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Tag: Laws

  • States Are Lining Up to Outlaw Lab-Grown Meat

    States Are Lining Up to Outlaw Lab-Grown Meat

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    The pushback from legislators sympathetic to ranchers and the broader meat industry puts cultivated meat companies in a difficult situation. Major meat producers Cargill and Tyson have both invested in cultivated meat companies, while Brazil’s JBS is working on a cultivated research site in Brazil. “We see ourselves as an ‘and’ solution, not an ‘or.’ We’re never looking to replace conventional [meat],” says Sean Edgett, chief legal officer at Upside Foods, a cultivated meat startup which counts Cargill and Tyson among its investors. “We think there’s always going to be a place for it on the market. So as I look at these bills, they seem very protectionist.”

    Wildtype cofounders Justin Kolbeck and Ayré Elfenbein have visited legislators in Arizona, Alabama, and Florida to try to persuade them to vote down or amend proposed legislation in those states. “The shift we’re seeing is toward something that is far more extreme, which is talking about outright bans,” says Elfenbein. The cofounders are particularly keen on a carve-out for cultivated seafood, pointing out to legislators that the US is a net importer of seafood and that a new source of fish would improve food security within the country.

    Also worrying for cultivated meat companies are a number of proposed bills that would impose new labeling restrictions. A proposed bill in Arizona would prevent companies from using meaty terms to describe products made from cultivated meat, plants, or insects. A similar bill in West Virginia that passed in March requires any cultivated meat product to be labeled as “cell-cultured,” “lab-grown,” or a similar term. The fact that legislators are proposing legislation that lumps cultivated meat together with insect meat—a category that many would-be consumers find gross—is a worrying sign, Almy says.

    A political backlash against cultivated meat isn’t surprising, says Sparsha Saha, a lecturer on meat and politics at Harvard’s Department of Government. “I think it was always going to be political fodder, because you have conglomerates, you have a very powerful and increasingly integrated meat and dairy sector,” she says.

    In Florida, the debate was particularly extreme. On the House floor, representative Dean Black called cultured meat a “bacterial culture” and “nitrogen-based cellular protein paste.” Representative Daniel Alvarez compared the cells found in cultured meat to cancer.

    Such arguments are extremely misinformed, says Elfenbein. “A lot of the arguments that were made were made under the false pretense of safety,” he says. On X, Florida’s agricultural commissioner has compared the Food and Drug Administration’s conclusion that cultured meat from two US companies is safe to eat to mask mandates. “It’s inherently a political war,” says Saha.

    Behind closed doors, lawmakers strike a more balanced tone, says Edgett. “Our conversations with all these lawmakers in their offices are very different to what they are on the floor,” he says. Upside Foods has released a blog post urging prospective customers to ask Governor DeSantis to veto the bill.

    Resistance from lawmakers to cultured meat is also bubbling in Europe. In November, the Italian parliament approved a ban on the food, which is not currently available to customers anywhere in Europe. It is not clear, however, whether the Italian law will stand, as it may violate a European Union directive designed to stop regulatory barriers within the bloc. In a meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council on January 23, a number of delegates called for “a renewed and broad debate in the EU specific to lab-grown meat.”

    “The kind of laws popping up in the US and EU appear to be largely political theater but have the potential to negatively impact research, at the very least within those regions,” says Dwayne Holmes, director of research and innovation (EU) at the cultured meat research nonprofit New Harvest. “These laws are also arguably the unintended byproduct of a race-to-market hype cycle designed to create excitement, which in practice can cut both ways.”

    The prospect of more state-level proposed bans lurks in the background. A proposed ban in West Virginia was introduced this year but is no longer an active bill. In 2023, Texas legislators brought a proposed ban that didn’t make it into law. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see that bill pop up again,” says Almy. Her hope, though, is that if a similar bill rears its head, legislators will have heard enough from nonprofits like the GFI and cultivated meat startups that they don’t take the same route as Florida. Cultivated meat might be approved for sale in the US, but the race to convince legislators to accept it is only just beginning.

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    Matt Reynolds

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  • Live updates: Special Counsel Robert Hur testifies about Biden handling of classified documents

    Live updates: Special Counsel Robert Hur testifies about Biden handling of classified documents

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    Special Counsel Robert Hur is testifying to Congress on Tuesday about his investigation into how President Joe Biden handled classified documents after he was vice president.

    Hur is speaking to the House Judiciary Committee about his report, which concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” which the special presented “serious risks to national security.”

    But Hur has said he decided not to criminally prosecute Biden for his handling of that material, in part because of the president’s allegedly poor memory, among other things.

    Biden and his lawyers have strongly disputed Hur’s characterization of the president’s memory, and have pointed to details in the the special counsel’s report that undercut the claim that he willfully retained classified documents.

    Former Special Counsel Robert K. Hur testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on March 12, 2024 in Washington, DC. 

    Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

    This is developing news. Check back for updates.

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  • US Judge Rejects Challenge To Washington State Law That Could Hold Gun Makers Liable For Shootings – KXL

    US Judge Rejects Challenge To Washington State Law That Could Hold Gun Makers Liable For Shootings – KXL

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    FILE -Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson introduces Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, second from right, after making remarks Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. A federal judge on Friday, March 8, 2024 rejected a challenge to a Washington state law that cleared the way for lawsuits against the gun industry in certain cases. The measure was one of three bills signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee last year seeking to address gun violence. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

    SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge on Friday rejected a challenge to a Washington state law that cleared the way for lawsuits against the gun industry in certain cases.

    The measure was one of three bills signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee last year seeking to address gun violence.

    It requires the industry to exercise reasonable controls in making, selling and marketing weapons, including steps to keep guns from being sold to people known to be dangerous or to straw buyers. It allows the attorney general or private parties, such as the family members of shooting victims, to sue for violations or damages under the state’s Consumer Protection Act.

    The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association, challenged the law in U.S. District Court in Spokane, saying the measure violates the Second Amendment as well as the free-speech rights of its members.

    U.S. District Judge Mary K. Dimke rejected the lawsuit in a decision Friday, saying the organization had not established legal standing to challenge the measure. She noted that its members were neither being sued under the law nor had expressed an intent to violate its terms.

    “This law protects Washingtonians from gun violence by ensuring that gun industry members face real accountability when their irresponsible conduct harms our communities,” Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is running for governor, said in a news release.

    The National Shooting Sports Foundation, based in Connecticut, did not immediately return a message seeking comment after business hours Friday.

    In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, shielding the gun industry from liability in some circumstances. States, however, are allowed to create exemptions from that federal law, Ferguson said. Washington and four other states — Delaware, New York, New Jersey and California — have done so.

    The other bills signed by Inslee last year included one banning the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles and another imposing a 10-day waiting period on firearms purchases.

    Legal challenges to the sales ban as well as to the state’s ban on the manufacture and sale of high-capacity magazines, adopted in 2022, are pending.

    There have been 10 mass killings — nine of them shootings — in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 47 people have died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.

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    Grant McHill

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  • Apple Could Be the First Target of Europe’s Tough New Tech Law

    Apple Could Be the First Target of Europe’s Tough New Tech Law

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    Europe changed the rules of the internet this week when the Digital Markets Act took effect, holding the biggest tech companies to tough new standards. Now the world is waiting to see which giant will be first to fall foul of the law. One of the architects of the DMA says Apple is a strong candidate for the first formal investigation, describing the company as “low hanging fruit.”

    Apple has faced intensifying pressure in recent years from competitors, regulators, and courts in both Europe and the US, over the restrictions it places on app-makers who must rely on its App Store to reach millions of users. Yesterday Apple terminated the developer account of Fornite publisher Epic Games which has challenged the company in US courts and recently announced its intention to launch a rival to the Apple App Store.

    German MEP Andreas Schwab, who led the negotiations that finalized the DMA on behalf of the EU Parliament, says that makes Apple a likely first target for non-compliance. “[This] gives me a very clear expectation that they want to be the first,” he tells WIRED. “Apple’s approach is a bit weird on all this and therefore it’s low hanging fruit.”

    Schwab is not involved in enforcement of the DMA. That’s overseen by the European Commission, which has already demanded “further explanation” as to why Apple terminated Epic’s account and is evaluating whether this violates the DMA.

    “Apple’s approach to the Digital Markets Act was guided by two simple goals: complying with the law and reducing the inevitable, increased risks the DMA creates for our EU users,” says the company in a statement sent to WIRED by Apple spokesperson Rob Saunders. Apple has said on its website that alternative app stores carry the risk of malware, illicit code and other harmful content.

    The DMA’s rules that aim to “break open” tech platforms require Apple to allow iPhone users to download apps from places other than Apples’ official App Store. The Epic Games Store, announced in January, intended to be launched by the Fortnite-maker Epic, would have been the first alternative app store to take advantage of the new system.

    Apple tells WIRED it had the right to terminate Epic’s accounts according to a 2021 California court ruling. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has been a vocal critic of what he styles as Apple’s “app store monopoly” for years, although in January the US supreme court denied a request to hear the latest episode in a lengthy antitrust dispute between the two companies in a victory for the smartphone maker.

    The DMA went into force at midnight on March 7 in Brussels—3 pm in Silicon Valley. From that moment, six of the world’s biggest tech companies—Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and TikTok’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance—must comply with a suite of new rules designed to improve competition in digital markets.

    In addition to Apple having to allow outside apps, Microsoft Windows will no longer have Microsoft-owned Bing as its default search tool; users of Meta’sWhatsApp will be able to communicate with people on rival messaging apps; and Google and Amazon will have to tweak their search results to create more room for rivals. Companies that don’t comply with the new rules can be fined up to 20 percent of their global turnover.

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    Morgan Meaker

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  • Criminal sentencing of Binance founder CZ postponed to late April

    Criminal sentencing of Binance founder CZ postponed to late April

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    Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2022.

    Benoit Tessier | Reuters

    The criminal sentencing of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao on a money laundering rule charge has been postponed until April 30, according to a notice Monday in Seattle federal court.

    That docket entry did not explain what would be a two-month delay in sentencing Zhao, a Canadian national widely known as “CZ” who is free on a $175 million release bond in the United States.

    Zhao’s lawyer, William Burck, declined to comment when asked about the postponement. CNBC has asked the Department of Justice about the delay.

    Federal sentencing guidelines suggest a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison for Zhao, but prosecutors reportedly have considered asking for a harsher sentence.

    Zhao pleaded guilty on Nov. 21 to a charge of failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. As part of that plea, he agreed to step down as Binance’s chief executive officer and to pay a $50 million fine.

    Binance at the same time agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines and restitution as part of its guilty plea to conspiracy to conduct an unlicensed money-transmitting business, conducting such a business and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

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    “Binance was allowing illicit actors to transact freely, supporting activities from child sexual abuse to illegal narcotics to terrorism,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen when the company and Zhao pleaded guilty.

    Zhao originally was scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 23.

    The judge in Zhao’s case in early December rejected his request to be able to travel to his home in the United Arab Emirates before he is sentenced.

    U.S. District Judge Richard Jones cited Zhao’s “enormous wealth” and lack of ties to the United States in finding he was a flight risk.

    Jones in late December rejected another bid by Zhao to travel to the U.A.E. Zhao in his new application had said he wanted to travel home for the “hospitalization and surgery” of a person in his life.

    He had offered to post his equity in Binance as security for his return.

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  • How RealPage influences rent prices across the U.S.

    How RealPage influences rent prices across the U.S.

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    RealPage software is used to set rental prices on 4.5 million housing units in the U.S. A series of lawsuits allege that a group of landlords are sharing sensitive data with RealPage, which then artificially inflates rents. The complaints surface as housing supply in the U.S. lags demand. Some of the defendant landlords report high occupancy within their buildings, alongside strong jobs growth in their operating regions and slow home construction.

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    Sat, Feb 3 20248:27 AM EST

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  • Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court

    Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court

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    A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

    “We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

    Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The 527-unit building is located roughly 20 minutes away from the World Trade Center, on the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey. A group of tenants at the tower is involved in a sprawling class-action lawsuit against RealPage and 34 co-defendant landlords. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the case in December 2023, arguing that the complaints adequately allege violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

    In November 2023, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., filed a similar but more narrow complaint against RealPage and 14 landlords that collectively manage more than 50,000 apartment units in the District.

    “Effectively, RealPage is facilitating a housing cartel,” said Attorney General of the District of Columbia Brian Schwalb in an interview with CNBC. His office filed the complaint on antitrust grounds. They allege that landlords share competitively sensitive data through RealPage, which then sets artificially high rents on a key slice of the local rental market.

    Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, November 2023

    “Rather than making independent decisions on what the market here in D.C. calls for in terms of filling vacant units, landlords are compelled, under the terms of their agreement with RealPage, to charge what RealPage tells them,” said Schwalb.

    RealPage says its revenue management products use anonymized, aggregated data to deliver pricing recommendations on roughly 4.5 million housing units in the U.S. The company says its tools can increase landlord revenues between 2% and 7%.

    “Just turning the system on will outperform your manual analyst. There’s almost no way it can’t,” said Jeffrey Roper, a former RealPage employee and inventor of YieldStar.

    YieldStar is one of three key revenue management tools offered by RealPage. The software balances prices, occupancy and lease lengths to help property managers optimize their portfolio’s yield. The company feeds data from its models into a newer tool dubbed “AIRM” that considers the effect of credit, marketing and leasing effectiveness.

    RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions. The company also said it charges a fixed fee on each apartment unit managed with its software.

    RealPage was acquired by Miami-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.2 billion in 2021. In court filings, Thoma Bravo has claimed that it is not liable for the alleged acts of its subsidiary outlined by plaintiffs in the class-action complaints.

    Renters told CNBC they discovered how revenue management software is used in real estate after reading a 2022 ProPublica investigation. Equity Residential investor materials show that the company started to experiment with Lease Rent Options between 2005 and 2008. RealPage acquired the product in 2017.

    “How could we possibly know?” said Harry Gural, a tenant in an Equity Residential property located in the Van Ness neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Gural says he has been involved in legal matters against his landlord’s pricing practices for more than seven years.

    Affiliates of Equity Residential are contesting a separate decision made by a local housing authority in Jersey City regarding prices set on the Portside Towers property. The company has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the decision, stating that the decision could result in millions of dollars in refunds for tenants.

    Equity Residential and other defendant landlords declined to comment on ongoing RealPage litigation.

    Redfin reports that asking rents in the U.S. ticked down to $1,964 a month in December 2023, a decline from recent highs. Prices are coming down in markets such as Atlanta and Austin, Texas, where home construction is high. But analysts believe low rates of homebuilding on the U.S. East Coast could give well-located landlords more pricing power.

    “Guys like us that own 80,000 well-located apartments, we’re still in a pretty good spot,” said Equity Residential CEO Mark Parrell in a June 2023 interview with CNBC.

    Watch the     video above to learn about the rising tide of lawsuits against U.S. corporate landlords.

    CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated when Equity Residential purchased Portside Towers.

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  • Man pleads guilty in $1 billion scheme to dodge money laundering rules in New York

    Man pleads guilty in $1 billion scheme to dodge money laundering rules in New York

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    Las Vegas Review-journal | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

    A man described as an “experienced anti-money laundering specialist” pleaded guilty on Wednesday to illegally funneling more than $1 billion in lucrative, high-risk transactions through small financial institutions, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

    The massive transfer, which included hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign jurisdictions, occurred without proper oversight and without any Suspicious Activity Reports being filed, as the law requires, the DOJ said.

    The man, 56-year-old Gyanendra Asre of Greenwich, Connecticut, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act.

    He faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced May 3.

    A lawyer for Asre did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, meanwhile, on Wednesday assessed a $100,000 civil penalty on Asre and banned him from participating in any financial institution’s affairs for five years.

    “Asre was an experienced anti-money laundering specialist well-versed in the Bank Secrecy Act’s provisions and deliberately ignored these protections, exposing financial institutions to the risk of illicit criminal activity,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a press release.

    The scheme occurred from 2014 to 2016, when Asre was a member of the supervisory board of the New York State Employees Federal Credit Union, which the DOJ called a “small, unsophisticated” financial institution.

    He had previously been employed as a senior vice president at a domestic bank, and was “experienced in international banking and trained in anti-money laundering compliance and procedures,” the DOJ said.

    Asre “represented to the NYSEFCU that he and his businesses would conduct appropriate anti-money laundering oversight as required by the Bank Secrecy Act,” according to the DOJ.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    Based on that, the NYSEFCU allowed Asre to conduct high-risk transactions, and he subsequently steered more than $1 billion through it and other entities.

    Some of that money allegedly came from Mexican banks, which are not named in an indictment in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

    But “contrary to his representations, Asre willfully failed to implement and maintain an anti-money laundering program at the NYSEFCU,” the DOJ said.

    “This failure caused the NYSEFCU to process the high-risk transactions without appropriate oversight and without ever filing a single Suspicious Activity Report, as required by law,” according to the DOJ.

    The National Credit Union Administration liquidated the NYSEFCU in October 2017 after finding “significant deficiencies” in the credit union’s regulatory compliance, according to FinCEN’s consent order with Asre.

    Asre’s actions “were a major contributing factor to the dissolution” of the credit union, the consent order said.

    Erin Keegan, the acting special agent-in-charge at the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative division in New York, said Asre was specifically trained in the right procedures and “took advantage of a small New York financial institution.”

    “I commend HSI New York and our law enforcement partners for their dedication to ensuring vitally integral regulations — the foundation of our banking system — are upheld,” Keegan said.

    — CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.

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  • Jury rules Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation

    Jury rules Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation

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    E. Jean Carroll and her attorneys Shawn Crowley and Roberta Kaplan react outside the Manhattan Federal Court, after the verdict in the second civil trial after she accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024. 

    Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

    A federal jury on Friday said Donald Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll a total of $83.3 million in damages for defaming her in statements he made as president after the writer said he had raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s.

    The massive civil verdict — which comes on top of a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict that Carroll won against Trump last year — was delivered less than three hours after the nine-member jury began deliberating in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

    Trump was not in court for the reading of the unanimous verdict on compensatory and punitive damages by the anonymous jury at 4:40 p.m. ET.

    But shortly afterward, he said in a social media post that he would appeal it.

    “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down,” Carroll said in a statement.

    E. Jean Carroll hugs her team after the verdict was read during the second civil trial where Carroll accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. 

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    Her attorney Roberta Kaplan said, “Today’s verdict proves that the law applies to everyone in our country, even the rich, even the famous, even former presidents. There is a way to stand up to someone like Donald Trump who cares more about wealth, fame, and power than respecting the law.”

    Jurors awarded Carroll $7.3 million for compensatory damages for emotional harm, and another $11 million for compensatory damages to her reputation. Compensatory damages are awarded for actual losses suffered by someone.

    They then awarded her another $65 million in punitive damages after finding that Trump in a June 21, 2019, statement about Carroll had “acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will or spite, vindictively or out of wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s right.”

    Trump in those comments and others since then has denied ever meeting Carroll, suggested she made her claim to sell a book, and said she was not “my type.”

    Punitive damages are meant to punish wrongdoing by a defendant.

    Earlier Friday, Carroll’s lawyer in her closing argument had urged jurors to award her a “very large” amount of money, to make the billionaire former president “stop” slandering her.

    “He doesn’t care about the law or truth but does care about money, and your decision on punitive damages is the only hope that he stops,” Kaplan said.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to his supporters, as he departs for his second civil trial after E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, outside a Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024. 

    Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

    “How much will it take to make him stop? You cost him lots and lots of money,” she said.

    Trump in a social media post on his TruthSocial site after the verdict wrote, “Absolutely ridiculous!”

    “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” wrote Trump, who is the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

    “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”

    Trump so far has not received much help from appeals courts in challenging the two separate lawsuits by Carroll before they went to trial.

    But it is possible that on appeal of the verdicts he could at least win a reduction in the amount of money he owes her.

    Last month, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s argument that he was immune from damages in the current case because he was president at the time he defamed Carroll.

    The appeals court ruled that Trump had waived the potential defense of presidential immunity for not raising it for years after Carroll first sued him in 2019.

    Trump last year posted $5.6 million as security while he appeals the verdict in the prior sex abuse and defamation case.

    When he appeals the current case’s verdict, he will likely have to post more than $90 million in security.

    Until the appeals are resolved, Carroll will not collect any money from Trump.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump walks out during attorney Roberta Kaplan’s closing argument, during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial as Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch.

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Roberta, told jurors before dismissing them from court: “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury, and I won’t say anything more about it.”

    Before their deliberations began, Judge Kaplan instructed them that they had to accept as facts that Trump “sexually assaulted” Carroll in the mid-1990s and defamed the writer in 2019.

    “What remains for you to decide,” the judge said, is whether “Mr. Trump acted maliciously when he made his two statements” about Carroll.

    “You must accept as true the facts as I explained to you as they have already been decided,” the judge said, referring to Trump’s sexual assault of Carroll and his slandering of her decades later.

    Trump looked on during the instructions with a frown.

    Earlier, Trump stalked out of the courtroom after Carroll’s lawyer began her closing argument, in which she urged jurors to award monetary damages “large enough that it will finally make him stop” slandering the writer.

    Trump’s dramatic departure came minutes after the judge warned his lawyer Alina Habba that she was risking being tossed into jail before summations began in the case.

    “The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” the judge said.

    Trump returned about an hour later, after Carroll’s attorney finished her summation and just before his attorney began her closing argument.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as his attorney Alina Habba, delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial as Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. 

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    Carroll in a 2019 New York magazine article wrote that in the mid-1990s, Trump had raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue, just up the street from the Trump Tower, where he lived and worked.

    Trump denied her allegation at the time, saying she had made it up.

    Another Manhattan federal court jury last year found he had sexually abused Carroll in the attack and had defamed her in statements he made in late 2022 denying her claims.

    Kaplan ruled later in 2023 that that jury’s verdict meant that jurors in the current trial would have to accept as legally established that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll and had defamed her in his 2022 statements.

    Trump on Friday posted several social media messages attacking Kaplan for rulings in the case, accusing the judge of having “absolute hatred of Donald J. Trump (ME!).” Trump’s Truth social account posted 14 times about Carroll when he was in the courtroom.

    In her closing argument, Carroll’s lawyer Kaplan asked jurors to impose punitive damages on Trump for refusing to stop defaming Carroll even after a jury last year held him liable for doing so and ordered him to pay her $5 million.

    Trump’s comments have sparked death threats and vicious emails and tweets directed at Carroll, the lawyer said.

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    “The dollar amount has to be very large,” Roberta Kaplan said. “It is at least as much and probably much more than the $12 million” that the lawyer noted an expert witness had testified it could cost to repair Carroll’s reputation after Trump accused her of inventing her claim.

    “Last trial, Donald J. Trump didn’t even bother to show up, but this trial where it is about damages he has been sure to be here and the one thing he cares about his money,” Kaplan said.

    Trump “is worth billions of dollars, he said that under oath, he could pay a million dollars a day for 10 years and still have money in the bank,” Kaplan said.

    “When you begin deliberations I encourage you to step back and think of bigger picture, a former president of the United States who sexually assaulted, defamed and continues to defame.”

    Earlier, Trump’s lawyer Habba, who had already irked Judge Kaplan for showing up late in court, angered him when she persisted in arguing that defense lawyers should be able to show a slide to jurors during their summation that represented some tweets related to Carroll.

    “You are not going to use a slide to represent how many tweets there were, you are not using that slide, period,” Judge Kaplan said.

    When Habba said, “I need to make a record,” referring to putting her argument on the record, the judge issued his warning.

    “You are on the verge of spending time in the lockup, now sit down!” the judge told Habba.

    Kaplan snapped at Habba several more times during her closing argument, at one point telling her that if she continued pressing a particular point “there will be consequences.”

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial, as Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024 in this courtroom sketch.

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    In her summation, Habba said that Carroll “has failed to show she is entitled to any damages at all.”

    “It is Ms. Carroll’s burden, not President Trump’s, to prove that his statements caused harm, and she failed to meet that burden, it is common sense,” Habba said.

    The attorney also suggested that Carroll had made up her claims of receiving “thousands of threats.”

    Carroll had testified that she deleted most of those threats, making them unavailable as evidence.

    “Either Ms. Carroll is lying to you and those messages never existed in the first place or she deleted them and wants you to rely on them, and guess what, they are not here, and she has to give them to you to support her claim for damages, and that is a fact,” Habba said.

    Habba also said that not only did Carroll “not suffer any emotional harm” after publishing her claim in 2019 about Trump raping her, “she was happier than ever.”

    “She told Vanity Fair [magazine] that the support she received walking down the streets was heartwarming,” Habba said. “One of the most carefree and happy times of her life, that she was in a cocoon of love … does this sound like someone whose world has come crashing down, who can’t sleep?”

    “She was enjoying the newfound attention she was receiving,” the lawyer said.

    Before the arguments began and jurors entered the courtroom, the judge issued a warning.

    “During closing arguments, no one is to say anything other than opposing counsel,” said Kaplan. “There are to be no interruptions or audible comments by anyone else and that will apply when I charge the jury and that will apply to counsel then as well.”

    Carroll’s lawyers have complained during the trial about Trump making comments that were audible to jurors while sitting with his attorneys at the defense table.

    Kaplan previously ruled that because of the prior verdict, there was no legal question that Trump defamed Carroll. That ruling left only the question of monetary damages remaining for the jury.

    Trump during his very brief testimony in the trial Thursday said of Carroll’s claim, “I consider it a false accusation.”

    Kaplan struck that testimony, in light of the prior jury’s verdict which found he had sexually abused Carroll.

    Trump earlier this week defeated former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire. Last week, he won the Iowa GOP caucuses.

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  • Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani raises less than $1 million from 13 donors in legal defense fund

    Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani raises less than $1 million from 13 donors in legal defense fund

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    Rudy Giuliani was able to raise less than $1 million from just 13 donors, among them his friends and a group of former President Donald Trump‘s allies, to help pay off his legal fees as he faces a $146 million defamation judgment and a criminal prosecution, a new Federal Election Commission filing reviewed by CNBC shows.

    Giuliani’s political action committee raised just over $727,000 from August through December, according to the FEC filing Thursday. His son Andrew Giuliani, who is helping run the PAC, did not return a request for comment on the haul.

    The single biggest donation came from a Corona del Mar, California, woman named Caryn Borland, who donated $300,000, more than 40% of the total donations to Giuliani, the filing shows.

    Borland, who also is known as Caryn Hildenbrand, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Last year, the Caryn L Hildenbrand Living Trust donated $1 million to a legal defense fund for Trump, which also was the single largest donation to that fund, which had raised $1.6 million, according to a disclosure filed to the Internal Revenue Service.

    Hildenbrand and her husband Michael, who donated more than $1 million in campaign-related contributions to Trump’ 2020 reelection bid, have shared memes and social media posts about the QAnon conspiracy theory according to The New York Times. The newspaper last month also reported that Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, had once canceled a fundraiser with the couple because of their QAnon posts.

    Though the Giuliani PAC misspells Caryn Borland’s first name on their filing as “Garyn,” the address matches that of the mailing address listed on the IRS filing for the donation made to Trump’s defense fund.

    His PAC has spent over $500,000 on his legal fees so far and had $180,000 on hand entering 2024.

    The attorney is facing a litany of legal and financial struggles as a result of his work for Trump trying to reverse Trump’s loss in the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

    In August, Giuliani, Trump and more than a dozen other defendants were criminally charged in Georgia state court with racketeering related to efforts to reverse Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. He also is being sued for defamation by the voting machine manufacturers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic.

    In December, a federal court jury in Washington, D.C., found Giuliani liable for $146 million in damages for defaming two Georgia election workers whom he falsely accused of ballot fraud in 2020.

    A week later, Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing that judgment, and money he owes various law firms and attorneys.

    A court filing shows that Giuliani owes more than $1.3 million to the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron. The lawyer Robert Costello sued Giuliani in September for $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees dating to 2019.

    Giuliani had planned to raise some of his legal defense money at two of Trump’s properties, Andrew Giuliani previously said.

    Donors were asked to each give $100,000 to the PAC to get access to a September event at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, which featured a discussion between him and Giuliani.

    But just three people are listed on the filing as giving $100,000 or more to the PAC.

    One of them was Elizabeth Ailes, the widow of former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, according to the filing.

    “Yes, I gave Rudy $100,000 for his legal defense PAC and I was happy to do so,” Elizabeth Ailes told CNBC.

    “I am upset by the way Rudy has been persecuted and I believe it’s important to push back against a politicized judicial system,” Ailes said.

    She called Giuliani a “friend” and noted that as mayor he had officiated at her wedding to Roger Ailes.

    Roger Ailes resigned from Fox News in 2016 after being accused by current and former Fox News employees of sexual harassment. Settlements based on those accusations reportedly cost Fox’s parent company millions of dollars.

    Before he was ousted from Fox, Roger Ailes’ conservative news network tried to bolster Trump’s candidacy in 2016.

    “They were friends for a very long time, way before Fox News,” Elizabeth Ailes told Newsmax last May. The only other person closest to Roger [besides Elizabeth] is Donald Trump.”

    Other Trump backers gave less to Giuliani.

    Businessman and longtime Trump supporter, Lewis Topper, gave $25,000 to the PAC, according to the filing.

    And the real estate investment firm Probity International, which is run by Trump donor Robert Zarnegin, gave $35,000 to the Giuliani PAC.

    Arnold Gumowitz, a veteran real estate executive, gave $50,000 to the PAC. He also donated to Andrew Giuliani’s failed gubernatorial run.

    Matthew Martorano, who donated $5,000 to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee last year, gave $100,000 to the Giuliani committee.

    Martorano could not be reached for comment.

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  • Former high-ranking FDIC attorney Mark Black pleads guilty in child sex exploitation case

    Former high-ranking FDIC attorney Mark Black pleads guilty in child sex exploitation case

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    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 13, 2023.

    Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    A former high-ranking lawyer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to conspiring to sexually exploit multiple children and now faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 15 years.

    The lawyer, Mark Black, also previously served as president of the board of the Arlington Aquatic Club, a renowned Virginia swim club that includes U.S. Olympic swimmers among its alumni. Black resides in Arlington.

    Black, 50, most recently was special counsel in the general counsel’s office of the FDIC, which insures the deposits of U.S. commercial and savings banks, according to his LinkedIn page. He has worked in the legal division since April 2013, his LinkedIn page says.

    The Department of Justice said Black, who is married and has teenage sons, was a member of “two online groups dedicated to exploiting children.”

    “The goal of the two groups was to locate prepubescent girls online and convince them to livestream themselves engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” the DOJ said in a press release.

    “Black and his co-conspirators would covertly record this conduct and share the videos with each other,” the DOJ said.

    Black pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement.

    He is due to be sentenced on April 30. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life behind bars.

    The FDIC told CNBC it was “deeply shocked and disturbed about the allegations” against Black, who was suspended by the agency when it learned about the investigation of him last year.

    The FDIC said Black’s criminal activity “had nothing whatsoever to do with the FDIC,” and did not involve the use of agency computers or other devices. The agency also said it had cooperated with the FBI and DOJ in the criminal probe.

    CNBC has requested comment from Black’s defense attorneys and from the Arlington Aquatic Club.

    On Jan. 5, Black was deemed indefinitely ineligible by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit group that has the authority to resolve abuse and misconduct reports in sports associated with U.S. Olympic programs.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    Court documents show that Black, who previously was an attorney at the firm Steptoe & Johnson, was arrested in mid-September after being indicted on six criminal counts related to the production, advertisement, receipt, distribution and possession of child pornography.

    The indictment says Black engaged in that criminal conduct from January 2018 through October 2021.

    He has been held without bond since his arrest due to the ages of the victims in the case, the weight of the evidence, and his risk of lengthy incarceration, according to court documents.

    Black’s lawyers, in a court filing in September seeking his release, offered as a third-party custodian for him Genevieve Holm, who was described as “a retired, career 40-year trial attorney with the Department of Justice, who also has served as” a state court magistrate.

    The filing said authorities executed a search warrant at Black’s home on June 6 last year in connection with the child-porn probe.

    After material was seized from the home, Black “voluntarily self-referred to counseling” with a certified sex offender treatment provider, the filing said.

    The provider, in a statement cited by defense lawyers, said Black “is an excellent candidate for continued outpatient treatment.”

    “Mark Black is 50 years old, and the remaining months may be his last opportunity to see his teenage sons and make final arrangements to secure the stability of his family before he is incarcerated for a lengthy period of time,” defense lawyers wrote.

    “This time in the community is important in order to make sure all necessary appropriate legal and financial steps for his family for many years to come, may be his last opportunity in his life to spend some meaningful time with his family, and will with appropriate conditions not be a danger to the community.”

    A judge denied that request shortly after it was made.

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  • Department of Defense To Track Military Overdoses, Provide NARCAN | High Times

    Department of Defense To Track Military Overdoses, Provide NARCAN | High Times

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    As per a new law, the Department of Defense will begin tracking overdoses within the United States military in 2024 and begin to provide naloxone to service members beginning in 2025. 

    Military overdose deaths have historically not been systematically tracked until the release of a report by Rolling Stone in 2022 detailing the steep rise in overdose deaths at Fort Bragg, which has since been renamed to Fort Liberty. The report detailed the shocking increase in deaths from fentanyl, counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl and deaths in otherwise healthy young men from causes typically sustained from long-term drug use that were not labeled as overdoses.

    In general, Rolling Stone described shoddy record-keeping and experienced a general lack of transparency from the brass at Fort Liberty regarding drug use, drug-related crimes or overdose by military members. Of the 109 deaths that occurred at Fort Liberty between 2020 and 2021, at least 14 soldiers died directly from overdose, though that number is likely higher if you count deaths from drug-related causes, 21 by Rolling Stone’s count, making accidental overdose the leading cause of death at Fort Liberty behind suicide which claimed the lives of 41 soldiers in the same time period. 

    After the Rolling Stone report, pressure built on Congress to do something about the issue and Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) along with other congressmen began to push the Pentagon for increased transparency. This request led to an admission by the Pentagon that fentanyl-related deaths roughly doubled among military members between 2017 and 2021, much like the rest of the country experienced. According to a Military.com report, 330 service members died from drug overdose between 2017 and 2022, and 15,000 soldiers experienced non-fatal overdoses in the same time frame. 

    “Real security means guaranteeing that members of the military and their families can get resources and life-saving treatment necessary to stop the overdose crisis in its tracks,” Senator Markey said in a statement to Military.com.

    The law requiring overdose tracking and NARCAN distribution was signed by President Biden in December of 2022 and goes into effect in 2024. According to Military.com, the Department of Defense will be required to submit an annual report on overdose deaths, overdose locations, demographics, whether the service member had previously sought mental health treatment, or if they’d previously been prescribed opioids, benzodiazepines or stimulants.

    “It’s really just smart public health,” said Professor Alex Bennett to Military.com. Bennett serves as the director of New York University’s Opioid Overdose Prevention Program. “There’s really a lot of drug naivete amongst military personnel,” Bennett said.

    Part of the issue, as is the same with the civilian population, is that fentanyl is often used to make “pressed pills” or fake prescription pills designed to look like pharmaceutical painkillers or benzodiazepines which are often poorly dosed, causing people to unwittingly ingest a lethal dose of fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration has estimated that about 70% of fake prescription pills contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl. 

    “We’ve been working with a lot of veterans who use substances while they’re in the military. Transparency with data tracking like the kind the military is set to begin doing is a step in the right direction,” Bennett said. “Closing your eyes to drug problems doesn’t solve anything,” Bennett said. “It just makes things worse.”

    Carole De Nola, whose 23-year-old child died of an overdose while stationed at Fort Liberty, told Military.com that drug education is especially needed among military members as the new law does not require the military to educate service members on the dangers of fentanyl.

    “We should be dealing with this before a service member’s about to overdose,” De Nola said. 

    It was not immediately clear how the military would be distributing naloxone, commonly known as NARCAN, which is a life-saving medication that can halt an opioid overdose in its tracks. Many NARCAN distribution programs have been established at the level of local cities and townships but nothing has been established federally, or by military leadership until the new law was passed. The new law requires that naloxone be made available to all troops by the year 2025. The law also requires all the naloxone distributed by tracked, which could discourage some military members from seeking it out. 

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  • Congressional leaders reach short-term spending deal to keep government open until March

    Congressional leaders reach short-term spending deal to keep government open until March

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    People walk past the U.S. Capitol building with less than two weeks remaining for the U.S. Congress to negotiate a deal to avert a partial government shutdown in Washington, U.S., January 11, 2024. 

    Leah Millis | Reuters

    WASHINGTON — House and Senate leaders have reached an agreement on a short-term spending deal that would avert a government shutdown in the next few weeks, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

    The deal would keep the government funded until March, buying legislators more time to craft longer-term, agency-specific spending bills, following the agreement last weekend to set the overall spending level for fiscal year 2024 at $1.59 trillion.

    The new agreement moves upcoming government funding deadlines for different departments from Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 to March 1 and March 8.

    The short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution or “CR,” will need to pass both the House and Senate before Friday at 11:59 p.m. to avoid a partial government shutdown.

    Speaker Mike Johnson is set to hold a call with fellow House Republicans at 8 p.m. Sunday to discuss spending negotiations. Several hard-right Republicans have objected to the top-line spending deal he previously cut with Senate Democrats and have urged Johnson to go back on it, though he said Friday that the agreement remains intact.

    As Johnson faced pushback from the right, several moderate Democrats told NBC News that they would be willing to vote to save the Louisiana Republican’s speakership if there were a move to oust him. Democrats stood aside and voted to remove former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in a similar situation last year when a handful of House conservatives rebelled against their party’s then-leader. Several of those same rebels are now threatening Johnson’s job.

    Meanwhile, congressional Democrats praised the top-line spending agreement after it was announced last weekend, even as they acknowledged that a short-term bill would be needed to buy more time to negotiate.

    “The bipartisan topline appropriations agreement clears the way for Congress to act over the next few weeks in order to maintain important funding priorities for the American people and avoid a government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, said in a statement at the time.

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  • BIZARRE state laws that, frankly, don’t make much sense (16 GIFs)

    BIZARRE state laws that, frankly, don’t make much sense (16 GIFs)

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    Camry

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  • Morgan Stanley will pay $249 million to settle criminal, SEC block trade probes

    Morgan Stanley will pay $249 million to settle criminal, SEC block trade probes

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    Pawan Passi, former equities executive at Morgan Stanley, arrives at court in New York, US, on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024.

    Alex Kent | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay a total of $249 million to settle a criminal investigation and a related Securities and Exchange Commission probe of the unauthorized disclosure of block trades to investors by the bank‘s supervisor for such trades and another employee, authorities said Friday.

    As part of the settlement, Morgan Stanley entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for making false statements related to certain block trades executed from 2018 through August 2021, the office said.

    Morgan Stanley, which admitted responsibility for its employees’ actions, is obligated under the deal to cooperate with and provide information to U.S. authorities for at least three years.

    The SEC charged Morgan Stanley with “failing to enforce its policies concerning the misuse of material non-public information related to block trades,” that agency said.

    Block trades typically involve large numbers of shares of a company’s stock in privately arranged transactions executed outside public markets.

    The SEC said the bank generated more than $100 million in illicit profits as a result of misconduct by Pawan Passi, the former head of the bank’s U.S equity syndicate desk.

    Passi, 40, has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, subject to approval by a judge. If Passi complies with the terms of that deal and demonstrates good behavior, he will not be prosecuted, prosecutors said.

    Passi was ordered to pay a $250,000 civil penalty by the SEC.

    Passi admitted that “from 2018 through August 2021, he promised sellers of certain equity blocks that Morgan Stanley would keep information concerning their potential sales confidential, knowing that he would disclose that information to buy-side investors and that those investors would use the information to trade in advance of the block sales,” according to prosecutors.

    Passi appeared at a hearing Friday in Manhattan federal court. His deal does not include a monetary penalty in the criminal case because he had already forfeited about $7.4 million in compensation from Morgan Stanley.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    The SEC’s order in the probe says that a former senior member of the syndicate desk participated with Passi in disclosing to certain buy-side investors “non-public, potentially market-moving information” about block trades that Morgan Stanley had been invited to bid on or was negotiating with sellers.

    “Those buy-side investors used such information to ‘pre-position’ — or take a short position in — the stock that was the subject of the upcoming block trade,” the SEC order says.

    The order said the bank “failed to enforce written policies and procedures” designed to prevent material nonpublic information from being misused, and also failed to enforce information barriers to prevent such information involving block trades from being discussed by the syndicate desk with the institutional equity division. The syndicate desk is on the bank’s private side, while the equity division conducts trading in public markets.

    “Sellers entrusted Morgan Stanley and Passi with material non-public information concerning upcoming block trades with the full expectation and understanding that they would keep it confidential,” said SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.

    “Instead, Morgan Stanley and Passi abused that trust by leaking that same information and using it to position themselves ahead of those trades. While their conduct may have earned them tens of millions of dollars on low-risk trades, it violated the federal securities laws,” Gensler said.

    Prosecutors said that the non-prosecution deal with Morgan Stanley “recognizes serious misconduct to which Morgan Stanley has admitted and was uncovered by the Government and was no voluntarily self-disclosed.”

    But prosecutors also said the agreement recognizes that the bank “provided extraordinary cooperation” with the investigation and that the probe did not find evidence of “corporate management’s complicity in or knowledge of the wrongdoing.”

    “Morgan Stanley’s controls, while ultimately unsuccessful in uncovering the misconduct, were designed in part to detect misconduct in the block trades business and were applied in good faith,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

    In a statement, Morgan Stanley said, “We are pleased to resolve these investigations and are confident in the enhancements we have made to our controls around block trading, including strengthening our policies, procedures, training and surveillance.” 

    “The core of this matter is the misconduct of two employees who violated the Firm’s policies, procedures and our core values, as outlined in the settlement documents,” the bank said.

    Passi’s lawyer George Canellos said, “We are pleased that the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed not to pursue a criminal conviction of Mr. Passi in this complex matter.  Mr. Passi served clients with skill and delivered great execution quality and prices.”

    “The settlements allow Mr. Passi and his family to move past two very difficult years of intense government scrutiny of the block trading practices on Wall Street,” Canellos said.

    — Additional reporting by CNBC’s Leslie Picker.

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  • National Association of Realtors president says she is resigning after blackmail threat

    National Association of Realtors president says she is resigning after blackmail threat

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    NAR President Tracy Kasper.

    Courtesy: NAR

    The president of the National Association of Realtors on Monday said she was resigning due to a blackmail threat that sought to “compromise” her leadership role.

    NAR President Tracy Kasper said she had notified the group’s leadership team “that she recently received a threat to disclose a past personal, non-financial matter unless she compromised her position at NAR.”

    Kasper, a married mom of seven grown children, “refused to do so and instead reported the threat to law enforcement,” NAR said in a statement.

    President-elect Kevin Sears will immediately step into the post at the group, which represents more than 1.5 million members working in the residential and commercial real estate industries.

    Kasper, 55, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

    NAR in its statement said, “The Leadership Team is deeply concerned about any attempt to undermine its governance and, as a result, is taking steps to protect the integrity of the organization.”

    Kasper’s predecessor as president, Kenny Parcell, resigned in August, two days after The New York Times published a story detailing claims he had sexually harassed women he worked with.

    NAR CEO Bob Goldberg resigned in November, months earlier than he planned to step down, after a federal jury found the group and some residential real estate brokers were liable for a conspiracy to artificially inflate brokers’ commissions from home sales. NAR was ordered to pay $1.78 billion in that case.

    In a statement Monday, Kasper said, “As president and a long-time member of NAR, I always have put the interests of NAR first.”

    “As a result of the recent threat and given the significance of this moment for myself, my family and the organization, it is again time for me to put the interests of NAR first,” said Kasper, who had a prior stint as president of the group in 2016.

    NAR declined to comment beyond its statement.

    The group’s executive committee weeks ago adopted a lifetime ban from group events on any elected NAR officer who resigned or who was removed from office, The New York Times recently reported. The ban, adopted in reaction to Parcell’s resignation, now applies to Kasper.

    Kasper is the broker-owner of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Silverhawk Realty in Boise Valley, Idaho. and the majority owner of two other real estate companies in the state, according to her NAR bio.

    A grandmother of six, she has served on NAR’s board since 2016.

    — Additional reporting by CNBC’s Diana Olick.

    Correction: Kasper is the broker-owner of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Silverhawk Realty in Boise Valley, Idaho. An earlier version misstated the location.

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  • AG wants Trump banned from New York real estate business for life, fined $370 million in fraud case

    AG wants Trump banned from New York real estate business for life, fined $370 million in fraud case

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    Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the trial of himself, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, at a Manhattan courthouse, in New York City on Oct. 3, 2023.

    Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

    The New York attorney general on Friday asked a judge to ban former President Donald Trump from the state’s real estate industry for life, ban him from serving as an officer or director of a New York corporation and for him to be fined $370 million.

    Attorney General Letitia James is also seeking a five-year ban on Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s sons, from working in New York’s real estate industry, according to a new court filing.

    The filing comes weeks after the conclusion of testimony in the civil fraud case in Manhattan Supreme Court.

    James accuses Donald Trump, his two sons and the Trump Organization of a broad scheme to misstate the true values of various real estate assets for financial benefit, including better loan terms.

    The attorney general alleges that Donald Trump falsely inflated his statements of net worth by anywhere between $812 million and $2.2 billion because of those false valuations.

    The fine James seeks includes $168 million in interest payments the former president allegedly avoided through fraud.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    Donald Trump denies the claims, and says they are politically motivated.

    Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, in a statement Friday called James’ new filing “absurd” and that it “can be described as nothing less than a form of politically motivated persecution of the leading Republican presidential candidate.”

    “My clients did nothing wrong, there were no victims and the case presented has proven that his statements were under valued,” Habba said.

    In their own filings Friday, Trump’s attorney argue that the evidence at trial does not support a finding that he intended to defraud lenders or others.

    Judge Arthur Engoron is expected to issue his ruling in the case in the coming weeks.

    This is breaking news. Check back for updates.

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  • Second set of Jeffrey Epstein court filings unsealed in New York

    Second set of Jeffrey Epstein court filings unsealed in New York

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    Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefiting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on March 15, 2005.

    Joe Schildhorn | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

    A second batch of court filings related to sex predator Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed in New York on Thursday.

    The release comes a day after the first group of more than three dozen court filings were unsealed, making public names of people associated with Epstein, a money manager who accumulated a fortune in excess of $500 million at the time of his death by suicide in 2019.

    The fact that peoples’ names appear in the files does not necessarily mean they engaged in wrongdoing.

    The new filings Thursday comprise 19 exhibits, totaling 327 pages of previously sealed court documents that were docketed in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein’s procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell. That case was settled out of court in 2017.

    Names mentioned in the new documents include Doug Band, a former aide to ex-President Bill Clinton, Yucaipa Companies co-founder Ron Burkle, the journalists Vicky Ward and Sharon Churcher, and Eva Dubin, who is the wife of billionaire Glenn Dubin.

    A spokesperson for Glenn Dubin on Wednesday told NBC News that he “strongly den[ies] these allegations” that Giuffre was direct to have sex with him, calling them unsubstantiated statements. CNBC has requested comment from Ward, Burkle, and Band.

    Churcher told CNBC she had not seen the document released Thursday, which related to Maxwell’s attempt to subpoena her because of her reporting on Giuffre. Maxwell’s lawyer had argued that Church was not acting as a journalist but as a friend to Giuffre in her dealings with her.

    “I’m a professional journalist and throughout this saga the only input I’ve had to this saga is as a journalist,” Churcher said. She added, referring to Giuffre, that “I have huge admiration for her character in this.”

    Clinton himself is mentioned in the new documents, and he was previously mentioned by name in the first tranche of filings unsealed Wednesday.

    A spokesman for Clinton, when asked for comment by NBC News, referred to a statement issued in 2019 that said he “knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”

    The same statement in 2019 said that Clinton had not spoken to Epstein “in well over a decade.”

    The documents include details from a Florida police detective of how Epstein and Maxwell recruited young women to be abused. The detective says in a filing that he learned of 30 victims of Epstein in his probe in the mid-2000s.

    Other people were mentioned by name in the context of potentially having insight into the relationship between Epstein and Maxwell. 

    Epstein killed himself in 2019, a month after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

    The British socialite Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for charges related to recruiting and grooming young women to be sexually abused by her former boyfriend Epstein.

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  • Jeffrey Epstein court files: ‘There's lots more to come,’ victim's lawyer says

    Jeffrey Epstein court files: ‘There's lots more to come,’ victim's lawyer says

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    Jeffrey Epstein attends the launch of RADAR MAGAZINE at Hotel QT on May 18, 2005.

    Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

    The lawyer for multiple victims of Jeffrey Epstein says more court documents detailing the sex predator’s actions and names of associates will be released in the coming days after the bombshell disclosure of an initial set of files.

    “This is just the beginning batch,” the attorney, Sigrid McCawley, told NBC News hours after the first tranche of 40 case files was unsealed in Manhattan federal court Wednesday night.

    The documents contained the names of Epstein associates such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of Britain, billionaire Glenn Dubin, Michael Jackson, magician David Copperfield and more people.

    “There’s a lot more to come,” McCawley said. “There’s a significant amount left for sure.”

    “And as we’ve seen, in this case, truth is stranger than fiction. So we learn more each time about how the sophisticated trafficking operation happened for so many decades and how many people were involved,” said McCawley, who represents Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre and other victims.

    “It was vast, it was significant. And it harmed literally hundreds of young women. So you’re going to start seeing more of how that happened, who knew about it and what was going on,” McCawley said.

    The court documents being unsealed are part of a case file for a lawsuit that Giuffre filed years ago against Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite who acted as a procurer of young women for Epstein, her one-time boyfriend.

    Epstein killed himself in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after being arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking underage girls.

    Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence on charges related to facilitating Epstein’s rampant sexual abuse of women.

    Read more CNBC coverage of Jeffrey Epstein cases

    Many of the names disclosed in the first set of court documents being released were previously known to have some kind of connection to Epstein and Maxwell.

    The mere presence of their names in the files does not mean they were necessarily accused of abusing women or facilitating that abuse.

    Epstein was known for years for socializing with rich and powerful businessmen, celebrities, and other high-profile people.

    Prince Andrew, nearly two years ago, reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre, who had sued him for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was under the control of Epstein and Maxwell. Andrew has denied her claim.

    In a deposition unsealed Wednesday in Giuffre’s lawsuit against Maxwell, another Epstein victim, Johanna Sjoberg, testified that during a visit to Epstein’s house in New York, Andrew put his hand on her breast, and Maxwell or Epstein put the hands of a puppet that looked like Andrew on “Virginia’s breast.”

    Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefiting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on March 15, 2005.

    Joe Schildhorn | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

    Sjoberg elsewhere in that deposition was asked about Clinton by Giuffre’s lawyer McCawley.

    “Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill Clinton?” McCawley asked.

    Sjoberg responded: “He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.”

    Clinton has never been accused of sexual misconduct with women or girls connected to Epstein.

    McCawley, in her interview Wednesday night, lauded Giuffre for her court fight with Maxwell, which led to the disclosure of the documents, and charges against Epstein and Maxwell.

    “Virginia is an incredibly strong human being she has been through so much through this journey,” McCawley said.

    “When I started with her almost 10 years ago. She was she was resilient in wanting to have truth and justice,” the lawyer said. “And I think that this is really a shining moment bringing light to this issue. And having people recognize what not only she went through, but so many other young individuals and having that justice and people acknowledge what happened is really powerful for her.”

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  • Names in Jeffrey Epstein court documents unsealed

    Names in Jeffrey Epstein court documents unsealed

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    Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend the Batman Forever/R. McDonald Event in New York City on June 13, 1995.

    Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

    New York federal court documents containing previously hidden names of people associated in some way with the late notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein began being unsealed Wednesday evening.

    Many of the more than 150 people named in the civil court filings have previously been publicly disclosed as connected in some way with Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

    The documents were filed in connection with a Manhattan federal court lawsuit by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein’s longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

    “Things should start getting unsealed today,” Edward Friedland, the district executive for that court, told CNBC.

    The fact that peoples’ names appear in the files does not necessarily mean they engaged in wrongdoing.

    Only Epstein and Maxwell have been criminally charged in connection with his longstanding abuse of girls and young women at residences in New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and elsewhere.

    Read more CNBC coverage of Jeffrey Epstein cases

    Judge Loretta Preska ordered the unsealing in mid-December.

    Preska has granted a 30-day extension barring the disclosure of two names, including a woman identified as Doe 107 to review her claim that she faces a risk of physical harm in her home country if her identity is publicly revealed.

    Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence on charges related to recruiting and grooming young women to be abused by Epstein.

    Epstein for years had socialized with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as Britain’s Prince Andrew and many other rich and powerful people.

    On Tuesday, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, during an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” said in regard to the list of names, “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel are really hoping that doesn’t come out.”

    “I’ll tell you what, if that list comes out, I definitely will be popping some sort of bottle,” Rodgers said.

    Kimmel, the host of ABC’s “The Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show, quickly fired back at Rodgers in a tweet on the social media site X, suggesting he would sue the football player if he persisted in implying Kimmel had a connection with Epstein.

    “Dear A——-: for the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list’ other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality,” Kimmel wrote in the tweet.

    “Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”

    McAfee apologized Wednesday on his show.

    This is breaking news. Check back for updates. 

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