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  • Opinion: The SVB collapse doesn’t have to be the first in a chain of many | CNN

    Opinion: The SVB collapse doesn’t have to be the first in a chain of many | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Lanhee J. Chen is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion and the David and Diane Steffy fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. He was a candidate for California state controller in 2022. He has played senior roles in both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations and has been an adviser to four presidential campaigns, including as policy director of 2012 Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan campaign. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed this month, analysts and policymakers quickly began considering how to prevent similar failures from happening in the future. While there are changes that lawmakers should consider, when it comes to financial regulation, history shows us that politicians are usually reacting to the last crisis and one step behind the next one.

    The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s led to passage of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, which closed insolvent financial institutions, created new regulatory agencies and implemented restrictions on how savings and loan (or thrift) institutions could invest deposited funds.

    The 2007-2008 financial crisis led to passage of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, which revamped federal regulation of the financial services sector and placed restrictions on how banks do business. Amid criticism that Dodd-Frank had gone too far in regulating banks, a bipartisan coalition in Congress passed, and then-President Donald Trump signed into law in 2018, some rollbacks of Dodd-Frank’s requirements pertaining to small and midsize financial institutions.

    Democrats have largely blamed this rollback of regulations for SVB’s demise. Many Republicans, for their part, have focused their aim on whether the bank’s leadership spent too much time pursuing “woke” policies on diversity and sustainability rather than ensuring depositors were protected.

    The fact that there is so little overlap between Republican and Democrat critiques in the wake of SVB’s collapse illuminates the challenging road ahead for bipartisan policy solutions to avert a future similar failure. If the two sides can’t even agree on the principal cause of the bank’s failure, it’s unlikely there will be consensus on the policies needed to shore up the financial system for the future.

    But they should. While Democrats generally favor more aggressive oversight of the financial system and Republicans largely argue that the current regulatory scheme is sufficient, the right answer looking ahead is somewhere in between.

    In the wake of SVB’s failure, some regulatory interventions have come into focus and could form the basis of policy discussions in the coming weeks and months as Congress considers how to respond to the current banking crisis.

    First, SVB’s demise came when a lack of liquidity (or a shortfall of cash on hand) left it unable to pay out depositors when they came looking for their money. The bank had invested a disproportionate amount of assets in long-term debt that was purchased at a time when interest rates were much lower than they are today. When the bank attempted to liquidate this debt over the last few weeks, it was forced to do so at a significant loss. SVB failed to hedge against risk by diversifying its investments.

    When depositors tried to withdraw $42 billion in cash from the bank on a single day, SVB’s cash shortfall generated a panic among those who had deposits at the bank and raised concerns about the health of the US banking system more broadly.

    Just as individual investors are often advised to diversify their investment strategies to minimize risk, so too might politicians look to requirements that banks ensure that they have proper diversification in how they are investing their assets.

    Further, some Republicans and many Democrats are also calling for expanded deposit insurance so that bank deposits over the current federal cap of $250,000 are also insured. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a vocal supporter of increased financial sector regulation, has called for increased deposit insurance that would be paid for by banks. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California is expected soon to introduce legislation that raises or removes the insurance cap entirely, such that deposits of all amounts will be protected.

    Some Republicans have joined them in addressing the insurance cap. Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, for example, has argued that lifting the cap (for example, by ensuring the cap keeps up with inflation) would equalize the playing field between large banks and smaller local and regional ones. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah has suggested that larger depositors might be insured up to the entire amount of their deposits in exchange for a small fee.

    If Congress moves toward increasing or eliminating the deposit insurance cap entirely, it should do so carefully. Depending on how the policy is constructed, such changes could disproportionately benefit wealthier institutional depositors or encourage bad behavior by banks if they know an open-ended bailout is waiting on the other end of risky investment decisions.

    Finally, some changes will undoubtedly come through the Federal Reserve, rather than Congress. This is probably a good thing, as these policymakers have some insulation from the political forces that directly affect lawmakers.

    The Federal Reserve, for example, will likely examine the extent of both capital and liquidity requirements at banks based on their total assets. A bank’s capital is the difference between its assets and liabilities or, put another way, the resources a bank has to ultimately absorb losses. Liquidity, by comparison, is a measure of the cash and assets a bank has immediately on hand to pay obligations (such as money that depositors might ask for).

    America’s central bank may also look at the content of “stress tests” created by the Dodd-Frank Act and designed to regularly assess the health of large financial institutions across the country. For nearly a decade, tests have been benchmarked to a low-interest rate environment, which is not reflective of recent conditions.

    But ultimately, the Federal Reserve is not blameless in the collapse of SVB as it created a fertile environment for the bank’s failure by keeping interest rates as low as they were for as long as they were. Lawmakers should do their part to make sure people understand that monetary policy has far-reaching impacts.

    While the best way to prevent the next SVB is likely to be viewed by policymakers through partisan-tinted glasses, there are avenues for Democrats and Republicans to work together. But the window to do so is narrow and closing. This time next year, we’ll be in the throes of presidential primary elections, and neither party will be particularly interested in compromise — even if that’s what our financial system needs.

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  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg is honored at a Supreme Court she wouldn’t recognize | CNN Politics

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg is honored at a Supreme Court she wouldn’t recognize | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was lauded by former clerks and colleagues at a memorial ceremony held at the Supreme Court on Friday – an institution she’d scarcely recognize if she were still on the bench.

    During the special session of the court, delayed because of Covid-19, Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to Ginsburg’s dedication to equality and said she “changed our country profoundly for the better.”

    Attorney General Merrick Garland said her opinions were “concise and elegant.”

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, a former clerk, called the justice’s work the “stuff of legend.” (Prelogar also revealed Ginsburg’s passion for chocolate fondue.)

    But as the legal luminaries mingled in the Great Hall outside the marble-lined chamber, little was said about how much the court has changed in the 130 weeks since Ginsburg’s passing.

    Fresh on the minds of many is the unprecedented leak last May of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a disclosure the court described as a “grave assault on the judicial process.”

    In addition, however, the current conservative majority, including Ginsburg’s replacement, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is working expeditiously to reverse much of what Ginsburg stood for in areas such as reproductive health, voting rights, affirmative action, administrative law and religious liberty.

    In the past few months, the court has seen its approval ratings plummet amid claims that it has become irreparably political. Even the relationships between the justices, while cordial, have frayed in public over debates concerning the court’s legitimacy.

    As conservatives praise the court’s new season, others mourn the dismantling of Ginsburg’s life work.

    “We are in the midst of a constitutional revolution, and the praise being lavished on Ruth Bader Ginsburg today, should not cause us to lose sight of that fact,” said Neil S. Siegel, a professor at Duke University and former Ginsburg clerk.

    Lara Bazelon, a law professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, put it more forcefully in an interview with CNN: “The current court is taking a wrecking ball to her legacy to smash it to smithereens.”

    Ginsburg died at 87 years old on September 18, 2020, having spent some 40 years as a federal judge – 27 on the high court. She worked until the end, even dialing into oral arguments from her hospital bed in Baltimore in May 2020 to chastise a lawyer for the Trump administration. The case at hand concerned a religion-based challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employer-provided health insurance plans cover birth control as a preventive service.

    “You have tossed entirely to the wind what Congress thought was essential, that is that women be provided these services with no hassles, no cost to them,” Ginsburg said.

    After her death – less than seven weeks before Election Day – then-President Donald Trump praised her. “She was an amazing woman whether you agree or not she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life,” he said, while as expected, moving with dispatch to push through the nomination of a candidate believed to be Ginsburg’s ideological opposite in many areas: Justice Amy Coney Barrett .

    The shift from Ginsburg to Barrett is akin to 1991 when Justice Thurgood Marshall, a legend of the civil rights movement who often cast his votes with the liberals on the bench, was replaced with Justice Clarence Thomas, who has become a hero of the conservative right.

    The philosophical differences between the two jurists was almost immediately evident in disputes over the religious liberty implications of state Covid restrictions.

    When Ginsburg was still alive, the court ruled in favor of the states with Roberts serving as the swing vote. But after Barrett’s confirmation, the houses of worship won.

    Barrett – a former clerk to Ginsburg’s friend, the late Justice Antonin Scalia – has also embraced the constitutional theory of originalism, a judicial philosophy championed by Scalia. Under the doctrine, the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original public reading.

    Just last term the court divided along familiar ideological lines in several cases and Barrett sided with the majority, cementing the court’s conservative turn.

    Barrett’s presence also means that Roberts no longer controls the court, as there are five votes to his right on some of the most divisive issues of the day.

    “He is no longer empowered to moderate the very conservative direction in which the court’s other conservatives are pushing the institution,” Siegel said.

    The biggest blow for liberals last term came in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito that reversed Roe – a decision that had been on the books during Ginsburg’s entire tenure.

    While she enjoyed a cordial relationship for the most part with her colleagues, Siegel and Bazelon said she would have been surprised by specific references Alito made to an article she wrote in 1992 as a lower court judge.

    On the 3rd page of his opinion Alito argued that when Roe was decided it was such a broad decision that it “effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single state.” He went on to say that it has “embittered our political culture for a half century.” After that sentiment he cited Ginsburg’s article in a footnote, where she wrote that the sweep of the decision had “halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believed, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.”

    Some believe Alito included the quotation to point out that Ginsburg, along with others, felt like the court may have moved too fast too soon in the opinion. But others question his use of the citation, especially because Ginsburg never questioned the result of the decision, only its reasoning in certain sections.

    “Alito’s citation is both cynical and misleading, implying that Justice Ginsburg disapproved of the Roe holding,” Bazelon said.

    That couldn’t be “farther from the truth,” she said, pointing out that Ginsburg’s disagreement was that the reasoning should have “honed in more precisely on the women’s equality dimension.” She noted that Ginsburg always agreed with the result of the opinion.

    In the last years of her life Ginsburg was asked what would happen if the court were to ever overturn Roe and she said that it would have a particularly harsh impact on women who did not have the means to travel across state lines to obtain the procedure.

    Those words were echoed in the joint dissent last term filed by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in Dobbs. “Above all others, women lacking financial resources will suffer from today’s decision,” they wrote.

    On Friday, Breyer, now retired, sat in the front row, next to retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy was replaced in 2018 by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who also voted to overturn Roe.

    During her final term, Ginsburg may have known Roe was in jeopardy. There were, after all, likely five members skeptical of the opinion. But she may have felt that Roberts could be persuaded to stop short of overturning precedent out of respect for the stability of the law.

    The very fact that she thought Roe could be in danger, was a signal that Ginsburg saw changes afoot before her passing. She often lamented the politicization of the court that she thought could be traced partly to the confirmation process. She noted that in 1993 when she was nominated by President Bill Clinton she was confirmed by a vote of 96-3 even though she had served as a lawyer for the liberal ACLU. In modern day confirmation hearings, that vote would have been much closer.

    Last term, in a rash of 6-3 decisions the fissures were evident.

    After dodging Second Amendment cases for years, for example, the court crafted a 6-3 opinion marking the widest expansion of gun rights in a decade.

    Kagan dissented when a 6-3 court curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to broadly regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants, a writing that seemed to trigger Kagan’s inner Ginsburg. She criticized the court for stripping the EPA of the “power Congress gave it to respond to ‘the most pressing environmental challenge of our time.”

    “The Court appoints itself – instead of Congress or the expert agency – the decision-maker on climate policy,” she said.

    “I cannot think of many things more frightening,” Kagan concluded.

    The conservative court is not finished.

    In 2013, Ginsburg wrote a scathing dissent when Roberts penned an opinion gutting a key section of the historic Voting Rights Act.

    Ginsburg wrote at the time that weakening the law when it “has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

    This term, the court is tackling another section of the same law.

    And the court is considering whether to bar colleges and universities from taking race into consideration as a factor in admissions plans.

    In 2002, Ginsburg memorably wrote about why such programs are necessary. “The stain of generations of racial oppression is still visible in our society, and the determination to hasten its removal remains vital,” she said.

    On Friday former clerk Amanda L. Tyler spoke lovingly about her late boss who, she said, had been described as a “prophet, an American hero, a rock of righteousness, and a national treasure.”

    She said Ginsburg had “the best qualities a judge can have: lawyerly precision, an abiding dedication to procedural integrity, a commitment to opening up access to the justice system to ensure that the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”

    The event in the great hushed hall, like many other memorials, served as a reunion of sorts for Ginsburg’s family and her acolytes and a respite from the court’s regular order. On Monday, the justices take the bench again for a new set of cases.

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  • DOJ seeks fast-track Supreme Court review of ruling against gun ban for people under domestic violence restraining orders | CNN Politics

    DOJ seeks fast-track Supreme Court review of ruling against gun ban for people under domestic violence restraining orders | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to fast-track its consideration of a recent appeals court ruling that deemed unconstitutional a federal law barring gun possession by those under domestic violence restraining orders.

    “The presence of a gun in a house with a domestic abuser increases the risk of homicide sixfold,” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in her petition Friday, urging the high court to decide before its summer recess whether to take up the case.

    The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in February that the 1996 law was unconstitutional, and while the ruling applies only to Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, advocates worry it will have wide implications, including that it will discourage victims from coming forward.

    The circuit court cited the major Second Amendment ruling handed down by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority last year that laid out a new test for lower courts to use to analyze a gun regulation’s constitutionality.

    Prelogar told the Supreme Court on Friday that the 5th Circuit’s reasoning was wrong and the high court should take up the case so “that it can correct the Fifth Circuit’s misinterpretation of Bruen,” referring to last summer’s Supreme Court opinion.

    The high court’s majority opinion in June said that part of the test was whether a gun restriction had a parallel to the regulations in place at the time of the Constitution’s framing.

    The 5th Circuit said, with its opinion regarding the domestic violence gun restriction earlier this year, that the prohibition on alleged abusers lacked that kind of historical parallel and therefore was unconstitutional.

    If the 5th Circuit’s “approach were applied across the board,” Prelogar wrote, “few modern statutes would survive judicial review; most modern gun regulations, after all, differ from their historical forbears in at least some ways.”

    At the time of the circuit court ruling, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Congress had determined the gun ban statute “nearly 30 years ago” and signaled the department’s plan to appeal the ruling.

    “Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional. Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision,” he said.

    Guns are used to commit nearly two-thirds of intimate partner homicides, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. A 2021 study found that the majority of mass shootings are also linked to domestic violence.

    Though some of the states covered by the appeals court have similar state law restrictions, the new ruling undermines a crucial tool that survivors have to protect themselves from their abusers. If the 5th Circuit’s logic were adopted nationwide by the US Supreme Court, the consequences would be devastating, advocates say.

    “People are going to know that their abuser still has their gun. They’re going to continue to live in absolute, abject fear,” said Heather Bellino, the CEO of the Texas Advocacy Project, which works with victims of domestic violence. “They are going to be afraid to get a protective order, because now that gun’s not going away.”

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  • Texas veteran who entered Senate chamber in military gear on January 6 sentenced to two years in prison | CNN Politics

    Texas veteran who entered Senate chamber in military gear on January 6 sentenced to two years in prison | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A US Air Force veteran who entered the Senate chambers in military gear during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.

    Larry Brock, 55, was found guilty on six charges, including the felony of obstruction of an official proceeding, during a bench trial in November 2022.

    “It’s really pretty astounding coming from a former high-ranked military officer. It’s astounding and atrocious,” US District Judge John Bates said Friday as he explained his sentence.

    According to prosecutors, Brock walked around the Senate chamber for eight minutes during the Capitol attack, rifling through senators’ desks while wearing a helmet, tactical vest and carrying plastic flex-cuffs he found in the Rotunda that day.

    Prosecutors also allege that Brock attempted to unlock a door that was used minutes earlier by then-Vice President Mike Pence.

    “Brock was a part of a larger mob that stopped the proceeding from taking place,” prosecutor April Ayers-Perez said during sentencing. “They were continuing to stop the proceeding just by being there. Brock was on the Senate floor where they were supposed to be debating Arizona at that very moment.”

    During sentencing, the government also said Brock used extreme rhetoric following the results of the 2020 election. The judge read some of Brock’s social media posts during the hearing, including one that said: “I bought myself body armor and a helmet for a civil war that is coming.”

    “I think it’s fair to say his rhetoric is on the far end of how extreme it is,” Bates said.

    The judge went on to emphasize the seriousness of the Capitol attack before imposing a sentence. “The conduct we are talking about, the events of January 6, were extremely serious. Extremely serious,” he said. “It was a mob, engaged in a riot, and all of that has to be taken serious by the criminal justice system.”

    Brock did not address the court at the advice of his defense attorney, Charles Burnham.

    “He’d love to address the court, but since we are planning on appealing, I’ve asked him to not address the court,” Burnham said.

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  • FBI offers $20,000 reward in case of missing American woman who was kidnapped from her home in Mexico | CNN

    FBI offers $20,000 reward in case of missing American woman who was kidnapped from her home in Mexico | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    More than a month after a 63-year-old US citizen was kidnapped from her home in Mexico, the FBI has announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.

    Maria del Carmen Lopez was kidnapped February 9 in Pueblo Nuevo, a municipality in the southwestern Mexican state of Colima, the FBI’s Los Angeles field office said in a release Thursday.

    Lopez is also a Mexican citizen, according to a statement from the Colima Attorney General’s office, which said it is working with the FBI on the investigation.

    Though the FBI did not share details on the case, it described Lopez as having blonde hair, brown eyes and tattooed eyeliner.

    Federal authorities don’t believe drug cartels were involved in the kidnapping, the FBI Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office Donald Alway told CNN. The agency has witness accounts confirming Lopez was kidnapped, Alway said, but didn’t share other details about the case.

    “We are going to pursue this, and we’ll look at every avenue and we’ll follow every lead and we’ll open every door that we can find to ensure that our primary goal is to get her back safely,” he added.

    The FBI’s announcement comes nearly two weeks after the violent kidnapping of four Americans in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, two of whom were killed, and three weeks after the disappearance of three women who crossed into Mexico to sell clothes at a flea market.

    The investigation into Lopez’s disappearance was opened by the Colima Attorney General’s Office on the day of the suspected kidnapping and the Mexican Attorney General’s Specialized Prosecutor for Organized Crime has since requested to take the case, the statement from Colima authorities said.

    The Colima prosecutor’s office said it has shared information with Mexican federal authorities and has also collaborated with US agencies “seeking to clarify the facts and safeguard the integrity of the victim.”

    The FBI encouraged anyone with information about where Lopez may be located to contact their local FBI office, submit a tip online or reach out to the nearest American embassy or consulate.

    CNN has reached out to the FBI for additional information.

    In all, more than 100,00 Mexicans and migrants are missing across the country, leaving their families no explanation and little solace. The Mexican government’s quick response to recent disappearances of Americans has raised eyebrows among some who criticize officials for lacking such prompt reactions in a slew of domestic cases.

    Lopez’s daughter is pleading for information on her mother’s whereabouts after being gone for more than a month.

    Lopez moved to Mexico after she retired and was living “a quiet life back in their homeland,” her daughter, Zonia Lopez, told CNN. Her mother never expressed any concerns for her safety while living in Mexico, she added.

    When asked if a ransom was demanded, Zonia said she could not share too much information because it is “still an open investigation.”

    Zonia said she learned about her mother’s disappearance after getting a call from her sisters who said their father was told in a phone call that Lopez was kidnapped. Her family reached out to the embassy, who connected them with the FBI, Zonia said.

    “It’s a horrible feeling not knowing if she is okay, not knowing where she’s at or who has her,” Zonia said. “We’re literally powered by the strength that we know she has and the love that she has for us, and we are literally holding on to a thread of hope.”

    Zonia said she remains hopeful and her mother’s “vibrant attitude and her outlook on life” keeps her family going.

    “We will not stop until we have answers, and we are making sure that this gets enough attention so that other families, along with ours, get some kind of information, some kind of closure to this,” Zonia said.

    While the FBI and Mexican authorities work to find her mother, Lopez offered a message to the person or people responsible for her kidnapping: “Please give her back. We need our mom.”

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  • Most January 6 footage aired by Tucker Carlson wasn’t reviewed by Capitol Police first, USCP attorney says | CNN Politics

    Most January 6 footage aired by Tucker Carlson wasn’t reviewed by Capitol Police first, USCP attorney says | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    House Republican leadership did not let the US Capitol Police force review most clips of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol that were given to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and made public, USCP attorney Tad DiBiase said Friday.

    DiBiase told a federal judge he reviewed just one clip – which was previously available for public viewing – before Carlson aired dozens of clips that he had received from House Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

    “The other approximately 40 clips, which were not from the Sensitive List, were never shown to me nor anyone else from the Capitol Police,” DiBiase wrote in a sworn affidavit submitted in an alleged Capitol rioter’s criminal case.

    Carlson has aired carefully selected clips to portray the pro-Trump mob as peaceful patriots. The Fox News host falsely claimed that the footage provided “conclusive” evidence that Democrats and the House select committee that investigated January 6 lied to Americans about the day’s events.

    According to the Justice Department, 140 officers were assaulted at the Capitol that day, including 60 Metropolitan Police officers and 80 US Capitol Police officers.

    DiBiase said Friday that his team gave the Republicans on the Committee on House Administration access to their CCTV footage from January 6, 2021, but weren’t asked ahead of time if the clips could then be shared with Fox News.

    The Capitol Police have expressed concern for months that some of the CCTV footage is sensitive, and, if shared publicly, could be a security risk. But McCarthy hasn’t backed off his decision, telling CNN on Friday that the police force only raised objection to one clip and that it was addressed.

    “We went to Capitol Police. We asked them, ‘Do you have any concerns with any of these, with any time period?’ They brought up one, which was only the one they had concerns with. We changed it,” McCarthy said without offering further details.

    Carlson, for his part, has said he takes security concerns “seriously” and previously claimed that he had Capitol Police review the footage before airing it. Multiple sources on Capitol Hill, however, previously told CNN that Carlson’s show provided only one clip to review and not the others.

    US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said earlier this month that Carlson selected favorable clips to mislead his audience about the attack. Manger called Carlson’s depictions of the events “offensive.”

    “The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video,” Manger wrote in an internal department memo obtained by CNN. “The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.”

    Manger added that Carlson’s show didn’t reach out to the police department “to provide accurate context.”

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  • EXCLUSIVE: Dozens of Mar-a-Lago staff, from servers to aides, are subpoenaed in classified documents probe | CNN Politics

    EXCLUSIVE: Dozens of Mar-a-Lago staff, from servers to aides, are subpoenaed in classified documents probe | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    At least two dozen people – from Mar-a-Lago resort staff to members of Donald Trump’s inner circle at the Florida estate – have been subpoenaed to testify to a federal grand jury that’s investigating the former president’s handling of classified documents, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

    On Thursday, Trump’s communications aide Margo Martin, who worked in the White House and then moved with Trump to Florida, appeared before the grand jury in Washington, DC. One of special counsel Jack Smith’s senior-most prosecutors was involved in the interview.

    Martin, who is among a small group of former White House advisers who have remained employed by Trump after he left office, declined to answer any questions when approached by a CNN reporter.

    Smith has sought testimony from a range of people close to Trump – from his own attorneys who represent him in the matter to staffers who work on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, including a housekeeper and restaurant servers, sources said.

    The staffers are of interest to investigators because of what they may have seen or heard while on their daily duties around the estate, including whether they saw boxes or documents in Trump’s office suite or elsewhere.

    “They’re casting an extremely wide net – anyone and everyone who might have seen something,” said one source familiar with the Justice Department’s efforts.

    For instance, federal investigators have talked to a Mar-a-Lago staff member seen on security camera footage moving boxes from a storage room with Trump aide Walt Nauta, who has already spoken with investigators.

    Many of the Mar-a-Lago staffers are being represented by counsel paid for by Trump entities, according to sources and federal elections records.

    The Justice Department has been investigating potential mishandling of national security records and possible obstruction for about a year. FBI agents recovered more than 100 classified documents during a search of Mar-a-Lago last summer. Since then, Trump’s legal team has turned over additional classified material.

    An aerial view of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 31, 2022.

    Classified docs found at Mar-a-Lago months after searches

    The federal probe previously subpoenaed top Trump advisers, such as former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and former Trump adviser and Pentagon official Kash Patel.

    Meanwhile, Smith continues to pursue Trump defense lawyer Evan Corcoran. In an earlier appearance before the grand jury, Corcoran declined to answer questions about his conversations with Trump related to the classified documents, citing attorney-client privilege. Prosecutors are asking a judge to find that he must answer because the conversations may have been part of advancing a crime or fraud.

    A ruling is expected from the DC District Court on Corcoran as early as this week.

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  • YouTube restores Donald Trump’s channel | CNN Business

    YouTube restores Donald Trump’s channel | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    YouTube on Friday said it would restore former President Donald Trump’s channel, more than two years after suspending it following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

    The move follows similar actions by Twitter and Facebook-parent Meta in recent months, although Trump has yet to resume posting on those platforms. It also comes after Trump announced last fall that he would run for president again in 2024.

    “We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election,” YouTube said in a tweet Friday.

    A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN. The channel restoration was first reported by Axios.

    YouTube initially suspended Trump’s channel after the Capitol riot, saying a video on the channel had violated its policy against inciting violence. Since then, Trump’s account had been blocked from uploading new videos or livestreams.

    YouTube had also disabled comments underneath videos on Trump’s channel, which appear to have been restored on Friday. Immediately after his account was restored, a number of users began posting “welcome back” comments under old videos.

    While YouTube was never Trump’s top social platform, the reactivation of his channel will restore his access to the massive video streaming platform, where his account has more than 2.6 million subscribers.

    As more platforms restore Trump’s account, some are also stressing he continues to face restrictions on what he can post, with the potential to be suspended again.

    YouTube said in its statement that Trump’s “channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.” YouTube operates a strike policy under which users can receive escalating suspensions based on the number and severity of their violations.

    Meanwhile, Meta said last month that it had implemented new guardrails on Trump’s account that could result in it being suspended again if he breaks the company’s rules.

    For now, the former president has continued posting only on his own platform, Truth Social, which launched after he was suspended from more mainstream options. Trump on Friday morning posted a series of six videos on Truth Social, including multiple that repeated false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

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  • Lawmakers who struggle and have struggled with mental health see power in ‘telling the story’ | CNN Politics

    Lawmakers who struggle and have struggled with mental health see power in ‘telling the story’ | CNN Politics

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    Editor’s Note: If you or a loved one are facing mental health issues or substance abuse disorders, call The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 or visit SAMHSA’s website for treatment referral and information services.



    CNN
     — 

    In the spring of 2019, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota was busy putting the finishing touches on a bill that sought to expand mental health care access for kids in schools.

    But she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being less than honest about just how personal the issue of mental health was for her.

    Smith was on the precipice of an election. She had no obligation to open up about her own depression that she says happened twice – once in college and once as a young mom. But in May 2019, on the floor of the US Senate, Smith, delivered a speech about mental health and admitted, “The other reason I want to focus on mental health care while I’m here is that I’m one of them.”

    “I remember being nervous,” Smith recalled of delivering the speech. “I was concerned that people would think that I was trying to like make it be about myself, but once I got beyond that, and I realized that there was power in me telling the story – me particularly being a United States senator, somebody who supposedly has everything all together all the time, then it started to feel really interesting, and I could see right away the value of it.”

    The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that one in five adults in the US – nearly 53 million Americans – experience mental illness every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 50% of Americans will experience mental illness in their lifetime. But for politicians – often far away from home, under high levels of stress and pressure, all risk factors for mental illnesses like depression and anxiety – talking about their own mental health is still a relatively rare admission.

    It’s why in February when Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman announced he was seeking inpatient treatment for clinical depression, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle celebrated not only his decision, but his transparency.

    “It’s tough in politics, there’s a lot of scrutiny, you’re clearly in the public eye a lot. There are consequences to the things you say and talk about, but I think in a circumstance like this, it helps the conversation,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune said. “It helps people realize and understand the impact that this disease has on people across the country.”

    Years after coming forward with her own experience, Smith said she doesn’t have any regrets. In light of the Fetterman news, she feels even more the importance to share.

    “I think that every time a somebody like John or me is open about their own experiences with mental illness or you know, mental health challenges, it just breaks down that wall a little bit more about people saying, ‘Oh, it’s possible to be open and honest and not have the whole world come crashing down on you,’” Smith said.

    It’s been decades since Smith experienced depression, but she said she still remembers so much about that time.

    “I thought I was just off,” Smith said. “Something is wrong with me. I’m not with it. I’m not doing well enough and then you start to sort of blame yourself, and I was sort of in that cycle,” Smith said.

    It was her roommate in college who first suggested she talk to someone. Reluctantly, Smith took herself over to student health services and started talking to a counselor. She said she started to feel better and eventually noticed her depression abated.

    But as Smith tells it, mental health is a continuum and about a decade later, as a young mom with two kids, she found herself experiencing depression once again. At the time, she said she was caught completely off guard.

    “This is the thing that’s so treacherous about depression in particular. You think that the thing that is wrong with you is you,” Smith said. “I’ll never forget my therapist telling me, she said ‘You’re clinically depressed. That’s my diagnosis. I think that you’d benefit from medication to help you.’”

    Smith said she initially resisted. But, after a continued conversation, she agreed to start medication as part of her treatment. She remembers it took time to work, but eventually she noticed a major improvement.

    When she emerged from her depression, Smith was in her early 30s. She said she hasn’t had a resurgence of depression since then, but that she does pay very close attention to her mental health now.

    There are 535 members of Congress and just a handful of them have shared personal stories related to mental illness. Most of those who have talked about their experiences publicly are Democrats. Most of the men who have shared their stories talk about them in the context of military service. In part, it’s a risk for lawmakers to get too personal. The history of reactions to politicians being open about their mental illness has been checkered in the last several decades.

    “People still remember Tom Eagleton,” Smith told CNN.

    In 1972, Eagleton was newly selected to be the running mate for Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. He admitted to being treated for clinical depression and receiving electroshock therapy. Days later, he withdrew from the ticket even as he continued to serve for years in the Senate.

    Memories of those kinds of episodes impact members in how they approach talking about mental health, even in recent memory.

    “When I was in Congress, I did everything I could to keep everybody from finding out that I needed help,” former Rep. Patrick Kennedy told CNN.

    Kennedy represented Rhode Island in Congress from 1995 to 2011. He suffered from addiction and bipolar disorder. While he was there in 2006, he crashed his green Mustang convertible into a barrier outside the Capitol in the early morning. Following the crash, he pointed to sleeping pills as the culprit and checked himself into the Mayo Clinic for treatment.

    “And is the case with anybody with these illnesses is it is the worst kept secret in town and you are often the last one to realize in what bad shape you are. People won’t tell it to your face because you are a member of Congress, your staff is walking around on eggshells,” Kennedy said.

    “When I did go to treatment. I kind of did it after I had been revealed to be in trouble like I’d gotten in a car accident.”

    But when he got back, Kennedy heard from many colleagues about their own struggles with issues related to mental health.

    Kennedy predicts when Fetterman returns to the Senate, that might also happen to him.

    “I think he is going to have our colleagues from both the House and the Senate look for him in order to tell him what is going on with them. He’s the only one they know,” Kennedy said. “While stigma is going away, there is a less forgiving attitude toward people who suffer from mental illness and addiction.”

    The aftermath of January 6, 2021, was another moment where the conversation around mental health started to shift on the Hill. Suddenly, members and their staff had undergone a traumatic and shared experience in the workplace.

    Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California was just four days into being a new member of Congress on January 6th when she was trapped in the gallery above the House floor with several other members of her party. The experience – the sound of gas masks being deployed, the frenzy to escape, the echo of a gunshot – left her reeling. Jacobs said she considered herself well positioned to seek help. She already had a therapist. But, she noticed some of her older colleagues didn’t have the same tools.

    “I remember actually, after January 6, talking to some of my colleagues here who were a bit older and encouraging them to seek therapy and to get help because it was just something that that wasn’t as accustomed for them,” she said.

    The group of lawmakers who were trapped in the gallery also sought therapy together via Zoom and kept in touch via a text chain.

    For Jacobs, the trauma of January 6 manifested itself in unexpected ways. Suddenly, fireworks – something she once loved – were triggering. Loud people chanting or gathering somewhere made her tense up. She said a lot of her colleagues also dealt with anger, “lots of anger toward colleagues who went back that night and continued to deny the election.”

    When her brother got married in the fall and had fireworks, she had to excuse herself to another room because “it was stressing my body, my nervous system so much.”

    Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Michigan, also came forward after January 6 to talk about his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder after that day.

    It wasn’t easy.

    “There is still a stigma. People still make their own judgments and that was one of the reasons I decided to talk about it so that people would see that it can happen to anybody. You just have to get the care that you need.”

    “Not everybody was accepting when I sought treatment. My former opponent ridiculed it,” Kildee said.

    For Jacobs, who has been taking medication for anxiety and depression since 2013, stories like Fetterman’s are a sign that maybe the discussions around mental health are beginning to change on the Hill and maybe even in the rest of the country.

    “I think there’s absolutely a generational divide. And there’s also a gender divide and that’s why I think it’s so incredibly brave that Fetterman not only got the treatment needed, but talk about it,” Jacobs told CNN. “I think for me as a young woman, I spent a lot of time with my friends and peers talking about mental health, talking about therapists and what we’re learning in therapy, but I know that that is not something that other generations really have felt open to do.”

    It’s not clear, ultimately, how Fetterman’s openness around his mental health will impact the Hill going forward. It’s not clear what resonance it will have in the rest of the country or even back home for voters. But for lawmakers who’ve taken steps already to share their stories, there is some hope that it could make a major difference.

    “It doesn’t take a statistician to tell you that of the 100 of us in the United States Senate, mental health issues are going to have touched every single one of us in one way or another,” Smith said. “I think it gives people some permission to maybe speak a little bit more openly about it.”

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  • 19th century chastity law endangers 21st century abortion medicine | CNN Politics

    19th century chastity law endangers 21st century abortion medicine | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The Wild West of the post-Roe v. Wade legal landscape is focused on a lone federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, who could use a 19th century law to limit access to abortion medication for every American woman.

    The judge, 45-year-old Matthew Kacsmaryk, held a hearing Wednesday about whether he should impose a preliminary injunction that would require the US Food and Drug Administration to withdraw or suspend its approval of the drug, mifepristone, while a larger case progresses.

    Mifepristone is taken along with another drug, misoprostol, as part of the two-step medication abortion process. Misoprostol can be prescribed on its own, but it is considered less effective.

    Kacsmaryk, who sounded open to the idea of restricting access to mifepristone, will have to agree with some or all of these general points raised if he decides to issue an injunction:

    • That doctors who don’t perform abortions and live in Texas, where abortions are already banned, are harmed by abortions conducted elsewhere.
    • That an FDA approval conducted over the course of four years and finalized 23 years ago was so flawed that it should be rescinded.
    • That a single federal judge in Amarillo should do what no federal judge has ever done and unilaterally rescind an FDA approval.
    • That a drug, which studies suggest is on par with ibuprofen in terms of safety, is actually so harmful it should be reconsidered by the FDA.

    CNN’s Tierney Sneed wrote a longer list of takeaways from the hearing, where anti-abortion rights doctors and activist groups teed up their lawsuit in Kacsmaryk’s courtroom to further limit access to abortion care in the US.

    It’s important to note that no matter what Kacsmaryk does, it will be appealed up through the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals and potentially to the Supreme Court.

    But perhaps the most incredible question Kacsmaryk faces is whether an 1870s chastity law named for an anti-vice crusader, Anthony Comstock, should be resuscitated and applied to the medicine that now accounts for a majority of US abortions.

    Comstock operated the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and was a special agent of the US Postal Service. He was known for seizing contraband like contraceptives and condoms in the name of rooting out obscenity, according to the New York Historical Society.

    Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis who has written about the Comstock Act for CNN Opinion, described Comstock as being “obsessed by what he saw as the decaying morals of a country preoccupied with sex.”

    Ziegler writes:

    The law he inspired barred not just the mailing of “obscene books” but also birth control and abortion drugs and devices. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Comstock Act was used to prohibit the mailing of many literary classics, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” to works by James Joyce and Walt Whitman.

    Comstock himself proudly carried a gun and scoured the mail for cases involving information about abortion or contraception, even if a doctor provided it. By Comstock’s standard, the law was a great success: he claimed to have destroyed 15 tons of books, arrested more than 4,000 people and driven at least 15 people to suicide.

    While Congress has acted to relax elements of the Comstock Act, including to allow the mailing of contraceptives, it is still technically on the books with regard to the mailing of anything that could be used for an abortion.

    During the Covid-19 pandemic, the FDA dropped its requirement that a person obtain mifepristone in person. A prescription is still required.

    In December, the Department of Justice notified the US Postal Service that the Comstock Act did not apply as long as “the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.”

    The FDA permanently removed the in-person requirement in January, hoping to guarantee more access to the medication after the Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade last June.

    The group that brought the Texas lawsuit, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, wants to reapply the Comstock Act and restrict the mailing of abortion medication.

    The FDA’s already exhaustive and detailed drug approval process was especially scrutinized for mifepristone, which was more commonly known as part of the RU-486 regimen when it became available to American women at the turn of the century.

    It had been available in Europe for a dozen years before that. Here’s CNN’s report from September 2000.

    That the drug works safely as a means of abortion is not really up for dispute as a medical matter after all that time, according to CNN’s Jen Christensen, who explains more about the medication in this article about mifepristone.

    Another CNN data analysis suggests mifepristone is safer than penicillin and Viagra.

    Mifepristone has a death rate of 0.0005% – five deaths for every 1 million people in the US who used it. Penicillin’s death rate is four times greater. Viagra’s is 10 times greater, according to the analysis by CNN’s Annette Choi and Will Mullery.

    Kacsmaryk had a long history of challenging laws providing greater access to reproductive rights before he became a federal judge. While he has promised to be an impartial judge, every Democrat and one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, opposed his nomination in 2019.

    Now Kacsmaryk is the only federal judge at the courthouse in Amarillo, which almost guarantees he hears cases filed there.

    So it may be no coincidence that the group challenging use of mifepristone set up an outpost months before filing its lawsuit. The group is based in Tennessee, but one of the doctors named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit practices near Amarillo.

    However one feels about judicial shopping and whether that happened in this case, the word appears to be out that a conservative judge is alone in Amarillo and open for business.

    According to a CNN profile, Kacsmaryk has also put on hold Biden administration policies related to immigration and overseen cases related to vaccine requirements and gender identity. Last December, he halted a federal program in Texas that allowed minors to get birth control without their parents’ consent.

    That suit regarding the birth control program established in 1970 was brought by a Texas father “raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality,” which he said forbids premarital sex.

    Kacsmaryk agreed, even citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church in his decision to say “contraception (just like abortion) violates traditional tenets of many faiths, including the Christian faith Plaintiff practices.”

    His sister described him to The Washington Post as an anti-abortion rights activist and detailed her own decision to give a child up for adoption rather than seek an abortion.

    “He’s very passionate about the fact that you can’t preach pro-life and do nothing,” Jennifer Griffith told the Post. “We both hold the stance of you have to do something. You can’t not.”

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  • There’s a new chief judge in DC who could help determine the fate of Donald Trump | CNN Politics

    There’s a new chief judge in DC who could help determine the fate of Donald Trump | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A new chief judge in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, is poised to take over as that position has become one of the most influential in the nation’s capital, playing a key role in deciding issues that could factor into whether former President Donald Trump is indicted.

    Chief Judge Beryl Howell, who has served in that role since 2016, has repeatedly green-lit Justice Department requests to pursue information about Trump’s actions, from his top advisers and lawyers and even inside the White House. She’ll be succeeded by James “Jeb” Boasberg, a fellow Barack Obama appointee and one-time Brett Kavanaugh law school roommate who’s well-known in Washington.

    While presiding over the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2020 and 2021, Boasberg encouraged the declassification of information so that the public could read proceedings related to the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between Trump and Russia.

    If the Justice Department were to indict Trump, the case would be randomly assigned to one of the district court’s judges, meaning the chief could handle the case but may not. Still, the chief judge has unusual sway over the pace and scope of investigations as the Justice Department attempts to enforce its grand jury subpoenas, obtain warrants and access evidence it has collected by arguing to the chief judge in sealed proceedings.

    “This court would be ready,” Howell said in a recent interview with CNN, when asked about the historic possibility of a Trump indictment. She added any judge on that court “would do it justice.”

    Howell, who steps down from the position on Friday, may conclude her tenure by issuing decisions in sealed cases related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago. Already, she granted Kash Patel – a former administration official – immunity for testimony he provided the grand jury investigation. She also held off a Justice Department request to place Trump in contempt for his alleged failure to turn over subpoenaed classified documents.

    The DC federal courthouse has embraced its role in major criminal investigations of politicians in the past. A framed Time Magazine is displayed outside the courthouse with the District Court’s Watergate-era Chief Judge John Sirica on the cover. Howell, in recent years, has nodded to Sirica, who allowed federal investigators access to records related to then-President Richard Nixon that hastened his resignation.

    Sirica embraced an unusually public role in one of the most fraught criminal investigations ever in Washington. Howell and Boasberg prefer working behind the scenes.

    “Neither of us will be Time’s person of the year,” Boasberg told CNN.

    Much of Howell’s work on those cases remains under seal, but details have trickled out on approximately 10 cases related to Smith’s investigation. Those include ongoing challenges around a grand jury subpoena of former Vice President Mike Pence and the Justice Department’s attempt to force Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran to answer potentially incriminating questions about his interactions with Trump on classified records at Mar-a-Lago.

    Still, the chief judge’s role generates attention because the cases before the court in recent years have been so politically charged – and sometimes criticized publicly by Trump himself.

    Fan social media accounts sprung up about Howell, with one TikTok user getting tens of thousands of views. The posts generally highlight Howell’s no-nonsense quips and vivid facial expressions in public speeches.

    Howell said she and other judges were shocked to discover the clips of her on TikTok.

    “I just do my job. We’re all pretty much a bunch of nerds,” she said. “For a nerdy lawyer, getting novel, important cases is a dream.”

    Howell said she’s been surprised and at times uncomfortable with being the focus of attention in the investigations around Trump. Still, she regularly pens searing opinions allowing for public and congressional access to grand jury-related matters.

    Following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Howell became one of the most cutting voices in the federal government’s response, handling several proceedings of rioter defendants early on. She also had to manage a courthouse in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it faced an influx of new criminal cases like it never had before.

    The courthouse was closed on January 6, but Howell recognized as she watched the rioters overwhelm the Capitol building that the DC District Court would handle the brunt of cases. She called the senior judges who had largely reduced their case loads and asked them if they would take on more criminal rioter cases.

    “We’re going to be very busy,” Howell remembers telling them. Nearly all agreed to take on full criminal dockets – a testament to the DC bench’s camaraderie.

    Later, in a riot defendant’s proceeding that the public was able to listen to by calling in on a phone line, Howell spoke furiously about how she could see armed guards from her chambers’ window overlooking the National Mall.

    “We’re still living here in Washington, DC, with the consequences of the violence that this defendant is alleged to have participated in,” she said at the hearing in 2021.

    In the known cases during the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation and the current Smith probe, Howell has repeatedly sided with investigators seeking confidential information in their probes.

    In her last weeks as chief, Howell has made clear in her orders that she is trying to make public as much as she can – though there are severe limitations from higher courts that protect the secrecy of the grand jury in ongoing investigations.

    She allowed the Justice Department access to GOP Rep. Scott Perry’s phone contents in the election interference investigation, a ruling now under appeal at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Howell also ruled against Trump in attempts he made to protect presidential communications with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Deputy Patrick Philbin and vice presidential advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short, eliciting their testimony.

    Yet she is denying requests from journalists for access to grand jury records from the ongoing Trump January 6 investigation.

    One of those opinions railed against the DC Circuit precedent that severely limits when judges, including her, can allow grand jury materials to be released.

    “If public interest in a significant and historical event or high-level government officials could serve as the sole ground to justify the disclosure of grand jury matters in exceptional circumstances, the petitioners’ case here would be incredibly strong,” Howell wrote. “Unfortunately for petitioners, that is not the standard for disclosure of grand jury material.”

    Boasberg recently told CNN that he hopes to keep a similar approach to Howell on transparency around sealed proceedings – doing what he can to make public information under the law, when it’s possible.

    Chief U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Beryl A. Howell

    At the FISA court, Boasberg released redacted orders he wrote, chastising the FBI for relying on applications to the court that contained misleading information, including when the investigators sought to surveil Carter Page, a former Trump adviser who was criminally investigated after the 2016 campaign but never charged.

    In one partially redacted opinion, Boasberg wrote that the “frequency and seriousness of these errors in a case that, given its sensitive nature, had an unusually high level of review at both DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have called into question the reliability of the information proffered in other FBI applications.”

    More recently, Boasberg had before him the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to compel GOP megadonor Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent for his alleged efforts to lobby the Trump administration on behalf of the Chinese. Boasberg agreed with Wynn to dismiss the case, and it is now on appeal before the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Like Howell, Boasberg did not hide his concerns about appeals court precedent that he said constrained his approach. He also showed his sense of humor. The Wynn opinion included multiple references to lyrics by the 1990s hip hop band the Fugees, as a member of the band was accused of having connections to the alleged influence scheme.

    Boasberg was confirmed to the federal bench in 2011, after receiving a nod from President George W. Bush for a position on the DC Superior Court eight years prior. The local DC Court is where the former college basketball player cut his chops as assistant US attorney, specializing in homicide prosecutions.

    In DC legal circles, he’s earned a reputation for being friendly with a wide social circle and grew up with several prominent Washingtonians.

    “Jeb is so social and Beryl is very reserved,” said Amy Jeffress, a prominent Washington defense lawyer whose spouse, Christopher “Casey” Cooper, is also a judge in the DC District Court.

    Boasberg is currently the president of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court, a professional advancement organization for DC attorneys that regularly brings together top prosecutors and defense lawyers.

    As a student at Yale Law School, Boasberg lived in a house with now-Justice Kavanaugh and six other law students. The group of former roommates still remain close and organize annual trips together.

    “Fairness is very important to him,” said Jim Brochin, an attorney who lived with Boasberg in the eight-person Yale Law house.

    Brochin pointed to Boasberg’s experience as a prosecutor trying murder cases, including some of the “hardest” cases his office had at the time, as well as his time as a judge leading the FISA court.

    “He is not afraid of tackling hard subjects,” Brochin said. “Nothing fazes him.”

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  • Takeaways from the Texas hearing on medication abortion drugs | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the Texas hearing on medication abortion drugs | CNN Politics

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    Amarillo, Texas
    CNN
     — 

    Over the course of about four hours of arguments, a federal judge in Texas asked questions that suggested he is seriously considering undoing the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a medication abortion drug and the agency’s moves to relax the rules around its use.

    But the judge, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, also indicated he was thinking through scenarios in which he could keep the drug’s 2000 approval intact while blocking other FDA rules.

    Anti-abortion doctors and medical associations are seeking a preliminary injunction that would require the FDA to withdraw or suspend its approval of the drug, mifepristone, and that would block the agency’s more recent regulatory changes making the pills more accessible.

    Here are takeaways from the hearing:

    Kacsmaryk showed a particular interest in the arguments by the abortion opponents that the FDA approved mifepristone in an unlawful way.

    He zeroed in on a claim by the abortion foes that the studies that the FDA looked at when deciding whether to approve the drug did not match the conditions under which the agency allows it to be administered.

    Erik Baptist, attorney for the challengers, alleged that those studies all featured patients who received ultrasounds before being treated with the drug, which is not among the FDA’s requirements for prescribing abortion pills. Baptist accused the FDA of “examining oranges and declaring apples to be safe.”

    Kacsmaryk returned to that “apples to oranges” argument several times throughout the hearing.

    Justice Department attorney Daniel Schwei defended the FDA’s approach, arguing that the relevant law gives the FDA discretion to determine what studies are adequate for approving a drug’s safety. He also said the challengers’ claims were factually flawed, because the FDA also was looking at studies where the patients did not receive an ultrasound.

    Kacsmaryk was similarly focused on a claim by the plaintiffs that the FDA violated the law in the special, accelerated process that it used to approve mifepristone in 2000.

    At one point the judge revealed in the hearing that he had downloaded a list of the other drugs the FDA had approved through the process. He ticked through the list of drugs, which were made up mostly of treatments for HIV and cancer, and he asked the Justice Department for its “best argument” for why mifepristone fit into the list.

    One of the sharpest questions from the judge was whether the anti-abortion activists could point to another analogous case when a court intervened in the way he is being asked to intervene here.

    Baptist conceded there was none and blamed FDA delays in addressing citizen petitions and challenges. Later in the hearing, Baptist raised other times the FDA had suspended or withdrawn drugs based on court cases in other contexts, arguing those cases showed that Kascmaryk had the authority to grant the plaintiffs’ request.

    Attorneys for the defendants – which include both the FDA and a drug company that manufactures mifepristone and intervened in the case – pushed back on those examples. They said that the plaintiffs were relying on patent cases, where the dispute was between a brand name drug and a generic counterpart, and those examples were not analogous here.

    The medication abortion lawsuit targets actions the FDA took around medication abortion pills before last summer’s Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade’s abortion rights protections.

    While that decision, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, didn’t play a major role in Wednesday’s arguments, the judge referenced it and suggested it could have an impact on his thinking about the case.

    He brought up Dobbs early on in the hearing and raised it specifically in connection with a friend of the court brief filed by 22 GOP-led states supporting the challengers.

    The judge noted that the red states’ brief argued that the FDA’s actions were infringing on their state laws concerning abortion pills.

    He asked Erin Hawley, an attorney for the challengers, whether Dobbs was an “intervening event” that has “changed the landscape” around the relationship between state and federal government concerning abortion policy.

    Hawley agreed, calling it a “sea change.”

    If Kacsmaryk has any sore feelings over the blow up around his efforts to keep Wednesday’s hearing plans quiet, he didn’t show them at the proceedings.

    When questioning both sides of the case, Kacsmaryk had a restrained, straight-forward tone. He had occasional follow-up questions for the plaintiffs, but did not aggressively push back on their arguments. The substance of his questions for the FDA’s defenders was more skeptical, but he kept with the measured approach in his questioning, and avoided any pushiness when grilling the government and the drug company about the approval process.

    At the end of the hearing, he thanked the parties, as well as those who filed dozens of friend of the courts briefs, for their “superb” briefing. He also acknowledged the logistical hurdles the lawyers at the hearing went through to get to his courthouse in Amarillo, which is a several hours’ drive from Texas’ biggest cities.

    Left unmentioned by the judge was the fact that he tried to delay the announcement of the hearing until the evening before, which would have made it difficult for members of the public and the media to attend Wednesday’s proceedings. When there was blowback to The Washington Post reporting about his plan – laid out in a private teleconference with attorneys where he pointed to death threats and harassment that had been directed to the courthouse staff – he announced the hearing on Monday.

    The courtroom was open to the public, but only with limited seating: 19 seats for reporters and 19 for members of the public. By 6 a.m. CT Wednesday there were already lines outside the courtroom to claim those seats. Those attendees were not allowed to bring electronics in with them, and if they left the courthouse, they were not allowed back in.

    Kacsmaryk warned at the beginning of the hearing that anyone who disrupted the proceedings would be immediately removed without warning. But there were no such disruptions.

    Kacsmaryk wrapped up the hearing without any explicit timeline for when he’ll rule, telling the parties he would issue an order and opinion “as soon as possible.”

    While he was arguing, Schwei, the DOJ attorney, requested that the judge – if he were to rule against the FDA – to immediately put that ruling on pause so it could be appealed. The judge stopped short of promising an automatic stay in the event of an adverse ruling, but he acknowledged he understood what DOJ was asking for.

    An appeal would first go to a panel of three judges of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, arguably the most conservative appeals court in the country. The panel’s decision could then be appealed either to the full 5th Circuit or the US Supreme Court.

    Beyond these procedural questions, Kacsmaryk seemed to be grappling with the practical impact of a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. He asked plaintiffs’ attorneys, the DOJ lawyers and the attorneys for the drug company Danco whether it would be possible for him to block some but not all of the FDA actions the challengers were targeting. He returned to the question again when the plaintiffs were back up for the rebuttal.

    He also pressed Baptist, the attorney for the abortion opponents, on whether the plaintiffs were seeking an order that the FDA begin the withdrawal of the drug – a process that would take months – or if they thought the judge could directly take if off the market.

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  • US to pay $6.5 million in lost wages owed to Mexican migrant workers | CNN

    US to pay $6.5 million in lost wages owed to Mexican migrant workers | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Some 13,000 Mexican migrant workers are owed $6.5 million in unpaid wages, according to a tweet from the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, which announced a joint effort with Mexico to locate and compensate the workers.

    “This program will return millions of dollars in back wages to Mexican nationals who participated in US temporary foreign worker programs,” tweeted Ken Salazar, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, on Tuesday.

    The Mexican ministry and the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs is launching the H-2A Workers’ Wages Recovery Program to ensure the workers can collect their compensation, Salazar added.

    Skilled foreign farm workers are the backbone of US agriculture and are often in the US on H-2A seasonal visas. It is unclear who these workers were employed by when they failed to receive their full wages, and what years they were employed.

    The money owed to these thousands of workers was recovered by the US Department of Labor after it failed to locate the individuals in order to deliver their checks, according to a press release from Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.

    The partnership will attempt to locate the migrant workers who are believed to have “received less than the legally established salary from their employers in the United States,” according to a press release by Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.

    The US is expected to send Mexico a list with names of workers who are “owed wages and overtime.” Mexico will then look up the workers in government databases and inform them of their checks.

    “Together, we watch over labor rights,” tweeted Luisa Alcalde, Mexico’s Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, on Tuesday.

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  • Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cites ‘uptick’ in aviation incidents at FAA safety summit reviewing ‘serious close calls’ | CNN

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cites ‘uptick’ in aviation incidents at FAA safety summit reviewing ‘serious close calls’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday there has been an “uptick” in recent aviation incidents and called on participants at a Federal Aviation Administration safety summit to help find the “root causes” of the issues.

    “We are particularly concerned because we have seen an uptick in serious close calls,” Buttigieg said in his opening remarks, referring to a series of near collisions on runways across the US.

    The summit comes after the FAA said it was investigating another close call between commercial airliners. The most recent close call was at Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC – the seventh since the start of this year.

    On March 7, Republic Airways Flight 4736 crossed a runway, without clearance, that United Airlines Flight 2003 was using for takeoff, according to a preliminary review, the FAA said. The United pilot had just been cleared for takeoff, the agency said.

    “An air traffic controller noticed the situation and immediately canceled the takeoff clearance for the United flight,” the FAA said.

    The FAA safety summit in McLean, Virginia, is the first of its kind since 2009 and kicks off a sweeping safety review the agency is conducting in the wake of the incursions.

    “Today is about the entire system, which means it’s about all of us,” Buttigieg said at the summit’s opening on Wednesday. The summit includes safety investigators, industry representatives, union leaders, and others.

    Buttigieg said Wednesday’s summit is the first in a series of coordinated events the FAA will conduct to find out what’s working well and what “new steps” need to be taken to ensure safety.

    Air travel has had a strong safety record and is the safest form of travel, Buttigieg said, but “we dare not” take that record for granted.

    The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board told participants in the summit that the safety agency has made seven recommendations on runway collisions that have not been enacted.

    “One is 23 years old and still appropriate today on technology warning pilots of an impending collision,” chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said.

    “How many times are we going to have to issue the same recommendations over and over and over again?” she asked.

    Homendy said she’s already found one common issue with the six runway incursions they are investigating. In each case, the cockpit voice recorder, known as one of the black boxes, was overwritten, preventing investigators from hearing what took place on the flight deck.

    “All federal agencies here today need to ask: Are we doing everything possible to make our skies safer? We’ve been asking ourselves that very question at the NTSB,” she said.

    Nick Calio, president and CEO of Airlines for America, the trade association representing the major airlines, told the summit, “There’s constant self-evaluation always going on.”

    Calio said the airlines are looking at their data to try to find ways to make aviation safer so that close calls on runways, like those under investigation by the NTSB, don’t happen.

    “I don’t want to speculate a lot on what’s happened there, because they’re all under investigation. And we’re all trying to determine what is going on. Is this a trend? Is this a pattern?” he said.

    Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, cited a lack of staffing in air traffic control towers as a potential culprit.

    “Unfortunately, we have a staffing issue right now, as air traffic controllers. We are 1,200 certified professional controllers less now than we were 10 years ago,” he said at the summit. “It’s time for us to accurately and adequately staff the facilities.”

    Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen told the summit the agency is “continuing to hire” and is on pace to hire 1,500 controllers this year and another 1,800 next year.

    The NTSB is investigating the string of runway incursions involving commercial airliners. The near-collisions on US runways also have prompted federal safety investigators to open a sweeping review.

    Last month, a Southwest passenger jet and a FedEx cargo plane came as close as 100 feet from colliding at an Austin, Texas, airport, and it was a pilot – not air traffic controllers – who averted disaster, according to Homendy.

    In January, there was an alarming close call similar to this latest one. A Delta Air Lines flight was taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport when air traffic controllers “noticed another aircraft crossing the runway in front of the departing jetliner,” the FAA said in a statement.

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  • The two biggest 2024 Republican names would mean bad news for Ukraine | CNN Politics

    The two biggest 2024 Republican names would mean bad news for Ukraine | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Russia might be bogged down in its vicious onslaught on Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin is winning big elsewhere – in the Republican presidential primary.

    The two highest-polling potential GOP nominees – former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – are making clear that if they make it to the White House, Ukraine’s lifeline of US weapons and ammunition would be in danger and the war could end on Putin’s terms. Their stands underscore rising antipathy among grassroots conservatives to the war and President Joe Biden’s marshaling of the West to bankroll Kyiv’s resistance to Putin’s unprovoked invasion.

    “The death and destruction must end now!” Trump wrote in replies to a questionnaire from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson about the war and US involvement. DeSantis, answering the same questions, countered with his most unequivocal signal yet that he’d downgrade US help for Ukraine if he wins the presidency. “We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland,” he wrote.

    Trump’s warnings that only he can stop World War III and DeSantis’ main argument that saving Ukraine is not a core US national security interest will likely gain even more traction following one of the most alarming moments yet in the war on Tuesday. The apparent downing of a US drone by a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea was a step closer to the scenario that everyone has dreaded since the war erupted a year ago – a direct clash between US and Russian forces.

    “This incident should serve as a wake-up call to isolationists in the United States that it is in our national interest to treat Putin as the threat he truly is,” Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said in a Tuesday statement that read as an implicit rebuke of his party’s leading presidential hopefuls. Others, like Texas Sen. John Cornyn, said DeSantis’ position “raises questions.”

    But the reproach from some senior Senate Republicans may not matter much in today’s GOP. As they fight to outdo one another’s skepticism of Western help for Ukraine, Trump and DeSantis are showing how “America First” Republicans have transformed a party that was led by President Ronald Reagan to victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Their influence is sure to deepen the split in the US House between traditional GOP hawks and followers of the ex-president that is already threatening future aid to Ukraine – even before the 2024 presidential election.

    That divide is playing out in the early exchanges of the GOP primary race as other candidates, including ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, warn that failing to stop Putin now could lead to disastrous confrontations later. Haley staked out a far more hawkish position on Ukraine in a statement on Tuesday. The former South Carolina governor warned that Russia’s goal was to wipe Ukraine off the map, and that if Kyiv “stopped fighting, Ukraine would no longer exist, and other countries would legitimately fear they would be next.”

    But her position might help explain why she’s trailing in early polls of the race. A new CNN/SSRS poll on Tuesday, for instance, found that 80% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents thought it was important that the GOP nominee for president believe the US “should not be involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine.”

    GOP political calculations will have a profound geopolitical impact.

    Rising Republican skepticism of US aid to Ukraine presents President Volodymyr Zelensky with the most critical test yet of his international campaign for the weapons and ammunition Ukraine needs to survive. It will also bolster Putin’s apparent belief that he can outlast Western resolve and eventually crush Ukrainian resistance. The possibility that a Republican successor in the White House could abandon Ukraine will also become a bigger issue for Biden, increasing the pressure on him to shore up support among Americans for his policy in Ukraine, which polls show has ebbed a bit in recent months.

    If the war is still going on next year, the 2024 election could become a forum for a wide-ranging debate that will ask the American people to decide between twin impulses that have often divided the nation throughout its history – does the US have a duty to stand up for freedom and democracy anywhere, or should it indulge its more isolationist tendencies?

    Unless Trump or DeSantis fade in the coming months, Ukraine’s fate could effectively be on the ballot in primary races next year and in the November general election. And Biden’s vow to stick with Zelensky “for as long as it takes” could have an expiration date of January 20, 2025 – the next presidential inauguration.

    The rhetoric on Russia coming from the biggest 2024 names caused alarm on Capitol Hill, where many top Republican House committee chairman and senior senators are pressing Biden to do more to support Ukraine – including with the dispatch of F-16 fighter jets.

    Speaking on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program, Sen. Marco Rubio seemed to rebuke his state’s governor – arguing the US does have a national security interest in Ukraine and wondering whether DeSantis’ inexperience was a factor. “I don’t know what he’s trying to do or what the goal is. Obviously, he doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor, so I’m not sure,” Rubio said.

    South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who’s already backed Trump’s 2024 White House bid, warned that those who said Ukraine didn’t matter were also effectively saying the same of war crimes.

    “We’re not invading Russia, we’re trying to expel the Russians from Ukraine, and no Americans are dying, and it is in our national interest to get this right,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju.

    Still, while Rubio and Graham represent traditional GOP foreign policy orthodoxy, their comments may only help DeSantis and Trump make their points since many pro-Trump voters often see them as part of a neo-conservative bloc in the party that led the US into years of war in the Middle East.

    South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, also said he disagreed with DeSantis, but he acknowledged that his own stance may not reflect where his party is now. “There are probably going to be other candidates in ’24 on our side who may share that view, and certainly it’s held by Republicans around the country,” Thune said of DeSantis’ perspective.

    The most noteworthy replies to Carlson’s questionnaire came from DeSantis, who has not yet officially launched a campaign, but was revealed by Tuesday’s CNN/SSRS poll to be Trump’s most threatening potential rival. The governor is encroaching on the ex-president’s ideological turf, and after speaking out more generally against current US policy in recent weeks, has now adopted a position apparently designed to hedge against the ex-president’s attacks on the issue.

    “While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said.

    In response to a question about whether the US should support “regime change” in Russia, the Florida governor appeared to suggest the US is engaged in such a policy, warning that any replacement for Putin might prove “even more ruthless.” There is no indication that the US government is engaged in any attempt to topple Putin. DeSantis did not specifically say he would halt US military aid to Ukraine, leaving himself some political leeway if he were elected president. There remains some doubt about his true beliefs since CNN’s KFile has reported that as a member of Congress he called for the US to send lethal aid to Ukraine.

    But his most recent comments were remarkable in echoing Putin’s talking points. By referring to a “territorial dispute,” the governor minimized Russia’s unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation that Putin insists has no right to exist. His answer on regime change also bolsters a yearslong claim by the Russian leader that Washington is trying to drive him from power, and may be highlighted by the propagandists in Moscow’s official media.

    DeSantis’ responses to Carlson on the war also underscore how the normal relationship between political leaders and media commentators has been inverted by Fox and its star anchor. Carlson warmly approved of DeSantis’ answers, which appeared calculated to win his approval. This put Carlson in the amazing position of potentially curating what could end up being US foreign policy on one of the most critical questions since the end of the Cold War.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy recently performed a similar genuflection, providing Carlson with exclusive access to US Capitol surveillance tapes from the January 6, 2021, insurrection, which the Fox anchor used to undermine the truth about the most serious attack on US democracy of the modern era.

    In his responses to Carlson, Trump repeated his unprovable claim that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he were president. He demanded an end to the fighting and peace talks that would effectively vindicate the invasion by Putin, to whom he often fawned when he was in the Oval Office. “The President must meet with each side, then both sides together, and quickly work out a deal. This can be easily done if conducted by the right President,” Trump said. “Both sides are weary and ready to make a deal,” he added, in a comment that does not reflect the reality of the war.

    Given that her views contradict Carlson’s, Haley publicly released her answers on Ukraine – and also accused DeSantis of copying Trump’s positions.

    “The Russian government is a powerful dictatorship that makes no secret of its hatred of America. Unlike other anti-American regimes, it is attempting to brutally expand by force into a neighboring pro-American country,” she wrote. “It also regularly threatens other American allies. America is far better off with a Ukrainian victory than a Russian victory.”

    Haley’s statement epitomized the divisions on the war that will animate Republican primary debates that begin later this year – and that will be closely watched in both Kyiv and Moscow. She wouldn’t be Putin’s preferred candidate.

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  • On eve of safety summit, FAA investigates another runway close call | CNN

    On eve of safety summit, FAA investigates another runway close call | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating yet another close call between commercial airliners, this time at Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC – the seventh since the start of this year.

    On March 7, Republic Airways Flight 4736 crossed a runway, without clearance, that United Airlines Flight 2003 was using for takeoff, according to a preliminary review, the FAA said. The United pilot had just been cleared for takeoff from the runway, the agency said.

    “An air traffic controller noticed the situation and immediately canceled the takeoff clearance for the United flight,” the FAA said.

    Recordings accessed from LiveATC.net show air traffic controllers in the tower exclaiming, “United 2003 cancel takeoff clearance!” The crew of the United flight responded, “Aborting takeoff, United 2003.”

    The pilot of the Republic flight had been cleared to cross a different runway, “but turned on the wrong taxiway,” the FAA said.

    The news of yet another close call comes ahead of Wednesday’s FAA safety summit, the first of its kind since 2009. The summit kicks off a sweeping safety review that the agency is conducting in the wake of these incursions.

    Last month, a Southwest passenger jet and a FedEx cargo plane came as close as 100 feet from colliding at an Austin, Texas, airport, and it was a pilot – not air traffic controllers – who averted disaster, according to Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

    And in January, there was an alarming close call similar to this latest one. A Delta Air Lines flight was taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport when air traffic controllers “noticed another aircraft crossing the runway in front of the departing jetliner,” the FAA said in a statement.

    “S–t!” exclaimed the controller from the tower of John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday night. “Delta 1943 cancel takeoff clearance!”

    The Delta plane “stopped its takeoff roll approximately 1,000 feet before reaching the point where American Airlines Flight 106, a Boeing 777, had crossed from an adjacent taxiway,” the FAA said.

    The NTSB – which is investigating the six other runway incursions involving commercial airliners – told CNN it is aware of the latest incident but has not yet launched an investigation.

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  • Ex-Garcetti aide says former LA mayor ‘unfit to become an ambassador’ | CNN Politics

    Ex-Garcetti aide says former LA mayor ‘unfit to become an ambassador’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A former Eric Garcetti aide, who has accused the former Los Angeles mayor of ignoring allegations of sexual harassment during his time in office, said Monday that he is “unfit” to become US ambassador to India amid his embattled nomination.

    “He is unfit to become an ambassador or really to hold public office anywhere in this country or this world,” Naomi Seligman, a former communication’s director for Garcetti, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”

    CNN reported last year that the initial nomination of Garcetti, a Democrat, by President Joe Biden had faced headwinds over concerns centered on accusations that he had ignored alleged sexual harassment and bullying. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination for a second time last week, with two Republicans voting with Democrats in favor of advancing Garcetti to the Senate floor.

    Notably, a key Democratic holdout – Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York – said she would support the nomination after expressing confidence in the review of Garcetti conducted by the foreign relations panel.

    Seligman, a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat, said she briefed nearly a third of the Senate on the alleged misconduct in Garcetti’s office, and called it “devastating” to see lawmakers from her party push on with his nomination.

    “Unfortunately, the White House has put undue pressure on Democrats to vote for Eric Garcetti because Eric Garcetti has been a very, very loyal person to President Biden, and that’s unfortunate,” she told Tapper. “These senators that purport to support #MeToo cannot just do it when it’s politically expedient. They have to do it when it matters, even if it’s your own political party.”

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked last week about the nomination, said Garcetti is “well qualified to serve in this vital role” and urged the Senate to move forward to confirm him.

    “The president nominated him because he thought he had the experience to be the US ambassador to India,” Jean-Pierre said.

    Throughout the lengthy process of Senate consideration of Garcetti’s nomination, the White House has stood steadfastly behind the former Los Angeles mayor. Garcetti has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the allegations and has met personally with senators in an effort to clear a path to confirmation.

    The White House did not have an immediate comment on Seligman’s interview.

    Seligman on Monday detailed her time serving in Garcetti’s office, saying she was present when Garcetti witnessed his onetime deputy chief of staff and longtime political adviser “touch people, hug people, kiss people.”

    “We were in a work environment where sexual harassment and abuse was tolerated, enabled and ubiquitous. It was as common as checking your texts,” she told Tapper. “It was a very hard, disappointing and toxic environment where Mayor Garcetti enabled, tolerated and at times laughed about the abuse by his top aide and confidant, Rick Jacobs.”

    Jacobs stepped down from his political work for Garcetti in the fall of 2020 – several months after a lawsuit was filed against him and the city by LAPD Officer and former Garcetti bodyguard Matthew Garza, who alleged Jacobs made “crude sexual remarks” and inappropriately touched him, The Los Angeles Times reported last year. Jacobs has previously denied harassing anyone and that civil lawsuit is ongoing.

    As the allegations were being investigated, Seligman alleged in a deposition that Jacobs had repeatedly harassed her while she worked at City Hall from 2015 to 2017, according to a staff report from Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office last year. She stated that Jacobs’ conduct included “unwanted hugs, kisses (and) sexual comments.” One incident included “a prolonged kiss on the lips without her consent in front of several staff members,” the report stated.

    CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Seligman was referring to the #MeToo movement in a reference to support from Democratic senators.

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  • US sues Rite Aid for missing opioid red flags | CNN Business

    US sues Rite Aid for missing opioid red flags | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department on Monday filed a lawsuit against Rite Aid for allegedly violating the Controlled Substances Act, alleging that the company “knowingly filled unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances.”

    In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Department of Justice is “using every tool at our disposal” to hold Rite Aid accountable for contributing to the opioid epidemic.

    Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said “Rite Aid’s pharmacists repeatedly filled prescriptions for controlled substances with obvious red flags, and Rite Aid intentionally deleted internal notes about suspicious prescribers. These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores.”

    In the complaint, The Justice department alleges that from May 2014 to June 2019, Rite Aid filled thousands of unlawful combinations of prescriptions known as “the trinity” which included prescriptions for “excessive quantities of opioids, such as oxycodone and fentanyl.”

    Rite Aid pharmacists were accused of ignoring obvious signs of misuse and intentionally deleting some pharmacists’ internal warnings about suspicious prescribers, such as “cash only pill mill???”

    “These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said.

    The Justice Department said the prescriptions, who were issued illegally, “lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not for a medically accepted indication, or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice.”

    Rite Aid is one of the country’s largest pharmacy chains, with more than 2,330 stores in 17 US states. It did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The Justice Department accused Rite Aid of violating the federal False Claims Act by submitting false prescription claims to government health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

    It joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2019 by two pharmacists and a pharmacy technician from Rite Aid stores in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and West Virginia.

    The Justice Department occasionally joins whistleblower cases it considers stronger.

    It has also sued Walmart and drug distributor AmerisourceBergen Corp over their alleged roles in the nation’s opioid crisis.

    More than 500,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States from 1999 to 2020, including more than 90,000 in 2020 alone, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Senators warn Big Tech on Section 230: ‘Reform is coming’ | CNN Business

    Senators warn Big Tech on Section 230: ‘Reform is coming’ | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    US senators said Wednesday that bipartisan support is growing for revising a federal immunity law for tech platforms and websites known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a warning aimed squarely at large social media platforms.

    “Here’s a message to Big Tech: Reform is coming,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chaired a technology subcommittee hearing to consider changes to the law.

    “I can’t predict it’ll be in the next couple of weeks, or the next couple of months,” Blumenthal said. “But if you listen, you will hear a mounting consensus and a demand from the American public that we need to act in a bipartisan way.”

    Wednesday marked the second hearing in a month by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who have vowed to expand the number and kinds of lawsuits tech platforms may have to face.

    Lawmakers from both parties praised the Supreme Court for considering Section 230 when it heard Gonzalez v. Google, a case about whether YouTube can be sued for algorithmically suggesting terrorist-created videos to users. The case could have major repercussions for how social media sites rank, present and promote content online.

    But the senators said that however the Court rules, it is up to Congress to rewrite the law so that members of the public can take platforms to court and hold them accountable.

    Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, a vocal tech industry critic, acknowledged that the effort to revise Section 230 has been “very slow.”

    “As a Republican, I would love to blame that on my Democrat colleagues,” Hawley said. “But the sad fact of the matter is, Republicans are just as much to blame, if not more.”

    Republicans and Democrats have generally agreed that changing Section 230 should be a legislative priority, but they have disagreed about why and how the law should be updated. Where Republicans have attacked Section 230 for allegedly giving tech platforms a free pass to remove conservative content, Democrats have said the problem with the law is that it immunizes platforms despite their failure to remove misinformation and hate speech.

    “My own side of the aisle, when it comes to vindicating the rights of citizens to get into court, to have their day in court, is often very, very slow to endorse that approach and very, very wary,” Hawley said. “But I think the time has come to say we must give individuals, we must give parents, we must give kids and victims that most basic right.”

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  • FBI says $10 billion lost to online fraud in 2022 as crypto investment scams surged | CNN Politics

    FBI says $10 billion lost to online fraud in 2022 as crypto investment scams surged | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    More than $10 billion in losses from online scams were reported to the FBI in 2022, the highest annual loss in the last five years, according to a new report from the bureau.

    The more than $3 billion jump in reports of online fraud from 2021 to 2022 was driven by a near-tripling in reports of cryptocurrency investment fraud, the FBI said in its annual Internet Crime Report.

    The report tallies a wide variety of fraud complaints – from marketing scams to ransomware – and is a metric for US policymakers in measuring how much hacking and other schemes are costing the American economy.

    While people in their 30s filed the most fraud complaints last year, the burden of many digital scams fell on the elderly. People over 60 accounted for $724 million, or more than two-thirds of the reported losses from “call center fraud,” according to the FBI. Such fraud occurs when scammers call someone impersonating tech support or government agencies.

    Ransomware, which locks computers until hackers are paid off, accounted for about $34 million in adjusted losses reported to the FBI last year. The relatively modest figure compared to other forms of fraud could be due to the fact that many victim organizations still do not report ransomware attacks to the FBI.

    A popular type of ransomware called Hive was used in 87 attacks last year, according to the FBI. The bureau seized Hive operatives’ computer infrastructure earlier this year, but not before hackers affiliated with the ransomware extorted more than $100 million from hospitals, schools and other victims around the world.

    While ransomware tends to get the headlines, a different hacking scheme known as business email compromise (BEC) leads to far more money stolen from victims in aggregate. A BEC scheme typically involves someone tricking a victim into wiring them money, often by impersonating a customer or a relative.

    One of the more high-profile examples of BEC fraud last year cost the city of Lexington, Kentucky, about $4 million in federal funding for housing assistance.

    BEC scams accounted for about $2.7 billion in adjusted losses in 2022, compared to about $2.4 billion in 2021, according to FBI data.

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