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Tag: defense

  • Trump says the US ‘needs’ Greenland for Arctic security. Here’s why

    Location, location, location: Greenland’s key position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy in the High North. But for whom?Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and U.S. President Donald Trump wants to make sure his country controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Greenland’s own government also opposes U.S. designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future. The island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.Here’s why Greenland is strategically important to Arctic security: Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the U.S. occupied Greenland to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.Video below: Stephen Miller says ‘obviously Greenland should be part of the United States’ Greenland is also a rich source of the so-called rare earth minerals that are a key component of mobile phones, computers, batteries and other gadgets that are expected to power the world’s economy in the coming decades.That has attracted the interest of the U.S. and other Western powers as they try to ease China’s dominance of the market for these critical minerals.Development of Greenland’s mineral resources is challenging because of the island’s harsh climate, while strict environmental controls have proved an additional bulwark against potential investors. The U.S. Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, which was built after the U.S. and Denmark signed the Defense of Greenland Treaty in 1951. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic. Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence around Greenland and in the wider North Atlantic. Last year, the government announced a roughly 14.6 billion kroner ($2.3 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-governing territory of Denmark, to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.” The plan includes three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity.Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command is headquartered in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and tasked with the “surveillance, assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands,” according to its website. It has smaller satellite stations across the island.The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is also stationed in Greenland. In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.Then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?”Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening its military capability in the polar region. European leaders’ concerns were heightened following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Stefanie Dazio in Berlin contributed to this report.

    Location, location, location: Greenland’s key position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy in the High North. But for whom?

    Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and U.S. President Donald Trump wants to make sure his country controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

    Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Greenland’s own government also opposes U.S. designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future.

    The island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.

    Here’s why Greenland is strategically important to Arctic security:

    Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the U.S. occupied Greenland to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.

    Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.

    Video below: Stephen Miller says ‘obviously Greenland should be part of the United States’


    Greenland is also a rich source of the so-called rare earth minerals that are a key component of mobile phones, computers, batteries and other gadgets that are expected to power the world’s economy in the coming decades.

    That has attracted the interest of the U.S. and other Western powers as they try to ease China’s dominance of the market for these critical minerals.

    Development of Greenland’s mineral resources is challenging because of the island’s harsh climate, while strict environmental controls have proved an additional bulwark against potential investors.

    The U.S. Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, which was built after the U.S. and Denmark signed the Defense of Greenland Treaty in 1951. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

    Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic.

    Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence around Greenland and in the wider North Atlantic. Last year, the government announced a roughly 14.6 billion kroner ($2.3 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-governing territory of Denmark, to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.”

    The plan includes three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity.

    Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command is headquartered in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and tasked with the “surveillance, assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands,” according to its website. It has smaller satellite stations across the island.

    The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is also stationed in Greenland.

    In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.

    Then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?”

    Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening its military capability in the polar region. European leaders’ concerns were heightened following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    Stefanie Dazio in Berlin contributed to this report.

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  • Earlier 911 calls to Rob Reiner’s home could loom large in legal battle over son’s mental condition

    In the years before Rob and Michele Reiner were killed, Los Angeles police made at least two visits to their home in Brentwood.

    On Feb. 25, 2019, officers conducted a welfare check after someone called 911 at 9:51 p.m. According to LAPD records reviewed by The Times, officers arrived at the address at 10:12 p.m., completed the call and reported the incident to an unidentified supervisor.

    Then on Sept. 27, 2019, police responded at 4:24 p.m. to a mental health–related call for service involving an unidentified man. Officers later informed a supervisor that they found “no indication of mental illness,” according to department records.

    The calls were fairly innocuous and typically would not raise eyebrows.

    But authorities now allege the couple’s son, who lived in the guesthouse on their property, fatally stabbed them in their master bedroom last month.

    The mental state of Nick Reiner, who struggled for years with substance abuse and had been prescribed a schizophrenia drug, has now taken center stage in his legal battle.

    Prosecutors have not detailed their case, and Reiner’s legal team has not provided his own story. It is still possible his defense could present compelling evidence that Nick Reiner did not commit the killings. But if the case is strong, the trial could revolve around Reiner’s mental state and the length of sentence.

    Prosecutors charged Nick Reiner, 32, with two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for the killings in the early hours of Dec. 14. Authorities have not offered a possible motive in the case.

    Reiner is back in court Wednesday and is no longer considered to be a suicide risk. He has not yet entered a plea.

    Legal experts say Reiner’s attorney, Alan Jackson, is likely now working to evaluate his client’s history of mental health and state of mind at the time of the crime. Those findings could be the basis for discussions of a plea deal or the beginning of an insanity defense, attorneys say.

    There are also other defenses that Jackson could pursue based on his mental history and possible changes in his medication and other factors that might not have been made public yet, including what might have triggered the killings, said Laurie Levenson, professor of law at Loyola Law School and a former federal prosecutor.

    “There’s a lot still to be done to work this case up,” Levenson said. “He can either try to go for a not guilty by reason of insanity, or he might have testimony that he wasn’t able to form the mental state for the crime because of his medication and his prior mental background.”

    If his defense can prove that Reiner couldn’t form the “intent to kill because of what’s happening with his medication or with his disease” then it could be a way to get a lesser charge such as second-degree murder, Levenson said. With first-degree murder charges, prosecutors must show that the accused acted with premeditation or malice.

    “It is just way too early to say that this is an all or nothing case — that he’s going to be found guilty of murder one or found not guilty. There are likely to be other options,” Levenson said.

    If convicted of first-degree murder, Reiner is facing possible life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors have not made a decision about whether they will seek capital punishment in the case.

    If Reiner is found not guilty by reason of insanity then he would likely be committed to a mental health facility. And he might at some point be able to show that his condition has improved and have outpatient status or be released, Levenson said.

    Saul Faerstein, a clinical and forensic psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at UCLA, said doctors will likely try to piece together the days leading up to the killings to determine what kind of mental state Reiner was in at the time.

    “We’d want to know what was happening on Friday or Saturday. Was he beginning to decompensate? Was he acting out of character? Was he doing and saying things that surprised people or frightened people? Was he saying things that made no sense?” Faerstein said.

    Reiner’s ability to check into a hotel and travel across Los Angeles where he was seen at a gas station and ultimately arrested isn’t necessarily a sign that he was of sound mind, Faerstein said.

    “Those things don’t require a lot of cognitive function, and they can be done even in a delusional state,” he said.

    There have been a few examples of cases in California in which charges have been reduced because of mental health factors.

    In 2023, Bryn Spejcher was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for killing Chad O’Melia, a man she’d been dating, with kitchen knives inside his home in Thousand Oaks. They had been smoking marijuana out of O’Melia’s bong, which caused Spejcher to suffer from cannabis-induced psychosis.

    The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office had originally filed a murder charge against her, but reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter after the prosecution’s experts agreed that she was in a psychotic state brought on by the marijuana intoxication. Prosecutors could not prove malice in the case.

    Spejcher was sentenced to probation and community service. She’s in the process of appealing her conviction, court records show.

    Michael Goldstein, a Los Angeles defense attorney who represented Spejcher, said that if Reiner attorneys can document a history of mental health issues, it could help his chances.

    “Based on facts that have been revealed publicly, [not guilty by reason of insanity] appears to be a viable defense,” Goldstein said. “If successful, that would result in long-term hospitalization. It is still early in the process and Mr. Jackson made it clear there are significant issues being explored. Time will tell.”

    In a case in 2010, Jennifer Lynn Bigham was found not guilty of murder and child abuse by reason of insanity after authorities said she drowned her 3-year-old daughter in a bathtub at a relative’s home in the Central Valley.

    Doctors had determined Bigham was suffering from severe mental illness at the time of her daughter’s death. After roughly three years of treatment in 2013, a judge ordered her to be released from custody because doctors said she was no longer insane.

    It’s possible, Levenson said, that the defense will be able to present compelling evidence of mental disorder to prosecutors to resolve the case before trial. It’s also possible the case will go to trial and he could be found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed as opposed to serving jail time.

    Even if he’s committed, one day any disorders he’s diagnosed with could be treated and he could be released, Levenson said.

    Though insanity defenses in many cases are not successful, based on the facts known at the time, this case could be an exception, experts say.

    “It’s a pretty classic of a situation where you have what looks like a really horrific, maybe premeditated murder, and then you start learning more about his background, that it doesn’t look like he’s making this up, that there seems to be some medical history of this, the change in medication, and all of a sudden you say, ‘Wow, this might be that rare case where mental defense, or an insanity defense, will succeed,” Levenson said.

    Hannah Fry, Richard Winton

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  • Here’s where Trump launched airstrikes around the world in 2025: ‘Protect the homeland’

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    Though touting himself as the peace president, President Donald Trump has also not been afraid to unleash lethal rocket strikes on U.S. enemies when he feels the need arises.

    In 2025, Trump ordered strikes on nine different countries and regions in the interest of furthering U.S. national security.

    Here are the countries, groups and regions that felt the power of the U.S. military in action this year.

    Somalia terrorists targeted

    Throughout the year, the U.S. has continued to conduct airstrikes against ISIS factions and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

    According to a U.S. Africa Command statement, a Feb. 1 airstrike targeting a series of cave complexes in northern Somalia killed 14 ISIS-Somalia operatives, including Ahmed Maeleninine, a key ISIS recruiter, financier, and external operations leader responsible for deploying militants into the U.S. and across Europe.  

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    President Donald Trump has targeted Venezuelan drug boats with military strikes. (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social/AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    Houthis in Yemen

    Thousands of miles from U.S. sovereign territory, the Trump Department of War unleashed lethal strikes on Iran-backed Houthi terror fighters in Yemen as part of a mission dubbed “Operation Rough Rider.” The strikes were in response to attacks against U.S. military and commercial vessels traveling through the Red Sea.

    Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for the Department of War, said in May that U.S. Central Command strikes had been carried out since March and that they had “hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders and degrading their capabilities.”

    Parnell called the strikes “hugely successful.” On May 6, the Houthis agreed to a ceasefire with the U.S. and the fighters have not carried out any attacks on U.S. vessels since, though they have targeted ships from other nations.

    Top ISIS leader killed in Iraq

    On March 13, U.S. Central Command carried out an airstrike in Iraq’s Al Anbar province that killed the number two ISIS leader, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, and another ISIS operative.

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    Plane takes off from USS Harry S. Truman

    This image shows an aircraft launching from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, on March 15. (U.S. Navy via AP)

    Midnight Hammer targets Iran’s nuclear capabilities

    At Trump’s direction, the U.S. military launched a strike on three Iranian nuclear sites in a mission that went from June 21 to 22.

    During the operation, called “Midnight Hammer,” B-2 stealth bombers departed from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and dropped over a dozen bunker buster bombs and launched more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles on key Iranian nuclear sites.

    According to the Pentagon, the strikes decimated Iran’s nuclear capabilities and led to a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. The operation, however, was highly controversial, with some Democratic lawmakers accusing Trump of escalating tensions and downplaying the effectiveness of the strikes.

    Iran launched a counterattack on the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, but there were no reported casualties.

    Cartel drug boat strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific

    As part of what the Department of War dubbed “Operation Southern Spear,” the U.S. unleashed 33 strikes on drug boats traveling in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing over 100 traffickers.

    UKRAINE–RUSSIA AT A CROSSROADS: HOW THE WAR EVOLVED IN 2025 AND WHAT COMES NEXT

    President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Friday that he ordered a lethal strike on a vessel linked to a designated terrorist organization operating in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility.

    President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social in September that he ordered a lethal strike on a vessel linked to a designated terrorist organization operating in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility. (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social)

    The strikes garnered significant criticism, with some Democrats accusing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth of war crimes. The Pentagon described the operation as a counter-narco-terrorism campaign against designated terror organizations “taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and to protect the homeland.”

    Operation Hawkeye in Syria

    In response to two U.S. servicemembers being killed in Syria, the U.S. unleashed Operation Hawkeye on Dec.19. U.S. and allied forces employed more than 100 precision munitions targeting over 70 known ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites across central Syria, resulting in the deaths or detention of 23 terrorist operatives.

    Hegseth called the airstrikes “a declaration of vengeance” in direct response to the ISIS attack that took place on Dec. 13 in Palmyra, Syria.

    According to Central Command, U.S. and partner forces in Syria have conducted operations during the last 12 months that resulted in more than 300 terrorists being detained.

    Christmas night strikes in Nigeria

    On Christmas night, the U.S. launched strikes on ISIS-linked military forces in coordination with the Nigerian government in Sokoto State, in northwestern Nigeria.

    Trump said he ordered U.S. airstrikes in northwest Nigeria against ISIS militants who he says, “have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years.”

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    Attorney General Pam Bondi, Vice President JD Vance, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office

    US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem look on as US President Donald Trump speaks to the press on Aug. 25, 2025.  (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    Trump takes drug war to Venezuela proper

    Following months of escalation with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, this week Trump appeared to suggest the U.S. carried out a strike on drug operations inside Venezuela.

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    Speaking with reporters on Monday, he said, “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs. They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

    Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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  • Jury reaches verdict in trial of Judge Hannah Dugan

    A jury on Thursday found Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of a federal felony charge that she obstructed or impeded a proceeding before a U.S. department or agency, while acquitting her on a misdemeanor count tied to concealing an individual from discovery and arrest. Her defense team released this statement shortly after the verdict was read: “While we are disappointed in today’s outcome, the failure of the prosecution to secure convictions on both counts demonstrates the opportunity we have to clear Judge Dugan’s name and show she did nothing wrong in this matter. We have planned for this potential outcome and our defense of Judge Dugan is just beginning. This trial required considerable resources to prepare for and public support for Judge Dugan’s defense fund is critical as we prepare for the next phase of this defense.” The judge did not set a sentencing date. The defense plans to fight the conviction. The maximum penalty would be five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.Watch: Defense attorney Steve Biskupic’s post-verdict reaction:On the prosecution side, interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel asked that people keep politics out of the case and the verdict. He said this was not the government trying to make an example of Dugan, but was instead a serious matter they felt necessary to pursue.Watch: Interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel delivers remarks after Dugan verdictProsecutors filed the charges after an April 2025 courthouse encounter involving federal agents and a defendant, in Dugan’s court on a state criminal charge, a man they were seeking to arrest. The verdict followed a week of testimony and evidence centered on what jurors heard and saw from April 18, when federal agents came to the sixth floor of the Milwaukee County Courthouse with a warrant to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.In opening statements Monday, prosecutors told jurors that Dugan “knew what she did was wrong” and argued arrests in the courthouse are “standard and routine.”The defense challenged the interpretation of events and questioned witnesses about courthouse practices, confusion over the courthouse policy for interactions with federal immigration officials. What prosecutors allegedJurors were shown surveillance video and listened to audio from inside Dugan’s courtroom, with prosecutors walking through the sequence in detail.Prosecutors pointed jurors to:Hallway surveillance video showing Dugan confronting federal agents outside her courtroom; there was no audio on the hallway video.Audio from inside the courtroom, played alongside a transcript for jurors to follow, including a moment in which Dugan’s clerk is heard saying, “We have 5 ICE guys in the hallway.”Prosecutors’ interpretation of courtroom audio, including that Dugan called Flores-Ruiz’s case out of order and told his attorney to take him out and return for a rescheduled date, which prosecutors argued was intended to get him out of the area.Evidence and testimony jurors heardThe government’s first witness included FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Baker, who testified about his actions at the courthouse that morning and what he observed. Baker described Dugan’s tone during the hallway encounter, saying, “anger would be the best way to describe it.”Jurors also heard testimony and saw exhibits related to communications among judges about how to handle interactions with federal immigration officials in the courthouse, according to the notes.WATCH FBI agents testify about courthouse confusion during immigration arrestDefense caseAfter the prosecution rested on Wednesday, the defense began calling witnesses Thursday morning. The first defense witness was Milwaukee County Judge Katie Kegel, and jurors were shown an email she sent to fellow judges that was displayed in court and included in jurors’ binders. The final witness for the defense was former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a lifelong friend who described her as an “extremely honest” person who will tell you exactly how she feels. Background of the caseThe case stems from the April 18 courthouse encounter in which agents from ICE and other federal agencies arrived outside Dugan’s courtroom with a warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest.Prosecutors alleged Dugan directed agents away from the arrest location and that Flores-Ruiz later left through a restricted area before being arrested outside.Flores-Ruiz’s underlying state case involved a domestic violence allegation. In opening statements, prosecutors referenced the charge he faced that day: battery — domestic abuse — infliction of physical pain or injury. Flores-Ruiz has since been deported.

    A jury on Thursday found Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of a federal felony charge that she obstructed or impeded a proceeding before a U.S. department or agency, while acquitting her on a misdemeanor count tied to concealing an individual from discovery and arrest.

    Her defense team released this statement shortly after the verdict was read:

    “While we are disappointed in today’s outcome, the failure of the prosecution to secure convictions on both counts demonstrates the opportunity we have to clear Judge Dugan’s name and show she did nothing wrong in this matter. We have planned for this potential outcome and our defense of Judge Dugan is just beginning. This trial required considerable resources to prepare for and public support for Judge Dugan’s defense fund is critical as we prepare for the next phase of this defense.”

    Adela Tesnow

    Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan reacts after hearing a guilty guilty in her federal trial

    The judge did not set a sentencing date. The defense plans to fight the conviction. The maximum penalty would be five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

    Watch: Defense attorney Steve Biskupic’s post-verdict reaction:

    On the prosecution side, interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel asked that people keep politics out of the case and the verdict. He said this was not the government trying to make an example of Dugan, but was instead a serious matter they felt necessary to pursue.

    Watch: Interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel delivers remarks after Dugan verdict

    Prosecutors filed the charges after an April 2025 courthouse encounter involving federal agents and a defendant, in Dugan’s court on a state criminal charge, a man they were seeking to arrest.

    The verdict followed a week of testimony and evidence centered on what jurors heard and saw from April 18, when federal agents came to the sixth floor of the Milwaukee County Courthouse with a warrant to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.

    In opening statements Monday, prosecutors told jurors that Dugan “knew what she did was wrong” and argued arrests in the courthouse are “standard and routine.”

    The defense challenged the interpretation of events and questioned witnesses about courthouse practices, confusion over the courthouse policy for interactions with federal immigration officials.

    What prosecutors alleged

    Jurors were shown surveillance video and listened to audio from inside Dugan’s courtroom, with prosecutors walking through the sequence in detail.

    Prosecutors pointed jurors to:

    • Hallway surveillance video showing Dugan confronting federal agents outside her courtroom; there was no audio on the hallway video.
    • Audio from inside the courtroom, played alongside a transcript for jurors to follow, including a moment in which Dugan’s clerk is heard saying, “We have 5 ICE guys in the hallway.”
    • Prosecutors’ interpretation of courtroom audio, including that Dugan called Flores-Ruiz’s case out of order and told his attorney to take him out and return for a rescheduled date, which prosecutors argued was intended to get him out of the area.

    Evidence and testimony jurors heard

    The government’s first witness included FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Baker, who testified about his actions at the courthouse that morning and what he observed.

    Baker described Dugan’s tone during the hallway encounter, saying, “anger would be the best way to describe it.”

    Jurors also heard testimony and saw exhibits related to communications among judges about how to handle interactions with federal immigration officials in the courthouse, according to the notes.

    WATCH FBI agents testify about courthouse confusion during immigration arrest

    Defense case

    After the prosecution rested on Wednesday, the defense began calling witnesses Thursday morning.

    The first defense witness was Milwaukee County Judge Katie Kegel, and jurors were shown an email she sent to fellow judges that was displayed in court and included in jurors’ binders.

    The final witness for the defense was former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a lifelong friend who described her as an “extremely honest” person who will tell you exactly how she feels.

    Background of the case

    The case stems from the April 18 courthouse encounter in which agents from ICE and other federal agencies arrived outside Dugan’s courtroom with a warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest.

    Prosecutors alleged Dugan directed agents away from the arrest location and that Flores-Ruiz later left through a restricted area before being arrested outside.

    Flores-Ruiz’s underlying state case involved a domestic violence allegation. In opening statements, prosecutors referenced the charge he faced that day: battery — domestic abuse — infliction of physical pain or injury. Flores-Ruiz has since been deported.

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  • Rocket maker receives largest single job incentive award in Colorado history

    The Colorado Economic Development Commission on Thursday approved its largest single incentive awards ever, extending $35.2 million in state tax credits to a rapidly growing developer and producer of solid rocket motors and hypersonic propulsion systems, matching the description of a company called Ursa Major.

    In line with the practice of cloaking the names of applicants, the award was made to Project Ladybug. The Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits are conditioned on the unnamed company creating up to 1,850 jobs at an average annual wage of $128,108 over the next eight years.

    Project Ladybug is a local aerospace company with 311 employees, including 255 in Colorado, which matches the headcount of Berthoud-based Ursa Major. The company told the state it was considering expanding in Mississippi, California and Ohio, a state where Ursa Major has a manufacturing plant. It appears the company will locate its expanded headquarters in Broomfield County.

    The most telling clue is that the company in question received an Advanced Industries program award of $250,000 in 2017 from the state. That matches Ursa Major to a T.

    Ursa Major raised $100 million in equity and $50 million in debt commitments in a Series E round that closed on Nov. 18, and now has an estimated value of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, according to CB Insights. That would make it a “unicorn” like SpaceX, just a lot smaller. The company has also disclosed that it has secured $115 million in contracts this year from commercial and defense industry customers.

    Among the jobs it expects to add are roles in human resources, legal, finance, IT, market and compliance, as well as in production and research and development. Ursa Major broke ground on a new 400-acre solid rocket motor test site in Weld County on Sept. 10. That facility will allow it to design, build and test large solid rocket motor systems more efficiently.

    “This facility represents a major step forward in our ability to deliver qualified SRMs that are scalable, flexible, and ready to meet the evolving threat environment,” said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Ursa Major, in a release. “It’s a clear demonstration of our commitment and ability to rapidly advance and expand the American-made solid rocket motor industrial base that the country needs, ensuring warfighters will have the quality and quantity of SRMs needed to meet mission demands.”

    The company is also making advances in liquid engine designs for hypersonic missiles, an emerging weapons system where the U.S. lags China and Russia. Those faster missiles can evade defense systems more easily and hit their targets more quickly, which is why the Department of Defense is pushing hard to close the gap.

    Ursa Major’s Hadley H13 engine has been tested at sustained Mach 5+ hypersonic speeds and the company is also developing the Draper, a storable liquid engine with hypersonic applications.

    Joe Laurienti, a former engineer at Blue Origin and SpaceX, founded Ursa Major Technologies in 2015. The company has grown to be an important player in the Front Range’s push to be recognized as “Aerospace Alley” or the next Silicon Valley of defense and aerospace.

    Aldo Svaldi

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  • Zelensky announces major Ukraine defense plan update 

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Kyiv must update its defense plan following a meeting with his defense minister and spy chief amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

    The Ukrainian president did not reveal much detail about an updated plan, although he did say there needed to be more investment for drones for Kyiv’s military brigades.  

    Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment on Saturday. 

    Why It Matters 

    Even though he revealed little, Zelensky’s comments could show how he wants to emphasize that it is business as usual in fighting Russia, despite growing pressure due to a corruption scandal involving the country’s energy sector in which Andrii Yermak, the former Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, resigned from his post. 

    It also suggests that Zelensky might be looking at a new approach in the fight against Russian aggression both on the battlefield and in Moscow’s targeting of civilian and energy infrastructure. 

    What To Know 

    On Saturday, Zelensky posted on Facebook that he had met with his defense minister Denys Shmyhal and Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence (DIU). 

    Next to an image of the meeting with Shmyhal, Zelensky wrote that the course of combat in the war meant that there needed to be a change to Ukraine’s defense plan. As such, Shmyhal would be tasked with updating it and proposing the changes to put before the government. No timeline was given. 

    “Minister of Defense of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal delivered a report. Several key points. It is time to update the fundamental defense documents of Ukraine, including the national defense plan,” Zelensky wrote on Saturday. “The course of hostilities has shown what must become the renewed priorities. We agreed that Denys will prepare detailed proposals for these changes and present them to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine for approval.”

    Shmyhal also told the Ukrainian president about his trips to the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions and on the protective measures being implemented.

    “Separately, we discussed the protection of critical infrastructure and the allocation of the relevant resources,” Zelensky wrote. “It is important that the Government and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine are fully ensuring the necessary funding–in particular for the purchase of drones for combat brigades–and that yesterday another monthly subvention tranche for combat brigades was financed in the amount of 4.3 billion hryvnias. An additional 8 billion hryvnias was also allocated for the financing of the Drone Line.”

    The president also held a separate meeting with Budanov ahead of negotiations with the U.S. to secure a peace deal with Moscow where Zelensky said they discussed “the security situation, the political situation around Ukraine, and the current prospects.”

    “We identified several key points that are important in the negotiation process,” he added.

    What People Are Saying 

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Facebook on Saturday: “Tonight– US time–the Ukrainian delegation should already be in the United States of America, and the dialogue will continue on the basis of points from Geneva. Diplomacy remains active. The American side is constructive, and it is quite possible to finalize the steps in the coming days to determine how to end the war with dignity. The Ukrainian delegation has the necessary directives, and I expect the guys to work according to clear Ukrainian priorities.

    What Happens Next? 

    Shmyhal will prepare proposals and submit them to Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers for approval although no timeframe has yet been given. 

    Meanwhile, Budanov will meet senior U.S. officials in the coming days as part of a delegation led by National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov. 

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  • The Outspoken CEO Behind the World’s Fastest-Growing Arms Maker

    Earlier this year, Armin Papperger opened a new factory that will allow his company to produce more of an essential caliber of artillery shell than the entire U.S. defense industry combined. 

    Surrounded that day by dignitaries, including the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Rheinmetall RHM -2.21%decrease; red down pointing triangle chief executive was riding a wave of post-Cold War military spending that is reshaping the global arms trade.

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    Alistair MacDonald

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  • Hegseth defends lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers: ‘Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them’

    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote on X that “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them,” in a post defending the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean Sea. 

    The declaration came following reports from outlets such as The Washington Post and CNN claiming the U.S. military ordered a second strike on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 after the initial attack left two survivors.  

    The commander overseeing that operation told colleagues on a secure conference call that the survivors were legitimate targets because they could still contact other traffickers for help and ordered the second strike to comply with a directive from Hegseth that everyone must be killed, according to The Washington Post. 

    “As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,” Hegseth wrote on X on Friday. 

    TRUMP SAYS US WILL BEGIN STOPPING VENEZUELAN DRUG TRAFFICKERS BY LAND

    Video footage shared by President Donald Trump on Truth Social showed the suspected drug vessel shortly before it was destroyed on Sept. 2.  (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social)

    “As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’ The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth continued. 

    “The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence. The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narco-terrorists. Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them,” he added. 

    Hegseth also said, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict — and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”

    US FORCES KILL 3 NARCO-TERRORISTS IN EASTERN PACIFIC LETHAL STRIKE OPERATION TARGETING DRUG NETWORKS

    Pete Hegseth and Joe Biden

    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, left, and former President Joe Biden. (Felix Leon/AFP via Getty Images; Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

    In a separate post on his personal X account, Hegseth wrote, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.” 

    Fox News Digital has reached out to a Biden spokesperson for comment.

    President Donald Trump also said on Thursday said the U.S. will “very soon” begin stopping suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers “by land.” 

    “From sending their poisons into the United States, where they kill hundreds of thousands of people a year — but we’re going to take care of that situation,” Trump said. “We’re already doing a lot … It’s about 85% stopped by sea.” 

    GIF of a boat strike in the Caribbean Sea

    War Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the U.S. carried out a deadly strike on a vessel operated by alleged narco-terrorists in the Caribbean Sea on Oct. 24, 2025. (Department of War)

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

    The president added, “You probably noticed that now people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.” 

    Fox News’ Sophia Compton contributed to this report. 

    Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

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  • The US Military Wants to Fix Its Own Equipment. Defense Contractors Are Trying to Shoot That Down

    Right to repair provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, which would secure funding for the US military in 2026, are likely to be struck from the final language of the bill despite enjoying broad bipartisan support, sources familiar with ongoing negotiations tell WIRED.

    They say that provisions in the act enabling servicemembers to repair their own equipment are likely to be removed entirely, and replaced with a data-as-a-service subscription plan that benefits defense contractors.

    The right to repair has become a thorny issue in the military. If a drone, fighter jet, or even a stove on a Navy vessel fails, US servicemembers in the field can’t always fix it themselves. In many cases, they need to call a qualified repair person, approved by the manufacturer, and bring them out to the site to fix the problem.

    The military would love to sidestep that hassle by giving personnel the tools and materials to make their own repairs in the field, and has repeatedly called for Congress to enable it to do so. However, some in Washington have been trying to neuter proposed right-to-repair provisions—a move that has been advocated for by defense contractor groups who sell the military the stuff they want to fix as well as the means to fix it, and stand to lose if the military is empowered to perform its own repairs.

    Differing versions of the NDAA have passed the Senate and the House and the process is now in a conferencing phase, where lawmakers meet to combine the versions into one bill. The final language is expected to come through by next week; after votes in both houses of Congress, it will then go to president Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

    Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, long a supporter of repairability legislation, added Sec. 836 to the Senate version of the NDAA, a provision drawing inspiration from the Warrior Right to Repair Act she introduced in July. It called for contractors to be required to provide the US Department of Defense with “the rights to diagnose, maintain, and repair the covered defense equipment.”

    A similar provision was also added to the House version of the NDAA, which was introduced by representative Mike Rogers, a Republican of Alabama and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. (Ranking member Adam Smith of Washington, also led on the bill.) Sec. 863 is a “requirement for contractors to provide reasonable access to repair materials.” In essence, it would empower servicemembers to fix their own stuff without having to rely on the manufacturer, saving time and taxpayer money.

    “Military leaders, service members, the White House, and hundreds of small businesses all agree these bipartisan right to repair reforms are desperately needed,” Warren told Roll Call last week. “The giant defense contractors fighting these reforms are more interested in innovating new ways to squeeze our military and taxpayers than strengthening our national security.”

    Boone Ashworth

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  • Hegseth seeks briefing on Sen Mark Kelly ‘Don’t Give Up the Ship’ viral video

    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    The Department of War released an update via X on Tuesday regarding “potentially unlawful conduct” exhibited by Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., in the viral video titled “Don’t Give Up the Ship” which critics claim encouraged treason from service members. 

    War Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded an update on the review by Dec. 10.

    “The Department of War recently received information regarding potentially unlawful comments made by CAPT (Ret) Mark E. Kelly in a public video, on or about November 18, 2025. I am referring this, and any other related matters, for your review, consideration, and disposition as you deem appropriate,” Hegseth wrote.

    “Please provide me a brief on the outcome of your review by no later than December 10, 2025,” his letter concluded.

    Hegseth addressed his letter to the Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan. Kelly served in the Navy as a captain before running for office.

    HEGSETH RIPS MARK KELLY’S POST ABOUT HIS SERVICE: ‘YOU CAN’T EVEN DISPLAY YOUR UNIFORM CORRECTLY’
     

    The Department of War received information regarding potentially unlawful comments made by Sen. Mark E. Kelly, D-Ariz. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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    The Department of War and the Office of Kelly did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

    This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

    Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.

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  • Rheinmetall Turns to Former Auto Workers to Fuel Hiring Spree

    Germany’s largest arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall RHM -3.85%decrease; red down pointing triangle, expects its sales will be five times as much as they were last year by the end of the decade. A big factor underpinning its confidence—it is being flooded by job applications.

    The company is now looking to draw from a pool of workers laid off by the car industry and other big employers to fill the roles needed for its expansion plans, its head of human resources operations said.

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    Cristina Gallardo

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  • Opinion | Trump Says Arms Are Going to Taiwan

    One of the biggest questions in global affairs is whether President Trump is chasing a grand bargain with Beijing’s Xi Jinping—and at what cost to the United States. So it’s good news that the Administration is showing that America won’t be bullied from defending its Pacific interests, with an arms sale to our friends in Taiwan.

    The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress of a $330 million potential arms sale for the island democracy. Items include spare parts for fighter jets and transport aircraft, as well as U.S. technical and logistics support. But more important than the details is that this marks the Administration’s first sale to Taiwan in Mr. Trump’s second term. Rumors had spread this year that Mr. Trump was withholding arms for Taiwan as he wooed Mr. Xi on a trade deal.

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    The Editorial Board

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  • Dassault Aviation Rises After Ukraine Agrees to Buy 100 Rafale Fighter Jets

    Ukraine agreed to buy 100 Rafale fighter jets as part of a larger military equipment deal that triggered a jump in the share price of the French aerospace and defense manufacturer Dassault Aviation AM 7.44%increase; green up pointing triangle.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that he had signed a letter of intent to acquire 100 Rafale F4 fighter jets by 2035, SAMP/T air defense systems, radars, air-to-air-missiles and aerial bombs from France.

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    Cristina Gallardo

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  • Explosive new documentary probes ’80-year global coverup’ of UFO secrets

    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    For decades, military pilots, radar operators, and ordinary citizens alike have reported strange objects darting through the skies, often dismissed by officials or buried under classification.

    Despite congressional hearings and government task forces, little clarity has emerged about what Americans are actually seeing.

    Now, the director of a new explosive documentary is pulling back the curtain on that mystery. 

    Director and producer Dan Farah sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier on Friday to discuss his new documentary, “The Age of Disclosure.”

    UFO TRACKER MAPS EERIE CLUSTERS OF UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS LURKING BENEATH US SHORELINES: ‘WE’RE BEING LIED TO’

    Director Dan Farah’s documentary ‘The Age of Disclosure’ features 34 senior U.S. officials revealing an alleged 80-year government cover-up of non-human intelligence. (The Age of Disclosure)

    “For a very long time, the public, Congress, and even the President have been kept out of the loop on this subject,” Farah said. “In the last few years, senior members of Congress, senior members of the administration, thanks to whistleblowers, have found out what’s been going on, and they are now in pursuit of the truth for themselves and for the American people.”

    The film explores an alleged “80-year global cover-up” of non-human intelligent life and a secret race among world powers to reverse-engineer advanced technology of non-human origin. It features interviews with 34 senior members of the U.S. government, military, and intelligence community — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

    “Every single person I interviewed made it very clear that it was no longer a question of whether this was a real situation,” he said. “It’s a very real situation.”

    Farah, who worked on the film for more than three years, said each person he spoke to had “direct knowledge of this issue” and “extreme credibility.”

    “We’ve had repeated instances of something operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities, and it’s not ours,” Rubio said in the trailer.

    He said the film reveals how the U.S. government is engaged in a “high-stakes, secret Cold War race with adversarial nations like China and Russia to reverse engineer technology of non-human origin.”

    HOUSE WITNESS TESTIFIES UFOS NEARLY ACTIVATED RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MISSILES DURING 1982 INCIDENT

    An alien spaceship

    Director Dan Farah’s new documentary ‘The Age of Disclosure’ explores an alleged 80-year government cover-up of non-human intelligent life and UAP encounters. (iStock)

    “The first country that cracks the code on this technology will be the leader for years to come,” said Jay Stratton, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official and director of the government’s UAP Task Force, in the film’s trailer.

    Farah said some are calling it “the Manhattan Project on steroids.”

    “The fear here is that if another nation wins this race it could really change the lay of the land in terms of power,” he said.

    But skepticism surrounding UAPs remains. Farah said the question now isn’t whether UAPs exist, but where they come from, who controls them and what their purpose is.

    He said joking about this topic is “the equivalent of laughing at a terrorist threat.”

    “Who would do that?” he said. “It makes no sense when you think about it. You know, if someone said, ‘Hey, there’s this constant terrorist threat. Terrorists are penetrating the airspace over our nuclear weapons sites.’ Who would laugh at that? It makes no sense.”

    JD VANCE SAYS UFOS, ALIENS COULD BE ‘SPIRITUAL FORCES’ AS VP VOWS TO ‘GET TO THE BOTTOM’ OF MYSTERY IN SKIES

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens to a question

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens to a question as he speaks to the media after visiting the Civil-Military Coordination Center in southern Israel on October 24, 2025. (Getty Images)

    High-level officials in the film claim the issue was moved away from presidential oversight, with defense contractors “gatekeeping information.” However, Farah said members of Congress and the Trump administration are now working to uncover answers.

    “Now we have leaders in Congress and in the administration that are trying to get to the bottom of it, and there are people in this film who are respected in their fields, who say they have seen these craft and have seen the recovered non-human bodies,” he said.

    He said on-the-record interviews are even more important in this digital age, with many people dismissing everything they see as fake or artificial intelligence. He hopes the film will serve as the evidence many believe doesn’t exist.

    “Some officials go on record claiming to have seen craft and non-human beings with their own eyes, and these are people who are putting their reputation and their names on the line,” he said.

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    Farah said he thinks President Donald Trump could be the first president to speak openly about this unexplained phenomenon.

    “I think it’s only a matter of time at this point before we have a sitting president step to the microphone and have the biggest moment a leader can possibly have, which is telling all of humanity that we’re not alone in the universe and that the United States intends to lead the way,” Farah said.

    The film will be released on Nov. 21 and will play in select theaters in New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, and will also be available worldwide to purchase or rent on Amazon Prime Video.

    Kiera McDonald is a Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.

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  • The Gaza War Has Been Big Business for U.S. Companies

    Two years on, Israel’s war in Gaza might be finally drawing to a close. The conflict built an unprecedented arms pipeline from the U.S. to Israel that continues to flow, generating substantial business for big U.S. companies—including Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Caterpillar.

    Sales of U.S. weapons to Israel have surged since October 2023, with Washington approving more than $32 billion in armaments, ammunition and other equipment to the Israeli military over that time, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of State Department disclosures.

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    Benoit Faucon

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  • Opinion | The Brains Behind Ukraine’s Pink Flamingo Cruise Missile

    Kyiv, Ukraine

    If politics makes strange bedfellows, war sometimes makes strange career paths. In her 20s, Iryna Terekh was a “very artsy” architect who viewed the arms industry as “something destructive.” Now Ms. Terekh, 33, is chief technical officer and the public face of Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense company. She and her team developed the Flamingo, a long-range cruise missile that President Volodymyr Zelensky has called “our most successful missile.”

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    Jillian Kay Melchior

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  • New Aircraft Carrier Advances China’s Naval Power

    Leader Xi Jinping marked a step in his mission to modernize the nation’s military.

    Chun Han Wong

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  • Opinion | When Irish Eyes Are Glaring

    Tensions with the U.S. will heighten under the new left-wing president.

    Robert C. O’Brien

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  • Dick Cheney, the nation’s 46th vice president, dies at 84

    Dick Cheney, the nation’s 46th vice president, has died at the age of 84.Cheney died Monday due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family.”His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the statement said.Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the statement continued. “We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”Prior to serving as vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney was also chief of staff under President Gerald Ford, secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush and a congressman from Wyoming for a decade. Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.Bush called Cheney a “decent, honorable man” and said his death was “a loss to the nation.”“History will remember him as among the finest public servants of his generation — a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position he held,” Bush said in a statement.Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.His vice presidency was defined by the age of terrorism. Cheney disclosed that he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile — detractors called it a smirk — Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator.”Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right.He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush.Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership.With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect.From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself.That bargain largely held up.”He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents — and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq war. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events.The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023.When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate.Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing.Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges — a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court — left the nation in limbo for weeks.Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there.On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader.Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to mind and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own.Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, not far from where Liz Cheney a few years later bought a home, establishing Wyoming residency before she won his old House seat in 2016. The fates of father and daughter grew closer, too, as the Cheney family became one of Trump’s favorite targets.Dick Cheney rallied to his daughter’s defense in 2022 as she juggled her lead role on the committee investigating Jan. 6 with trying to get reelected in deeply conservative Wyoming.Liz Cheney’s vote for Trump’s impeachment after the insurrection earned her praise from many Democrats and political observers outside Congress. But that praise and her father’s support didn’t keep her from losing badly in the Republican primary, a dramatic fall after her quick rise to the No. 3 job in the House GOP leadership.Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill,, serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34.Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s single congressional seat.In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms.In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades.He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary.

    Dick Cheney, the nation’s 46th vice president, has died at the age of 84.

    Cheney died Monday due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family.

    “His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the statement said.

    Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

    “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the statement continued. “We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”

    Prior to serving as vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney was also chief of staff under President Gerald Ford, secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush and a congressman from Wyoming for a decade.

    Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    Bush called Cheney a “decent, honorable man” and said his death was “a loss to the nation.”

    “History will remember him as among the finest public servants of his generation — a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position he held,” Bush said in a statement.

    David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney is interviewed for ’The Presidents’ Gatekeepers’ project about White House Chiefs of Staff, July 15, 2011, in Jackson, Wyoming.

    Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

    “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”

    In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.

    A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.

    His vice presidency was defined by the age of terrorism. Cheney disclosed that he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.

    In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.

    Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile — detractors called it a smirk — Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator.

    “Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”

    A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right.

    He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.

    He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.

    For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.

    But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.

    Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush.

    Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership.

    With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect.

    From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself.

    That bargain largely held up.

    “He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”

    As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents — and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”

    His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq war. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events.

    The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023.

    When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate.

    Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing.

    Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges — a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court — left the nation in limbo for weeks.

    Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there.

    On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader.

    Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to mind and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own.

    Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, not far from where Liz Cheney a few years later bought a home, establishing Wyoming residency before she won his old House seat in 2016. The fates of father and daughter grew closer, too, as the Cheney family became one of Trump’s favorite targets.

    Dick Cheney rallied to his daughter’s defense in 2022 as she juggled her lead role on the committee investigating Jan. 6 with trying to get reelected in deeply conservative Wyoming.

    Liz Cheney’s vote for Trump’s impeachment after the insurrection earned her praise from many Democrats and political observers outside Congress. But that praise and her father’s support didn’t keep her from losing badly in the Republican primary, a dramatic fall after her quick rise to the No. 3 job in the House GOP leadership.

    Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill,, serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34.

    Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s single congressional seat.

    In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms.

    In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.

    Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades.

    He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary.

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  • Dick Cheney, the nation’s 46th vice president, dies at 84

    Dick Cheney, the nation’s 46th vice president, died Monday night at the age of 84. Cheney died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family.”His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the statement said.“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the statement continued. “We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”Prior to serving as vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney was also chief of staff under President Gerald Ford, secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush and a congressman from Wyoming for a decade. Funeral arrangements were not immediately available. Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.His vice presidency was defined by the age of terrorism. Cheney disclosed that he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile — detractors called it a smirk — Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator.”Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right.He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush.Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership.With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect.From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself.That bargain largely held up.”He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents — and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq war. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events.The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023.When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate.Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing.Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges — a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court — left the nation in limbo for weeks.Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there.On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader.Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to mind and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own.Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, not far from where Liz Cheney a few years later bought a home, establishing Wyoming residency before she won his old House seat in 2016. The fates of father and daughter grew closer, too, as the Cheney family became one of Trump’s favorite targets.Dick Cheney rallied to his daughter’s defense in 2022 as she juggled her lead role on the committee investigating Jan. 6 with trying to get reelected in deeply conservative Wyoming.Liz Cheney’s vote for Trump’s impeachment after the insurrection earned her praise from many Democrats and political observers outside Congress. But that praise and her father’s support didn’t keep her from losing badly in the Republican primary, a dramatic fall after her quick rise to the No. 3 job in the House GOP leadership.Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill,, serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34.Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s single congressional seat.In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms.In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades.He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary.

    Dick Cheney, the nation’s 46th vice president, died Monday night at the age of 84.

    Cheney died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family.

    “His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the statement said.

    “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the statement continued. “We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”

    Prior to serving as vice president under President George W. Bush, Cheney was also chief of staff under President Gerald Ford, secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush and a congressman from Wyoming for a decade.

    Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

    Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney is interviewed for ’The Presidents’ Gatekeepers’ project about White House Chiefs of Staff, July 15, 2011, in Jackson, Wyoming.

    Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

    “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”

    In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.

    A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.

    His vice presidency was defined by the age of terrorism. Cheney disclosed that he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.

    In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.

    Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile — detractors called it a smirk — Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator.

    “Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”

    A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right.

    He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.

    He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.

    For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.

    But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.

    Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush.

    Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership.

    With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect.

    From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself.

    That bargain largely held up.

    “He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”

    As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents — and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”

    His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq war. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events.

    The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023.

    When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate.

    Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing.

    Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges — a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court — left the nation in limbo for weeks.

    Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there.

    On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader.

    Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to mind and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own.

    Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, not far from where Liz Cheney a few years later bought a home, establishing Wyoming residency before she won his old House seat in 2016. The fates of father and daughter grew closer, too, as the Cheney family became one of Trump’s favorite targets.

    Dick Cheney rallied to his daughter’s defense in 2022 as she juggled her lead role on the committee investigating Jan. 6 with trying to get reelected in deeply conservative Wyoming.

    Liz Cheney’s vote for Trump’s impeachment after the insurrection earned her praise from many Democrats and political observers outside Congress. But that praise and her father’s support didn’t keep her from losing badly in the Republican primary, a dramatic fall after her quick rise to the No. 3 job in the House GOP leadership.

    Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill,, serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34.

    Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s single congressional seat.

    In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms.

    In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.

    Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades.

    He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary.

    Source link