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Garland says DOJ will strengthen rules on obtaining lawmakers' records
Zachary Basu
30 mins ago - Politics & Policy
https://www.axios.com/merrick-garland-justice-department-subpoenas-fe1b2133-d918-4446-83cc-279f72ad1765.html
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday he has directed Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco to "evaluate and strengthen the department’s existing policies and procedures for obtaining records" from members of Congress.
Why it matters: At Garland's direction, the Justice Department's inspector general has opened an investigation into the Trump-era DOJ's use of secret subpoenas to obtain data belonging to House Democrats.
The big picture: At least a dozen people linked to the House Intelligence Committee — including Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), both fierce critics of former President Trump — had records seized between 2017 and early 2018 as part of a leak investigation.
* Democrats in Congress have launched their own investigations and demanded that former Attorney Generals Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions testify.
* The inspector general will also review the Justice Department's secret seizure of phone records of journalists working for major media companies that reported on the Russia investigation, including CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post
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What they're saying: Garland said in a statement that in addition to the inspector general investigation, Monaco is "already working on surfacing potentially problematic matters" related to the subpoenas that deserve "high level review."
"There are important questions that must be resolved in connection with an effort by the department to obtain records related to Members of Congress and Congressional staff," he continued.
“If at any time as the investigation proceeds action related to the matter in question is warranted, I will not hesitate to move swiftly.”
https://www.axios.com/merrick-garland-justice-department-subpoenas-fe1b2133-d918-4446-83cc-279f72ad1765.html
Justice official resigning amid uproar over Dems’ subpoenas
By MICHAEL BALSAMO
11 minutes ago
https://apnews.com/article/justice-official-demers-resigning-secretly-seized-records-e9fd00c31fc53f827a8921f551b4008e
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s top national security official is resigning from his position after revelations that the department secretly seized records from Democrats and members of the media.
John Demers will leave his position by the end of next week, a Justice Department official told The Associated Press on Monday. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.
The resignation comes amid questions about what Demers knew about the Justice Department’s efforts to secretly seize the phone data from House Democrats and reporters as part of the aggressive investigations into leaks.
Demers, who was sworn in a few weeks after the subpoena for the Democrats’ records, is a Trump appointee who has remained in the Biden administration. He is one of the few remaining Trump appointees still in office.
News emerged last week that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed Apple for metadata from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and another Democratic member of the panel, California Rep. Eric Swalwell, in 2018, as their committee was investigating then-President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Schiff at the time was the top Democrat on the panel, which was led by Republicans.
The records of at least 12 people connected to the House intelligence panel were eventually shared with the Justice Department by Apple after the subpoena was issued in 2018. The people included aides, former aides and family members. One was a minor.
The subpoena, issued Feb. 6, 2018, requested information on 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses, Apple said. It also included a non-disclosure order that prohibited the company from notifying any of the people and was renewed three times, the company said in a statement.
Demers will be replaced by Mark Lesko, the acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, the official said.
Demers has been in charge of the department’s national security division since February 2018, being sworn in a few weeks after the subpoena was issued to Apple for the Democrats’ records, and his division has played a role in each of the leak investigations.
President Joe Biden has nominated Matt Olsen, an executive at Uber who has experience in the Justice Department and served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center and as general counsel for the National Security Agency, to be the next assistant attorney general for national security. But Demers has remained in place while Olsen awaits a confirmation hearing in the Senate.
The Justice Department’s inspector general has launched a probe into the matter after a request from Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Inspector General Michael Horowitz said he would examine whether the data subpoenaed by the Justice Department and turned over by Apple followed department policy and “whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations.”
In a statement Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that “political or other improper considerations must play no role in any investigative or prosecutorial decisions” and he expects the inspector general to conduct a thorough investigation.
“If at any time as the investigation proceeds action related to the matter in question is warranted, I will not hesitate to move swiftly,” Garland said.
“Consistent with our commitment to the rule of law,” he said, “we must ensure that full weight is accorded to separation-of-powers concerns moving forward.”
https://apnews.com/article/justice-official-demers-resigning-secretly-seized-records-e9fd00c31fc53f827a8921f551b4008e
Earth's core is growing 'lopsided' and scientists don't know why
By Brandon Specktor 1 day ago
https://www.space.com/earth-inner-core-lopsided-crystal-growth
The core is losing heat faster under Indonesia than it is under Brazil, and that's messing with the seismic waves passing through it.
There's a mystery brewing at the center of the Earth.
Scientists can only see it when they study the seismic waves (subterranean tremors generated by earthquakes) passing through the planet's solid iron inner core. For some reason, waves move through the core significantly faster when they're traveling between the north and south poles than when they're traveling across the equator.
Researchers have known about this discrepancy — known as seismic anisotropy — for decades, but have been unable to come up with an explanation that's consistent with the available data. Now, using computer simulations of the core's growth over the last billion years, a new study in the June 3 issue of Nature Geoscience offers a solution that finally seems to fit: Every year, little by little, Earth's inner core is growing in a "lopsided" pattern, with new iron crystals forming faster on the east side of the core than on the west side.
Related: 10 ways Earth revealed its weirdness
"The movement of liquid iron in the outer core carries heat away from the inner core, causing it to freeze," lead study author Daniel Frost, a seismologist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Live Science. "So this means the outer core has been taking more heat from the east side [under Indonesia] than the west [under Brazil]."
To visualize this lopsided growth in the core, imagine a tree trunk with growth rings radiating out from a central point, Frost said — but "the center of the rings is offset from the center of the tree," so that rings are spaced further apart on the east side of the tree and closer together on the west side.
A cross section of Earth's inner core might look similar to that. However, this asymmetric growth doesn't mean that the inner core itself is misshapen or at risk of becoming imbalanced, the researchers said.
On average, the inner core's radius grows evenly by about 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) every year. Gravity corrects for the lopsided growth in the east by pushing new crystals toward the west. There, the crystals clump into lattice structures that stretch along the core's north-south axis. These crystal structures, aligned parallel with Earth's poles, are seismic superhighways that enable earthquake waves to travel more quickly in that direction, according to the team's models.
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MUCH MORE
https://www.space.com/earth-inner-core-lopsided-crystal-growth
Major supermarkets in Northern Ireland are invincible in face of EU sausage ban threat
Many supermarkets in Northern Ireland don't import British bangers but Brexit row could still spark sausage trade war with Brussels
By James Crisp, EUROPE EDITOR
14 June 2021 • 12:54pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/14/major-northern-irish-supermarkets-would-impervious-eu-sausage/
Northern Ireland’s most popular supermarkets will be unharmed by any EU ban on British bangers, the Telegraph can reveal, as London and Brussels teeter on the brink of a sausage trade war.
The row totally dominated the G7 meeting in Cornwall, was mentioned at Monday’s NATO summit and risks stoking tensions in Northern Ireland ahead of the marching season.
But Tesco, which boasts 50 stores in Northern Ireland, has only stocked sausages from local suppliers for several years.
Marks and Spencer, which has about 20 stores in the country, also gets its entire chilled sausage stock from Northern Ireland, which means the popular shops are invincible in the face of the threatened ban on imported UK sausages.
Other major supermarkets operating in Northern Ireland, which has a proud sausage making tradition, are believed to source most of their bangers domestically.
“People here like their sausages from the butcher’s and even if they go to the supermarket they’ll go for a local brand like Denny or Cookstown,” butcher Julie Price told the Belfast Live website.
Despite that Boris Johnson and the EU showed no sign of backing down in the banger battle.
"I think most people around the table understand the vital importance of a country looking after its territorial integrity. That's one of the things that, by the way, NATO is out there to do,” Mr Johnson said as he arrived at the summit in Brussels.
Clement Beaune, France’s Europe Minister, warned the EU would retaliate if Brexit commitments over Northern Ireland were not kept.
"Mr Johnson thinks that you can sign deals with the Europeans and not respect them and that Europe will not react. It is a test for Europe,” he said.
"In Northern Ireland there are sausage import problems,” Mr Beaune said, “Because when you leave the European Union, you have necessarily some (trade) barriers [...] Brexit has consequences.
Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, checks are carried out on goods from the UK in the Irish Sea to prevent the need for a hard Irish border. Britain argues the checks are too burdensome.
Sausages are the latest Brexit flashpoint CREDIT: Andrew Crowley
The UK and EU are at loggerheads over post-Brexit rules for chilled meats imported to Northern Ireland from mainland Britain.
If an end of month grace period deadline expires without a food safety and animal health agreement, British sausages will be banned in Northern Ireland from July 1.
The European Commission last week threatened to launch a sausage trade war, if the UK overrides the Northern Ireland Protocol so that the delicacies can continue to be sold.
The commission has already triggered legal action against the UK for unilateral extension of grace periods for supermarket supplies and parcels, which it says broke international law.
During the G7, Boris Johnson said he would “not hesitate” to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to preserve UK sausage supplies to Northern Ireland.
Article 16 says it can be used to prevent “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade.”
“Article 16 is being treated as a jocular plaything when in fact it is the nuclear button,” said Simon Hoare, the Tory MP who chairs the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.
“I think it is extraordinary given the agricultural productivity of Northern Ireland that it needs to import anything,” he added.
Mr Hoare suggested the province could use Brexit to transform itself into a meat processing powerhouse supplying both the UK and EU.
The sausage ban can be prevented with a veterinary deal but the UK has rejected EU demands it sign up for a Swiss-style agreement.
The commission argues this would remove the need for 80 per cent of the checks in the Irish Sea border, which the UK says are too burdensome.
But a Swiss deal would mean the UK agreeing to align with EU rules, which it refused to do in last year’s Brexit negotiations. Instead the UK wants its rules to be deemed equivalent to the EU’s.
The UK is building the EU a bespoke database on trade to Northern Ireland but could not provide data on British sausage supplies to the country.
Government figures revealed that about £51.4m worth of UK chilled meats, fish and crustaceans, including sausages, were exported to the EU. £586.4m worth of the produce was imported into the UK from the EU.
Since then the UK has left the Single Market and Customs Union, which has created barriers to trade with the EU.
£20.2m worth of chilled molluscs and meats were exported to non-EU countries and £393.9m imported.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/14/major-northern-irish-supermarkets-would-impervious-eu-sausage/
House GOP prays Trump can kick his habit of 2020 grievances
As Republicans strategize with Donald Trump on how to retake the House in 2022, they worry his focus on false claims about the 2020 election will create an uncomfortable litmus test.
By MELANIE ZANONA
06/14/2021 04:30 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/13/trump-house-gop-election-493545
Donald Trump just can't seem to quit 2020. That means Republicans can't either.
The former president is returning to the national spotlight with plans to play a central role in the GOP's push to reclaim power, huddling with members of the conservative Republican Study Committee at his New Jersey resort last week. Trump told the crew there he is “more motivated than ever” to be engaged in House and Senate races, according to RSC Chair Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
But he brings with him the baggage of his repeated false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the White House. In recent public settings, Trump has called his loss to President Joe Biden "the crime of the century" and likened it to a stolen "diamond" that needs to be returned. He's gone even further in private, reportedly entertaining the wild conspiracy theory that he could be reinstated as president in August. Some Republicans are palpably relieved that he hasn’t said that publicly — at least not yet.
MUCH MORE
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/13/trump-house-gop-election-493545
Novavax: Large study finds COVID-19 shot about 90% effective
By LINDA A. JOHNSON
2 hours ago
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-business-health-02b977b3ed5cfa59643bef1baabde4f7?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=June14_MorningWire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers
Vaccine maker Novavax said Monday its shot was highly effective against COVID-19 and also protected against variants in a large, late-stage study in the U.S. and Mexico.
The vaccine was about 90% effective overall and preliminary data showed it was safe, the company said.
While demand for COVID-19 shots in the U.S. has dropped off dramatically, the need for more vaccines around the world remains critical. The Novavax vaccine, which is easy to store and transport, is expected to play an important role in boosting vaccine supplies in the developing world.
That help is still months away, however. The company says it plans to seek authorization for the shots in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere by the end of September and be able to produce up to 100 million doses a month by then.
“Many of our first doses will go to … low- and middle-income countries, and that was the goal to begin with,” Novavax Chief Executive Stanley Erck told The Associated Press.
While more than half of the U.S. population has had at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, less than 1 percent of people in the developing world have had one shot, according to Our World In Data.
Novavax’s study involved nearly 30,000 people ages 18 and up in the U.S. and Mexico. Two-thirds received two doses of the vaccine, three weeks apart, and the rest got dummy shots.
There were 77 cases of COVID-19 — 14 in the group that got the vaccine and the rest were in volunteers who received dummy shots. None in the vaccine group had moderate or severe disease, compared to 14 in the placebo group.
The vaccine was similarly effective against several variants including the one first detected in the U.K. that’s dominant in the U.S., and in high-risk populations including the elderly and people with other health problems.
Side effects were mostly mild — tenderness and pain at the injection site. There were no reports of unusual blood clots or heart problems, Erck said.
Novavax reported the results in a press release and plans to publish in a medical journal, where it will be vetted by independent experts. The Maryland-based company previously released findings from smaller studies in Britain and South Africa.
COVID-19 vaccines train the body to recognize the coronavirus, especially the spike protein that coats it, and get ready to fight the virus off. The Novavax vaccine is made with lab-grown copies of that protein. That’s different from some of the other vaccines now widely used, which include genetic instructions for the body to make its own spike protein.
The Novavax vaccine can be stored in standard refrigerators, making it easier to distribute.
Novavax previously announced manufacturing delays due to supply shortages. The company now expects to reach production of 100 million doses a month by the end of September and 150 million doses a month by December.
The company has committed to supplying 110 million doses to the U.S. over the next year and a total of 1.1 billion doses to developing countries.
In May, vaccines alliance Gavi announced it had signed an agreement to buy 350 million doses of Novavax’s vaccine, with deliveries estimated to begin in the third quarter. COVAX, the global initiative to provide vaccines to countries, is facing a critical shortage of vaccines after its biggest supplier in India suspended exports until the end of the year,
Novavax has been working on developing vaccines for more than three decades, but hasn’t brought one to market. The company’s coronavirus vaccine work is partly funded by the U.S. government.
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Follow Linda A. Johnson on Twitter: LindaJ_onPharma
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AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-business-health-02b977b3ed5cfa59643bef1baabde4f7?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=June14_MorningWire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers
The secret gag orders must stop
Opinion by Brad Smith
June 13, 2021 at 8:56 p.m. GMT+1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/13/microsoft-brad-smith-trump-justice-department-gag-orders/
Brad Smith is the president of Microsoft.
The past seven days marked another bad week for the collision between technology and democracy. We live in an era when private emails and text messages typically are backed up and stored in the cloud by tech companies. When it comes to cybersecurity, the cloud bolsters protection. But now we’ve learned that the Trump Justice Department exploited this feature as part of a secret effort to obtain emails in investigations of the media and Congress, two institutions where transparency is essential.
The government cannot justify secrecy in such probes. The abuse of secrecy orders is neither new nor confined to a single administration, and certainly not limited to investigations involving members of Congress or the news media. Democracy rests on a fundamental principle of government transparency. Secrecy should be the rare exception — not the rule.
Not long ago, if the government wanted to serve a search warrant as part of a criminal investigation, it had to do so in person, with notice. An agent or officer needed to bring a signed warrant to a house or building and hand it to the target of the probe at the front door; only then could the government search the premises for documents, records and computer files. This was true for individuals, businesses and governments alike. If secrecy required getting a “sneak and peek” warrant because evidence would be destroyed in advance or a witness’s safety would be jeopardized, this required a heightened showing, beyond mere probable cause.
Those principles still hold true today. Yet with the expansion of cloud computing in every industry, the federal and state governments know they quickly can obtain data electronically from sources other than the target. So that’s what they do. In secret. By serving search warrants on companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft to obtain emails and messages that belong to our customers. Government prosecutors also ask courts to impose gag orders on companies such as ours that prevent us from letting people know that copies of their emails are now in the government’s hands.
While there are times when secrecy is needed, prosecutors too often are exploiting technology to abuse our fundamental freedoms. Just consider the targets of the latest investigations: reporters at CNN, the New York Times and The Post. Members of the House Intelligence Committee; their aides and family members. These are not investigations of terrorism or international narcotics that threaten the nation’s safety.
The eyes of the world are watching what the Biden administration does next. As President Biden works to rebuild trust across the Atlantic, European leaders worry that a U.S. government that secretly goes to court to demand data from tech companies about its own reputable citizens will do the same thing to them as well. The hacking of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone came to light in 2013, but the diplomatic wounds remain fresh. European governments increasingly are trying to keep their data out of data centers run by U.S. companies. Not necessarily because they distrust the companies, but because they distrust our government and secret court orders that can reach their data.
What needs to be done?
To start, Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to do what his predecessors have not: recognize this issue is critical and treat it as a personal priority.
We need changes in Justice Department policies to tighten the use of gag orders and probes of Congress and the news media. And, even more important, we need a bipartisan initiative to codify those changes by Congress.
Congress should prohibit the executive branch from conducting its investigations wholly in secret absent a strong showing of necessity supported by compelling evidence. And even when the government does meet that burden, any secrecy order should be narrowly tailored in time and scope. Third parties responding to such orders should have a mechanism to challenge them. And indefinite gag orders should be unlawful.
We also need a new generation of international agreements that define when and how governments will seek data stored within other countries’ borders, starting with our European allies. The United States cannot build a stronger alliance of the world’s democracies without clear international rules to protect the privacy of each other’s data.
Ultimately, the nation needs a holistic agenda that will put the Constitution back where it belongs — above the latest technology features and the expediencies of individual investigators. And this will require leadership from the top.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/13/microsoft-brad-smith-trump-justice-department-gag-orders/
How Republicans came to embrace the big lie of a stolen election
The way Republicans have pushed the myth marks a dangerous turn from generalized allegations of fraud to refusing to accept the legitimacy of elections, experts say
Sam Levine
Sun 13 Jun 2021 05.00 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/13/republicans-big-lie-us-election-trump
Just a few days after the polls closed in Florida’s 2018 general election, Rick Scott, then the state’s governor, held a press conference outside the governor’s mansion and made a stunning accusation.
Scott was running for a US Senate seat, and as more votes were counted, his lead was dwindling. Targeting two of the state’s most Democratic-leaning counties, Scott said there was “rampant fraud”.
“Every person in Florida knows exactly what is happening. Their goal is to mysteriously keep finding more votes until the election turns out the way they want,” he said, directing the state’s law enforcement agency to investigate. “I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the great people of Florida.”
Scott eventually won the election, and his comments eventually faded. But the episode offered an alarming glimpse of the direction the Republican party was turning.
A little over two years later, fanned repeatedly by Donald Trump throughout 2020, the myth of a stolen American election has shifted from a fringe idea to one being embraced by the Republican party. The so-called big lie – the idea that the election was stolen from Trump - has transformed from a tactical strategy to a guiding ideology.
For years, civil rights groups and academics have raised alarm at the way Republican officials have deployed false claims of voter fraud as a political strategy to justify laws that restrict access to the ballot. But the way Republicans have embraced the myth of a stolen election since Trump’s loss in November, is new, they say, marking a dangerous turn from generalized allegations of fraud to refusing to accept the legitimacy of elections.
Supporting the idea of a stolen election has become a new kind of litmus test for Republican officeholders.
Republican election officials in Georgia and Nevada who have stood up for the integrity of the 2020 election results have been denounced by fellow Republicans. Republican lawmakers across the US have made pilgrimages to visit and champion an unprecedented inquiry into ballots in Arizona, which experts see as a thinly veiled effort to undermine confidence in the election. One hundred and forty-seven Republicans in the US House voted to overturn the results of the November election absent any evidence of voter fraud and after government officials said the 2020 election was the “most secure in American history”.
“Voter suppression is not new, the battle lines have been drawn over that for quite some time. But this new concern about election subversion is really worrisome,” said Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who studies election rules.
The willingness to deny election results comes amid heightened concern that Republicans are maneuvering to take over offices that would empower them to block the winners of elections from being seated. Several Republicans who have embraced the idea that the election was stolen are running to serve as secretaries of state, the chief election official in many places, a perch from which they would exert enormous power over elections, including the power to hold up certifying races.
We’ve had disputed elections in the past, but we’ve never had the denial of the basic mathematical reality of counting votes
Edward Foley
“I do think it’s a relatively new phenomenon, unfortunately, and disturbing,” said Edward Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University who has written extensively about the history of contested elections in the US. “We’ve had disputed elections in the past, but we’ve never had the denial of the basic mathematical reality of counting votes.”
The effort to undermine the election results appears to be working. A majority of Republicans, and a quarter of all Americans, believe Trump is the “true president”, according to a May Reuters/Ipsos poll. Sixty-one per cent of Republicans believe the election was “stolen” from Trump, the same poll showed.
Rohn Bishop, the chairman of the local Republican party in Fond du Lac county in Wisconsin, said it was damaging to have such widespread uncertainty about the results of elections and was generally supportive of efforts to restore confidence. But he noted his dismay that Republicans continued to push lies about the election. He noted that the Republican party of Waukesha county, a bastion of GOP voters, recently hosted a screening of a film backed by Mike Lindell, a Trump ally and prominent election conspiracist, that pushed false claims of fraud.
“We need to win back those suburban Republican voters that Waukesha county used to turn out, not keep poking them in the eye by forcing down their throat more of this election stuff, Trump stuff they don’t want to hear,” he said. “I don’t know why it’s so hard for Republican elected officials to tell the base the truth. That would help.”
Alexander Keyssar, a Harvard historian who studies elections, noted that there was a long history in America of using fraud as an excuse to push back on gains in enfranchisement among Black and other minority voters. White voters are becoming a smaller share of the US electorate, data shows. “There are definitely echoes of this now,” he said. “There has always been an inclination to see new voters of different ethnicities or appearance as agents, or unwitting agents of fraud.”
Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican operative in Florida who is now retired, said the lies about the election provided a kind of cover for those unable to concede they were a shrinking minority in the population.
“In the past, party elders, party leaders … exploited the crazies in order to win elections and then largely ignored them after the elections,” he said. “What has happened since then is that Trump opened Pandora’s box and let them out. He not only let them out, he affirmed them and provoked them. And so now they’re running wild and they are legitimatizing these delusions.”
While there have been other nastily contested elections in US history – President Rutherford B Hayes was labeled “Rutherfraud” and “His Fraudulency” after the contested election in 1876 – both Keyssar and Foley said it was difficult to find a comparison to what was happening now.
“We’ve never had that. We’ve never had McCarthyism-style fabrication of a conspiracy theory applied to the process of counting votes … I would say it’s especially dangerous when it’s the electoral process,” Foley said. “Because it’s the electoral process that ultimately allows for self-government. When the mechanisms of self-government kind of get taken over by a kind of McCarthyism, that’s very troubling.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/13/republicans-big-lie-us-election-trump
Daniel Morgan report could link Rupert Murdoch empire to ‘criminality’
Panel has considered describing News of the World as ‘linked to’ murder suspects in its long-awaited findings
Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent
Mon 14 Jun 2021 01.00 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/14/daniel-morgan-report-could-link-rupert-murdoch-empire-to-criminality
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire could be criticised for its links to the suspects behind the murder of the private detective Daniel Morgan, the Guardian has learned.
The official inquiry investigating his death sent warning letters to people facing criticism in its long-awaited report, which is due to be published on Tuesday.
One shows the panel investigating the 1987 killing has been considering describing the defunct News of the World tabloid as being “linked to the criminality associated with the murder”.
Murdoch’s News UK told the Guardian it had not received any letter from the panel warning that it will be criticised, and said it had co-operated with the inquiry, a claim the Morgan family dispute.
Morgan was killed in 1987 in south London, with no one yet brought to justice.
The panel appointed by the government has examined claims that at least two of those arrested in connection with the killing carried out extensive work for the News of the World, which was owned by Murdoch at the time.
It has also examined the paper’s placing of the lead detective investigating the murder under surveillance.
Murdoch closed the Sunday tabloid in 2011 as concerns mounted about its ethics and practices following the phone-hacking scandal.
The murder of Morgan is mired in claims of police and media corruption, and the panel has been investigating the case for the last eight years. Its report will finally be published on Tuesday.
The Met is also bracing itself for censure for being slow in handing to the panel documents that it considered “significant” to its work as it investigated corruption that hampered the murder investigation.
More than 20 past or former Met officers, some senior, may face criticism over the case that continues to haunt Britain’s biggest police force.
One of the panel’s main areas of investigation and findings was the activities of Murdoch’s media empire.
The News of the World employed one of the suspects for the murder, paying him £150,000 in a single year after he had become a suspect.
It regularly used a private detective agency called Southern Investigations, which Morgan had jointly run with Jonathan Rees.
Two executives at the paper set up a business registered at Southern Investigations’ address, the Guardian understands.
The panel was considering describing the former Sunday tabloid as being “linked to the criminality associated with the murder of Daniel Morgan”, in warning letters sent this year to some of those facing criticism by the panel, and seen by the Guardian.
It is not yet clear whether the criticism about the News of the World and links to criminality, which the panel put in writing in its warning letters, will be included in the final report or if the report will include details of what the alleged criminality consists of.
The panel was examining police corruption that may have shielded the killers. But its terms of reference also state it would examine “the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers and journalists at the News of the World and other parts of the media and alleged corruption involved in the linkages between them”.
News UK, which represents Murdoch’s newspaper interests, denied any attempt to influence the government to try to thwart the report.
It insists it did co-operate with the panel, but Raju Bhatt, a solicitor for Alastair Morgan, the brother of the murdered private detective, said: “Our understanding is that News International did not cooperate with the panel. The failure to co-operate speaks volumes in itself.”
News UK, the successor company to News International, said: “We have cooperated with and assisted the panel during their investigation. No communication has been received from the panel as part of their advance notice of criticism process.
“The suggestion that there has been any attempt by News UK to influence or delay the report’s publication is entirely without foundation and false.”
Last month the home secretary, Priti Patel, stunned the panel by insisting she must review its report prior to publication, in case it damaged national security or contravened human rights legislation.
The panel had intended for the report, running to more than 1,200 pages, to be published on 24 May. It was at the printers when plans to publish were put on hold.
The panel says the Home Office asked for nothing to be blanked out.
The former prime minister Gordon Brown has accused the Murdoch media empire of having links to the “criminal underworld”, as part of its techniques to gain sensitive information.
Publication will finally reveal what criticism the panel made, if any, of the pillars of the British power structure, such as the police, Murdoch’s media empire and others.
Five police investigations failed to produce a conviction for Morgan’s murder and the Met has accepted that corruption in its ranks blighted the search for justice.
The panel has also examined whether Freemasonry played any part in the case. Some officers involved in the first investigation were part of the secretive organisation.
Rees and other suspects deny involvement in the murder and have won damages for the way the Met pursued the case.
The Morgan case has been described as the real-life version of the hit television drama Line of Duty. The programme’s policing adviser worked on the Morgan case while a Met detective in its anti-corruption command.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/14/daniel-morgan-report-could-link-rupert-murdoch-empire-to-criminality
The Pathetic New Chapter of the Baby Trumps
Molly Jong-Fast
Sat., June 12, 2021, 4:41 a.m.·4 min read
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pathetic-chapter-baby-trumps-034121484.html
The family that held the entire Republican Party in their death grips for the last four years is now doing what all formerly famous people do, signing autographs and being sort of pathetic.
Their father may not have power anymore, but the kids have even less. Remember when Donnie Junior could control a news cycle with a tweet? Remember when Ivanka Trump could command a sea of news stories with a “sources close to” leak about how she was “working hard behind the scenes”? Remember when Mitch McConnell had to take calls from the former president’s completely unqualified son-in-law? Remember when the president’s dimwitted spawns held court at Daddy’s hotel and cast shadows that extended across MAGA Washington?
Well, that time is over. The baby Trumps and their lousy spouses are drifting off into the weird political afterlife of people who used to matter.
Remember when Don Junior posed with a “Don Jr 2024” banner at the Fallon Nevada Livestock Auction? That was in October, or, as I think of it, a lifetime ago. Since then junior has been a busy bee, making apparently false statements in a deposition and maybe being investigated by Manhattan Attorney General Cy Vance's office for his role in the family crimi—oops, real-estate business.
But that’s not all Donnie has been up to. He spends his days “blasting the liberal media” on Twitter, doing reply videos on something called Rumble, and being enraged that people don’t pay enough attention to Hunter Biden’s malfeasances. Don flipped his Bridgehampton home for double what he paid for it in a year, which is not at all suspicious. But despite this real-estate win, the former president’s eldest son still has joined other luminaries like Sarah Palin, Mama June, and a dog called “tuna melts my heart” on Cameo, a service where you can get down on your luck celebrities to make personalized videos for your friends. Junior is listed on the site under the category of “activist,” and is charging fans $500 a video with some undisclosed part of that being donated to the Shadow Warriors Project that supports not wounded service members but wounded military contractors and is run by right-wing celebrity Mark “Benghazi” Geist.
And then there’s Eric’s wife Lara, who looks like a bootleg version of Eric’s big sister. Lara was toying with a run for the North Carolina Senate but at Trump’s speech last weekend she told the crowd, “I’m saying no for now, not no forever.” But here’s the thing, if her father-in-law doesn’t run again, now will become forever soon enough as she remains someone who used to be someone, like poor gummy Eric who I guess runs his dad’s chain of failing hotels and shitty condos? Speaking of that, the Associated Press reports that, “Bargain hunters are swooping in to take advantage of prices in Trump buildings that have dropped to levels not seen in over a decade, a crash brokers attribute to a combination of the former president’s polarizing image and the coronavirus pandemic.” Oh well.
Remember Ivanka, the future of the GOP? Well, she’s been in the witness protection program, not really but sort of. Since buying a $30 million empty parcel of land in Miami, the political genius has spent her time “focusing on family time,” walking her tiny white dog on the beach and wearing hideous peach-colored athleisure. She’s not going to primary Lil’ Marco for the Florida Senate. She hardly has time with all the beach walks and decorating.
And then there’s Pop. The former president has spent the winter months in Palm Beach being a baffling uninvited guest at the occasional memorial service and wedding. The rest of the time, senior has spent lined up at the omelet station and pretty much behaving like a retiree, which was sort of how he behaved when he was president. Now Trump is planning a series of “live conversations” (is there any other kind?) with the only person who has more sexual harassment allegations than he does, Bill O’Reilly. What a pair! Women hide your daughters and mothers and yourselves. It’s gonna be like Frost/Nixon except with morons.
Look, there’s a chance, a horrible, miserable chance, that Trump does get re-elected in 2024 and democracy dies, and the Trump kids go back to using our tax dollars to promote themselves as members of government who govern with lots of meaningless initiatives. After 2016, I know better than to say that couldn’t happen. But if it does not, the baby Trumps have let their moment escape them. Junior could have won a congressional seat, and Eric’s horrible wife could have at least grifted a lot of money running for the Senate in North Carolina.
How are the kids going to pay for all their lawyers’ bills if they can’t grift campaign donations like their dad? Never mind, I don’t care.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pathetic-chapter-baby-trumps-034121484.html
Knesset approves new coalition, ending Netanyahu’s long rule
By JOSEPH KRAUSS
5 minutes ago
https://apnews.com/article/israel-knesset-benjamin-netanyahu-naftalia-bennett-deea22832a1cb2d95736f342958083fd
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament approved a new coalition government on Sunday that sent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the opposition after a record 12 years in office and a political crisis that sparked four elections in two years.
Naftali Bennett, the head of a small ultranationalist party, was sworn in as prime minister after a narrow 60-59 vote in parliament. But if he wants to keep the job, he will have to maintain an unwieldy coalition of parties from the political right, left and center.
The eight parties, including a small Arab faction that is making history by sitting in the ruling coalition, are united in their opposition to Netanyahu and new elections but agree on little else. They are likely to pursue a modest agenda that seeks to reduce tensions with the Palestinians and maintain good relations with the U.S. without launching any major initiatives.
Netanyahu sat silently during the vote. After it was approved, he stood up to leave the chamber, before turning around and shaking Bennett’s hand. A dejected Netanyahu, wearing a black medical mask, briefly sat in the opposition leader’s chair before walking out.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, remains the head of the largest party in parliament and is expected to vigorously oppose the new government. If just one faction bolts, it could lose its majority and would be at risk of collapse, giving him an opening to return to power.
The country’s deep divisions were on vivid display as Bennett addressed parliament ahead of the vote. He was repeatedly interrupted and loudly heckled by supporters of Netanyahu, several of whom were escorted out of the chamber.
Bennett’s speech mostly dwelled on domestic issues, but he expressed opposition to U.S. efforts to revive Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
“Israel will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” Bennett said, vowing to maintain Netanyahu’s confrontational policy. “Israel will not be a party to the agreement and will continue to preserve full freedom of action.”
Bennett nevertheless thanked President Joe Biden and the U.S. for its decades of support for Israel.
Netanyahu, speaking after him, vowed to return to power. He predicted the incoming government would be weak on Iran and give in to U.S. demands to make concessions to the Palestinians.
“If it is destined for us to be in the opposition, we will do it with our backs straight until we topple this dangerous government and return to lead the country in our way,” he said.
Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the new government will likely be more stable than it appears.
“Even though it has a very narrow majority, it will be very difficult to topple and replace because the opposition is not cohesive,” he said. Each party in the coalition will want to prove that it can deliver, and for that they need “time and achievements.”
Still, Netanyahu “will continue to cast a shadow,” Plesner said. He expects the incoming opposition leader to exploit events and propose legislation that right-wing coalition members would like to support but can’t — all in order to embarrass and undermine them.
The new government is meanwhile promising a return to normalcy after a tumultuous two years that saw four elections, an 11-day Gaza war last month and a coronavirus outbreak that devastated the economy before it was largely brought under control by a successful vaccination campaign.
The driving force behind the coalition is Yair Lapid, a political centrist who will become prime minister in two years, if the government lasts that long.
He called off a planned speech to parliament, instead saying he was ashamed that his 86-year-old mother had to witness the raucous behavior of his opponents. In a brief speech, he asked for “forgiveness from my mother.”
“I wanted her to be proud of the democratic process in Israel. Instead she, along with every citizen of Israel, is ashamed of you and remembers clearly why it’s time to replace you,” he said.
The new government is expected to win a narrow majority in the 120-member assembly, after which it will be sworn in. The government plans to hold its first official meeting later this evening.
It’s unclear when Netanyahu will move out of the official residence. He has lashed out at the new government in apocalyptic terms and accused Bennett of defrauding voters by running as a right-wing stalwart and then partnering with the left.
Netanyahu’s supporters have held angry protests outside the homes of rival lawmakers, who say they have received death threats naming their family members. Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service issued a rare public warning about the incitement earlier this month, saying it could lead to violence.
Netanyahu has condemned the incitement while noting that he has also been a target.
His place in Israeli history is secure, having served as prime minister for a total of 15 years — more than any other, including the country’s founder, David Ben-Gurion.
Netanyahu began his long rule by defying the Obama administration, refusing to freeze settlement construction as it tried unsuccessfully to revive the peace process. Relations with Israel’s closest ally grew even rockier when Netanyahu vigorously campaigned against President Barack Obama’s emerging nuclear deal with Iran, even denouncing it in an address to the U.S. Congress.
But he suffered few if any consequences from those clashes and was richly rewarded by the Trump administration, which recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, helped broker normalization agreements with four Arab states and withdrew the U.S. from the Iran deal.
Netanyahu has portrayed himself as a world-class statesman, boasting of his close ties with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has also cultivated ties with Arab and African countries that long shunned Israel over its policies toward the Palestinians.
But he has gotten a far chillier reception from the Biden administration and is widely seen as having undermined the long tradition of bipartisan support for Israel in the United States.
His reputation as a political magician has also faded at home, where he has become a deeply polarizing figure. Critics say he has long pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy that aggravated rifts in Israeli society between Jews and Arabs and between his close ultra-Orthodox allies and secular Jews.
In November 2019, he was indicted for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. He refused calls to step down, instead lashing out at the media, judiciary and law enforcement, going so far as to accuse his political opponents of orchestrating an attempted coup. Last year, protesters began holding weekly rallies across the country calling on him to resign.
Netanyahu remains popular among the hard-line nationalists who dominate Israeli politics, but he could soon face a leadership challenge from within his own party. A less polarizing Likud leader would stand a good chance of assembling a coalition that is both farther to the right and more stable than the government that is set to be sworn in.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-knesset-benjamin-netanyahu-naftalia-bennett-deea22832a1cb2d95736f342958083fd
emptywheel @emptywheel BREAKING: The NYT buried the newsworthy information -- which is that HPSCI subpoena targeted a guy named Michael Bahar, not Adam Schiff, behind 17 ¶¶ of baseless speculation about a McGahn subpoena.
HOW DON MCGAHN DISTRACTED THE NYTIMES FROM THE SUBPOENAS KNOWN TO BE PROBLEMATIC
June 13, 2021/0 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, Leak Investigations, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
The NYT just published a story that buried incredibly important details about the HPSCI subpoena in paragraphs 18 and 19.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/06/13/how-don-mcgahn-distracted-the-nytimes-from-the-hpsci-subpoenas/
5:54 PM · Jun 13, 2021·TweetDeck
THREAD
BREAKING: The NYT buried the newsworthy information -- which is that HPSCI subpoena targeted a guy named Michael Bahar, not Adam Schiff, behind 17 ¶¶ of baseless speculation about a McGahn subpoena.https://t.co/oPUouiPtEf
— emptywheel (seiceáil) (@emptywheel) June 13, 2021
Apple Is Said to Have Turned Over Data on Trump’s White House Counsel in 2018
The company notified Donald F. McGahn II last month that it had been subpoenaed for his account information three years ago.
By Michael S. Schmidt and Charlie Savage
June 13, 2021
Updated 12:16 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/us/politics/justice-department-apple-donald-mcgahn.html
WASHINGTON — Apple told Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel to former President Donald J. Trump, last month that the Justice Department had subpoenaed information about an account that belonged to him in February 2018, and that the government barred the company from telling him at the time, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Mr. McGahn’s wife received a similar notice from Apple, said one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
It is not clear what F.B.I. agents were scrutinizing, nor whether Mr. McGahn was their specific focus. In investigations, agents sometimes compile a large list of phone numbers and email addresses that were in contact with a subject, and seek to identify all those people by using subpoenas to communications companies for any account information like names, computer addresses and credit card numbers associated with them.
Still, the disclosure that agents secretly collected data of a sitting White House counsel is striking as it comes amid a political backlash to revelations about Trump-era seizures of data of reporters and Democrats in Congress for leak investigations. The president’s top lawyer is also a chief point of contact between the White House and the Justice Department.
Apple told Mr. McGahn that it complied with the subpoena in a timely fashion but declined to tell him what it provided the government, according to a person briefed on the matter. Under Justice Department policy, gag orders for subpoenas may be renewed for up to a year at a time, suggesting that prosecutors went to court several times to prevent Apple from notifying the McGahns earlier.
Spokespeople for Apple and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mr. McGahn declined to comment.
Apple told the McGahns that it received the subpoena on Feb. 23, 2018, according to a person briefed on the matter. The other person familiar with the matter said the subpoena had been issued by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.
It is not clear why prosecutors obtained the subpoena. But several notable events were occurring around that time.
One of the roughly concurrent events was that the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia was the center of one part of the Russia inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, that focused on Paul Manafort, the onetime chairman of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.
Because Mr. McGahn had been the top lawyer for the Trump campaign in 2016, it is possible that at some earlier point he had been among those in contact with someone whose account the Mueller team was scrutinizing in early 2018.
Notably, Mr. Manafort had been hit with new fraud charges unsealed the day before the subpoena. Subsequent developments revealed that Mr. Mueller’s investigators were closely scrutinizing some of his communications accounts in the days that followed.
Another roughly concurrent event was that around that time, Mr. Trump had become angry at Mr. McGahn over a matter related to the Russia investigation, and that included a leak.
In late January 2018, The New York Times had reported, based on confidential sourcing, that Mr. Trump had ordered Mr. McGahn the previous June to have the Justice Department remove Mr. Mueller, but Mr. McGahn had refused to do so and threatened to resign. The Washington Post confirmed that account soon after in a follow-up article.
The Mueller report, and Mr. McGahn himself in private testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this month, described Mr. Trump’s anger at Mr. McGahn after the Times article, including trying to get him to make a statement falsely denying it. Mr. Trump told aides that Mr. McGahn was a “liar” and a “leaker,” according to former Trump administration officials. In his testimony, Mr. McGahn said that he had been a source for The Post’s follow-up to clarify a nuance — to whom he had conveyed his intentions to resign — but he had not been a source for the original Times article.
There are reasons to doubt that Mr. McGahn was the target of any Justice Department leak investigation stemming from that episode, however. Among others, information about Mr. Trump’s orders to have Mr. Mueller removed does not appear to be the sort of classified national-security secret that it can be a crime to disclose without authorization.
Yet another roughly concurrent event is that the subpoena to Apple that swept up Mr. McGahn’s information came shortly after another one the Justice Department had sent to Apple on Feb. 6, 2018, for a leak investigation related to unauthorized disclosures of information about the Russia inquiry, ensnaring data on congressional staff members, their families and at least two members of Congress.
Among those whose data was secretly seized under a gag order, and who were only recently notified, were two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee: Eric Swalwell and Adam B. Schiff, both of California. Mr. Schiff, a sharp political adversary of Mr. Trump, is now the panel’s chairman. The Times first reported on that subpoena last week.
Many questions remain unanswered about the events leading up to the politically sensitive subpoenas, including how high they were authorized in the Trump Justice Department and whether investigators anticipated or hoped that they were going to sweep in data on the politically prominent lawmakers. The subpoena sought data on 109 email addresses and phone numbers.
In that case, the leak investigation appeared to have been primarily focused on Michael Bahar, then a staff member on the House Intelligence Committee. People close to Jeff Sessions and Rod J. Rosenstein, the top two Justice Department officials at the time, have said that neither knew that prosecutors had sought data about the accounts of lawmakers for that investigation.
It remains murky whether agents were pursuing a theory that Mr. Bahar had leaked on his own or whether they suspected him of talking to reporters with the approval of the lawmakers. Either way, it appears they were unable to prove their suspicions that he was the source of any unauthorized disclosures; the case has been closed and no charges were brought.
Katie Benner and Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/us/politics/justice-department-apple-donald-mcgahn.html
G-7 leaders agree on vaccines, China and taxing corporations
By JILL LAWLESS, SYLVIA HUI, DANICA KIRKA and JONATHAN LEMIRE
24 minutes ago
https://apnews.com/article/g-7-summit-biden-johnson-china-climate-change-31ae76e45f40ac3636c9e819ad899654
CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — The leaders of the world’s richest countries have pledged more than 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer nations, endorsed a global minimum tax on multinational corporations and agreed they will work together to challenge China’s “non-market economic practices” and to call on Beijing to respect human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Speaking at the end of a G-7 leaders’ summit in southwest England on Sunday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the promised vaccine doses would come both directly and through the international COVAX program. The commitment falls far short of the 11 billion doses the World Health Organization said is needed to vaccinate at least 70% of the world’s population and truly end the pandemic.
The decision to support a minimum corporate tax had been widely anticipated after finance ministers earlier this month embraced placing a global tax of at least 15% on large multinational companies to stop corporations from using tax havens to avoid taxes.
The minimum rate was championed by the United States and dovetails with the aim of President Joe Biden to focus the summit on ways the democracies can support a more fair global economy by working together.
Biden also wanted to persuade fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with Beijing and strongly call out China’s “nonmarket policies and human rights abuses.”
In the group’s communique published Sunday, the group said: “With regard to China, and competition in the global economy, we will continue to consult on collective approaches to challenging non-market policies and practices which undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy.”
The leaders also said they will promote their values by calling on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of committing serious human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority, and in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong.
Johnson, the summit’s host, said there was a “fantastic degree of harmony” among the G-7 leaders to demonstrate the value of democracy and human rights to the rest of the world and help “the world’s poorest countries to develop themselves in a way that is clean and green and sustainable.”
The G-7 nations are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — The Group of Seven leaders aim to end their first summit in two years with a punchy set of promises Sunday, including vaccinating the world against coronavirus, making huge corporations pay their fair share of taxes and tackling climate change with a blend of technology and money.
They want to show that international cooperation is back after the upheavals caused by the pandemic and the unpredictability of former U.S. President Donald Trump. And they want to convey that the club of wealthy democracies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — is a better friend to poorer nations than authoritarian rivals such as China.
But it was uncertain how firm the group’s commitments will be on coronavirus vaccines, the economy and the environment when the leaders issue their final communique. Also unclear was whether all of the leaders would back the United States’ call to chastise China for repressing its Uyghur minority and other abuses.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, wanted the three-day meeting to fly the flag for a “Global Britain,” his government’s push to give the midsized country outsized global influence.
Yet Brexit cast a shadow over that goal during the summit on the coast of southwest England. European Union leaders and U.S. President Joe Biden voiced concerns about problems with new U.K.-EU trade rules that have heightened tensions in Northern Ireland.
But overall, the mood has been positive: The leaders smiled for the cameras on the beach at cliff-fringed Carbis Bay, a village and resort that became a traffic-clogged fortress for the meeting. The last G-7 summit was in France in 2019, with last year’s event in the United States scuttled by the pandemic.
The leaders mingled with Queen Elizabeth II at a royal reception on their first evening and were served steak and lobster at a beach barbecue after watching an aeronautic display by the Royal Air Force Red Arrows on their second.
America’s allies were visibly relieved to have the U.S. back as an engaged international player after the “America First” policy of the Trump administration.
“The United States is back, and democracies of the world are standing together,” Biden said as he arrived in the U.K. on the first foreign trip of his 5-month-old presidency. After the G-7 summit, the president will have tea with the queen on Sunday, attend a NATO summit in Brussels on Monday and hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday.
At the G-7, Johnson described Biden as a “breath of fresh air.” French President Emmanuel Macron, after speaking one-to-one with Biden, said, “It’s great to have a U.S. president part of the club and very willing to cooperate.”
The re-energized G-7 made ambitious declarations during their meetings about girls’ education, preventing future pandemics and financing greener infrastructure globally. Above all, they vowed to share vaccine doses with less well-off nations that urgently need them. Johnson said the group would pledge at least 1 billion doses, with half of that coming from the United States and 100 million from Britain.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other public health officials commended the vaccine pledge but said it’s not enough. To truly end the pandemic, he said, 11 billion doses are needed to vaccinate at least 70% of the world’s population by mid-2022.
“We need more and we need them faster,” Tedros said.
Climate change is a key focus of the leaders’ final day of talks on Sunday, and the group is expected to announce new financing measures to help poorer countries reduce carbon emissions.
The “Build Back Better for the World” plan will promise to offer financing for infrastructure — “from railways in Africa to wind farms in Asia” — to help speed up the global shift to renewable energy. The plan is a response to China’s “belt and road” initiative, which has increased Beijing’s worldwide influence.
Climate activists and analysts say filling a $100 billion annual fund to help poor countries tackle the effects of global warming should be at the top of the G-7's list.
All G-7 countries have pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but many environmentalists say that will be too little, too late.
Naturalist David Attenborough addressed the leaders by video Sunday, warning that humanity is “on the verge of destabilizing the entire planet.”
“If that is so, then the decisions we make this decade — in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations — are the most important in human history,” the veteran documentary filmmaker said.
Max Lawson, head of inequality policy for Oxfam International, welcomed plans to boost investment to help poor countries reduce their carbon footprints but said “it doesn’t help the poor people that are being hit by climate change right now.”
“So, yes, it’s probably a good thing but is it enough? Absolutely not,” he said.
Large crowds of surfers and kayakers took to the sea in a mass protest Saturday to urge better protections for the world’s oceans, while thousands beat drums as they marched outside the summit’s media center in Falmouth.
“G-7 is all greenwashing,” the protesters sang. “We’re drowning in promises, now’s the time to act.”
White House officials also said Biden wants the G-7 leaders to speak in a single voice against the forced labor practices targeting China’s Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities. Biden hopes the denunciation will be part of a joint statement Sunday, but some European allies are reluctant to split so forcefully with Beijing.
Canada, Britain and France largely endorsed Biden’s position on China, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed more hesitancy, according to two senior Biden administration officials.
The leaders’ final communique is also expected to formally embrace placing a global minimum tax of at least 15% on large multinational companies to stop corporations from using tax havens to avoid taxes.
The minimum rate was championed by the U.S., and dovetails with the aim of Biden — and Johnson — to focus the summit on ways the democracies can collaborate to build a more inclusive, fair global economy and to compete with rising autocracies like China.
Non-G-7 nations India, South Korea, Australia and South Africa were invited to attend as guests to bolster the group’s support for fellow democracies.
___
Lawless, Kirka and Hui reported from Falmouth, England.
_https://apnews.com/article/g-7-summit-biden-johnson-china-climate-change-31ae76e45f40ac3636c9e819ad899654__
Putin Says Russia Would Accept Conditional Handover of Cyber Criminals to U.S.
By Reuters
June 13, 2021, at 6:27 a.m.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-06-13/putin-says-russia-would-accept-conditional-handover-of-cyber-criminals-to-us
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would be ready to hand over cyber criminals to the United States if Washington did the same for Moscow and the two powers reached an agreement to that effect.
Putin made the comments in an interview aired in excerpts on state television on Sunday ahead of a June 16 summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva. Ties between the powers are badly strained over an array of issues.
The Russian leader said he expected the Geneva meeting to help establish bilateral dialogue and revive personal contacts, adding that important issues for the two men included strategic stability, Libya and Syria, and the environment.
Putin also praised Biden for having shown "professionalism" when the United States and Russia agreed this year to extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty.
The White House has said Biden will bring up ransomware attacks emanating from Russia at the meeting. That issue is in the spotlight after a cyber attack disrupted the North American and Australian operations of meatpacker JBS USA.
A Russia-linked hacking group was behind that attack, a U.S. source familiar with the matter said last week.
Asked if Russia would be prepared to find and prosecute cyber criminals, Putin said Russia's behaviour here would depend on formal agreements being reached by Moscow and Washington.
Both sides would have to commit to the same obligations, he said.
"If we agree to extradite criminals, then of course Russia will do that, we will do that, but only if the other side, in this case the United States, agrees to the same and will extradite the criminals in question to the Russian Federation," he said.
"The question of cyber security is one of the most important at the moment because turning all kinds of systems off can lead to really difficult consequences," he said.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by David Goodman and Gareth Jones)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-06-13/putin-says-russia-would-accept-conditional-handover-of-cyber-criminals-to-us
Israel to swear in government, ending Netanyahu’s long rule
By JOSEPH KRAUSS
today
https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-iran-nuclear-health-coronavirus-pandemic-deea22832a1cb2d95736f342958083fd
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is set to swear in a new government on Sunday that will send Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the opposition after a record 12 years in office and a political crisis that sparked four elections in two years.
Naftali Bennett, the head of a small ultranationalist party, will take over as prime minister. But if he wants to keep the job, he will have to maintain an unwieldy coalition of parties from the political right, left and center.
The eight parties, including a small Arab faction that is making history by sitting in the ruling coalition, are united in their opposition to Netanyahu and new elections but agree on little else. They are likely to pursue a modest agenda that seeks to reduce tensions with the Palestinians and maintain good relations with the U.S. without launching any major initiatives.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, remains the head of the largest party in parliament and is expected to vigorously oppose the new government. If just one faction bolts, it could lose its majority and would be at risk of collapse, giving him an opening to return to power.
The new government is promising a return to normalcy after a tumultuous two years that saw four elections, an 11-day Gaza war last month and a coronavirus outbreak that devastated the economy before it was largely brought under control by a successful vaccination campaign.
The driving force behind the coalition is Yair Lapid, a political centrist who will become prime minister in two years, if the government lasts that long.
Israel’s parliament, known as the Knesset, will convene to vote on the new government at 4 p.m. (1300 GMT). It is expected to win a narrow majority of at least 61 votes in the 120-member assembly, after which it will be sworn in. The government plans to hold its first official meeting later this evening.
It’s unclear if Netanyahu will attend the ceremony or when he will move out of the official residence. He has lashed out at the new government in apocalyptic terms and accused Bennett of defrauding voters by running as a right-wing stalwart and then partnering with the left.
Netanyahu’s supporters have held angry protests outside the homes of rival lawmakers, who say they have received death threats naming their family members. Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service issued a rare public warning about the incitement earlier this month, saying it could lead to violence.
Netanyahu has condemned the incitement while noting that he has also been a target.
His place in Israeli history is secure, having served as prime minister for a total of 15 years — more than any other, including the country’s founder, David Ben-Gurion.
Netanyahu began his long rule by defying the Obama administration, refusing to freeze settlement construction as it tried unsuccessfully to revive the peace process. Relations with Israel’s closest ally grew even rockier when Netanyahu vigorously campaigned against President Barack Obama’s emerging nuclear deal with Iran, even denouncing it in an address to the U.S. Congress.
But he suffered few if any consequences from those clashes and was richly rewarded by the Trump administration, which recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, helped broker normalization agreements with four Arab states and withdrew the U.S. from the Iran deal.
Netanyahu has portrayed himself as a world-class statesman, boasting of his close ties with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has also cultivated ties with Arab and African countries that long shunned Israel over its policies toward the Palestinians.
But he has gotten a far chillier reception from the Biden administration and is widely seen as having undermined the long tradition of bipartisan support for Israel in the United States.
His reputation as a political magician has also faded at home, where he has become a deeply polarizing figure. Critics say he has long pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy that aggravated rifts in Israeli society between Jews and Arabs and between his close ultra-Orthodox allies and secular Jews.
In November 2019, he was indicted for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. He refused calls to step down, instead lashing out at the media, judiciary and law enforcement, going so far as to accuse his political opponents of orchestrating an attempted coup. Last year, protesters began holding weekly rallies across the country calling on him to resign.
Netanyahu remains popular among the hard-line nationalists who dominate Israeli politics, but he could soon face a leadership challenge from within his own party. A less polarizing Likud leader would stand a good chance of assembling a coalition that is both farther to the right and more stable than the government that is set to be sworn in.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-iran-nuclear-health-coronavirus-pandemic-deea22832a1cb2d95736f342958083fd
capitolhunters @capitolhunters #SeditionHunters - Thursday’s arrest of Alan Hostetter highlighted extremism in Orange County, CA, but even he is junior-league. We knew OC would send their finest, and here he is, the highest-profile #SeditionVIP yet: former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA 42). 1/
11:03 PM · Jun 12, 2021·Twitter Web App
THREAD
#SeditionHunters - Thursday’s arrest of Alan Hostetter highlighted extremism in Orange County, CA, but even he is junior-league. We knew OC would send their finest, and here he is, the highest-profile #SeditionVIP yet: former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA 42). 1/ pic.twitter.com/yJDdR5aR4T
— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters) June 12, 2021
#SeditionHunters - Thursday’s arrest of Alan Hostetter highlighted extremism in Orange County, CA, but even he is junior-league. We knew OC would send their finest, and here he is, the highest-profile #SeditionVIP yet: former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA 42). 1/ pic.twitter.com/yJDdR5aR4T
— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters) June 12, 2021
capitolhunters
@capitolhunters
#SeditionHunters - Thursday’s arrest of Alan Hostetter highlighted extremism in Orange County, CA, but even he is junior-league. We knew OC would send their finest, and here he is, the highest-profile #SeditionVIP yet: former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA 42). 1/
Trump lost $40 million on his Scottish golf clubs by failing to implement a very basic financial practice, say experts
Thomas Colson 23 hours ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-lost-40-million-dollars-golf-course-loans-scotland-2021-6?r=US&IR=T
* Trump's failure to hedge loans to his Scottish golf courses cost him tens of millions of dollars, say experts.
* Accounts registered in the UK indicate that Trump issued loans from the US in British pounds.
* The British pound has declined significantly in value, adding tens of millions to his already huge losses.
Donald Trump's international courses have racked up huge losses and rely on loans from various Trump-owned vehicles in the United States just to stay afloat.
However, the scale of Trump's losses may be even greater than it first appears, with experts pointing out that Trump appears to have lost tens of millions of dollars more by failing to implement a very basic financial practice.
First, some context: Trump has two golf resorts in Scotland.
One is the iconic Turnberry near Glasgow, which he bought in 2014, and the other is Trump Golf Links International in Aberdeenshire.
These resorts lose millions of dollars every year, and neither has turned a profit since Trump purchased them.
Both resorts are also dependent on loans from Trump and US-owned entities to stay afloat.
Turnberry's parent company Golf Recreation Scotland owes Trump, through various US-registered entities, a total of £113,425,000 (around $160,000,000), according to UK Companies House accounts filed in December.
Trump International Golf Club Scotland Limited, which owns his Aberdeenshire course, owes Trump £44,400,049, also issued in the form of interest-free loans, according to Companies House accounts.
The problem is that Trump appears to have created those loans in British pound sterling — as evidenced by the fact they are all displayed as sterling loans on Companies House. The Trump Organisation would not confirm or deny this.
Unfortunately for Trump, the British pound has declined significantly in value against the dollar in the period since Trump started issuing loans to his golf courses.
That means that, when and if those loans are eventually repaid to Trump in his native dollar currency, they are going to be worth considerably less than when he issued them.
Trump has 'incurred a significant loss'
His Aberdeenshire course started racking up debts from the beginning of its operation in 2006, when £1 was worth nearly $2. Now, £1 is worth just $1.42 (as of June 9).
Turnberry's parent company has also been taking large loans from US-registered entities owned by Trump since he purchased the resort in 2014.
Stephen Clapham, an investment analyst and founder of financial website Behind the Balance Sheet, who has written previously about Trump's business practices in Scotland, estimated in October last year that the value of those losses may be more than $40 million.
The pound was worth $1.27 made those calculations, and it has since risen to $1.42 (as of June 9), meaning some of those losses will have been mitigated — but the current figure would still represent a loss amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
Those losses, said Clapham, appear to have been the result of Trump's failure to "hedge" the loans he created. In simple terms, hedging is a common business practice that offsets the risk of price movements like a drop in the value of a currency by fixing the repayment rate for a loan when it is created.
"Hedging is what every business does unless there's a specific reason you can't do it — for example, you're investing in [...] somewhere where the capital markets aren't developed enough to allow you to hedge the currency," Clapham told Insider.
There is no evidence in Companies House accounts that Trump's loans were hedged, although it is possible that Trump hedged the loan privately in the United States. Insider asked the Trump Organisation to confirm whether the loans had been hedged but did not receive a response.
The prospect of Trump having lost tens of millions of pounds by failing to implement a common business practice raises further questions about the soundness of his business judgment.
"The most likely explanation is that Trump has made this loan and incurred a significant loss. It's the simplest explanation and probably the most likely," said Clapham.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-lost-40-million-dollars-golf-course-loans-scotland-2021-6?r=US&IR=T
Chicago Cop Charged In Jan. 6 Insurrection, Stormed Senator’s Office In CPD Hoodie: Feds
On Jan. 6, Chicago officer Karol Chwiesiuk sent a photo of himself and texted, "We inside the capital lmfao."
Kelly Bauer
1:04 PM CDT on Jun 11, 2021
https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/06/11/chicago-cop-charged-in-jan-6-insurrection-entered-senators-office-in-cpd-hoodie-feds/
CHICAGO — A Chicago police officer has been charged in connection to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The officer, Karol Chwiesiuk, is accused of breaching a senator’s office during the incident. A criminal complaint details the accusations against Chwiesiuk, saying location data, photos, video and texts show he traveled to Washington, D.C., and entered a senator’s office at the Capitol — all while wearing a Chicago Police Department hoodie.
Data shows Chwiesiuk left Chicago on Jan. 4, arrived in D.C. on Jan. 5 and returned home Jan. 8, according to the complaint. Data also shows the officer spent time at the Mayflower Hotel — which also had a reservation under his name — and went near the Capitol building on Jan. 5, the night before the riot.
On Jan. 3, a text sent from Chwiesiuk’s phone said, “I’m going to dc. … To save the nation. … I’m f— up some commies,” according to the complaint.
At 11:28 a.m. Jan. 6, texts sent from Chwiesiuk’s phone said he was in D.C. “Knocked out a commie last night,” one text said. He sent a photo of himself wearing a hoodie where the Chicago Police Department emblem was visible and texted, “There’s so many blacks here I’m actually in disbelief.”
About 2:58 p.m. Jan. 6, Chwiesiuk sent a photo of himself and then texted, “We inside the capital lmfao.” The photo was taken inside the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, according to the complaint.
The person texting Chwiesiuk said, “Guns were drawn in the chamber once window was broken,” and Chwiesiuk replied, “Yeah I was there.”
Geolocation from Chwiesiuk’s phone shows it was inside or near the Capitol 2:37-3:24 p.m. Jan. 6.
Other photos and videos from the day also appear to show Chwiesiuk inside the Capitol, according to the complaint.
After leaving Merkley’s office, Chwiesiuk went to the Capitol Crypt, then to the Senate Wing and left through a broken-out window, according to the complaint.
Chwiesiuk has been charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Jan. 6 saw supporters of former President Donald Trump violently force their way past Capitol police, break into the Capitol and desecrate the historical building while lawmakers were trying to sign off on President Joe Biden’s victory. Federal lawmakers, aides and reporters had to hide and shelter while rioters stole from offices and broke into Senate chambers.
At a Friday news conference, Supt. David Brown said Chwiesiuk was on medical leave and was off-duty when he allegedly participated in the insurrection. Chwiesiuk was relieved of police duties June 2, when the Police Department learned of the pending charges, Brown said.
The Police Department will “not allow anyone to tarnish our shining star, to bend it, twist it or sully its true meaning. What happened in D.C. on Jan. 6 was an absolute disgrace,” Brown said. “The fact that a Chicago police officer has been charged in that attack on American democracy makes my blood boil, makes me sick to my stomach.
“And yes, if these allegations are true, it breaks my heart. Participating in the siege on the Capitol in any way was a betrayal of everything we stand for: our oath, the law.”
Brown said the Police Department has “zero tolerance” for hate and said officers who “harbor ignorance in” their hearts should take off their badges and find other jobs — “or I’ll do it for you.”
Brown was joined by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who criticized participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection and vowed to hold Chwiesiuk accountable.
“We all watched in horror and anger as these domestic terrorists walked into the Capitol, stormed it … and defiled our nation’s Capitol building,” Lightfoot said. “These feelings of horror and anger intensify when President Trump said little to nothing to stop the mob that he had incited, and then intensified once more when the country found out and continues to learn just who was part of that insurrectionist mob: family members, neighbors, business owners and, sadly, even public servants. One of those was a Chicago police officer, giving a total disgrace to the badge, as the superintendent said.
“CPD should and must always hold officers accountable for their actions both on- and off-duty, and this time will be no different.”
Brown said the department will investigate associates of Chwiesiuk’s to determine if any of them harbor similar beliefs to him and will “root them out.”
“You will not be paid by the taxpayers of this city to be a hateful member of this community,” Lightfoot said.
Chwiesiuk joined the Police Department in 2018 — but he never should have been hired, Brown said.
The officer, who the complaint alleges used racial slurs, worked in the 11th District, which has large communities of color. He had no misconduct reports in his background, Brown said.
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/06/11/chicago-cop-charged-in-jan-6-insurrection-entered-senators-office-in-cpd-hoodie-feds/
Trump is doing more lying about the election than talking about any other subject
Analysis by Daniel Dale, CNN
Updated 1600 GMT (0000 HKT) June 12, 2021
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/12/politics/analysis-trump-election-lies-blog-post-presidency/index.html
Washington (CNN)Since his presidency ended, Donald Trump has issued more statements lying about the 2020 election than statements talking about any other subject.
Banned from Twitter since early January, Trump has communicated his post-presidency musings in written statements that are emailed to journalists and posted on his website. These missives, many of which were initially featured on his now-shuttered blog, have replaced his tweets as the most comprehensive public record of his day-to-day thinking.
And after crunching the numbers, what's clear is that Trump's primary focus is the election he lost.
Forty-three of the 132 post-presidency statements Trump had issued through June 9 included a lie about the election. That's about 33%. These lies range from vague claims that the election was "stolen" and "rigged" to specific false assertions about what happened in various states he lost.
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Trump's second-favorite post-presidency topic has been bashing fellow Republicans. About 24% percent of Trump's post-presidency statements have castigated other members of his party -- sometimes for failing to support his dishonest attempt to get the election overturned, other times for generally failing to be sufficiently loyal to him.
Another 23% of Trump's post-presidency statements have been endorsements of Republican candidates. (These endorsements tend to be more formulaic and less personal than his other commentary.) About 15% of the statements have featured criticism of media outlets or social media companies.
About 10% have involved criticism of President Joe Biden or Biden's administration. About 10% have discussed economic subjects. (We didn't include endorsement statements in which Trump passingly said that the candidate was good on the economy.) About 9% have involved Trump touting his own popularity or influence. About 8% have involved criticism of specific Democrats other than Biden or of Democrats in general. And about 7% have involved praise of Trump's political allies.
What the numbers show
The numbers show just how frequently the former president is still -- a full seven months after his fair-and-square defeat -- promoting baseless nonsense that is destructive to American democracy. And the numbers help explain why so many Republican politicians continue to utter and defend these lies themselves. If the de facto leader of the party is making them an ongoing priority, elected officials who feel the need to stay in his good graces are not abandoning them too fast, either.
The numbers also corroborate what CNN reported last week: people close to Trump say he is fixated on the election and less interested in the policy issues his advisers prefer him to discuss. Only a small percentage of the 132 statements addressed the Covid-19 pandemic (about 5%) or foreign policy or national security (about 2%). A meager 2% of the statements discussed immigration in any detail. And some of the references to the economy were delivered in the course of criticizing someone rather than as their standalone point of emphasis.
A note about the data: the percentages in this story do not add to 100% because we assigned each statement to multiple categories as appropriate. For example, this statement included an election lie, criticism of the media, and criticism of a Republican foe.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/12/politics/analysis-trump-election-lies-blog-post-presidency/index.html
Hints that century-old TB vaccine offers an immune boost against Covid-19
BY ANTHONY KING 11 JUNE 2021
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/hints-that-century-old-tb-vaccine-offers-an-immune-boost-against-covid-19/4013833.article
There are indications that BCG revaccination might protect against Covid-19. The latest results come from a Greek study published as an as yet un-peer reviewed preprint on medRxiv.
BCG – Bacillus Calmette–Gue´rin – celebrates its 100th anniversary this summer and remains the only approved vaccine against tuberculosis. Developed by French bacteriologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin from a bovine relative of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, it was first given to an infant in a Parisian hospital in July 1921.
It was recognised early on that BCG vaccination appeared to reduce death from diseases beyond just tuberculosis. Immunologists have long suspected that this live vaccine primes the immune system to better fight infection. Last year, it was hypothesised that BCG vaccination may protect against Covid-19.
The Greek preprint – yet to be peer reviewed – reported that BCG revaccination resulted in a 68% risk reduction for Covid-19 infection, clinically or virologically confirmed. Five patients receiving a placebo developed severe disease but just one in the BCG vaccine group. However, the trial was relatively small with only around 300 volunteers. ‘It is interesting data, but a small study with high loss to follow-up,’ says Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, an epidemiologist at the University of Southern Denmark, who is involved in the Danish BCG trials. ‘We shouldn’t be opening champagne bottles just yet. We have a lot of trials still going on.’
Data from large trials of BCG revaccination in healthcare workers are now in the works. However, in January, a Dutch study of 6132 patients drew attention to initial findings that the vaccine did not offer protection against Covid-19 symptoms in elderly people.
Immunologist Mihai Netea, who was involved in the Greek and Dutch study, says an important difference between them may be that older Greeks received the BCG vaccine as children, whereas people in countries such as Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium never received one. ‘It might be that the T cell response is different in those who have previously been exposed to BCG, and that the innate immune response is also boosted further by a second administration,’ says Netea, who led studies showing how BCG re-programs immune cells.
Large BCG trials for Covid are underway
Most of the BCG trials worldwide for Covid-19 are in healthcare workers, with more than 2500 volunteers in Brazil. These are part of the Brace trial, which has recruited over 7500 healthcare workers at 34 sites in Brazil, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Australia. This study is led by Nigel Curtis, a vaccine scientist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and University of Melbourne, Australia, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The main question posed is whether the off-target effects of BCG boosts innate immunity and thereby lessens the severity of Covid-19, says Curtis.
A trial of over 1200 healthcare workers is also underway in Denmark, and a trial with older volunteers that is still recruiting there. The former trial was stopped early, because healthcare workers began receiving Covid-19 vaccines. This is an issue with other BCG trials carried out in Europe and the US, where trial participants became eligible for Sars-CoV-2 vaccines. Epidemiologists at the University Medical Centre Utrecht, the Netherlands, have now invited BCG trials to take part in a meta-analysis. The aim is to increase the statistical power by combining the data from all ongoing trials now, rather than waiting until the trials are finished, explains immunologist Henri van Werkhoven at Utrecht.
BCG is not the only existing live vaccine under evaluation. The Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis is coordinating an international trial to investigate if the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine protects healthcare workers from Sars-CoV-2. Also, a recent observational study from India suggests that an immune therapy with killed mycobacterium reduced hospitalisations from Covid-19.
‘BCG revaccination in countries with high pressure load may be useful in countries where classical vaccines are not available. Of course, larger studies from developing countries would be needed to definitively prove that,’ comments Netea. Production of BCG would also need to be ramped up.
These results will be important for future pandemics ‘in order to get even a partial protection from the beginning, so you don’t have to close economies and have so much suffering’, Netea says. He adds that thankfully ‘we have other vaccines that are much more effective [for Covid-19], so the efforts should be put in there’.
Anthony King
I am a freelance science journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. I cover a variety of topics in chemical and biological sciences, as well as science policy, health and innovation.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/hints-that-century-old-tb-vaccine-offers-an-immune-boost-against-covid-19/4013833.article
Axios @axios YouTube has temporarily suspended Sen. Ron Johnson for violating its policy on medical misinformation after he posted a video promoting hydroxychloroquine and other alternative therapies for treating COVID-19.
YouTube suspends Sen. Johnson for violating medical misinformation policy
Jacob Knutson
https://www.axios.com/youtube-sen-johnson-medical-misinformation-809cb55a-bbaf-45a9-940a-ca5b405828a0.html
4:25 PM · Jun 12, 2021·TweetDeck
THREAD
YouTube has temporarily suspended Sen. Ron Johnson for violating its policy on medical misinformation after he posted a video promoting hydroxychloroquine and other alternative therapies for treating COVID-19.https://t.co/Vijvi3WL42
— Axios (@axios) June 12, 2021
Seized House records show just how far Trump admin would go
By COLLEEN LONG
today
https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-donald-trump-europe-house-elections-5615b2d3d90ab545e13b9a82c86ee5e1
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has made no secret of his long list of political enemies. It just wasn’t clear until now how far he would go to try to punish them.
Two House Democrats disclosed this week that their smartphone data was secretly obtained by the Trump Justice Department as part of an effort to uncover the source of leaks related to the investigation of Russian-related election interference.
It was a stunning revelation that one branch of government was using its power to gather private information on another, a move that carried echoes of President Richard Nixon during Watergate.
On Friday, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog announced that it was investigating the records seizure. And Democratic leaders in Congress are demanding that former top Justice officials testify before a Senate committee to explain why the iPhone records of Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both Democrats, and their family members were secretly subpoenaed in 2018. The records of at least 12 people were eventually shared by Apple.
The dispute showed that the rancorous partisan fights that coursed through the Trump presidency continue to play out in new and potentially damaging ways even as the Biden administration has worked to put those turbulent four years in the past.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the conduct of Trump’s Justice Department was a shocking misuse of authority.
“Attorneys general’s only loyalty should be to the rule of law — never to politics,” he said.
The disclosure that the records had been seized raised a number of troubling questions. Who else may have been targeted? What was the legal justification to target members of Congress? Why did Apple, a company that prides itself on user privacy, hand over the records? And what end was the Trump Justice Department pursuing?
The revelations also are forcing the Biden Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to wade back into a fight with their predecessors.
“The question here is just how did Trump use his political power to go after his enemies — how did he use the government for his political benefit,” said Kathleen Clark, legal ethics scholar at Washington University in St. Louis.
The effort to obtain the data came as Trump was publicly and privately fuming over investigations by Congress and then-special counsel Robert Mueller into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.
Trump inveighed against leaks throughout his time in office, accusing a “deep state” of working to undermine him by sharing unflattering information. He repeatedly called on his Justice Department and attorneys general to “go after the leakers,” including singling out former FBI Director James Comey and Schiff, now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
In May of 2018, he tweeted that reports of leaks in his White House were exaggerated, but said that nonetheless, “leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!”
Schiff and Swalwell were two of the most visible Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, then led by Republicans, during the Russia inquiry. Both California lawmakers made frequent appearances on cable news shows. Trump watched those channels closely and seethed over the coverage.
There’s no indication that the Justice Department used the records to prosecute anyone. After some of the leaked information was declassified and made public during the later years of the Trump administration, there was concern among some of the prosecutors that even if they could bring a leak case, trying it would be difficult and a conviction would be unlikely, one person told The Associated Press. That person, a committee official and a third person with knowledge of the data seizures were granted anonymity to discuss them.
Federal agents questioned at least one former committee staff member in 2020, the person said, and ultimately, prosecutors weren’t able to substantiate a case.
For decades, the Justice Department had worked to maintain strict barriers with the White House to avoid being used as a political tool to address a president’s personal grievance.
For some, the Trump administration’s effort is more disturbing than Nixon’s actions during Watergate that forced his resignation. Nixon’s were done in secret out of the White House, while the Trump administration moves to take the congressmen’s records were approved by top Justice Department officials and worked on by prosecutors, who obtained secret subpoenas from a federal judge and then gag orders to keep them quiet.
“The fate of Richard Nixon had a restraining effect on political corruption in America,” said Timothy Naftali, a Nixon scholar and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “It didn’t last forever, but the Republican Party wanted to cleanse itself of Nixon’s bad apples and bad actors.”
The Republican Party is far too aligned with Trump to do that now, but it doesn’t mean Biden should let it go, Naftali said.
“The reason to do this is not revenge,” Naftali said. “It’s to send a signal to future American lawyers they will be held accountable.”
While the Justice Department routinely conducts investigations of leaked information, including classified intelligence, opening such an investigation into members of Congress is extraordinarily rare.
A less rare but still uncommon tool is to secretly seize reporters’ phone records, something the Trump Justice Department also did. Following an outcry from press freedom organizations, Garland announced last week that it would cease the practice of going after journalists’ sourcing information.
The subpoenas were issued in 2018, when Jeff Sessions was attorney general, though he had recused himself in the Russia investigation, putting his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, in charge of Russia-related matters. The investigation later picked up momentum again under Attorney General William Barr.
Apple informed the committee last month that the records had been shared and that the investigation had been closed, but did not give extensive detail. Also seized were the records of aides, former aides and family members, one of them a minor, according to the committee official.
The Justice Department obtained metadata — probably records of calls, texts and locations — but not other content from the devices, like photos, messages or emails, according to one of the people. Another said that Apple complied with the subpoena, providing the information to the Justice Department, and did not immediately notify the members of Congress or the committee about the disclosure.
And the people whose records were seized were unable to challenge the Justice Department because the subpoenas went to Apple directly. The gag order was renewed three times before it lapsed and the company informed its customers May 5 what had happened.
Apple said in a statement that it couldn’t even challenge the warrants because it had so little information available and “it would have been virtually impossible for Apple to understand the intent of the desired information without digging through users’ accounts.”
Patrick Toomey, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the seizure of congressional records was part of a series of Trump-era investigations that “raise profound civil liberties concerns and involve spying powers that have no place in our democracy.”
____
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Mary Clare Jalonick, Nomaan Merchant and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-donald-trump-europe-house-elections-5615b2d3d90ab545e13b9a82c86ee5e1
New questions about a key GOP impeachment witness for Trump
By Aaron Blake
Senior reporter
June 11, 2021 at 10:24 p.m. GMT+1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/11/new-questions-about-key-gop-impeachment-witness-trump/
When President Donald Trump faced his first impeachment in 2019, Republicans focused on a firsthand witness who they claimed helped exonerate Trump: Kurt Volker.
But new evidence calls into question a key portion of Volker’s testimony, in which he repeatedly downplayed personal knowledge that the investigations the Trump team sought in Ukraine involved now-President Biden.
Volker, who was Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, was one of the “three amigos” tasked by Trump to work with Ukraine. Despite turning over text messages that detailed the pressure campaign on Ukraine to launch investigations related to the Bidens, Volker’s testimony was frequently highlighted by Trump allies. That’s because he said hadn’t been aware of a quid pro quo in which Ukraine would be given something for launching politically convenient investigations for Trump. And so the GOP called him as its witness.
“Ambassador Volker … confirmed what the President has repeatedly said: there was no quid pro quo,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted at one point.
“You know pretty much, Ambassador Volker, you just like took apart their entire case,” Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) said while questioning Volker.
CNN this week published a recording of a call between Volker, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and a top Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, from July 2019. In the call, Giuliani discusses the matters involving the Bidens with Yermak. Details of the call had previously been reported, but this gave us a fuller accounting.
The call doesn’t necessarily add a ton to the known facts about what Giuliani et. al. requested of Ukraine. We knew they wanted dirt on the Bidens, as Giuliani himself acknowledged very early on.
As Mother Jones noted, though, Volker in his later testimony downplayed his knowledge of Biden’s proximity to that push.
“At no time was I aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden,” Volker said in his Oct. 3, 2019, deposition. “You will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion.”
He echoed this in his later testimony: “At no time was I aware of or knowingly took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden. As you know from the extensive real-time documentation I have provided, Vice President Biden was not a topic of our discussions.”
The idea that the Trump team’s push might somehow not actually have been about the Bidens was a very fine line walked by another member of the “three amigos” whose testimony Republicans initially played up, then-European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry also tried to make a similar argument. The problem with all of that: Giuliani himself had explicitly connected the requested investigations to Biden in his public comments months before. The motivation here would seem to have been no secret, especially for someone who actually pays regular attention to U.S.-Ukraine relations.
And the recording obtained by CNN shows Giuliani indeed making those connections in a call featuring Volker himself.
“All we need from the [Ukraine] President [Volodymyr Zelensky],” Giuliani says on the call, “is to say, I’m going to put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence that presently exists, and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out.”
Giuliani adds: “Somebody in Ukraine’s got to take that seriously.”
At another point, Giuliani refers to his conversations with former Ukraine prosecutor general Viktor Shokin. Giuliani had worked with Shokin to push the theory that there was something wrong with then-Vice President Biden’s role in applying pressure on Ukraine to fire Shokin.
Again, Giuliani invokes Biden.
“My interest in it was about the collusion, let’s call it — I hate that word — I guess ‘conspiracy,’ to affect the 2016 election,” Giuliani said. “But here I was stuck with this allegation about Biden. And I don’t know what — I mean, now it’s out of my hands, it’s being investigated. But at the time, I didn’t know who would investigate it.”
Again, we’re dealing with some fine lines here. That latter quote doesn’t technically involve asking Ukraine to investigate, but it sure indicates a healthy interest in such investigations. And Giuliani’s first quote suggests a clear desire for a Ukrainian investigation involving Biden, even if you could argue it’s not a direct request.
Volker’s testimony is worth a careful parse. He also referred specifically to the idea that Biden wasn’t brought up in the text messages he turned over — rather than at all in any conversations. And whether he was specifically party to “an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden” is also debatable, for reasons mentioned above.
Another issue: Volker in his deposition presented the Giuliani-Yermak call as “just an introductory phone call so they could talk to each other.”
“It was literally, you know, ‘Let me introduce,’ you know, ‘Mr. Giuliani,’ ” Volker said. “ ‘Let me introduce Mr. Yermak.’ ” Volker might have been referring narrowly to his own role, but the call lasted more than 40 minutes and dealt with plenty of the substantive subjects that would later come up in the impeachment trial.
Volker declined to comment to Mother Jones, saying, “I have nothing to add to what was already covered in my public testimony.” He also declined to comment to The Washington Post.
Volker has already clarified his testimony, to some degree, allowing that perhaps there was more of a quid pro quo than he had personally been aware of. His testimony that he was unaware of a quid pro quo was also called into question by a contemporary text message in which he seemingly referred to one of the key carrots in the Giuliani-Trump effort: Zelensky’s much-desired White House meeting.
“Heard from White House — assuming President [Zelensky] convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington” for Zelensky, Volker said.
One of the witnesses Republicans initially highlighted, Sondland, later confirmed there was a quid pro quo, effectively turning him into a hostile witness for Trump. This would seem to point to valid questions about the testimony of a second key witness cited in Trump’s defense.
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By Aaron Blake
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper. Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/11/new-questions-about-key-gop-impeachment-witness-trump/
Lara Seligman @laraseligman Just in: DOD announces new $150M military package for Ukraine, including counter-artillery radars, counter-UAS, secure comms gear, electronic warfare & military medical evacuation equipment, & training/equipment 2 improve operational safety & capacity of Ukrainian Air Force bases
8:30 PM · Jun 11, 2021 from Virginia, USA·Twitter for iPhone
THREAD
Just in: DOD announces new $150M military package for Ukraine, including counter-artillery radars, counter-UAS, secure comms gear, electronic warfare & military medical evacuation equipment, & training/equipment 2 improve operational safety & capacity of Ukrainian Air Force bases pic.twitter.com/LCeoDgOFNp
— Lara Seligman (@laraseligman) June 11, 2021
Russia’s FSB poisoned another Putin critic. It’s chilling.
Opinion by the
Editorial Board
June 11, 2021 at 8:36 p.m. GMT+1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/russias-fsb-poisoned-another-putin-critic-its-chilling/2021/06/11/41c29d80-c94f-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html
DMITRY BYKOV is a prodigious polymath of Russian letters and journalism. He has written prize-winning biographies and was part of a team that created “Citizen Poet,” a hit series online and on television offering biting political satire. For a decade, he has been a leading voice in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. On April 13, 2019, traveling with his wife, Ekaterina Kevkhishvili, he arrived at Novosibirsk in Siberia for the first stop in a three-city lecture tour. Unbeknownst to Mr. Bykov, two officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) arrived just hours before he did.
What happened next is chilling. According to a report published Wednesday by the open-source investigative outfit Bellingcat and its partners, Mr. Bykov was away from his hotel room for several hours while serving as an honorary reader in a popular spelling contest in the city. On April 14, the FSB men left the city and flew back to Moscow. On April 15, Mr. Bykov and his wife flew to Yekaterinburg for a lecture. On April 16, they took a taxi to the airport there for a flight to Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, 840 miles east of Moscow. Mr. Bykov began feeling nauseous at the airport but boarded the flight. By the time the plane was in the air, he became violently ill, vomiting, dripping with sweat and breathing heavily, and he lay down on the aisle floor. At Ufa, on the way to the hospital by ambulance, his wife says his speech turned to jumbled, incoherent sounds.
This set of events is almost identical to what happened to Russia’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, more than a year later, in August 2020. Bellingcat, in partnership with the Insider and Der Spiegel, suggests that Mr. Bykov was sickened by a secret poison squad of FSB officers, including some who later attempted to assassinate Mr. Navalny. The Bellingcat report documents how the FSB officers trailed Mr. Bykov and suggests they may have covertly placed the poison on his clothes when he was away from his hotel room.
Mr. Bykov suffered symptoms in Ufa similar to Mr. Navalny’s. He was later transferred from Ufa to a neurological institute in Moscow and recovered. Doctors never determined the cause of the poisoning. In Mr. Navalny’s case, subsequent tests abroad showed the poison squad used a substance similar to the nerve agent Novichok, a class of Soviet-era chemical weapons. Mr. Navalny, who is now in prison and whose organization has been outlawed as “extremist,” published a new investigation Thursday charging that Russian officials had falsified medical reports in his case and demanding a criminal probe.
In the case of Mr. Bykov, Bellingcat says if the poison were the same, it would have hit him after he got dressed on the morning of April 16 and went to the airport. This appears to be yet another attempted murder by Russia’s security services, who report to Mr. Putin, and a blatant violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty Russia signed and ratified. It shows how Mr. Putin deals with his critics: He sends them killers bearing Novichok.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/russias-fsb-poisoned-another-putin-critic-its-chilling/2021/06/11/41c29d80-c94f-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html
DOJ indictment: Trump took CCP money:
Discussion on TheNewsBlender The Post It Note 6/11/21
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https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.justice.gov%2Fopa%2Fpr%2Fus-entertainerbusinessman-and-malaysian-national-charged-back-channel-lobbying-campaign-drop%3A02dQmWIkpJznOyYslpSPbFq_JIM&cuid=5471682
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, June 11, 2021
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-entertainerbusinessman-and-malaysian-national-charged-back-channel-lobbying-campaign-drop
U.S. Entertainer/Businessman and Malaysian National Charged with Back-Channel Lobbying Campaign to Drop 1MDB Investigation and Remove Chinese Dissident from U.S.
A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment Thursday charging a U.S. entertainer and businessman and a Malaysian national with orchestrating an unregistered, back-channel campaign beginning in or about 2017 to influence the then-administration of the President of the United States and the Department of Justice both to drop the investigation of Jho Low and others in connection with the international strategic and development company known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), and to send a Chinese dissident back to China.
According to the superseding indictment, Low Taek Jho, 39, also known as Jho Low, and Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, 48, are alleged to have conspired with Elliott Broidy, Nickie Lum Davis, and others to engage in undisclosed lobbying campaigns at the direction of Low and the Vice Minister of Public Security for the People’s Republic of China, respectively, both to have the 1MDB embezzlement investigation and forfeiture proceedings involving Low and others dropped and to have a Chinese dissident sent back to China. Michel and Low are also charged with conspiring to commit money laundering related to the foreign influence campaigns. Michel is also charged with witness tampering and conspiracy to make false statements to banks.
In May 2019, Michel and Low were charged in the District of Columbia for allegedly orchestrating and concealing a foreign and conduit contribution scheme in which they funneled millions of dollars of Low’s money into the U.S. presidential election as purportedly legitimate campaign contributions, all while concealing the true source of the money. According to the indictment, to execute the scheme, Michel received Low’s money and contributed it both personally and through approximately 20 straw donors.
If convicted, Low faces a maximum penalty of five to 10 years in prison, per count. If convicted, Michel faces a range of maximum penalties from five to 20 years in prison, per count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin O. Driscoll of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Special Agent in Charge Keith A. Bonanno of the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Cyber Investigations Office; Assistant Director in Charge ?Kristi Koons Johnson of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office; and Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBI’s New York Field Office made the announcement.
The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and International Corruption Squad in New York are investigating the case.
Principal Deputy Chief John D. Keller, Deputy Director of Election Crimes Sean F. Mulryne, and Trial Attorney Nicole R. Lockhart of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-entertainerbusinessman-and-malaysian-national-charged-back-channel-lobbying-campaign-drop
Curiously, the crime for which Giuliani is under investigation — violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires agents of foreign governments who lobby U.S. officials to disclose their relationship with the foreign government — has been prosecuted only rarely over the decades. But FARA prosecutions spiked during the Trump administration, including the high-profile conviction of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and former Republican finance chair Elliott Broidy. (An associate of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was also indicted for a FARA violation, but the conviction was later overturned.) That group of FARA prosecutions led President Joe Biden to vow on the campaign trail to increase the use of FARA if he were elected, saying there should be no lobbying on behalf of foreign governments outside regular diplomatic channels.
Giuliani’s Legal Trouble Is Trump’s Too
To save himself, the president’s former lawyer might have to spill damning secrets.
By RENATO MARIOTTI
05/02/2021 07:00 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/02/giuliani-trump-legal-trouble-485186
Minnesota Man Charged in Jan. 6 Capitol Siege Was Prepared to Die and Leave Four Kids Behind: ‘I Was at Peace with That Knowledge’
MARISA SARNOFF Jun 11th, 2021, 5:23 pm
The FBI says that Brian Mock went to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 unsure of what he would face, but as he shared on social media just days later, he was prepared to fully commit to whatever came his way — even death.
“I went to the Capitol not knowing what to expect but said goodbye to my 4 children, not sure if I was going to come home,” Mock wrote on Facebook on Jan. 8, according to federal documents charging Mock with multiple crimes. “I was at peace with that knowledge.”
Mock, 43, is one of the latest people to be arrested for crimes related to the siege on the U.S. Capitol, according to a statement from the Justice Department on Friday.
Citing court documents, the DOJ said that Mock was captured on body-worn camera footage “repeatedly assaulting multiple law enforcement officers who were trying to protect the building from rioters.” Mock reportedly shoved a U.S. Capitol Police officer to the ground and kicked him as another rioter grabbed the officer’s legs. Mock also allegedly “cornered” Capitol and Metropolitan Police officers, and shoved another Capitol police officer to the ground.
- MULTIPLE IMAGES
As the mob “continued to advance and assault other officers,” Mock also “picked up multiple [Capitol Police] riot shields and passed them back to other members of the violent crowd,” according to the DOJ.
According to the DOJ, Mock’s girlfriend posted pictures and bragging about her and Mock’s Jan. 6 experience.
“Teargassed 6 times, pepper sprayed, and mustard gassed at the end,” Mock’s girlfriend allegedly wrote. “But we stayed true to being Patriots, marched to the Capital [sic] and stormed the Frontline… no regrets… ashamed of the blue that harmed everyone there to stand for the cause..”
The charging documents also show that Mock made sure to take in some of the sights Washington had to offer ahead of joining the crowd of Donald Trump supporters and violently breaching the U.S. Capitol Building.
“Before we went to the Capital [sic]… we did a little sight seeing…” read a caption of a Facebook post, where Mock is seen posing in front of the Minnesota pillar at the World War II Memorial.
FBI investigators confirmed Mock’s identity with at least eight different witnesses, including one who told the FBI that Mock “went to DC specifically for this. He is home bragging about beating up cops and destroying property in the capital [sic],” according to the charging documents.
Another witness told the FBI that they had feared Mock was a “radical” who would participate in violent protests in Minnesota. The same witness said that Mock and his girlfriend were at the “DC Capitol attack, did not enter the Capitol but were actively removing fencing … they went to the Capitol to protest and both were tear gassed.” This witness said that Mock had a “criminal history involving guns,” which the FBI investigator confirmed in the charging documents.
“According to Witness 8, MOCK told Witness 8 he ‘beat the shit’ out of a police officer.’ Witness 8 showed me text messages between Witness 8 and MOCK, where MOCK admits to his participation in the riots,” documents said.
Mock faces at least four charges, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, and acts of physical violence in the grounds or any of the Capitol buildings.
He made his initial court appearance at the U.S. District Court in St. Paul on Friday afternoon.
According to the DOJ, some 465 people have been arrested on charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, including over 130 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
Read the affidavit, below.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20806824/mock_charging_docs.pdf
https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/minnesota-man-charged-in-jan-6-capitol-siege-was-prepared-to-die-and-leave-four-kids-behind-i-was-at-peace-with-that-knowledge/
Jeff Sessions Claims He’s Clueless About His DOJ’s Snooping on Congress
Asawin Suebsaeng, Adam Rawnsley
Fri, June 11, 2021, 11:00 PM·3 min read
https://www.yahoo.com/news/jeff-sessions-claims-clueless-doj-220017597.html
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is telling associates he had no idea his Justice Department seized phone records of two top Democratic congressional critics of then-President Donald Trump.
In the hours since The New York Times broke the news on Thursday that prosecutors subpoenaed Apple metadata from Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA), former Attorney General Sessions has privately told people that he wasn’t aware of, nor was he briefed on, the reported data seizures while he led the Trump DOJ. This week’s revelations were a surprise to him, according to a source familiar with the matter, and another person close to Sessions.
“[What’s been reported] is explicitly the kind of thing that Donald Trump would often say he wanted out of his Justice Department,” said the individual familiar with the matter. “But right now, it’s unclear how many top officials [at the time] even knew about this.”
Sessions did not immediately respond to a phone call or messages seeking comment on Friday afternoon.
Under Sessions, the Justice Department launched dozens of probes into leaks of classified information. Leak investigations skyrocketed 800 percent over the Obama administration—a statistic he proudly touted in congressional testimony. One of those investigations concerned the disclosure of key details of the probe into Russian election meddling. The targeting of members of Congress’ communications—as well as the seizure of records from reporters at The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN—are all believed to be part of that Russia-related leak hunt.
Ordinarily, the attorney general would’ve been aware of such politically sensitive subpoenas. But Sessions’ tenure was anything but ordinary. And he famously recused himself from the broader Russia probe following revelations that, as an Alabama senator, he privately met with the Russian ambassador, despite public testimony to the contrary.
In the hours since The New York Times broke the news on Thursday that prosecutors subpoenaed Apple metadata from Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA), former Attorney General Sessions has privately told people that he wasn’t aware of, nor was he briefed on, the reported data seizures while he led the Trump DOJ. This week’s revelations were a surprise to him, according to a source familiar with the matter, and another person close to Sessions.
“[What’s been reported] is explicitly the kind of thing that Donald Trump would often say he wanted out of his Justice Department,” said the individual familiar with the matter. “But right now, it’s unclear how many top officials [at the time] even knew about this.”
Sessions did not immediately respond to a phone call or messages seeking comment on Friday afternoon.
Under Sessions, the Justice Department launched dozens of probes into leaks of classified information. Leak investigations skyrocketed 800 percent over the Obama administration—a statistic he proudly touted in congressional testimony. One of those investigations concerned the disclosure of key details of the probe into Russian election meddling. The targeting of members of Congress’ communications—as well as the seizure of records from reporters at The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN—are all believed to be part of that Russia-related leak hunt.
Ordinarily, the attorney general would’ve been aware of such politically sensitive subpoenas. But Sessions’ tenure was anything but ordinary. And he famously recused himself from the broader Russia probe following revelations that, as an Alabama senator, he privately met with the Russian ambassador, despite public testimony to the contrary.
“In a normally-functioning department, that is not a call that would be made without the attorney general’s approval,” Matthew Miller, a former top spokesperson for the Justice Department under the Obama administration, told The Daily Beast.
“The question to me would be whether he [Sessions] was recused or not. We know he was recused from the Russia investigation, and so if he decided that recusal extended to related leak investigations, then it would make sense that he wouldn’t know. Recusals are bright lines,” he added.
According to The New York Times, prosecutors reportedly considered Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell as potential sources of the leaks, given their access to classified information as members of the House intelligence committee. So the prosecutors issued a subpoena to Apple for metadata about the congressmen’s communications, according to the Times. But it’s unclear why prosecutors focused on them rather than others who may have had access to the same information. The Times reported that prosecutors cast a wide net while investigating Schiff and Swalwell, and went so far as to subpoena Apple for phone records from their staff and children.
While prosecutors obtained Schiff and Swalwell’s phone records before Attorney General Barr took office in 2019, the Times reported that the investigation continued in his tenure and saw FBI agents interview a former House intelligence committee staffer. Later that year, when then-Senator Kamala Harris asked Barr if the Trump White House had suggested he open an investigation into anyone, he claimed not to know.
On Friday, former Trump attorney general William Barr told Politico that both he and Trump were “not aware” that the Justice Department had investigated sitting members of Congress, staff, and family members.
Congressional Democrats have called for both Barr and Sessions to testify about the investigation and the Justice Department’s Inspector General announced an inquiry into the subject on Friday.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/jeff-sessions-claims-clueless-doj-220017597.html
Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1 BREAKING: Attorney General Garland has announced that the Justice Department will double its Civil Rights Division staff in the next 30 days to protect voting rights in the U.S.
7:55 PM · Jun 11, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
THREAD
BREAKING: Attorney General Garland has announced that the Justice Department will double its Civil Rights Division staff in the next 30 days to protect voting rights in the U.S.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 11, 2021
LIVE: Attorney General Merrick Garland gives policy address on voting rights — 6/11/2021
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland gives a policy address on voting rights and the steps the Department of Justice is taking to secure the fundamental right to vote for all Americans. "Voting is a fundamental element of our democracy," Garland said, while testifying before Congress this week. "Without it, without the right to vote, none of the other rights follow."
Streamed live 29 minutes ago
Merrick Garland to announce Justice Dept. plans to protect voting access.
By Katie Benner
June 11, 2021, 1:05 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/us/politics/merrick-garland-voting-rights.html
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Friday plans to announce steps that the Justice Department can take to secure voting rights.
Mr. Garland’s plans, expected to be announced Friday afternoon, come as Republican-led state legislatures push to enact new restrictive voting laws.
In more than a dozen states, at least 22 new laws have been passed that make it more difficult to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive public policy institute that is part of the New York University School of Law.
Democrats have filed lawsuits against some new voting laws, but that litigation could take years to wind its way through the courts and may have little power to stop those laws from impacting upcoming elections.
Two major federal election bills — the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act — are also the subject of fierce debate in Congress.
Earlier this week, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said that he would oppose the For the People Act, dashing hopes among progressives that the far-reaching bill intended to fight voter suppression would ever become law.
The bill as it stands would roll back the measures in Republican state legislatures that limit early and mail-in voting. The bill also has an ethics portion, created in response to President Donald J. Trump’s willingness to ignore longstanding presidential norms.
Mr. Garland has said that protecting the right to vote is one of his top priorities as attorney general, and his top lieutenants include high-profile voting rights advocates such as Vanita Gupta, the department’s No. 3 official, and Kristen Clarke, the head of the Civil Rights Division.
Ms. Clarke’s long career advocating for voting rights protections — including at the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the New York attorney general’s office and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — will make her a key player in the Justice Department’s work to preserve voting access.
But that work is made more difficult by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down pieces of the Voting Rights Act, which forced states with legacies of racial discrimination to receive Justice Department approval before they could change their voting laws.
Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @ktbenner
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/us/politics/merrick-garland-voting-rights.html
Charlie Savage @charlie_savage The DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, says he will look at the entire span of leak investigation matters -- both the seizure of Congress-related records and reporters' records.
6:48 PM · Jun 11, 2021·Twitter Web App
THREAD
The DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, says he will look at the entire span of leak investigation matters -- both the seizure of Congress-related records and reporters' records. pic.twitter.com/3IwxrdEOsk
— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) June 11, 2021
Inbox --> DOJ OIG Initiates a Review of the Department of Justice’s Use of Subpoenas and Other Legal
— Andrew deGrandpré (@adegrandpre) June 11, 2021
Authorities to Obtain Communication Records of Members of Congress and Affiliated Persons, and
the News Media pic.twitter.com/Ov7pMt60Lf
DOJ seeks internal probe on seizure of Democrats' data
The Justice Department has asked for an internal investigation after revelations that former President Donald Trump’s administration seized phone data from House Democrats in 2018 as part of a leaks investigation
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and MICHAEL BALSAMO Associated Press
11 June 2021, 18:25
• 5 min read
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/senate-demands-ags-testify-trump-data-seizure-78222973
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department asked for an internal investigation Friday after revelations that former President Donald Trump's administration seized phone data from at least two House Democrats in 2018 as part of an aggressive leaks probe. Democrats called the disclosures “harrowing."
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco made the request of the Justice Department’s inspector general, a senior Justice Department official told The Associated Press. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
While the Justice Department routinely investigates leaked information, such an investigation into members of Congress is extraordinarily rare. The disclosures reveal one branch of the government using its powers of investigation and prosecution to spy on another.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and California Rep. Eric Swalwell were notified last month that Trump's Justice Department had seized their metadata from Apple three years ago as part of the leaks probe related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters. That’s according to three people familiar with the seizures.
Also Friday, Senate Democratic leaders demanded that Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions testify about the data shared by Apple, calling it “shocking” and a “gross abuse of power.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Judiciary Committee chairman, said in a statement Friday that Barr and Sessions “must testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee” and are subject to a subpoena if they refuse.
Schiff, now the chairman of the intelligence panel, said in a statement that the seizures suggest “the weaponization of law enforcement by a corrupt president.”
Prosecutors from Trump’s Justice Department subpoenaed Apple for the data, said a committee official and two other people with inside knowledge. The records of at least 12 people connected to the intelligence panel were eventually shared by the company.
The committee official and the two others with knowledge of the data seizures were granted anonymity to discuss them.
Apple informed the committee last month that the records had been shared and that the investigation had been closed, but did not give extensive detail. Also seized were the records of aides, former aides and family members, one of them a minor, according to the committee official.
The Justice Department obtained metadata — probably records of calls, texts and locations — but not other content from the devices, like photos, messages or emails, according to one of the people. Another said that Apple complied with the subpoena, providing the information to the Justice Department, and did not immediately notify the members of Congress or the committee about the disclosure.
The secret seizures were first reported by The New York Times.
The Trump administration’s attempt to secretly gain access to the data came as the president was fuming publicly and privately over investigations — in Congress and by then-special counsel Robert Mueller — into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
Trump called the probes a “witch hunt," regularly criticized Democrats and Mueller on Twitter and repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” leaks he found harmful to his agenda. As the investigations swirled around him, he demanded loyalty from a Justice Department he often regarded as his personal law firm.
Schiff and Swalwell were two of the most visible Democrats on the committee, then led by Republicans, during the Russia probe. Both California lawmakers made frequent appearances on cable news. Trump watched those channels closely, if not obsessively, and seethed over the coverage.
Schiff, in a statement late Thursday, called for an investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general on the seizures.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement that the data seizures "appear to be yet another egregious assault on our democracy” waged by the former president.
“The news about the politicization of the Trump Administration Justice Department is harrowing," she said.
The committee official said the panel has continued to seek additional information, but the Justice Department has not been forthcoming on questions such as whether the investigation was properly predicated and whether it only focused on Democrats.
It is unclear why Trump's Justice Department would have targeted a minor as part of the probe. Swalwell, confirming that he was told his records were seized, told CNN on Thursday night that he was aware a minor was involved and believed that person was "targeted punitively and not for any reason in law.”
On CNN Friday, Swalwell said he “would not be surprised” if the department had gone after other members as well. He said an internal Justice Department investigation could find that out. The Senate Intelligence Committee was not similarly targeted, according to a fourth person who was aware of the probe and granted anonymity to discuss it.
There's no indication that the Justice Department used the records to prosecute anyone. After some of the information was declassified and made public during the later years of the Trump administration, some of the prosecutors were concerned that even if they could bring a leak case, trying it would be difficult and a conviction would be unlikely, one of the people said.
Federal agents questioned at least one former committee staff member in 2020, the person said, and ultimately, prosecutors weren’t able to substantiate a case.
The news follows revelations that the Justice Department had secretly seized phone records belonging to reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN as part of criminal leak investigations. Following an outcry from press freedom organizations, the Justice Department announced last week that it would cease the practice of going after journalists’ sourcing information.
———
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/senate-demands-ags-testify-trump-data-seizure-78222973
Trump’s ever-present — and still growing — exploitation of the Justice Department
President Donald Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr depart after delivering remarks on citizenship and the census in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on July 11, 2019. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Aaron Blake Senior reporter
June 11, 2021 at 4:12 p.m. GMT+1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/11/trumps-ever-present-still-growing-exploitation-justice-department/
It has been clear for a very long time that then-President Donald Trump sought to politicize and weaponize the Justice Department he presided over perhaps more than any president since Richard M. Nixon. This is a guy, after all, whose most popular rally cry during his campaign was “lock her up,” about his opponent. Trump regularly showed little compunction about leaning on his Justice Department to do his bidding and target his foes, often doing so quite publicly in a way that flew in the face of well-established protocol. Even then-Attorney General William P. Barr, a fan of a powerful chief executive if there ever was one, decided he needed to at least make a show of publicly telling Trump to knock it off.
What we’re learning, increasingly though, is that we might not know the half of it.
The New York Times revealed Thursday night — and The Washington Post confirmed — that the Justice Department under Trump secretly subpoenaed the data of two prominent Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee: the panel’s top Democrat Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.). Their committee was, at the time, probing Trump’s relationship with Russia, and the ostensible purpose of the requests was to find out if they or those around them were leaking information about the matter.
The news comes shortly after we learned of other highly unorthodox Justice Department efforts to obtain the data and phone records of reporters who scrutinized Trump. First it was Washington Post reporters. Then it was a CNN reporter. Then it was reporters from the Times.
In each case, we are only learning these things now because the Justice Department under now-President Biden has notified those involved. In the cases involving CNN and the Times, the Trump Justice Department actively fought to avoid the disclosures even to people within those organizations. Ditto Schiff and Swalwell.
This comes on top of myriad other ways in which Trump politicized the DOJ. It’s honestly difficult to recount all of them, because there were so many, but here are some of the biggest and most applicable ones:
* He fired the man leading the Russia investigation involving himself, then-FBI Director James B. Comey.
* He tried to remove Comey’s effective replacement, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to the testimony of former White House counsel Donald McGahn.
* He repeatedly pressured then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Sessions ultimately fired McCabe hours before McCabe was able to retire with full benefits.
* He toyed with firing various other figures involved in or adjacent to the Russia probe, including Sessions (who ultimately resigned in the face of the pressure) and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.
* He intermittently suggested the DOJ should investigate Hillary Clinton again, not just for her private email server as secretary of state but also her campaign’s role in the Steele dossier and allegedly rigging the 2016 Democratic primary.
* He also suggested he could ask for a DOJ investigation into his 2020 opponent, Biden.
* He repeatedly applied pressure on the DOJ to take it easy on his allies facing legal pressure, apparently ultimately succeeding in the cases of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. (These were the instances in which Barr claimed Trump’s public exhortations “make it impossible for me to do my job.” Yet despite Trump declining to stop, Barr backed down.)
We even learned just last week — on top of all the other recent developments — that Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows sent emails to the Justice Department in Trump’s final weeks in office trying to get it to look into baseless election fraud theories.
When the latest news dropped Thursday night, plenty of people pointed to Barr’s testimony in May 2019. Then-Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) asked Barr whether Trump “or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation of anyone?” It was an extremely fair question given all of the above. Barr hemmed and hawed, saying he wasn’t sure what to make of the word “suggest.” He ultimately indicated nobody had directly asked him but that he didn’t know whether “suggest” might have applied in some way.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar ·
May 1, 2019
.@SenKamalaHarris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?
BARR: ..... ah .....
HARRIS: Seems like something you should be able to answer
BARR: I don't know .......
VIDEO -
.@SenKamalaHarris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2019
BARR: ..... ah .....
HARRIS: Seems like something you should be able to answer
BARR: I don't know ....... pic.twitter.com/8FIqrGzSrm
.@SenKamalaHarris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2019
BARR: ..... ah .....
HARRIS: Seems like something you should be able to answer
BARR: I don't know ....... pic.twitter.com/8FIqrGzSrm
Senate Democrats threaten to subpoena Barr, Sessions for testimony over Justice Dept.’s secret pursuit of two House Democrats’ data
By Felicia Sonmez , Matt Zapotosky and Karoun Demirjian
June 11, 2021 at 6:04 p.m. GMT+1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-justice-department-democrats-congress/2021/06/11/7c2b1aa8-cace-11eb-a11b-6c6191ccd599_story.html
Senate Democratic leaders on Friday demanded that former attorneys general in the Trump administration testify over secret subpoenas of two House Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) called the secret subpoenas “a gross abuse of power and an assault on the separation of powers.” They said that if former Trump attorneys general William P. Barr and Jeff Sessions do not voluntarily testify, they will be subpoenaed to appear before Durbin’s committee.
The statement from Schumer and Durbin is in response to reports Thursday night that the Justice Department in 2018 secretly subpoenaed Apple for the data of two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), as well as the data of their current and former staffers and family members.
“The revelation that the Trump Justice Department secretly subpoenaed metadata of House Intelligence Committee Members and staff and their families, including a minor, is shocking,” Schumer and Durbin said. “This appalling politicization of the Department of Justice by Donald Trump and his sycophants must be investigated immediately by both the DOJ Inspector General and Congress.”
A House Intelligence Committee official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains politically sensitive, said Thursday night that Apple in May had notified at least 12 people connected to the panel of subpoenas for their data, and that one minor was among them.
Democrats swiftly condemned the moves, news of which followed three recent disclosures to national media organizations that the Trump Justice Department had secretly sought reporters’ phone and email records in an effort to identify the sources of leaks.
“President Trump repeatedly and flagrantly demanded that the Department of Justice carry out his political will, and tried to use the Department as a cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media. It is increasingly apparent that those demands did not fall on deaf ears,” Schiff said in a statement Thursday. “The politicization of the Department and the attacks on the rule of law are among the most dangerous assaults on our democracy carried out by the former President.”
In their joint statement Friday, Schumer and Durbin said that in addition to Barr, Sessions and other officials testifying, the Justice Department “must provide information and answers to the Judiciary Committee, which will vigorously investigate this abuse of power.”
“This issue should not be partisan; under the Constitution, Congress is a co-equal branch of government and must be protected from an overreaching executive, and we expect that our Republican colleagues will join us in getting to the bottom of this serious matter,” they said.
News of the department’s moves to obtain lawmakers’ data was first reported by the New York Times. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. A spokesperson for Apple did not respond to requests for comment, and Trump did not immediately comment.
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Image without a caption
By Felicia Sonmez
Felicia Sonmez is a national political reporter covering breaking news from the White House, Congress and the campaign trail. She was previously based in Beijing, where she worked for Agence France-Presse and The Wall Street Journal. Twitter
Image without a caption
By Matt Zapotosky
Matt Zapotosky covers the Justice Department for The Washington Post's national security team. He has previously worked covering the federal courthouse in Alexandria and local law enforcement in Prince George's County and Southern Maryland. Twitter
Image without a caption
By Karoun Demirjian
Karoun Demirjian is a national security reporter covering Capitol Hill, where she focuses on defense, foreign affairs, intelligence and policy matters concerning the Justice Department. She was previously a correspondent based in The Post's bureau in Moscow. Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-justice-department-democrats-congress/2021/06/11/7c2b1aa8-cace-11eb-a11b-6c6191ccd599_story.html
Andrew Dymock: The neo-Nazi exposed by the BBC
By Daniel De Simone
BBC News
Published1 hour ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57406673
Andrew Dymock, the son of two academics from Bath, has been convicted of multiple terror offences following an Old Bailey trial.
The university student, who founded and led two banned neo-Nazi terrorist groups, was first exposed by the BBC.
In the summer of 2017, racist and homophobic propaganda posters began appearing in cities throughout the UK.
Bearing the logo of a new neo-Nazi group, the material abused and sought to intimidate gay, Jewish, black and Muslim people.
The group, System Resistance Network (SRN), also emerged online, using its website and social-media accounts to spread vile imagery, videos and diatribes.
Much of the material went beyond stirring up hatred, crossing instead into open encouragement of violence and genocide.
In December 2016, National Action had become the first neo-Nazi group to be banned in the UK as a terrorist organisation, but a subsequent increase in terrorism prosecutions relating to right-wing ideologies had yet to begin.
The BBC began tracking SRN's street-level activity and, over the following months, found at least 10 cities had been targeted - from Dundee to Southampton, Newport to Cambridge.
It became clear SRN's presence in such disparate places was due to its requirement that aspiring members proved themselves by covering their local areas with propaganda.
The organisers hid behind masks and online aliases, making them hard to identify, although there seemed to be links to National Action.
There was a clear connection to the US terror group Atomwaffen Division, with the organisations referencing and promoting one another.
Atomwaffen, linked to five murders in the USA, draws on the most violent parts of the white-power canon, blending them with obscure Satanist-occult beliefs, to promote the apocalyptic idea an inevitable societal collapse should be accelerated through terrorism and criminality.
One of the SRN leaders used the alias Blitz.
There were suggestions Blitz was an already-notorious figure from National Action - but the information the BBC found contradicted this claim.
Dymock (right), posing with SKD flags, with associate Okar Dunn-Koczorowski
When, in spring 2018, Blitz split from SRN, following a row over his adherence to Satanism, he created an even more extreme group, Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD).
The group lionised the Moors murderer Ian Brady and cult-leader Charles Manson, with its racist and misogynistic online material promoting the rape and murder of women and children and calling for the Duke of Sussex to be shot for marrying Meghan Markle.
The BBC obtained private-chat logs, containing SKD members, in which Blitz:
criticised Adolf Hitler for "not slaughtering the subhuman British at Dunkirk"
said the age of sexual consent should be 12
called for police officers to be raped and killed
The chats revealed that SKD was created as a European version of Atomwaffen Division.
Some of the young men discussed vulnerable girls they had encouraged to self-harm, laughing at the hurt they had caused.
One member, later revealed to be Leeds student Michael Szewczuk, mocked a girl he had asked to cut a Swastika into herself, writing she "can't even carve her own skin properly".
Teen neo-Nazis jailed over terror offences
Neo-Nazi group to be banned under terror laws
Blitz used a series of aliases but left clues about his real identity, including:
seemingly at university, he identified himself as coming from the west country and being in a "very wealthy tourist town"
a reference to planned travel to the US, to meet Atomwaffen members, on a certain date
stating his "parents pay for everything", implying he was from a materially comfortable background
mentioning shopping at Morrisons
But his bedsheets were the giveaway.
Blitz posted a photo in the chat of a neo-Nazi book resting on distinctive rainbow-coloured sheets.
The same bedsheet was visible in photos, shared by Blitz elsewhere, of a girl naked on a floor while he brandished a copy of a neo-Nazi text over her, as well as an image of her with wounds and swastikas carved into her skin.
Separately, the BBC found a selfie of Blitz lying on the same sheets.
Eventually, investigations led to a name: Andrew Dymock.
Dymock seemed to be the son of two academics, from the wealthy town of Bath in the west country, and at university, in Wales.
His Bath flat was next to the only Morrisons in the city. He had tried to travel to the US on the date mentioned in the chats but had been arrested at the airport and turned back.
Enquiries on the ground confirmed that Dymock was the person in the Blitz selfie.
Dymock was exposed in December 2018 as the SKD founder.
He was arrested the next day and charged with 15 offences the following year after a detailed police investigation.
Since his arrest, Atomwaffen, SRN, and SKD have all been outlawed as terrorist organisations by the government, with SKD also becoming the first right-wing extremist group to be banned in Australia.
Seven people linked to Dymock or his groups have been convicted of terror offences and hate crimes, including the son of a House of Lords clerk and the youngest person to be convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK.
At trial, Dymock denied ever being a neo-Nazi and claimed he merely had an academic interest in the subject
He said he was gay, meaning he was opposed to homophobia, and blamed a vast conspiracy - involving neo-Nazis, the police, and mysterious unknown men - for framing him
The jury rejected his lies.
Dymock, who sought to terrorise others, now faces years in prison.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57406673
Joe Manchin's "highly suspicious" reversal on voting bill follows donation from corporate lobby
U.S. Chamber of Commerce sure loves Joe Manchin. Is that why his op-ed on voting bill echoed their talking points?
By IGOR DERYSH
PUBLISHED JUNE 10, 2021 5:40AM (EDT)
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/10/joe-manchins-highly-suspicious-reversal-on-voting-bill-follows-donation-from-corporate-lobby/
Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat famous for his vow to maintain the Senate filibuster and thereby scuttle much of President Biden's agenda, recently published an op-ed opposing the For the People Act, Democrats' whopping voting-rights bill. That article strongly echoed talking points from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — and appeared shortly after the influential pro-business lobby resumed donations to Manchin's campaign after nearly a decade.
Manchin, who co-sponsored the sweeping voting rights legislation in 2019 and has supported filibuster reform in the past, became the first Senate Democrat to oppose the bill this week while reiterating his opposition to changing the filibuster, a key roadblock to voting reform. Skeptical members of Manchin's party have questioned the reasons for his opposition, especially after after a recent poll found that a majority of West Virginia voters support changing the filibuster rules and that 79% of the state's voters — including a large majority of Republicans — support the For the People Act.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested that Manchin's opposition to the proposal and filibuster reform may really be about measures in the bill aimed at cracking down on lobbyists and dark money.
"This is probably just as much a part of Joe Manchin's calculus than anything else," she told MSNBC on Tuesday. "You look at the Koch brothers and you look at organizations like the Heritage Foundation and conservative lobby groups that are doing a victory lap ... over the fact that Manchin refuses to change on the filibuster. And I think that these two things are very closely intertwined."
Americans for Prosperity, a group backed by billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch, has explicitly targeted Manchin in its pressure campaign to defeat the legislation even though their own data shows that provisions cracking down on dark money are highly popular, including among Republican voters. Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the Koch-backed Heritage Foundation, organized a rally earlier this year to pressure Manchin to oppose the bill. Heritage Action has also partnered with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to craft model voting-restriction laws for Republican state legislators. A Heritage Action organizer boasted in a video obtained by Mother Jones that the group was behind key provisions of the controversial law recently passed in Georgia.
"Joe Manchin isn't moved by leaders who have spent decades organizing for civil rights," Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., tweeted after Manchin that said his position on the For the People Act had not changed after meeting with civil rights leaders on Tuesday. "Manchin isn't moved by the views of his constituents. Manchin isn't moved by GOP voter suppression bills in 43 states. Because Manchin is only moved by corporate donors and their agenda."
One group that has been a major cheerleader of Manchin's staunch opposition is the aforementioned U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful pro-business group that also receives Koch money and generally supports Republicans.
Manchin's op-ed announcing his opposition echoed the Chamber's talking points in a letter to senators alleging that "partisan" legislation would "undermine" public confidence in democracy, even though Republicans across the country have advanced and enacted overtly partisan bills aimed at restricting ballot access.
"When it comes to this 'bipartisan' argument, I gotta tell you, I don't buy it," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Joe Manchin has voted for bills that have not been bipartisan before. Look at the American Rescue Plan. So this is not just about bipartisanship."
The op-ed came after the Chamber, which has launched an expensive lobbying effort against the bill, resumed donations to Manchin's campaign for the first time since 2012. Reuters described this flow of corporate dollars as a "reward" for Manchin's opposition to numerous Biden administration's initiatives, as well as his stalwart support for the filibuster, which has almost certainly doomed the For the People Act.
"The timing of Sen. Manchin's announcement is highly suspicious," Kyle Herrig, president of the progressive government watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "Not long after the Chamber reopened their corporate checkbook for him, he made his opposition to voting rights known. Now millions of Americans may face significant roadblocks when they try to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Once again the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found a way to stop any progress on voting rights from progressing on Capitol Hill."
Manchin's office and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce did not respond to questions from Salon.
The Chamber is one of the most powerful trade groups in the country, spending more than $80 million on lobbying last year, second only to the National Association of Realtors. It is the single largest lobbying spender this year, dropping over $17 million to influence policy, nearly twice as much as the pharmaceutical trade group PhRMA. The group has been aggressively lobbying against the For the People Act since 2019, spending more than $129 million on opposing the bill and related issues since it was first introduced in the House, according to lobbying disclosures.
While the U.S. Chamber's corporate members pay for its lobbying, its PAC donations come from the group's executives, staff members and other affiliated individuals. The Chamber's PAC made a contribution to Manchin in the first quarter of this year, its first since 2012. Shortly after, the Chamber issued an alert to all members of the Senate threatening to include "votes related to this bill in our annual How They Voted scorecard" and mentioning some of its specific provisions, including a requirement to disclose big donors and communications with candidates, a plan to strengthen the Federal Election Commission, and public financing of campaigns.
"The Chamber is deeply troubled by efforts at the state and federal level to enact election law changes on a partisan basis," the letter said. "Changes enacted on a partisan basis are the most likely to erode access and security and undermine public confidence and the willingness of the American people to trust and accept future election outcomes."
Manchin echoed that argument in his op-ed, writing that he believes "partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy" and "partisan policymaking won't instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it."
Both the Chamber and Manchin have called for lawmakers to advance voting legislation on a "bipartisan" basis, although it's inarguable that one party is seeking to expand voting rights while the other is actively trying to restrict them. Manchin has claimed there is bipartisan support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would require states to pre-clear voting changes with the Justice Department. That's technically true: Exactly one Republican senator (Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) has expressed support for the bill. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared on Tuesday that his party would not support the legislation and denied that there was any threat to voting rights.
Manchin, whose ties to the U.S. Chamber date back to at least 2010, when he was West Virginia governor, drew public praise from Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark earlier this year for his "principled stand" on preserving the filibuster, which is the most significant roadblock to the voting legislation.
Nick Vaugh, a lobbyist for the Chamber, presented Manchin with a "Spirit of Free Enterprise Award" in 2019, which the group says it gives to lawmakers who have supported its positions at least 70% of the time.
As it happens, Vaugh has been registered to lobby senators on the For the People Act and other issues since 2019, according to federal disclosure forms.
"It's unfortunate Sen. Manchin has bought into the U.S. Chamber's smears against the For The People Act," Herrig told Salon. "And just like the Chamber, he is wrong — there is nothing 'partisan' about protecting the right to vote for all Americans. In carrying the Chamber's water, Sen. Manchin is only inviting further voter suppression."
The Chamber's pressure on senators to oppose the voting rights legislation comes as many of its corporate members have joined forces to oppose Republican voting restrictions in state legislatures.
Accountable.US has launched a six-figure "Drop the Chamber" campaign challenging corporations like Microsoft, Target and Salesforce to back up their public support of voting rights by cutting ties with the group, accusing it of "siding against millions of Americans who will be subject to these racist voter suppression laws."
"It's on Chamber members that claim to support voting rights to end their relationships and speak out against this assault on Americans' rights to vote," Herrig said, "because anything less makes them complicit."
IGOR DERYSH
Igor Derysh is a staff writer at Salon. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.
Tips/Email: iderysh@salon.com Twitter: @IgorDerysh
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/10/joe-manchins-highly-suspicious-reversal-on-voting-bill-follows-donation-from-corporate-lobby/
Murdoch Admits His British Tabloid, ‘The Sun,’ Has Become Totally Worthless
RED INK
Philippe Naughton
Published Jun. 11, 2021 9:24AM ET
https://www.thedailybeast.com/murdoch-admits-his-british-tabloid-the-sun-has-become-totally-worthless?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
It won’t come as a surprise to its critics but Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid The Sun is now officially no longer worth the paper it’s printed on. The Financial Times reported today that the Australian-born billionaire had been forced to write down the value of what was once his most profitable newspaper brand to zero—so, technically, a 60p (85c) copy of the paper is worth more than the newspaper itself.
Murdoch bought the newspaper in 1969, relaunching it as a racy tabloid packed with topless models and dodgy celebrity scoops. At its peak, it enjoyed a five-million circulation. But, after years of circulation declines and with executives unable to unlock a digital future, it’s in crisis. After 42 years as the U.K.’s bestselling newspaper, it was overtaken by The Daily Mail last year. Its latest accounts show that The Sun and its Sunday sister paper now have “zero carrying value” after an £84 million writedown, the FT reported. It said that turnover had dropped by a fifth during the pandemic and £80 million of legal costs from a long-running phone-hacking scandal helped the papers to a pre-tax loss of £201 million ($284 million.)
Read it at Financial Times
https://www.thedailybeast.com/murdoch-admits-his-british-tabloid-the-sun-has-become-totally-worthless?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition