dry has said on several occasions: nothing sticks to this guy. And this way in which he can continue to delay justice is ridiculous.
Of course, all the lawyers in Congress and the Senate will never do anything about it, but the legal system in the USA (and the world, because here in Colombia is the same) must be changed: ONE appeal. After that, you must proceed.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Glenn Kirschner
@glennkirschner2

It’s no secret that Steve Bannon loves to run his mouth. So tomorrow’s his BIG chance, as the defense case begins in the morning. Will Bannon take the stand and testify in his own defense? Is he brave enough to withstand cross-examination?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Time he will spend in prison: zero.

by ti-amie THIS is what Bannon used to look like?! To paraphrase the late Rick James "alcohol is a hell of a drug"


by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Church of Scientology Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Force Danny Masterson Rape Accusers into Binding ‘Religious Arbitration’
AARON KELLER Jul 23rd, 2022, 7:03 pm

Image
Danny Masterson was photographed at a Hollywood premiere on June 29, 2015. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images.)

The Church of Scientology is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case that questions whether religious groups can force their followers — and even their ex-followers — to submit to internal arbitration proceedings to settle disputes.

The case is connected to and indeed names Daniel Masterson, the “That 70s Show” actor who faces an upcoming rape trial in the California state court system. The respondents in the case allege that Masterson, who is described in Church legal filings as “another Church parishioner,” sexually assaulted them between 2000 and 2003. The instant case involves not the instances of alleged assault but rather whether church officials “improperly handled Respondents’ reporting of the alleged assaults.”

An intermediate California appellate court ruled on Jan. 19, 2022 that the respondents enjoyed a First Amendment right to leave the Church of Scientology and that their mandatory arbitration agreement with the church was terminated along with the respondents’ departure from the faith. That ruling flatly described the Masterson allegations as “rape”:
Petitioners in this writ proceeding are former members of the Church of Scientology who reported to the police that another Church member had raped them. They allege that, in retaliation for their reports, the Church encouraged its members to engage in a vicious campaign of harassment against them. After petitioners brought suit in superior court against the Church and related entities and persons, some of those defendants moved to compel arbitration, relying on agreements that provided all disputes with the Church would be resolved according to the Church’s own “Ethics, Justice and Binding Religious Arbitration system.” That system was created to decide matters “in accordance with Scientology principles of justice and fairness.”
One key point of the California Court of Appeal ruling was that petitioners’ case involved conduct that allegedly occurred after the petitioners left the church:
Individuals have a First Amendment right to leave a religion. We hold that once petitioners had terminated their affiliation with the Church, they were not bound to its dispute resolution procedures to resolve the claims at issue here, which are based on alleged tortious conduct occurring after their separation from the Church and do not implicate resolution of ecclesiastical issues. We issue a writ directing the trial court to vacate its order compelling arbitration and instead to deny the motion.
The Court of Appeal opinion is officially unpublished and therefore carries little to no weight as precedent under the California Rules of Court (Rule 8.1115, specifically).

The California Supreme Court refused to take the case, so the church appealed to a higher authority. The church’s U.S. Supreme Court petition asks the nation’s highest court to pluck the matter from the California court system and proffers these two issues as questions presented:
(1) Where a parishioner freely executes a religious arbitration agreement with her church, does the First Amendment prohibit enforcement of the agreement if the parishioner leaves the faith?

(2) Does the First Amendment restrict the terms on which a Church may accept members into its faith?
At times co-opting language from the Court of Appeal opinion, the church asserts in its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court that its followers consented to an “irrevocable agreement” to “submit disputes to Scientology arbitration” — which is just “one of the prices of joining [the Scientology] religion.”

The church’s practice of resolving disputes with members is described in the petition as “religious arbitration.” The petition chides California’s court system for — in Scientology’s view — forcing it to change the way it admits and deals with its own congregants. The church argues that the First Amendment bans the state and its courts from governing church dispute resolution procedures.

“[R]eligious arbitration is a long-recognized institution that is increasing in use throughout the United States and across religions,” the church wrote. “Review by this Court is necessary to settle the confusion created by the California Court of Appeal. Religious organizations need this Court to remove any doubt that their contracts – including their agreements to arbitrate disputes before a religious forum – cannot be voided by a party’s professed change of mind. Churches have the right to know that their contracts are equal under law and not subject to ad hoc and unprecedented application of a state action theory by judicial officers.”

The church elsewhere described the dispute for the Court in these terms:
Contracts are contracts, even when a church is a party. It should go without saying that contracts with churches are entitled to the same protection under the law as contracts with secular entities. The California Court of Appeal disagrees. It held that a voluntary party to an otherwise enforceable contract with a church may annul that contract by asserting a First Amendment right to “leave the faith” and “extricate” themselves from the church. While secular entities can enforce contracts over the objections of a party that no longer wishes to be bound, churches now cannot, as long as a party asserts a change of faith. The Court of Appeal deprived churches of the contractual right that really matters – the right to enforce. And it did so expressly because churches are religious.
The statement of the case continues:
The dispute here is simple. The Respondents, as a condition for joining Petitioners’ church, repeatedly and expressly agreed to religious arbitration of any disputes between them and Petitioners, regardless of when those disputes arose. The agreement to submit disputes to religious arbitration is not anomalous. American courts have long recognized the right of religious institutions to use dispute resolution procedures derived from and guided by their foundational beliefs and scripture. Secular courts have placed agreements to submit disputes to religious arbitration on equal footing with agreements calling for secular arbitration – and declined invitations to discriminate against religious arbitration just because it is religious.

At some point, Respondents changed their minds, and their faith. They argued that their change of faith should free them from their contractual obligations to submit their disputes with Petitioners to the chosen religious forum. The California Court of Appeal agreed. It became the first court in the nation to overturn a freely executed religious arbitration agreement based on the objection by a party that the selected forum was exactly what the party agreed to – religious. The Court of Appeal arrived at this result by finding state action in the judicial enforcement of religious arbitration agreements, while acknowledging that the enforcement of secular arbitration agreements does not amount to state action.
A response to the church’s petition is due Aug. 22, according to the Supreme Court’s docket for the case.

Masterson is scheduled to face a separate criminal trial in California this October. Masterson has denied the allegations against him, Law&Crime has previously reported.

Read the church’s 144-page petition (and its concomitant attachments) below:

https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/c ... qus_thread

by ponchi101 Frigging evil-associations. All of them.
(And you know me, and you know I do mean all of them. Sorry).

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by patrick One little successful goal accomplishment. Now, onto bigger "fish".

by ponchi101 What a coward.
If you delivered a nail in the RoeVWade coffin, have some integrity and stand up and explain your legal rationale behind such a monumental decision. Don't frigging run away scared.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie The judge presiding over this case was appointed by TFG. There are 74 tweets in the thread. There will be a lot of skipping of tweets

Jordan Fischer via @threadreaderapp

Good morning. I'm at D.C. District Court where, in a few minutes, the sentencing for Texas Three Percenter Guy Reffitt will begin. The DOJ will argue Reffitt should be the first Jan. 6 defendant to receive a terrorism enhancement. Follow for live coverage.

For those who like to listen to these themselves, it is not clear to me if there will be the usual listen-only line but, if there is, it will be this.

Toll Free Number: 877-336-1829
Access Code: 8424583

Guy Reffitt entered the courtroom a few minutes ago in an orange inmate's jumper and a white mask. Like at his trial, his hair is pulled back in a short ponytail. Reffitt is joined by his new attorney, F. Clinton Broden, who did not represent him at trial.
Now in the courtroom as the hearing begins: U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich and assistant U.S. attorneys Jeffrey Nestler and Risa Berkower.
Two victims will give impact statements today: U.S. Capitol Police Officer Shauni Kerkhoff and Guy Reffitt's son, Jackson. Both testified at his trial.

Reffitt's wife Nicole will also make a statement on his behalf.

Guy Reffitt's wife, Jodi Nicole Reffitt, already submitted a letter to the court. It does not mention the two occasions when Reffitt, according to Nicole's own statements on the podcast "Will Be Wild," placed a loaded gun against her head.

Image

Defense raising a few objections to the PSR. Says they don't think it's fair to say Guy Reffitt recruited fellow militia member Rocky Hardie (Judge Friedrich says she thinks it is). Also, don't agree Reffitt instructed crowd how to overcome police.

Judge Friedrich says it seems to her to be overstating it to say Guy Reffitt "charged" police. She does agree it's fair to say Reffitt instructed fellow Three Percenters to purge texts. Doesn't think it's accurate to say Reffitt instructed Rocky Hardie on what firearms to bring.
None of these objections, as Guy Reffitt's attorney Clinton Broden said, will affect the sentencing calculation.
On to the more substantive questions about which, if any, sentencing enhancements Guy Reffitt should receive. The government is seeking quite a few. See their sentencing memo below.

Image

Guy Reffitt's attorney F. Clinton Broden trying to walk a precarious line here. He's acknowledging the verbal threats Reffitt made to Speaker Pelosi and others, but denying they were threats made to further the obstruction charge.
Discussion has now turned to the amount of weapons/body armor/etc. Guy Reffitt brought to D.C.

"We believe the defendant brought more gear than almost anybody else" who's going to sentencing, AUSA Jeffrey Nestler says.
Judge Friedrich: "What concerns the court is... his decision to go to trial should not result in a dramatically different sentence" from those who took plea deals.

That's why she's probing evidence of planning by Guy Reffitt.
DOJ now arguing for the +2 level "aggravating role" enhancement. Judge Friedrich asks if Guy Reffitt encouraging/waving on the crowd is enough to warrant that.
Judge Friedrich: "It seemed... my impression from the trial was he was kind of a lone guy there who couldn't even get the leader of the Texas Three Percenters to join him."
Clinton Broden says the mob "would have gone up those stairs regardless without Mr. Reffitt, I think we all know that."

Guy Reffitt told multiple people he "lit the match" on Jan. 6 and bragged that no one was moving on police on the stairs until he did.

Judge Friedrich says it's a "very close call" whether there's enough evidence to support BOTH the extensive planning adjustment AND the aggravated role adjustment. Would be a "slam dunk," she says, if Guy Reffitt's fellow militia member Rocky Hardie had joined at the stairs.

Judge Friedrich: "I struggled with this. I'm not going to apply it." Says adding both the extensive planning and aggravated role adjustments would be cumulative.

We aren't to the terrorism enhancement the DOJ wants yet, but Judge Friedrich's rejection of an aggravated role enhancement does seem to suggest prosecutors will have an even steeper climb on that one. Aggravated role adds 2 levels. The terrorism enhancement does much more.

Judge Friedrich rules Guy Reffitt's offense level will be 29 with the adjustments she agreed on. That makes his recommended sentencing guideline 87-108 months in prison. But first: DOJ arguments for multiple upward departures.

(...)

AUSA Nestler says Guy Reffitt is responsible for four firearms: the two pistols he and Rocky Hardie carried onto Capitol grounds and the two fully assembled AR-15s they kept stored at the hotel in Georgetown.

Clinton Broden: "This is the only case where the government has asked for the terrorism enhancement, and this is the only case where the defendant has gone to trial. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out."

Judge Friedrich is NOT going to apply the upward departures for inadequate offense grouping or weapons. Terrorism enhancement being discussed now.

AUSA Nestler: "He was trying to take over our government. He wasn't just trying to stop the vote... the terrorism enhancement is warranted by all of those factors. Not just the defendant's conduct on Jan. 6, but afterward."

Judge Freidrich, sounding very much like she's going to deny the terrorism enhancement, notes there are many other cases involving weapons/assaults on police and the same sort of "very disturbing statements" Guy Reffitt made — but where DOJ didn't seek it.
Judge Friedrich references Mark Ponder, who I reported about last week, and Nicholas Languerand, an ex-Army private who assaulted police w/ multiple objects and had a notebook with a "target list."

(...)

JUST NOW: Judge Friedrich DENIES prosecutors' request to impose a terrorism enhancement and other upward departures at the sentencing of Guy Reffitt. His recommended sentencing range will be 87-108 months in prison.

The lowest end of this would be 2 years longer than the longest Jan. 6 sentence to date. Guy Reffitt's attorney will now argue for a downward variance to 24 months.

Former USCP Officer Shauni Kerkhoff speaking now. Says she was one of the first officers to confront Guy Reffitt: “I watched in horror as he encouraged the angry mob to push past him and advance on the Capitol – physically assaulting some of my fellow officers in the process.”

Shauni Kerkhoff says since testifying at Guy Reffitt's trial she's become a target of his supporters online. She asks for him to receive the maximum sentence: “His actions weren’t acts of patriotism. They were acts of domestic terrorism.”

AUSA Jeffrey Nestler, pushing back a bit on Judge Friedrich's reasoning on the terrorism enhancement, says Guy Reffit was "in a class all by himself."
"This is not someone who was a lone wolf," AUSA Nestler says. He had a leadership role in his militia group, reached out to Sen. Ted Cruz's office (no evidence Cruz responded), etc.

"He didn't just want President Trump to remain in office," AUSA Nestler says. "He wanted to physically and literally remove members of Congress from power. We believe he is a domestic terrorist."

Judge Friedrich: "This defendant has some frightening claims that border on delusional, and they are extraordinarily concerning for the court. But other defendants did too. That's the point I'm trying to make."

Judge Friedrich asks Nestler if she shouldn't consider Guy Reffitt's mental health issues as a mitigating factor? Agrees w/ Jackson that mental health should be part of sentence and she's going to order full treatment. Now clear he has "very serious" mental health issues.

AUSA Nestler: "We think he's dangerous. But we don't think any mental health condition" caused him to do what he did.


p1/2

by ti-amie P2/L

Guy Reffitt's daughter, Peyton, is speaking now. She says his mental health has "always been a real issue."

Adds: "My father's name wasn't on the flags that everyone was carrying that day. It was another man's name. He wasn't the leader."

Guy Reffitt's attorney, Clinton Broden: "A lot of this stuff is highly disturbing. A lot of this stuff... we're not even trying
to defend some of this stuff. But the government says this isn't about words, and a lot of it does seem to be about words."

Judge Friedrich: “The fact remains... he hasn’t walked back his statements about being a martyr. He hasn’t walked back his statements about being a patriot. And so, as here he sits, I have to consider: what is this man going to do when he’s released from prison?”

Judge Friedrich: "In a democracy we respect the peaceful transition of power. This election was challenged, and in courts across the country, judge after judge said there was no evidence of election fraud that would have changed the results of the election."

Judge Friedrich, having an hour or so ago rejected the DOJ's argument that Guy Reffitt deserved a terrorism enhancement because he was in a class of his own, tells Broden, somewhat confusingly, that Reffitt is in a class of his own.

Clinton Broden says we can "question the wisdom of keeping all these guys together," suggesting the grouping of many of the most serious Jan. 6 cases together in the D.C. Jail was a bad idea. Extremism experts told us as much last year.

Clinton Broden suggests Guy Reffitt's refusal to say what he was convicted of was wrong is more honest than other Jan. 6 defendants who've pleaded guilty and then "gone outside and held press conferences." Doesn't name anyone in particular.
Judge Friedrich: "From a deterrence perspective, what is this defendant going to do in the future? That's something that's very much on my mind."

Broden: "I do believe he's done with politics and demonstrations."

Judge Friedrich says Guy Reffitt wrote her a "very carefully crafted letter" that doesn't disavow the Three Percenters and makes "really troubling" comparisons between Jan. 6 and 1776.

Guy Reffitt is NOT going to speak today. Court is going to recess until 2:30 and then we'll learn his sentence.
You're not missing anything. Court hasn't resumed yet.

CHANGE OF PLANS: Now Guy Reffitt WILL make a statement. Stand by for that...

Learning first about some of the conditions for Guy Reffitt's eventual supervised release. It will include an order prohibiting him from contacting or associating with any members of an extremist group, including the Texas Three Percenters, Oath Keepers and Texas Freedom Force.
Judge Friedrich says Guy Reffitt's sentence will include the maximum period of supervised release (5 years). She warns if he violates any of the terms or doesn't abide by the mental health treatment requirements she will order him back to prison.

Guy Reffitt: "I want to make multiple apologies. I was, to put it colorfully, a f***ing idiot."

"I don't want to have anything to do with militia groups or any stupid s*** like that. I'd be lucky if I could get into a church group after this with my mouth."

Judge Friedrich: I'm hearing now at the 11th hour moments before sentencing what I would have expected to hear much earlier. Wonders if he's really sincere.

Judge Friedrich: "You were indicted on every count in the indictment. Do you believe now you violated the law?"

Guy Reffitt: "Yes your honor. I f***ed up."

Guy Reffitt says his family "would be on the streets if he didn't say something to garner money for them."

Judge Friedrich: You're telling me all the things you said in jail, during your trial, about needing to rebel against the tyranny of the government was just to raise money for your family?

Guy Reffitt, in short: Yes.

Judge Friedrich: "It's hard to sit here with a straight face and believe you just got caught up in the crowd" considering the weapons and body armor he brought and all his pre- and post-trial statements.

Judge Friedrich: How do I know you're not going to post tomorrow, I'm really a patriot folks I just said all that to get a lower sentence.

"How do I know you're really heartfelt?"

Guy Reffitt: "It's very clear to me I have an issue with just rambling and saying stupid s***."

Judge Friedrich: "It seems to me you like to be the big guy, the important guy, the first guy to go to trial. You really pushed hard for that trial over your defense attorney's objection."

Guy Reffitt, laughing, asks if he just gave the longest sentencing statement ever: "We're always setting precedents around here, aren't we?"

AUSA Nestler says Guy Reffitt told a reporter for the New Yorker as recently as a few months ago that Jan. 6 was a false flag.

In summation of everything Mr. Reffitt just said: "We don't think any of that was credible."

Nestler said they did offer Guy Reffitt a plea deal in the 50 month range and his former attorney Bill Welch told them he had rejected any felony plea.


Judge Friedrich is laying the groundwork for her sentencing order now. Talks about the "highly disturbing" threats Guy Reffitt made toward his children. Also his efforts to get fellow Three Percenters to delete messages after Jan. 6.

Judge Friedrich talks about the disturbing evidence Guy Reffitt has placed a loaded gun against his wife's head on at least two occasions.

(...)

Judge Friedrich: "Under no legitimate definition of the word patriot does what Mr. Reffitt did on Jan. 6 fit the term. What he and other rioters did was the antithesis of patriotism."

Judge Friedrich describes Guy Reffitt and those who committed similar acts a "direct threat to our democracy" and says they will be "punished as such."

Judge Friedrich says she's crediting Guy Reffitt's 11th hour apology "to a degree," but does not find credible at all his claim that he never saw a plea offer.

🚨 SENTENCE: U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich orders Guy Reffitt to serve 87 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Warns if he violates terms she will send him back to prison for up to maximum term. $2,000 in restitution.

Image

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1554 ... 61408.html

by ti-amie The Alex Jones trial is going on now as well. This woman doesn't allow her posts to be aggregated on Thread Reader so starting kind of in the middle of what's going on. This will be multiple pages.











P1

by ti-amie P2


(...)






(...)


by ti-amie P3/L





Re EMDR

JJ MacNab @jjmacnab
I had to look that one up:

https://webmd.com/mental-health/emdr-what-is-it

by ti-amie

by ti-amie AND the Parkland trial is happening too




by ti-amie

by ti-amie Sandy Hook continued








by ti-amie

by ponchi101 About the Reffit guy.
Man, do I hate it when people play the "I had a rough upbringing" card.
So (expletive) what? Lots of people did, and they did not end up being Capitol Storming Traitors. These people are such cowards.

by ti-amie Legal Twitter seems surprised that Jones is taking the stand.

by ti-amie


by ti-amie


by ti-amie


by ti-amie


:bath:

by ponchi101 This is a real test for the American Justice system.
If Jones is not found guilty, and thrown for a long time into a prison, the system is broken.

by ti-amie




One of the defenses of TFG is that he really, really believed that the election was stolen from him. This might be a test run.

by ti-amie Sebastian Murdock
@SebastianMurdoc (Huff Post)
Good morning and welcome to another day of Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook defamation trial. Jones is on the stand and will be cross-examined today. Here’s his silly little sticker he ripped off his mouth when he realized no one cared (pic from last week). Stick around for updates.












P1/3

by ti-amie P2/3







Jurors questions (excerpts)




by ti-amie P3/L




by ti-amie Closing arguments have begun.


by ti-amie JJ MacNab
@jjmacnab
·
1h
I listened to the q&a while waiting for the vet. There were softball questions from someone on the jury designed to let Jones look like he has learned from his mistakes.

The financial / business questions were more interesting.

Infowars has 80 employees today vs 50 in 2014, and had $70 million in sales in the last fiscal year.


by ti-amie Video from earlier


by ti-amie

by ti-amie Liz Dye
@5DollarFeminist
·
39m
Jones is dutifully horking and schnorking to prove to the jury that he is truly, pitifully sick.





Liz Dye
@5DollarFeminist
"It's all from Alex Jones," Farrar says, tracing the harassment Heslin and Lewis suffers directly to the Infowars.

"There's nothing out there close."

by ti-amie








by ti-amie Sharon Coryell
@SharonCoryell4

Replying to
@dansolomon
Did you see what Jones ex wife said on Twitter, see wants the records too. Back child support!

by ti-amie

JJ MacNab
@jjmacnab

I see a lot of comments that child porn was included in the discovery sent to the plaintiffs' counsel.

These pictures, however, were attached to emails sent *to* Infowars mail addresses, not from. They may not ever have been opened.

by ti-amie








by ti-amie

Re the phone


by ti-amie Defense summation continued







JJ MacNab
@jjmacnab ·Replying to
@jjmacnab
"Think about what $150 million represents. It would take 18 generations to make that much. This isn't a real number."

He asked his son about that much and his son said it would weight 30,000 pounds.




by ti-amie

by ti-amie

JJ MacNab
@jjmacnab

And he's done.

by ti-amie

The video is 23 minutes long and it's worth watching a real court vs L&O court rooms.

For whatever reason the audio is not good in some spots. The summary below is pretty much what happened.

by ti-amie Anna Merlan
@annamerlan
Good morning. Jury deliberations today for Alex Jones and Infowars’ first (only their first!!) damages trial. Here’s my thread in case anything occurs









Excuse me :vomit:


by ti-amie Continued





Anna Merlan @annamerlan
Gamble denies the motion to have Bankston throw Jones' phone copy into the sea or whatever and everyone is excused...

by ponchi101 You write this :poop: as a movie script, and it would be rejected as ridiculous.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie dan solomon
@dansolomon
again, remember that this is for compensatory damages only, unless they come back at one dollar, there will also be punitive damages following additional testimony about Jones's net worth



by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Posts on the testimony of the forensic economist who testified earlier today at the Sandy Hook trial.











P1

by ti-amie











P2

by ti-amie JJ MacNab
@jjmacnab
·
5h
Defense lawyer: Did you reduce the valuation of the business by the amount of pending lawsuits?

Usually, companies would disclose future payouts to a potential buyer.











P3

by ti-amie









P4

by ti-amie P5










by ti-amie P6

by ti-amie P7










by ti-amie P8











JJ MacNab @jjmacnab
·
3h
He recommends a punitive judgment of $270,000.


JJ MacNab
@jjmacnab
Aside: I assume that the "you are all individuals" is pushing for a split jury.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie


Anna Merlan
@annamerlan
Bankston says he is filing a motion for sanctions against Renal presumably and is outlining his reasons why.

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 :clap::clap::clap:

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie






by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie This could be in our Technobabble thread but it also belongs here.










by ponchi101 I am still iffy about Face Recognition all over the place. This is an example of how it can be used for good. But Hong Kong gave plenty of examples of what can be done for bad.
I can't think what regimes like Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and many more would do.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 I can't make out well what Jones says.

by skatingfan

by ponchi101 I found the transcript (news). I hope they leave him penniless.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 You mean, the first HONEST person that was there on Jan 6th? Because what else where the other 1,000 doing there?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie





Of course someone did the math.





C. F. Francis @Francis_Sanibel
Replying to @AliVelshi
Can they freeze their assets immediately? No bankruptcy or transfer of funds to another party?

by ti-amie


by ponchi101 I like the verdict, but can that really be collected? Does he have that amount of money?
Sure, I am glad he will be left bankrupt, but if it is impossible to collect, what good does it make?

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:21 pm I like the verdict, but can that really be collected? Does he have that amount of money?
Sure, I am glad he will be left bankrupt, but if it is impossible to collect, what good does it make?
He's had time to hide money any and everywhere. It's going to be interesting to see if they go after him for real and track down the money.

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 11:21 pm
ponchi101 wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:21 pm I like the verdict, but can that really be collected? Does he have that amount of money?
Sure, I am glad he will be left bankrupt, but if it is impossible to collect, what good does it make?
He's had time to hide money any and everywhere. It's going to be interesting to see if they go after him for real and track down the money.
They need to doggedly go after him for every cent. Liquidate EVERYTHING he owns.

by dryrunguy Jones won't pay a penny. Write it down.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Steve Bannon can get 6 months in prison for contempt.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
I'll believe it when I see it.
As to how much time he will do for fraud:
0

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 And he'll appeal again, and again, and again...
One of the reasons I used to admire the USA was a naive belief, when I was growing up, that the justice system in the USA worked.
One of the evidences that young people really know :poop: about anything.

by Owendonovan If there's nothing to hide, what's the problem (Auntie) Lindsay?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 They look so non-violence prone...
Not.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie Elmer Rhodes is on trial accused of seditious conspiracy. He's been on a "charm offensive" of sorts when his attorneys were questioning him. Now an AUSA surnamed Rakoczy (RAK in tweets) is cross examining him and it's kind of interesting.
QRF = Quick Response Force
RH = Rhodes (Elmer is his real first name)
OK(s) = Oath Keepers


Jury has been excused for morning break.
Now Rakoczy discussing emails that she disclosed this weekend that had Woodward (for Meggs) was bent out of shape over this morning. They concern effort Rhodes made to get his open letters to Trump through a donor

/69
to the OKs who had a son doing something with the White House. FBI interviewed the the donor and she said she never tried to do anything with the letter.
Another email is about info about Rhodes considering going to Portland or Vancouver in Sept 2020 with goal of baiting

/70
Antifa to attack to start a conflict. She says the defendants previously knew about that information.
Linder (for Rhodes) says he doesn't think the new information is relevant. Mehta is suggesting that Linder has opened some doors.

/71
The emails come from the Montana FBI Agent Mark Saylor who was mentioned during the direct. The information seems to come from confidential human sources (CHSs).
Judge Mehta is saying that Rhodes did not incriminate any other defendants, so he's not sure they ...

/72
should be permitted to cross-examine Rhodes. But it sounds like he'll permit a bit of questioning (rather than having Rhodes to resume stand later as part of that particular defendant's case).

(...)

AUSA Rakoczy will do cross:
discussing founding of OKs.
you claimed ... in response to policies of bush administration? didn't found till april 2009?
right.
after Obama inaugurated?
right.
launched 4/19/09. you said that was to commemorate a moment in adams administration/
/87
right.
But that's not reason is it?
don't understand.
you chose because that's where shot heard round the world occurred that started american revolutoin?
no. ...
and you chose 4/19?
date heard round the world?
right.

/88
went on Alex Jones that day & admitted it was about commemorating shot heard round the world?
well, in part.
and on website you mentioned shot heard round the world & not thing involving adams administration?
possibly.

/89
Rakoczy showing website ad for the launch.
She's moving it into evidence.
painting across the top depicts battle at Lexington in april 1775.
Now showing video of him on Alex Jones show promoting launch of OKs. [hard to hear audio but he's talking about
/90
shot heard round the world. nothing about the event he mentioned on direct during the Adams administration.]
Rak: from outset OKs took tone of forcible opposition to govt?
no.
Rh: in 2014 sent OKs to nevada to assist cliven bundy to resist court order....
Rak: we sent them to
Rhodes: sent them to protect his family from being Waco'd. ...
Rak: gave them AR-15s. warned that if govt was going to enforce them ... you'd be there to resist.
Rhodes: we were there to protect family from being burned to death.
Rak: no fires at Waco ...

/92
that's what we feared.
Rakoczy now showing video of Rhodes at time ... [hard to hear audio again ... seems to be threatening to resist govt by force]
Rak: they also deployed OKs to mining towns in 2015-16. sent them with rifles?
yes.
Rak: like to have OKs who are

/93
former police.
yes. puts my people on front lines.
now talking about 2017 event in Berkeley.
you wanted them to bait the people didn't you?
no we focus on deterrence.

(...)

/97
Rak: tell me about insurance OK org has to do security?
Oh, organization? no. but some of us do.
Rak: law enforcement not finding your org helpful?
Rh: not true. local group in ferguson loved us.
Rak: deployed to Louisville in 2020. One national, one by local chapter

/98
Rak: went there to protect property?
and life.
Rak: that's the cover you need, right?
that's incorrect.
She's showing messages taken from his phone from CO OK chat. August 2020: "when it comes to cracking heads, if you articulate that you'll leave yourself exposed ...

/99
Rhodes: there has to be a legitimate reason.
Rak: there has to be a *stated* legitimate reason?
Rh: that's not what it say.
Reading from his message that talking about "cracking heads," that's what got the Proud Boys in trouble ...

/100
he wrote at time: "anyone who publicly announces that they are just going to confront antifa/blm are setting themselves up and can be easily prosecuted after the fact. ... you just killed your own self-defense line."
Now showing another exhibit about Louisville

(...)

/111
Video showing OKs in that parking lot in Louisville.
Shows Rhodes, NC lead Doug Smith, Michael Greene, Jessica Watkins, Montana Siniff.
Rhodes: we're getting our gear on to get ready to go protect gas station.
Rakoczy eliciting that crowd is saying '(expletive) you, (expletive) you"...
/112
and many OKs have their guns out.
Now seeing Kelly Meggs. Guy in middle is Holden Haney (OK IL) with skeleton/american flag mask/gaiter. Haney has a rifle. Meggs has 2 AR magazines in his vest pouch.
Rak: doing more to inflame situation than help?
Rh: No.

Now showing a tape of the 11/9/20 GoToMeeting:
Rhodes: ... when i was walking thru Portland i ... had my helmet. ... that was to whack someone right across the face if they're going to come at me.

(...)

/116
Rh: i was talking about how they could use C-cell flashlights and other things that were legal to carry.
Rak: batons too?
Rh: i chose not to bring mine. ... it's a gray area, & i love em, and I chose not to.
Rak: and you advised them to dress up like old people to bait

/117
Antifa?
not true.
Now showing receipt from store called Smoky Mountain Knife Works. Purchase he made on 11/19/20 on OK credit card.
3 cold steel heavy duty canes or walking sticks
5 cold steel pistol grips.

/118
Now showing what those pistol grips look like.
Rak: And you told Zimmerman that you wanted OKs to dress up as vulernable and try to bait Antifa into attacking?
Rh: He misunderstood.
Rak: also told Josh James that?
Rh: no.

/119
Now discussing NC OK Randy Earp. his group went to Louisville. Rhodes exchanged messages with Earp.
9/26/20 message after a Louisville op.
Earp: did Doug do well with you? ...
Rhodes: very satisfied. ...
Earp: ... [anything you want to tell Doug?]
Rh:

/120
Rh: Doug did very well on QRF with me last night. ... at end of night had an incident at end of night ... [some sort of confrontation ... ]
... approached drunk black guy ... Doug pointed rifle at him. approached him in his truck as if a traffic stop. ... it was diffused.
/121
Rak: 3 days after election he met with NC leaders, including Doug. Rhodes bought rifle, then came to DC.
now 11/7/20: Rhodes to Friends of Stone Signal chat:
... what's the plan ... i'm on the way to DC now ... to do leader's recon and make plans.
Rh: Stone, ali alexander
/122
Rak: Tarrio?
Rh: don't know if he was on that chat at that time.
Going to take our lunch break now till 1:30pm.
Judge speaking about the recently disclosed information relating to alleged attempts to bait Antifa is Vancouver or Portland. Rakoczy says gist of it

/123
was previously disclosed to defense counsel in another form. Mehta seems satisfied.
Everyone breaking till 1:30pm

/124 The theme of Rakoczy's cross so far seems to be that Rhodes uses various noble, high-minded sounded narratives as "legal cover" to justify fundamentally lawless thuggery. She's argued that in 2014 he was helping Cliven Bundy resist a court order with force; ...

/127
that while he claims to want to protect people from Antifa, he told OKs in Nov 2020 (per OK John Zimmerman, who testified earlier) to dress like the elderly or women in order to "bait" an Antifa attack so he could given them a "beat-down"; and it sounds like

/128
she wants to elicit another instance of alleged "baiting" of Antifa relating to actions he took in Vancouver or Portland; and she's also shown that while he says the OKs help police, several police forces have asked him to leave saying they inflame matters &

/128
make them worse. The obvious ultimate example she's building to is the govt's claim that all his talk about the Insurrection Act itself was just another "legal cover," because he planned to try to stop Biden from taking power by force regardless of what Trump did.

P1/3

by ti-amie P2/3

Jury seated.
AUSA Kathryn Rakoczy resumes cross.
fall of 2020, OKs contemplated operation in Vancouver/Washington area.
Rh: memorial service for person shot by Antifa?
Rak: member of patriot movement killed in Portland.
Rh: assassinated on street.
Rak: many people upset.
/132
Rh: discussion about whether to have memorial service at location of his assassination. ... decided not to.
Rak: discussed going on Alex Jones show to let everyone know you were going to go? Plan to announce you'd be in Vancouver Washington? Plan was so you could

/133
have your weapons and bait antifa and have them come across the line and ambush them?
that is not correct.
Rak: you say you're not in it for money. but you draw salary. last 12 years or so you use OK money to pay for your dinners & travel?
yes.
Rak: & firearms?
yes.

/134
Rak: use OK credit card for personal expenses quite a bit?
Rh: wouldn't say that. full time job.
Rak: one board member resigned over your use of OK funds?
Rh: fair to say.
Rak: fair to say you did not file income taxes from 2008-2020?
Sidebar.

/135
She moves on period after presidential election.
Rak: you urged your followers to resist the result?
Rh: correct
Rak: you opposed biden as president?
Rh: yes.
Rak: you referred to biden/kamala as chicom puppets? so it's not just process, it's result?
Rh: it's both.

/136
Rh: my opposition came from the constitutional problems.
Rak: not the fact that they were ChiCom puppets?
Rh ...
Rak: you said SoRelle thought she saw election fraud?
Rh: yes.
Rak: what she actually saw was news crew bringing in equipment?
Rh: that's what news media said.
/137
now showing 11/7/20 Rhodes to Old Leadershp Chat:
"answer must be to refuse to accept ... these imposters ... get your gear squared away and ready to fight."
another 11/7/20: to friends of stone chat
"the final defense is us and our rifles."

/138 "trump has one last chance right now to act ... but he will need us and our rifles too. but will he act? only if we act and call on him to lead us."

In that message Rhodes links to a video from a Serbian friend about overthrowing Serbian govt.

/139
Not showing Rhodes

/140
Image

Image
talks about swarming streets ... culminating here, with storming of parliament. ...

Image
Rh: i only meant this in the future context, not with respect to before inauguration.
Rak: you say: "it has to happen NOW."
Rh: that's not what i meant.

Now playing an audio tape of Rhodes' GoToMeeting of 11/9/20: ... let's make no illusion ... in same spot that

/143
foundingn fatehers were in in March 1775. ... nothing left to do but fight. ...
Rh: right, but on condition trump invokes insurrection act.
Rak: later you said they need to be prepared to fight regardless of what trump did?
Rh: later, yes. ...

/144
Now talking about QRF for 11/14/20 event.
Rh: purpose was to defend against a benghazi style attack on white house.
Rak: you thought secret service couldn't manage?
Rh: He had had to go the basement earlier.

now talking about 12/12/20 Jericho event. there...

/145
you implored trump to invoke insurrection act?
Rh: yes to do mass declassification and data jump.
Rak: president doesn't need insurrection act to declassify docs, does he?
Rh: no, but needed to use it to use national guard and unorganized data to help seize the data.

/146 Rak: was this the data that was going to expose CIA & NSA officials as pedophiles?
Rh: that and other things.
Rak: isn't what you really wanted him to do is call you all up as private bodyguards?
Rh: no. ... down the road we'd have no choice but to fight. if you leave office
/147
without fixing this.

12/14/20 electoral college meets, makes biden winner?
Rh: yes, unconstitutionally, yes.
Rak: you wrote, Trump has one more opportunity to act, must invoke insurrection act.
Rh: 12/14 wasn't big priority in my mind.
Rak: that's why you post this ...

/148
talking about bloody civil war & revolution?
Rh: ...
Rak: you're talking about a call to arms to help keep Trump in power.
Rh: wouldn't want to characterize it like that.
Now showing open letter 12/14

/149
Cover photo is Washington leading troops into battle.
Rak: you wanted trump to use troops to keep him in power?
Rh: wanted him to declassify data.

now reading: imploring Trump to invoke insurrection act to "stop the steal and stop the coup"
now second open letter of 12/23
/150
calls on Trump: "immediately order ... national guard to order new election ... do not conceded ..."
Rh: i'm referring to state officials certifying unc'l results.
Rak: throw out election and hold new one?
Rh: well supreme court hadn't heard case challenging c'lity.

/151
Rak: so it got all the way to SCOTUS and declined to take the case?
Rh: yes, illegitimately.
Rak: and you said SCOTUS should be declared illegitimate?
Rh: no, well, can't remember, what did i say?

/152
In the 12/23 open letter he tells Trump to declare that ruling because 7 of the 9 justices refused to hear the case illegitimately. ...

Rak: A lawsuit had been filed? highest court didn't take case. so legal challenges had been exhausted?
Rh: yes, but supreme court did not
/153
do it's duty.
Rak: says you.
Rh: says a lot of people. ...
i think trump had a responsibility to defend constitution when others failing to do so.
Rak: what's to prevent every president in future from invoking Insurrection Act throwing out result & delcaring new election?

/154
that's the problem when you're in an uncharted election.
Rak: insurrection action has never been used to throw out an election has it?
Rh: we've never had an election like this one.
Rak: you knew J6 was hard constitutional line?
Rh: yes. i supported challenges but didn't

/155
hold much faith in them.
Rakoczy showing Rhodes message of 12/15/20 to Friends of Stone:
president must do it now before J6 ... tragic mistake to wait for J6 or after. Congress will stab him in the back.
Believe can't trust Mcconnell?
yes.

/156
you can't because his wife in Chinese?
Rh: in part, yes. ... i think she has ties to communist party in china.
Rak: and her husband Sen. McConnell too?
Rh: yes.

Rak: you knew either Trump would have to invoke insurrection act or you & your followers would have to act?

/157 not correct.

showing message from Rhodes 12/10/20: either trump will invoke Insurreection Act ... or we will have to rise up to oppose the chicom puppet.
Rak: so civil war would be on J21 and not J6?
Rh: not necessarily.

/158
Now showing message from Rhodes to SoRelle on 12/29: ... "i'll turn my attention to what comes after Trump fails to do his duty. ... i think an open letter to the current serving US military is needed ... [about J6] they won't fear us till we come with rifles in hand."

/159
Now showing Rhodes a video of his interview with FBI Agent Palian.
Rh: i did not know this was video'd.
Rak: it's a body-worn camera.
Sidebar.
playing video.
[hard to hear audio]
"by january we knew there would be zero percent chance he'd invoke insurrection act."

/160
she's now reading more of his messages: "be ready to roll any way we are needed, get your gear squared away."
now 12/21 to OKFL Hangout: "need to push trump to do his duty. if he doesn't, we will do ours ... conquer or die. this needs to be our attitude."
Rh: that would be

/161
post J6.

& more of his messages:
12/31/20 rhodes: on the 6th they'll put final nail in coffin of this republic unless we fight our way out. with trump, preferably, or without him. we have no choice.

/162
Rak: so you came to VA prepared to fight?
Rh: no. well, we had a qrf.
Rak: you personally brought 100s of rounds. You paid $17,000 for gun-related materials?
Rh: yes.
Rak: organized a QRF?
Rh: didn't have a vehicle. ... I knew Meggs had gotten 2 hotel rooms

/163
did not know there was anyone sitting on them.
Rak: this was planned within plane sight of you.
Rh: I didn't know about Stamey & Caldwell's side chats.
Showing him J2 message from Meggs to Rhodes: "last night we discussed QRF RP."
Rhodes respondes: OK. we WILL have a QRF. ..
/164
the situation calls for it."

now showing him another message from Meggs to him saying "we have the overlay of maps and Lincoln is the RP if SHTF." Rhodes responds, "cool. ... I'll reimburse you."

Now showing him message from Meggs to DC OP Jan 6 21 ...
/165
On J2 Meggs is talking about the QRF on that.
... Meggs says: 1 if by land (north side of Lincoln memorial) 2 if by sea (c'o of west basin) ... QRF Rally Points. water if the bridges get closed.
Rh: i saw them but i didn't really know why he was posting these. wasn't my op.
/166
Rak: buck stops with you in the operation?
Rh: i'm not in charge when they do something off mission.
Rak: you're OK chairman of board for life?
right.
Rak: Command structure carried over into operations?
Rh: no, that's not right.

/167
Now showing Rhodes message of 12/30 to DC Op Jan 6 21:
"prefer that cohesive teams under under the immediate leadership of their [team] leader but ... of course under my overall command."

Rak: "overall command" would be yours.
Rh: only step in if i see a major problem.

/168 Rhodes brings up "commander's intent."
Rak: so you were familiar with concept of commander's intent?
Rh: yes. selected greene & siekerman. we were there to protect latinos for trump, escort ali alexander, general escort duties ... etc.

/169
Now showing message Rhodes sent 12/25 to OKFL Hangout:
trump needs to know we support him in using insurrection act. ... if congress rubber stamps an unconstitutional fraud, president trump must ddefend the constitution and we use him to use the insurrection act ...

/170
we will support him ... and he needs to know if he fails to act then we will. he needs to understand that we will have no choice."
Rh: yes, but that's post J6.
Rak: but you don't say that do you?
Rh: a few slides earlier. ... [but it's not there either, Rakoczy shows.]

/171
Rak: on J6, you told followers VP had "punked out"?
Rh: ummmm, i don't remember. [Rhodes has begun to say "ummmm" frequently to start his answers.]

Now talking about QRFs again.

/172
Rak: when you were interviewed by FBI agent Palian on 5/3/2 you told him you had no knowledge of the QRFs?
Rh: that's the problem with that term, it means so many different things to different people.
Rak: perhaps it would help to play the video. ...

/173
[again, I can't make out the audio.]
Rak: You tried to say you weren't privy to the plans of the NC guys.
Rh: yes.
Rak: but you added the NC guys to the DC Op Jan 6 21 chat right?
...
Rh: i knew about vallejo.
Rak: but you didn't tell Palian about him either right?

[I don't know what's coming through from reading the cold disjointed record of my tweets, and of course I'm just one person. But to me this is very very powerful cross by Rakoczy. The word "demolish" comes to mind. ...

/176
... When you're down to arguing that your civil war wasn't supposed to start until January 21, as opposed to starting Jan. 6, I think you're on the defensive. Also, he basically said that he distrusted Sen. McConnell because his wife is Chinese. That sort of blows ...

/177
a hole in the claim--which he went out of his way to raise--that he has no racism. He tried to recover by saying she had ties to the Chinese Communist Party, but as a cabinet official under multiple administrations it's a stretch. Rakoczy also effectively had him admit

/178
that no president in history had ever used the Insurrection Act to nullify an election & keep himself in power and that, if a president could do so, any president could use it to nullify all the laws & constitutional provisions governing transition of presidential power.

/179
Judge Mehta's back.
Rhodes back on stand.
Awaiting jury. (Here, by the way, is a sample message Rakoczy showed him. His response to these is, basically, to say the revolution wasn't supposed to begin J6; not until after J20.)

/180
Image

Jury back.
AUSA Rakoczy continues cross.
Turning to J6.
At 1:45pm Greene called him at said they're storming the Capitol.
Rh: i said who? he said Trump supporters. then went to meet him.
Rak: saw there was no event going to take place ... & walked into restricted area.

by ti-amie P3/3

Rakoczy is now showing a compilation exhibit that tracks the progress of the various OK groups converging on the Capitol on a map, with a timeline.
At 2:31 he received call from Greene. (Rhodes concedes these time stamps are correct.) Talked to him for 45 seconds, before he
/187
gets a call from Kelly Meggs. Rhodes picks up and merges call with Greene.
Rak: can't hear a word he says, but you merge him with Michael greene anyway?
Rh: [yes.]
Rak: now 2:32:18 to 2:33:48 sec. ...
Rak: for 90 seconds you're just saying, 'hello, hello, i can't hear you?'
Rh: yeah, but i could still hear greene.
Finally Meggs hangs up at 2:33pm. and two minutes later, about 2:35pm, Meggs leads stack 1 up the steps?
Rh: yes, but i found that out much later.

/189
Rak: and they breach the capitol at 2:39?
Rh: no, they walk in after others breach it. ...

now showing his message to the ops chat telling people to be very careful what they say & be mindful that people might be reading them.

now showing his message from 7:30pm J6

/190
praising what happened. ... "long day but day when patriots began to stand. stand now or kneel forever."

then went to Olive Garden. SoRelle, James, Vallejo were there. Landon Bentley. Joe Harrington. Todd Kandaris.

/191
Rak: James told you he went inside and you said good job?
Rh: No. ... he lied to me. ... didn't told him till they were in AL later ... showed me a video and didn't play any sound. ...
Rak: he yanked officers and told them to get out of his (expletive) capitol.
Rh: saw that

/192
for 1st time sitting here during this trial.

At Olive Garden sorelle got word FBI was starting to make arrests?
Rh: no ... state police going door to door looking for people who'd been in capitol.
Rak: you abruptly left?
Rh: no, maybe 5 in the morning.
Rak: you left at 1am
/193 Rh: well, maybe --
we heard VA state police going door to door looking for Trump supporters. ...
Rak: trump supporters who'd entered capitol.
Rh: not what we were told
Rak: rounding up trump supporters for no reason?
Rh: that's all we were told.

/194
Rak: you and SoRelle drove to gas station & met up with James? middle of the night?
Rh: whatever time it was.
Rak: greene there. ... guys from KY. you divide up all the firearms and ammunition?
Rh: ummmmmm, i don't think so. ... kellye wanted to go meet someone for ...

/195
some sort of election challenge. she asked me for my phone.
Rak: election challenge at 1am in the morning?
Rh: well, next day or something.
at 1:14am Rhodes was using Landon Bentley's phone?
Rh: uhhhhh, could be.
Landon sends message about "nice places to live in WV"

/196
Rak: you're doing that to secretly discuss rendez-vous spots?
Rh: uhhhhhhh, possibly. yeah [something about] secret squirrels.

at 12:30pm SoRelle says "emergency. need to go to TX. need assistance."
Rhodes: you still planning to go to Huntington WV. Call now. ...
/197
Rhodes: i have a car here. come here now. be a good girl and do as i say. or give me place to see you in TN.
SoRelle: i'll be in bristol in 2.5 hrs.
Rhodes: go there ... text whip ... tell him to go to austin.

Rak: you wanted him to protect you in TX?

/198
Rh. No, i don't need protection. i'm my own bodyguard.

Rakoczy elicits that he gets a burner phone and arranges to meet SoRelle in Bristol, TN.

Rh: i imagine we meet up, but it's been a long time.
Now on J8 at about 11:16am, SoRelle sends message: ALLCON FROM STEWART

/199
THIS IS STEWART ... DO NOT chatter ... anything you say can and will be used against you ... CLAM UP. DO NOT SAY A DAMN THING. ... still in the twilight before open conflict ... do not chat about OKs doing anything at capitol. do not discuss ... shut the f*ck up!

/200
don't write AARs. ... clam up. you all need to delete any of your comments regarding who did what.
Rh: that was not me. that was ms. sorelle. ... she got her phone back and started writing as if it was me.

Rak: you have some level of control over her?
Rh: we were dating

/201 Rak: those messages encourage people to delete incriminating evidence from their phones?
Rh: yes. well, can i /202
see it again?

Rakoczy showing him again. Message accurately says that administrator at that time didn't have power to delete; the individuals had to do it themselves.
Rak: But SoRelle wasn't the administrator, you were.

Rakoczy establishing that Rhodes was disabarred

/203
by state of Montana in 2015.
sidebar
@Brandi_Buchman tells me Rhodes testified of SoRelle: "she's type A outside the bedroom, but inside the bedroom she switches to a sub." (Meaning "submissive," per Brandi.) This is relevant because Rakoczy is saying she wouldn't go ...

/204
... and tell people to delete phones if Rhodes hadn't told her to tell them that. She followed his instructions. He's saying that was true only in the bedroom.
Long sidebar (beginning with reference to his being disbarred in 2015) is still going on.

/205
Rakoczy: state of montana barred you in 2015 for failing to participate in the disciplinary process regarding 2 grievances filed against him.
Rh: i didn't know those existed. they sent them to a PO box. PO box signed for it. i didn't know.
Rak: after Bristol, TN he drove

/206
to AL.
Rak: and you asked Meggs to come to TX to help you even tho he'd gone inside.
Rh: he told me he'd helped people inside.
Rak: and you asked James to come & bring all available firearms?
Rh: no, just what he'd need.
Rak: you stockpiled firarms.
Rh: yes

/207
Rak: did one of store clerks get concerned because you had so much stuff?
Rh: ummmmmm, don't recall that.
Rak: J6 for you was just battle in ongoing war, right?
Rh: no. ... i said we were on eve of conflict. ... not immediate. ...

/208
Rak: you OKs were willing to take steps to alter or abolish this govt?
Rh: yes. i still hoped conflict could be avoided. but we have a govt that steps outside the Constitution it puts you in a bad place.
Rak: & you appointed yourself to take care of that?
Rh: no, ...

/209
[constitution says that? or declaration of independence? not sure what he said.]
Now playing Stewert Rhodes statement to Albers on J10: "my only regret [about J6] is they should have brought rifles ...

/210
if he's gonna just let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then ... and hanged pelosi by a streetlamp.
Rakoczy's done.

Linder is doing redirect:
Now he's discussing the bundy ranch. ...
Rhodes says he was there to /211
defend his family only.

Linder's now eliciting violence that allegedly occurred at Berkeley before OKs arrived to restore order.
Linder's eliciting that from 2009 to J6, OKs never cited for violence or force in 100s of events. Rhodes says he forgot about incident with

/212
Doug Smith and the drunk man in Louisville. Only instance of impropriety he knows of.

Rhodes explaining you always have to have a righteous mission. a lawful mission. OKs did that consistently for 13 years.
In Louisville, protected a gas station, two pawn shops...

/213
Rh: we were successful. ... we all remained calm. ...

Rhodes wants to clarify something about the receipt Rakoczy showed him for 2 steel canes and 3 steel pistol grips. He's saying it was only 1 of each. He wasn't going to overthrow govt with 2 sticks, Linder elicits.

/214
These were purchased for us to have in environments that didn't allow guns. Usually Rhodes carries heavy flashlights. Wanted something between lethal force and empty hands.

Linder now showing photo of mayor of Houston, who is black, with his arm around Rhodes ...

/215
after Hurricane Harvey, presumably grateful for their work there.

Now post-election up to J6, Linder acknowledges there were lots of signal messages about invoking Insurrection Act. also some that talk about fighting our way out, Linder acknowledges ...

/216
have you had to fight your way out?
Rh: not yet.
L: it's just bombastic language?
Rh: yes.
L: if college football coach says we should kill the other team, does he mean it literally?
Rh: no.

/217
Rh: my state of mind is that everything i was advocating Trump do would have been lawful.
Linder talking about call between Meggs & Greene & Rhodes--having Rhodes reiterate he couldn't hear, couldn't get through to meggs.
Reiterates that Meggs didn't receive some

/218
texts Rhodes sent for hours.
Mehta asks for sidebar. (Almost certainly about when's a good time to break for the day.)
Linder now eliciting that there was no plan to go into Capitol, and Rhodes didn't order anyone to go in.
Linder's done. Rhodes is done.

/219
Jury is excused for the day.
Bright (for Rhodes) is telling Judge Mehta that they've got 5 more witnesses. 4 are available tomorrow. He thinks they'll finish Rhodes' case by Wednesday afternoon. Meggs says he wants to call 13 witnesses (!)
Today's done. See you tomorrow!
/220

by ti-amie The full day's hearing is here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1589 ... 1667859858

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie In case you forgot about this one, she went around extorting raising billions of dollars for a medical treatment that she said she invented and never did. She's being sentenced now because when she was supposed to be sentenced before she found herself pregnant - twice.












P1

by ti-amie P2










by ti-amie P3











scott budman @scottbudman
Alex Shultz, voice shaking, recalls Theranos lawyers coming into his house "without Tyler having any way to represent himself."

"Home should be a safe place for the family, right?"

by ti-amie P4










by ti-amie P5






by ti-amie

by Owendonovan And she thought being pregnant for sentencing would get her out of jail, instead she's having a baby in jail. Not sure if she can keep the baby in jail, but there's a father of the baby on the outside.

by ti-amie




Straight No Chaser 🦩 @serioustalk01
Replying to
@gulovsen and @TiffanyFong_
That was competent representation.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie MindF_ck :toad:
@Gal_suburban@toad.social
Judge J. Michael Luttig himself today on Post wrote that he will be joining as co-counsel with Neal Katyal in arguing for respondents against the Independent State Legislature Doctrine/Theory.

"Moore v. Harper the most important case for American Democracy since the founding of the nation." -- Judge J. Michael Luttig

THAT'S how dire this case is. Messaging that is clear, concise and captivating is essential to motivate Democracy First Americans to express their outrage.

Get loud! Stay loud!

Image


https://toad.social/@Gal_suburban/109402716972361492

by ti-amie MindF_ck :toad:
@Gal_suburban@toad.social
Remarkably bipartisan expert opposition

8 amicus curiae briefs filed by/on behalf of prominent conservative & Republican constitutional lawyers:

▪Judge J. Michael Luttig
▪Steven Calabresi, Federalist Society
▪Benjamin Ginsberg
▪Thomas Griffith
▪Charles Fried, Reagan’s solicitor general
▪John Danforth, chief Senate sponsor of Justice Thomas’s nomination to the SCOTUS
▪Carter Phillips, deputy solicitor general under Reagan, who has argued more cases before SCOTUS than anyone in history.

Image

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Teri Kanefield
@Teri_Kanefield@law-and-politics.online

Here are the elements of seditious conspiracy (see attached)
Image

The key to this crime is the use of force.

The prosecutions started with the easy ones: Vandalism, etc. and progressed to seditious conspiracy

Treason is almost impossible to charge. It’s defined in the Constitution as:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."



2/
The Supreme Court has said that the “enemy” must be a country in which we are at open war–meaning a war declared by Congress.

This means that seditious conspiracy is the closest we have to a charge of treason.

It's also hard to prove.

The defendants are members of an extremist group.

Stewart Rhodes is a dangerous guy. Here is how the Southern Poverty Law Center describes him:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/ex


https://law-and-politics.online/@Teri_K ... 3363772873

by ti-amie




by ti-amie I dunno. If your client is facing a possible 20 year sentence for treason what would a "complete and total victory" look like?

It seems to me that the jury convicted the generals of treason and not the foot soldiers. The jury was intelligent enough to tell the difference.

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:09 pm I dunno. If your client is facing a possible 20 year sentence for treason what would a "complete and total victory" look like?

It seems to me that the jury convicted the generals of treason and not the foot soldiers. The jury was intelligent enough to tell the difference.
Oyster shells come to mind...

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:41 pm
ti-amie wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:09 pm I dunno. If your client is facing a possible 20 year sentence for treason what would a "complete and total victory" look like?

It seems to me that the jury convicted the generals of treason and not the foot soldiers. The jury was intelligent enough to tell the difference.
Oyster shells come to mind...
Please explain.

by ti-amie


by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 1:05 am ...
Oyster shells come to mind...
Please explain.
The ancient and, at least by me, frequently missed practice of skinning people alive with oyster shells.
It seems appropriate at times :)

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

The US government's extradition treaty with the Bahamas allows the US to extradite defendants for charges involving offenses that would be considered crimes in both countries, and which could result in a jail sentence of longer than a year.4 hours ago

Sam Bankman-Fried Could Face Extradition From Bahamashttps://www.businessinsider.com

by ti-amie








by ti-amie P2/L






by ti-amie


by ti-amie




JOSH RUSSELL@jruss_jruss

AUSAs tell SDNY Judge Ronnie Abrams that Bankman-Fried is being presented today before a magistrate judge in the Bahamas, at which time it will be determined whether he will be detained pending further legal process there.

by ti-amie The NYTimes is running live updates of SBF's hearing in the Bahamas.
David Yaffe-Bellany

Mr. Bankman-Fried was denied bail by a judge in the Bahamas.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/13 ... 9ea0c8fec5

by ti-amie 19 minutes ago
Ephrat Livni

The Bahamas Securities Commission pushes back on statements made by FTX’s new C.E.O.

Financial regulators in the Bahamas took issue on Tuesday with some of the comments John J. Ray III, FTX’s new chief executive, made earlier in the day in testimony before Congress and in court filings in recent weeks.

In a statement, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas accused Mr. Ray of making “key misstatements” before the lawmakers that it said “appear intended only to make headlines and advance questionable agendas.”

The commission’s complaint largely stemmed from Mr. Ray’s comments about messages between former FTX executives. In its bankruptcy filing, FTX has said there was reason to believe, based on those messages, that Bahamian regulators had ordered unauthorized asset transfers that raised questions about their qualifications to serve as bankruptcy liquidators.

On Tuesday, lawmakers questioned Mr. Ray about those communications and relations between the founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, and the Bahamian authorities.

Mr. Ray responded that it “appears” Mr. Bankman-Fried was attempting to undermine U.S. bankruptcy proceedings by negotiating some arrangement with officials in the Bahamas. He said there had been “pushback” from authorities in the Bahamas about that claim.

In its statement, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas said that Mr. Ray mischaracterized an email exchange in November between Bahamian authorities and Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s former chief executive. The commission said that gave the “false impression of communications” between its organization and Mr. Bankman-Fried.

The commission also objected to Mr. Ray’s general references to Bahamian authorities, saying that he should have been specific about which government officials he was referring to, because it left the impression that he meant the Securities Commission.

The Bahamas Securities Commission statement concluded by saying that it had informed the new FTX C.E.O. of its willingness to meet and cooperate. “Mr. Ray has not reached out to discuss any of his concerns before airing them publicly,” the statement noted.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/13 ... xs-new-ceo

by ti-amie The tl;dr

Here’s what we know about the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Sam Bankman-Fried faced widespread charges of fraud Tuesday after the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, and his arrest on Monday in the Bahamas. Here’s what we know:

Prosecutors for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Southern District of New York unsealed a criminal indictment on Tuesday charging Mr. Bankman-Fried with lying to investors from the start of the company. Mr. Bankman-Fried faces eight counts, including wire fraud on customers and lenders, and conspiring to defraud the United States and violate campaign finance laws. “This is our first public announcement, but it will not be our last,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District, said at a news conference about the charges.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges on Tuesday alleging that Mr. Bankman-Fried misled investors who committed nearly $2 billion to FTX while also defrauding customers of the exchange. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which plays an important role in overseeing the crypto industry, also filed a complaint against Mr. Bankman-Fried, charging him with fraud and misrepresentation.

Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested shortly after 6 p.m. on Monday at his apartment complex, according to a statement from the Bahamian police. The timing of when Mr. Bankman-Fried might be moved to the United States was unclear. The Bahamas has an extradition treaty with the United States, but the process can take weeks, and sometimes far longer if a criminal defendant contests it. Mr. Bankman-Fried was denied bail by a judge in the Bahamas on Tuesday.

The House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing about FTX’s collapse. Mr. Bankman-Fried was slated to testify, but the hearing went ahead without him, featuring testimony from John J. Ray III, who took over FTX after its bankruptcy. Mr. Ray spent nearly four hours answering questions about what caused FTX’s implosion. It was a case of “old-fashioned embezzlement,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/13 ... eds-arrest

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 What information to release?
All of (expletive) it. Isn't that obvious?
These people are infuriating.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 The worst administration ever. The worst.
Uhm...
No, Uncle Joe is doing a very good job. One small step at a time.

by patrick GOP will agree with the first part of your statement. They are ready for January to arrive,

by ti-amie Sam Bankman-Fried Said to Agree to Extradition After Chaotic Hearing
The disgraced FTX founder, who has been in a Bahamas prison for the past week, agreed to be sent to the United States, after a confusing day in court.

By Royston Jones Jr., David Yaffe-Bellany, Matthew Goldstein and Rob Copeland
Dec. 19, 2022
Updated 6:20 p.m. ET

The disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried has agreed to be extradited to the United States, one of his lawyers said on Monday, after a chaotic morning of legal maneuvering in which Mr. Bankman-Fried was shunted back and forth between court and prison in the Bahamas.

Mr. Bankman-Fried is facing fraud charges in the United States related to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, which was based in the Bahamas. Jerone Roberts, a local defense lawyer for Mr. Bankman-Fried, told reporters that his client had agreed to extradition voluntarily, defying “the strongest possible legal advice.”

“We as counsel will prepare the necessary documents to trigger the court,” Mr. Roberts said. “Mr. Bankman-Fried wishes to put the customers right, and that is what has driven his decision.”

After being arrested at his luxury apartment complex last week, Mr. Bankman-Fried initially indicated that he would challenge the extradition. But he later had a change of heart, a person briefed on the matter said over the weekend, and was prepared to return to the United States to be arraigned on a criminal indictment.

On Monday, Mr. Bankman-Fried appeared at a Magistrate Court hearing in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. The hearing had been scheduled specifically for Mr. Bankman-Fried to tell the authorities that he would not contest the extradition. But the courtroom soon descended into chaos: Mr. Roberts said he was “shocked” to see his client in court, and requested at least one 45-minute break to confer privately with Mr. Bankman-Fried.

Mr. Roberts said Mr. Bankman-Fried needed more information and wanted to read the indictment filed by federal prosecutors before deciding whether to go along with the extradition.

The magistrate judge overseeing the matter ordered Mr. Bankman-Fried to return to the Fox Hill prison in Nassau, where he has been held since last week.

“I certainly feel it is a wasted day,” said the judge, Shaka Serville.

Not long after the hearing ended, Mr. Roberts announced that Mr. Bankman-Fried was agreeing to the extradition after all.

Image
Jerone Roberts, center, Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer in the Bahamas, with Crystal Stuart, left, and Kendrea Demeritte in Nassau on Monday.Credit...Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York Times

Mark Cohen, a lawyer in New York who was hired to handle Mr. Bankman-Fried’s federal prosecution, was not in the courtroom in Nassau on Monday and did not return requests for comment. Mark Botnick, a spokesman for Mr. Bankman-Fried and Mr. Cohen, declined to comment.

It was not clear whether Mr. Roberts’s claim that Mr. Bankman-Fried was defying legal advice referred just to his own counsel or to advice from Mr. Cohen as well.

(...)

Speaking to reporters after the hearing in Nassau, Mr. Roberts said his legal team was preparing documents so a “time and date could be fixed for the extradition process to continue and to be completed.” Mr. Bankman-Fried could appear for a new hearing as soon as Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter said.

Once he is returned to the United States, Mr. Bankman-Fried will be arraigned in Federal District Court in Manhattan. He is likely to be detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, pending a bail hearing.

The extradition will set up months of courtroom maneuvering in the United States. And it will be the end of a peculiar legal drama that has unfolded in the Bahamas in the week since Mr. Bankman-Fried’s arrest.

At an initial hearing last week, Mr. Bankman-Fried said he would not waive his right to contest the extradition. He was denied bail, and then moved from a police holding cell to the Caribbean island nation’s notorious Fox Hill prison, which has been widely criticized for its poor living conditions — so much so that locals call it “Fox Hell.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried was expected to reverse his position on extradition when he appeared in Magistrate Court again on Monday morning. Wearing a navy blue suit and a white shirt unbuttoned at the cuff, he slumped in his seat, with his head down and his leg shaking.

Soon the proceedings were thrown into turmoil.

“Whatever trail got him here this morning, it did not involve me,” Mr. Roberts told the judge in front of a packed courtroom. He said Mr. Bankman-Fried’s court appearance had happened “prematurely” and without his involvement. The hearing was adjourned so Mr. Roberts could speak privately with Mr. Bankman-Fried.

When the hearing resumed, the confusion only intensified. Mr. Roberts said Mr. Bankman-Fried wanted to make a decision on extradition but needed “a bit more information.” He also said Mr. Bankman-Fried needed time to speak with his lawyers in the United States.

A prosecutor representing the Bahamian government, Franklyn Williams, accused Mr. Roberts of wasting the court’s time. Amid the uncertainty, the judge ordered Mr. Bankman-Fried to be returned to prison, where he is being held in a medical unit with four other inmates.

By the afternoon, however, Mr. Roberts had changed tack. He convened a few reporters for a meeting at Arawak Cay, an area of Nassau known for its restaurants, picking an oceanside spot with palm trees and cruise ships in the background.

Promising “a rather laconic press conference,” Mr. Roberts said Mr. Bankman-Fried had agreed to a voluntary extradition. He said the next step would be for the FTX founder to appear once again in Magistrate Court.

“Throughout my involvement with Sam, he has indicated an overwhelming desire to put the customers right and make the customers whole,” Mr. Roberts said.

The collapse of FTX has devastated the crypto industry, putting other companies in jeopardy and costing customers a fortune in lost cryptocurrencies. Outside the courthouse, a group of visitors to the Bahamas, including some who said they had invested in digital assets and done business with FTX, showed up to express anger with Mr. Bankman-Fried.

Erin Gambrel, who flew to Nassau from Dallas to attend the hearing, said she had shared office space with FTX this year in the Bahamas, where she met Mr. Bankman-Fried.

Ms. Gambrel said she wanted to see him “go away for a long time.” She had not invested with FTX, she said, but some of her friends had stored funds on the platform.

“He’s ruined millions of lives,” she said. “He’s caused friends of mine to lose their life savings.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/busi ... ition.html



by ti-amie

by ti-amie I thought this was reported the other day but oh well


by ti-amie

by ti-amie Two Executives in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Plead Guilty to Fraud
Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a founder of FTX, are cooperating in the federal criminal case against Mr. Bankman-Fried.

Image
A plane in the Bahamas that was set to take Sam Bankman-Fried to the United States on Wednesday night. He was in F.B.I. custody, a federal official said.Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty Images

By David Yaffe-Bellany, Matthew Goldstein and Benjamin Weiser
Dec. 21, 2022, 8:58 p.m. ET
Two former top executives of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading empire have pleaded guilty to federal charges and are cooperating in the criminal case against the disgraced crypto entrepreneur, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said on Wednesday night.

The two are Caroline Ellison, who was the chief executive of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading company, Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a founder of the crypto exchange FTX.

The guilty pleas and cooperation agreements are a major advance in the fraud case against Mr. Bankman-Fried, who is in U.S. custody after agreeing to be extradited from the Bahamas earlier on Wednesday.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has been charged with orchestrating a multiyear fraud that diverted billions in customer money for other uses including buying real estate in the Bahamas, trading crypto at Alameda, making campaign donations and investing in other crypto companies. Prosecutors contend he defrauded customers, investors and lenders to his crypto trading firm, which was once one of the biggest in the world before it collapsed in bankruptcy last month.

The U.S. attorney, Damian Williams, also said Mr. Bankman-Fried was now in F.B.I. custody and being flown back to the United States on Wednesday night, and would be presented before a judge as soon as possible. He is expected to be taken into court as early as Thursday.

Lawyers for Ms. Ellison were not immediately available for comment. Ilan Graff, the lawyer for Mr. Wang, said, “Gary has accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness.”

A spokesman for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/tech ... pleas.html

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Color me stupid.
But the scam continues. FTX was only a scam within a scam. Crypto's are still being traded.
I mean... forget it. If people want to lose their money that way, let them.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan I wonder how much his backers limit was monetarily?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Trump and Prince Andrew judge will preside over SBF cryptocurrency case
Arthur Kaplan assigned to high-profile Sam Bankman-Fried FTX case after previous New York judge conflicted out

Associated Press in New York
Tue 27 Dec 2022 18.58 GMT

A Manhattan federal judge known for swift decisions and a no-nonsense demeanor was assigned on Tuesday to the Sam Bankman-Fried cryptocurrency case.

The case was relegated to Judge Lewis A Kaplan after the judge originally assigned recused herself because her husband worked for a law firm that did work related to FTX, Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto exchange.

Kaplan is now presiding over a civil case brought by the former Elle magazine advice columnist E Jean Carroll against Donald Trump. Carroll says Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996. Trump denies the accusation. A trial is set for April.

Kaplan also presided over sex abuse claims by an American woman against Prince Andrew before the two sides settled earlier this year, with Andrew declaring that he never meant to malign the woman’s character and agreeing to donate to her charity. Before the settlement, Kaplan refused Andrew’s request to toss the lawsuit.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas two weeks ago and brought to the US last week to face charges he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his trading platform.

On Thursday he was freed on a $250m personal recognizance bond, to live with his parents in Palo Alto, California, with an electronic monitoring bracelet attached.

Kaplan, 78, has held senior status in Manhattan federal court for more than a decade. He was nominated to the bench by Bill Clinton in 1994.

He has overseen high-profile trials and several cases notable in the financial world, including what authorities described as the first federal bitcoin securities fraud prosecution. Kaplan sentenced that defendant to 18 months in prison.

In 2014, he blocked US courts from being used to collect a $9bn Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron for rainforest damage, saying lawyers in the case poisoned an honorable quest with illegal and wrongful conduct.

In 2012, he delayed his acceptance of a guilty plea by a Utah banker, ordering prosecutors to explain why they were letting the banker plead guilty to a misdemeanor bank gambling charge rather than a felony.

Kaplan has been known to become irritable with lawyers on all sides.

In 1997, he blasted the US Immigration and Naturalization Service for not acting fast enough in an asylum case.

“This is about as expedited as a glacier going uphill,” he snapped.

Calling the agency’s behavior “absolutely outrageous”, he added: “The INS has in the three years I’ve been on the bench acquitted itself in disastrous fashion more than once, but this one takes the cake and I’m not going to stand for it much longer.”

In 2000, Kaplan ruled in favor of the motion picture industry, giving it legal protection to protect DVDs from being copied on computers.

“Computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement,″ he said.

Most recently, Kaplan presided over the civil trial of Kevin Spacey after another actor accused him of trying to molest him in his apartment after a party when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. A jury sided with Spacey, finding that Anthony Rapp had not proved his case.

In 2019, Kaplan sentenced three men to prison after they were convicted in a college basketball scandal in which a former Adidas executive and two others paid families to persuade top recruits to play for schools sponsored by the shoemaker.

Nearly a dozen years ago, Kaplan sentenced Ahmed Ghailani, a former detainee in the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, to life in prison. Kaplan presided over a trial in which Ghailani was convicted of conspiring to destroy US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. Americans were among 224 people killed in the attacks.

In 2015, Kaplan sentenced Adel Abdul Bary, an Egyptian lawyer, to 25 years in prison for his role in the attacks on the US embassies.

In 2014, Kaplan sentenced Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, to life in prison for serving as al-Qaida’s mouthpiece after the 11 September terror attacks.

Kaplan also has presided over sentence reduction efforts by men convicted in the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000.


https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... tocurrency

by ponchi101 Sam Bankman FRYED. Time to get him a new name.

by ti-amie



Image

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 This Tate guys makes you feel like Midnight Express was actually a reasonable movie.
Human trafficking? Please, life in prison, no parole.

by ti-amie






by ti-amie


by ti-amie 'Matt Schlapp is a Sexual Predator': Accuser Sues Over Sexual Battery
'UNMISTAKABLY TRUE'
He first detailed the account of Matt Schlapp sexually assaulting him to The Daily Beast. Now he's suing Schlapp.

Roger Sollenberger
Political Reporter
Matt Fuller
Senior Politics Editor
Updated Jan. 17, 2023 4:40PM ET / Published Jan. 17, 2023 3:46PM ET

Image
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty

The former Herschel Walker staffer who came forward to The Daily Beast earlier this month to detail a sexual assault allegation against conservative icon Matt Schlapp is now suing the powerful chairman of the American Conservative Union—for battery, defamation, and conspiracy.

The lawsuit, which the staffer’s attorneys filed Tuesday in the circuit court of Alexandria, Virginia, accuses Schlapp of “sexual battery” after “aggressively fondling” his “genital area in a sustained fashion” while the staffer drove Schlapp home from an evening of drinks at Atlanta bars in October.

The complaint also accuses Schlapp—as well as his wife, conservative commentator and former Trump White House communications adviser, Mercedes Schlapp—of defamation, citing efforts to “impugn” the accuser’s character in response to media reports of the allegation. It further alleges a conspiracy count where the couple worked to denigrate the accuser with the help of conservative fundraiser Caroline Wren, who has acted as a representative for the Schlapps in the matter.

The lawsuit claims that Schlapp, who oversees the Conservative Political Action Conference, made "repeated unsolicited and undesired advances" toward the campaign staffer for Herschel Walker. The staffer previously told The Daily Beast that Schlapp "groped" his crotch while he drove the conservative organizer back to his hotel after a day of campaign events.

The staffer filed the lawsuit under the alias of “John Doe,” citing privacy concerns and fear of retaliation. He has vowed to come forward with his real name should Schlapp deny the allegations.

But according to the complaint, the retaliation is already underway. The lawsuit cites text messages Mercedes Schlapp sent to a “neighborhood group chat or text,” where she called the staffer a “troubled individual” who had been fired “for lying and lying on his resume”—a claim the lawsuit says is untrue and defamatory.

The complaint also cites a series of tweets from Wren, who orchestrated high-dollar fundraising efforts behind the Jan. 6 rally. In those tweets, Wren outed the accuser by name following media reports in which he chose to remain anonymous out of privacy concerns. She accused him of being fired from campaigns because he was a “habitual liar"—claims the lawsuit also says are false and defamatory.

The lawsuit seeks a total of $9.4 million in damages: $3.85 million against Schlapp for the alleged assault, $1.85 million from both Schlapp and his wife for the alleged defamation, and an additional $1.85 million from the couple for the conspiracy charge.

The New York Times first reported the lawsuit Wednesday afternoon.

In a letter, the staffer’s attorney, Tim Hyland of Hyland Law, called Schlapp a “sexual predator.”

“Mr. Schlapp has not directly denied our client's allegations, and with good reason—they are unmistakably true, and corroborated by extensive contemporaneous evidence,” the letter read.

“We intend to keep a singular focus: to demonstrate that Matt Schlapp is a sexual predator who assaulted our client,” the letter also said.

Schlapp, for his part, once again indirectly denied the allegations through a lawyer.

“This anonymous complaint demonstrates the accuser's real agenda, working in concert with [The] Daily Beast to attack and harm the Schlapp family," a statement from Schlapp's lawyer, Charlie Spies, read. "The complaint is false, and the Schlapp family is suffering unbearable pain and stress due to the false allegation from an anonymous individual. No family should ever go through this, and the Schlapps and their legal team are assessing counter-lawsuit options.”

The staffer’s account has now been independently confirmed by NBC News and CNN since The Daily Beast first reported on it on Jan. 5. The lawsuit says The Daily Beast “accurately recounted, in all material aspects, the facts surrounding Mr. Schlapp’s sexual battery of Mr. Doe.”


https://www.thedailybeast.com/accuser-s ... y?ref=wrap

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan Sundance doc looks into Brett Kavanaugh investigation
A new documentary looks into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and raises questions about the depth of the FBI investigation in 2018.

“Justice,” from filmmaker Doug Liman, debuted Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival to a sold-out theater surrounded by armed guards.

The film, made under intense secrecy, focuses on allegations made by Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez that were detailed in a New Yorker article in 2018. Ramirez alleged that at a gathering with friends when she was a freshman in 1983, Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her. Kavanaugh has denied those claims. “Justice” also plays a taped recording of a tip given to the FBI from another Yale classmate, Max Stier, that describes a similar incident that the FBI never investigated.

The Stier report was previously detailed in 2019 by New York Times reporters Robin Pogebrin and Kate Kelly as part of their book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.” But the details of it came under scrutiny. After the story was posted online but before it was in the print edition, the Times revised the story to add that the book reported that the woman supposedly involved in the incident declined to be interviewed, and that her friends say she doesn’t recall the incident.
https://apnews.com/article/brett-kavana ... bf41f9d38a

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated
Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief, is also accused of taking $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence worker while still at the FBI
By Shayna Jacobs, Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett and Shane Harris
Updated January 23, 2023 at 6:44 p.m. EST|Published January 23, 2023 at 12:56 p.m. EST

Image
Charles McGonigal, then a counterintelligence chief for the FBI in New York, is interviewed by Leonardo Reis in 2018. (Courtesy of Leonardo Reis)

NEW YORK — The FBI’s former top spyhunter in New York was charged Monday with taking secret cash payments of more than $225,000 while overseeing highly sensitive cases, and breaking the law by trying to get Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska removed from a U.S. sanctions list — accusations that shocked the cloistered world of his fellow high-ranking intelligence officials.

Charles McGonigal, 54, who retired from the FBI in September 2018, was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on charges of money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions and other counts stemming from his alleged ties to Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal had been tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose own indictment on sanctions-violation charges was unsealed in September.

A second indictment, filed in Washington, accused McGonigal of hiding payments totaling $225,000 that he allegedly received from a New Jersey man employed decades ago by an Albanian intelligence agency. The indictment also accussed him of acting to advance that person’s interests.

McGonigal’s alleged crimes may undercut Justice Department efforts to ramp up economic sanctions on wealthy Russians after last year’s invasion of Ukraine. The twin indictments are also a black eye for the FBI, alleging that one of its most senior and trusted intelligence officials accepted large sums of money and undermined the bureau’s overall intelligence-gathering mission.

McGonigal was arrested by agents from the bureau where he had worked for 22 years and where he rose to one of the most important counter-espionage positions in the U.S. government. Given his former role, the investigation was run by FBI agents in Los Angeles and D.C. rather than in New York.

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said the case showed the FBI did its duty. “The way we maintain the trust and confidence of the American people is through our work—showing, when all the facts come out, that we stuck to the process and we treated everyone equally, even when it is one of our own,” Wray said in a statement. "We hold ourselves to the highest standard, and our focus will remain on our mission and on doing the right thing, in the right way, every time.”

Image
Charles McGonigal, former special agent in charge of the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York, leaves court on Monday in New York. (John Minchillo/AP)

Through his lawyer, Seth DuCharme, McGonigal pleaded not guilty to the New York charges at a brief court appearance Monday, where he was released on bond. DuCharme, a former Justice Department official who recently served as acting U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said outside the courthouse that he looks forward to reviewing the evidence, “but we have a lot of confidence in Mr. McGonigal.”

“As you all know, Charlie’s had a long distinguished career with the FBI. He served the United States for decades,” DuCharme said. “This is obviously a distressing day for Mr. McGonigal and his family.”

McGonigal is scheduled to appear via video link in federal court in D.C. on Wednesday. In that case, prosecutors alleged that from at least August 2017 — and continuing after his retirement from the FBI — McGonigal failed to disclose to the FBI his relationship with the former Albanian intelligence worker, described as “Person A” in charging papers. He also allegedly failed to disclose that he had an “ongoing relationship with the Prime Minister of Albania,” the indictment said. Since 2013, Edi Rama has served as the prime minister of that country.

In late 2017, authorities charge, McGonigal received sums of cash totaling $225,000 from Person A — the first time in a parked car outside a New York City restaurant, and the next two times at the person’s New Jersey home. According to the indictment, McGonigal “indicated to Person A that the money would be paid back.”

Months later, at McGonigal’s urging, the FBI opened an investigation into an American lobbyist for an Albanian political party that is a rival of Rama, an investigation that used Person A as a source of information, authorities said.

That was not the only instance in which the indictments suggest McGonigal used his job for the benefit of people with whom he had undisclosed financial or personal relationships.

On a 2017 trip to Austria, McGonigal and a Justice Department prosecutor interviewed an Albanian businessperson and politician who had previously told McGonigal that they wanted someone to investigate a death threat against them, according to the indictment in Washington. McGonigal had been introduced to that individual by “Person A,” the indictment charges.

The following year, McGonigal allegedly asked the FBI’s liaison to the United Nations to arrange a meeting with the then-U.S. ambassador, Nikki Haley, or another high ranking official, as well as a former Bosnian defense minister and founder of a Bosnian pharmaceutical company.

The indictment says McGonigal’s associates sought that meeting for political reasons that would have benefited Person A financially. At the time, the indictment charges, McGonigal suggested that the pharmaceutical company pay half a million dollars to a company registered to Person A, as a fee for arranging the meeting.

Current and former U.S. officials who know and have worked with McGonigal said they were shocked by the indictments. As a senior FBI counterintelligence official, McGonigal had access to an extraordinary amount of sensitive information, potentially including investigations of foreign spies or U.S. citizens suspected of working on behalf of foreign governments, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the work McGonigal did. One former official said McGonigal had worked with the CIA on counterintelligence matters.

According to the New York indictment, a law firm retained McGonigal to work as a consultant and investigator on the effort to get Deripaska removed from the sanctions list. He was listed as a consultant and arranged for $25,000 monthly payments to be sent to an account controlled by another person, an interpreter for the U.S. government who was a former Russian diplomat. The interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, was also charged.

McGonigal’s FBI role gave him access to classified information, including a then-secret list of Russian prospects for sanctioning by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Justice Department said. That list included Deripaska before the sanctions were actually imposed.


Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that McGonigal and Shestakov “should have known better” given their experience in government service. Shestakov also pleaded not guilty.

U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves of D.C. called the alleged coverup of foreign contacts and financial relationships a “gateway to corruption,” and he credited the FBI with its handling of the “delicate and difficult” investigation of a former high-ranking official.

“McGonigal is alleged to have committed the very violations he swore to investigate while he purported to lead a workforce of FBI employees who spend their careers protecting secrets and holding foreign adversaries accountable,” said the FBI assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles field office, Donald Alway, who announced the charges along with Graves and the leaders of the D.C. FBI office and the Justice Department National Security Division. Asked about the case Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to comment.


McGonigal faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the two D.C. counts of falsification of records and documents, and up to five years in prison for each of seven counts of concealing material facts or making false statements. The most serious charge in the New York indictment carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

McGonigal joined the FBI in 1996, working in New York, Washington, Baltimore and Cleveland. Along the way, he was involved in some of the most sensitive and high-profile intelligence cases in the U.S. government, including the conviction of former national security adviser Samuel Berger for knowingly removing classified documents from the National Archives. In 2010, McGonigal was tapped to lead the task force probing the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The charges against McGonigal alarmed his former colleagues in part because of his depth of knowledge of so many elements of U.S. espionage. McGonigal was an expert on Russian intelligence activities targeting the United States, as well as U.S. efforts to recruit Russian spies, said several former intelligence officials who worked with him and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.

His position at the New York field office would have given him direct access to past and current recruitment efforts, work that was coordinated with the CIA, these people said. McGonigal was well-known at the CIA among officers who dealt with Russia and counterintelligence matters, and he knew the details of some intelligence operations targeting Russia, former officials said.

McGonigal has not been charged with espionage, but the former officials who worked with him said his knowledge and experience would have put him at high risk of being recruited by a foreign government.

One former official noted that McGonigal was in charge of an investigation into why numerous individuals in China who were spying for the United States were arrested and taken out of commission. As part of that investigation, McGonigal would have known details about the covert systems that the CIA used to communicate with its agents, the former official said. Those systems are believed to have played a central role in exposing the agents to government authorities.

Deripaska has been a focus of FBI investigative work for many years. In 2021, agents searched two homes linked to him, one in D.C. and the other in New York. At the time, a spokeswoman for the aluminum tycoon said the properties were owned by his relatives.

A politically connected billionaire, Deripaska’s name came up repeatedly in recent U.S. investigations involving Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Deripaska did business for years with Paul Manafort, whose tenure as Trump’s campaign chairman became an intense focus of FBI investigations.

Manafort and Deripaska have both confirmed that they had a business relationship in which Manafort was paid as an investment consultant. In 2014, Deripaska accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments without accounting for how they were used.

Hsu, Barrett and Harris reported from Washington. Rosalind S. Helderman and Perry Stein in Washington contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... tment-fbi/

by ponchi101 I oppose the death penalty. You know that.
But, for treason? Well...

by ti-amie An inside baseball look at the McGonigal situation.

Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
Levin Professor of History at Yale. Author of "On Tyranny," with 20 new lessons on Ukraine, "Our Malady," "Road to Unfreedom," "Black Earth," and "Bloodlands"

In April 2016, I broke the story of Trump and Putin, using Russian open sources. Afterwards, I heard vague intimations that something was awry in the FBI in New York, specifically counter-intelligence and cyber. We now have a suggestion as to why. 0/20

The person who led the relevant section, Charles McGonigal, has just been charged with taking money from the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Follow this thread to see just how this connects to the victory of Trump, the Russian war in Ukraine, and U.S. national security. 1/20

The reason I was thinking about Trump & Putin in 2016 was a pattern. Russia had sought to control Ukraine, using social media, money, & a pliable head of state. Russia backed Trump the way that it had backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the hopes of soft control 2/20

Trump & Yanukovych were similar figures: interested in money, & in power to make or shield money. And therefore vulnerable partners for Putin. They also shared a political advisor: Paul Manafort. He worked for Yanukovych from 2005-2015, taking over Trump's campaign in 2016. 3/20

You might remember Manafort's ties to Russia from 2016. He (and Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr.) met with Russians in June 2016 in Trump Tower as part of, as the broker of the meeting called it, "the Russian government's support for Trump" (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 237). 4/20

Manafort had to resign as Trump's campaign manager in August 2016 when news broke that he had received $12.7 million in cash from Yanukovych. But these details are just minor elements of Manafort's dependence on Russia. (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 235). 5/20

Manafort worked for Deripaska, the same Russian oligarch to whom McGonigal is linked, between 2006 and 2009. Manafort's assignment was to soften up the U.S for Russian influence. He promised "a model that can greatly benefit the Putin government." (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 234). 6/20

While Manafort worked for Trump in 2016, though, Manafort's dependence on Russia was deeper. He owed Deripaska money, not a position one would want to be in. Manafort offered Deripaska "private briefings" on the campaign. He was hoping "to get whole." (#RoadToUnfreedom, 234) 7/20

Reconsider how the FBI treated the Trump-Putin connection in 2016. Trump and other Republicans screamed that the FBI had overreached. In retrospect, it seems the exact opposite took place. The issue of Russian influence was framed in a way convenient for Russia and Trump. 8/20

The FBI investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, focused on the narrow issue of personal connections between the Trump campaign and Russians. It missed Russia's cyber attacks and the social media campaign, which, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, won the election for Trump. 9/20

Once the issue of Russian soft control was framed narrowly as personal contact, Obama missed the big picture, and Trump had an easy defense. Trump knew that Russia was working for him, but the standard of guilt was placed so high that he could defend himself. 10/20

It is entirely inconceivable that McGonigal was unaware of Russia's 2016 cyber influence campaign on behalf of Trump. Even I was aware of it, and I had no expertise. It became one of the subjects of my book #RoadtoUnfreedom. 11/20

The FBI did investigate cyber later, and came to some correct conclusions. But this was after the election, and missed the Russian influence operations entirely. That was an obvious counterintelligence issue. Why did the FBI take so long, and miss the point? 12/20

I had no personal connection to this, but will just repeat what informed people said at the time: this sort of thing was supposed to go through the FBI counter-intelligence section in New York, where tips went to die. That is where McGonigal was in charge. 13/20

The cyber element is what McGonigal should have been making everyone aware of in 2016. In 2016, McGonigal was chief of the FBI's Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section. That October, he was put in charge of the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI's NY office. 14/20

We need to understand why the FBI failed in 2016 to address the essence of an ongoing Russian influence operation. The character of that operation suggests that it would have been the responsibility of an FBI section whose head is now accused of taking Russian money. 15/20

Right after the McGonigal story broke, Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee. Schiff is expert on Russian influence operations. It exhibits carelessness about national security to exclude him. It is downright suspicious to exclude him now. 16/20


Back in June 2016, Kevin McCarthy expressed his suspicion that Donald Trump was under Putin's influence. He and other Republican members concluded that the risk of an embarrassment to their party was more important than American security. #RoadToUnfreedom, p. 255. 17/20

The Russian influence operation to get Trump elected was real. It serves no one to pretend otherwise. We are still learning about it. Denying that it happened makes the United States vulnerable to ongoing Russian operations. 18/20

I remember a certain frivolity from 2016. Trump was a curiosity. Russia was irrelevant. Nothing to take seriously. Then Trump was elected, blocked weapon sales to Ukraine, and tried to stage a coup. Now Ukrainians are dying every day in the defining conflict of our time. 19/20

The McGonigal question goes even beyond these issues. He had authority in the most sensitive possible investigations within U.S. intelligence. Sorting this out will require a concern for the United States that goes beyond party loyalty. 20/20



https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1618 ... 18080.html

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 He will die in Mar-a-lago, after a strenuous 18 holes, never having spent a day in prison.
And THAT will be the crime of the century.

by Owendonovan :bananas: I'll celebrate his death no matter how or when it comes. :yahoo:

by ti-amie

by ti-amie


Warning re disturbing attack scene.

by ti-amie Tate rape allegations, text exchanges with women detailed in court document

By Loveday Morris
February 2, 2023 at 5:14 p.m. EST

Image
Andrew and Tristan Tate in Romania on Wednesday. (Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea/Reuters)

Andrew Tate, the self-styled “king of toxic masculinity” who was arrested in Romania for running a human trafficking ring, is being investigated for two counts of rape, according to a court order obtained by The Washington Post, which also includes excerpts of extensive phone message conversations showing how Tate and his brother are alleged to have lured victims to Bucharest.

Romanian prosecutors have previously publicly stated the case involved accusations of rape but have declined to disclose further details or say which suspect was accused. A 67-page court ruling that ordered Tate, 36, and his brother Tristan, 34, into administrative detention in late December details the charges prosecutors are investigating against the brothers and two Romanian women accused of helping them run a human trafficking ring.

All four were arrested in December on suspicion of human trafficking and organizing a criminal enterprise and ordered held as the investigation continued. None have been formally charged but prosecutors have outlined the specific crimes that there is a “reasonable suspicion” each defendant has committed, according to the court ruling.

Their lawyers say the fact that they have not been charged shows a lack of evidence and argue their continued detention violates their human rights. In closed court sessions, Tate’s lawyers have said the sex was consensual, according to the court order. Tina Glandian, who has represented celebrities including Mike Tyson and Chris Brown and joined the Tates’ legal team this week, said that as the proceedings are closed she cannot comment on specific evidence but that the brothers deny all the allegations.

“It speaks volumes that they haven’t been charged yet despite the fact that there’s been an investigation for so long,” said Glandian. “They’ve searched their residences, seized their devices and here we are in February and their detention has been extended.”

Tate, a former champion kickboxer and American and British dual national, is being investigated for trafficking a Moldovan woman from London and allegedly raping her on two occasions in March last year, once at a hotel in Bucharest and another time at a property in the city, according to the court order, which was first reported on by Reuters.

Tate is accused of exerting “psychological and verbal pressure” to force the woman to have sex with him and two other women at the hotel, prosecutors said, according to the court order. The second alleged rape occurred 11 days later when Tate used “physical violence and psychological and verbal pressure” to force the woman into intercourse, according to the court order.

Extensive WhatsApp conversations between Tate and the woman in London and Tristan Tate and an American woman he is being investigated for trafficking from the United States are also included in the file as well as references to statements from the women to Romanian authorities. The messages were reproduced in the file in Romanian but have been translated into English by The Post and have not been independently verified.

Prosecutors have said the messages are evidence of the methods used by the brothers to “gain the trust of victims they manipulated” by posing as “affectionate, honest people,” according to the court order.

Tate, who has millions of online followers, met the Moldovan woman through Instagram in January last year, prosecutors alleged, according to the court order, and they began to speak romantically before meeting in February.

The conversation quickly turned to a move to Romania, according to the court order. “So I can keep an eye on you,” Tate wrote in a message on Feb. 7, the court order states.

The woman raised concerns about Tate’s work after seeing his online videos, according to prosecution statements in the court order. It’s unclear from the document exactly what videos are being referenced but the controversial social media influencer has spoken openly on YouTube videos about how he makes money from women doing live sexual performances online.

In the messages in the court order, Tate explained to the woman that he had used a webcam business to “launder money” and that he’d also started teaching men to start their own. “It’s all a cover,” he wrote, assuring her she could trust him. He told the victim that he’d meet her in Romania after taking care of some work in Prague and spoke about the prospect of marriage.

“I want to know that you are determined … serious about marriage,” Tate stated in one message, according to the court order.

“Yes. I am serious,” the woman replied.

After arriving in Romania, prosecutors say the victims were brought to a property where Tate produced internet pornography.

“I’m in the house,” the Moldovan woman messaged Tate, according to the court order. “I feel a bit strange … I wish you would tell it like it is so I know what’s going on … what do these girls do exactly?”

According to the court order, Tate replied that the women in the house work for “Only Fans” — an internet subscription service used extensively by sex workers.

“I mean, do they undress and stuff? Or something else,” the woman responded.

“No, just bikini,” Tate wrote. “And underwear.”

“I thought I would come here and live with you,” she wrote the next day. “It’s a little strange to have you put me with girls who work for you.”

Victims were coerced into producing internet pornography after effectively being turned into “slaves,” prosecutors argued, according to the court order.

In the messages reproduced in the court order, the woman tells Tate that she is being asked to make videos for TikTok.

“Just do it,” Tate responded, according to the court order. “It’s simple.”

The suspects took 50 percent of the online earnings of the women who worked for them, according to the testimony of one of the victims cited in the document who said women were subject to “fines” if they did not post exactly the content they were asked or if they cried during a live session or took too long on a break.

Tate and his co-accused said the women were free to leave or call the police. “Ask them for evidence and they will give you none,” Andrew Tate said as he was led out of court on Wednesday after an appeals court upheld a 30-day extension of his detention. “Because it doesn’t exist.”

In a video of an appearance on the “Fresh & Fit” podcast posted online in March last year, Tate called himself a “webcam kingpin.” He said that at one point he had 75 women working for his webcam “business” in four different locations, bringing in $600,000 a month.

Tate said in the podcast that he was forced move his webcam business to Romania from the United Kingdom after an armed police raid at his house. One woman — whom he said made him about $25,000 a month — had accused him of assault. He described flushing his phone down the toilet as police banged on the door but denied the assault.

Prosecutors say that money “obtained by the exploitation of the victims was used by the defendants to support themselves,” arguing that the women were essentially imprisoned in Romania in the brothers’ properties.

In a message reproduced in the court order, for instance, the Moldovan woman said she was thinking about going into town.

“NO,” Tate writes. “Going out alone … without telling me. Mall. Supermarket. NOWHERE. FROM NOW ON. It’s the last warning.”

The investigation against the brothers was triggered last year when the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest tipped off Romanian police that a 21-year-old American citizen was being held against her will in a property belonging to the Tates.

Constantin Ioan Gliga, a lawyer on the defense team, has said parts of messages disseminated to the public are “exaggerated and distorted interpretation of some harmless discussions in the private environment.”

Defense lawyers point out that two other Romanians described as “injured parties” in the case file have spoken out in favor of the Tates, saying they are not victims. The Post was unable to reach the other women named as victims.

Ramona Bolla, a spokeswoman for the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, said she was confident the suspects would be charged.

The American victim met Tristan Tate on Reddit in 2021, according to the court order. Tristan Tate presented himself as “exactly what she wanted in a lover,” the prosecution argued — someone educated, creative and respectful. The two spent a week together when Tristan Tate was on a trip to Miami, and later “the idea of visits to Romania turned into the idea of moving,” the court order said.

One of Tristan’s “rules” for her in Romania was “you never talk to anyone unless I introduce you,” messages between the two show. “Romania is my world. No friends from the outside,” he wrote.

When the woman arrived in Romania, Tristan Tate told her that she wouldn’t be able to leave, and that if she managed to “he would make sure that she will return to Romania,” the court order said, citing her statement. If she asked the armed guards to leave, they told her they did not speak English, she said, according to the court order.

She said that she did not call the police because Tristan Tate “scared” her and told her that he had surveillance cameras everywhere in the house, according to the court order. He would text her when she went into the living room, she said, to show that he was watching her at all times.

Tristan Tate’s defense argued that he had a “fun week” with the woman in Miami but that he did not suggest she move to Romania.

“I really wanted to see Romania and you be the one to show it to me,” she wrote to Tristan Tate in April last year. But she also said what she didn’t want to do, according to the court order: “I can’t show my body on Only Fans — sorry. I want to keep it just for you.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... gn=wp_main

by Owendonovan Glad it's Romania and not Hungary, Orban would probably celebrate them.

by ponchi101 Well, if he was producing porn, he probably likes handcuffs A LOT.
So...
(what scum).

by ti-amie What is frightening about these miscreants is that thousands (millions?) of preteen and teen boys looked up to them as heroes.

by ti-amie



by ti-amie

by Owendonovan ^And those are just the elected/appointed ones.

by ti-amie

TL;dr
He claims that he used the VPN he used when he was in the Bahamas to watch the Super Bowl from the United States. How dumb does he think people are?

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 7:48 pm

TL;dr
He claims that he used the VPN he used when he was in the Bahamas to watch the Super Bowl from the United States. How dumb does he think people are?
He scammed people out of a gazillion dollars. I would say he has a very good idea of how dumb people are ;) :P
(I know what you mean)

by ti-amie Spocko
@spocko@mastodon.online
Charlottesville Tiki Torch Guy Commits Suicide Before Fentanyl Trial

Teddy Landrum changed his name in 2012 to Joseph Von Nukem "He was a failure in life and just killed himself while facing trial for smuggling fentanyl across the southern border."
Von Nukem was arrested in 2021 while entering the U.S. from Mexico & possessing 15kg of fentanyl pills in his car. The little (expletive) admitted to being paid $215 to smuggle the deadly pills into the States."
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/02/cha

Every accusation is projection.


Image

by ponchi101 Why am I not sorry?

by ti-amie SBF hearing P1/










by ti-amie P2/










by ti-amie P3/


Jim Ostrosky @jkco456
Replying to @KlasfeldReports
The judge knows the right thing to do..how does he drag the lawyers there?
Can the judge just revoke bail and lock him up?

by ti-amie







Joe Muto @JoeMuto
Replying to @willsommer
This document is so humiliating and damning for Fox that I'm stunned they didn't settle this sooner. They're really determined to bring this to trial, where more stuff like this is bound to come out every day?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Wendy Siegelman
@wendysiegelman@mastodon.social

Political consultant Jessie Benton sentenced to 18 months prison for role funneling illegal foreign campaign contributions from Russian national (Roman Vasilenko) to 2016 presidential campaign (Trump)

Benton acted as straw donor and contributed $25K, pocketed $75K

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/politica ... ution-2016

Nov 2022 story on Benton who was pardoned by Trump in 2020 for a different campaign finance crime,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va ... ko-guilty/

#JessieBenton #RomanVasilenko #Illegalcampaigncontribution #Trump #Russia


Political Consultant Sentenced for Scheme Involving Illegal Foreign Campaign Contribution to 2016 Presidential Campaign
www.justice.gov

1+

by Owendonovan :vomit: :vomit: :vomit: Tiny is such a magnet for sleazeballs.

by patrick Forgive me here if it has been mentioned : Greene, a recent divorcee, has asked for an unofficial Civil War by saying USA needs a divorce.

The MAGA GOP plan on keeping the media which includes Twitter, Facebook and etc. occupied while playing out the last 2 years of Biden Presidency.

Also, if more people enter the GOP race, the better for our previous President as his rivals will split the vote. Therefore, my reasoning on why Haley entered the race. Can't wait until FL governor enters the race. Speaking of him, his administration is now concentrating on getting people who shares his views (ie- banning African-American books) elected in local governments. He already got the state officials obeying his every command. But , remember he would not be in this position if the previous President did not endorse him in 2018. He was getting dusted in the GOP primary by Adam Putnam, who was the state agricultural commissioner at the time by more than 10 percentage points.

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan Not a knock on gays, but the gays against groomers are likely groomers themselves. Not because they're gay but he who doth protest too much, especially while espousing GOP "morals".......

by ti-amie This is so not my lane but this debate has been going on in LGBTQ circles for a long time. I posted an article about it a few weeks ago from 2006.

If people like him don't realize that the GQP house is not a home for them there isn't much that can be said.

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:14 pm
Surprise! Anyone who represents the folks in this particular orbit deserve what they get, or don't get, from them.

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:13 pm This is so not my lane but this debate has been going on in LGBTQ circles for a long time. I posted an article about it a few weeks ago from 2006.

If people like him don't realize that the GQP house is not a home for them there isn't much that can be said.
Wasn't it you that posted a cartoon about somebody from the "people for the face eating leopard people" complaining about having his face eaten by a leopard? This is the same.
It makes you wonder how are these people's brains wired.

by ti-amie I think it was Jazz who posted about the leopards eating their face people but you're totally correct.

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan Amy Berman Jackson should be a Supreme Court justice.

by ti-amie IF the Dems win in 2024 I think we'll see Supreme Court Expansion take place.

#nojinx

by ti-amie




by ti-amie




by ti-amie










P1/

by ti-amie








by ti-amie

by ti-amie






by ti-amie Also










by ti-amie


by ti-amie


During the trial he went all Rittenhouse blubbering and crying on the stand. The jury deliberated 2h 50m.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie





Eric Garland
@ericgarland
These allegations are explosive and specific.

Multiple Jefferson County officials tried to influence prosecutions against women in other governments to pressure them into relenting to rape.

Image

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:12 am





Eric Garland
@ericgarland
These allegations are explosive and specific.

Multiple Jefferson County officials tried to influence prosecutions against women in other governments to pressure them into relenting to rape.

Image
"Beyond belief"? To whom? This is entirely in the specter of any white guy in the south with some power. I almost expect something depraved given their history.

by ponchi101
Owendonovan wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:22 pm ...

"Beyond belief"? To whom? This is entirely in the specter of any white guy in the south with some power. I almost expect something depraved given their history.
On the money. :clap: :clap: :clap:

by ti-amie Molly White
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io
The DOJ and Sam Bankman-Fried's attorneys have come to an agreement on proposed bond modifications to submit to the judge. Among other things they would limit SBF to using a flip phone. 🧵

Full document: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .100.0.pdf


Letter – #100 in United States v. BANKMAN-FRIED (S.D.N.Y., 1:22-cr-00673) – CourtListener.com
LETTER by USA as to Samuel Bankman-Fried addressed…

CourtListener
Image

First, they propose adopting as permanent the temporary restrictions prohibiting SBF from contacting current or former FTX employees outside of the presence of counsel, from using ephemeral call/messaging apps like Signal, and from using a VPN.

Image

He would also be limited to "a flip phone or other non-smartphone with either no internet capabilities or internet capabilities disabled" and a new laptop with software that would restrict SBF to only visiting a list of approved websites.

The websites are grouped into ones that would help him prepare his defense, and ones just for funsies. Included: Wikipedia, blockchain explorers, mainstream and crypto media outlets, Netflix, meal delivery apps, Amazon, MLB​.com, and NFL​.com.

Image

Noticeably missing: Substack, Twitter, gaming platforms.

In addition to the whitelisting software, they would install software to monitor and log SBF's activity. They would also require SBF to be kept from all devices belonging to his parents.

His parents' devices would be installed with monitoring software, including software that takes photos of the person using the device to be reviewed by pretrial services.

Image

There's also a clause where SBF agrees to not object to pen registers on his phone, Gmail, and internet service.

I'm a little confused by this simply because there's already a pen register on his Gmail (which is how the USAO discovered SBF's VPN usage).

Personally I'm a little offended that web3isgoinggreat.com didn't make the cut of "Websites for the Defendant’s Personal Use". Bad taste, Sammy.

"the defendant’s laptop be installed with monitoring and security software that will log the defendant’s user activity, which will be stored in a cloud-based repository maintained by defense counsel"

🤨

Seems odd that the defense is in charge of maintaining that, but what do I know.

by ti-amie Thankfully this "person" is in jail. It's a disturbing read but this is an adult site.

Polygamist cult leader and self-proclaimed prophet ‘brazenly’ used jailhouse phone system to have ‘sexual discussions’ with kids: Feds
ADAM KLASFELD Mar 6th, 2023, 10:52 am

Image
Accused polygamous cult leader Sam Bateman (Screenshot via Law&Crime Network)


Polygamous cult leader Sam Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet awaiting trial on kidnapping and other charges, “brazenly” used the jailhouse phone system to “engage in sexual discussions with children,” federal prosecutors allege.

One of the girls, identified in court papers as “Jane Doe 4,” is a 13-year-old he allegedly conspired to kidnap, court papers say.

“All those sacred times”

During the Nov. 26 conversation, Bateman placed a video call with “some” of his adult wives, and “Jane Doe 4” had been on the other line in the custody of Arizona’s Department of Child Safety. Prosecutors say that Bateman then spoke to the teen, referring to her as his “sexy darling” and making profane sexual remarks about her breasts and his desire to sexually abuse her.

“Don’t you remember all those sacred times we spent together?” Bateman is quoted telling the girl.

The conversation violated a Superior Court’s order barring Bateman from all contact with “Jane Doe 4,” a listed victim in a child abuse case in Arizona’s Coconino County, prosecutors say.

Bateman allegedly made the same obscene and vulgar sexual remarks to 16-year-old victim “Jane Doe 10.”

In 2019, Bateman declared himself a prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a sect whose adherents practice polygamy. The government estimates that Bateman has roughly 50 followers and more 20 wives, nine of whom are minors between the ages of 12 and 16.

“Bateman allegedly has ‘impressions of Heavenly Father’s will’ to encourage his followers, including the minor children, to engage in sexual acts and relies on that submission to do his own will,” prosecutors wrote on March 3. “Bateman is a subject in a federal investigation into the transportation of minors in interstate commerce to engage in criminal sexual activity, and travel in interstate commerce to engage in illicit sexual conduct with minors, beginning around May 2020.”

Bateman has been kept in detention since he was charged in mid-September with attempting to obstruct justice. A subsequent indictment accused him and three of his adult wives — Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow, and Moretta Rose Johnson — with additional obstruction-related counts and a federal kidnapping charge. Prosecutors signaled that another charging document could be imminent against him and others.

Originally slated to stand trial last November, Bateman’s reckoning has been adjourned multiple times and was recently pushed back another year, until March 5, 2024.

Bateman’s attorney Marc J. Victor claims that an order prohibiting his client from contacting anyone other than his lawyers from behind bars, using the phone system operated by contractor CoreCivic, violates the Constitution.

“The restriction on Mr. Bateman’s access to all people outside CoreCivic except counsel is excessive, suggests an express intent to punish Mr. Bateman and thus denies him Due Process of Law and his First Amendment rights,” Victor wrote.

“She picked the wrong religion to hate”

Prosecutors responded to that claim with a litany of Bateman’s alleged transgressions, justifying the measure.

“During the 77 days Bateman spent in federal pre-trial detention before his communications were restricted, he participated in the kidnapping or escape of eight children; had explicit sexual conversations with children; violated a Coconino County Superior Court no-contact order; directed others to intimidate a government witness; sought to influence potential testimony; and repeatedly misused detention facility communications systems in violation of policy,” the government says.

Before being charged federally, Bateman was arrested by Arizona Department of Public Safety for child endangerment on Aug. 28, 2022, after being discovered with three young girls between the ages of 11 and 14 during a traffic stop.

In bodycam footage of that stop, Bateman could be heard telling deputies: “I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to tell you anything.”

During his temporary detention that day, prosecutors say, Bateman instructed his followers to “delete my Signal account now, the whole thing, delete every message, right now.”



Detailing some of the allegations behind the federal kidnapping charge, prosecutors claim that Bateman engineered that plot from behind bars.

“After Bateman’s federal arrest, nine minor girls, all believed to be wives of Bateman, were taken into Arizona Department of Child Services (DCS) custody on September 14, 2022,” prosecutors wrote. “Bateman — using communications systems at the Core Civic/Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex (CAFCC) — then conspired with others to remove the girls from DCS custody. And on November 27, at least three of Bateman’s adult wives succeeded in removing eight of the nine children from their DCS placements. Law enforcement found the girls in Spokane, Washington, on December 1, 2022.”

Bateman also allegedly used the jailhouse phone systems to engage in witness intimidation.

On the same day he made sexual remarks to minors from jail, Bateman asked one of his wives to send a verse of scripture to a government witness: Doctrine and Covenants Section 121.

“Wo unto all those that discomfort my people, and drive, and murder, and testify against them, saith the Lord of Hosts; a generation of vipers shall not escape the damnation of hell,” the verse reads.

Prosecutors say that Bateman asked the wife to pass on that message from a blocked phone number and say “that I gave you the message to send this to her and tell her that she picked the wrong religion to hate.”

“You should also tell her that I can guarantee that her and Little Froggy have cancer already forming in their bodies,” Bateman allegedly said.

Through his attorney’s response on Saturday, Bateman didn’t appear to dispute making any of the remarks. He simply downplayed them.

“Mr. Bateman’s comments were simply venting as the messages were not intimidating and Mr. Bateman has no control over cancer,” the defense response states.

Bateman also denied that he violated the Cochino County court order, which he claims barred him from contacting “named victims,” only “if” he is able to post bond. He has been ordered detained pending trial.

Read the government’s filing https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 7.58.0.pdf

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/po ... kids-feds/

by ponchi101 Just a bit of his rocker.
What a lunatic.

by ti-amie



#ETTD

by ti-amie I have the same question as this person:

Darrin Hall
@DarrinHall15

Replying to
@kyledcheney
How can any bar association allow her to continue to practice law?

I'd lose my job for any one single infraction this severe. Most of us would.

by ponchi101 Do lawyers apply the law to other lawyers? Or are they weary of how quick that boomerang can come back?
Agree with Mr. Hall.

by ti-amie George Santos masterminded 2017 ATM fraud, former roommate tells feds
“Santos taught me how to skim card information and how to clone cards,” Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, who was convicted of felony access device fraud, said Wednesday in a sworn declaration submitted to the FBI.

By JACQUELINE SWEET

03/09/2023 05:49 PM EST

NEW YORK – Rep. George Santos orchestrated a 2017 credit card skimming operation in Seattle, the man who was convicted of the fraud and deported to Brazil said in a sworn declaration submitted to federal authorities Wednesday.

“I am coming forward today to declare that the person in charge of the crime of credit card fraud when I was arrested was George Santos / Anthony Devolder,” Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha wrote in the declaration. It was sent by express mail and email to the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service New York office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, according to a copy of the receipt from the United States Postal Service.

Telha decided to contact law enforcement officials after seeing the newly minted congressman on television, he said in the declaration.

Santos, whose full name is George Anthony Devolder Santos, often went by Anthony Devolder before his first congressional bid in 2020. The New York Republican won a Long Island swing district last November after lying on the campaign trail about his education, work experience and supposed Jewish ancestry. The House ethics panel initiated an investigation into Santos last week to explore possible “unlawful activity” related to his run. State, federal and Brazilian authorities are also probing Santos related to a string of potential financial crimes. Santos has admitted to “embellishing” parts of his background, but said he never broke any laws.

He was previously questioned about the Seattle scheme by investigators for the U.S. Secret Service, CBS News has reported. He was never charged, but the investigation remains open. Santos also told an attorney friend he was “an informant” in the fraud case. Trelha insists he was its mastermind.

“Santos taught me how to skim card information and how to clone cards. He gave me all the materials and taught me how to put skimming devices and cameras on ATM machines,” Trelha said in the declaration that was submitted to authorities by his New York attorney, Mark Demetropoulos. POLITICO obtained a copy of the declaration.

Spokespeople for the FBI did not return messages. Representatives for the Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

A lawyer for Santos also did not respond to emails and text messages for comment.

Trelha and Santos met in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla., he said in the declaration and in an interview with POLITICO. By November, Trelha had rented a room in Santos’ Winter Park, Fla., apartment, according to a copy of the lease viewed by POLITICO.

“That is when and where I learned from him how to clone ATM and credit cards,” Trelha wrote in the declaration that was translated from his native Portuguese.

Santos kept a warehouse on Kirkman Road in Orlando to store the skimming equipment, according to the declaration.

“He had a lot of material — parts, printers, blank ATM and credit cards to be painted and engraved with stolen account and personal information.

“Santos gave me at his warehouse, some of the parts to illegally skim credit card information. Right after he gave me the card skimming and cloning machines, he taught me how to use them,” Trelha wrote.

Trelha then flew out to Seattle where he was caught on a security camera removing a skimming device from a Chase ATM on Pike Street, according to law enforcement records. He was arrested on April 27.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle previously told POLITICO it’s not unusual for credit card thieves to go far from home to nab numbers so there’s less chance of the stolen numbers being traced back to the perpetrators. That spokesperson, Emily Langlie, said she didn’t have any information about Santos’ involvement in the Trelha case.

At the time of his arrest, Trelha had a fake Brazilian ID card and 10 suspected fraudulent cards in his hotel room, according to police documents. An empty FedEx package police found in his rental car was sent from the Winter Park unit he shared with Santos.

Trelha told federal authorities in the declaration Wednesday that his “deal with Santos was 50% for him and 50% for me.”

“We used a computer to be able to download the information on the pieces. We also used an external hard drive to save the filming, because the skimmer took the information from the card, and the camera took the password,” he wrote.

“It didn’t work out so well, because I was arrested,” he admitted.

Trelha said Santos visited him in jail in Seattle, but told him not to implicate him in the scheme.

MOST READ
governors-abortion-rights-81448.jpg
California to halt $54M Walgreens contract over company’s policy on abortion drug sales
Trump 2020 lawyer admits misrepresenting stolen election claims
A Startling Document Predicted Jan. 6. Democrats Are Missing Its Other Warnings.
White House goes after Tucker Carlson by name over Jan. 6 coverage
Opinion | The Tucker Carlson Schtick Melts Away
“Santos threatened my friends in Florida that I must not say that he was my boss,” he wrote.

Trelha agreed to say he was working for someone in Brazil and not with Santos, because he was worried Santos would have his friends in Orlando deported, he said in a telephone interview last month. Trelha recalled Santos warning he could “make things worse for him” since he was already in jail and Santos was a U.S. citizen.

In an audio recording of Trelha’s May 15, 2017 arraignment in King County Superior Court, Santos tells the judge he’s a “family friend” who was there to secure a local Airbnb if the defendant was released on bail.

Santos also claimed to the judge he worked for Goldman Sachs in New York, a key part of his campaign biography he later admitted wasn’t true.

Trehla was unable to post the $75,000 bail. He pleaded guilty to felony access device fraud, served seven months in jail and was deported to Brazil in early 2018.

“Santos did not help me to get out of jail. He also stole the money that I had collected for my bail,” Trelha told federal investigators in the declaration.

Trelha told POLITICO that before flying to Seattle, Santos had traveled to Orlando to pick up $20,000 in cash he instructed Leide Oliveira Santos, another roommate, to give him from a safe. Santos had promised to hire El Chapo’s lawyer for Trelha, he said. A third roommate in the Winter Park apartment told POLITICO in a phone interview that Oliveira Santos told him Santos had come to get money for Trelha. The third roommate spoke on condition of anonymity because he was in the country as an undocumented immigrant.

But Trelha never heard from Santos after Santos visited him in Seattle, the third roommate said. He later learned from Oliveira Santos that her attempts to contact Santos over the next few months were futile.

Trelha realized he had been conned, he said, when no lawyer appeared — let alone El Chapo’s.

But he still didn’t want to name Santos as a co-conspirator, fearing retaliation against Oliveira Santos, who was also an undocumented immigrant, he said.

Trelha told the federal authorities in the declaration that he had witnesses to support his statements. Oliveira Santos declined to discuss the matter with POLITICO.

“I am available to speak with any American government investigator,” Trelha wrote before providing his email address and cellular phone number and attesting that he signed the declaration “willingly and truthfully.”

A federal prosecutor who handled Trelha’s case described the scheme as “sophisticated,” adding that the Seattle portion was only “the tip of the iceberg,” according to court records reported by CBS News. But a person close to the investigation who is not authorized to speak publicly said they saw no evidence that prosecutors did forensic reports on Trelha’s phone or seemed motivated to pursue international co-conspirators.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/0 ... s-00086417

by ponchi101 IT's going to be kind of hard when Santos is president. I mean, by then he will probably have the Mona Lisa hanging on his bedroom wall.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie




by ti-amie


by ti-amie

by ti-amie




Faraday bags
Faraday bags are often used by law enforcement, intelligence agencies, military, and computer forensics experts to protect portable digital evidence from external meddling by blocking all radio communications from accessing the portable digital device.

Image

by ponchi101 Ok. Even I can flip this guy.
If the Chinese government wants him, you only need to buy him the ticket there and show it to him. First class, so you can tell him "you will really, really appreciate the difference between this and a Chinese concentration camp".

by ti-amie

Just an FYI

by ponchi101 Who of the entire criminal gang has done that?

by ti-amie

I haven't posted much about this here but the TL;dr is that Fox news broadcasters, behind the scenes, admitted to knowing that the allegations made by TFG and his minions were lies but that they were afraid to lose viewership to Newsmax and so presented their audience what they thought they wanted to hear. In other words, lied.

by ponchi101 Rue the day when Ted Turner conceived the idea that news could be profitable.
I am sure he did not foresee what could happen, but in retrospect, that was a social cataclysmic event.

by ti-amie






by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 He was recently shown at a beach. Infirm?

by Owendonovan I expect the old "mobster is too ill" to be used by many in the coming months including tiny.

by ti-amie
Owendonovan wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:48 pm I expect the old "mobster is too ill" to be used by many in the coming months including tiny.
I've expected Tiny to be wandering around in his pajamas for a long time now. Either that or the Feds making an airport interception.

Image

Image

Notice that he's wearing handmade shoes not run of the mill house slippers...

by ti-amie








by ti-amie



BBforreal@BforrealB
Replying to @ChubbyNavyVet@KatiePhang and @ItWasACoup
I wonder if that suit brought by smartmatic is a factor. If Fox settles with dominion, they won't have much to stand on vs. SM, which is seeking double.





by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:04 pm He was recently shown at a beach. Infirm?
Didn't he just announce an engagement?

by ti-amie




by ti-amie




by ti-amie

southpaw @nycsouthpaw

They’re going to have appeal if they want to preserve a first amendment issue; the next stage of these proceedings will only be about actual malice.

by ti-amie

by JazzNU I agree with the current top reply to the bottom Tweet


Joe
@rockytech
Replying to
@oliverdarcy

"Don't show the jury the threats that we explicitly condoned because it would prove our case" is not the defense Fox thinks it is.

by Owendonovan Why not just ask to bar any evidence against them because, you know, they might lose the case.

by Owendonovan The dude is a scumbag and should possibly be removed.

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... gifts-crow

by ti-amie Molly White
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io
The new team in charge of the FTX bankruptcy have released their first interim report on the failures of control at FTX and related businesses.

It's 43 pages long, let's go through it 🧵

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65 ... ading-ltd/

The debtors reiterate the stunning lack of recordkeeping and controls at FTX: "Normally, in a bankruptcy involving a business of the size and complexity of the FTX Group, particularly a business that handles customer and investor funds, there are readily identifiable records, data sources, and processes that can be used to identify and safeguard assets of the estate. Not so with the FTX Group."

"Upon assuming control, the Debtors found a pervasive lack of records and other evidence at the FTX Group of where or how fiat currency and digital assets could be found or accessed, and extensive commingling of assets."

FTX executives "stifled dissent, commingled and misused corporate and customer funds, lied to third parties about their business, [and] joked internally about their tendency to lose track of millions of dollars in assets"

Debtors are having to cobble together financial records from what they're able to find in QuickBooks and Slack records 💀

It sounds like the debtors are limited somewhat by the fact that laptops belonging to SBF and other high-level insiders are currently in the hands of the Bahamian Joint Provisional Liquidators, who've been less than cooperative (according to the US team, at least).

Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Caroline Ellison have all pled guilty and are cooperating with the DOJ, making it infeasible for the debtors to interview them for bankruptcy purposes until after the criminal trial is over. They have interviewed others, though.

FTX had "an environment in which a handful of employees had, among them, virtually limitless power to direct transfers of fiat currency and crypto assets and to hire and fire employees, with no effective oversight or controls to act as checks on how they exercised those powers."

"The FTX Group lacked independent or experienced finance, accounting, human resources, information security, or cybersecurity personnel or leadership, and lacked any internal audit function whatsoever. Board oversight, moreover, was also effectively non-existent."

“if Nishad [Singh] got hit by a bus, the whole company would be done. Same issue with Gary [Wang]."

Some new context on the sudden resignation of Brett Harrison in September 2022: he "resigned following a protracted disagreement", after which his bonus was drastically reduced.

In a separate instance, a lawyer who was hired only three months prior, who learned about the North Dimension bank accounts, was "summarily terminated after expressing concerns about Alameda’s lack of corporate controls, capable leadership, and risk management."

"At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the FTX Group did not even have current and complete lists of who its employees were."

"As a general matter, policies and procedures relating to accounting, financial reporting, treasury management, and risk management did not exist, were incomplete, or were highly generic and not appropriate for a firm handling substantial financial assets."

The small accounting firm used by FTX entities for most accounting "appears to have a small number of employees and no specialized knowledge relating to cryptocurrencies or international financial markets".

More QuickBooks shade.

"Fifty-six entities within the FTX Group did not produce financial statements of any kind. Thirty-five FTX Group entities used QuickBooks as their accounting system and relied on a hodgepodge of Google documents, Slack communications, shared drives, and Excel spreadsheets and other non-enterprise solutions to manage their assets and liabilities"

"Approximately 80,000 transactions were simply left as unprocessed accounting entries in catch-all QuickBooks accounts titled 'Ask My Accountant.'"

Sam Bankman-Fried: "Alameda is unauditable... we are only able to ballpark what its balances are, let alone something like a comprehensive transaction history. We sometimes find $50m of assets lying around that we lost track of; such is life"

"Thousands of deposit checks were collected from the FTX Group’s offices, some stale-dated for months, due to the failure of personnel to deposit checks in the ordinary course; instead, deposit checks collected like junk mail."

Transfers in the tens of millions of dollars were approved via Slack emoji, or discussed in disappearing Signal or Telegram chats.

"Only four months after the real estate purchase had closed did the employee enter into a promissory note with Alameda in which he undertook to repay the funds used to purchase the property. Other insiders received purported loans from Alameda for which no promissory notes exist."

Accounts were opened using names and email addresses that were not obviously linked to FTX, using pseudonymous email addresses, in the names of shell companies created for these purposes, or in the names of individuals (including individuals with no direct connection FTX)

"Alameda also transferred funds to insiders to fund personal investments, political contributions, and other expenditures—some of which were nominally 'papered' as personal loans with below-market interest rates and a balloon payment due years in the future."

The document reiterates known allegations about Alameda's "unique ability to trade and withdraw virtually unlimited assets [on FTX], regardless of the size of its account balance and without risk of its positions being liquidated."

by ponchi101 And neither congress, the senate or the presidency is calling for immediate regulation of this "industry"?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Fox News sanctioned for withholding evidence in Dominion defamation case
The judge is giving Dominion Voting Systems a chance to conduct another deposition, at Fox's expense.


April 12, 2023, 1:46 PM EDT
By Jane C. Timm and Amanda Terkel

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., for withholding evidence in the Dominion defamation suit, and said he's considering further investigation and censure.

According to a person present in the courtroom, lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems played recordings Fox News producer Abby Grossberg made during 2020, which were not handed over to Dominion's lawyers during discovery.

Grossberg, a former producer for Fox hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, has sued Fox News and said her deposition was coerced. In an amended filing Tuesday, she said she had recorded conversations with Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and others.

The sanction gives Dominion a chance to conduct another deposition, at Fox’s expense.

The surprise evidence and sanction comes days before the trial is scheduled to begin in the $1.6 billion defamation case Dominion Voting Systems filed against Fox News and Fox Corp. Davis also said Wednesday he was considering appointing a special master to investigate the Fox legal teams' actions.

On Tuesday, Davis expressed frustration at Fox News for not being straightforward about Rupert Murdoch's role as a leader at Fox News.

"This is a problem," Davis said, according to a court transcript. "I need to feel comfortable when you represent something to me that is the truth."

Fox News did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the sanction but said in a statement Tuesday, "Rupert Murdoch has been listed as executive chairman of FOX News in our SEC filings since 2019 and this filing was referenced by Dominion’s own attorney during his deposition."


https://www.nbcnews.com/media/fox-sanct ... -rcna79377

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 8:06 pm
I really wish "settling" didn't require silence.

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan Clarence, another republican embarrassment, has to go.

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... ate-scotus

by ti-amie
Owendonovan wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 2:10 am Clarence, another republican embarrassment, has to go.

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... ate-scotus
If Thomas' mother is living rent/mortgage/utilities free in this house then there is no way, in my mind, Clarence can stay on the bench. Then again I felt he should've been gone years ago. The problem would be what happens to all of the decisions he's been in on?

If he wasn't shameless he should issue a statement that his wife's health is a major concern for him as well as the reputation of the Court itself but he is shameless so I don't know how they're going to get him off the bench.

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 1:17 am
This racist pig should be deported jailed and never allowed back in this country.

by ti-amie This was the reason so many were against him being allowed into this county and allowed to take control of major media outlets. If the media would go back to doing in depth reporting instead of stenography for the RWNJ maybe we'd have a more informed populace.

by ponchi101 Perhaps one industry in which you need some more regulation? Foreigners cannot own media outlets?
Throwing stuff out there. This guy's influence on the USA (and the world) is nefarious.

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:44 pm Perhaps one industry in which you need some more regulation? Foreigners cannot own media outlets?
Throwing stuff out there. This guy's influence on the USA (and the world) is nefarious.
That was the case here until the skids were greased for Murdoch.

by ti-amie Fox and Dominion settle blockbuster defamation lawsuit for $787 million

A potentially explosive trial over 2020 election lies has fizzled out.
By ADI ROBERTSON / @thedextriarchy
Apr 18, 2023, 5:10 PM EDT

The Fox News defamation case was not, in fact, as entertaining as Succession. On the first day of trial, Fox settled with Dominion Voting Systems, heading off a process that could have aired embarrassing revelations about the news giant. Dominion says the settlement included a $787 million payout — apparently enough to compensate it for months of false claims about the 2020 presidential election.

As The New York Times reports, a Delaware judge announced the settlement after a morning of jury selection and just before attorneys’ opening statements. The dismissal means Fox Corporation won’t have to put some of its biggest names on the stand, including chairman Rupert Murdoch and Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Dominion revealed the payment in a press conference. “Money is accountability and we got that today from Fox,” said Dominion attorney Stephen Shackleford, according to CNN reporter Oliver Darcy. Dominion had originally sought $1.6 billion.

In a statement, Fox News Media conceded parts of Dominion’s allegations in vague terms. “We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems,” it said. “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

As alluded to by Fox, a judge had already ruled that Fox aired false claims about Dominion’s role in the election, including that the company had attempted to covertly engineer the defeat of former President Donald Trump. Dominion still had to establish that the statements were made with “actual malice,” a high bar that would require demonstrating Fox knew the statements were false or seriously doubted them. While it’s difficult to meet the actual malice standard, Fox was widely understood to be in a weak position. The case surfaced text messages revealing that Fox News stars like Carlson were ambivalent about promoting Trump’s election lies, and just before the trial, it was sanctioned for withholding evidence.


Fox still faces a lawsuit by another election tech company, Smartmatic. And in a statement to Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith, Smartmatic indicated it would continue its fight with Fox. “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest,” attorney Erik Connolly said, according to Smith’s Twitter feed. “Smartmatic remains committed to clearing its name, recouping the significant damage done to the company, and holding Fox accountable for undermining democracy.”




https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/18/2368 ... al-averted

by ti-amie I dunno it still seems like chump change to me...

by ti-amie Teri Kanefield
@Teri_Kanefield@law-and-politics.online
I am going to be a stickler for using words correctly.

When you lose in a civil case, you generally have to pay money.

Paying money is a consequence. Dominion sued for money.

I've attached a copy of what Dominion demanded in its lawsuit.

(The demand is always more than they think they'll get.)

The consequence may not achieve what we were hoping it would achieve, but it was still a consequence and the logical outcome of a civil case.

It means Fox lost.

Image

We can hope that there will be more far reaching consequences to Fox as a result of this lawsuit, and the Smartmatic suit coming up, but saving democracy is tedious work and up to each of us.

My husband was looking at the numbers and just told me that Dominion's peak revenue in 2022 was 17.5 million with 100 employees.

The settlement was for $787.5 million, which will take care of Dominion employees who were harmed.

The idea behind a lawsuit isn't to punish or hurt the bad guy but to make the injured party whole.

There are punitive damages, but generally the idea is that if you cause an injury you have to pay the cost of making the injured person whole.

Sometimes it takes a lot of money to do that.

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Tue Apr 18, 2023 9:23 pm I dunno it still seems like chump change to me...
It is, Fox has $4B cash on hand for these types of things. Very disappointing settlement, no one has a spine any longer.

by ponchi101 I wouldn't mind IF part of the settlement forces all the scum at Fox to go on the air and state that the election WAS NOT STOLEN.
I guess that won't happen.

by ti-amie When I last looked it seems Fox hadn't reported on it at all. That may have changed by now...

by ponchi101 Then this had nothing to do with principle. If Dominion really wanted to have "its reputation back", part of the deal should be that Fox would have to show, to their viewers (everybody else knew that FOX was lying), that all the claims about rigged elections were false.
I guess $787.5MM makes up for surrendering your morals.
(I know I would).

by JazzNU This is a great settlement...and a settlement was always the most likely end to this. Fox settled too late and got the book thrown at them in that summary judgment and their asses exposed handily in discovery. I'm guessing they didn't get bad advice, but that good advice was ignored on the regular by Murdoch and other PTB.

Looking for a larger societal fix in a private suit is an idealistic goal. I've noticed too much lately that journalists are pushing their overall idealism entirely too much in their coverage, especially on legal matters they very clearly don't know enough about and it's clouding the way they frame their coverage. This was a realistic outcome and a good one. Understand that the one you wanted, especially the terms with which some were after, is, and I can't begin to stress this enough, HIGHLY UNLIKELY. The main thing that would've come out of winning a jury trial is more money.

by JazzNU A quick story - I had a friend in college who died during football practice. Quite a few NCAA rules were being violated by holding the outdoor practice in sweltering heat, but the trainers and coaches just ignored this, my friend had a severe asthma attack brought on by the heat and died as a result.

His mother sued the university. This was a preventable death and that was quite clear. She was offered a large settlement, the evidence was overwhelmingly not on the side of the university. She turned it down again and again because what she wanted more than anything was an apology. They offered a bigger settlement, but the university wouldn't give an apology other than being sorry his death occurred, not admitting their actions led to that death.

As his friend, I hoped that his mother would get the apology she was after especially to help her deal with her grief and hopefully move forward, but I was pretty sure that it wouldn't happen because an apology isn't really a remedy available in court. The money is the implied apology. Eventually after a good deal of time had passed, she was forced to accept the settlement by the judge because what she was after truly wasn't a remedy the court could provide whether she went to trial or took the settlement, the apology wasn't forthcoming.

It can be painful, but necessary to remember what can and cannot be gained by going to court in the US. And to remember that the public interest overlapping with a private case, doesn't make the case one solely about the public interest.

by Suliso What is the tax situation for a case like this? Do we winners have to pay half or so in income taxes?

by ponchi101 On the other hand.
Alissyn Camerota (CNN) made it clear she feels this was a big win for Fox. No admission that they lied, their big stars did not have to take the stand, Dominion only got half of what they sued for, Fox did not even cover the settlement in their daily news.
I gather it depends on how you see it.

by ti-amie That Fox was not required to issue an apology is what galls me. I understand the point Jazz is making about her friend's mother but that is not comparable to this situation. It was abundantly clear from all of the emails that were made public that Fox made a conscious decision to lie to its viewers. Those lies led directly to January 6. Imagine if they'd said Mr. Biden won, and let's move on. The fact that everyone associated with the legal profession that I follow on Mastodon has spent the last day explaining why this is a good outcome over and over again proves that for many this decision didn't go far enough.

Yes, $787m dollars is close to a billion but as has been pointed out Fox will increase the carriage charges paid by cable companies to cover the cost to them. Since Fox is always part of whatever package you get from your cable company there's no way to get rid of them. Murdoch on the stand would've been amazing television but the public was denied the chance to see him try and worm his way out of what was proven by the inter-company communications.

There is another case where another company is suing for $2.7b coming up soon. We'll see if Fox listens to counsel and settles before a jury is chosen.

by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2023 2:54 pm On the other hand.
Alissyn Camerota (CNN) made it clear she feels this was a big win for Fox. No admission that they lied, their big stars did not have to take the stand, Dominion only got half of what they sued for, Fox did not even cover the settlement in their daily news.
I gather it depends on how you see it.
This is an example of the idealism that I've noticed on some of the bigger legal cases seeping into their journalistic coverage.

And Dominion getting half of what they sued for is a win. If you think people tend to get the amount they sue for, I've got some startling news for you.

by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2023 6:55 pm That Fox was not required to issue an apology is what galls me. I understand the point Jazz is making about her friend's mother but that is not comparable to this situation.
Sorry, but then you are missing the point I was making. I only shared the story because it was indeed relevant as I barely like to think about what happened, I still miss my friend and it's been 20 years.

You want an apology. That's not a remedy that a court gives. And more than that, this is a private case. The PUBLIC wants an apology and the PUBLIC was denied a chance to see Murdoch worm it's way out of this. This case was brought by Dominion, a private company, not the US Justice Dept or some other public agency that works in the interest of the public where what the public wants is one of the chief concerns. There is public interest in this case, but it is not a public interest case. College athletes in total would've been served by the university issuing an apology in my friend's case. But far more than that, it could've influenced judgments in the state going forward had they been forced to issue that apology if they had been found at fault. But that wasn't the interest at stake, it was state court with one private individual suing a private university. There was a public interest, but it wasn't a public interest case, just like with Dominion. And court ordered apologies is a concept that has gotten a decent amount of attention in legal theory because that is a remedy many are seeking when going to court even though they truly cannot get that there. But it's almost all theory, not practice.

If Dominion took this fight til the bitter end and lost because jury trials are never the slam dunk people assume they are and they went out of business as a result of not stopping litigation and taking the massive settlement when it was offered, the public would not care one lick about that. They'd think Dominion tried their best and at least they tried to take down Fox News. And they'd move on to the next case where someone can try to takedown Fox News. Because that's what this is about for the public. They want to stick it to Fox News any way they can. They want that result FOR THEM, not for Dominion. And that's why this isn't a public interest case. It's a private case where Dominion is trying to regain lost profit and has to think about how they continue forward as a company.

by ponchi101 I don't even want an apology. I would like an admission. IN FOX. So their viewers will see it (I don't see those people tuning to CNN during this week).
But your point is clear and I gather you are right. This is the best we could expect.
And Fox can keep lying about the election, as long as they don't mention names.

by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2023 7:57 pm I don't even want an apology. I would like an admission. IN FOX.
Same difference really.

by JazzNU I hate Fox News more than almost anyone here, they've encouraged and promoted the racist discourse and violence against my community in an egregious manner that harkens back to Jim Crow that they should burn in hell for. So I'd love for them to be brought down like this is Tomorrow Never Dies. But anger at Dominion is misplaced, the many insults I'm seeing about them online are out of bounds. It is literally blaming the victim from people that would typically tell people not to do that. But people are very, very comfortable doing it because they are a corporation. If it was an individual, they would dial it back and re-consider how they are framing their disappointment.

by ti-amie Yes this was a civil case and yes most civil cases (I was empaneled for one or two) end up with the parties reaching a settlement but this just bothers me so much. Even in the hairdresser today they were talking about it. Many didn't even know what Dominion is but they understand that Fox has to pay a lot of money because they lied and that is what got their attention. I think if an admission/apology had been forced it would've gone a long way to making people take a second or third look at what Fox is presenting as "news" and be more skeptical about it as well as more choosy about what their news source is. Don't forget those judge shows,TMZ and similar shows all air on Fox. A lot of times people are too lazy to change the channel and they stay put when those shows finish.

Also the last (and only) time I visited family in Savannah, Georgia everywhere you went Fox was what was on peoples TV. Airports too. In NYC you're most likely to see CNN or New York 1 especially in public venues like doctors offices or airports. It's an insidious force and call it what you want an admission of guilt on their air would've gone a long way to putting a dent in their influence.

by ti-amie

Some non professional responses:
Timothy Morgan @Coltsplaya22

And Fox is immediately back to saying they did nothing wrong as they defend the exact same suit against Smartmatic. They really learned their lesson
OldManYellsAtCloud
@CloudsAreJerks

Won't this just be seen as a cost of their business?

If they'd gone to trial and admitted they lied, got Tucker to admit it.. it could affect their future revenue for years to come.

They make money lying. This time it cost them, but the benefit seems to outweigh the cost. Sadly
Ken Cox 🇨🇦 @KenCox

Fox bought its way out of embarrassment. Murdoch has more money that he can ever spend so the financial cost was irrelevant.
Listen occasionally, you may learn something... @LotaInsLotaOuts

I'd counter that this outcome, or something equally painful, has been clear since the depos came out, yet Fox made no efforts to change their on-air content or meter their rhetoric

Its business as usual, which suggest its not a material penalty to them.
AI-powered dogwashing startup
@EddyRobinson

What matters to Fox is what the audience believes, and they don't care about words and figures.

Video of Murdoch, Hannity, or Carlson melting on the witness stand would have got through to them. This just means slightly longer ad breaks.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan ^ Same folks demonizing LGBTQ's coddle and protect pedophiles in their houses of grooming.

by ti-amie I'm putting this here because this is what was predicted after the Dominion victory over Fox/Murdoch. Usually Fox is bundled into your basic cable so it's impossible to get rid of.


by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Sun Apr 23, 2023 9:29 pm I'm putting this here because this is what was predicted after the Dominion victory over Fox/Murdoch. Usually Fox is bundled into your basic cable so it's impossible to get rid of.

You called it.
So, basically, no punishment at all. The only hope is Smartmatic, who has said that an apology on air is non-negotiable.

by ti-amie Airman Accused of Leak Has History of Racist and Violent Remarks, Filing Says
Prosecutors accused Jack Teixeira of trying to cover up his actions and described a possible propensity toward violence.

By Glenn Thrush
April 27, 2023
WASHINGTON — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting classified documents online, repeatedly tried to obstruct federal investigators and has a “troubling” history of making racist and violent remarks, Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing late Wednesday.

In an 18-page memo, released before a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday in a Massachusetts federal court, the department’s lawyers argued that Airman Teixeira needed to be detained indefinitely because he posed a “serious flight risk” and might still have information that would be of “tremendous value to hostile nation states.”

Airman Teixeira tapped into vast reservoirs of sensitive information, an amount that “far exceeds what has been publicly disclosed” so far, they wrote.

Prosecutors pointedly questioned Airman Teixeira’s overall state of mind, disclosing that he was suspended from high school in 2018 for alarming comments about the use of Molotov cocktails and other weapons, and trawled the internet for information about mass shootings. He engaged in “regular discussions about violence and murder” on the same social media platform, Discord, that he used to post classified information, the filing said, and he surrounded his bed at his parents’ house with firearms and tactical gear.

Airman Teixeira was also prone to making “racial threats,” prosecutors said.

This behavior — so disturbing it was flagged by local police when he applied for a firearms identification card — is certain to raise new questions about how Airman Teixeira obtained a top-secret security clearance that gave him access to some of the country’s most sensitive intelligence reports.

Mr. Teixeira’s court-appointed lawyers dismissed the claim that he would be in a flight risk, and proposed that he be released on a $20,000 bond to his family’s custody, in a response filed several hours before the hearing.

The episode in high school took place during his sophomore year and was never repeated, they said. The lawyers also played down the idea that he would have an opportunity to turn information over to the United States’ enemies.

The government provided “little more than speculation that a foreign adversary will seduce Mr. Teixeira and orchestrate his clandestine escape from the United States,” they wrote.

His legal team also offered a fleeting first glimpse at possible defense arguments, claiming that the government has not offered proof Mr. Teixeira ever intended for the information posted to a private social media server “to be widely disseminated.”

Editors’ Picks

Digitized Silhouette Portraits Shed Light on 19th Century Life

London’s Coronation Countdown: Travelers Arrive, Others Flee

When Friends Are Your Primary Concern in Making a Will
Mr. Teixeira’s lawyers described him as compliant — and said he sat on the porch reading a Bible as he waited to be arrested — but the government painted a starkly different picture.

In arguing for his confinement, prosecutors described a panicked effort by Airman Teixeira to cover up his actions as law enforcement closed in, including telling a member of a chat group to “delete all messages,” and instructing a user to stonewall investigators.

He also tried to destroy evidence, prosecutors said. The filing includes a series of photos of electronic equipment, including a tablet and an Xbox console, that he hurriedly smashed, then tossed in a dumpster near his home in North Dighton, Mass., before his arrest this month. A witness told the government that he threw his phone out the window of his truck as he was driving.

“These efforts appeared calculated to delay or prevent the government from gaining a full understanding of the seriousness and scale of his conduct,” the department wrote. “Any promise by the defendant to stay home or to refrain from compounding the harm that he has already caused is worth no more than his broken promises to protect classified national defense information.”

Airman Teixeira was arrested on April 13, and charged with two separate counts related to the unauthorized handling of classified materials. The government has yet to seek an indictment before a grand jury, although prosecutors said in their filing on Wednesday that he could face 25 years — “and potentially far more” — in prison if convicted.

In a preliminary complaint unsealed after he was taken into custody, Airman Teixeira was accused of abusing his top secret clearance with an intelligence unit on Cape Cod to post documents bearing restrictive classification markings to a 50-member chat group on Discord.

Shortly before signing off in March, Airman Teixeira told a member of the small group he “was very happy” to share intelligence very few people get to see and solicited requests for information they wanted him to post, prosecutors said late Wednesday.

The material, some obtained through keyword searches of government files, was eventually distributed more widely. The trove of documents made public revealed the access Western intelligence agencies have to internal Kremlin deliberations, while baring concerns of the strained U.S.-led alliance trying to contain Russian aggression without prompting a wider conflict.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Airman Teixeira, who worked as a computer network specialist, had been sharing sensitive information far earlier than previously known and to a much larger group. According to online posts reviewed by The Times, he had begun doing so in February 2022, within 48 hours of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to a chat group of about 600 members.

The filing provided little insight into what prompted Airman Teixeira to leak internal U.S. intelligence assessments, but it cast his actions, which had previously been seen as mainly motivated by his desire to show off to younger friends online, in a somewhat darker light.

Investigators found a small arsenal in his bedroom at the house he shared with his mother and stepfather. Inside a gun locker two feet from his bed, law enforcement officials found multiple weapons, including handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, an AK-style high-capacity weapon and a gas mask. F.B.I. special agents also found ammunition, tactical pouches and what appeared to be a silencer-style accessory in his desk drawer.

Mr. Teixeira’s lawyers said his love of the military, and its hardware, impelled him to join the Air Force.

Prosecutors also made public a series of social media posts from 2022 and 2023 in which Airman Teixeira expressed his desire to kill a “ton of people” and cull the “weak minded,” and described what he called an “assassination van” that would cruise around killing people in a “crowded urban or suburban environment.”

How Airman Teixeira obtained the documents that he is accused of posting online has been a critical question for investigators. They believe he used administrator privileges connected to his role as an information technology specialist to retrieve the documents. In his posts, Airman Teixeira said his job gave him access to material that others could not see. “The job I have lets me get privilege’s above most intel guys,” he wrote.

Airman Teixeira had been scheduled for a detention hearing in federal court in Boston earlier this month. But his lawyer, Brendan Kelley, requested more time to address the government’s arguments, and the magistrate judge, David H. Hennessy, quickly agreed.

The next major step is likely to be the filing of a grand jury indictment, which would include a much more detailed narrative of the allegations against Airman Teixeira, including a more specific accounting of the charges he will face.

Worcester, a city 50 miles west of Boston, is where Judge Hennessy’s courtroom is based. But the case will eventually be assigned to a federal judge in Boston, assuming it is not moved out of Massachusetts entirely, which remains a possibility, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Officials at the Justice Department have considered asking that the case be moved to the Eastern District of Virginia, because its jurisdiction includes the Pentagon, and its lawyers have extensive experience in investigating such cases.

But it is not clear that the federal judges in Massachusetts, where Airman Teixeira lived and worked, will be willing to do so, and the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Rachael S. Rollins, a Biden appointee, believes her office is capable of handling the matter, people familiar with the situation said.



https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/p ... leaks.html

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

The jury is still at work.


by ti-amie

by ti-amie Exclusive: Rep. "George Santos" charged by Justice Department in federal probe
By Mark Morales, Evan Perez and Gregory Krieg, CNN
Updated 5:44 PM EDT, Tue May 9, 2023


Nathan Howard/Bloomberg/Getty Images
CNN

Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against New York Rep. George Santos, the Republican lawmaker whose astonishing pattern of lies and fabrications stunned even hardened politicos, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Santos is expected to appear as soon as Wednesday at federal court in New York’s eastern district, where the charges have been filed under seal.

The exact nature of the charges couldn’t immediately be learned but the FBI and the Justice Department public integrity prosecutors in New York and Washington have been examining allegations of false statements in Santos’ campaign finance filings and other claims.

The congressman’s attorney declined to comment. Spokespeople for the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office, the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment.

The freshman congressman, who was elected last year to represent a district that includes parts of Long Island and Queens, has been under investigation in multiple jurisdictions and by the House Ethics Committee.

Top Democrats, joined by some New York Republicans, have been calling on Santos to resign over allegations ranging from criminal behavior on the campaign trail to petty personal dishonesty stretching back more than a decade.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he will look at the charges before determining if he thinks Santos should be removed from Congress.

“I’ll look at the charges,” the California Republican told CNN on Tuesday.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/09/politics ... department

Quotation marks are mine.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Since he is obviously a flight risk he should be remanded. #wishfulthinking

He is set to appear in court later this afternoon, probably in time for the local news cycle that starts at 5p (yes I'm that cynical)

Image

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Should he wear a GPS tracker? I mean, if this guy wakes up tomorrow in Sao Paulo would anybody be surprised?

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 8:05 pm Should he wear a GPS tracker? I mean, if this guy wakes up tomorrow in Sao Paulo would anybody be surprised?
NeverForget1/6Auto-Coup🟧
@trott1073
·
2m
George Santos claims "Witch Hunt". He stole from donors and taxpayers. Judge restricted his movements to NYC, Long Island, & D.C. unless he gets permission. Had to surrender his passport & agreed to random home visits https://thedailybeast.com/george-santos ... ia=desktop via
@thedailybeast
I swear do these people have brains? How many passports does he have and what names are they under? There are a lot of ways to cut and run between NYC/Long Island and Washington DC.

by ti-amie Watchdog Files New Complaint With FEC Alleging There’s Reason To Believe Santos’ Treasurer Doesn’t Exist
By Kaila Philo
|
May 10, 2023 4:39 p.m.

A watchdog group has accused Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who was arraigned at a Long Island federal courthouse on fraud charges this afternoon, of fabricating his campaign treasurer’s identity.

According to a complaint released on Wednesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is requesting that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) investigate their allegations about the treasurer and the freshman congressman for potentially violating the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA).

The complaint argues that there is reason to believe that Andrew Olson, Santos’s current treasurer, does not exist.

“Mr. Olson is not and has not been identified as a treasurer to any political committee outside of those connected to Representative Santos,” the complaint said. “No one asked about it appears to know Mr. Olson, including those knowledgeable of political committee treasurers and New York Republican politics.”

They also note that the address listed on the FEC forms used to belong to Santos’s sister. Olson has reportedly not responded to any of CREW’s attempts to contact him through the means provided in the filings. He has also not responded to multiple requests for comment from TPM.

“Given his struggles with the truth, much about Rep. Santos remains a mystery, but there’s no bigger mystery than his treasurer,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. “No one can seem to find Andrew Olson. If he does not exist, it would be an extreme abuse of our campaign finance system—one the FEC should not permit.”

Olson was allegedly hired by Santos in February, after the FEC warned him that he couldn’t handle his campaign funds without a treasurer and after it became clear that the person he supposedly hired to replace his previous treasurer had never agreed to the job.

“It is required that for any committee to conduct any business, they must have an active treasurer,” the FEC wrote in a Feb. 14 letter. “Failure to appoint a treasurer will result in the inability of the committee to accept contributions and make disbursements.”

The agency noted in that letter that a new treasurer must be appointed within ten days after the last one resigned.

His last official treasurer was Nancy Marks, a veteran GOP operative who’d worked in New York politics for years. After being swept up in the scandal surrounding the congressman’s dubious background and finance dealings, she quietly resigned from her position in January.

She was replaced on Santos’s FEC filings by Thomas Datwyler, another longtime campaign finance consultant. But on Jan. 27, Datwyler’s attorney sent the FEC a series of letters clarifying that Datwyler had never taken the position.

So, Olson’s name appeared on the filings about a month later, with only an email and home address to identify him.

In a Jan. 26 letter, the FEC warned Santos that “knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to the agency is punishable under federal law.

“I’ve seen a lot studying and working on these issues, but that’s a new one: for a sitting congressman to have an imaginary friend as his treasurer,” Brennan Center campaign finance expert and former FEC senior counsel Daniel Weiner told TPM.

He said that most sitting officeholders deal with issues around misuse of campaign funds. The accusations CREW has levied against Santos, however, enter a different realm.

“It’s kind of a different ballgame in this case, where you’re dealing more with outright fraud,” he said.

The New York Republican’s campaign funds have been a subject of much scrutiny since the New York Times first published their bombshell exposé in December. An unnamed former operative told TPM back in January that looking through the campaign’s finances left them with many questions.

“I thought that the lack of a financial disclosure, the messiness of the books, and the reporting were not great,” the operative said.

Notably, several charges in the 13-count indictment against Santos have to do with these sketchy details. Prosecutors allege, for example, that Santos used money solicited for his congressional race on personal expenses, like luxury designer clothing and credit card payments, and that he misrepresented his assets in two House financial disclosure reports.

But CREW’s complaint notes that the treasurer is responsible for ensuring that his campaign filings are accurate.

“If there is not a treasurer to take responsibility, that undercuts our whole system of accountability,” Bookbinder said. “This must be immediately investigated.”


https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/watc ... esnt-exist

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 12:15 am
Piers has always been scum.

by ti-amie It's nice to see him exposed as the scum he is though. I know most of you don't frequent "entertainment news" sites (gossip sites) but the almost non stop racist attacks against the Duchess of Sussex, her husband being called an imbecile, and snide remarks about their children are horrific and all stem from "anonymous sources". It's not just him though and I hope all of them are exposed for the bottom feeders they are.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: Thu May 11, 2023 7:32 pm
Go for it, gurl. Set the precedent for the THIRD LAWSUIT (because he will insult her again).

by ti-amie

I guess whoever paid his bail is behind this.

by ti-amie If Ms Carroll goes ahead with a second defamation case more power to her. If after spending so many years of her life with this monster living in her head she opts not to, more power to her. The idiot filed an appeal which may or may not allow his remarks from last night to be added to the case. I'm just asking the question.

by patrick You knew that Mr Delay would file an appeal to the Carroll case

by Owendonovan
patrick wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 1:29 am You knew that Mr Delay would file an appeal to the Carroll case
When the tide turns against him, legally, I hope he becomes bankrupt. He really needs to be taught so many lessons, but the only lesson his simplistic mind will ever hear is money he has to pay.

by skatingfan
Owendonovan wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 3:48 am When the tide turns against him, legally, I hope he becomes bankrupt. He really needs to be taught so many lessons, but the only lesson his simplistic mind will ever hear is money he has to pay.
Look at what is happening with Santos - anonymous people putting up bail money - paying legal expenses - I doubt that Trump spending his own money on these defenses so far.

by ponchi101 Just imagine having a $10MM legal expenses tab on the president of the USA.
What leverage.

by ti-amie Rudy Giuliani sued by former assistant alleging sexual assault and harassment
Noelle Dunphy gives graphic descriptions of assault and also accuses former New York mayor of wage theft in 70-page lawsuit

Martin Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly
Mon 15 May 2023 23.02 BST

A former associate of Rudy Giuliani sued the former New York mayor, presidential candidate and attorney to Donald Trump for $10m on Monday, alleging “abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and other misconduct” including “alcohol-drenched rants that included sexist, racist and antisemitic remarks”.

Filed in New York state, Noelle Dunphy’s suit includes the allegation that Giuliani “often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump”.

Giuliani is alleged to have told Dunphy “he enjoyed engaging in this conduct while on the telephone because it made him ‘feel like Bill Clinton’”.

Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying about an affair while he was president, with Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern.

On Monday, in a statement to the New York Daily News, a Giuliani representative said the former mayor “vehemently and completely denies the allegations in the complaint and plans to thoroughly defend against these allegations. This is pure harassment and an attempt at extortion.”

Giuliani was already in extensive legal jeopardy. His work in Ukraine seeking dirt on Trump’s rivals led to Trump’s first impeachment. His leading role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election contributed to Trump being impeached an unprecedented second time.

With his law licenses already suspended, Giuliani is reported to be at risk of criminal indictment.

In her 70-page lawsuit, Dunphy says Giuliani hired her in January 2019.

At that time, the suit says, Giuliani was “at the height of his influence, serving as the personal lawyer” for Trump, having “fashioned himself publicly as a major player in American politics, a successful businessman, and an important powerbroker”.

The suit says Giuliani offered Dunphy $1m a year plus expenses to be his director of business development, also offering to represent her for free in a dispute with an abusive ex-partner.

Giuliani is alleged to have deferred paying Dunphy, citing his acrimonious divorce from Judith Giuliani, his third wife. But he allegedly was swift to demand sex.

“As Giuliani later admitted in a recorded statement,” the suit says, “he ‘wanted [Dunphy] from the day [he] interviewed [her]’.”

The suit contains remarks it says were recorded.

Giuliani, the filing says, “began abusing Ms Dunphy almost immediately after she started working”, making clear “that satisfying his sexual demands … virtually anytime, anywhere … was an absolute requirement”.

The document is filled with lurid allegations. Giuliani, it says, often demanded that Dunphy “work naked, in a bikini, or in short shorts with an American flag on them that he bought for her.

“When they were apart, they would often work remotely via videoconference, and … Giuliani almost always asked her to remove her clothes on camera. He often called from his bed, where he was visibly touching himself under a white sheet.”

That allegation echoes a famous scene from a 2020 film, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, in which Giuliani appears to reach into his trousers and touch himself while on a bed, in the company of a young female actor he thinks is a reporter from Kazakhstan.

Describing what Dunphy says happened the first time Giuliani initiated sexual contact, the suit includes a still from the Borat film. Dunphy alleges Giuliani coerced her into oral sex.

The suit also says Dunphy had access to Giuliani’s private emails, including messages “from, to, or concerning President Trump, the Trump family (including … Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump) [and] Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner”.

Dunphy also claims to have had access to communications with “presidential candidates for Ukraine [and] President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... al-assault

by ti-amie

by ti-amie


by ti-amie


by ti-amie The US press will focus on the sex part of this story which is ugly but if she has tapes and emails this is not a good thing for Tiny.


by Owendonovan The idea of any kind of sexual anything with Rudy is repulsive.

by ponchi101 He is repulsive as a person. The lack of morality is truly off the scale.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ti-amie Laffy
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social
Womp womp

Via Wendy Siegelman:

Erik Prince indicted in Austria

Per Austrian media Kurier and ORF the public prosecutor's office in Wiener Neustadt filed a criminal complaint against Airborne Technologies GmbH and 5 people including Erik Prince for arming and exporting planes to Libya

by ti-amie Convicted entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes must report to prison by May 30
A federal appeals court denied the Theranos founder’s request to remain free as she appeals her conviction on wire fraud charges
By Rachel Lerman and Julian Mark
May 17, 2023 at 4:36 p.m. EDT

Elizabeth Holmes has been ordered to report to prison before the end of the month to begin serving her more than 11-year sentence after being convicted of wire fraud charges tied to her defunct blood-testing start-up, Theranos.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila ordered Holmes to report to prison no later than 2 p.m. on May 30. The order comes a day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit denied Holmes’s request to remain out of prison as she appeals her conviction.

The once-vaunted CEO’s reputation began to disintegrate more than six years ago when a media investigation revealed that Theranos — which purported to be able to run a multitude of tests from just a couple drops of blood — was using traditional lab machines from other companies to complete many of its tests. Former employees said the technology was inconsistent and not working nearly as well as Theranos advertised to doctors and investors.

Holmes went from being regarded as a young leader in Silicon Valley to the disgraced subject of a best-selling book, multiple podcasts, an HBO documentary and a Hulu TV series.

Holmes, who started Theranos while she was still a student at Stanford, is appealing her fraud convictions, a process that could stretch for several months or years. She petitioned a judge to allow her to remain free while the appeal winds its way through the court system, but Davila, who heard her original case and sentenced her, denied the motion. In April, Holmes appealed Davila’s decision in a last-ditch attempt to stay out of prison, but Tuesday’s decision by the appeals court meant Holmes only delayed her reporting date by roughly a month.

Holmes’s former business partner, Sunny Balwani, was convicted in a separate but similar trial of 12 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. He was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison and started his incarceration on April 20 at a federal correctional institute in San Pedro, Calif.

After Theranos eventually shuttered in 2018, amid multiple regulatory and media investigations, Holmes kept a low profile until her months-long trial attracted widespread media and public attention in late 2021. The former CEO was convicted of misleading investors about the capabilities of the company. Theranos raised about $900 million from investors, including prominent technology leaders and U.S. political figures.

Its investors included Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, media executives Rupert Murdoch and the Cox family, and the family of former education secretary Betsy DeVos. Holmes also attracted prominent statesmen such as Henry Kissinger and Jim Mattis to her board of directors.

Mattis later testified at her trial, saying he would have had a different view of the company if he had known some limitations of the Theranos blood-testing device.

“It would have tempered my enthusiasm significantly,” he said in response to a prosecutor’s questions about the use of third-party devices.

Her story has become emblematic in some circles of apparent greed and a “growth at all costs” mind-set inside Silicon Valley. But members of the tech community have sought to distance themselves from Holmes and Theranos, which they often regard as an outlier.

Holmes has two young children, including one who was born before her trial and another born after her sentencing. Davila has previously recommended she serve her time at a federal prison camp in Bryan, Tex., about 100 miles outside of Houston.

In an April court document for her appeal, Holmes’s lawyers argue that her 135-month sentence is “excessive” and the result of errors in calculation during the federal sentencing.

“This Court should reverse the conviction or at a minimum remand for resentencing,” the document states.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... os-prison/

The headline should read "Convicted Conartist Elizabeth Holmes must report to prison by May 30"

by ponchi101 Txs for your last comment.

by skatingfan
ti-amie wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 10:57 pm The headline should read "Convicted Conartist Elizabeth Holmes must report to prison by May 30"
or 'Convicted Conartist Elizabeth Holmes allowed to report to prison by May 30'.

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 8:08 pm
They often forget that their ruling are for everyone, even the Avenetti's who they don't like and their rulings were never intended for.

by Owendonovan "Holmes has two young children, including one who was born before her trial and another born after her sentencing. Davila has previously recommended she serve her time at a federal prison camp in Bryan, Tex., about 100 miles outside of Houston."

I believe she had those children because she thought she had a better chance of not being convicted or serving actual jail time if she was pregnant during trial with a small child already there.
I'm a little cynical this cold May evening in the city.

by ponchi101 A little cynical? It was obvious she did that as you say.

by ti-amie U.S. Politics in Real Time
@uspolitics@mastodon.sdf.org
D.C. police lieutenant indicted for tipping off Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio about arrest

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... -rcna85247

#NBCNews #DCPoliceLieutenant #ProudBoyEnriqueTarrio #ArrestTipOff #JusticeDepartment #Indictment #Politics #News


https://mastodon.sdf.org/@uspolitics/110396674000683016

by ti-amie

by ti-amie It's already started. This was filed in, of all places, the Southern District of NY.

I had to delete a lot of the links but she provides them for every instance.

This circus was first flagged on Reddit. I can't add any more links here so that will be in the next post.

Kendra Albert
@kendraserra@dair-community.social
Are you just catching up on the bonkers story about the lawyer using ChatGPT for federal court filings? This is a thread for you.


Our dramatis personae - some lawyers in federal court, in a lawsuit over a personal injury on an airplane.
Bartholomew Banino (BB) represents the airline.

Peter LoDuca (PL) and Steven Schwartz (SS) represent the injured person.

Here's the docket (via @questauthority) https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63107

The case is in federal court, and they're arguing over whether it should be there or in state court. The airline has filed its motion to dismiss on Jan. 13. On Jan. 18, the plaintiff asks for more time to reply (#19). The judge gives it to them. (#20).

On March 1st, PL files that reply/opposition to the motion to dismiss.

It cites a bunch of cases in support of its argument! They seem quite convincing - there's some state courts holding that state courts can decide international airline accidents. (See pages 4 and 5). https://storage.courtlistener.com/reca

The defendants file their response. In it, there's a footnote where they flag that they can't find the cases that PL cited to, or they don't say what PL said they said. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63107

On April 11, the court orders PL to produce copies of the cases. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63 ... ianca-inc/ Likewise, on April 12, the judge asks for another case.

(This is not necessarily so unusual - some judges have local rules requiring litigants to attach unpublished cases to filings to save the court from having to go find them.)

PL asks for an extension. He's on vacation.

Now...this seems a little odd to me. People should be able to take breaks, but really, you need more than a week to produce a copy of cases and an affidavit?

The judge gives PL more time (and apparently rope to hang himself). We're now up to April and docket number 28.

On April 25, PL files a response. It's amazing.

First, he says, he's attached the copies of the cases that he previously cited. (We'll come back to that.)

Second, that he couldn't find one of the cases that was cited by the court in one of those opinions.

Third, that the opinions are excerpts - that the attachments "may not be inclusive of the entire opinions but only what is made available by online database."

It's notarized by Stephen Schwartz.

PL then attaches the "opinions."

First of all, this doesn't really look like a court opinion, formatting wise. There's no date.

And it's supposedly an 11th Circuit opinion. On page 2, it says "Before Jordan, Rosenbaum, and Higginbotham, *Circuit Judges."

One issue. Higginbotham isn't an 11th Circuit judge. There is a Patrick Higginbotham who is a federal judge. He served on the 5th Circuit, and took senior status before either of the two other judges (who are real) took office.

Now, weird stuff happens in the federal courts, so it's not totally out of the question that someone might sit by designation or something else funky is happening. But still, that's very strange!

(Call back to when I went on @alex and @emilymbender's Mystery AI Hype Theater and talked about how the types of errors that generative AI makes are different in kind from the type that humans make.)

But also, this case is basically perfect. Like tailor made for the fact pattern of PL's case! Amazing that there's circuit level precedent that lines up with the lawyer's argument so cleanly.

The other ones are also pretty weird. There's parts that are in quotes (page 7)? There's a Texas state court referring to an 11th Circuit ruling as if they had made it (page 5)?

So there's some stuff that should make a lawyer curious, in short.

On April 26, the day after the affidavit with he cases is filed, BB, the lawyer for the defendant, files a letter with questions. They literally can't find the cases anywhere else. The docket numbers don't line up. And the federal reporters (sort of like a DOI, for my non-lawyer readers) turn up a different case.

[NB: I did not intend this to be this long but whatever, we're all nerds here.]

On May 4th, the (expletive) really hits the fan. The judge issues an order to show cause why he shouldn't issue sanctions on PL for citing cases that don't exist and then swearing that the copies attached on April 25 are real. (Dkt #31)

This is one pissed off federal judge.

"Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations."

The judge called (or probably had his clerks call) the 11th Circuit and confirmed that the decision wasn't real. He also points out that the internal citations are also to "bogus" cases...

On May 4th, SS admits what happened (which you probably already figured out, even if you missed the header toot). It was ChatGPT. The declaration here is just too amazing not to provide you with it directly. https://storage.courtlistener.com/reca

It turns out it was SS, not PL, who prepared the filings. PL just filed them, and in his own declaration, pleads ignorance.

Editor's note: My dude, you did have reason to doubt the authenticity of the case law. These were weirdass print outs that don't look like real cases and if you had literally plugged any of them into Westlaw or Lexis, you wouldn't have found them.

The federal judge...is not mollified. (Nor should he be.) On May 26 (yesterday), he still orders the two lawyers to show cause why they, and their law firm, should not be sanctioned.

I suspect that a significant part of the ire is about the doubling down on the cases in the April 25 filing. If they had come clean then, I feel like the judge might be more lenient.

Oh, and remember how Steven Schwartz notarized the documents back at the end of April? Judge wants him to show cause as to why that wasn't fraudulent.

So first of all, PL basically lied in his affidavit, since SS was the one who produced the cases.

Also I'm no NY notary expert, but I bet you're not supposed to change the date on your stamp by hand.

Edited to add: that may not be
huge issue...

Anyway, hearing is set for June 8th. Popcorn will be a must. Thanks for reading!

by ti-amie Here's the original r/redditlaw post

Fake AI-Generated Citations in Federal Court (i.redd.it)

submitted 20 hours ago by Ectophylla_alba


by ponchi101 Ok. Let's see.
You are telling me that AI could actually REPLACE LAWYERS?
(Thoughts on changing my mind.... ;) )

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Sat May 27, 2023 7:55 pm Ok. Let's see.
You are telling me that AI could actually REPLACE LAWYERS?
(Thoughts on changing my mind.... ;) )
Right? :lol:

by ti-amie

by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: Tue Jun 06, 2023 11:41 pm
My husband sat next to him on flight from NYC to DC and said nothing. :bang:

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Iowa and NH GOP voters could not care less about E. Jean Carroll. We know how they think.

by ti-amie Airman Who Leaked Files Is Indicted on Charges of Mishandling Secrets
The airman, Jack Teixeira, 21, was arrested at his home in North Dighton, Mass., on April 13.

By Glenn Thrush
Reporting from Washington

June 15, 2023
Updated 6:32 p.m. ET

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who posted dozens of secret intelligence reports and other sensitive documents on a gaming server, on six counts of retaining and transmitting classified national defense information.

The filing of criminal charges against Airman Teixeira, 21, comes two months after F.B.I. agents arrested him at his home in North Dighton, Mass., on April 13.

Airman Teixeira has remained in federal custody after prosecutors presented evidence that he had a history of making violent and racist threats, had access to an arsenal of weapons and represented a risk of sharing sensitive information with foreign countries.

“The unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified information jeopardizes our nation’s security,” Joshua S. Levy, the acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, said in a statement. “Individuals granted access to classified materials have a fundamental duty to safeguard the information for the safety of the United States, our active service members, its citizens and its allies.”

“We are committed to ensuring that those entrusted with sensitive national security information adhere to the law,” he added.

Airman Teixeira’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before his arrest, Air Force officials caught Airman Teixeira taking notes and conducting deep-dive searches for classified material months before he was charged with leaking a vast trove of government secrets, but did not remove him from his job, according to previous filings in the case.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/15/us/p ... leaks.html

by ti-amie

by ti-amie From the ETTD files:




by ponchi101 I could cry!!
:rofl:

by ti-amie Hunter Biden expected to plead guilty to tax-related misdemeanor crimes as part of a plea agreement
The president's son was charged with two misdemeanor tax offenses and a felony firearm crime by a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware.

June 20, 2023, 9:27 AM EDT / Updated June 20, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT
By Sarah Fitzpatrick and Tom Winter
The Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware has reached a plea agreement with Hunter Biden, in which he is expected to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes. Biden also faces a separate felony gun possession charge that will likely be dismissed if he meets certain conditions, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.

Two sources familiar with the agreement told NBC News that it includes a provision in which the U.S. attorney has agreed to recommend probation for Biden for his tax violations. Legal experts also said that the tax and gun charges will most likely not result in any jail time for President Joe Biden’s son.

It’s the first time the Justice Department — part of the executive branch, headed by the president — has brought charges against a child of a sitting president.

The decision by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018, indicates an end to the sweeping, five-year investigation by federal prosecutors, FBI agents and IRS officials into Hunter Biden’s conduct. The Biden administration has kept Weiss in place in order to avoid having a U.S. attorney appointed by the president oversee his son’s criminal case.

Weiss's office said in a statement, "Hunter Biden received taxable income in excess of $1,500,000 annually in calendar years 2017 and 2018. Despite owing in excess of $100,000 in federal income taxes each year, he did not pay the income tax due for either year." Regarding the gun charge, the statement said, "from on or about October 12, 2018 through October 23, 2018, Hunter Biden possessed a firearm despite knowing he was an unlawful user of and addicted to a controlled substance." Weiss's office also said that its investigation of Biden is ongoing.

Chris Clark, attorney for Hunter Biden, told NBC News in a statement: “With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the Unites States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved."

"Hunter will take responsibility for two instances of misdemeanor failure to file tax payments when due pursuant to a plea agreement. A firearm charge, which will be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement and will not be the subject of the plea agreement, will also be filed by the Government. I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”

A White House spokesperson said, “The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment.”

Former President Donald Trump, who faces criminal charges for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, criticized the agreement in a post on his website Truth Social.

“The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN,” Trump wrote.


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-bi ... -rcna90144

by ti-amie Aggregation via @threadreaderapp

Palmer Report
@PalmerReport

Why are Fox News personalities ranging from Bret Baier to Brit Hume all torching Donald Trump today? Why is Fox allowing him to? Because Trump is finished, and even Fox’s audience is starting to figure it out, and Fox has to keep pace with that in order to keep its audience.

As always, you don’t need to give anyone at Fox News any credit for finally torching Donald Trump. Fox isn’t doing it for the right reason. But this kind of thing is a reliable harbinger of how public opinion is shifting, even when it comes to the other side.

Fox News does not exist to help Republicans get elected. Fox News is a for-profit corporation that exists to drive revenue and ratings. Its right wing approach is just a means to an end for driving ratings. Its goal is to make money, not to help its “side” win elections.

Trump is ten days into a DOJ Espionage Act indictment and he’s maybe twenty days from another DOJ indictment for January 6th, and maybe forty days from a Fulton County RICO indictment. He’ll have four criminal trials well before the election. Four!

Even right wingers are about to start putting it together that he’s simply not going to be politically viable. And because he can’t even provide an answer on why he kept the classified documents, he’s making it so much harder for right wingers to keep the faith with him.

And so even as Fox News viewers are increasingly scratching their heads and wondering “why didn’t the idiot just return the boxes,” Fox News has to match that same tone in order to keep its viewers staring at the screen all day.


After all, (approximately) eleven billion other Republicans have all jumped in the 2024 presidential race, because they know Trump is toast, and half of them are now bashing Trump for not returning the boxes. Fox News knows its audience is hearing that.

So Fox News is just doing what all soulless for-profit mega corporations do whenever they see their target market shifting in a certain direction: they match their target market’s tone so that they can retain that market.

Remember, this is never about whether anyone at Fox News is has “grown a spine” or “deserves credit” or “is still bad.” Who cares? What matters is that Fox’s sudden anti-Trump shift is a *very clear* indicator that right wing audiences are also shifting away from Trump.

Nor does it matter that some Fox News personalities like Hannity will try to hang in there with Trump a bit longer than the rest of the network. Again, who cares? This isn’t about who at Fox is “good” or “bad.” It’s about Trump falling so far that even Fox is now tiptoeing away.

If you only follow politics so you can feel outrage, you’ll be so desperate to spin this into “but Fox is still bad” so you can keep feeling outrage toward Fox, you’ll miss the entire point, which is that Trump is toast.

Of course the outrage addicts on our side don’t want to hear that Trump is toast either, because they’re afraid that when he goes down, they won’t be able to feel as much outrage toward him going forward. And their only reason for living is to get to feel outrage.


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1670 ... 79684.html

by ti-amie If AG Fani Willis in Georgia goes for RICO...

I mean even MAGAt's understand what espionage means, and almost everyone has a rudimentary knowledge of what RICO means.

by ponchi101 I'll believe he is toast when he is dressed in orange, INSIDE THE PRISON.
Not before.

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ponchi101 Sure.
How long could this guy stand prison? Until lunch?

by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:58 am Sure.
How long could this guy stand prison? Until lunch?
What time do they usually shower?

by ponchi101 :rofl:

by ti-amie Interesting case aggregated by @threadreaderapp

All images are at the link below

Jose Pagliery
@Jose_Pagliery
1h • 33 tweets • 6 min read

At this very moment, a federal judge in Missouri is sentencing a former FBI intelligence analyst for taking home 20 classified documents.

A prosecutor on this case is now on Special Counsel Jack Smith's team targeting former President Trump.
Kendra Kingsbury worked at the FBI's Kansas City field office, where she worked on different squads: drug trafficking, violent crime, violent gangs, and counterintelligence.

At 48 last year, she got indicted on two counts.

There are some parallels to the Trump case.
Feds say Kingsbury took national security info about al Qaeda in Africa (including an apparent Osama bin Laden associate) & activities of terrorists in related groups.

FBI employee in court just now says agents found stuff in her home office, next to a bathroom.

Sound familiar?
Here's some of what FBI agents say they found in Kingsbury's possession. They also found cracked CDs in a trash can. Some 386 classified docs.

This list, by the way, is nowhere near as long as the ones the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago.

In four searches, FBI agents found 20,000 "sensitive" digital and paper docs taken by Kingsbury, most of which were not classified. They were "for official use only" or
"law enforcement sensitive."

She *voluntarily* disclosed this but was dismissed. Kept her security clearance.
I'm tuning in now to the sentencing, which is being held before Judge Stephen R. Bough at the Kansas City federal courthouse.

An FBI employee is describing what Kingsbury did.
Kingsbury worked in counterintel from Sept. 2013-fall 2017.

She faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Here's the indictment: justice.gov/media/1151321/…
At some point, she turned in her personal computer & asked them to destroy it. Govt employee punched a hole through it.

Feds later wished they'd searched it.

"We don't know what's on that computer... there'd be reason to suspect there could be additional docs on that computer."
Kingsbury later said she "may have" had a Top Secret doc at home. Soaked it in water, tore it up, flushed it down the drain.

FBI says that's *not* how it's supposed to be done.

Hmm. Where have I heard this before?

FBI thought she might be in contact with "case subjects" & found it odd that she took these docs home.

Feds cite how she asked a coworker to wipe another laptop after it started acting "wonky" after she ran into a "Russian national" at Disneyland.
While investigating her, the FBI grabbed her phone records & found she communicated with 7 suspects, including counterterror targets.

"It was very concerning to us," agent says now in court.

That's where it departs from the Trump case. Feds are hinting at a sinister plot here.
After talking to a "counterterrorism subject" being investigated by another field office, she searched for that person in a "secure FBI database" even though she was never assigned to that case.
FBI: When questioned, she lied about it. Claimed that she occasionally did research that crossed over into work being done by other squads.

"It would only take a second or two tell this counterterrorism subject they're under investigation.... could jeopardize the entire case."
But FBI agent testifying in court right now says they never figured out why she was in contact with these people.

He makes clear that the evidence is damning and the activity was potentially damaging.
Keep in mind, this ex-FBI employee is being charged solely with two counts of 18 USC. § 793(e), Willful Retention of National Defense Information.

By contrast, Trump is facing 31 counts of this same crime.

Remember that when the judge announces her sentence shortly.


Kingsbury's publicly-funded federal defender notes that she voluntarily disclosed her classified records collection, permitted 4 searches, & kept updating the feds as she found more docs.

(Remember, Trump refused to work with NARA, hid docs from DOJ & lied to his own attorney)
Prosecutors are recommending imprisoning her for 57 months--just shy of 5 years.

They cite "the gravity of the situation," because she "kept them in an insecure space in her home."

"Anyone who was in her home could have stumbled upon those documents."
May I turn your attention to the former president's bathroom:

Prosecutors: "The question that remains is, what was the defendant doing?"

"We will never know if the information ... was used against the interests of the United States."
Meanwhile, Kingbury's defense lawyer reiterates that she "opened up her home" and "opened herself up to an investigation."

"She essentially turned herself in," Marc Ermine says.
Judge Bough is frustrated that he's hearing two totally different stories:

• a rogue FBI analyst stealing documents and chatting with the wrong people

vs

• a govt employee who sought the bureau's help when she thought Russians were hacking her & hoped to get back to work
What's glaring in this hearing is what's missing: any description of what was in these classified records marked [SECRET].

The average American would care about how damning or serious this info is.

Given the secrecy involved, we just won't know.
Judge asks why in the world she did it.

"Ms. Kingsbury was extremely dedicated to the work she was doing at the FBI... experienced adversities in the workplace... stress from trying to keep up with her work... she's at fault for taking her work home with her," Ermine says.
Her lawyer portrays it this way: The feds simply indicted her, then asked for a believable story as to why she took them home. She doesn't have one, just "the truth."

He asks for the judge to simply sentence her to probation.
Kingsbury is speaking now, through tears:

"I went into this profession to help others and make a difference in the world. I was not prepared for how unhealthy it made me."

She cites "reprehensible culture" at the FBI and "failed leadership."
She says her work at the FBI took a toll on her health and her marriage. Notes she tried to seek whistleblower protection (for an undisclosed issue.)

"The people deserve more from the desks inside the walls at the government... people failing people."
She says she's been harmed by witnessing crimes against children, counterintelligence, & seen things no one should ever see.

".. they've branded me a traitor and vilified my character. I self disclosed to them what I discovered in my basement... I am guilty of being too honest."
The judge is speaking now.

"Ma'am what you're guilty of is what you pled guilty to, and that's 2 different counts of willful retention of national defense information."
Judge says he reviewed the classified documents to see if the government got a little too giddy with the SECRET stamp.

"No... it was all information that is designed to protect our country from terrorism."
"I cannot fathom why you would jeopardize our nation by leaving these documents in your bathtub," judge says.

Something tells me we're going to quote this guy a year from now in the Southern District of Florida.
"You were a really good person at your job," judge says, noting what appears to be her role at a Harley-Davidson shop.

"You shoulda just quit the FBI if you were under that level of stress. You shoulda quit & walked away & never taken any of these secret documents."
"You're never going to be within 100 yards of a SECRET document again," judge says.

Judge Bough just sentenced her to 46 months in prison, just shy of 4 years behind bars.

That's far less than the max term of 10 years, but it's close to what the feds requested here.

And there you have it. The likely first sentencing under 793(e) since Trump was indicted.


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1671 ... 1687378688

by ponchi101 What's with people taking documents home? What for?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie BluePeony :bow_blue:
@pivoinebleue@mstdn.social
Oh.

Hunter Biden attorney says WhatsApp message cited by Republicans is fake

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/hunter-bid ... jmHsg&s=09

>An attorney for Hunter Biden says purported screenshots of a text message from Hunter Biden to a potential Chinese business partner where he refers to Joe Biden — a message that has been the subject of intense scrutiny following statements made by an IRS whistleblower — are “not real and contain myriad of issues.”

by ti-amie The bought and paid for SCOTUS handed down two rulings that based on facts and/or legal precedent that were wholly made up. Why should this situation be any different?

by ti-amie

by ti-amie
In July, Bankman-Fried shared private diary entries of Caroline Ellison, his former romantic partner and the CEO of FTX’s trading arm, with a reporter from the New York Times at his parent’s home in California
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... -ftx-bail/

by ti-amie

by skatingfan Took me a moment to understand the use of the word 'sacked' in this article.

by ponchi101 Personally, super over rated as a player.
If you throw 1 million passes, sure you are going to get a lot of TD's. And a whole lot of INTS, which was his case.
And I hope he was sacked (in this case), fumbled the ball and it was returned for a DEF TD.

by ti-amie If he thought they'd send him to some country club jail to golf and tennis all day he's now got his rude awakening.


by Owendonovan Womp Womp wah.

by ponchi101 When will we see a similar tweet about another, far more important, criminal that is playing golf right now?

by ti-amie That other criminal is busy trying to bait Judge Chutkan to respond to his attacks on her so that he can have his "lawyers" try and move the trial to West Virginia (no lie). Can't have all of those people in DC sitting in judgement of him dont'cha know. ;)

The judge in the NYC case told him to pound sand. He was trying to get him removed because he donated $35.00 to the Democrats and the firm his daughter works for did PR work for the Dems at some point.


by ti-amie


by ponchi101 These people are such a pain. You are IN PRISON; you don't get to choose the menu.

by Owendonovan Peter Navarro Convicted of Contempt of Congress Over Jan. 6 Subpoena
The verdict made Mr. Navarro the second top adviser to former President Donald J. Trump to be found guilty of contempt for defying the House committee’s investigation.

Zach Montague
By Zach Montague
Reporting from Washington

Sept. 7, 2023
Updated 6:37 p.m. ET
Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser to President Donald J. Trump, was convicted on Thursday of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The verdict, coming after nearly four hours of deliberation in Federal District Court in Washington, made Mr. Navarro the second top adviser of Mr. Trump’s to be found guilty in connection to the committee’s inquiry. Stephen K. Bannon, a former strategist for Mr. Trump who was convicted of the same offense last summer, faces four months in prison and remains free on appeal.

Mr. Navarro, 74, stood to the side of his lawyers’ table, stroking his chin as the verdict was read aloud. Each count carries a maximum of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. A hearing to determine his sentence was scheduled for January.

Speaking outside the courthouse afterward, Mr. Navarro repeatedly vowed to appeal his conviction.

“I am willing to go to prison to settle this issue, I’m willing to do that,” he said. “But I also know that the likelihood of me going to prison is relatively small because we are right on this issue.”

The jury’s decision handed a victory to the House committee, which had sought to penalize senior members of the Trump administration who refused to cooperate with one of the chief investigations into the Capitol riot.

The trial also amounted to an unusual test of congressional authority. Since the 1970s, referrals for criminal contempt of Congress have rarely resulted in the Justice Department’s bringing charges. Mr. Navarro was indicted last June on two misdemeanor counts of contempt, one for failing to appear for a deposition and another for refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena.

The rapid pace of the trial reflected, in part, the fact that the case turned on a straightforward question, whether Mr. Navarro had willfully defied lawmakers in flouting a subpoena. Even before the trial began, Judge Amit P. Mehta, who presided over the case, dealt a blow to Mr. Navarro by ruling that he could not use in court what he has publicly cast as his principal defense: that Mr. Trump personally directed him not to cooperate and that he was protected by those claims of executive privilege.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/us/p ... -jury.html

by ti-amie More criming by "George Santos"

New charges for Santos: stealing donor IDs, unauthorized credit card use
Rep. George Santos now faces 23 counts, according to a superseding indictment made public on Tuesday

By Anumita Kaur
October 10, 2023 at 6:48 p.m. EDT

A superseding indictment made public Tuesday charges Rep. George Santos with stealing the identities of family members and using donors’ credit cards to spend thousands of dollars, five months after the freshman congressman was charged with a host of other financial crimes.

Santos, 35, faces 10 additional charges, according to the indictment: one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission, two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the Federal Election Commission, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud.

In May, Santos was charged with 13 counts related to allegedly defrauding his donors, using their money for his personal benefit and wrongfully claiming unemployment benefits. Those charges included seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives. He pleaded not guilty.

“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement Tuesday. “This office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions.”

Santos, who is expected to appear in federal court on the additional charges on Oct. 27, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... donor-ids/

by patrick However, no one in House will evict Santos especially with no speaker

by ti-amie
patrick wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 11:19 pm However, no one in House will evict Santos especially with no speaker
That doesn't even matter to them. Imagine if a Democratic Representative had been caught vaping and performing a sex act in a theater. The press and the GQP would've hounded her out of Congress. Santos criming is like you said something they will say "we can't do anything because no Speaker" just like the anecdote about the person who murdered their parents and asked for mercy because they're an orphan.

by Owendonovan
patrick wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 11:19 pm However, no one in House will evict Santos especially with no speaker
Here's the slimmest of chances. I'd like to congratulate these republicans, but they just did the bare minimum, a year late.


Santos Faces New Expulsion Push by Onetime Allies: N.Y. Republicans
Six G.O.P. freshmen from New York said they would move to oust Representative George Santos amid new charges. But any vote faces a daunting threshold.
A clutch of Republican House members from New York began pushing on Wednesday to expel one of their own, Representative George Santos, amid mounting federal charges that he defrauded donors and lied about his campaign finances.

The group of six New York freshmen announced plans to swiftly introduce an expulsion resolution to try to capitalize on a spate of new charges against Mr. Santos and a vacuum in House Republican leadership, hoping to whip up enough support to rid themselves and their party of a major political liability ahead of next year’s elections.

“We feel that enough’s enough,” said Representative Anthony D’Esposito, one of the most vulnerable Republican freshman, who represents an adjoining New York district to Mr. Santos’s. “He’s a stain on the institution.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/nyre ... icans.html

by patrick Agreed about the year too late as the replacement will not have much time to serve about time if he is let go,

by ti-amie They get a chance to replace him with a MAGAt for the rest of his term. They don't do anything for the "right" reasons.

by Owendonovan I will blindly hope "once bitten, twice shy" enters voters minds.

by dryrunguy Indictments. The latest in Republican Resume Building...

by ti-amie Image

by ti-amie I was in serious danger,' Paul Pelosi tells trial

By Bernd Debusmann Jr & Matt Murphy
BBC News, Washington
Paul Pelosi, husband of former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has testified against a man accused of attacking him in his San Francisco home last year.

The alleged assailant, David DePape, faces two charges including attempted kidnapping of a federal official. He has pleaded not guilty.

Mr DePape was motivated by conspiracies about Mrs Pelosi, his lawyer has said.

Mr Pelosi said Mr DePape had been looking for his wife, whom he said he "had to take out" during the attack.

"He said, she was the leader of the pack, he had to take her out, he was going to wait for her," Mr Pelosi told the court. "He was going to tie me up and wait for her."

The 83-year-old also recalled waking up to find Mr DePape "standing in the doorway".

"It was a tremendous shock, looking at him, looking at the hammer and the ties," he added. "I recognised I was in serious danger. I tried to stay as calm as possible."

Mr DePape is facing up to 20 years in prison for the attempted kidnapping charge, as well as an additional 30 years for assault on a federal official's family member.

After the incident, Mr Pelosi spent six days in hospital. In addition to a fractured skull, he also suffered injuries to his arm and hand.

According to court documents, Mr DePape broke into the Pelosi home with a hammer on 28 October last year. Once inside, he asked for Mrs Pelosi, who was not home at the time.

Officers responding to a 911 call from Mr Pelosi found both men gripping a hammer.

When asked to drop the weapon, Mr DePape abruptly swung the hammer at Mr Pelosi before being subdued by officers. The entire encounter was caught on body camera footage played in court on Monday.

Mr Pelosi told the court that he had attempted to put the incident out of his mind ever since.

"I have not discussed this incident with anybody. And I have encouraged my family not to either," he said. "I have tried to put it out of my mind. It wasn't until [the prosecutor's] meeting with you and your associates that I talked about this. I've made the best effort that I possibly can to not relive this."

Earlier on Monday, jurors heard from several police officers who saw footage of the incident or collected the electronics Mr DePape was carrying. One of the witnesses, an FBI special agent, testified that the footage showed Mr DePape striking Mr Pelosi three times.

In court last week, Mr DePape's public defender, Jodi Linker, told jurors that his client believed conspiracy theories with "every ounce of his being" but had not been motivated by Mrs Pelosi's political status.

Prosecutors, however, have alleged that Mr DePape was looking for Mrs Pelosi as part of a "plan of violence". When he was arrested, he had zip ties and duct tape in his possession.

Following the incident, Mr DePape allegedly told investigators that he had a "target list" and planned to hold Mrs Pelosi captive and break "her kneecaps" if she did not reveal "the truth". He referred to her as the "leader of the pack of lies".

Mr DePape is also facing separate state charges stemming from the incident, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and residential burglary.

He could face life in prison if convicted of the more serious charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67408955

Bodycam footage at the link if you want.

by ti-amie Roger Parloff
@rparloff
JUST IN: Colo state judge finds Trump ENGAGED IN INSURRECTION but WAS NOT an “officer of the United States” within meaning of § 3 of 14th Amendment. Thus, DENIES effort to keep him off ballot.

Image


by ti-amie Ryan Goodman
@rgoodlaw
·
6m
Wow on this part of the Colorado court ruling:

"The Court finds that Petitioners have established that Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech."

https://courts.state.co.us/userfiles/fi ... 0Order.pdf

Image

by ti-amie Mueller, She Wrote
@MuellerSheWrote
·
1m
BREAKING: My preliminary reading is that the Colorado court found that Trump DID incite the insurrection, but that the president as an officer of the United States under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, so he will be on the ballot.

Image

Image

by ti-amie GOP operative found guilty of funneling Russian money to Donald Trump

By Rachel Weiner
November 17, 2022 at 4:01 p.m. EST

Image
Jesse Benton at a federal courthouse in Des Moines in 2016. (David Pitt/AP)

A Republican political strategist was convicted of illegally helping a Russian businessman contribute to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Jesse Benton, 44, was pardoned by Trump in 2020 for a different campaign finance crime, months before he was indicted again on six counts related to facilitating an illegal foreign campaign donation. He was found guilty Thursday on all six counts.

Elections “reflect the values and the priorities and the beliefs of American citizens,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Parikh said in her closing argument this week. “Jesse Benton by his actions did damage to those principles.”

The evidence at trial showed that Benton bought a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee (RNC) event on behalf of Roman Vasilenko, a Russian naval officer turned multilevel marketer. (Vasilenko is under investigation in Russia for allegedly running a pyramid scheme, according to the Kommersant newspaper; he could not be reached for comment.) The donation got Vasilenko a picture with Trump and entrance to a “business roundtable” with the future president.

Vasilenko connected with Benton through Doug Wead, an evangelical ally of the Bush family who was also involved in multilevel marketing. Vasilenko sent $100,000 to Benton, who was working for a pro-Trump super PAC at the time, supposedly for consulting services. Benton subsequently donated $25,000 to the RNC by credit card to cover the ticket.

Witnesses from the RNC and the firm hired to organize the event said they weren’t told Vasilenko was a Russian citizen. Benton said in an email to his RNC contact that Vasilenko was “a friend who spends most of his time in the Caribbean”; he described Vasilenko’s interpreter as “a body gal.” In fact, according to the testimony, Benton and Vasilenko had never met.

Benton argued that he followed the advice of his previous counsel, David A. Warrington, who has also represented Trump. Warrington testified that Benton contacted him at the time to ask if he could give a ticket to a political fundraiser to a Russian citizen. Warrington said he told Benton “there is no prohibition on a Russian citizen receiving a ticket to an event” and that “you can give your ticket that you purchased to a fundraiser to anybody.”

Prosecutors said Benton failed to tell Warrington that he was getting reimbursed by the Russian citizen for the donation. Benton asked for the advice only “to cover his tracks,” Parikh said.

Benton also claimed that he earned the $100,000 acting as a tour guide in Washington for Vasilenko, whose interest was not politics but self-promotion.

Wead — who died at age 75 last December after he was indicted with Benton — had previously discussed with Vasilenko the possibility of a photograph with Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama or Steven Seagal before suggesting Trump.

“If Oprah was available,” defense attorney Brian Stolarz said in his closing argument, “we wouldn’t even be here.”

Vasilenko posted the photograph of himself with Trump on Instagram with a banner that said “Two Presidents” and advertised his own company. He said Benton “delivered on what he was asked to do,” which was “get him in a picture with a celebrity” so Vasilenko “could brag on Instagram.” To Vasilenko, he said, Trump was not a politician but “the guy who used to be on ‘The Apprentice.’ ” At the roundtable, he said Trump appeared only briefly and “just talked about polls.”

Stolarz emphasized that there was no evidence Vasilenko ever engaged with Trump outside the single event, and no evidence the RNC ever returned the donation. Witnesses from the RNC said they were in the dark about the origin of the funds.

“He wants to be an influencer,” Stolarz said. “This is just shameless self-promotion from a guy who can afford to take this picture.”

But prosecutors said that once it was offered, Vasilenko saw the value of an introduction to Trump. He was running for parliament in Russia at the time, according to the Justice Department, and after Trump’s election was invited on Russian television.

“He’s sophisticated,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Wasserman told jurors. “He got access to someone he helped elect.”

Benton’s defense downplayed the $25,000 as “nothing” in an election that cost billions.

“This is not some nefarious backroom scheme to funnel millions of dollars from Russia,” he said.

Prosecutors argued that every dollar counted in a race where Democrat Hillary Clinton was far ahead in fundraising, and that Benton knew Trump needed money at the time.

Stolarz said Benton was also paid to organize a charity dinner Vasilenko attended on his U.S. trip, which prosecutors dismissed as a cheap meal at a chain restaurant.

“They may try to downplay it, but Maggiano’s is good,” Stolarz said.

Benton began his career on the GOP’s libertarian fringe as an aide to former congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.), whose granddaughter is Benton’s wife. He gained mainstream credibility helping Paul’s son, Rand Paul (R-Ky.), win a Senate seat in 2010 and was hired by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) 2014 reelection campaign.

But Benton resigned before that election amid an investigation into whether an Iowa state senator was bribed to support Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential race. Benton was convicted in May 2016 of conspiracy and involvement in filing of false campaign finance reports — not long before the new scheme began.

“He knew the law,” Wasserman said. “He knew the rules.”

After the verdict, Stolarz said Benton “maintains his innocence and plans to appeal.”

Robyn Dixon contributed to this report.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va ... ko-guilty/

by ti-amie This could go under "World News" as well. 40 years this man was at it.
"Newly unsealed court papers allege that Manuel Rocha engaged in 'clandestine activity' on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives and providing false information to U.S. government officials."

1981!
Pete Strzok @petestrzok
I read through the complaint, and it's bad - very bad. 🧵

It's a 3 count complaint:
- 18 USC 371 (conspiracy to act as foreign agent/defraud the US)
- 18 USC 951 (acting as illegal agent of foreign govt
- 18 USC 1542 (use of passport obtained via false statement)

1/

This is a big big deal.

"ROCHA consistently referred to the [US] as 'the enemy,' and used the term 'we' to describe himself and Cuba. ROCHA additionally praised Fidel Castro as the 'Comandante'"

FBI used a false flag UC posing as a Cuban DGI officer.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... harges.pdf

Cuba has several intelligence and counterintelligence entities; the complaint identifies the Directorate of Intelligence/Dirección General de Inteligencia (commonly known as the DGI) as the entity Rocha allegedly worked for.

2/

Rocha worked for Dept of State from 1981-2002 - the entire time also allegedly working for the DGI.

He was the NSC Director of Inter-American Affairs (the FBI even traveled down to Santo Domingo to update his clearance), later at the US Interests Section in Havana.

3/

The complaint is vague as to when the FBI became aware of Rocha - "Prior to Nov 2022, FBI received information that Rocha was a covert agent of the DGI" - but on Nov 15, an FBI undercover employee contacted him on WhatsApp pretending to be a DGI representative.

4/

The UC established his bona fides with Rocha in part by noting "I know that you have been a great friend of ours since your time in Chile," with a footnote explaining Rocha lived in Chile in 1973 - 8 years before he joined State and the beginning of the alleged activity.

5/

The complaint doesn't say what happened in Chile in 1973, or what the FBI knows about it - but it set Rocha's mind at ease about the UC being DGI, or at least needing to play along in case the DGI had a mole:

"They must have told you something because you mentioned Chile"

6/

Rocha had 3 mtgs with the UC, conducting surveillance detection routes (SDRs) going to mtgs w/ the UC and telling the UC about his tradecraft training, including "I have always...received sufficient training to know that you must be on the alert to - to provocations."

Oops.

7/

Rocha helpfully notes his last contact with DGI was in 2016 or 2017 in Havana, and that he entered Cuba using a Dominican rather than US passport.

8/

And proceeds to lay out his various views about the ongoing Cuban revolution and glorious aspects of the socialist workers paradise.

9/
Rocha told the UC that “since the Dirección asked me…to lead a normal life…I have - have created the legend of a right-wing person.”

Good thing no intel service would ever think of using that legend to get someone onto the Mar-a-Lago grounds. 😒

10/

In perhaps the most chilling part of the complaint, Rocha notes,

“They [the US] underestimated what we could do to them. We did more than they thought…What we have done…it’s enormous…More than a grand slam.”


11/

Image

The complaint raises several troubling questions:

- did the DGI direct Rocha to join the State Department? It certainly appears so: “I knew exactly how to do it and obviously the Dirección accompanied me”

12/
Image

- did Rocha pass classified to the DGI? The complaint doesn’t allege it, but given the depth of his devotion to Cuba, and the span of his access - he had “special responsibility” for Cuba while on the NSC, and later advised the Southcom Cdr - the USIC has to assume he did. :roll:

13/
- why did it take so long to discover Rocha, and what does that say about the reliability of other past and current sources? Great Cuban compartmentation, but this also wouldn’t be the first time Cuba played a variety of double agents against the US.

https://washingtonpost.com/archive/poli ... 7a6d0c407/

14/
I doubt we’ll ever know the extent of the damage caused by Rocha.

But it sure looks like Cuba planted an applicant into the State Department, nurtured him into the NSC, and eventually had a US Ambassador as an agent.

And ran him and kept it quiet for more than 40 years.

15/end

Image

by ti-amie I had to delete some of the links due to our limit. In case you don't know who Peter Strzok is. Reading between the lines tells you what you need to know about him. ;)
Pete Strzok
@petestrzok
26 year FBI and Army veteran. Georgetown School of Foreign Service adjunct professor and alum. NYT/WP bestseller: Compromised

by ti-amie Former FBI official in N.Y. sentenced to more than four years in prison

By Shayna Jacobs
December 14, 2023 at 4:19 p.m. EST

NEW YORK — Former FBI official Charles McGonigal, who served as chief of counterintelligence in the bureau’s New York City office, on Thursday was sentenced to more than four years in prison for his illicit work for a Russian oligarch.

U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer Rearden said McGonigal’s actions put the country in jeopardy of terrible consequences. In addition to the 50-month prison sentence, which McGonigal is to begin serving Feb. 26, the judge fined McGonigal $40,000.

McGonigal’s involvement with the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska took place over several months in 2021, three years after his 2018 retirement from the FBI, according to prosecutors.

In an August statement, McGonigal told the court he knew his investigative work benefited Deripaska and was illegal because he was being paid with money that originated in Cyprus and was filtered through local shell companies. He also participated in a plan to try to get Deripaska removed from the U.S. sanctions list, a status that prevents Deripaska from doing business with U.S. banks and entities.

McGonigal’s employment in 2019 by a law firm trying to reverse Deripaska’s sanctions was considered legal under U.S. law but subsequent assignments on behalf of Deripaska were not, which McGonigal admitted in court.

“If nations such as Russia can avoid and influence these sanctions through conduct like [McGonigal’s] than the sanctions would be ineffective, increasing the chance of war,” Rearden said Thursday before handing down the sentence.

McGonigal, when given a chance to speak, fought to keep his composure and expressed remorse for his conduct.

“I recognize more than ever that I betrayed the confidence and trust of those close to me,” he said. “For the rest of my life I will be fighting to regain that trust and becoming a better person.”

His lawyers sought a sentence that would not include serving time in prison, citing years of public service for the United States. McGonigal was part of the cleanup effort at Ground Zero after Sept. 11 and he helped to prevent a terrorist attack on a New York City subway, they said.

Manhattan Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten said in court that McGonigal was driven by greed, using his position, before the end of his FBI career to make international contacts who could set him up for lucrative work upon his retirement from the bureau.

“He was not content to serve only the country that trusted him with one of the most important counter-espionage jobs,” Scotten argued.

In August, McGonigal pleaded guilty to conspiring to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and money laundering. The laundering count relates to his efforts in 2021 to remove Deripaska from the U.S. sanctions list.

He was charged separately in Washington, where he was accused of hiding $225,000 that he received from a former Albanian intelligence agent. He also pleaded guilty in that case and is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 16.

McGonigal’s federal indictments in January surprised the law enforcement and intelligence communities. He was highly-regarded in his career and rose in the ranks to a revered leadership role in New York’s FBI field office. Because of his ties to that office, FBI agents from other cities handled the investigation of his suspected wrongdoing.

McGonigal worked at the FBI in New York for 22 years. His responsibilities through the years included heading the counterintelligence division tasked with investigating foreign spies.

Deripaska, a known ally to Russian president Vladimir Putin, is under federal indictment in New York for sanctions evasion and obstruction of justice. He has been on the sanctions list since April 2018 but his indictment in Sept. 2022 was part of an effort by the U.S. government to curtail the economic pursuits of wealthy Putin associates.

Deripaska has not been apprehended.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... al-russia/

by ti-amie Giuliani’s words used against him in election worker defamation trial
By Rachel Weiner, Tom Jackman and Spencer S. Hsu
Updated December 14, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. EST|Published December 14, 2023 at 10:40 a.m. EST

Rudy Giuliani repeatedly promised that he would use his defamation trial to explain why he falsely claimed two Georgia poll workers helped steal the 2020 election. Instead, he was silent in court. But jurors still heard the words of the former personal attorney for Donald Trump, dating back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and extending to as recently as this week.

“Never pick on someone smaller than you. Never be a bully,” said Michael Gottlieb, an attorney for the plaintiffs who quoted from a memoir the former New York mayor wrote after the World Trade Center attacks. It’s a lesson Giuliani said he learned from his father.

“Those are wise words,” Gottlieb said. “If only Mr. Giuliani had listened.”

Instead, Gottlieb said, Giuliani continued to lie about Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, mother and daughter election workers who testified that they were inundated with vicious threats and racist insults after he falsely accused them of helping fake the Georgia election results to the detriment of Republican incumbent Trump.

Gottlieb was giving a closing statement Thursday in the trial after Giuliani, who had repeatedly said he planned to testify in his defamation damages trial, declined to take the stand.

Outside court Monday, Giuliani told reporters that “everything I said about them is true.” He agreed before trial not to contest that his claims about the two women were false; Judge Beryl A. Howell found in August that his comments were defamatory. The jury is being asked only how much Giuliani owes Freeman and Moss for the avalanche of vitriol that derailed their lives. The pair are asking a federal jury in D.C. to award them up to $47 million in damages.

“Day after day, Mr. Giuliani reminds you who he is,” Gottlieb told the jury. He said Giuliani’s defense strategy was to convince jurors he was more important than the women he defamed: “Rich famous people have valuable reputations, and ordinary people are irrelevant, replaceable, worthless. Mr. Giuliani’s defense is his reputation, his comfort and his goals are more important than those of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. That is a fiction, and it ends today.”

Gottlieb said that when Giuliani wrote his memoir, the onetime U.S. attorney “appreciated that civil servants are by and large decent people who work to make our country better.” Now, Gottlieb said, Giuliani only cares about himself, continuing to profit off election lies with appearances on right-wing media.

In response, defense attorney Joseph D. Sibley IV said Giuliani did not take the stand out of respect for two women who “have been through enough.” He said that “of course” nothing untoward happened during the Georgia vote count. But Sibley argued that Giuliani shouldn’t have to pay a “catastrophic” amount of money to them because other figures were as or more responsible for disseminating the false claims. And he said no greater good would come from forcing Giuliani to pay a hefty penalty.

“People who believe this stuff are still going to believe it no matter what,” Sibley said. He argued that Giuliani was one of those people.

“Mr. Giuliani is a good man” he said, while conceding that “he hasn’t exactly helped himself with some of the things that happened in the past few days.”

Sibley added, “I have no doubt that Mr. Giuliani’s statements caused harm. No question about it.” But he said the true “Patient Zero” was the far-right website Gateway Pundit, which identified Freeman and Moss by name in the hours after Giuliani and Trump’s campaign disseminated deceptively edited video of the two women counting votes. Gateway Pundit also faces a defamation suit, and Gottlieb told jurors that the website and others who piled on were all taking cues from the Trump legal team led by Giuliani. Lawyers for publisher Jim Hoft have said in court filings that the site “fairly and accurately reported on the claims made by third parties, such as Trump’s legal team.”

“Rudy Giuliani could have stopped all of this,” Gottleib said. He called his clients “heroes” who stood up to a bully, adding, “Unlike some other people, they testified.”

Defendants very rarely risk testifying at trial. In Giuliani’s specific situation, he is already facing criminal indictment in a Georgia 2020 election case and identified as an uncharged “Co-Conspirator 1” in Trump’s federal election obstruction case, meaning he could have had to repeatedly assert his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in cross-examination.

The trial started Monday, and both women gave tearful testimony before the plaintiffs rested their case Wednesday night. Jurors began deliberating over lunch Thursday at about 1:30 p.m.

Earlier in the week, Freeman described her comfortable life as an independent business executive, in a house she’d lived in for 20 years, until Dec. 4, 2020, when nasty, racist messages began streaming in after Giuliani said she submitted thousands of false ballots for Joe Biden in the presidential election.

She went to a police station and handed her phone to a lieutenant, who answered some of the threatening calls. Then it got worse.

“They started coming to the house with bullhorns,” Freeman said. “Now you’re actually coming to the house? I was scared. I was scared because I didn’t know, now they’re coming to kill me. I was just scared.”

Freeman had to abandon her longtime home, and in subsequent months, she moved from place to place with her belongings in her car. She wept as she described feeling homeless.

Freeman said the false claims ruined her reputation and quashed her dreams of expanding her clothing boutique, “Ruby’s Unique Treasures.” She was wearing a “Lady Ruby” T-shirt while working as an election official in Atlanta on Nov. 3, 2020, which was how she was easily tracked down once Giuliani shared the video of her.

The threats came through voice mails, emails, text messages, Facebook Messenger and Instagram. “You are dead,” one person wrote. “Your family and you are now criminals and traitors to the union. BLM wants the cops to go away, good they are in the way of my ropes and your tree.”

She testified that she had hoped to open a brick-and-mortar store but can’t use her name or advertise anymore.

“I don’t have my name anymore,” Freeman said through tears. “That’s the only thing in life. The only thing you have is your name. My life is just messed up, all because of somebody putting me out there on blast, tweeting my name out.”

On Wednesday, a marketing professor at Northwestern University testified that a group of 16 defamatory online and media mentions of Freeman and Moss, beginning in December 2020, were seen about 35 million times. To repair the women’s reputations with a campaign across the same media platforms, with each message repeated five times for impact, would cost $47 million, Ashlee Humphreys testified.

Sibley argued in closing arguments that there was no way for Giuliani to anticipate that the reaction to his claims would be violent and racist. Gottleib disputed that in his rebuttal argument, the final words jurors heard before receiving instructions from Howell on how to render a verdict. “He called them drug dealers and criminals,” Gottleib reminded jurors. Giuliani repeatedly said the two women appeared to be passing around both USB sticks that could alter the election results and vials of drugs. Moss testified that the item her mother handed her during the vote count was a ginger mint.

The reaction to Giuliani’s words from Trump supporters “was foreseeable,” Gottleib said. “It was inevitable.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va ... n-workers/

by ti-amie Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
THE DECISION:

Defamation
Moss awarded: $16,998,000
Freeman awarded: $16,171,000

Emotional distress
Moss awarded: $20 million
Freeman awarded: $20 million

Punitive damages
Total: $75 million

GRAND TOTAL: Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to pay about $148 million in damages to Ruby FREEMAN and Shaye MOSS.

To the jury:

by ti-amie I didn't post the testimony of Ms Freeman and Ms Moss but if you get a chance read it. It's horrific and the abuse is ongoing.

I will always advocate doing jury duty no matter how onerous and disruptive to your life. Once you've done it you will understand why people like this don't want to face a real one.

I hope they find a good financial advisor so that even after taxes, wherever they choose to relocate, they can live in peace.

by ti-amie Laffy
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social
Wow.

#RudyGiuliani is still making baseless claims about 2020 election. STFU Rudy Colludey. You're toast.

Via Acyn:

Reporter: Do you still believe what you said about these two women was truthful?

Giuliani: I have no doubt that my comments were made and they were supportable & they are supportable today

Via Emptywheel:

This is really not the kind of speech you give after you YOURSELF default on discovery in a case before Beryl Howell.

YMMV, but holy hell she will not be happy about this.

2/ Via Kyle Cheney:

Rudy: “I don’t regret a damn thing.”

[Narrator: Oh you will, you will, just wait]

More:

GIULIANI says the judgment is “absurd.” He says he didn’t testify because he was afraid Howell would hold him in contempt and says he’s appealing.

He said it’s not his fault others threatened and harassed Freeman/Moss.

3/ Compare and contrast.

Via Acyn:

Moss: As we move forward, and continue to seek justice, our greatest wish is that no one, no election worker or voter or school board member or anyone else ever experiences anything like we went through. You all matter. You are all important.

+ "The lies Rudy Giuliani told about me and my mommy after the 2020 election have changed our lives. The past few years have been devastating."

4/ Freeman: Money will never solve all of my problems. I can never move back into the house that I called home.I miss my home. I miss my neighbors. And I miss my name.

by ti-amie Ga. poll worker describes harrowing threats in Giuliani defamation trial
Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss said her life has never been the same since Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump lawyer, falsely accused her of stealing the Georgia election on behalf of Democrats
By Spencer S. Hsu and Amy Gardner
Updated December 12, 2023 at 6:28 p.m. EST|Published December 12, 2023 at 11:21 a.m. EST

A former election worker in Fulton County, Ga., described in harrowing detail on Tuesday the way her life was turned upside down after Rudy Giuliani falsely accused her and her mother of stealing the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump while processing absentee ballots in Atlanta.

It began on Dec. 4, 2020, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss testified — the day after Giuliani, the former Trump lawyer and mayor of New York City, tweeted surveillance video from a ballot-counting operation in Atlanta and falsely accused “supervisors” of pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under a table after poll workers had gone home.

“That was the day that everything changed, everything in my life changed. … Everything just flipped upside down. … On that day, lies were spread about me and my mom … crazy lies,” Moss said at a federal courthouse in Washington.

Moss described being afraid as she walked three blocks to the parking lot that night, crying as she read messages, including one that called her a “dirty f---ing n----r b---h,” and scheduling a special trip to the salon to have her hair cut and dyed to change her appearance.

The impact was lasting, too, Moss, 39, said. She started to suffer panic attacks and eventually was diagnosed with acute stress disorder and major depressive disorder. She quit her $39,000-a-year position with the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections in April 2022, despite her love of a job that she compared to winning one of Willie Wonka’s golden tickets.

“I wanted to retire a county worker like my grandmother and make her proud and my mom proud. But I didn’t make it,” Moss said, verging on tears.

Moss’s testimony came during the second day of a damages trial against Giuliani, whom Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, sued for defamation in federal court in the District. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell issued a default judgment against Giuliani in August based on his admissions and failure to turn over evidence in the case. The jury’s task in this week’s trial is limited to establishing what damages Giuliani must pay. Moss and Freeman are seeking up to $47 million in damages.

Throughout Moss’s testimony, Giuliani sat motionless at the defense table, watching. He occasionally took notes with thick colored markers. Moss cried repeatedly and often hung her head as she spoke. She said that in addition to the emotional toll, the lasting impact of the whole experience has been disbelief that someone of Giuliani’s stature could so recklessly destroy her life.

“How can someone with so much power go public and talk about things that he obviously has no clue about?” Moss said. “It’s just obvious that it’s lies, and my reaction is that it’s hurtful, it’s untrue, and it’s unfair.”

The effects, she said, reverberated within her family. Her then-14-year-old son, who received racist texts and phone calls on a cellphone that used to belong to his mom, failed all his final exams that semester, she said. Her grandmother, with whom Moss lived at the time, received pizza deliveries from harassers that she was expected to pay for. One pizza was ordered for a person whose first and last name sounded like the racial epithet that sounds like the n-word. Texts, voice mails and emails accused her of treason and threatened to hang her.

“They kept telling me it was punishable by death and they could hang me and they could hang my mom. That was my concern,” Moss testified. “I was afraid for my life. I literally felt someone would be coming to hang me, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.”

Cross-examining Moss, Giuliani attorney Joseph D. Sibley IV attempted to ask about the vote-counting process on Election Day and whether outsiders or the public might have misinterpreted video or been excluded from observing the Atlanta counting site at State Farm Arena, where the women worked. But her attorneys objected, asserting that Sibley’s questioning sought to establish Giuliani’s statements could have been fair — something Howell said was inadmissible. Giuliani had already conceded liability for false statements.

Sibley suggested that people other than Giuliani were responsible for some of the harm suffered by the two workers. “Do you have any reason to believe Mr. Giuliani intended for people to act on his statements about you and your mother and make racist statements to you?” he asked. He later asked, “Do you have any evidence that Mr. Giuliani intended violent threats to you or your mom as a result of his statements?”

Moss replied that she believed Giuliani assumed and led others to think that because election workers were Black, they must be Democrats. “He doesn’t know who I vote for,” Moss said.

“He wanted people to search our home and arrest us. He didn’t say who should do that, so the world responded to him,” Moss continued. “Trump and his allies including Mr. Giuliani and his crew lit the torch, and they started it, and a whole lot of media spread their lies.”

Howell began the day with an admonishment for Giuliani for making comments that could have freshly defamed two Georgia state elections workers as he left the courthouse the previous day.

In a court filing late Monday, Freeman’s and Moss’s lawyers asked Howell to step in after Giuliani, who wants to testify at some point, repeated to reporters outside the federal courthouse the debunked allegations that the women tampered with the 2020 vote counting process.

“Everything I said about them is true,” Giuliani told reporters, according to an ABC News report cited by Freeman and Moss’s attorneys. He added: “Of course I don’t regret it. … I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.”

Howell scolded Giuliani for the remarks, saying his comments could support another defamation claim and noted that Sibley told jurors in his opening statement that the plaintiffs were good people. Sibley had said, “There’s no question these claimants were harmed. They didn’t deserve what happened to them,” while contesting how much Giuliani was to blame.

Sibley told Howell he was not sure the comments were reconcilable but that he had not been present and could not control all his client’s comments out of court. He also suggested Giuliani’s age might be at issue.

The case has taken “a toll on him,” Sibley said, adding that Giuliani is almost 80 years old.

Howell on Tuesday afternoon granted the request by lawyers for Freeman and Moss to bar Giuliani from arguing in his defense that he hadn’t defamed the workers, after withholding evidence from them in the case.

Freeman and Moss’s attorneys also put on two witnesses who described the Georgia Secretary of State’s investigation and findings that debunked the allegations against Freeman and Moss. They also showed video of sworn statements by Giuliani adviser Bernie Kerik and lawyers Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb indicating that Giuliani led the Trump legal team’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results that launched an avalanche of misinformation on social media based partly on the false Georgia claims.

Kerik acknowledged that in a last-ditch plan to pressure Republicans in Congress to block the certification of the election results, a strategic communications plan by Giuliani on Dec. 27, 2020, listed top allegations of fraud in several swing states, including the No. 1 claim in Georgia of “Suitcase Gate.”

Kerik admitted tweeting three weeks earlier that Freeman had handed over a USB drive to Moss to flip the vote count. “Now what can possibly be on that thumb drive? What’s so secret that they must act like it’s a drug deal? Or is it just my imagination?”

Moss and Freeman said the mother gave her daughter a ginger mint.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs played video of Ellis repeatedly invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked questions about statements she or Giuliani made concerning whether the 2020 election was stolen. Ellis pleaded guilty in October to illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia, admitting to making several false statements to state senators, including one alleging misconduct about election workers in State Farm Arena.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va ... s-testify/

by ti-amie Judge Orders Immediate Enforcement of Georgia Election Workers’ $146 Million Verdict Against Giuliani
Wednesday's decision cited Giuliani's history as an 'uncooperative litigant,' his mounting debts from other cases, and concerns that he will 'conceal his assets'
Published 12/20/23 06:33 PM ET|Updated 2 hr ago
Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

ormer Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss won their bid Wednesday night to immediately enforce a $146 million judgment against Rudy Giuliani.

In the new filing, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, a Barack Obama appointee, lifted an automatic stay of 30 days she'd imposed on the verdict that allows Freeman and Moss to try to seek the money Giuliani owes them.

Howell cites Giuliani's history as an "uncooperative litigant," his mounting debts from other court cases, and concerns that he will "conceal his assets" within the 30-day period as reasons to justify ordering the ending of the automatic stay.

The federal judge found that Moss and Freeman “correctly explain” that Giuliani has “proven himself to be an unwilling and uncooperative litigant.”

Howell also said that the former New York mayor's failure to “satisfy even more modest monetary awards entered earlier in this case” provides good cause to believe that he will seek to dissipate or conceal his assets during the 30-day period…”

Despite Giuliani saying “there is no evidence in the record of any attempt by [him] to dissipate assets,” Howell found that his comments ignore his history of attempting to conceal and hide his assets by “failing to comply with discovery requests, including “plaintiffs’ requests for financial information.”

Moss and Freeman requested the 30-day period be dissolved for several reasons, citing that Giuliani “has demonstrated an unwillingness to comply with judicial process, including orders to pay attorney’s fees and costs,” and “appears to have no assets in the District of Columbia but substantial assets in—at least—both New York and Florida.”

They added that because he ignored “several prior court orders to reimburse attorney’s fees,” his conduct in the matter “presents “a substantial risk” that “Giuliani will find a way to dissipate those assets before Plaintiffs are able to recover.”

The filing comes shortly after a D.C. jury awarded more than $16 million in compensatory damages, $20 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress and another $75 million in punitive damages to the mother and daughter after Giuliani spread lies about the duo that they committed election fraud and inserted a USB drive into voting machines.

Earlier this week, the parties agreed to lower the amount of compensatory damages that Giuliani owes by more than $2 million, bringing the total to $145,969,000, plus post-judgment interest and costs.

Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani again on Monday, this time seeking to "permanently bar" him from "persisting in his defamatory campaign against the plaintiffs."

https://themessenger.com/politics/giuli ... nt-verdict

Smart lawyering vs performative lawyering

by ashkor87
ti-amie wrote: Sat Nov 18, 2023 12:20 am Mueller, She Wrote
@MuellerSheWrote
·
1m
BREAKING: My preliminary reading is that the Colorado court found that Trump DID incite the insurrection, but that the president as an officer of the United States under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, so he will be on the ballot.

Image

Image
The Colorado Supreme Court has reversed that... said it is obvious that the President is indeed a federal officer.

by ponchi101 Can they collect? Does he have that kind of money?
Serious question.

by ti-amie Apparently filing bankruptcy to avoid paying a judgment like this is a waste of time. Alex Jones tried it and he's now trying to negotiate his way to a (slightly) reduced payment.
Because defamation is an "intentional tort" — meaning Giuliani broke civil laws on purpose — he can't jettison the $148 million judgment through the bankruptcy process, according to Eric Snyder, the chairman of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander LLP.

"If you owe somebody money and you get a judgment, you can get rid of that in the bankruptcy," Snyder told Business Insider. "But if the judgment comes from certain things — like fraud, breach of your duties, intentional torts — then you can't get rid of them."
https://www.businessinsider.com/rudy-gi ... 11-2023-12

by Owendonovan By all legal definitions, I am a full time employee by the amount of hours I work, 35+ ,but am designated part time via my title as an assistant. I receive no full time benefits that those considered full time do. I receive absolutely no benefits. (though I have had some fun throwing labor law at the HR person to educate her) I want to present my accurate employment status to them (probably gonna be a problem for them), but frankly I don't want the benefits offered, my healthcare is top notch through my husband. Does anyone know if I can take the cash equivalent instead of those benefits?

by mmmm8
Owendonovan wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2023 6:22 pm By all legal definitions, I am a full time employee by the amount of hours I work, 35+ ,but am designated part time via my title as an assistant. I receive no full time benefits that those considered full time do. I receive absolutely no benefits. (though I have had some fun throwing labor law at the HR person to educate her) I want to present my accurate employment status to them (probably gonna be a problem for them), but frankly I don't want the benefits offered, my healthcare is top notch through my husband. Does anyone know if I can take the cash equivalent instead of those benefits?
You may want to speak with a NY labor lawyer, but my haunch from working in benefits (not in NY) is that if you are covered by another health insurance plan, you do not have any legal right to a health benefit. However, you can negotiate a cash allowance if they want to offer it to you - but it's likely just a matter of negotiation not any obligation. You might be entitled to other benefits they offer to full-time employees but those would be minor in a cash equivalency, except potentially for retirement.

Anyway, late response, you may have already found an answer.

by ti-amie Zachary Cohen @ZcohenCNN
A “cyber security incident” is causing a disruption withing the Fulton County (Georgia) government.

Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman announced a “widespread system outage” during brief press briefing today.

Fulton DA office among agencies affected, per source.

The FBI in Atlanta told CNN they are aware of the incident and are in contact with Fulton County IT.

“While we cannot comment on any specific incidents, the FBI routinely advises the public & private sectors about cyber threats …”

Some details …

The Fulton County DA’s office has also been impacted by the cyberattack, according to a source with direct knowledge of Fani Willis' office.

The source said Fulton prosecutors lost access to their phones, internet, and the court system website on Monday.

Also...
YancyFaith@YancyFaith
Jacksonville Beach, Florida, too. Hit this morning.

by Owendonovan Mother of Michigan Gunman Found Guilty of Manslaughter
Jennifer Crumbley was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student her son killed in Michigan’s deadliest school shooting.
On Count 1 of involuntary manslaughter as to Madisyn Baldwin, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. On Count 2 of involuntary manslaughter in regards to Tate Myre, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. On Count 3 as to involuntary manslaughter regarding Hana St. Juliana, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. And in Count 4 of involuntary manslaughter against Justin Shilling, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
By Jacey Fortin
Feb. 6, 2024
Updated 4:37 p.m. ET
Michigan jurors, after 11 hours of deliberations, found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday for the gun rampage committed by her teenage son, who carried out the state’s deadliest school shooting more than two years ago.

The trial became a lightning rod for issues of parental responsibility, in a time of frequent cases of gun violence carried out by minors. It was the most high-profile example of prosecutors seeking to hold parents responsible for violent crimes committed by their children.

Ms. Crumbley, 45, was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the four students who were shot to death by her son at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. The son, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, used a pistol to kill Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14. Seven other people were injured. The gun was a gift from his parents.

“We all know that this is one of the hardest things you’ve ever done,” Judge Cheryl Matthews of the Oakland County Circuit Court told jurors at the courthouse in Pontiac, Mich., immediately after the verdict was read.

Ms. Crumbley sat mostly still, with downcast eyes, until she was handcuffed and led out of the court. She has been held since December at the Oakland County Jail.

Ms. Crumbley faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison after being convicted of all four counts. Sentencing is scheduled for April 9.

Ethan, who pleaded guilty to 24 charges including first-degree murder, was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He did not testify in his mother’s trial.

Ms. Crumbley’s husband, James Crumbley, 47, will be tried separately in March.

In the last few months, parents whose children carried out gun violence in other states have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct or neglect, part of a push by some prosecutors to hold parents accountable when they are suspected of enabling deadly violence by their children.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, right, shakes hands with parents of some of the victims of the Oxford High shootings after Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter.Credit...Pool photo by Mandi Wright

The charges against Ms. Crumbley were more serious, making her trial a significant test case for prosecutors.

The decision to charge the parents with manslaughter was something of a gut judgment, Karen D. McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor, said in an interview shortly after the charges were filed, adding that it even drew pushback from some members of her staff.

But she stressed in her closing argument on Friday that the severity of the charges reflected the depth of Ms. Crumbley’s negligence and the horrific crime that resulted from it.

She said Ms. Crumbley was guilty of “failing to exercise ordinary care when the smallest tragically simple thing could have prevented” a disaster.

Still, the guilty verdict on Tuesday may have ramifications in other trials, according to Ekow N. Yankah, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
“We pay attention to spectacular cases,” he said, “and we don’t pay attention to how much they change the law in nonspectacular cases — how many plea bargains, how many people will spend more time in prison because they won’t want to risk a guilty verdict like this.”

Ms. Crumbley’s defense lawyer, Shannon Smith, argued during the trial that parenting could be a messy and unpredictable job, and that no mother could be perfect. “This case is a very dangerous one for parents out there,” she said during her closing arguments on Friday.

Mr. Yankah said that after this verdict, “I think there are going to be a lot of parents out there who think: If I have a troubled kid, and I’m doing my best, at what point is his or her behavior no longer my responsibility?”

At the courtroom in Pontiac, Mich., jurors spent seven days listening to wrenching testimony from nearly two dozen witnesses, including Ms. Crumbley, who testified in her own defense for about three hours last week.

The prosecutors argued that Ms. Crumbley should have noticed her son’s distress and stopped him from committing an act of unspeakable violence. Marc Keast, one of the prosecutors, said that she and her husband “didn’t do any number of tragically small and easy things that would have prevented all of this from happening.”
For the defense, Ms. Smith depicted Ms. Crumbley as a “hypervigilant mother” who was attentive to her son’s needs and could not have foreseen what would happen.

“I am asking that you find Jennifer Crumbley not guilty,” Ms. Smith told the jury on Friday. “Not just for Jennifer Crumbley, but for every mother who’s out there doing the best they can, who could easily be in her shoes.”

During the trial, the prosecutors focused in part on Ethan’s access to a firearm. But jurors also had to wrestle with a more abstract question: whether witness testimony — along with an extensive collection of text messages — could be a reliable window into a troubled teenager’s state of mind or a mother’s relationship with her son.

Jurors were shown messages that Ethan sent to a friend in April 2021, complaining of insomnia, paranoia and hearing voices. The jurors were also shown messages that he sent to his mother in March 2021, in which he suggested that their home was haunted by a demon. Ms. Crumbley, prosecutors pointed out, did not always respond.

But in her testimony, Ms. Crumbley said that Ethan and his parents had joked for years about whether their house was haunted, adding that her son was just “messing around.”

Prosecutors also shared messages exchanged between Ms. Crumbley and her husband, colleagues and friends, which they said suggested that Ms. Crumbley had paid more attention to her two horses, and her extramarital affair, than to her son’s needs.

Ms. Crumbley testified that she had not seen her son as a danger to others. “As a parent, you spend your whole life trying to protect your child from other dangers,” she said. “You never would think you have to protect your child from harming somebody else.”

While Ms. Crumbley accompanied Ethan to a shooting range a few days before the rampage, she testified on Thursday that her husband, who had purchased the gun used in the shooting, was more familiar with firearms and had been responsible for storing the Sig Sauer pistol.

Ms. Crumbley also described a meeting with school officials that took place about two hours before the attack. She and her husband had been called to the high school after Ethan wrote troubling things on a math worksheet, including the phrase “blood everywhere.”
Ms. Crumbley said that after a counselor shared his concerns about Ethan’s mental health, they decided together that her son could stay at school rather than go home alone. They did not search his backpack, which contained the pistol that he would soon turn on his schoolmates.

On Thursday, a detective guided jurors through the pages of Ethan’s journal, which was found at the school after the shooting. The teenager had written about a plan to cause bloodshed, adding drawings of guns and pleas for help regarding his mental health.

“My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist,” Ethan wrote. But Ms. Crumbley said that she had never seen the journal entries, nor heard her son ask for a therapist.

Prosecutors had also suggested that the Crumbleys tried to flee the authorities by leaving their home in Oxford shortly after the shooting. The couple was arrested in Detroit on Dec. 4, 2021. Ms. Smith, the defense lawyer, argued that they feared for their safety in the face of relentless threats, and Ms. Crumbley testified that she had planned to turn herself in.

Cold comfort in this verdict, the murdered are still murdered and a boy will spend the rest of his life in jail. Hopefully "bad parenting" will continue to be exposed in ways like this. Just because people want children, doesn't mean they should.

by ti-amie
On Thursday, a detective guided jurors through the pages of Ethan’s journal, which was found at the school after the shooting. The teenager had written about a plan to cause bloodshed, adding drawings of guns and pleas for help regarding his mental health.

“My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist,” Ethan wrote. But Ms. Crumbley said that she had never seen the journal entries, nor heard her son ask for a therapist.

Prosecutors had also suggested that the Crumbleys tried to flee the authorities by leaving their home in Oxford shortly after the shooting. The couple was arrested in Detroit on Dec. 4, 2021. Ms. Smith, the defense lawyer, argued that they feared for their safety in the face of relentless threats, and Ms. Crumbley testified that she had planned to turn herself in.
The bolded part is what makes me say this is the right verdict. They were in Detroit because they were headed to Canada.

That said this can have a huge effect on cases like this going forward. Let's see if there's an appeal.

by ponchi101 Your son just shot 4 people to death.
I wonder in what state of mind that would put you.

Side track:
Now, regardless of how well you try to raise your kids, you can still be tried for stuff they do. Imagine how the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer would feel. One more reason not to have any.

by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2024 12:32 pm Side track:
Now, regardless of how well you try to raise your kids, you can still be tried for stuff they do. Imagine how the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer would feel. One more reason not to have any.
I don't think parents are going to be charged in situations where they didn't have a direct role, and or negligence, that leads to a criminal act. That's the way the laws are supposed to work.

by ti-amie What a poorly written lede.

To collect $1.5B from Alex Jones, Sandy Hook families vote to liquidate assets
BRANDI BUCHMAN Feb 22nd, 2024, 10:17 am

In order to collect on the $1.5 billion in defamation judgments they won against Alex Jones, the families of the victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut have voted to liquidate the far-right conspiracy theorist’s assets.

The unanimous decision was filed on the docket at the federal bankruptcy court in Texas where the Infowars host’s empire — which also includes the company Free Speech Systems — is being picked over more than a year after he first filed a petition for personal bankruptcy protection. He filed for bankruptcy for Free Speech Systems while he was on trial in July 2023. Ultimately, he was held liable for his defamatory comments about the 2012 mass shooting in Newton, including repeatedly calling the tragedy a “giant hoax.”

In fact, the massacre left 26 people dead and two injured. Twenty children who attended the primary school and six adults were killed.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Jones is not able to cast off the staggering award ordered by Judge Christopher Lopez because his conduct was formally considered “willful and malicious,” and under bankruptcy laws in the United States, when an individual debtor causes such an injury of intentional emotional distress, there is no relief.

As part of the liquidation process, items like real estate, cars, cash and more are expected to be sold off. According to Bloomberg Law, there will be a hearing next month where a detailed plan for the liquidation will be sorted out.

Jones had initially proposed that his assets be broken apart differently, offering to pay down his debt over a decade. The offer was to pay no less than $5.5 million during that time with proceeds coming out of his personal income, the sale of his assets and profits drawn off First Speech Systems. That was rejected.


An attorney for Jones and the families did not immediately respond to request for comment.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/to ... te-assets/

by ponchi101 On the one hand, of course he has to pay.
On the other: does he really have $1.5B in assets? I mean, some of these settlements, at times, seem absurd. It would be as if somebody were to sue me, win, and get a settlement of $10 Million. I simply don't have it.
Am I missing something?

by ti-amie In my opinion he has it. It's hidden overseas and/or is probably non liquid. Selling off his assets is their only recourse.

by ti-amie Joyce Alene
@JoyceWhiteVance

Last night we learned DOJ re-arrested Smirnov after his release. Now we know why. A California judge seems to be suggesting his lawyers are complicit in his efforts to flee, in a remarkable line ordering detention for the FBI source whose lies propelled Biden impeachment efforts.

Image

by ti-amie Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1

BREAKING: A New York jury has held the NRA liable for financial mismanagement and found that the group's former CEO, Wayne LaPierre, corruptly ran organization.

Jurors ordered LaPierre to pay $4,351,231 in restitution.

The verdict is a win for New York AG Letitia James.

by patrick That is two wins for James in February

by Owendonovan I wonder what percentage tfg's people are mentioned in this thread? (and how many more will end up here?)

by Fastbackss
ponchi101 wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2024 12:32 pm Your son just shot 4 people to death.
I wonder in what state of mind that would put you.

Side track:
Now, regardless of how well you try to raise your kids, you can still be tried for stuff they do. Imagine how the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer would feel. One more reason not to have any.
This one is close to home (literally)

Why I will respectfully counter you here is as follows:

- she bought him the gun
- she encouraged him to go to practice with it
- she texted with him (after he got in trouble at school) something equivalent to "stop drawing attention"
- the school called her the morning of the shooting - she came in - she did not mention anything about the gun nor did she check his backpack

There was some culpability as far as I am concerned.

by ponchi101 Ah, didn't know the details.
She bought him he gun? Ok she is responsible too. I change my stance.

by ashkor87 Interesting question about the fourteenth amendment- does Congress need to pass a resolution. Seems odd - if there is a law on the books, isn't it up to the Attorney General to enforce it? Appeals to the DC Circuit court could follow,but why should Congress be involved?

by ti-amie The problems the US legal/justice system are facing now were never conceived of by the men who wrote the Constitution or those that created the Bill of Rights/Amendments. Every situation has to be looked at and weighed to see how it would apply in a situation TFG has created out of whole cloth as the saying goes.

There is no way Clarence Thomas should be involved in deciding a legal issue that his wife helped create. The problem is unless he recuses himself there is no mechanism to make him. The SCOTUS added to the problem by accepting the case. Most legal scholars feel that was a huge mistake.

Anyway when it comes to amendments I believe, and I am not a lawyer let alone a constitutional lawyer, Congress does have to get involved. Back in the day the Supreme Court only reviewed strictly legal questions. Bush vs Gore ended that.

TFG is not saying he's not a crook. He's saying he has the right to be a crook.

by ashkor87 Nobody is trying to decide whether the amendment is valid or not. That would be for scotus. Here the only issue is of applying the law..that is the job of the executive. Congress makes the laws, the executive implements them, the supreme court can decide whether the law is valid or not. The law is already in existence.

by ashkor87 Take, for instance, the voting rights act. No action by Congress is required, the AG just enforces it. Or any other law, for that matter

by ti-amie
ashkor87 wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2024 12:43 pm Nobody is trying to decide whether the amendment is valid or not. That would be for scotus. Here the only issue is of applying the law..that is the job of the executive. Congress makes the laws, the executive implements them, the supreme court can decide whether the law is valid or not. The law is already in existence.

March 4, 2024 / by emptywheel

SCOTUS INVITES JACK SMITH TO SUPERSEDE TRUMP WITH INCITING INSURRECTION

The Supreme Court has not only held that states cannot enforce the 14th Amendment for Federal offices,

This case raises the question whether the States, in addition to Congress, may also enforce Section 3. We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.

But it held that Congress must exclude insurrectionists from office.

The respondents nonetheless maintain that States may enforce Section 3 against candidates for federal office. But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, on its face, does not affirmatively delegate such a power to the States. The terms of the Amendment speak only to enforcement by Congress, which enjoys power to enforce the Amendment through legislation pursuant to Section 5.

It points to the predecessor to 18 USC 2383 as means to exclude someone.

Instead, it is Congress that has long given effect to Section 3 with respect to would-be or existing federal officeholders. Shortly after ratification of the Amendment, Congress enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870. That Act authorized federal district attorneys to bring civil actions in federal court to remove anyone holding nonlegislative office—federal or state—in violation of Section 3, and made holding or attempting to hold office in violation of Section 3 a federal crime. §§14, 15, 16 Stat. 143–144 (repealed, 35 Stat. 1153–1154, 62 Stat. 992–993). In the years following ratification, the House and Senate exercised their unique powers under Article I to adjudicate challenges contending that certain prospective or sitting Members could not take or retain their seats due to Section 3. See Art. I, §5, cls. 1, 2; 1 A. Hinds, Precedents of the House of Representatives §§459–463, pp. 470–486 (1907). And the Confiscation Act of 1862, which predated Section 3, effectively provided an additional procedure for enforcing disqualification. That law made engaging in insurrection or rebellion, among other acts, a federal crime punishable by disqualification from holding office under the United States. See §§2, 3, 12 Stat. 590. A successor to those provisions remains on the books today. See 18 U. S. C. §2383. [my emphasis]

Taken in tandem with SCOTUS’ punt on Trump’s immunity bid, this seems like an invitation for Jack Smith to supersede Trump with inciting insurrection. After all, SCOTUS has now upheld the DC Circuit opinion that says there’s no double jeopardy problem with trying someone for something on which they were acquitted after impeachment.

Jack Smith could — today — charge Trump with inciting insurrection in response to this order. It is the one Constitutional means to disqualify him, according to this order.

Copyright © 2024 emptywheel. All rights reserved.
Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/04/s ... urrection/

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/03/04/s ... rint=print

by ti-amie

by ti-amie

by ashkor87 if anyone needs to be impeached for incompetence, it is the AG Merrick Garland - he has left it too late. Once the orimary season begins (tomorrow), by tradition, the Justice dept will lay off. This avenue was always available, they just didnt take it. Of course, there would be rioting in the streets, and a new civil war, possibly, with southern states seceding (again!) if the AG had actually ruled that Trump is not eligible. But anyway, too late. The AG has put politics above his duty (just not in the way most people think!)

by Owendonovan The people in government are just too selfish to be able to see beyond their own needs and wants. They are not there for the public, especially the gop. It's got a bit of a "lost cause" feel.

by ti-amie I still feel that the US Justice system was not built for quick action. It's designed for deliberation which means things move slowly. Tiny, Leonard Leo (Federalist Society), Mitch McConnell (no SC noms during an election unless it's our person) and their ilk have taken advantage of that. This entire situation is a stress test for the entire US system of government.

What they want is everyone "other" being put back into "their place".

by ponchi101 Sometime in the 1770's:
"What if, for some particular reason, some totally amoral set of individuals were to be elected not only to Congress or the Senate, but that the president himself would be a totally immoral person?"
Deep silence across the room.
"I am only joking, gentlemen!! That was in jest. Now, shall, or shall we not, add a comma HERE in this article..."

by ponchi101
ashkor87 wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2024 3:20 am if anyone needs to be impeached for incompetence, it is the AG Merrick Garland - he has left it too late. Once the orimary season begins (tomorrow), by tradition, the Justice dept will lay off. This avenue was always available, they just didnt take it. Of course, there would be rioting in the streets, and a new civil war, possibly, with southern states seceding (again!) if the AG had actually ruled that Trump is not eligible. But anyway, too late. The AG has put politics above his duty (just not in the way most people think!)
I'm not following you. You are saying that the AG should be impeached for NOT following a path that you yourself are stating would possibly lead to a civil war, as opposed to building meticulous cases against this slippery criminal, trying not to risk that this slime escapes due to technicalities?

by ashkor87
ponchi101 wrote: Wed Mar 06, 2024 2:58 pm
ashkor87 wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2024 3:20 am if anyone needs to be impeached for incompetence, it is the AG Merrick Garland - he has left it too late. Once the orimary season begins (tomorrow), by tradition, the Justice dept will lay off. This avenue was always available, they just didnt take it. Of course, there would be rioting in the streets, and a new civil war, possibly, with southern states seceding (again!) if the AG had actually ruled that Trump is not eligible. But anyway, too late. The AG has put politics above his duty (just not in the way most people think!)
I'm not following you. You are saying that the AG should be impeached for NOT following a path that you yourself are stating would possibly lead to a civil war, as opposed to building meticulous cases against this slippery criminal, trying not to risk that this slime escapes due to technicalities?
but he may escape because the AG took too long to catch the fish!

by ponchi101 Sure. As Ti said, the USA legal system is built to be slow so the lawyers can squeeze every drop of blood from you charging you by the hour.
But that does not mean you impeach the guy. It's like firing you because you are doing a monumental task in 6 months, but your boss wanted it in 5 minutes.

by ashkor87 Another clear miss..Trump is inviting Russia to attack NATO countries..by treaty, an attack on NATO is an attack on the US. If this is not treason, what is? And what is Justice doing about it?

all that brouhaha over classified docs is nothing compared to this.

by ti-amie Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
The former crypto mogul who co-founded FTX also was ordered to repay more than $11 billion for his conviction on charges related to fraud and money laundering
By Shayna Jacobs and Julie Zauzmer Weil
March 28, 2024 at 11:55 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK — A federal judge sentenced former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison Thursday, less than what prosecutors wanted for what they called his “massive” financial crimes, but far more than defense lawyers sought. He was also ordered to pay more than $11 billion.

Bankman-Fried, co-founder of crypto exchange FTX and investment fund Alameda Research, failed to take responsibility for the disaster he created, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in handing down the sentence. “Mr. Bankman-Fried says mistakes were made … but never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes,” Kaplan said.

Jurors in November convicted Bankman-Fried on charges related to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds to spend lavishly on luxury real estate, investments and political donations.

Before Kaplan handed down the sentence, Bankman-Fried gave a meandering account of events in an attempt to justify some of his actions. “I made a series of bad decisions,” said Bankman-Fried, who spoke for roughly 20 minutes. “They weren’t selfish decisions. … They were bad decisions.”

Prosecutors had argued that a sentence of at least 40 years in prison would fit a case they described as one of the biggest financial crimes in history. Defense attorneys argued that a sentence of five to six years would be more appropriate for a young man with autism who wanted to use some of his money for charity.

The chance that Bankman-Fried could commit other crimes weighed into the sentencing decision, Kaplan said.

“There is a risk this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future and it’s not a trivial risk,” the judge said. “Not a trivial risk at all.”

Bankman-Fried, 32, turned FTX into a behemoth, with a Super Bowl ad, naming rights to a Miami stadium and glowing publicity for its cryptocurrency exchange. Only when it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022 did investigators uncover what prosecutors have described as a straightforward fraud dressed up as a breakthrough financial innovation.

Bankman-Fried and his top deputies, prosecutors said, took customers’ money out of FTX and put it into Alameda Research. At the trial, former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges before cooperating with prosecutors, described Bankman-Fried telling her to use FTX funds.

“It’s hard to understand in some ways how a person can be responsible for all of these significant crimes,” prosecutor Nicolas Roos said Thursday. “It’s massive in its scale. It was pervasive in all aspects.”

Before Roos spoke, defense lawyer Marc Mukasey argued that Bankman-Fried did not have harmful intentions.

“Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people,” Mukasey said Thursday. He described Bankman-Fried as a person who “doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with math in his head.”

Kaplan spoke of the financial devastation to victims who invested their life savings in their accounts on the FTX platform. In court filings, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer had argued that victims are likely to be made whole once the FTX bankruptcy process shakes out, a claim that John Ray III, who is leading the company through the bankruptcy process as CEO, criticized in a letter to the court. The defense’s assertion that FTX customers and investors suffered no harm is “callously and demonstrably false,” Ray wrote.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, some trial observers wondered whether the Justice Department overreached in asking for at least 40 years in prison. A full recovery of FTX assets could undercut prosecutors’ assertion of “dramatic devastating personal loss” for investors, said Martin Auerbach, a defense lawyer who has been involved in cryptocurrency cases but did not work on Bankman-Fried’s case.

“That is part of the theory for why he should be punished,” Auerbach said before the hearing. “If that will turn out not to be correct because those small investors have been made whole or recovered much of their money, I think the judge has the discretion to say, ‘I’m going to look at the loss in a different way.’”

But Bankman-Fried’s prison term will set an important example, said Sheila Warren, CEO of the trade group Crypto Council for Innovation. “This sentencing is crucial,” Warren said. “What we don’t want to do is incentivize people to say, ‘Oh, you just pay a big fine and do whatever you want.’ No, you go to jail if you lie, if you steal.”

She said she faulted not just Bankman-Fried, but also the many people who lionized him instead of questioning whether he was honest. “There were a lot of institutions that were supporting this kind of wunderkind mythology,” she said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... tx-crypto/