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Tag: investigations

  • Suspect in 2017 killing of two Indiana teen girls ‘has nothing to hide,’ attorneys say | CNN

    Suspect in 2017 killing of two Indiana teen girls ‘has nothing to hide,’ attorneys say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Attorneys for the suspect in the 2017 killing of two teenage girls in Delphi, Indiana, said in a statement Friday that their client “has nothing to hide. ”

    Richard Allen, who was arrested last month in connection with the killings, will make “a vigorous legal and factual challenge” to the prosecution claim that a .40 caliber unspent round found near the bodies of the two teens tied him to the crime, attorneys Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin said in the statement.

    The statement comes days after the unsealing of a probable cause affidavit on Tuesday that shed light on how investigators narrowed in on Allen and arrested him more than five years since the slayings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14.

    Allen is charged with two counts of murder and has pleaded not guilty.

    The two girls went for a hike along Delphi Historic Trails but never showed up at a previously arranged time to meet Libby’s dad, according to police. Their bodies were found the next day in a wooded area near the trail, about a half mile from the Monon High Bridge where they’d been dropped off, according to authorities.

    A grainy video of a man walking and a garbled voice recording were among the scant clues authorities publicized over the years.

    “Rick has nothing to hide,” the statement from the attorneys said. “We feel it appropriate, necessary, and within the bounds of our rules of professional conduct to make a few comments concerning the probable cause affidavit and Rick’s innocence.”

    Investigators believe the evidence they gathered shows that Allen is the man seen on a video from Liberty’s phone who forced the girls down a hill and that he led them to the location where they were killed, according to the affidavit.

    That evidence includes interviews with witnesses who were in the area the teens were hiking on a day off from school on February 13, 2017, as well as the video from Libby’s phone. The video shows a man in a dark jacket and jeans walking behind the girls and then telling them, “Guys, down the hill,” according to the affidavit.

    Allen’s lawyers said their client “contacted the police and voluntarily discussed being on the trail that day,” according to the statement. “Like many people in Delphi, Rick wanted to help any way he could.”

    The two girls were dropped off in the area just before 1:50 p.m. that day, the affidavit said. The video showed they encountered the man at the Monon High Bridge at 2:13 p.m.

    A witness told investigators she had seen a man heading away from that bridge later “wearing a blue colored jacket and blue jeans and was muddy and bloody,” and appeared to have gotten in a fight, the affidavit said. The man was traveling on a road adjacent to the crime scene, and investigators were able to determine that took place shortly before 4 p.m.

    Allen remembers “seeing three younger girls on the trail that day” but “his contact with the girls was brief and of little significance,” his attorneys said.

    “The probable cause affidavit seems to suggest that a single magic bullet is proof of Rick’s guilt,” Rozzi and Baldwin said. “We anticipate a vigorous legal and factual challenge to any claims by the prosecution as to the reliability of its conclusions concerning the single magic bullet.”

    Another witness told investigators she noticed an oddly parked vehicle at an old Child Protective Services building. A tip to investigators had also referenced a vehicle parked at the building that “appeared as though it was backed in as to conceal the license plate.” Investigators believe the description of the vehicle matched one of two vehicles that Allen owned in 2017, the affidavit said.

    When Allen spoke with an officer in 2017, he admitted he was on the trail for roughly two hours, the affidavit said. In a subsequent interview in October 2022, Allen told authorities he had gone out there to “watch fish,” that he was wearing jeans and a black or blue jacket and also said he owns firearms which were at his home, according to the affidavit.

    “On October 13th, 2022, Investigators executed a search warrant of Richard Allen’s residence,” the affidavit said. “Among other items, officers located jackets, boots, knives and firearms, including a Sig Sauer, Model P226, .40 caliber pistol with serial number U 625 627.”

    According to the document, investigators found a .40 caliber unspent round less than two feet away from one of the bodies, and between the two victims.

    Lab results confirmed the unspent round had been cycled through Allen’s Sig Sauer, the affidavit said. When Allen was questioned about that result, he denied knowing their victims or having any involvement in their killings, according to the affidavit.

    The affidavit does not make any reference to any other participants in the girls’ killings, despite Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland recently saying in court that he had “good reason to believe that Richard Allen is not the only actor in this heinous crime.”

    Allen’s lawyers said they pushed to have the affidavit unsealed.

    “We were hoping that we would receive tips that would assist us in proving up his innocence,” the statement said. “Although it is the burden of the prosecutor to prove Rick’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the defense team looks forward to conducting its own investigation concerning Rick’s innocence.”

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  • Schiff says January 6 committee will decide what goes in the final report ‘in a collaborative manner’ | CNN Politics

    Schiff says January 6 committee will decide what goes in the final report ‘in a collaborative manner’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who also sits on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, said Sunday that he doesn’t believe the committee’s upcoming report would focus almost entirely on Donald Trump.

    Schiff, a California Democrat, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” that he doesn’t believe a recent Washington Post story about how the contents of the report could potentially leave out investigations in other areas.

    “No, I mean – I certainly hope not,” Schiff said. “I would like to see our report be as broad and inclusive as possible. We are discussing as a committee among the members what belongs in the body of the report, what belongs in the appendices of the report, what is beyond the scope of our investigation, and we’ll reach those decisions in a collaborative manner.”

    Schiff also defended the committee in response to a statement from Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s spokesperson accusing staffers of trying to slip “liberal biases” into the report.

    “I don’t think the back and forth is particularly helpful to the committee and I don’t want to engage in it. We’re gonna get to consensus on the report. We’re very close to that now. We’re close to the putting down the pen,” Schiff said.

    Bash asked about tension surrounding Cheney, asking Schiff about a quote in the Post story in which one former staffer said that people working for the committee became “discouraged” when they felt the investigation had become a “Cheney 2024 campaign affair.”

    “I’ve never viewed it that way,” Schiff said, defending Cheney. “And I think her role on the committee has been indispensable. I have tremendous respect for her and for (Illinois Rep.) Adam Kinzinger. They’ve shown a lot of courage and backbone, something in very short supply in the GOP these days. So the committee would not have been the same without both of their participation and I have nothing but respect for both of them.”

    Schiff also responded to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy repeatedly saying he plans to strip Schiff of his committees if he becomes Speaker in the next Congress.

    “Kevin McCarthy has no ideology, has no core set of beliefs. It’s very hard to not only get to 218 that way, it’s even more difficult to keep 218. That’s his problem,” Schiff said. “So he will misrepresent my record, he’ll misrepresent (California Rep.) Eric Swalwell or (Minnesota Rep.) Ilhan Omar, whatever he needs to do to get the votes of the QAnon caucus within his conference.”

    This comes as McCarthy promised he would strip power from Democrats, vowing to kick Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Swalwell and Schiff off the House Intelligence Committee.

    When asked about comments from Rep. Jim Comer of Kentucky, likely the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, blaming Schiff for why he doesn’t believe in the credibility of congressional investigations, Schiff defended himself.

    “Comer doesn’t believe in the Russia investigation, he doesn’t believe in Ukraine investigation, he doesn’t believe in the investigation of January 6. And why? Because those were investigations of the serial abuse of power by Donald Trump. And Comer and (likely next House Judiciary Chairman Jim) Jordan and McCarthy will do nothing but carry Donald Trump’s water,” Schiff said.

    When asked if he would comply with a GOP subpoena in the new Congress, Schiff said: “We’ll have to consider the validity of the subpoena. … But I would certainly view my obligation, the administration’s obligation, to follow the law. And the fact that they have disrespected the law is not a precedent I would hope that would be broadly followed, but we’ll have to look at the legitimacy or lack of legitimacy in what they do.”

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  • Investigators have received more than 260 digital submissions in probe of University of Idaho murders | CNN

    Investigators have received more than 260 digital submissions in probe of University of Idaho murders | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Almost two weeks after the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, police are still searching for clues and asking the public for help.

    Investigators are reviewing more than 260 digital submissions – including videos and photos – by the public to an FBI link, the Moscow Police Department said Friday night.

    Detectives are requesting all available videos, whether there appears to be motion and content or not, police said in a news release late Friday.

    The four students – Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21 – were found stabbed to death in a Moscow home on November 13, and police still have not found a suspect or the murder weapon, believed to be a fixed-blade knife.

    Goncalves and Mogen were at a sports bar the night of the murders, and Chapin and Kernodle were at a fraternity party. Two roommates were at the home when the four bodies were found. Police say they don’t believe the roommates were involved in the murders.

    “Detectives are also seeking additional tips and surveillance video of any unusual behavior on the night of November 12th into the early hours of November 13th while Kaylee and Madison were in downtown Moscow and while Ethan and Xana were at the Sigma Chi house,” the release said. “Anyone who observed unusual behavior near these areas or has video surveillance is asked to submit their tips.”

    Investigators have sent 113 pieces of physical evidence they collected to the Idaho State Police crime lab for analysis, Moscow police said in the Friday update.

    Police said earlier this week that they’ve combed through more than 1,000 tips and interviewed more than 150 people.

    Idaho Gov. Brad Little has committed up to $1 million for expenses related to the ongoing investigation, Idaho State Police Col. Kedrick Wills said during a press conference earlier this week.

    “Like all Idahoans, Governor Little is deeply saddened by the loss of these four bright and promising young lives,” Wills said. “And he’s making sure the State of Idaho provides all of the resources possible to ensure that the person or persons responsible for this are brought to justice.”

    More than 45 investigators from the FBI, state police and Moscow police are involved in the murder case.

    Authorities have said they have not ruled out that more than one person may have been involved in the killings. Police believe the attack was targeted.

    The murders are the first in Moscow since 2015 and have rattled the town and the university campus with 9,300 students. Some professors canceled classes last week. One wrote on social media he “can’t in good conscience hold class” until police release more information or identify a suspect.

    While students were on fall break this week, university President Scott Green sent a note to students and employees Tuesday about learning options. When classes resume, there will be two weeks left in the semester.

    “Faculty have been asked to prepare in-person teaching and remote learning options so that each student can choose their method of engagement,” he wrote. “Moving courses fully online is not preferred but may be necessary in limited situations.”

    While rumors surrounding the murders swirl through the town of about 25,000, police have said they will only release vetted information that does not hinder the investigation.

    “There is speculation without factual backing, stoking community fears and spreading false facts” Friday’s release stated. Police are encouraging the public to reference “official releases for accurate information and updated progress” on the investigation.

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  • The House GOP’s Investigation Conundrum

    The House GOP’s Investigation Conundrum

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    The list of investigative priorities for the House Judiciary Committee that the incoming chairperson, Jim Jordan, sent to the Justice Department earlier this month reads like an assignment sheet for Fox News.

    And that was before Jordan, with incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, repeatedly insisted the FBI had colluded with “Big Tech” to undermine former president Donald Trump by “suppressing” information about Hunter Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election.

    It was also before reports surfaced that Kevin McCarthy, in his bid to secure the votes as speaker, promised far-right members of his caucus that he would authorize investigations into the Justice Department’s treatment of the insurrectionists who rioted in support of Trump on January 6. This was also before McCarthy threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    Two months before taking power, the new House Republican majority has signaled that its investigative agenda will channel the preoccupations of the former president and his die-hard base of supporters. But it has set this course immediately after a midterm election in which voters outside the core conservative states sent an unmistakable signal of their own by repeatedly rejecting Trump-backed candidates in high-profile senate and gubernatorial races. That contrast captures why the GOP’s plans for aggressive investigations of President Joe Biden may present as much political risk for the investigators as it does for the targets.

    Read: The new majority

    House Republicans and their allies are confident that the investigations will weaken Biden in advance of the 2024 presidential election. “This is not just superficial stuff—this is damaging stuff,” former Republican Representative Tom Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee, told me.

    But the new majority’s focus on airing echo-chamber conservative obsessions risks further stamping the GOP as the party of Trump precisely as more Republican leaders and donors insist the recent election results demonstrate the need to move beyond him.

    “All these folks are coming out saying, ‘Turn the page; move forward’ … and I think this is really a problem if some of these [House] members are going to continue to look back and embrace Trump at a time when we saw the most Trumpian candidates get their heads handed to them,” former Republican Representative Charlie Dent told me.

    The choices confronting GOP leaders on what—and how—to investigate encapsulates the much larger challenge they will face in managing the House. This month’s midterm election left the GOP with a House majority much smaller than it expected. The results also created a kind of split-personality caucus operating with very different political incentives.

    Most incoming House Republicans represent districts in Trump country: 168 of them hold seats that Trump won by 10 percentage points or more in 2020. Another three dozen represent more marginal Republican-leaning seats that Trump carried by fewer than 10 points two years ago.

    But the GOP majority relies on what will likely be 18 members (when all the final votes are counted) who won districts that voted for Biden in 2020. Eleven of those 18 are in New York and California alone—two states that will likely become considerably more difficult for Republicans in a presidential-election year than during a midterm contest.

    For the Republicans from the hard-core Trump districts, demonstrating a commitment to confronting Biden at every turn is crucial for preempting any possible primary challenges from their right, says the Democratic consultant Meredith Kelly, a former communications director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But, as Dent told me, the Republicans precariously holding the Biden seats have the “polar opposite” incentive: “They need to have bipartisan victories and wins.”

    Amid that cross-pressure, many analysts second the prediction of outgoing Democratic Representative David Price of North Carolina, a political scientist who has written several books about Congress, that the new GOP House majority is not likely to pass much legislation. The problem, Price told me, is not only the partisan and ideological fracture in the GOP caucus, but that its members do not have “an agenda that they campaigned on or they are committed to.”

    All members of the GOP caucus might agree on legislation to extend the Trump tax cuts, to promote more domestic energy production, or to increase funding for border security. But resistance from the Republicans in blue and purple districts may frustrate many of the right’s most ambitious legislative goals, such as repealing elements of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, passing a national ban on abortion, and forcing cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

    With their legislative opportunities limited, House Republicans may see relentless investigation of Biden and his administration as a path of least resistance that can unite their caucus. And, several observers in both parties told me, all sides in the GOP are likely to support efforts to probe the White House’s policy record. Such targets could include the administration’s handling of border security, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and how it is allocating the clean-energy tax credits and loan guarantees that the Inflation Reduction Act established.

    But Republicans have already indicated they are unlikely to stop at such conventional targets.

    Jordan, in his letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this month, warned of coming investigations into the Justice Department’s treatment of Project Veritas; allegations that the department has targeted conservative parents as “domestic terrorists” for their actions at school-board meetings; and the department’s decision making in the choice to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

    At the press conference last week with Jordan, Comer declared that evidence from the GOP’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s business activities, including information obtained from his laptop, “raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national-security risk.”

    Jordan, asked at that press conference about the reports that McCarthy has committed to an investigation of the prosecution and treatment of the January 6 rioters, refused to deny it, instead repeating his determination to explore all examples of alleged politicization at the Justice Department. At one point, Jordan, an unwavering defender of Trump through his two impeachments, delivered an impassioned attack on federal law enforcement that reprised a long list of familiar Trump grievances. “When is the FBI going to quit interfering with elections?” Jordan excitedly declared.

    David Frum: Another flop from GOP Productions

    Jordan doesn’t even represent the outer edge of conservative ambition to use House investigations to settle scores for Trump. Earlier this week, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida tweeted that when Republicans take the majority, they “should take over the @January6thCmte and release every second of footage that will exonerate our Patriots!”

    That might be a bridge too far even for McCarthy. But as he scrambles to overcome conservative resistance to his bid for speaker, he has already shown deference to demands from the Trump-country members who constitute the dominant block in his caucus. One example was the report that he promised Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that he would allow some investigation into treatment of the January 6 rioters. Another came in his appearance along the Texas border this week. McCarthy went beyond pledging oversight of the Biden administration’s border record to raise the much more incendiary (but also Fox-friendly) notion of impeaching Mayorkas.

    Dent, the former GOP representative, told me that on all these fronts, House Republicans risk pushing oversight to a confrontational peak that may damage its members from marginal seats at least as much as it hurts Biden—particularly if it involves what he described as airing Trump grievances. “These rabbit holes are just fraught with political peril in these more moderate districts,” Dent said.

    Democrats hope that the coming GOP investigations will alienate more voters than they alarm. Several Democratic strategists told me they believe that the focus on so many conservative causes will both spotlight the most extreme Trump-aligned voices in the Republican caucus, such as Jordan and Greene, and strike swing voters as a distraction from their kitchen-table concerns.

    Leslie Dach, a veteran Democratic communications strategist now serving as a senior adviser to the Congressional Integrity Project, a group mobilizing to respond to the investigations, told me the GOP inquiries will inexorably identify the party with the same polarizing style of Trump-like politics that voters just repudiated in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. “We saw in this election that voters reject the Trump playbook and MAGA politics, but that is exactly what they will see in these hearings,” he said.

    Congressional investigations always carry the risk of disclosures that could hurt or embarrass Biden and other officials. And whatever they find, investigations also promise to divert significant amounts of the administration’s time and energy. The White House has already staffed up a unit in the counsel’s office dedicated to responding to the inquiries. Cabinet departments are scrambling to do the same.

    Recognizing the potential political risk, several Republican representatives newly elected in Biden districts have already urged their party to move slowly on the probes and instead to prioritize action on economic issues. Their problem is that McCarthy already has given every indication he’s likely to prioritize the demands for maximum confrontation from his caucus’s pro-Trump majority.

    “If past is prologue, Kevin McCarthy will fall much on the side of the ruby-red Republican base and the pro-investigation, pro-culture-war side,” Kelly says. “He’s never proven able to stand up to the fringe.” And that means the new members from Biden-leaning districts who have provided the GOP its narrow majority have reason to sweat almost as much as the Biden administration over the swarm of investigations that House Republicans are poised to unleash.

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    Ronald Brownstein

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  • Shooting at a Virginia Walmart killed and injured multiple people, officials said. Police believe the shooter is among the dead | CNN

    Shooting at a Virginia Walmart killed and injured multiple people, officials said. Police believe the shooter is among the dead | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, Tuesday night left multiple people dead and injured, police said.

    Officers responded to the store less than an hour before closing around 10:12 p.m. and found the victims and evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake Police public information officer Leo Kosinski told CNN.

    Details on exactly how many people were killed or injured likely won’t be available until later Wednesday because investigators were still sweeping the store overnight to look for additional victims or people who may be hiding, Kosinski said. Earlier, he said police believe the number of fatalities is “less than ten.”

    “We’re just a couple hours past the initial incident, so everything is very fluid, very new right now,” Kosinski said.

    The shooter is believed to be among the dead, Kosinski said, noting it’s not believed any law enforcement officers fired shots during the response.

    Investigators believe the shooter was an employee or former employee of the store who opened fire on other employees in a break room, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

    It is believed the shooter at some point turned the gun on himself, according to the source.

    Chesapeake city officials asked people to stay away from the store during the investigation. “Our first responders are well-trained and prepared to respond; please give them space to do so” the city said in a tweet.

    “We are shocked at this tragic event at our Chesapeake, Virginia store,” Walmart said in a statement. “We’re praying for those impacted, the community and our associates. We’re working closely with law enforcement, and we are focused on supporting our associates,” the statement said.

    Joetta Jeffery told CNN her mother, Betsy Umphlett, sent her texts from inside the store during the shooting, alerting her that someone had opened fire.

    “I’m crying, I’m shaking,” Jeffery told CNN. “I had just talked to her about buying turkeys for Thanksgiving, then this text came in.”

    Jeffery said her mother is uninjured but in shock, and they’ve been reunited.

    A reunification center was set up at the Chesapeake Conference Center, city officials said. They are asking that only immediate family and emergency contacts for people who were in the store go to the center.

    The Washington, DC, field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is assisting local police in the investigation, the bureau said on Twitter.

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  • Incoming GOP chair says House investigation into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents ‘will not be a priority’ | CNN Politics

    Incoming GOP chair says House investigation into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents ‘will not be a priority’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The top House Republican slated to take over the chamber’s investigation into classified documents found at the former president’s Florida estate said it “will not be a priority” in the new Congress.

    Rep. Jim Comer of Kentucky, likely the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN in a sit-down interview that, “we’re just waiting to see what comes out of that.”

    “That will not be a priority,” he added, noting that his team has requested information on the status of the House investigation.

    The committee has been conducting its own investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of presidential records, separate from the ongoing Justice Department probe that led to the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month and the seizure of thousands of documents, including some marked classified.

    Merrick Garland announces special counsel to oversee Trump investigations

    Earlier this year, the committee’s current chairwoman, Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, sent a letter to the National Archives, or NARA, asking for an assessment of whether there are presidential records still unaccounted for and in Trump’s possession, CNN previously reported.

    Asked whether he accepts NARA’s insistence that it does not make any decisions based on political views, Comer reiterated that, “we’ll have to wait and see.”

    “I know that the day that National Archives met with Carolyn Maloney, was the day that they contacted the DOJ about their concern. So I don’t know,” Comer said. “I don’t get involved in a lot of the drama from the last administration.”

    CNN previously reported that Trump’s GOP allies in the House are seeking to turn the tables on the Democratic president – one who defeated their party’s current leading candidate in the last presidential election.

    On November 9 – the day after the midterm elections – Comer told CNN he is going to resend a letter to the Treasury Department demanding the agency hand over any suspicious bank activity reports linked to Hunter Biden.

    A previous request was rebuffed, but Comer said the department may be more inclined to cooperate now that Republicans are going to be in charge of the House, meaning the GOP will have newfound subpoena power.

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  • A timeline of the killings of four University of Idaho students | CNN

    A timeline of the killings of four University of Idaho students | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The killings of four University of Idaho students Sunday in their off-campus home has brought in the investigative powers of the local Moscow Police, state police and the FBI.

    Days after the deaths, there is no suspect or murder weapon, and police have been tight-lipped on what they know.

    Still, they have provided some information on the killings, and a preliminary timeline reveals some of their final hours as well as the investigative response.

    Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were students at the University of Idaho who lived at a nearby off-campus residence in Moscow, a college town of about 25,000 people.

    They had two other roommates at the residence, a three-floor, six-bedroom apartment.

    Goncalves posted a series of photos on her Instagram at some point with the caption “one lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl everyday.” One of the photos shows Mogen sitting on Goncalves’ shoulders, with Chapin and Kernodle standing next to them.

    That night, Chapin and Kernodle went to a party on campus, and Mogen and Goncalves went to a downtown bar, police said.

    Mogen and Goncalves ordered at a late-night food truck at about 1:41 a.m., the food truck’s live Twitch stream shows.

    They ordered $10 worth of carbonara from the Grub Truckers and wait for about 10 minutes for their food. As they waited, they could be seen chatting with each other and with other people standing by the truck.

    Joseph Woodall, 26, who manages the truck, said the two students did not seem to be in distress or in danger in any way.

    Grub Wandering Kitchen video

    Video shows two University of Idaho victims at food truck on night of killings

    Mogen, Goncalves, Chapin and Kernodle returned to the home at some point in the early morning hours.

    At about noon Sunday, a call came in to 911 about an unconscious person at an off-campus residence. Police did not say who called 911.

    Arriving officers found the door to the residence open and discovered the bodies of four fatally stabbed students.

    “It was a pretty traumatic scene to find four dead college students in a residence,” Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt later told CNN affiliate KXLY.

    There was no sign of forced entry or damage, police said.

    Officers investigate a homicide at an apartment complex south of the University of Idaho campus on Sunday, November 13.

    Moscow Police issued a statement saying four people were found dead in a home off campus. University of Idaho President Scott Green announced that the four victims were students and canceled classes on Monday.

    Moscow Police issued a statement identifying the four homicide victims as Chapin, Goncalves, Kernodle and Mogen.

    Police said details were limited and no one was in custody. They added that Moscow Police “does not believe there is an ongoing community risk based on information gathered during the preliminary investigation.”

    Moscow Mayor Art Bettge released a statement calling the deaths “senseless acts of violence.” Bettge said only limited information can be shared without “jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation.”

    Green issued a statement offering condolences to the victims’ families and the community.

    “Moscow police do not believe there is an ongoing community risk based on information gathered during the preliminary investigation, however, we ask our employees to be empathetic, flexible and to work with our students who desire to return home to spend time with their families,” he said.

    Moscow Police issued a statement saying that an “edged weapon such as a knife” was used in the killings. Police said no suspects were in custody and they had not found the murder weapon.

    “Also, based on information from the preliminary investigation, investigators believe this was an isolated, targeted attack and there is no imminent threat to the community at large,” police said.

    Later in the day, police released another statement that attempted to calm fears of a killer on the loose.

    “We hear you, and we understand your fears,” police said. “We determined early in the investigation that we do not believe there is an ongoing threat for community members. Evidence indicates that this was a targeted attack.”

    Moscow Police Department Chief James Fry speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Idaho, on November 16.

    Police Chief James Fry held a press conference – the department’s first in the case – and reiterated there was no suspect. He also backtracked on the assurances that no one is at risk.

    “We cannot say there’s no threat to the community,” Fry said. “And as we have stated, please stay vigilant, report any suspicious activity and be aware of your surroundings at all times.”

    The two other roommates were home at the time of the attack and were not injured, Fry said.

    “There was other people home at that time, but we’re not just focusing just on them, we’re focusing on everybody that may be coming and going from that residence,” he said.

    The university’s often-packed parking lots had many empty spots after scores of students decided to return home or leave the area.

    “Everybody kind of just went back home because they’re scared. … It’s definitely uneasy on campus right now,” student Nathan Tinno told CNN.

    Tinno, who said the community is trying to approach the tragedy with sympathy, added the fact that no perpetrator has been caught in the case has elevated the sense of fear on campus.

    Investigators have released a map depicting the movements of four University of Idaho students the night they were murdered.

    Hoping for tips from the community, investigators release a map and timeline of the victims’ movements last weekend.

    The map shows the four students spent most of the night separated in pairs.

    “Most definitely someone somewhere has a tidbit of information that will help break this case open and we believe the public around here will have that information for us,” Idaho State Police Communications Director Aaron Snell said.

    The victims were found on the second and third floors of their home, Snell told CNN.

    Mabbutt, the coroner, told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene. She confirmed there were multiple stab wounds on each body – likely from the same weapon – but would not disclose how many wounds nor where most were located.

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  • Fact check: Trump responds to special counsel news with debunked claim about Obama and the Bushes | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Trump responds to special counsel news with debunked claim about Obama and the Bushes | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In former President Donald Trump’s first extended response to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Friday announcement that he had appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of government documents after he left office, Trump defended himself with dishonesty – repeating his false and thoroughly debunked claims about how other ex-presidents handled official records.

    Trump, speaking Friday night at a gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort and residence, asked why there is not an investigation into “all of the other presidents that preceded me,” including but not limited to Republicans George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. He claimed that these previous presidents “kept documents,” and he continued: “In one case, they had it in a Chinese restaurant with broken windows. And in another case they had a Chinese restaurant connected to a bowling alley. This is where the documents were kept. They took documents with them. President Obama took documents.”

    Merrick Garland announces special counsel to oversee Trump investigations

    Facts First: Trump’s claims are, again, false – and they have been debunked by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) itself. As NARA explained in an August statement, Barack Obama did not take the presidential documents Trump claimed Obama had taken. Rather, NARA itself moved documents from the Obama administration to a NARA-managed facility in the Chicago area, near where Obama’s presidential library is being built. NARA similarly explained in a statement in October, after Trump added other past presidents to the baseless narrative, that neither of the Bushes took the documents Trump claimed they had taken. Again, it was NARA that took the Bushes’ presidential documents to facilities that NARA managed near the future locations of their presidential libraries.

    In other words, there is no equivalence between Trump’s situation – in which he allegedly took hundreds of classified documents, plus numerous other presidential records, to the Mar-a-Lago resort and residence – and the situations, or really non-situations, of his predecessors.

    Trump used the Friday speech to deliver a variety of other criticism of Garland’s decision to appoint the special counsel, veteran prosecutor Jack Smith. Smith will also oversee a second criminal investigation that involves Trump, that one into whether anybody “unlawfully interfered” with the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election or with the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College “on or about” January 6, 2021. (Smith won’t oversee the investigations or prosecutions of people who physically breached the Capitol that day.)

    Trump’s suggestion that past presidents’ documents were stored in an insecure manner is also false.

    The facility where George H.W. Bush’s presidential documents were temporarily stored, in College Station, Texas, was indeed a former bowling alley connected to a former Chinese restaurant. But by the time Bush’s records arrived, the building had been turned by NARA into a professional archiving facility with extensive security measures and no more bowling lanes or equipment.

    Though Trump has repeatedly claimed or suggested that the College Station facility was not secure – this time he said it had “broken windows” – this narrative is baseless, too. In its October statement, NARA said that all of the temporary facilities where it stored past presidents’ documents “met strict archival and security standards.” NARA said that “reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.”

    You don’t have to take NARA’s recent word for it. The Associated Press reported in 1994: “Uniformed guards patrol the premises. There are closed-circuit television monitors and sophisticated electronic detectors along walls and doors. Some printed material is classified and will remain so for years; it is open only to those with top-secret clearances.”

    Finally, it is not a revelation that the facility had a colorful past as a restaurant and alley; NARA officials publicly joked about this at the time. It’s normal for NARA to lease large buildings that formerly had some other purpose. The Washington Post reported in 1993: “There aren’t any lanes anymore. No gutters, no pins, no beer. Thanks to a rush remodeling job after last November’s election, there are a few simple offices, a massive, fire-resistant vault and row after row of steel shelves filled with cardboard boxes and wooden crates.”

    Trump has continued making these false claims about his predecessors not only despite the NARA statements debunking them but despite numerous fact-checks from major media outlets. He also made the claim about Obama supposedly taking documents in the Tuesday speech in which he announced his 2024 presidential candidacy; CNN fact-checked it then, too.

    PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 08: Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media during an election night event at Mar-a-Lago on November 08, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump spoke as the nation awaits the results of voting in the midterm elections. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    Legal experts in new report conclude there’s a ‘strong basis’ to charge Trump

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  • Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

    Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

    Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

    His experience and resume will allow him, at least at first, to fly underneath the type of political blowback that quickly met former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. It also shows he is adept at managing complex criminal cases related to both public corruption and national security – and that he has practice making challenging decisions with political implications.

    Smith is widely expected to be tasked with making policy decisions around whether to charge a former president of the United States. Garland’s statements on Friday and the recent steps taken in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations have signaled that, at the very least, Donald Trump is under investigation and could potentially be charged with a crime.

    “He knows how to do high-profile cases. He’s independent. He will not be influenced by anybody,” said Greg Andres, a former member of Mueller’s team.

    Andres, who has known Smith since the late 1990s when they started at a US attorney’s office together and ultimately became co-chiefs of the office’s criminal division, said it’s the breadth of Smith’s experience that will enable him to withstand the public scrutiny and make tough judgment calls.

    “He will evaluate the evidence and understand what type of case should be charged or not. He has the type of experience to make those judgments,” said Andres.

    “He understands the courtroom. He understands how to try a case. He knows how to prove a case,” he added. “Particularly in these circumstances it will be critical to understand what types of evidence is required to prove the case in court.”

    In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

    “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.

    One former colleague highlighted that Smith has prosecuted members of both parties.

    “He’s going to be really aggressive,” the person said, adding that “things are going to speed up.” Smith, they said, “operates very quickly” and has a unique ability to quickly determine the things that are important to a case and doesn’t waste time “hand-wringing over things that are real sideshows.”

    In court, Smith comes off as very down-to-earth and relatable, this person said, characterizing that as a good attribute to have as a prosecutor.

    Smith also will not care about the politics surrounding the case, they said, adding he has very thick skin and will “do what he’s going to do.”

    Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

    As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

    Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

    Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”

    “He is a phenomenal investigator; he leaves no stone unturned. He drills down to get to the true facts,” Fodeman said.

    Fodeman, who is still friends with Smith, said he is a “literally insane” cyclist and triathlete.

    Beginning in 2008, Smith worked for the International Criminal Court and oversaw war crimes investigations under the Office of the Prosecutor for two years.

    In 2010, he became chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, where he oversaw litigation of public corruption cases. Lanny Breuer, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division who recruited Smith, said his onetime employee was “a terrific prosecutor” with a “real sense of fairness.”

    “If you are going to have a special counsel, in my view, and you want someone who is going to be fearless, but fair, and not going to be intimidated and not overly bureaucratic, that’s Jack – he is all of these things,” Breuer told CNN.

    “Smith brings cases quickly. … He doesn’t sit on cases. He is a person of action,” Breuer added.

    After his stint at the Public Integrity Section, Smith was appointed first assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2015.

    Though he is not widely known in Washington, DC, legal circles, Smith is described as a consummate public servant.

    About a decade ago, he hired waves of line prosecutors into the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, supervising dozens over his years in charge there.

    Brian Kidd, whom Smith hired at the unit, recalled how his boss walked him through every step of a complicated racketeering case against corrupt police officers.

    “He was not going to tolerate a politically motivated prosecution,” Kidd said. “And he has an incredible ability to motivate the people working with him and under him. He’s incredibly supportive of his team.”

    Smith handled some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – to mixed outcomes.

    He was the head of the public integrity unit when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was indicted in 2014, and was in meetings with the defense team and involved in decision-making leading up to the charges, according to a person familiar with the case.

    McDonnell was initially convicted of receiving gifts for political favors, but then his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

    Smith was also at the helm of the unit when the DOJ failed to convict at trial former Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

    A Republican source familiar with Smith’s oversight of the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commended Smith’s non-biased approach, saying that he ultimately made a “just” decision to conclude the investigation without alleging DeLay committed any crime.

    In recent years while working at The Hague, he has not lived in the United States. He’s no longer on the US Triathlon team but is still a competitive biker.

    Smith took over as acting US Attorney when David Rivera departed in early 2017 before leaving the Justice Department later that year and becoming vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America. In 2018, he became chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

    “Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said during the announcement on Friday. “Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

    In May 2014, the House Oversight Committee interviewed Smith behind closed doors as part of the Republican-led investigation into the alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups. Then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa launched the probe following a 2013 inspector general report that found delays in the processing of applications by certain conservative groups and requesting information from them that was later deemed unnecessary.

    Republicans sought testimony from Smith, who at the time was Public Integrity section chief, due to his involvement with arranging a 2010 meeting between Justice Department officials and then-IRS official Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS scandal. The meeting had been convened to discuss the “evolving legal landscape” of campaign finance law following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, according to a May 2014 letter written by Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who is expected to be House Judiciary chairman next year.

    “It is apparent that the Department’s leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, was closely involved in engaging with the IRS in wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived problems with the decision,” Issa and Jordan wrote in the letter seeking Smith’s testimony.

    Smith testified that his office “had a dialogue” with the FBI about opening investigations related to politically active non-profits following the meeting with Lerner, but did not ultimately do so, according to a copy of his interview obtained by CNN.

    Smith explained that he had asked for the meeting with the IRS because he wanted to learn more about the legal landscape of political non-profits following the Citizens United decision because he was relatively new to the public integrity section. He said that Lerner explained it would be difficult if not impossible to bring a case on the abuse of tax-exempt status.

    Smith repeated at several points in the interview that the Justice Department did not pursue any investigations due to politics.

    “I want to be clear – it would be more about looking at the issue, looking at whether it made sense to open investigations,” he said. “If we did, you know, how would you go about doing this? Is there predication, a basis to open an investigation? Things like that. I can’t say as I sit here now specifically, you know, the back-and-forth of that discussion. I can just tell you that – because I know one of your concerns is that organizations were targeted. And I can tell you that we, Public Integrity, did not open any investigations as a result of those discussions and that we certainly, as you know, have not brought any cases as a result of that.”

    Smith also testified that he was not aware of anyone at the Justice Department placing pressure on the IRS – and that he was never pressured to investigate any political groups.

    “No. And maybe I can stop you guys. I know there’s a series of these questions. I’ve never been asked these things, and anybody who knows me would never even consider asking me to do such a thing,” Smith said.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • ‘We’re leaving as fast as we can’: University of Idaho reels with unease days after killing of 4 students and no suspect identified | CNN

    ‘We’re leaving as fast as we can’: University of Idaho reels with unease days after killing of 4 students and no suspect identified | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Five days after four University of Idaho students were found stabbed in their off-campus home, a deep sense of apprehension and grief shrouded the community as authorities released a map and timeline of the victims’ movements and worked to identify a suspect.

    The university’s often-packed parking lots had many empty spots Thursday after scores of students decided to return home or leave the area after the quadruple homicide last weekend shocked the college town of Moscow, Idaho.

    “Everybody kind of just went back home because they’re scared. … It’s definitely uneasy on campus right now,” student Nathan Tinno told CNN.

    Tinno, who said the community is trying to approach the tragedy with sympathy, added the fact that no perpetuator has been caught in the case has elevated the sense of fear on campus.

    Four college students – Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21 – were found stabbed to death Sunday in their shared off-campus home near the university.

    The victims were found on the second and third floors of the home, Idaho State Police Communications Director Aaron Snell told CNN Friday.

    Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene. She confirmed there were multiple stab wounds on each body – likely from the same weapon – but would not disclose how many wounds nor where most were located.

    Stab wounds on the hands of at least one victim appear to be defensive wounds, according to Mabbutt. She said there was no sign of sexual assault on the bodies during the autopsies.

    Moscow Police Department

    Hoping for tips from the community, investigators on Friday released a map and timeline of the victims’ movements last weekend. The map shows the four students spent most of the night separated in pairs.

    Chapin and Kernodle attended a party at the young man’s Sigma Chi fraternity house from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time Saturday.

    Goncalves and Mogen were at the Corner Club sports bar between 10 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. They picked up food at a food truck at 1:40 a.m. before heading home.

    The four victims were back at the house by 1:45 a.m. Sunday.

    Two other roommates were inside the home at the time of deaths – neither was injured nor held hostage, according to university president Scott Green.

    Investigators are speaking with the two surviving roommates, Snell told ABC.

    “Potentially they are witnesses, potentially they are victims,” Snell said in an interview with ABC’s Kayna Whitworth. “Potentially they’re the key to this whole thing.”

    Police have said they don’t have a suspect. Snell said no one has been “included or excluded as a person of interest and/or a suspect.”

    Investigators hope the roommates will help them “figure out what occurred and why.”

    “That’s their story to tell,” he said.

    The causes of death has been determined a homicide, according to a statement by Mabbutt. The autopsies are completed, and the findings will be released when available, an employee at the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office told CNN.

    The killings, which happened little more than a week before Thanksgiving break, have instilled harrowing sentiments among students as authorities investigate leads to identify a suspect or locate a murder weapon.

    “It’s so dark. It’s just like a dark cloud over everything,” Ava Driftmeyer said. “We’re leaving as fast as we can.”

    Driftmeyer, who said she lives near where the four students were killed, described that it’s been a difficult situation to process, both mentally and emotionally.

    “I just don’t even think it’s like set in yet. … You know how insane this is? And the fact that there’s no answers is like the worst feeling ever,” she said.

    Police said Wednesday they could not definitively determine that the public was not a risk, backtracking an earlier statement that the attacks were targeted.

    “We cannot say there’s no threat to the community,” Moscow Police Department Chief James Fry said Wednesday during a news conference. “And as we have stated, please stay vigilant, report any suspicious activity and be aware of your surroundings at all times.”

    The university also reminded students that mental health support is available for them.

    “We are all still working though our grief and a range of emotions. Compounding this is the frustration and concern that no one has been arrested for these crimes,” Green said in a statement.

    “Students, you are encouraged to do what is right for you. Whether this is going home early or staying in class, you have our support,” Green added.

    Four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death on November 13 in their shared home near campus in Moscow, Idaho.

    As many details remain unclear, one of the victim’s parents revealed his child’s struggle with the attacker.

    The father of Xana Kernodle said he spoke with his daughter midnight Sunday, just hours before she was attacked and killed. Citing an autopsy, he said she fought off her attacker through the end.

    “Bruises, torn by the knife. She’s a tough kid,” Jeffrey Kernodle told CNN affiliate KPHO/KTVK in Avondale, Arizona.

    Kernodle said Xana stayed in regular communication with her family. “I think midnight was the last time we heard from her, and she was fine,” he told the station, adding that he doesn’t understand why his daughter and her roommates were killed in their own home.

    “They were just hanging out at home. Xana was just hanging out at home with her boyfriend,” he said.

    Just hours before the four students were killed, Goncalves had posted a photo of the group with the caption, “one lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl everyday,” adding a heart emoji.

    The scant information available regarding the case has been frustrating those closest to the victims as well as the campus community. Yet a video showing two of the victims has helped police get a clearer idea of the hours leading up to the homicides.

    In a live Twitch stream from a food truck called Grub Truckers, Mogen and Goncalves were last seen alive while ordering $10 worth of carbonara around 1:40 a.m. local time Sunday in Moscow. As they waited for about 10 minutes for their food, they chatted with each other as well as other people standing by the truck.

    Joseph Woodall, who manages the food truck, told CNN the two students did not seem to be in distress or in danger in any way.

    Chapin and Kernodle were at a party on campus Saturday night, Fry said. All four students returned home early Sunday sometime after 1:45 a.m., Fry added.

    Later Sunday morning, the four were killed inside their home, authorities said. Police responded to the residence after receiving a 911 call around noon reporting that someone was unconscious.

    When police arrived at the home, they walked into a grisly, bloody crime scene.

    “It was a pretty traumatic scene to find four dead college students in a residence,” coroner Mabbutt told CNN affiliate KXLY earlier this week.

    All four were pronounced dead at noon, and police have not revealed who made the 911 call.

    “They were smart, they were vigilant, they were careful and this all still happened,” Goncalves’ older sister, Alivea, said in a statement on behalf of the family to the Idaho Statesman.

    “No one is in custody and that means no one is safe. Yes, we are all heartbroken. Yes, we are all grasping. But more strong than any of these feelings is anger. We are angry. You should be angry.”

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  • Inside the White House’s months of prep-work for a GOP investigative onslaught | CNN Politics

    Inside the White House’s months of prep-work for a GOP investigative onslaught | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    More than four months before voters handed Republicans control of the House of Representatives, top White House and Department of Homeland Security officials huddled in the Roosevelt Room to prepare for that very scenario.  

    The department and its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, had emerged as top targets of Republican ire over the Biden administration’s border security policies – ire that is certain to fuel aggressive congressional investigations with Republicans projected to narrowly reclaim the House majority and the subpoena power that comes with it.  

    Sitting around the large conference table in the Roosevelt Room, White House lawyers probed senior DHS officials about their preparations for the wide-ranging Republican oversight they had begun to anticipate, including Republicans’ stated plans to impeach Mayorkas, two sources familiar with the meeting said.  

    Convened by Richard Sauber, a veteran white-collar attorney hired in May to oversee the administration’s response to congressional oversight, the meeting was one of several the White House has held since the summer with lawyers from across the administration – including the Defense Department, State Department and Justice Department.

    The point, people familiar with the effort said, has been to ensure agencies are ready for the coming investigative onslaught  and to coordinate an administration-wide approach. 

    While President Joe Biden and Democrats campaigned to preserve their congressional majorities, a small team of attorneys, communications strategists and legislative specialists have spent the past few months holed up in Washington preparing for the alternative, two administration officials said.  

    The preparations, largely run out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House, are among the earliest and most comprehensive by any administration ahead of a midterm election and highlight how far-reaching and aggressive Republican investigations are expected to be.

    Along with Sauber, this spring the White House hired veteran Democratic communications aide Ian Sams as spokesman for the White House counsel’s office. Top Biden adviser Anita Dunn returned to the White House in the spring, in part to oversee the administration’s preparations for a GOP-controlled Congress.

    The Justice Department is also bracing for investigations, bringing in well-known government transparency attorney Austin Evers to help respond to legislative oversight. Evers is the founder of the group American Oversight and served as its executive director until this year, and previously handled the oversight response at the State Department.

     The White House is preparing to hire additional lawyers and other staff to beef up its oversight response team in the next two months, before the new Congress convenes in January, administration officials said. The hires will bolster Sauber’s current team of about 10 lawyers, a source familiar with the matter said.

    In piecing together GOP targets and strategy, the team has paid close attention to Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, the two Republicans who are likely to lead much of the investigations under a GOP-controlled House and have spent months telegraphing their intentions in TV interviews and oversight letters.   

    Jim Jordan and James Comer.

    Their opening salvo came Thursday, when Comer and Jordan hosted a joint news conference to preview the various investigations into President Joe Biden’s family.  

    “In the 118th Congress, this committee will evaluate the status of Joe Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a president who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence” said Comer, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee. “I want to be clear: This is an investigation of Joe Biden, and that’s where the committee will focus in this next Congress.”

    Comer, flanked by Jordan and other Republicans on the Oversight Committee, said Republicans have made connections between the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and the president whom they believe requires further investigation. 

    The White House accused Comer of pursuing “long-debunked conspiracy theories.”

    Even though the Republican majority is poised to be much thinner than expected – with a likely margin of just a couple seats – all indications are that House Republicans are poised to push ahead with a wide-ranging set of investigations into all corners of the Biden administration, including the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Covid-19 vaccine mandates and the Justice Department’s handling of the various investigations related to Donald Trump. 

    Republicans are also intent on investigating the president’s family, particularly his son, Hunter Biden. 

    With little chance of passing much legislation in a deadlocked Congress, investigations are shaping up to be the focal point of how a House Republican majority wields its power.  

    “You’re gonna have a bunch of chairmen who are totally on their own, doing whatever the hell they want without regard for what the national political implications are,” said Brendan Buck, a former top adviser to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said he believes GOP leader Kevin McCarthy will have “very little leash” to rein in those investigative pursuits.  

    House Republicans have already sent over 500 letters to the administration requesting that they preserve documents, key committees have hired new legal counsels to help with investigations, and leadership has hosted classes for staffers on how to best use the oversight tools at their disposal.

    Meanwhile, McCarthy’s office has been working with likely committee chairs over the last several months to delegate who is going to be investigating what, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

    “It’s like a clearing house,” the source said. 

    But the GOP’s push for aggressive investigations could run into resistance from the moderate wing of the GOP, who want to use their newfound majority to address key legislative priorities – not just pummel Hunter Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci. While McCarthy has vowed to conduct rigorous oversight, he will have to strike a delicate balance between the demands of the competing factions in his party.

    White House officials believe Republicans are bound to overstep and that their investigative overreach will backfire with the American public. In the meantime, they are prepared to push back forcefully, believing that many proposed investigations are based on conspiracy theories and politically motivated charges.

    “President Biden is not going to let these political attacks distract him from focusing on Americans’ priorities, and we hope congressional Republicans will join us in tackling them instead of wasting time and resources on political revenge,” Sams, the spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, said in a statement to CNN. 

    The House’s expected razor-thin majority is likely to make it more difficult to take steps like impeaching members of Biden’s Cabinet – or even the president himself. But that doesn’t mean, sources told CNN, they’re not going to try, particularly when it comes to the border and Mayorkas.  

    Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill on May 04, 2022.

    On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee provided a preview of what is to come. Over the course of a marathon four-hour hearing, Republican lawmakers grilled Mayorkas over the influx of migrants at the southern border, the number of people who evade Border Patrol capture, and encounters with people on the border who are on the terror watch list. 

    Throughout, Mayorkas stood his ground, maintaining that the border is “secure” and batting down criticism that it’s “open” as Republicans have claimed. 

    At one point, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana foreshadowed more testimony next year, telling Mayorkas: “We look forward to seeing you in January.”  

    Mayorkas, officials said, remains undeterred by the threats of impeachment and intends to stay at the helm of the department, a point he reiterated Tuesday. Still, one person close to Mayorkas told CNN that the DHS chief is “nervous” about impending GOP investigations and the potential of being continually hauled before Congress by hostile Republican committee chairs. 

    “Don’t let the bastards win,” one US official familiar with Mayorkas’ thinking said when asked to sum up the DHS chief’s attitude toward potential GOP investigations on border issues and impeachment.   

    “We will respond to legitimate inquiries,” the official said. “We’re not going to feed into what might wind up as kabuki theater.”  

    DHS already responds to hundreds of congressional inquiries per month, according to a Homeland Security official, who added the department has been preparing for months for any potential increase in congressional activity. The department is also ready to “aggressively respond to attempts to mischaracterize the strong record” of the DHS work force, as well as “politically motivated attempts to attack the secretary,” the official said.

    DHS officials considered hiring outside legal counsel to prepare for the potential onslaught of Republican scrutiny but ultimately chose not to, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.   Ricki Seidman, a senior counselor to Mayorkas and former senior Justice Department official, has been involved in DHS’s preparation for the GOP oversight, the source added.

     Another Homeland Security official said that the Border Patrol along with Customs and Border Protection “are going to take the most heat.” 

    The most politically charged investigations next year are poised to be those into the president’s son Hunter Biden.  

    Top Republicans have largely been more than happy for Comer to take on the leading role of investigating Hunter Biden, multiple sources said.  Jordan does not plan to be intimately involved in the Hunter Biden probe but will provide public support for Comer, including appearing with him at the upcoming press conference.  

    “We’re going to lay out what we have thus far on Hunter Biden, and the crimes we believe he has committed,” Comer told CNN earlier this month just before the election. “And then we’re going to be very clear and say what we are investigating, and who we’re gonna ask to meet with us for transcribed interviews.”

    Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing in his business activities.

    Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, attends a ceremony at the White House on Thursday, July 7, 2022.

    Behind the scenes though, Jordan and other soon-to-be powerful Republican lawmakers – including likely chairman of House Intelligence Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio – have sought to distance their committees from the Hunter Biden investigation in favor of other investigative pursuits they deem to be “more serious,” the sources said. 

    The handling of Republican investigations related to Hunter Biden will fall to Hunter Biden’s own attorneys, while Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, will handle related matters related to Joe Biden’s personal capacity that do not touch on his official duties. Bauer, who is married to Dunn, and White House attorneys have already met to divvy up workflow over potential lines of inquiries to ensure there are clear lanes of responsibility between investigations that touch on Joe Biden’s official role as president and vice president and his personal life. 

    Another key point of interest is likely to be the administration’s handling of the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to the death of 13 Marines and nearly 200 Afghans when a bomb exploded at the Kabul airport.  

    At the State Department, a small group of officials has already begun planning for the coming investigations into Afghanistan, officials said. While that group will work with Sauber’s team at the White House, State Department officials expect to take the lead in handling GOP inquiries into Afghanistan.     

    The department has not hired new people to work on these efforts, but certain officials who are already at the department expect to spend a lot more of their time responding to the congressional inquiries, officials said.  

    The Republican investigation into the withdrawal is likely to be led by Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee. McCaul and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have historically had a good relationship, which State Department officials are hoping will be an important factor.

    US soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20, 2021

    Administration officials said they plan to take McCaul’s inquiry seriously because they expect he will demonstrate a seriousness of purpose, instead of making bombastic demands like some other Republicans. And House Republican aides said they plan to explore the administration’s willingness to work with them before issuing subpoenas.

    “If they’ll meet us in the middle by giving us some documents instead of all documents, or agreeing to turn over certain individuals but not all of the individuals for interviews, then that’s a start,” said one of the GOP aides familiar with the plans. “But if they just want to be completely obstructive and say no to every single request, then you’ll see subpoenas fairly soon.”

    The department concluded its own review of the withdrawal in March, but the findings of that report have not been shared publicly, officials said. While it was expected to be put out earlier this year, State Department officials said the White House is making that determination, and they are unsure of where that decision stands. House Republicans want to see that report.

    At the Pentagon, officials are bracing for the possibility of public grilling at televised hearings on everything from Afghanistan to views about “wokeness” in the force and the discharging of troops who refused to take the Covid-19 vaccine. 

    “We know it’s coming,” one administration official said. 

     Both Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose term expires at the end of September 2023, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who appears determined to stay until the end of the Biden administration, have faced sharp criticism from congressional Republicans and know the coming months may be a rough political ride, officials said.    

    Milley has been a particular target for Republicans for his well-known efforts to keep the final weeks of the Trump presidency from careening into a national security crisis. 

    Both Milley and Austin have pushed back forcefully on GOP accusations that the military is “woke,” a topic that’s likely to become a focal point for some Republicans in the coming months.

    “This is going to be a Congress under Republican control like no other,” said Rafi Prober, a congressional investigations specialist with the law firm Akin Gump who previously worked in the Obama administration.    

    Aaron Cutler, the head of the Washington government investigations group at law firm Hogan Lovells and a former Republican congressional leadership staffer, said the partisan investigations serve to “feed the base red meat.”

    But Cutler said he has heard from conservatives that the tepid result for Republicans in the midterm elections may translate to less “silliness in politics,” he said. “The American people are pushing back, and saying we want government to work.”   

    That is exactly the calculation the White House and congressional Democrats are making. A senior House Democratic source said that aggressive attacks on Biden’s son could backfire, adding that congressional Democrats were gearing up to defend the president by calling out “lies and hypocrisy.”

    Still, with the GOP investigations in mind, a team of White House lawyers has in recent weeks and months advised senior White House staff on how “not to be seen as influencing politically sensitive missions at (departments and agencies),” a source familiar with the matter told CNN.  

    Asked at his press conference last week about the prospect of GOP investigations, including into his son, Biden said: “I think the American people will look at all of that for what it is. It’s just almost comedy. … Look, I can’t control what they’re going to do.”

    This story has been updated with comments from Rep. Comer on Thursday.

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  • Idaho police say there were other people in the home at the time of quadruple homicide, but declined to say who called 911 | CNN

    Idaho police say there were other people in the home at the time of quadruple homicide, but declined to say who called 911 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    More questions than answers continue to plague the Moscow, Idaho, community after the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students – and police said they cannot assure the community is safe.

    Moscow Police Chief James Fry gave an update Wednesday, saying two additional roommates were in the home at the time of the killings who were neither injured nor held hostage. Fry also said two of the victims – Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle – were at a party on campus, while the other two victims – Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves – were at a downtown bar prior to their deaths.

    All four arrived back home sometime after 1:45 a.m. local time, Fry said. They were killed “sometime in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 13,” Fry said.

    But there were no calls to 911 until noon Sunday. Fry did not say who called 911, despite two people being at the home when the killing took place and when officers responded. Fry also declined to say if the two people spoke with police.

    “We’re not going to go any further into what they know and what they don’t know,” he said.

    He did say the call came in for an unconscious person, not a person with a stab wound.

    There was also no evidence of forced entry, the chief said. Fry did admit all four victims were killed with a knife, though no weapon has been located at this time.

    As of Wednesday evening, there is neither identity nor location of a suspect, Fry said.

    “We cannot say there’s no threat to the community and as we have stated, please stay vigilant, report any suspicious activity and be aware of your surroundings at all times,” Fry said.

    Fry’s comments come just one day after the Moscow Police Department said in a news release there was no threat to the public and evidence led investigators to believe this was a “targeted attack.”

    The killings and lack of information have rankled Moscow, a 25,000-strong city nestled on the Idaho-Washington border. The college town has not recorded a murder since 2015, according to state police data. Residents there are anxious and are “getting out of Dodge,” Latah County Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Mikolajczyk told the Idaho Statesman.

    The father of one of the victims issued a statement Wednesday calling on police to release further information about the killings.

    “There is a lack of information from the University of Idaho and the local police, which only fuels false rumors and innuendo in the press and social media,” Jim Chapin, the father of Ethan Chapin, said in the statement. “The silence further compounds our family’s agony after our son’s murder. For Ethan and his three dear friends slain in Moscow, Idaho, and all of our families, I urge officials to speak the truth, share what they know, find the assailant, and protect the greater community.”

    University of Idaho President Scott Green offered condolences in a statement Monday and deferred to the police’s belief that there was no threat to the public.

    “Moscow police do not believe there is an ongoing community risk based on information gathered during the preliminary investigation, however, we ask our employees to be empathetic, flexible and to work with our students who desire to return home to spend time with their families,” he said. “We do not know the investigation timeline, but we will continue to communicate to campus as we learn more.”

    Green said Wednesday the university is encouraging students and employees to take care of themselves as they head into Thanksgiving break.

    Blaine Eckles, university dean of students, did say there would be a candlelight vigil on November 30. Details are still being finalized, he said.

    CNN has reached out to the university for comment and information on the case.

    What little the public does know is grisly. Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN affiliate KXLY what she saw at the gruesome crime scene.

    “There’s quite a bit of blood in the apartment and, you know, it was a pretty traumatic scene to find four dead college students in a residence,” she said.

    Mabbutt said the coming autopsies could provide further information about what happened.

    “There could be some, you know, some evidence of the suspect that we get during the autopsies which would be helpful,” Mabbutt said.

    Kaylee Goncalves (bottom left) posted this photo of the group on her Instagram on Saturday night.

    The University of Idaho identified the victims as:

    • Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington, a freshman majoring in recreation, sport and tourism management and a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.
    • Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona, a junior majoring in marketing and a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority.
    • Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a senior majoring in marketing and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority.
    • Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho, a senior majoring in general studies and a member of the Alpha Phi sorority.

    Just hours before their deaths, Goncalves posted a photo of the foursome with the caption, “one lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl everyday,” adding a heart emoji.

    Chapin was one of three triplets, all of whom are enrolled at the University of Idaho, the family said in a statement.

    “Ethan lit up every room he walked into and was a kind, loyal, loving son, brother, cousin, and friend,” his mother Stacy Chapin said. “Words cannot express the heartache and devastation our family is experiencing. It breaks my heart to know we will never be able to hug or laugh with Ethan again, but it’s also excruciating to think about the horrific way he was taken from us.”

    Alivea Goncalves, Kaylee’s sister, sent a statement to the Idaho Statesman on behalf of her family and Mogen’s.

    “They were smart, they were vigilant, they were careful and this all still happened,” she said. “No one is in custody and that means no one is safe. Yes, we are all heartbroken. Yes, we are all grasping. But more strong than any of these feelings is anger. We are angry. You should be angry.”

    Jazzmin Kernodle, Xana’s older sister, described her as “positive, funny and loved by everyone who met her.”

    “Xana was one of the best people I have ever known. I am lucky to have had her as a sister. She was loved by so many and had the best friends surrounding her. You rarely get to meet someone like Xana,” she said.

    “She was so lighthearted, and always lifted up a room. She made me such a proud big sister, and I wish I could have had more time with her. She had so much life left to live. My family and I are at a loss of words, confused, and anxiously waiting for updates on the investigation.”

    She also offered condolences to the other victims and their families. “My sister was so lucky to have them in her life.”

    Due to the killings, the city canceled its long-standing Artwalk festival “in respect for the victims of this week’s tragedy on the University of Idaho campus as well as those in the Vandal and Moscow community who are united in mourning.”

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  • Poland, NATO say missile that killed two likely fired by Ukraine defending against Russian attack | CNN

    Poland, NATO say missile that killed two likely fired by Ukraine defending against Russian attack | CNN

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    Bali, Indonesia
    CNN
     — 

    The leaders of Poland and NATO said the missile that killed two people in Polish territory on Tuesday was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending their country against a barrage of Russian strikes, and that the incident appeared to be an accident.

    The blast occurred outside the village outside the rural eastern Polish village of Przewodow, about four miles (6.4 kilometers) west from the Ukrainian border on Tuesday afternoon, roughly the same time as Russia launched its biggest wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month.

    On Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda told a press conference that there was a “high chance” it was an air defense missile from the Ukrainian side and likely had fallen in Poland in “an accident” while intercepting incoming Russian missiles.

    “There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely, it was a Russian-made S-300 rocket,” Duda said in a tweet earlier Wednesday.

    Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the conflict, including the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which Kyiv has deployed as part of its air defenses.

    The incident in Poland, a NATO country, prompted ambassadors from the US-led military alliance to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels Wednesday.

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg too said there was no indication the incident was the result of a deliberate attack by either side, and that Ukrainian forces were not to blame for defending their country from Russia’s assault.

    “Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by the Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks,” Stoltenberg said. “But let me be clear, this is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.”

    Stoltenberg also said there were no signs that Russia was planning to attack NATO countries, in comments that appeared to be intended to defuse escalating tensions.

    News of the incident overnight led to a flurry of activity thousands of miles away in Indonesia, where US President Joe Biden convened an emergency meeting with some world leaders to discuss the matter on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

    A joint statement following the emergency meeting at the G20 was deliberately ambiguous when it came to the incident, putting far more focus on the dozens of strikes that happened in the hours before the missile crossed into Poland.

    Duda and Stoltenberg’s comments tally with those of two officials briefed on initial US assessments, who told CNN it appeared the missile was Russian-made and originated in Ukraine.

    The Ukrainian military told the US and allies that it attempted to intercept a Russian missile in that timeframe and near the location of the Poland missile strike, a US official told CNN. It’s not clear that this air defense missile is the same missile that struck Poland, but this information has informed the ongoing US assessment of the strike.

    The National Security Council said that the US has “full confidence” in the Polish investigation into the blast and that the “party ultimately responsible” for the incident is Russia for its ongoing invasion.

    Investigations at the site where the missile landed will continue to be a joint operation with the US, Polish President Duda said Wednesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for Ukrainian experts to be allowed to the site.

    Zelensky said Wednesday he did not believe that the missile was launched by his forces, and called for Ukrainian experts to play a part in the investigation. “I have no doubt that it was not our missile,” he told reporters in Kyiv.

    Earlier Wednesday, a Zelensky adviser said the incident was a result of Russia’s aggression but did not explicitly deny reports that the missile could have been launched by the Ukrainian side.

    “Russia has turned the eastern part of the European continent into an unpredictable battlefield. Intent, means of execution, risks, escalation – it is all coming from Russia alone,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in a statement to CNN.

    A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force said on national television Wednesday that the military would “do everything” to facilitate the Polish investigation.

    Earlier, Biden said that preliminary information suggested it was unlikely the missile that landed in Poland was fired from Russia, after consulting with allies at the G20 Summit in Bali.

    “I don’t want to say that [it was fired from Russia] until we completely investigate,” Biden went on. “It’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see.”

    Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia doesn’t have “any relation” with the missile incident in Poland, and that some leaders have made statements without understanding “what actually happened.”

    “The Poles had every opportunity to immediately report that they were talking about the wreckage of the S-300 air defense system missile. And, accordingly, all experts would have understood that this could not be a missile that had any relation with the Russian Armed Forces,” Peskov said during a regular call with journalists.

    “We have witnessed another hysterical frenzied Russophobic reaction, which was not based on any real evidence. High-ranking leaders of different countries made statements without any idea about what actually happened.”

    Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told CNN that NATO allies must “keep a cool head” in light of the incident.

    “I think we really have to keep a cool head, knowing there might be a spillover effect, especially to those countries that are very close [to Ukraine],” Kallas told CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour in an interview Wednesday.

    The incident comes after Russia unleashed a barrage of 85 missiles on Ukraine Tuesday, predominantly targeting energy infrastructure. The bombardment caused city blackouts and knocked out power to 10 million people nationwide. Power has since been restored to eight million consumers, Zelensky later confirmed.

    Ukrainians across the country were expected to face further scheduled and unscheduled power cuts Wednesday.

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  • Baby alligators are being sold in Michigan, dumped or killed when they get too big

    Baby alligators are being sold in Michigan, dumped or killed when they get too big

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    There is a thriving market for pet alligators in Michigan and many of the reptiles are killed or abandoned when they start to get too big.

    Local 4 investigated and found alligators for sale at an expo in Kalamazoo, among other locations.

    The Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary has 200 alligators under their care that had been abandoned. They are a rescue facility for unwanted reptiles.

    “One particular alligator was locked in a dog crate for seven years. He was never able to touch water or swim or touch the ground,” Lina Kelly said. “Some have come in really horrible situations where their mouths have been taped shut and I’ve had wounds all over their faces. So, some of them are locked away in closets and misshapen their spines.”

    Kelly said most people don’t realize how big alligators can get. They can reach up to 15 feet long and live for 60 to 70 years.

    Previous: Going undercover to expose why abandoned alligators are being found around Metro Detroit

    What happens when alligators get to big?

    Local 4 went in undercover with cameras rolling to a Mt. Pleasant home where alligators are being sold.

    “How big are they gonna get?” Local 4 asked.

    “They can get up to 15 feet. I mean, so, they can get pretty big,” Mike Morningstar said. “Obviously, a 15-foot gator — it’ll kill ya.”

    Alligators can grow to be absolutely massive, but that doesn’t stop Mike and Raquel Morningstar from selling young alligators for $200 each. The couple admits the animals they sell usually wind up discarded.

    ‘They either keep them, or they eat them, or turn them into boots’

    “What do people do when they get really big?” Local 4 asked.

    “They either keep them, or they eat them, or turn them into boots,” Raquel Morningstar said.

    Raquel actually suggested people could eat their alligators when they get too big to handle.

    Baby alligators are also listed for sale online with ads that say they “won’t last long.” Who’s buying them? Mike Morningstar said random people.

    The Morningstars are licensed to sell alligators. They said they buy them from a breeder in Florida. They resell the animals and mail them around the country.

    “We started out with like six and then we had 10 and had an order of 18 and we had 12 more after that and they’ve gone quick,” Raquel Morningstar said.

    Mike Morningstar said that there are no legal issues in Michigan and that they can own and sell them. That it’s “not a big deal.”

    That isn’t completely true though. While there aren’t any state laws against alligator sales, some Michigan cities have banned them.

    The Morningstars told our undercover producer that this is the end of alligator season — but it’s not the end of the issue.

    Local 4 spoke with health officials in Detroit and they confirmed they are getting calls for alligators in the city.

    The sanctuary Local 4 visited said they have 200 alligators right now and worry more could be dumping off their pets as winter sets in and the gators continue to grow.

    Have something you’d like us to look into? Reach the Local 4 investigative team at 313-962-9348, or email Karen Drew at kdrew@wdiv.com.

    Previous coverage on alligators and crocodiles found in Michigan:

    Copyright 2022 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.

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  • First-time NASA spacewalkers venture outside the space station | CNN

    First-time NASA spacewalkers venture outside the space station | CNN

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    Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.



    CNN
     — 

    Things are about to get busy on the International Space Station as the first in a series of end-of-the-year spacewalks kicked off Tuesday morning.

    First-time spacewalkers and NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio began their excursion outside the space station at 9:14 a.m. ET, with live coverage on NASA’s website. The event is expected to last for about seven hours.

    Cassada is wearing the spacesuit with red stripes as extravehicular crew member 1, while Rubio is in the unmarked suit as extravehicular crew member 2.

    The astronauts will assemble a mounting bracket on the starboard side of the space station’s truss. The hardware that will be installed during the spacewalk was delivered to the space station on November 9 aboard a Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, which safely delivered its cargo despite only one of its two solar arrays deploying after launch.

    This hardware will allow for the installation of more rollout solar arrays, called iROSAs, to give the space station a power boost. The first two rollout solar arrays were installed outside the station in June 2021. Six iROSAs total have been planned and will likely boost the space station’s power generation by more than 30% once all are operational.

    During two more spacewalks on November 28 and December 1, a two-astronaut crew will unroll and install another pair of solar arrays once the mounting hardware is in place. The solar arrays will be delivered on the next SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply mission, currently slated for launch on November 21.

    Spacewalks are part of the space station crew’s routine as they maintain and upgrade the aging orbital laboratory, but Tuesday’s spacewalk is NASA’s first since March. The agency’s spacewalks came to a halt after European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer ended his first spacewalk with water in his helmet.

    A thin layer of moisture that exceeded the normal, expected amount was discovered in Maurer’s helmet once he returned to the airlock after a nearly seven-hour spacewalk. Maurer quickly shed the helmet, in an event deemed “a close-call” by NASA, and water samples, suit hardware and the spacesuit itself were returned to Earth for investigation. Officials at NASA determined the suit didn’t experience any hardware failures.

    “The cause for the water in the helmet was likely due to integrated system performance where several variables such as crew exertion and crew cooling settings led to the generation of comparatively larger than normal amounts of condensation within the system,” according to NASA in a blog post update.

    “Based on the findings, the team has updated operational procedures and developed new mitigation hardware to minimize scenarios where integrated performance results in water accumulation, while absorbing any water that does appear. These measures will help contain any liquid in the helmet to continue to keep crew safe.”

    Officials at NASA gave the “go” for spacewalks to resume after concluding the review in October.

    The investigation team has developed techniques to manage temperatures in the suit and added new absorption bands to the helmet, said Dina Contella, operations integration manager for the International Space Station Program.

    The thin orange pieces have been placed in different parts of the helmet, which has already been tested on orbit by the astronauts inside the space station.

    “We’ve taken several different models of this up and the crew on board sloshed water around, essentially tried to inject water into the helmet at the same rate that would be kind of a worst, worst case. And we found that these pads were very, very effective,” Contella said.

    Tuesday’s spacewalk will allow the crew to test the new pads as they work outside of the space station before the more complex solar array installation spacewalks within the next couple of weeks.

    Meanwhile, a Russian spacewalk is scheduled to take place on Thursday. Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will begin their walk at 9 a.m. ET to work on the outside of the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. The duo will prepare a radiator for transfer from the Rassvet module to Nauka during their seven-hour spacewalk, which will also stream live on NASA’s website.

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  • Hong Kong protest song plays instead of China anthem in rugby final mix-up | CNN

    Hong Kong protest song plays instead of China anthem in rugby final mix-up | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The Hong Kong government on Monday demanded an investigation after a song associated with the city’s pro-democracy movement was played instead of the Chinese national anthem before a rugby sevens match between Hong Kong and South Korea.

    Event organizers played an instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong” as the teams lined up for the men’s final of the Asia Rugby Sevens Series in Incheon, South Korea on Sunday. The song, an unofficial anthem of the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, includes lyrics that a Hong Kong court has previously ruled could incite secession – a national security offense.

    Clips of the incident, in which the team is shown standing to attention on the field as the song plays, circulated widely on social media Monday, threatening to overshadow the Hong Kong team’s 19-12 victory.

    In a statement, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly deplores and opposes” the playing of the song, which it said was “closely associated with violent protests and the ‘independence’ movement in 2019.”

    “We have already written to the Hong Kong Rugby Union last evening demanding them to deal with this matter seriously, launch a full and in-depth investigation and submit a detailed report, and convey our strong objection to Asia Rugby, who is the organizer of the Series,” a government spokesperson said, according to the statement.

    The match’s local organizer, Korea Rugby Union (KRU), told CNN the mistake occurred when a worker searched online for a Hong Kong anthem and added the top result to a folder labeled “Hong Kong.” The broadcasting room staff played the music file in the Hong Kong folder instead of one labeled “China,” the organization said.

    The organizer apologized through the stadium speaker and played the Chinese national anthem at the end of the match, according to KRU.

    “Korea Rugby Union will take all measures to prevent a repeat of such an occurrence in future matches,” the organization said, adding that its “Hong Kong” folder has now been erased.

    In a statement, the Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) said it “expressed its extreme dissatisfaction” over the incident to the organizers. “Whilst we accept this was a case of human error it was nevertheless not acceptable,” the statement said.

    Last week, a woman who waved a British colonial-era flag to celebrate Hong Kong claiming Olympic gold became the first person in the city to be jailed on a charge of insulting the Chinese national anthem.

    Hong Kong, a former British colony handed over to Beijing’s rule in 1997, sends its own representative teams separate from mainland China to a wide range of sporting events, including the Olympics.

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  • 6 dead after a pair of vintage military aircraft collided at a Texas air show | CNN

    6 dead after a pair of vintage military aircraft collided at a Texas air show | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Six people are dead after two World War II-era military planes collided in midair and crashed at Dallas Executive Airport during an airshow Saturday afternoon, killing all on board, the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office said Sunday.

    “We can confirm that there are six (fatalities),” a spokesperson for the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office told CNN in a phone call.

    More than 40 fire rescue units responded to the scene after the two vintage planes – a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra – went down during the Wings Over Dallas airshow.

    In video footage of the crash that was described by Dallas’ mayor as “heartbreaking,” the planes are seen breaking apart in midair after the collision, then hitting the ground within seconds, before bursting into flames.

    Here are the latest developments as investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are due to arrive at the scene Sunday.

    The Federal Aviation Administration said the crash took place at around 1:20 p.m. Saturday.

    The Allied Pilots Association – the labor union representing American Airlines pilots – has identified two pilot retirees and former union members among those killed in the collision.

    Former members Terry Barker and Len Root were crew on the B-17 Flying Fortress during the airshow, the APA said on social media.

    “Our hearts go out to their families, friends, and colleagues past and present,” the union said. The APA is offering professional counseling services at their headquarters in Fort Worth following the incident.

    Terry Barker killed in the Dallas Saturday plane crash

    The death of Barker, a former city council member for Keller, Texas, was also announced by Keller Mayor Armin Mizani on Sunday morning in a Facebook post.

    “Keller is grieving as we have come to learn that husband, father, Army veteran, and former Keller City Councilman Terry Barker was one of the victims of the tragic crash at the Dallas Air Show,” Mizani wrote.

    “Terry Barker was beloved by many. He was a friend and someone whose guidance I often sought. Even after retiring from serving on the City Council and flying for American Airlines, his love for community was unmistakable.”

    A 30-year plus veteran of the Civil Air Patrol’s Ohio Wing, Maj. Curtis J. Rowe, was also among those killed in the collision, Col. Pete Bowden, the agency’s commander, said on Sunday.

    Rowe served in several positions throughout his tenure with the Civil Air Patrol, from safety officer to operations officer, and most recently, he was the Ohio Wing maintenance officer, Bowden said. Rowe’s family was notified of his death Saturday evening, the commander added.

    “I reach to find solace in that when great aviators like Curt perish, they do so doing what they loved. Curt touched the lives of thousands of his fellow CAP members, especially the cadets who he flew during orientation flights or taught at Flight Academies and for that, we should be forever grateful,” Bowden wrote in a Facebook post.

    “To a great aviator, colleague, and Auxiliary Airman, farewell,” he said.

    In a Saturday news conference, Hank Coates, president and CEO of the Commemorative Air Force, an organization which preserves and maintains vintage military aircraft, told reporters that the B-17 “normally has a crew of four to five. That was what was on the aircraft,” while the P-63 is a “single-piloted fighter type aircraft.”

    Debris from two planes that crashed during the airshow. The B-17 was one of about 45 complete surviving examples of the model, which was produced by Boeing and other airplane manufacturers during World War II.

    The Commemorative Air Force identified both aircraft as based in Houston.

    No spectators or others on the ground were reported injured, although the debris field from the collision includes the Dallas Executive Airport grounds, Highway 67 and a nearby strip mall.

    The B-17 was part of the collection of the Commemorative Air Force, nicknamed “Texas Raiders,” and had been kept in a hanger in Conroe, Texas, near Houston.

    It was one of about 45 complete surviving examples of the model, only nine of which were airworthy.

    The P-63 was even rarer. Some 14 examples are known to survive, four of which in the US were airworthy, including one owned by the Commemorative Air Force.

    More than 12,000 B-17s were produced by Boeing, Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed between 1936 and 1945, with nearly 5,000 lost during the war, and most of the rest scrapped by the early 1960s. About 3,300 P-63’s were produced by Bell Aircraft between 1943 and 1945, and were principally used by the Soviet Air Force in World War II.

    A frame from a video taken at the airshow shows smoke rising after the crash.

    The FAA was leading the investigation into the air show crash on Saturday, but the NTSB took over the investigation once its team reached the scene, the agency said at a news conference Sunday. The team dispatched by the NTSB consists of technical experts who are regularly sent to plane crash sites to investigate the collision, according to the NTSB.

    “Our team methodically and systematically reviews all evidence and considers all potential factors to determine the probable cause, NTSB member Michael Graham said.

    Investigators have started securing the audio recordings from the air traffic control tower and conducting interviews of the other formation crews and air show operations, according to Graham.

    Neither aircraft was equipped with a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder, often known as the “black box,” he added.

    Investigators surveyed the accident site using both an NTSB drone and a photograph of the scene from the ground to document the area before the wreckage is moved to a secure location, Graham said. A preliminary accident report is expected four to six weeks, but a full investigation may last 12 to 18 months before a final report is released.

    Graham appealed to witnesses saying if anyone has any photos or videos of the incident, they should share them with the NTSB.

    “They’ll actually be very critical since we don’t have any flight data recorder data or cockpit voice recorders or anything like [those devices],” Graham said. “They’ll be very critical to analyze the collision and also tie that in with the aircraft control recordings to determine why the two aircraft collided and to determine, basically, the how and why this accident happened and then eventually, hopefully, maybe make some safety recommendations to prevent it from happening in the future.”

    According to Coates, the individuals flying the aircraft in CAF airshows are volunteers and follow a strict training process. Many of them are airline pilots, retired airline pilots or retired military pilots.

    “The maneuvers that they (the aircraft) were going through were not dynamic at all,” Coates noted. “It was what we call ‘Bombers on Parade.”

    “This is not about the aircraft. It’s just not,” Coates said. “I can tell you the aircraft are great aircraft, they’re safe. They’re very well-maintained. The pilots are very well-trained. So it’s difficult for me to talk about it, because I know all these people, these are family, and they’re good friends.”

    Mayor Johnson said in a tweet after the crash, “As many of you have now seen, we have had a terrible tragedy in our city today during an airshow. Many details remain unknown or unconfirmed at this time.”

    “The videos are heartbreaking. Please, say a prayer for the souls who took to the sky to entertain and educate our families today,” Johnson said in a separate tweet.

    The Wings Over Dallas event, which was scheduled to run through Sunday, has been canceled, according to the organizer’s website.

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  • Vintage military aircraft collide mid-air at Dallas air show | CNN

    Vintage military aircraft collide mid-air at Dallas air show | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra collided and crashed at the Wings Over Dallas airshow around 1:20 p.m. on Saturday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

    “At this time, it is unknown how many people were on both aircraft,” the FAA said in a statement.

    Authorities responded to the incident at Dallas Executive Airport, Jason Evans with Dallas Fire-Rescue told CNN on Saturday.

    There are currently more than 40 fire rescue units on scene, the agency’s active incidents page shows.

    The Commemorative Air Force identified both aircraft as being out of Houston.

    “Currently we do not have information on the status of the flight crews as emergency responders are working the accident,” a statement from the group said, adding it is working with local authorities and the FAA.

    The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the collision. The NTSB will be in charge and is expected to provide additional updates.

    The event, which was scheduled to run through Sunday, has been canceled, according to the organizer’s website.

    Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a tweet after the crash, “As many of you have now seen, we have had a terrible tragedy in our city today during an airshow. Many details remain unknown or unconfirmed at this time.”

    “The videos are heartbreaking. Please, say a prayer for the souls who took to the sky to entertain and educate our families today,” Johnson said in a separate tweet.

    Debris from the collision fell onto southbound Highway 67, according to a report from CNN affiliate WFAA. Southbound and northbound lanes of the highway were shut down after the incident, the Dallas Police Department said.

    The B-17 was part of the collection of the Commemorative Air Force, nicknamed “Texas Raiders,” and had been hangered in Conroe, Texas near Houston. It was one of about 45 complete surviving examples of the model, only nine of which were airworthy.

    The P-63 was even rarer. Some 14 examples are known to survive, four of which in the United States were airworthy, including one owned by the Commemorative Air Force.

    More than 12,000 B-17s were produced by Boeing, Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed between 1936 and 1945, with nearly 5,000 lost during the war, and most of the rest scrapped by the early 1960s. About 3,300 P-63’s were produced by Bell Aircraft between 1943 and 1945, and were principally used by the Soviet Air Force in World War II.

    This is a developing story.

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  • Mother seeks further investigation into death of sons who died after firefighters failed to properly search burning home | CNN

    Mother seeks further investigation into death of sons who died after firefighters failed to properly search burning home | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The mother of two boys who died following a house fire in Michigan earlier this year is pushing for an independent investigation after two firefighters were accused of lying about properly searching for survivors.

    Zyaire Mitchell, 12, and his brother Lamar, 9, died soon after a fire at their home in Flint on May 28.

    Several weeks later, an investigation led by the fire department found two firefighters tasked with the initial search of the room the children were in lied about properly sweeping for victims. Almost seven minutes later, the children were found by other firefighters. Both later died at a hospital from smoke inhalation, their mother said. State fire investigators ruled faulty electrical wiring caused the fire.

    In his July report, Flint Fire Department Chief Raymond Barton determined the two firefighters — Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek — should be terminated from the department, “due to the nature of the incident in question, and the actions or lack of action possibly contributing to the loss of life of two victims.”

    But instead, the city accepted the resignation of one of the firefighters and a second was “disciplined,” Barton said in August, without elaborating on what disciplinary actions were taken. On Friday, the city provided CNN with a copy of a letter sent to Zlotek dated July 28 detailing his two-week suspension.

    Barton refused to comment further on the investigation or its outcomes when contacted by CNN on Saturday.

    Attorney Robert Kenner, who is representing the boys’ mother, said he thinks there is an indication of racial bias in the way the investigation has been handled because the children were Black.

    “I can’t say in good faith that these firemen intentionally failed at their responsibility because these boys were African Americans, I would never say that,” Kenner said. “I think the way it was handled subsequent to the boys being found was a disparity in how others have been treated.”

    Speaking at a press conference Friday, the boys’ mother, Crystal Cooper, said, “Only if I could just give six minutes, my babies would still be here with me. I just want justice for them. They didn’t deserve this. Every day is a struggle knowing that I won’t see them anymore.”

    Kenner accused the city of a coverup and on Friday called for another investigation.

    “There was an investigation by a Chief Raymond Barton and, what he found, was that two firemen — Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek — fabricated and lied on a report and said that they checked the room,” Kenner said. “Based on what they said, the chief did his own investigation and what was uncovered was they couldn’t have checked the room, they didn’t even mention anything about a bed, the location of the bed, the location of items.”

    “No parent should ever have to go through this,” the attorney added. “No parent. So, what we’re calling for, we’re calling for a thorough investigation, an earnest investigation, no cover-ups, no change in documents. We’re calling for the truth.”

    Kenner on Saturday told CNN the decision not to terminate the firefighters came from the office of Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley.

    A representative of Flint Firefighters Local 352 told The Flint Journal that the two firefighters are being scapegoated in the matter because they failed to search a small room on the second floor of the home due to extreme heat and low visibility.

    CNN has reached out to the union for comment.

    “The mayor is in a hotly contested race right now and made the decision not to terminate based on political reasons,” Kenner claimed. “He’s tied to the fire union and didn’t want to upset the union or other constituents.”

    Neeley is facing former Mayor Karen Weaver in the election on Tuesday.

    Neeley, the mayor, told CNN, “There is absolutely no truth to the allegation that there is a cover up.”

    “We continue to lift this family in prayer, and we are sad to see their pain shamefully exploited,” he added.

    CNN has attempted to contact Zlotek and Daniel Sniegocki for comment.

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  • Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    As Donald Trump inches closer to launching another presidential run after the midterm election, Justice Department officials have discussed whether a Trump candidacy would create the need for a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations related to the former president, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    The Justice Department is also staffing up its investigations with experienced prosecutors so it’s ready for any decisions after the midterms, including the potential unprecedented move of indicting a former president.

    In the weeks leading up to the election, the Justice Department has observed the traditional quiet period of not making any overt moves that may have political consequences. But behind the scenes, investigators have remained busy, using aggressive grand jury subpoenas and secret court battles to compel testimony from witnesses in both the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at his Palm Beach home.

    Now federal investigators are planning for a burst of post-election activity in Trump-related investigations. That includes the prospect of indictments of Trump’s associates – moves that could be made more complicated if Trump declares a run for the presidency.

    “They can crank up charges on almost anybody if they wanted to,” said one defense attorney working on January 6-related matters, who added defense lawyers have “have no idea” who ultimately will be charged.

    “This is the scary thing,” the attorney said.

    Trump and his associates also face legal exposure in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State and expects to wrap her probe by the end of the year.

    Indicting an active candidate for the White House would surely spark a political firestorm. And while no decision has been made about whether a special counsel might be needed in the future, DOJ officials have debated whether doing so could insulate the Justice Department from accusations that Joe Biden’s administration is targeting his chief political rival, people familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    Special counsels, of course, are hardly immune from political attacks. Both former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe came under withering criticism from their opponents.

    The Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

    The Justice Department has brought in a brain trust for high-level advice on the Trump investigations, according to people familiar with the moves.

    Top Justice officials have looked to an old guard of former Southern District of New York prosecutors, bringing into the investigations Kansas City-based federal prosecutor and national security expert David Raskin, as well as David Rody, a prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators.

    Rody, whose involvement has not been previously reported, left a lucrative partnership at the prestigious corporate defense firm Sidley Austin in recent weeks to become a senior counsel at DOJ in the criminal division in Washington, according to his LinkedIn profile and sources familiar with the move.

    The team at the DC US Attorney’s Office handling the day-to-day work of the January 6 investigations is also growing – even while the office’s sedition cases against right-wing extremists go to trial.

    A handful of other prosecutors have joined the January 6 investigations team, including a high-ranking fraud and public corruption prosecutor who has moved out of a supervisor position and onto the team, and a prosecutor with years of experience in criminal appellate work now involved in some of the grand jury activity.

    Taken together, the reorganization of prosecutors indicates a serious and snowballing investigation into Trump and his closest circles.

    The decision of whether to charge Trump or his associates will ultimately fall to Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom President Joe Biden picked for the job because his tenure as a judge provided some distance from partisan politics, after Senate Republicans blocked his Supreme Court nomination in 2016.

    Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    Several former prosecutors believe the facts exist for a potentially chargeable case. But Garland will have to navigate the politically perilous and historic decision of how to approach the potential indictment of a former President.

    In March, Garland avoided answering a CNN question about the prospect of a special counsel for Trump-related investigations, but said that the Justice Department does “not shy away from cases that are controversial or sensitive or political.”

    “What we will avoid and what we must avoid is any partisan element of our decision making about cases,” Garland said. “That is what I’m intent on ensuring that the Department decisions are made on the merits, and that they’re made on the facts and the law, and they’re not based on any kind of partisan considerations.”

    Garland’s tough decisions go beyond Trump. The long-running investigation of Hunter Biden, son of the president, is nearing conclusion, people briefed on the matter say. Also waiting in the wings: a final decision on the investigation of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, after prosecutors recommended against charges.

    It likely won’t take long after the midterms for focus to shift to the 2024 presidential race. That could incentivize top DOJ officials to make crucial charging decisions as quickly as possible, including whether to bring charges against Trump himself or other top political activists, other sources familiar with the Justice Department’s inner workings say.

    “They’re not going to charge before they’re ready to charge,” one former Justice Department official with some insight into the thinking around the investigations said. “But there will be added pressure to get through the review” of cases earlier than the typical five-year window DOJ has to bring charges.

    Matters could also be complicated by the situation in Georgia, where Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election there. Willis has said she’s aiming for a special grand jury to wrap up its investigative work by the end of the year.

    Willis has observed her own version of a quiet period around the midterm election and is seeking to bring witnesses before the grand jury in the coming weeks. Sources previously told CNN indictments could come as soon as December.

    Key Trump allies, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows are among witnesses that have tried to fight off subpoenas in the state probe into efforts to interfere with the Georgia 2020 election.

    How those disputes resolve in Georgia – including whether courts force testimony – could improve DOJ’s ability to gather information, just as the House Select Committee’s January 6 investigation added to DOJ’s investigative leads from inside the Trump White House.

    The months leading up to the election have provided little respite from the political and legal activity around the investigations. The DC US Attorney’s Office–which is still shouldering the bulk of the January 6 investigations–has dealt with burnout in its ranks, as prosecutors are taking to trial or securing guilty pleas from more than 800 rioters who were on the grounds of the Capitol and still look to charge hundreds more.

    Trump has also foiled the DOJ’s efforts to keep things quiet in the weeks leading up to the election, leading to a steady barrage of headlines related to the investigation.

    Trump’s legal team successfully put in place a complicated court-directed process for sorting through thousands of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, to determine whether they’re privileged and off limits to investigators. But the Justice Department and intelligence community have had access for weeks to about 100 records marked as classified that Trump had kept in Florida.

    The outcome of the intelligence review of those documents may determine if criminal charges will be filed, according to one source familiar with the Justice Department’s approach.

    Yet in both investigations, under-seal court activity never subsided, with the Justice Department trying to force at least five witnesses around Trump to secretly provide more information in their grand jury investigations in Washington, DC, CNN has previously reported.

    On Tuesday a federal judge ordered Trump adviser Kash Patel to testify before a grand jury investigating the handling of federal records at Mar-a-Lago, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

    Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court granted Patel immunity from prosecution on any information he provides to the investigation— another significant step that moves the Justice Department closer to potentially charging the case.

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