Justice Department

Counselors And Cops Working Together Can Save Lives

Co-responder teams of police and mental health experts can better meet the needs of people in mental health crisis.

One night last June, 22-year-old Christian Glass called 911 for help with his stranded car. A little over an hour later he was dead.

Asked about weapons, Glass mentions tools his family says he used as an amateur geologist.

“I have two knives and a hammer, um, and a rubber mallet. I guess that’s a weapon?,” Glass said. “I’m not dangerous. I will keep my hands completely visible.”

But when deputies in Colorado’s Clear Creek County show up, Glass tells them he’s too scared to get out of his car.

Then they see the knife.

Over about the next hour, officers try to get him out.

Glass smiles — even makes a heart with his hands — but stays in the car.

Officers seem to realize glass is having a mental health crisis. A Colorado State Patrol sergeant notes Glass hasn’t done anything wrong.

“If there’s no crime and he’s not suicidal, homicidal or a great danger, then there’s no reason to contact him,” the sergeant says.

But for reasons that are unclear and now under investigation, officers eventually smash the car window.

What happens next is chaos, and then tragedy.

Officers shoot beanbags and tasers.

Finally, a deputy opens fire.

The next moments are too disturbing for TV. Even the police appear stunned.

Glass’ family says he was a gentle soul, an artist who had bouts of depression. His parents blame police for escalating a situation they say was never truly dangerous.

“We’re a very gentle, quiet family,” said Christian’s mother Sally Glass. “So that level of aggression and those officers really wasn’t in his world. He would have really struggled with that, you know, that would have been outside his comfort zone even to be spoken like that and treated like that.”

Nationwide last year, 101 people “behaving erratically” or having a mental health crisis were killed by police. What happened to Glass is exactly what many police departments across the country say they’re trying harder to prevent.

In Douglas County Colorado, Zachary Zepeski and Kalie Bryant are part of an innovative partnership. He’s a sheriff’s deputy, and she’s a licensed professional counselor with a master’s degree in mental health counseling.

They’re part of what’s called a co-responder team. Handling not only mental health calls, but as their shift starts, also checking in on people they’ve dealt with before.

“Sounds like they are concerned she may be ‘slipping’ is the word they use, again, into a mental health crisis,” Bryant said. “So we are just following up to see how she’s doing. To see what support we can offer her.”

Next, they get called to help with someone who appears to be in crisis.

As they arrive, a sergeant tells them the man may still be inside his home.

The man has committed no crime, but Zepeski and Bryant need to make sure he’s OK.

But rather than barge inside, potentially making things worse, the team holds off.

“We don’t try to go in an agitate a situation anymore,” Zepeski said. “There was no crime. The things that were broken were his own, you can break your own stuff. So that’s why we didn’t really force the issue.”

Eventually, they find out the man already left. But their work is just beginning.

“Now is kind of a waiting game,” Zepeski said. “We will keep this one on our radar so now we’ll know if something happens at this address again, that we have an idea of what’s going on inside that apartment.”

“I feel like that we have the ability to develop a relationship with these people and truly get to know them so that they know that they can call for us if they need it,” Bryant said.

In one year across Colorado, teams like this one responded to 15,000 calls and made nearly 8,000 follow-up visits.

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock says before “co-responder” teams, people having a mental health crisis often ended up behind bars.

“We’re talking misdemeanor crimes, and these people were in the jail,” Spurlock said. “Not a place for someone who has a mental health disorder. We’re not equipped in the jail to treat them, or quite frankly even to house them.”

But more than half of Colorado’s counties do not have “co-responder” teams, including Clear Creek where Christian Glass was killed. His family wants officers held accountable.

“Christian’s killing is a stain on Clear Creek County and on Colorado,” said Christian’s father Simon Glass. “It was a murder by a Colorado official. It cannot stand.”

Newsy reached out to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Department. They declined to give is an interview or statement. The district attorney and state investigators are now reviewing the case to see if any officers should face criminal charges. And the FBI and Justice Department tell Newsy they are aware of the case and will “take appropriate action” if they find evidence of federal criminal civil rights violations.

Source: newsy.com

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Boeing Pays $200 Million To Settle SEC Charges Over 737 Max

By Associated Press
September 23, 2022

Neither Boeing nor former CEO Dennis Muilenburg admitted wrongdoing over two deadly 737 Max crashes, but they offered to settle and pay penalties.

Boeing Co. will pay $200 million to settle charges that the company and its former CEO misled investors about the safety of its 737 Max after two of the airliners crashed, killing 346 people.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday that it charged the aircraft maker and former CEO Dennis Muilenburg with making significant misleading public statements about the plane and an automated flight-control system that was implicated in the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Neither Boeing nor Muilenburg admitted wrongdoing, but they offered to settle and pay penalties, including $1 million to be paid by Muilenburg, who was ousted in December 2019, nine months after the second crash.

The SEC said Boeing and Muilenburg knew that the flight system, known as MCAS, posed a safety issue but promised the public that the plane was safe. The SEC said they also falsely claimed that there had been no gaps in the process of certifying the plane in the first place.

“Boeing and Muilenburg put profits over people by misleading investors about the safety of the 737 Max all in an effort to rehabilitate Boeing’s image” after the crashes, said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division.

Boeing said it has made “broad and deep changes across our company in response to those accidents” to improve safety and quality.

“Today’s settlement is part of the company’s broader effort to responsibly resolve outstanding legal matters related to the 737 Max accidents in a manner that serves the best interests of our shareholders, employees and other stakeholders,” said the Arlington, Virginia-based company.

A new Max operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea in October 2018, and another Max flown by Ethiopian Airlines nosedived into the ground near Addis Ababa in March 2019. In each crash, MCAS pushed the nose down after getting faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots were unable to regain control.

The crashes led regulators around the world to ground the plane for nearly two years until Boeing made fixes to the flight-control system, which was designed to help prevent aerodynamic stalls when the nose points up too sharply. Neither plane that crashed was in danger of stalling.

The SEC accused Boeing of misleading investors in a press release after the Indonesia crash which said the plane was “as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies.” Boeing knew when it made that claim that MCAS would need to be fixed and was already designing changes, the SEC said.

After the crash in Ethiopia, Muilenburg said on a call with investors and Wall Street analysts and during Boeing’s annual shareholder meeting that the company had followed the normal process for getting the plane certified by regulators. But by then Boeing — in response to a subpoena from federal prosecutors — had already found documents indicating that it didn’t disclose key facts about MCAS to the Federal Aviation Administration, the SEC charged.

Boeing reached a separate $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department last year. Most of that money went to airlines whose Max jets were grounded.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Trump Docs Probe: Court Lifts Hold On Mar-a-Lago Records

By Associated Press
September 21, 2022

The ruling means the Justice Department will immediately regain access to the classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

A federal appeals panel has lifted a judge’s hold on the Justice Department’s ability to use classified records seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate in its ongoing criminal investigation.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is a victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for it to immediately resume its use of the documents as it evaluates whether to bring criminal charges in its investigation into the presence of top-secret government records held at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.

The government had argued that its investigation had been impeded by the order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that temporarily barred investigators from continuing to use the documents in the probe. Cannon, a Trump appointee, had said the hold would remain in place pending a separate review by an independent arbiter she had appointed at the Trump team’s request.

The FBI last month seized roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification markings, during a court-authorized search of the Palm Beach club. It has launched a criminal investigation into whether the records were mishandled or compromised. It is not clear whether Trump or anyone else will be charged.

Cannon ruled on Sept. 5 that she would name an independent arbiter, or special master, to do an independent review of those records and segregate any that may be covered by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege and to determine whether any of the materials should be returned to Trump. Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, has been named to the role.

The Justice Department had argued that a special master review of the classified documents was not necessary. It said Trump, as a former president, could not invoke executive privilege over the documents, nor could they be covered by attorney-client privilege because they do not involve communications between Trump and his lawyers.

Trump’s lawyers argued that an independent review of the records was essential given the unprecedented nature of the investigation. The lawyers also said the department had not yet proven that the seized documents were classified, though they notably stopped short of asserting — as Trump repeatedly has — that the records were previously declassified. They have resisted providing Dearie with their position on that question, signaling the issue could be part of their defense in the event of an indictment.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Migrants Sue Florida Governor Over Martha’s Vineyard Flights

By Maura Sirianni

and Associated Press
September 21, 2022

The lawsuit alleges that the migrants were told they were going to Boston or Washington, and were induced with perks like McDonald’s gift cards.

Venezuelan migrants flown from San Antonio, Texas, to the upscale Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard are suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his transportation secretary for engaging in a “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme” to relocate them.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, alleges that the migrants were told they were going to Boston or Washington, “which was completely false,” and were induced with perks such as $10 McDonald’s gift certificates.

“No human being should be used as a political pawn,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, which is seeking class-action status in the lawsuit filed on behalf of several migrants who were aboard last week’s flights and Alianza Americas, a network of advocacy groups.

“It is opportunistic that activists would use illegal immigrants for political theater,” said Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ communication director, in a statement late Tuesday.

The lawsuit, which also names Florida Transportation Secretary Jared W. Perdue as a defendant, alleges that migrants were induced to cross state lines under false pretenses, a line that some Democratic officials are using to urge a federal investigation.

On Monday, Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, opened an investigation into the flights, but the elected Democrat did not say what laws may have been broken. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose district includes San Antonio, have asked the Justice Department to begin a probe.

Guesswork was rampant among government officials, advocates and journalists Tuesday about DeSantis’ next move, consistent with the element of surprise that he and another Republican governor, Greg Abbott of Texas, have sought to achieve by busing and flying migrants across the country to Democratic strongholds with little or no notice.

Asked Tuesday about speculation that DeSantis may send migrants to his home state of Delaware, President Joe Biden said: “He should come visit. We have a beautiful shoreline.”

DeSantis declined to confirm speculation, based on flight-tracking software, that more migrants were on the move. He again defended his decision to fly about 50 Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard, saying their decisions were completely voluntary and, without evidence, that they were in awful condition when Florida got involved.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Arbiter In Trump Docs Probe Signals Intent To Move Quickly

“We’re going to proceed with what I call responsible dispatch,” Raymond Dearie, a veteran Brooklyn judge, told lawyers.

The independent arbiter tasked with inspecting documents seized in an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home said Tuesday he intends to push briskly through the review process and appeared skeptical of the Trump team’s reluctance to say whether it believed the records had been declassified.

“We’re going to proceed with what I call responsible dispatch,” Raymond Dearie, a veteran Brooklyn judge, told lawyers for Trump and the Justice Department in their first meeting since his appointment last week as a so-called special master.

The purpose of the meeting was to sort out next steps in a review process expected to slow by weeks, if not months, the criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. As special master, Dearie will be responsible for sifting through the thousands of documents recovered during the Aug. 8 FBI search and segregating any that might be protected by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

Though Trump’s lawyers had requested the appointment of a special master to ensure an independent review of the documents, they have resisted Dearie’s request for more information about whether the seized records had been previously declassified — as Trump has maintained. His lawyers have consistently stopped short of that claim even as they asserted in a separate filing Tuesday that the Justice Department had not proven that the documents were classified. In any event, they say, a president has absolute authority to declassify information.

“In the case of someone who has been president of the United States, they have unfettered access along with unfettered declassification authority,” one of Trump’s lawyers, James Trusty, said in court Tuesday.

But Dearie said that if Trump’s lawyers will not actually assert that the records have been declassified, and the Justice Department instead makes an acceptable case that they remain classified, then he would be inclined to regard them as classified.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “that’s the end of it.”

In a letter to Dearie on Monday night, the lawyers said the declassification issue might be part of Trump’s defense in the event of an indictment. And Trusty said in court Tuesday that the Trump team should not be forced at this point in the investigation to disclose details of a possible defense based on the idea the records had been declassified.

He denied that the lawyers were trying to engage in “gamesman-like” behavior but instead said it was a process that required “baby steps.” He said the right time for the discussion is whenever Trump presses forward with a claim to get any seized property back.

Dearie said he understood the position but observed, “I guess my view of it is, you can’t have your cake and eat it” too.

The resistance to the judge’s request was notable because it was Trump’s lawyers, not the Justice Department, who had requested the appointment of a special master and because the recalcitrance included an acknowledgment that the probe could be building toward an indictment.

Despite the focus on whether the seized documents are classified or not, the three statutes the Justice Department listed on a warrant as part of its investigation do not require that the mishandled information be classified in order for prosecutors to initiate a criminal case.

The Trump team has also questioned the feasibility of some of the deadlines for the special master’s review. That work includes inspecting the roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 marked as classified, that were taken during the FBI’s search.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who granted the Trump team’s request for a special master, had set a Nov. 30 deadline for Dearie’s review and instructed him to prioritize the tranche of classified records.

Dearie, a Ronald Reagan appointee whose name is on the atrium of his Brooklyn courthouse, made clear during Tuesday’s meeting that he intended to meet the deadlines, saying there was “little time” to complete the assigned tasks.

Julie Edelstein, a Justice Department lawyer, said she was hopeful that the department could get the documents digitized and provided to Trump’s lawyers by early next week. She noted that the department had given the legal team a list of five vendors approved by the government for the purposes of scanning, hosting and otherwise processing the seized records.

After some haggling, Dearie instructed Trusty’s lawyers to choose a vendor by Friday.

Earlier Tuesday, the Trump legal team urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to leave in place Cannon’s order temporarily barring the Justice Department’s use of the classified records for its criminal investigation while Dearie completes his review. The department is also contesting Cannon’s requirement that it provide Dearie with classified materials for his review, saying such records are not subject to any possible claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

The department has also said that Cannon’s order has impeded its investigation.

Trump’s lawyers called those concerns overblown in a response Tuesday, saying investigators could still do other work on the probe even without scrutinizing the seized records.

“Ultimately, any brief delay to the criminal investigation will not irreparably harm the Government,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “The injunction does not preclude the Government from conducting a criminal investigation, it merely delays the investigation for a short period while a neutral third party reviews the documents in question.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Texas Sheriff Investigating Migrant Flights To Martha’s Vineyard

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 20, 2022

A San Antonio-area sheriff is investigating two flights out of his county last week, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed responsibility for.

A Texas sheriff on Monday opened an investigation into two flights of migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but did not say what laws may have been broken in putting 48 Venezuelans on private planes last week from San Antonio.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, an elected Democrat, railed against the flights that took off in his city as political posturing. But he said investigators had so far only spoken to attorneys representing some of the migrants and did not name any potential suspects who might face charges.

He also did not mention DeSantis in a news conference that appeared to mark the first time a law enforcement official has said they would look into the flights.

“I believe there is some criminal activity involved here,” Salazar said. “But at present we are trying to keep an open mind and we are going to investigate to find out what exact laws were broken if that does turn out to be the case.”

DeSantis’ office responded with a statement that said the migrants had been given more options to succeed in Massachusetts.

“Immigrants have been more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves,’” DeSantis spokesperson Taryn Fenske said. “Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them, as we expected.”

The Venezuelan migrants who were flown to the wealthy Massachusetts island from San Antonio on Wednesday said they were told they were going to Boston. Julio Henriquez, an attorney who met with several migrants, said they “had no idea of where they were going or where they were.”

He said a Latina woman approached migrants at a city-run shelter in San Antonio and put them up at a nearby La Quinta Inn, where she visited daily with food and gift cards. She promised jobs and three months of housing in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, according to Henriquez.

Salazar said the migrants had been “preyed upon” and “hoodwinked.”

Some Democrats have urged the Justice Department to investigate the flights, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose district includes San Antonio.

A federal investigation might be complicated, however. It’s not clear whether anyone boarded buses or planes unwillingly, or that their civil rights were violated. The rights of asylum seekers arriving to the U.S. are also more limited because they are not citizens. The Constitution, though, does protect them from discrimination based on race or national origin and from improper treatment by the government.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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American Mark Frerichs Freed In Taliban Prisoner Swap

The contractor and U.S. Navy veteran was released by the Taliban in exchange for a notorious drug lord who had spent 17 years in U.S. captivity.

An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, according to the man’s family and U.S. officials.

Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and was believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

Negotiations for his release had centered on a deal that would also involve the release of Bashir Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban who told reporters in Kabul on Monday that he had spent 17 years and six months in U.S. captivity before being released.

Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

The exchange is one of the most significant prisoner swaps to take place under the Biden administration, coming five months after a separate deal with Russia that resulted in the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed. It took place despite concerns from his family and other advocates that the U.S. military departure from Afghanistan, and the collapse of the government there, could make it harder to bring him home and could deflect attention away from his imprisonment.

President Joe Biden, who is in the United Kingdom to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, called Frerichs’ family Monday morning to share the “good news” that his administration was able to secure his release, according to a senior administration official.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, called the decision to grant Noorzai clemency a “difficult decision” but necessary to reunite a U.S. citizen with his family.

A sister of Frerichs, who is from Lombard, Illinois, thanked U.S. government officials who helped secure her brother’s release.

“I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home to us. Our family has prayed for this each day of the more than 31 months he has been a hostage. We never gave up hope that he would survive and come home safely to us,” said a statement from the sister, Charlene Cakora.

In Afghanistan, Noorzai, who was arrested in 2005 on federal heroin trafficking charges in the U.S., told reporters at a press conference that he had been released from an unspecified U.S. prison and handed over earlier in the day to the Taliban in Kabul as part of the swap. Frerichs’ family and U.S. officials subsequently confirmed that Frerichs was the American who was part of the deal.

Noorzai was sentenced in 2009 to life imprisonment after being convicted in federal court in Manhattan, with Justice Department prosecutors accusing him of owning opium fields in Kandahar province and relying on a network of distributors in New York who sold the heroin. At the time of his sentencing, the then-top federal prosecutor in Manhattan said Noorzai’s worldwide narcotics network supported a Taliban regime that made Afghanistan a breeding ground for international terrorism.”

Frerichs, 60, had been working on civil engineering projects at the time of his Jan. 31, 2020 abduction in Kabul. He was last seen in a video posted last spring by The New Yorker in which he appeared in traditional Afghan clothing and pleaded for his release. The publication said it obtained the clip from an unidentified individual in Afghanistan.

Until Monday, U.S. officials across two presidential administrations had tried unsuccessfully to get him home. Even before their takeover of Afghanistan in August last year, the Taliban had demanded the U.S. release Noorzai in exchange for Frerichs. But there had been no public sign of Washington proceeding with any sort of trade or exchange along those lines.

Eric Lebson, a former U.S. government national security official who had been advising Frerichs’ family, said in a statement that “everything about this case has been an uphill fight.” He criticized the Trump administration for having given away “our leverage to get Mark home quickly by signing a peace accord with the Taliban without ever having asked them to return Mark first.

“Mark’s family then had to navigate two Administrations, where many people viewed Mark’s safe return as an impediment to their plans for Afghanistan,” the statement said.

The collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government and takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, raised additional concern that any progress in negotiations could be undone or that Frerichs could be forgotten.

But his name surfaced last month when President Joe Biden, who had publicly called for Frerichs’ release, was said by his advisers to have pressed officials to consider any risk posed to Frerichs by the drone strike in Afghanistan that killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

The Taliban-appointed foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, also spoke at the Kabul press conference alongside Noorzai and welcomed the exchange, saying it marked the start of a “new era” in U.S.-Taliban relations.

“This can be a new chapter between Afghanistan and the United States, this can open a new door for talks between both countries,” Muttaqi said.

“This act shows us that all problems can be solved through talks and I thank both sides’ teams who worked so hard for this to happen,” he added.

The Taliban also posted a brief video Monday on social media showing Noorzai’s arrival at the Kabul airport where he was welcomed by top Taliban officials, including Muttaqi.

At the press conference, Noorzai expressed thankfulness at seeing his “mujahedeen brothers” — a reference to the Taliban — in Kabul.

“I pray for more success of the Taliban,” he added. “I hope this exchange can lead to peace between Afghanistan and America, because an American was released and I am also free now.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Treasury Recommends Exploring Creation Of A Digital Dollar

By Associated Press
September 16, 2022

The Atlantic Council nonpartisan think tank says many other countries already are exploring or have created a central bank digital currency.

The Biden administration is moving one step closer to developing a central bank digital currency, known as the digital dollar, saying it would help reinforce the U.S. role as a leader in the world financial system.

The White House said on Friday that after President Joe Biden issued an executive order in March calling on a variety of agencies to look at ways to regulate digital assets, the agencies came up with nine reports, covering cryptocurrency impacts on financial markets, the environment, innovation and other elements of the economic system.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said one Treasury recommendation is that the U.S. “advance policy and technical work on a potential central bank digital currency, or CBDC, so that the United States is prepared if CBDC is determined to be in the national interest.”

“Right now, some aspects of our current payment system are too slow or too expensive,” Yellen said on a Thursday call with reporters laying out some of the findings of the reports.

Central bank digital currencies differ from existing digital money available to the general public, such as the balance in a bank account, because they would be a direct liability of the Federal Reserve, not a commercial bank.

According to the Atlantic Council nonpartisan think tank, 105 countries representing more than 95% of global gross domestic product already are exploring or have created a central bank digital currency. The council found that the U.S. and the U.K. are far behind in creating a digital dollar or its equivalent.

Treasury, the Justice Department, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies were tasked with contributing to reports that would address various concerns about the risks, development and usage of digital assets. Several reports will come out in the next weeks and months.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers have submitted various pieces of legislation to regulate cryptocurrency and other digital assets.

The director of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, told reporters that “we’ve seen in recent months substantial turmoil in cryptocurrency markets and these events really highlight how, without proper oversight, cryptocurrencies risk harming everyday Americans’ financial stability and our national security.”

“It is why this administration believes that now more than ever,” he said, “prudent regulation of cryptocurrencies is needed.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Veteran NY Judge Named As Arbiter In Trump Mar-a-Lago Probe

By Associated Press
September 15, 2022

The judge granted the newly named special master, Raymond Dearie, access to the entire tranche of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

A federal judge on Thursday appointed a veteran New York jurist to serve as an independent arbiter and review records seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.

In her order, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon refused a Justice Department request to lift her temporary prohibition on the department’s use of the roughly 100 classified records that were taken during the Aug. 8 search. She also granted the newly named special master, Raymond Dearie, access to the entire tranche of documents seized from the property even though the department had said the arbiter shouldn’t be permitted to inspect the batch of classified records.

The Justice Department is expected to contest the judge’s order to a federal appeals court. It had given Cannon until Thursday to put on hold her order barring the continued review of classified records, and said it would ask the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene if she did not do so then.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a message Thursday evening.

The selection of Dearie, a former federal prosecutor who for years served as the chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, came after both the Justice Department and Trump’s lawyers made clear that they would be satisfied with his appointment as a so-called special master.

In that role, Dearie will be responsible for reviewing the documents taken during the search of Mar-a-Lago and segregating out any that may be covered by claims of privilege. It is not clear how long the work will take but the special master process has already delayed the investigation, with Cannon directing the Justice Department to temporarily pause core aspects of its probe.

The Justice Department is investigating the hoarding of top-secret materials and other classified documents at the Florida property after Trump left office. The FBI says it recovered more than 11,000 documents from the home during its search, including roughly 100 with classification markings.

Trump’s lawyers had asked last month for a judge to name a special master to do an independent review of the records and segregate any that may be covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. The Justice Department argued the appointment was unnecessary, saying it had already done its own review and Trump had no right to raise executive privilege claims that ordinarily permit the president to withhold certain information from the public and Congress.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, disagreed and directed both sides to name potential candidates for the role. She also ordered the Justice Department to halt its review of the documents for investigative purposes until “further Court order” or until the special master completes their review.

The Trump team recommended either Dearie or a Florida lawyer for the job. The Justice Department said that, in addition to the two retired judges whose names it submitted, it would also be satisfied with a Dearie appointment.

Dearie served as the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York from 1982 to 1986, at which point he was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan. He has also served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes Justice Department wiretap applications in investigations involving suspected agents of a foreign power.

He took senior status in 2011, but the Justice Department has said he remains active and had indicated to officials that he was available for the position and could work expeditiously if appointed to it.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Says FBI Agents Seized His Cellphone

By Associated Press
September 14, 2022

Lindell has been charged in what prosecutors say was a “deceptive scheme” to breach voting system technology used across the country.

MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell said Tuesday that federal agents seized his cellphone and questioned him about a Colorado clerk who has been charged in what prosecutors say was a “deceptive scheme” to breach voting system technology used across the country.

Lindell was approached in the drive-thru of a Hardee’s fast-food restaurant in Mankato, Minnesota, by several FBI agents, he said on his podcast, “The Lindell Report.” The agents questioned him about Dominion Voting Systems, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and his connection to Doug Frank, an Ohio educator who claims voting machines have been manipulated, he said.

The agents then told Lindell they had a warrant to seize his cellphone and ordered him to turn it over, he said. On a video version of his podcast, Lindell displayed a letter signed by an assistant U.S. attorney in Colorado that said prosecutors were conducting an “official criminal investigation of a suspected felony” and noted the use of a federal grand jury.

The circumstances of the investigation were unclear. The Justice Department did not immediately respond Tuesday night to a request for comment about the seizure or investigation.

“Without commenting on this specific matter, I can confirm that the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge,” FBI spokeswoman Vikki Migoya said in an email.

Federal prosecutors have been conducting a parallel investigation alongside local prosecutors in Colorado who have charged Peters with several offenses, including attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation and official misconduct. The Republican was elected in 2018 to oversee elections in Colorado’s Mesa County. A deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, was also charged in the case, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation.

For more than a year, Peters has appeared onstage with supporters of former President Donald Trump who made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The charges against Peters and Knisley allege the two were involved in a “deceptive scheme which was designed to influence public servants, breach security protocols, exceed permissible access to voting equipment, and set in motion the eventual distribution of confidential information to unauthorized people.”

State election officials first became aware of a security breach in Mesa County in 2021 when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website. Because each Colorado county has unique passwords maintained by the state, officials identified them as belonging to Mesa County, a largely rural area on the border with Utah.

Peters appeared onstage in August 2021 at a “cybersymposium” hosted by Lindell, who has sought to prove that voting machines have been manipulated and promised to reveal proof of that during the event.

While no evidence was provided, a copy of Mesa County’s voting system hard drive was distributed and posted online, according to attendees and state officials.

The copy included proprietary software developed by Dominion Voting Systems that is used by election offices around the country. Experts have described the unauthorized release as serious, saying it provided a potential “practice environment” that would allow anyone to probe for vulnerabilities that could be exploited during a future election.

Nearly two years after the 2020 election, no evidence has emerged to suggest widespread fraud or manipulation, while reviews in state after state have upheld the results showing President Joe Biden won.

The Mesa County breach is just one of several around the country that have concerned election security experts. Authorities are investigating whether unauthorized people were allowed to access voting systems in Georgia and Michigan.

Lindell said the federal agents had also questioned him about when he first met Frank, an Ohio math and science educator, who is among a group of people who have been traveling across the U.S. meeting with community groups claiming to have evidence that voting machines were rigged in the 2020 election.

In court records, prosecutors say Frank met with Peters and members of her staff in April 2021 in her office. During the meeting, Frank told Peters that the county’s election management system was vulnerable to outside interference and the group discussed concerns the state was going to “wipe” the machines, according to the court records.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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