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Tag: lawsuits and claims

  • Ex-ByteDance employee claims China had ‘supreme access’ to all data | CNN Business

    Ex-ByteDance employee claims China had ‘supreme access’ to all data | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s Communist Party had “supreme access” to all data held by TikTok’s parent company Bytedance, including on servers in the United States, a former employer who is bringing a wrongful termination lawsuit has alleged.

    The allegations in the lawsuit – which Bytedance denies and has vowed to contest – comes at a time of intense scrutiny within the US and other Western nations over what level of control, if any, Beijing is able to exert over TikTok and the social media app’s wildly popular content.

    Yintao “Roger” Yu filed a lawsuit of wrongful termination against Bytedance in Superior Court in San Francisco earlier this month. He says he worked at the company from August 2017 to November 2018, as a head of engineering for US operations.

    In a new complaint filed on Friday, Yu claimed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had a special office in the company, sometimes referred to as the “Committee,” which monitored Bytedance and “guided how it advanced core Communist values.”

    “The Committee maintained supreme access to all the company data, even data stored in the United States,” the complaint obtained by CNN read.

    Yu’s lawsuit alleges that the company made user data accessible to China’s Communist Party via a backdoor channel, no matter where the data was located.

    Yu also claimed that he had observed Bytedance being “responsive to the CCP’s requests” to share, elevate or even remove content, describing Bytedance as “useful propaganda tool” for Beijing’s leaders.

    A Bytedance spokesperson has denied Yu’s allegations, saying he worked on an app called Flipagram while at the company, which was discontinued due to business reasons.

    “We plan to vigorously oppose what we believe are baseless claims and allegations in this complaint,” the spokesperson said to CNN.

    “Mr. Yu worked for ByteDance Inc. for less than a year and his employment ended in July 2018,” which Yu disputed in his complaint.

    Earlier reporting from Yu’s lawsuit detailed how shortly after he began his job, he realized that Bytedance had for years engaged in what he called a “worldwide scheme” to steal and profit from the content of others.

    The scheme involved using software purposely unleashed to “systematically” strip user content from competitors’ websites, chiefly Instagram and Snapchat, and populate its own video services without asking for permission.

    The former employee alleged he was “troubled by ByteDance’s efforts to skirt legal and ethical lines.”

    Yu is seeking compensatory damages such as lost earnings, injunctive relief and liquidated and punitive damages.

    In a statement to CNN, a ByteDance spokesperson said the company is “committed to respecting the intellectual property of other companies, and we acquire data in accordance with industry practices and our global policy.”

    The latest allegations come as the hugely popular TikTok app is at risk of being banned by US lawmakers for national security concerns.

    The Biden administration has threatened TikTok with a nationwide ban unless its Chinese owners sell their stakes in the company, spelling out an increasingly tense relationship between the two countries. Last month, Montana became the first US state to pass legislation banning TikTok on all personal devices.

    At issue is who owns the keys to TikTok’s algorithms and the vast troves of data collected from the 150 million people in the United States who use the app each month.

    US officials have widely expressed fears the Chinese government could potentially gain access to TikTok user data through its links to its parent company and that such information could be used to benefit Chinese intelligence or propaganda campaigns.

    However, security experts say there is still no public evidence the Chinese government has actually spied on people through TikTok, which doesn’t operate in China.

    In March, TikTok’s chief executive Shou Chew testified before Congress, saying that he had “seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that [US user] data; they have never asked us, we have not provided it.”

    “Our commitment is to move their data into the United States, to be stored on American soil by an American company, overseen by American personnel. So the risk would be similar to any government going to an American company, asking for data,” Chew said at the hearing.

    China has responded to the Biden administration’s demand, saying that it would “firmly” oppose a forced sale of TikTok.

    The Chinese government considers some advanced technology, including content recommendation algorithms, to be critical to its national interest. In December, Chinese officials proposed tightening the rules that govern the sale of that technology to foreign buyers.

    A sale or divestiture of TikTok would involve the export of technology, so it would need obtain a license and approval from the Chinese government, according to a commerce ministry spokeswoman in March.

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  • OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, hit with proposed class action lawsuit alleging it stole people’s data | CNN Business

    OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, hit with proposed class action lawsuit alleging it stole people’s data | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    OpenAI, the company behind the viral ChatGPT tool, has been hit with a lawsuit alleging the company stole and misappropriated vast swaths of peoples’ data from the internet to train its AI tools.

    The proposed class action lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a California federal court, claims that OpenAI secretly scraped “massive amounts of personal data from the internet,” according to the complaint. The nearly 160-page complaint alleges that this personal data, including “essentially every piece of data exchanged on the internet it could take,” was also seized by the company without notice, consent or “just compensation.”

    Moreover, this data scraping occurred at an “unprecedented scale,” the suit claims.

    OpenAI did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment Wednesday. Microsoft, a major investor into OpenAI, was also named as a defendant in the suit and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    “By collecting previously obscure personal data of millions and misappropriating it to develop a volatile, untested technology, OpenAI put everyone in a zone of risk that is incalculable – but unacceptable by any measure of responsible data protection and use,” Timothy K. Giordano, a partner at Clarkson, the law firm behind the suit, said in a statement to CNN Wednesday.

    The complaint also claims that OpenAI products “use stolen private information, including personally identifiable information, from hundreds of millions of internet users, including children of all ages, without their informed consent or knowledge.”

    The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief in the form of a temporary freeze on further commercial use of OpenAI’s products. It also seeks payments of “data dividends” as financial compensation to people whose information was used to develop and train OpenAI’s tools.

    OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT late last year, and the tool immediately went viral for its ability to generate compelling, human-sounding responses to user prompts. The success of ChatGPT spurred an apparent AI arms race in the tech world, as companies big and small are now racing to develop and deploy AI tools into as many products as possible.

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  • Apple faces $1 billion UK lawsuit by app developers over App Store fees | CNN Business

    Apple faces $1 billion UK lawsuit by app developers over App Store fees | CNN Business

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    More than 1,500 app developers in the United Kingdom brought a £785 million ($1 billion) class action lawsuit against Apple Tuesday over its App Store fees.

    Revenues at Apple

    (AAPL)    ’s services business, which includes the App Store, have grown rapidly in the last few years and now hover around $20 billion per quarter.

    However, the commissions of 15% to 30% that the company charges some app makers for using an in-app payment system have been criticized by app developers and targeted by antitrust regulators in several countries.

    Apple has previously said that 85% of developers on the App Store do not pay any commission and that it helps European developers access markets and customers in 175 countries around the world through the App Store.

    The UK lawsuit at the Competition Appeal Tribunal is being brought by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, on behalf of 1,566 app developers.

    He is being advised by law firm Geradin Partners.

    “Apple’s charges to app developers are excessive and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhones and iPads,” Ennis said in a statement.

    “The charges are unfair in their own right and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers and also app buyers.”

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  • First on CNN: A new group of Twitter vendors is suing the company for alleged unpaid bills | CNN Business

    First on CNN: A new group of Twitter vendors is suing the company for alleged unpaid bills | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A group of Twitter vendors on Tuesday filed a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the company has failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in overdue bills.

    The four firms — captioning services company White Coat Captioning, consulting group YES Consulting and public relations firms Cancomm and Dialogue México — allege that Twitter is in breach of their contracts and has yet to pay bills ranging from around $40,000 to $140,000 for services they provided the company last year.

    Tuesday’s lawsuit, which was filed in California Northern District Court and first reported by CNN, refers to the companies suing Twitter as “small businesses without the resources, time, and money to litigate these claims on their own.”

    The lawsuit comes as new Twitter owner Elon Musk attempts to slash costs after buying the company for $44 billion, a significant amount of which came from debt financing. It also adds to the growing list of legal actions Twitter is facing from landlords, business partners and former employees claiming the company has failed to pay what they are owed since Musk’s takeover.

    Twitter is also facing lawsuits from at least one landlord claiming it has missed rent payments, a private jet company for unpaid bills for executive flights and an event production company who said Twitter failed to pay it after canceling the “Chirp Conference” it had been set to organize in November after Musk took over the company.

    The latest suit was filed by Shannon Liss-Riordan, who has also filed four proposed class action lawsuits and hundreds of arbitration demands on behalf of Twitter employees laid off following Musk’s takeover in pursuit of additional severance they allege they were promised by the company prior to Musk’s takeover. Some former workers have also alleged sex and disability discrimination and other issues, which the company has argued in court are without merit.

    Twitter has moved to dismiss many of the lawsuits in court. Twitter, which fired much of its media relations team last fall, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new lawsuit.

    “Elon Musk told Twitter vendors that, if they want to get paid, then sue,” Liss-Riordan said in a statement to CNN, referring to comments reportedly made by the Twitter owner. “Well, he’s now getting his wish. Businesses, like employees, should not have to sue to get paid what they are owed.”

    In the new lawsuit, White Coat Captioning said it provided real-time captioning services for events and classes for Twitter employees who were hard of hearing or spoke languages other than English. The company alleged that it began contacting Twitter in November about overdue and pending invoices for services rendered under a contract signed in March 2022.

    “Twitter reassured White Coat Captioning it had processed and would pay these invoices, but it never did,” the firm alleged in the complaint. In January, the firm claims that Twitter said it was conducting an “additional review” of the invoices. Twitter owes the captioning company around $42,000, according to the complaint.

    YES Consulting, which said it provided leadership training to Twitter employees per an agreement signed in March 2022, alleges that Twitter owes it approximately $49,000 for services provided between August and November last year.

    Latin American public relations firm Dialogue also alleges that Twitter has failed to pay approximately $140,000 for eight invoices for services provided in November and December of last year.

    The vendors are seeking damages in the amount each company is allegedly owed by Twitter, as well as interest.

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  • Biden administration moves ahead with Medicare drug price negotiations amid industry lawsuits | CNN Politics

    Biden administration moves ahead with Medicare drug price negotiations amid industry lawsuits | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Undeterred by a growing number of lawsuits, the Biden administration on Friday released revised guidance for Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program.

    The latest guidance outlines how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will negotiate with drugmakers to reach agreement on a maximum fair price for a selected medicine, the agency said. It was informed by public input on the initial guidance the agency released in March, which explained how it will select the drugs and how the negotiations will be conducted.

    The program, which was authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act that congressional Democrats passed last year, has prompted a fierce backlash from the pharmaceutical industry. Two drug manufacturers and two industry groups have filed lawsuits, arguing the measure is unconstitutional.

    But the administration is not backing down from implementing its historic new power. It intends to keep its timeline of announcing the first 10 drugs that will be selected for negotiation by September 1. CMS and the drugmakers will negotiate during 2023 and 2024. The prices will be effective starting in 2026.

    “The Biden-Harris Administration isn’t letting anything get in our way of delivering lower drug costs for Americans,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Pharmaceutical companies have made record profits for decades. Now they’re lining up to block this Administration’s work to negotiate for better drug prices for our families. We won’t be deterred.”

    The initial set of drugs will be chosen from the top 50 Part D drugs that are eligible for negotiation that have the highest total expenditures in Medicare. CMS will consider multiple factors when developing its initial offer, including the drugs’ clinical benefits, the price of alternatives, research and development costs and patent protection, among others.

    If drugmakers don’t comply with the process, they will have to pay an excise tax of up to 95% of the medications’ US sales or pull all their drugs from the Medicare and Medicaid markets. The pharmaceutical industry contends that the true penalty can be as high as 1,900% of sales.

    CMS said it received more than 7,500 comments on its initial guidance from patient groups, drug companies, pharmacies and others.

    The changes it is making are aimed at improving transparency while keeping confidentiality in mind, as well as fostering “an effective negotiation process,” the agency said.

    They include revising the confidentiality process to state that CMS will release information about the negotiations when it publishes the explanations of the prices. Also, drug companies may publicly discuss the negotiations – the prior secrecy requirement had been a point of contention among manufacturers that was mentioned in the lawsuits. And they won’t be required to destroy data relating to the negotiations.

    In addition, CMS will hold patient-focused listening sessions to provide drug companies and the public more opportunities to engage with the agency. The sessions – which will give patients, caregivers and others the chance to share input on how a medication addresses unmet needs, how it impacts specific populations and what therapeutic alternatives exist – will be held in the fall for the first round of drugs.

    Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, and the US Chamber of Commerce have all recently filed lawsuits in federal courts across the US. They each argue the program is unconstitutional in various ways.

    The challengers also say that the negotiation provision will harm innovation and patients’ access to new drugs.

    Among the arguments are that the program violates the Fifth Amendment’s “takings” clause because it allows Medicare to obtain manufacturers’ patented drugs, which are private property, without paying fair market value under the threat of serious penalties.

    Plus, the negotiations process violates the First Amendment, the challengers say, because it coerces manufacturers into saying that they agree to the price that the government has dictated and that it’s fair.

    Another argument is that the process violates the Eighth Amendment by levying an excessive fine if drugmakers refuse to negotiate and continue selling their products to the Medicare market.

    Merck expects its diabetes drug Januvia to be among the drugs named in September and its blockbuster cancer treatment Keytruda and diabetes drug Janumet to be subject to negotiation in the future. Bristol Myers Squibb believes its blood thinning medication, Eliquis, will be subject to negotiations this year, and its cancer medication, Opdivo, will be selected in a subsequent round.

    The changes in the revised guidance did not allay the complaints of the pharmaceutical industry. PhRMA said that transparency remains “severely limited,” patients’ views are not being taken into account and Medicare beneficiaries could have less access to drugs.

    “The very few substantive changes to the final guidance demonstrate CMS saw this as a box checking exercise, not an opportunity to mitigate the negative impacts this price setting policy will have on patients or the broader health care sector,” PhRMA said in a statement.

    “The approach CMS took in this final guidance confirms what we claimed in our lawsuit – Congress’ unconstitutional shortcuts taken in the law have given the administration far too much flexibility to set prices at their whim without any oversight or accountability to anyone,” the group continued.

    The Biden administration will “vigorously defend” the drug price negotiation program, said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.

    “We feel the law is on our side,” she said in a call with reporters Friday.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Twitter sues hate-speech watchdog, following through on its litigation threat | CNN Business

    Twitter sues hate-speech watchdog, following through on its litigation threat | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Twitter has sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit group that has criticized the company’s handling of hate speech, following through on a litigation threat that had been publicly revealed just hours before.

    The lawsuit filed Monday in San Francisco federal court accuses CCDH of deliberately trying to drive advertisers away from Twitter — recently rebranded as “X” — by publishing reports critical of the platform’s response to hateful content.

    It specifically claims CCDH violated Twitter’s terms of service, and federal hacking laws, by scraping data from the company’s platform and by encouraging an unnamed individual to improperly collect information about Twitter that it had provided to a third-party brand monitoring provider.

    The complaint accuses CCDH of engaging in a wide-ranging campaign to silence users of Twitter’s platform by calling attention to the views they post on social media.

    Responding to the complaint’s allegations on Tuesday, CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed told CNN that much of the lawsuit, particularly its claim about the unnamed individual, “sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me.”

    “The truth is that he’s [Elon Musk] been casting around for a reason to blame us for his own failings as a CEO,” Ahmed said, “because we all know that when he took over, he put up the bat signal to racists and misogynists, to homophobes, to antisemites, saying ‘Twitter is now a free-speech platform.’ … And now he’s surprised when people are able to quantify that there has been a resulting increase in hate and disinformation.”

    “All we do is hold up a mirror to the platform and ask them to consider whether or not they like the reflection they see in it,” Ahmed added. “What Mr. Musk has done is said, ‘I’m going to sue the mirror because I don’t like what I see.’”

    In the past 24 hours, Ahmed said, thousands of people have visited CCDH’s website and many have made donations to the group.

    “That’s what we’re going to need if we’re going to survive this,” he said, adding: “The reason that organizations like CCDH have to rely on methodologies like we do is because there is no transparency on these platforms.”

    The lawsuit comes after CCDH on Monday disclosed Twitter’s original July 20 threat to sue, along with its response to Twitter’s threat calling the company’s claims “ridiculous.”

    “X’s legal threat is a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research, perhaps in a desperate hope that it can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild the company’s relationship with advertisers,” Ahmed wrote in an op-ed Monday coinciding with the group’s publication of Twitter’s threat.

    In its own blog post Monday, Twitter said its lawsuit was intended to promote free expression and that it “rejects all claims made by the CCDH.”

    “X is a free public service funded largely by advertisers,” the company said. “Through the CCDH’s scare campaign and its ongoing pressure on brands to prevent the public’s access to free expression, the CCDH is actively working to prevent public dialogue.”

    The July 20 threat indicated Twitter was investigating whether CCDH could be sued for violations of federal laws against false advertising. But Monday’s complaint does not appear to include such an allegation.

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  • Donald Trump Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

    Birth date: June 14, 1946

    Birth place: New York, New York

    Birth name: Donald John Trump

    Father: Fred Trump, real estate developer

    Mother: Mary (Macleod) Trump

    Marriages: Melania (Knauss) Trump (January 22, 2005-present); Marla (Maples) Trump (December 1993-June 1999, divorced); Ivana (Zelnicek) Trump (1977-1990, divorced)

    Children: with Melania Trump: Barron, March 20, 2006; with Marla Maples: Tiffany, October 13, 1993; with Ivana Trump: Eric, 1984; Ivanka, October 30, 1981; Donald Jr., December 31, 1977

    Education: Attended Fordham University; University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance, B.S. in Economics, 1968

    As Trump evolved from real estate developer to reality television star, he turned his name into a brand. Licensed Trump products have included board games, steaks, cologne, vodka, furniture and menswear.

    He has portrayed himself in cameo appearances in movies and on television, including “Zoolander,” “Sex and the City” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

    Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” was first used by Ronald Reagan while he was running against President Jimmy Carter.

    For details on investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, visit 2016 Presidential Election Investigation Fast Facts.

    1970s – After college, works with his father on apartment complexes in Queens and Brooklyn.

    1973 – Trump and his father are named in a Justice Department lawsuit alleging Trump property managers violated the Fair Housing Act by turning away potential African American tenants. The Trumps deny the company discriminates and file a $100 million countersuit, which is later dismissed. The case is settled in 1975, and the Trumps agree to provide weekly lists of vacancies to Black community organizations.

    1976 – Trump and his father partner with the Hyatt Corporation, purchasing the Commodore Hotel, an aging midtown Manhattan property. The building is revamped and opens four years later as the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The project kickstarts Trump’s career as a Manhattan developer.

    1983-1990 – He builds/purchases multiple properties in New York City, including Trump Tower and the Plaza Hotel, and also opens casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, including the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Plaza. Trump buys the New Jersey Generals football team, part of the United States Football League, which folds after three seasons.

    1985 – Purchases Mar-a-Lago, an oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida. It is renovated and opens as a private club in 1995.

    1987 – Trump’s first book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” is published, and becomes a bestseller. The Donald J. Trump Foundation is established in order to donate a portion of profits from book sales to charities.

    1990 – Nearly $1 billion in personal debt, Trump reaches an agreement with bankers allowing him to avoid declaring personal bankruptcy.

    1991 – The Trump Taj Mahal files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

    1992 – The Trump Plaza and the Trump Castle casinos file for bankruptcy.

    1996 – Buys out and becomes executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants.

    October 7, 1999 – Tells CNN’s Larry King that he is going to form a presidential exploratory committee and wants to challenge Pat Buchanan for the Reform Party nomination.

    February 14, 2000 – Says that he is abandoning his bid for the presidency, blaming discord within the Reform Party.

    January 2004 – “The Apprentice,” a reality show featuring aspiring entrepreneurs competing for Trump’s approval, premieres on NBC.

    November 21, 2004 – Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

    2005 – Establishes Trump University, which offers seminars in real estate investment.

    February 13, 2009 – Announces his resignation from his position as chairman of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Days later, the company files for bankruptcy protection.

    March 17, 2011 – During an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trump questions whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

    June 16, 2015 – Announces that he is running for president during a speech at Trump Tower. He pledges to implement policies that will boost the economy and says he will get tough on immigration. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…They’re sending people who have lots of problems,” Trump says. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

    June 28, 2015 – Says he’s giving up the TV show “The Apprentice” to run for president.

    June 29, 2015 – NBCUniversal says it is cutting its business ties to Trump and won’t air the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants because of “derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants.”

    July 8, 2015 – In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Trump says he “can’t guarantee” all of his employees have legal status in the United States. This is in response to questions about a Washington Post report about undocumented immigrants working at the Old Post Office construction site in Washington, DC, which Trump is converting into a hotel.

    July 22, 2015 – Trump’s financial disclosure report is made public by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

    August 6, 2015 – During the first 2016 Republican debate, Trump is questioned about a third party candidacy, his attitude towards women and his history of donating money to Democratic politicians. He tells moderator Megyn Kelly of Fox News he feels he is being mistreated. The following day, Trump tells CNN’s Don Lemon that Kelly was singling him out for attack, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

    September 11, 2015 – Trump announces he has purchased NBC’s half of the Miss Universe Organization, which organizes the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.

    December 7, 2015 – Trump’s campaign puts out a press release calling for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

    May 26, 2016 – Secures enough delegates to clinch the Republican Party nomination.

    July 16, 2016 – Introduces Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.

    July 19, 2016 – Becomes the Republican Party nominee for president.

    September 13, 2016 – During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says his office is investigating Trump’s charitable foundation “to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York.”

    October 1, 2016 – The New York Times reports Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995 which could have allowed him to legally skip paying federal income taxes for years. The report is based on a financial document mailed to the newspaper by an anonymous source.

    October 7, 2016 – Unaired footage from 2005 surfaces of Trump talking about trying to have sex with a married woman and being able to grope women. In footage obtained by The Washington Post, Trump is heard off-camera discussing women in vulgar terms during the taping of a segment for “Access Hollywood.” In a taped response, Trump declares, “I said it, I was wrong and I apologize.”

    October 9, 2016 – During the second presidential debate, CNN’s Cooper asks Trump about his descriptions of groping and kissing women without their consent in the “Access Hollywood” footage. Trump denies that he has ever engaged in such behavior and declares the comments were “locker room talk.” After the debate, 11 women step forward to claim that they were sexually harassed or sexually assaulted by the real estate developer. Trump says the stories aren’t true.

    November 8, 2016 – Elected president of the United States. Trump will be the first president who has never held elected office, a top government post or a military rank.

    November 18, 2016 – Trump agrees to pay $25 million to settle three lawsuits against Trump University. About 6,000 former students are covered by the settlement.

    December 24, 2016 – Trump says he will dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation “to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President.” A spokeswoman for the New York Attorney General’s Office says that the foundation cannot legally close until investigators conclude their probe of the charity.

    January 10, 2017 – CNN reports that intelligence officials briefed Trump on a dossier that contains allegations about his campaign’s ties to Russia and unverified claims about his personal life. The author of the dossier is a former British spy who was hired by a research firm that had been funded by both political parties to conduct opposition research on Trump.

    January 20, 2017 – Takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts during an inauguration ceremony at the Capitol.

    January 23, 2017 – Trump signs an executive action withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration and awaiting congressional approval.

    January 27, 2017 – Trump signs an executive order halting all refugee arrivals for 120 days and banning travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. Additionally, refugees from Syria are barred indefinitely from entering the United States. The order is challenged in court.

    February 13, 2017 – Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigns amid accusations he lied about his communications with Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn later pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.

    May 3, 2017 – FBI Director James Comey confirms that there is an ongoing investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during a hearing on Capitol Hill. Less than a week later, Trump fires Comey, citing a DOJ memo critical of the way he handled the investigation into Clinton’s emails.

    May 2017 – Shortly after Trump fires Comey, the FBI opens an investigation into whether Trump “had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests,” citing former law enforcement officials and others the paper said were familiar with the probe.

    May 17, 2017 – Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed as special counsel to lead the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including potential collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein makes the appointment because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from investigations into Trump’s campaign.

    May 19, 2017 – Departs on his first foreign trip as president. The nine-day, five-country trip includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, a NATO summit in Brussels and a G7 summit in Sicily.

    June 1, 2017 – Trump proclaims that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord but adds that he is open to renegotiating aspects of the environmental agreement, which was signed by 175 countries in 2016.

    July 7, 2017 – Meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in person for the first time, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

    August 8, 2017 – In response to nuclear threats from North Korea, Trump warns that Pyongyang will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Soon after Trump’s comments, North Korea issues a statement saying it is “examining the operational plan” to strike areas around the US territory of Guam.

    August 15, 2017 – After a violent clash between neo-Nazi activists and counterprotesters leaves one dead in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump holds an impromptu press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower and declares that there were “fine people” on both sides.

    August 25, 2017 – Trump’s first pardon is granted to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for disregarding a court order in a racial-profiling case. Trump did not consult with lawyers at the Justice Department before announcing his decision.

    September 5, 2017 – The Trump administration announces that it is ending the DACA program, introduced by Obama to protect nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Trump calls on Congress to introduce legislation that will prevent DACA recipients from being deported. Multiple lawsuits are filed opposing the policy in federal courts and judges delay the end of the program, asking the government to submit filings justifying the cancellation of DACA.

    September 19, 2017 – In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump refers to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and warns that the United States will “totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies.

    September 24, 2017 – The Trump administration unveils a third version of the travel ban, placing restrictions on travel by certain foreigners from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. (Chad is later removed after meeting security requirements.) One day before the revised ban is set to take effect, it is blocked nationwide by a federal judge in Hawaii. A judge in Maryland issues a similar ruling.

    December 4, 2017 – The Supreme Court rules that the revised travel ban can take effect pending appeals.

    December 6, 2017 – Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announces plans to relocate the US Embassy there.

    January 11, 2018 – During a White House meeting on immigration reform, Trump reportedly refers to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”

    January 12, 2018 – The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump allegedly had an affair with a porn star named Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. The newspaper states that Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 payment for a nondisclosure agreement weeks before Election Day in 2016. Trump denies the affair occurred. In March, Clifford sues Trump seeking to be released from the NDA. In response, Trump and his legal team agree outside of court not to sue or otherwise enforce the NDA. The suit is dismissed. A California Superior Court judge orders Trump to pay $44,100 to Clifford, to reimburse her attorneys’ fees in the legal battle surrounding her nondisclosure agreement.

    March 13, 2018 – Trump announces in a tweet that he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement.

    March 20, 2018 – A New York Supreme Court judge rules that a defamation lawsuit against Trump can move forward, ruling against a July 2017 motion to dismiss filed by Trump’s lawyers. The lawsuit, filed by Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant, is related to sexual assault allegations. In November 2021, attorneys for Zervos announce she is dropping the lawsuit.

    March 23, 2018 – The White House announces that it is adopting a policy, first proposed by Trump via tweet in July 2017, banning most transgender individuals from serving in the military.

    April 9, 2018 – The FBI raids Cohen’s office, home and a hotel room where he’d been staying while his house was renovated. The raid is related to a federal investigation of possible fraud and campaign finance violations.

    April 13, 2018 – Trump authorizes joint military strikes in Syria with the UK and France after reports the government used chemical weapons on civilians in Douma.

    May 7, 2018 – The Trump administration announces a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossings. Sessions says that individuals who violate immigration law will be criminally prosecuted and warns that parents could be separated from children.

    May 8, 2018 – Trump announces that the United States is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

    May 31, 2018 – The Trump administration announces it is imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from allies Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

    June 8-9, 2018 – Before leaving for the G7 summit in Quebec City, Trump tells reporters that Russia should be reinstated in the group. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 led to Russia’s suspension. After leaving the summit, Trump tweets that he will not endorse the traditional G7 communique issued at the end of the meeting. The President singles out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for making “false statements” at a news conference.

    June 12, 2018 – Trump meets Kim in person for the first time during a summit in Singapore. They sign a four-point statement that broadly outlines the countries’ commitment to a peace process. The statement contains a pledge by North Korea to “work towards” complete denuclearization but the agreement does not detail how the international community will verify that Kim is ending his nuclear program.

    June 14, 2018 – The New York attorney general sues the Trump Foundation, alleging that the nonprofit run by Trump and his three eldest children violated state and federal charity law.

    June 26, 2018 – The Supreme Court upholds the Trump administration’s travel ban in a 5-4 ruling along party lines.

    July 16, 2018 – During a joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump declines to endorse the US government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the election, saying he doesn’t “see any reason why” Russia would be responsible. The next day, Trump clarifies his remark, “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.” He says he accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the election but adds, “It could be other people also.”

    August 21, 2018 – Cohen pleads guilty to eight federal charges, including two campaign finance violations. In court, he says that he orchestrated payments to silence women “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.” On the same day, Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort is convicted on eight counts of federal financial crimes. On December 12, Cohen is sentenced to three years in prison.

    October 2, 2018 – The New York Times details numerous tax avoidance schemes allegedly carried out by Trump and his siblings. In a tweet, Trump dismisses the article as a “very old, boring and often told hit piece.”

    November 20, 2018 – Releases a statement backing Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Virginia resident, killed in October at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. Khashoggi was a frequent critic of the Saudi regime. The Saudis initially denied any knowledge of his death, but then later said a group of rogue operators were responsible for his killing. US officials have speculated that such a mission, including the 15 men sent from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to murder him, could not have been carried out without the authorization of Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In the statement, Trump writes, “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event, maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”

    December 18, 2018 – The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve according to a document filed in Manhattan Supreme Court. The agreement allows the New York attorney general’s office to review the recipients of the charity’s assets.

    December 22, 2018 – The longest partial government shutdown in US history begins after Trump demands lawmakers allocate $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall before agreeing to sign a federal funding package.

    January 16, 2019 – After nearly two years of Trump administration officials denying that anyone involved in his campaign colluded with the Russians to help his candidacy, Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani, says “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign. I said the President of the United States.”

    January 25, 2019 – The government shutdown ends when Trump signs a short-term spending measure, providing three weeks of stopgap funding while lawmakers work on a border security compromise. The bill does not include any wall funding.

    February 15, 2019 – Trump declares a national emergency to allocate funds to build a wall on the border with Mexico. During the announcement, the President says he expects the declaration to be challenged in court. The same day, Trump signs a border security measure negotiated by Congress, with $1.375 billion set aside for barriers, averting another government shutdown.

    February 18, 2019 – Attorneys general from 16 states file a lawsuit in federal court challenging Trump’s emergency declaration.

    March 22, 2019 – Mueller ends his investigation and delivers his report to Attorney General William Barr. A senior Justice Department official tells CNN that there will be no further indictments.

    March 24, 2019 – Barr releases a letter summarizing the principal conclusions from Mueller’s investigation. According to Barr’s four-page letter, the evidence was not sufficient to establish that members Trump’s campaign tacitly engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the election.

    April 18, 2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller report is released. The first part of the 448-page document details the evidence gathered by Mueller’s team on potential conspiracy crimes and explains their decisions not to charge individuals associated with the campaign. The second part of the report outlines ten episodes involving possible obstruction of justice by the President. According to the report, Mueller’s decision not to charge Trump was rooted in Justice Department guidelines prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president. Mueller writes that he would have cleared Trump if the evidence warranted exoneration.

    May 1, 2019 – The New York Times publishes a report that details how Giuliani, in his role as Trump’s personal attorney, is investigating allegations related to former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Trump opponent in the 2020 presidential race. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings. In 2016, the elder Biden pressured Ukraine to oust a prosecutor who had investigated Burisma for corruption. Giuliani suggests that Biden’s move was motivated by a desire to protect his son from criminal charges. Giuliani’s claims are undermined after Bloomberg reports that the Burisma investigation was “dormant” when Biden pressed the prosecutor to resign.

    June 12, 2019 – Trump says he may be willing to accept information about political rivals from a foreign government during an interview on ABC News, declaring that he’s willing to listen and wouldn’t necessarily call the FBI.

    June 16, 2019 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveils a sign at the proposed site of a Golan Heights settlement to be named Trump Heights.

    June 18, 2019 – Trump holds a rally in Orlando to publicize the formal launch of his reelection campaign.

    June 28, 2019 – During a breakfast meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman reportedly discuss tensions with Iran, trade and human rights.

    June 30, 2019 – Trump becomes the first sitting US president to enter North Korea. He takes 20 steps beyond the border and shakes hands with Kim.

    July 14, 2019 – Via Twitter, Trump tells Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Illhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley to “go back” to their home countries. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley are natural-born US citizens; Omar was born in Somalia, immigrated to the United States and became a citizen.

    July 16, 2019 – The House votes, 240-187, to condemn the racist language Trump used in his tweets about Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar and Pressley.

    July 24, 2019 – Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

    July 25, 2019 – Trump speaks on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump asks Zelensky for a “favor,” encouraging him to speak with Giuliani about investigating Biden. In the days before the call, Trump blocked nearly $400 million in military and security aid to Ukraine.

    August 12, 2019 – A whistleblower files a complaint pertaining to Trump’s conduct on the Zelensky call.

    September 11, 2019 – The Trump administration lifts its hold on military aid for Ukraine.

    September 24, 2019 – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the beginning of an impeachment inquiry related to the whistleblower complaint.

    September 25, 2019 – The White House releases notes from the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky. The readout contains multiple references to Giuliani and Barr. In response, the Justice Department issues a statement that says Barr didn’t know about Trump’s conversation until weeks after the call. Further, the attorney general didn’t talk to the President about having Ukraine investigate the Bidens, according to the Justice Department. On the same day as the notes are released, Trump and Zelensky meet in person for the first time on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. During a joint press conference after the meeting, both men deny that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden in exchange for aid.

    September 26, 2019 – The House releases a declassified version of the whistleblower complaint. According to the complaint, officials at the White House tried to “lock down” records of Trump’s phone conversation with Zelensky. The complaint also alleges that Barr played a role in the campaign to convince Zelensky that Biden should be investigated. Trump describes the complaint as “fake news” and “a witch hunt” on Twitter.

    September 27, 2019 – Pompeo is subpoenaed by House committees over his failure to provide documents related to Ukraine. Kurt Volker, US special envoy to Ukraine, resigns. He was named in the whistleblower complaint as one of the State Department officials who helped Giuliani connect with sources in Ukraine.

    October 3, 2019 – Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump says both Ukraine and China should investigate alleged corruption involving Biden and his son. CNN reports that the President had brought up Biden and his family during a June phone call with Xi Jinping. In that call, Trump discussed the political prospects of Biden as well as Elizabeth Warren. He also told Xi that he would remain quiet on the matter of Hong Kong protests. Notes documenting the conversation were placed on a highly secured server where the transcript from the Ukraine call was also stored.

    October 6, 2019 – After Trump speaks on the phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the White House announces that US troops will move out of northern Syria to make way for a planned Turkish military operation. The move marks a major shift in American foreign policy and effectively gives Turkey the green light to attack US-backed Kurdish forces, a partner in the fight against ISIS.

    October 9, 2019 – Turkey launches a military offensive in northern Syria.

    October 31, 2019 – Trump says via Twitter that he is changing his legal residency from New York to Florida, explaining that he feels he is treated badly by political leaders from the city and state.

    November 7, 2019 – A judge orders Trump to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit against his charity filed by the New York state attorney general. According to the suit, Trump breached his fiduciary duty by allowing his presidential campaign to direct the distribution of donations. In a statement, Trump accuses the attorney general of mischaracterizing the settlement for political purposes.

    November 13, 2019 – Public impeachment hearings begin and Trump meets Erdogan at the White House.

    November 20, 2019 – During a public hearing, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland says he worked with Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine at the “express direction of the President of the United States” and he says “everyone was in the loop.” Sondland recounts several conversations between himself and Trump about Ukraine opening two investigations: one into Burisma and another into conspiracies about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 US election.

    December 10, 2019 – House Democrats unveil two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress.

    December 11, 2019 – Trump signs an executive order to include discrimination against Jewish people as a violation of law in certain cases, with an eye toward fighting antisemitism on college campuses.

    December 13, 2019 – The House Judiciary Committee approves the two articles of impeachment in a party line vote.

    December 18, 2019 – The House of Representatives votes to impeach Trump, charging a president with high crimes and misdemeanors for just the third time in American history.

    January 3, 2020 – Speaking at Mar-a-Lago, Trump announces that a US airstrike in Iraq has killed Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force.

    January 8, 2020 – Iran fires a number of missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops in retaliation for the American strike that killed Soleimani. No US or Iraqi lives are reported lost, but the Pentagon later releases a statement confirming that 109 US service members had been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries in the wake of the attack.

    January 24, 2020 – Makes history as the first President to attend the annual March for Life rally in Washington, DC, since it began nearly a half-century ago. Trump reiterates his support for tighter abortion restrictions.

    January 29, 2020 – Trump signs the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement into law, which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement.

    January 31, 2020 – The Trump administration announces an expansion of the travel ban to include six new countries. Immigration restrictions will be imposed on: Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar (known as Burma), with exceptions for immigrants who have helped the United States.

    February 5, 2020 – The Senate votes to acquit Trump on two articles of impeachment. Sen. Mitt Romney is the sole Republican to vote to convict on the charge of abuse of power, joining with all Senate Democrats in a 52-48 not guilty vote. On the obstruction of Congress charge, the vote falls along straight party lines, 53-47 for acquittal.

    May 29, 2020 – Trump announces that the United States will terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization.

    July 10, 2020 – Trump commutes the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone, who was convicted of crimes that included lying to Congress in part, prosecutors said, to protect the President. The announcement came just days before Stone was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia.

    October 2, 2020 – Trump announces that he has tested positive for coronavirus. Later in the day, Trump is transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and returns to the White House on October 5.

    November 7, 2020 – Days after the presidential election on November 3, CNN projects Trump loses his bid for reelection to Biden.

    November 25, 2020 – Trump announces in a tweet that he has granted Michael Flynn a “full pardon,” wiping away the guilty plea of the intelligence official for lying to the FBI.

    December 23, 2020 – Announces 26 new pardons, including for Stone, Manafort and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles.

    January 6, 2021 – Following Trump’s rally and speech at the White House Ellipse, pro-Trump rioters storm the US Capitol as members of Congress meet to certify the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election. A total of five people die, including a Capitol Police officer the next day.

    January 7-8, 2021 – Instagram and Facebook place a ban on Trump’s account from posting through the remainder of his presidency and perhaps “indefinitely.” Twitter permanently bans Trump from the platform, explaining that “after close review of recent Tweets…and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

    January 13, 2021 – The House votes to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” He is the only president to be impeached twice.

    January 20, 2021 – Trump issues a total of 143 pardons and commutations that include his onetime political strategist, Steve Bannon, a former top fundraiser and two well-known rappers but not himself or his family. He then receives a military-style send-off from Joint Base Andrews on Inauguration morning, before heading home to Florida.

    February 13, 2021 – The US Senate acquits Trump in his second impeachment trial, voting that Trump is not guilty of inciting the deadly January 6 riots at the US Capitol. The vote is 43 not guilty to 57 guilty, short of the 67 guilty votes needed to convict.

    May 5, 2021 – Facebook’s Oversight Board upholds Trump’s suspension from using its platform. The decision also applies to Facebook-owned Instagram.

    June 4, 2021 – Facebook announces Trump will be suspended from its platform until at least January 7th, 2023 – two years from when he was initially suspended.

    July 1, 2021 – New York prosecutors charge the Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corporation with 10 felony counts and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg with 15 felony counts in connection with an alleged tax scheme stretching back to 2005. Trump himself is not charged. On December 6, 2022, both companies are found guilty on all charges.

    February 14, 2022 – Accounting firm Mazars announces it will no longer act as Trump’s accountant, citing a conflict of interest. In a letter to the Trump Organization chief legal officer, the firm informs the Trump Organization to no longer rely on financial statements ending June 2011 through June 2020.

    May 3, 2022 – The Trump Organization and the Presidential Inaugural Committee agree to pay a total of $750,000 to settle with the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office over allegations they misspent money raised for former President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

    June 9-July 21, 2022 – The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol holds eight hearings, where it hears from witnesses including top ex-Trump officials, election workers, those who took part in the attack and many others. Through live testimony, video depositions, and never-before-seen material, the committee attempts to paint the picture of the former president’s plan to stay in power and the role he played on January 6.

    August 8, 2022 – The FBI executes a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been brought there.

    August 12, 2022 – A federal judge unseals the search warrant and property receipt from the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. The unsealed documents indicate the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from its search, including some materials marked as “top secret/SCI” – one of the highest levels of classification, and identify three federal crimes that the Justice Department is looking at as part of its investigation: violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records.

    September 21, 2022 – The New York state attorney general files a lawsuit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former President used to enrich himself. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals.

    October 3, 2022 – Trump files a lawsuit against CNN for defamation, seeking $475 million in punitive damages.

    November 15, 2022 – Announces that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

    November 19, 2022 – Trump’s Twitter account, which was banned following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, is reinstated after users respond to an online poll posted by Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk.

    December 19, 2022 – The Jan. 6 insurrection committee votes to refer Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges. Four days later the panel releases its final report recommending Trump be barred from holding office again.

    February 9, 2023 – Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts are restored following a two-year ban in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, a Meta spokesperson confirms to CNN. On March 17, 2023, YouTube restores Trump’s channel.

    March 30, 2023 – A grand jury in New York votes to indict Trump, the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.

    April 4, 2023 – Surrenders and is placed under arrest before pleading not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court. Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs. Hours after his arraignment, Trump rails against the Manhattan district attorney and the indictment during a speech at his Florida resort at Mar-a-Lago.

    May 9, 2023 – A Manhattan federal jury finds Trump sexually abused former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and awards her $5 million for battery and defamation.

    May 15, 2023 – A report by special counsel John Durham is released. In it he concludes that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. The report does not recommend any new charges against individuals or “wholesale changes” about how the FBI handles politically charged investigations, despite strongly criticizing the agency’s behavior.

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  • Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit | CNN Politics

    Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Members of the right-wing extremist group, the Proud Boys, have been ordered to pay more than a million dollars as part of a civil suit judgment involving the destruction of property in December 2020 at the predominantly Black campus of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.

    DC Superior Court Judge Neal E. Kravitz approved Friday’s default judgment against Proud Boys members Joseph R. Biggs, Enrique Tarrio, Jeremy Bertino and John Turano, as well as the group’s limited liability corporation.

    In a blistering order, Kravitz described the “highly orchestrated” and “hateful and overtly racist conduct” from members of the Proud Boys during the “attack” on the Metropolitan AME church, in which a Black Lives Matter sign owned by the church was allegedly destroyed.

    CNN has reached out to attorneys for Tarrio and Biggs for comment on the judgment, and is attempting to locate attorney information for the other named defendants.

    A request for comment on the judgment has also been made to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

    According to Kravitz’s order, on December 12, 2020, several people in Proud Boys regalia “leaped over Metropolitan AME’s fence, entered the church’s property, and went directly to the Black Lives Matter sign. They then broke the zip ties that held the sign in place, tore down the sign, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it while loudly celebrating. Many others then jumped over the fence onto the church’s property and joined in the celebration of the sign’s destruction.”

    Describing the target of the attack, Kravitz wrote, “For generations, the leaders of Metropolitan AME and the members of its congregation have vocally and publicly supported movements for civil rights and racial justice,” adding, “Church leaders and congregants view supporting the Black Lives Matter movement as a continuation of the church’s mission of advocacy for civil rights and racial justice.”

    In his rebuke of the Proud Boys, the judge wrote that the group has “incited and committed acts of violence against members of Black and African American communities across the country. They also have victimized women, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, and other historically marginalized people.”

    The church sought compensatory damages as part of the civil suit, in part to repair the sign and increase security in the wake of the attack and due to “ongoing threats,” the order said.

    “The ultimate goal of this lawsuit was not monetary windfall, but to stop the Proud Boys from being able to act with impunity, without fear of consequences for their actions,” the plaintiff’s co-counsel, Arthur Ago, said in a statement after the judgment. “And that’s exactly what we accomplished.”

    In July 2021, Tarrio, the group’s leader, pleaded guilty to property destruction in a criminal case involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner at a different, predominately Black church in Washington, and also pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a high-capacity magazine, a violation of local gun control laws. He was later sentenced to more than five months in jail for those crimes.

    In May, Tarrio and Biggs were also among a group of four Proud Boys members found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a jury in Washington for their roles in attempting to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

    This headline has been updated.

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  • TikTok sues Montana over new law banning the app | CNN Business

    TikTok sues Montana over new law banning the app | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    TikTok on Monday filed a suit against Montana over a bill that would ban the popular short-form video app in the state starting early next year.

    TikTok alleges that the ban violates the US Constitution, including the First Amendment, as well as other federal laws, according to a complaint filed in Montana District Court. The company also claims concerns that the Chinese government could access the data of US TikTok users – which are a key motivation behind the ban – are “unfounded.”

    The bill was signed by Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte last week, and would impose a fine of $10,000 per day on TikTok or app stores for making the app available to personal devices in the state starting on January 1, 2024.

    “We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts.”

    Emily Flower, a spokesperson for Montana’s Attorney General, told CNN: “We expected a legal challenge and are fully prepared to defend the law.”

    The Montana law stems from growing criticism of TikTok over its ties to China through its parent company, ByteDance. Many US officials have expressed fears that the Chinese government could potentially access US data via TikTok for spying purposes, though there is no evidence that the Chinese government has ever done so. Some federal lawmakers have also called for a ban.

    Montana’s ban went a step beyond other states that have restricted TikTok from government devices. But legal and technology experts say there are challenges for Montana, or any state, to enforce such a ban. Even if the law is allowed to stand, the practicalities of the internet may make it impossible to keep TikTok out of the hands of users.

    TikTok said in the complaint that the app is used by “hundreds of thousands” of people in Montana to “communicate with each other and others around the world on an endless variety of topics, from business to politics to the arts.”

    “This unprecedented and extreme step of banning a major platform for First Amendment speech, based on unfounded speculation about potential foreign government access to user data and the content of the speech, is flatly inconsistent with the constitution,” TikTok said in the complaint.

    TikTok is seeking for the court to invalidate and permanently enjoin Montana from enforcing the ban.

    The legal challenge by TikTok is an indicator of the hurdles that Montana and other lawmakers could face in attempting to restrict the platform in the United States. A group of TikTok creators also sued Montana last week over the state’s ban, saying it violates their First Amendment rights.

    – CNN’s Brian Fung contributed to this report.

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  • Federal judge blocks Biden administration officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Business

    Federal judge blocks Biden administration officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge on Tuesday ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, handing a win to GOP states in a lawsuit accusing the government of going too far in its effort to combat Covid-19 disinformation.

    In a preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty, the judge ordered a slew of federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected free speech” that’s posted on the platforms.

    The injunction notes that the government can still communicate with the companies as part of efforts to curb illegal activity and address national security threats.

    The order applies to agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Justice Department and FBI as well as officials such as US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

    The agencies and officials, Doughty said, are prohibited from “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

    Doughty, a Donald Trump appointee, noted in the lawsuit that social media companies “include Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok,” as well as a number of other online platforms.

    CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

    Meta declined to comment. CNN also reached out to Twitter, Google and TikTok for comment.

    The lawsuit brought by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general in 2022 represents a novel way to pursue “censorship” claims accusing the Biden administration of effectively silencing conservatives by leaning on the private social media companies.

    Though Doughty hasn’t yet ruled on the merits of the two states’ claims, his order Tuesday represents their most significant victory yet in the ongoing lawsuit. The judge had previously ordered the administration to produce documents identifying government officials and the nature of their communications with social media platforms.

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  • E. Jean Carroll asks judge to amend lawsuit to seek further damages for what Trump said at CNN town hall | CNN Politics

    E. Jean Carroll asks judge to amend lawsuit to seek further damages for what Trump said at CNN town hall | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    E. Jean Carroll has asked a judge to amend her initial defamation case against former President Donald Trump to seek additional punitive damages after he repeated his statements at a CNN town hall.

    The request was made in a letter to the judge seeking clarity on the initial lawsuit following a civil jury verdict earlier this month finding Trump sexually abused Carroll and awarding her $5 million.

    Carroll’s attorneys said Trump’s defamatory statements repeated during the town hall earlier this month go directly to the issue of punitive damages, which are intended to punish the person found liable.

    Carroll’s initial lawsuit was held up on appeal and relates to statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president. The trial involved a statement Trump made in 2022.

    An appeals court sent the initial lawsuit back to the lower court judge just before the trial. It is up to the judge to determine whether it moves forward.

    Carroll has alleged that the former president raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book.

    Trump denied all claims brought against him by Carroll and appealed the jury’s judgment.

    While the jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, the jury did not find that she proved he raped her.

    Trump was quick to jump on this aspect of the jury’s verdict at a CNN town hall hosted in New Hampshire the day after the jury came to its decision, saying “They said, ‘He didn’t rape her.’ And I didn’t do anything else either.”

    “I have no idea who this woman – this is a fake story, made up story,” Trump said, calling Carroll a “whack job” and going on a tangent about her ex-husband and pet cat.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Australian firm sues Twitter for $665,000 for not paying bills | CNN Business

    Australian firm sues Twitter for $665,000 for not paying bills | CNN Business

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    Sydney
    Reuters
     — 

    An Australian project management firm has filed a lawsuit against Twitter in a US court seeking cumulative payments of about A$1 million ($665,000) over alleged non-payment of bills for work done in four countries, court filings showed.

    Sydney-based private company Facilitate Corp on June 29 filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District Of California claiming breach of contract over Twitter’s failure to pay its invoices.

    The Australian firm’s lawsuit is the latest alleging non-payment of bills and rent against Twitter

    (TWTR)     since Elon Musk bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.

    Facilitate said from 2022 through early 2023, it installed sensors in Twitter’s offices in London and Dublin, completed an office fit-out in Singapore and cleared an office in Sydney.

    For those works, Twitter owed the company about 203,000 pounds ($257,000), S$546,600 ($404,000) and A$61,300 ($40,700), respectively, Facilitate said.

    Twitter, also known as X Corp, no longer has a media relations office. Reuters could not immediately reach Twitter’s Australia office.

    Facilitate said it was seeking compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial, legal costs and interest at the maximum legal rate.

    In May, a former public relations firm filed a suit in a New York court saying Twitter had not paid its bills, while early this year, US-based advisory firm Innisfree M&A sued it, seeking about $1.9 million for what it said were unpaid bills after it advised Twitter on its acquisition by Musk.

    Britain’s Crown Estate, an independent commercial business that manages the property portfolio belonging to the monarchy, in January began court proceedings over alleged unpaid rent on Twitter’s London headquarters.

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  • Timeline: The special counsel inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified documents | CNN Politics

    Timeline: The special counsel inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified documents | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The federal criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents escalated in stunning fashion this week with Trump’s indictment.

    The indictment hasn’t been unsealed yet, so details of the charges aren’t publicly available. But the investigation – led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith – revolves around sensitive government papers that Trump held onto after his White House term ended in January 2021. The special counsel has also examined whether Trump or his aides obstructed the investigation.

    Federal authorities have recovered more than 325 classified documents from Trump. He has voluntarily given back some materials, his lawyers turned over additional files after a subpoena, and the FBI found dozens of classified records during a court-approved search of his Mar-a-Lago home last summer.

    Trump has denied all wrongdoing and claims the investigation is a politically motivated sham, intended to derail his ongoing campaign to win the Republican 2024 nomination and return to the White House.

    Here’s a timeline of the important developments in the blockbuster investigation.

    An official from the National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team after realizing that several important documents weren’t handed over before Trump left the White House. In hopes of locating the missing items, NARA lawyer Gary Stern reaches out to someone who served in the White House counsel’s office under Trump, who was the point of contact for recordkeeping matters. The missing documents include some of Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as the map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump infamously altered with a sharpie pen.

    In a taped conversation, Trump acknowledges that he still has a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack against Iran, according to CNN reporting. The recording, which was made at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey, indicates that Trump understood that he retained classified material after leaving the White House. The special counsel later obtained this audiotape, a key piece of evidence in his inquiry.

    NARA grows frustrated with the slow pace of document turnover after several months of conversations with the Trump team. Stern reaches out to another Trump attorney to intervene. The archivist asks about several boxes of records that were apparently taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s relocation to Florida. NARA still doesn’t receive the White House documents they are searching for.

    After months of discussions with Trump’s team, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump White House records from Mar-a-Lago. The boxes contained some materials that were part of “special access programs,” known as SAP, which is a classification that includes protocols to significantly limit who would have access to the information. NARA says in a statement that some of the records it received at the end of Trump’s administration were “torn up by former President Trump,” and that White House officials had to tape them back together. Not all the torn-up documents were reconstructed, NARA says.

    NARA asks the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records and whether he violated the Presidential Records Act and other laws related to classified information. The Presidential Records Act requires all records created by a sitting president to be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administration.

    NARA informs the Justice Department that some of the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago included classified material. NARA also tells the department that, despite being warned it was illegal, Trump occasionally tore up government documents while he was president.

    On April 7, NARA publicly acknowledges for the first time that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Around this time, FBI agents quietly interview Trump aides at Mar-a-Lago about the handling of presidential records as part of their widening investigation.

    The FBI asks NARA for access to the 15 boxes it retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January. The request was formally transmitted to NARA by President Joe Biden’s White House Counsel’s office, because the incumbent president controls presidential documents in NARA custody.

    The Justice Department sends a letter to Trump’s lawyers as part of its effort to access the 15 boxes, notifying them that more than 100 classified documents, totaling more than 700 pages, were found in the boxes. The letter says the FBI and US intelligence agencies need “immediate access” to these materials because of “important national security interests.” Also on this day, Trump lawyers ask NARA to delay its plans to give the FBI access to these materials. Trump’s lawyers say they want time to examine the materials to see if anything is privileged, and that they are making a “protective assertion of executive privilege” over all the documents.

    Trump’s lawyers write again to NARA, and ask again that NARA postpone its plans to give the FBI access to the materials retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

    Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist of the United States, who runs NARA, informs Trump’s lawyers that she is rejecting their claims of “protective” executive privilege over all the materials taken from Mar-a-Lago and will therefore turn over the materials to the FBI and US intelligence agencies, in a four-page letter.

    The Justice Department subpoenas Trump, demanding all documents with classification markings that are still at Mar-a-Lago. At some point after receiving the subpoena, Trump asks his lawyer Evan Corcoran if there was any way to fight the subpoena, but Corcoran tells him he has to comply, according to notes Cochran took and later gave to investigators. Also after getting the subpoena, Trump aides are captured on surveillance footage moving document boxes into and out of a basement storage room – which has become a major element of the obstruction investigation.

    News outlets report that investigators subpoenaed NARA for access to the classified documents they retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. The subpoena is the first public indication of the Justice Department using a grand jury in its investigation.

    As part of the effort to comply with the subpoena, Corcoran searches a Mar-a-Lago storage room and finds 38 classified documents. According to a lawsuit that the former president later filed, Trump invites FBI officials to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the subpoenaed materials.

    Federal investigators, including a top Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-a-Lago to deal with the subpoena for remaining classified documents. The investigators meet with Trump’s attorneys, including Corcoran, and look around the basement storage room where the documents were stored. Trump briefly stops by the meeting to say hello to the officials, but he does not answer any questions. Corcoran hands over the 38 classified documents that he found. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb signs a sworn affidavit inaccurately asserting that there aren’t any more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

    Trump’s attorneys receive a letter from federal investigators, asking them to further secure the room where documents are being stored. In response, Trump aides add a padlock to the room in the basement of Mar-a-Lago.

    Federal investigators serve a subpoena to the Trump Organization, demanding surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s company complies with the subpoena and turns over the footage. CNN has reported that this was part of an effort to gather information about who had access to areas at the club where government documents were stored.

    The FBI executes a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago – a major escalation of the investigation. The search focused on the area of the club where Trump’s offices and personal quarters are located. Federal agents found more than 100 additional classified documents at the property. The search was the first time in American history that a former president’s home was searched as part of a criminal investigation.

    Trump sends a message through one his lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying he has “been hearing from people all over the country about the raid” who are “angry,” and that “whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know,” according to a lawsuit he later filed. Hours later, after three days of silence, Garland makes a brief public statement about the investigation. He reveals that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant, and that the Justice Department will continue to apply the law “without fear or favor.” Garland also pushes back against what he called “unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department.”

    Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approves the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and its property receipt, at the Justice Department’s request and after Trump’s lawyers agree to the release. The warrant reveals the Justice Department is looking into possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records, as part of its investigation.

    Trump files a federal lawsuit seeking the appointment of a third-party attorney known as a “special master” to independently review the materials that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. In the lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers argue that the Justice Department can’t be trusted to do its own review for potentially privileged materials that should be siloed off from the criminal probe.

    In a major ruling in Trump’s favor, Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, grants Trump’s request for a special master to review the seized materials from Mar-a-Lago. She says the special master will have the power to look for documents covered under attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.

    The Justice Department appeals Cannon’s decision in the special master case.

    Cannon appoints senior Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as the special master and sets a November 30 deadline for the Brooklyn-based federal judge to finish his review of the seized materials.

    A maintenance worker drains the swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago, which ends up flooding a room where there are computer severs that contain surveillance video logs, according to CNN reporting. It’s unclear if the flood was accidental or on purpose, and it’s possible that the IT equipment wasn’t damaged, but federal prosecutors found the incident to be suspicious.

    Former Trump administration official Kash Patel testifies before the federal grand jury in the classified documents investigation. A Trump loyalist, Patel had publicly claimed that Trump declassified all the materials that ended up at Mar-a-Lago, even though there is no evidence to back up those assertions.

    Garland announces that he is appointing special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation.

    A federal appeals court shuts down the special master review of the documents that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. The appeals panel rebuked Cannon’s earlier decisions, writing that she essentially tried to “interfere” with the criminal probe and had created a “special exception” in the law to help Trump.

    Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore testifies before the special counsel’s grand jury, where he described how Trump’s lawyers scoured his properties for classified materials. He later left Trump’s legal team.

    Trump’s legal team searches four of his properties in Florida, New York and New Jersey for additional classified material. They find two more classified files in a Florida storage unit, and give them to the FBI. Around this time, Trump’s team also finds additional papers with classification markings at Mar-a-Lago, and they give those materials to the Justice Department. They also turn over a laptop belonging to a Trump aide who had copied those documents onto the computer, not realizing they were classified.

    A string of key witnesses testify before the special counsel’s grand jury in Washington, DC. This includes Trump administration officials Robert O’Brien and Ric Grenell, who handled national security and intelligence matters; Margo Martin, a communications aide who continued working for Trump after he left the White House; and Matthew Calamari Sr. and his son, Matthew Calamari Jr., longtime Trump employees who oversee security for the Trump Organization.

    In response to a new subpoena from the special counsel, Trump’s lawyers turn over some material related to a classified Pentagon document that he discussed at a recorded meeting in 2021. However, Trump’s team wasn’t able to find the specific document – about a potential US attack on Iran – that prosecutors were looking for.

    Corcoran, the lead Trump attorney, testifies before the grand jury in Washington, DC. This occurred after a federal judge ordered him to answer prosecutors’ questions, ruling that attorney-client privilege did not shield his discussion with Trump because Trump might been trying to commit a crime through his attorneys. Corcoran later recused himself from handling the Mar-a-Lago matter.

    The first public indications emerge that the special counsel is using a second grand jury in Miami to gather evidence. Multiple witnesses testify in front of the Miami-based panel, CNN reported.

    Trump lawyers meet with senior Justice Department officials – including special counsel Smith – to discuss the Mar-a-Lago investigation. The sitdown lasted about 90 minutes, and Trump’s team raised concerns about the probe, which they have called an “unlawful” and “outrageous” abuse of the legal system.

    News outlets report that the Justice Department recently sent a “target letter” to Trump, formally notifying him that he’s a target of the investigation into potential mishandling of classified documents.

    News outlets report that Trump has been indicted in connection with the classified documents investigation. Trump also says in a social media post that the Justice Department informed his attorneys that he was indicted – and called the case a “hoax.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Voting rights advocates in the South emboldened by Supreme Court win | CNN Politics

    Voting rights advocates in the South emboldened by Supreme Court win | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    With a sense of relief that the conservative Supreme Court did not use a major Alabama redistricting case to further gut the Voting Rights Act, civil rights advocates and election attorneys are preparing for a new flood of redistricting litigation lawsuits challenging political maps – especially in the South – they say discriminate against minorities.

    In the 5-4 case decided Thursday, Alabama must now draw a second majority-Black US congressional district after Republicans were sued by African American voters over a redistricting plan for the 27% percent Black state that made White voters the majority in six of the seven districts.

    The six White majority districts are represented by Republicans; the Black majority district is represented by a Democrat.

    “I don’t think it’s going to stop Republicans from drawing racist maps,” Aunna Dennis, executive director of the voting rights group Common Cause, told CNN. “But I think that this empowers those of us pushing back and fighting that.”

    The majority opinion – written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was joined by the court’s three liberals and, in most parts, by Justice Brett Kavanaugh – effectively maintained the status quo around how courts should approach Voting Rights Act lawsuits that allege a legislative map discriminates by race.

    By letting old precedent around the Voting Rights Act to stand in the case, called Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court has likely emboldened voting rights advocates to bring cases they previously thought would have been doomed.

    Several election law attorneys and voting rights advocates have suggested to CNN they believe the decision could have a ripple effect across the South, in states like Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas where cases claiming Section 2 violations are already working through the courts.

    According to the Democracy Docket, a liberal-leaning voting rights media platform that tracks election litigation, there are 31 active federal cases involving Voting Rights Act redistricting claims similar to those in the Alabama case.

    “I suspect that there are a number of states with lawyers who were considering filing a lawsuit similar to the Milligan lawsuit, but they held off because the prospects of how everyone thought Milligan would go were so dim. But now, you’re going to have a whole range of suits filed,” said Alabama voting rights attorney J.S. “Chris” Christie, who filed one of the two lawsuits that were before the justices in the Milligan case.

    “Some of those will win, and some of them won’t. All redistricting suits are not the same,” Christie said, noting that Kavanaugh did not join an important part of Roberts’ opinion, depriving that section of a majority.

    Still, he said, “Lawyers who file these types of lawsuits are going to be encouraged and are going to pursue those cases aggressively, knowing that the Voting Rights Act precedents are there.”

    The ruling was a shock. The right-leaning high court, sometimes in decisions penned by Roberts himself, had been on a spree of landmark rulings over the last several years that had whittled down the scope of the Voting Rights Act. And in the flurry of emergency litigation last year ahead of the 2022 midterms, the Supreme Court repeatedly put on hold lower court rulings – including in the Alabama case – that would have ordered the redrawing of political maps ahead of last year’s elections, helping Republicans to narrowly reclaim the US House.

    That meant that, at least in Alabama, the election was carried out under a redistricting plan that the Supreme Court has now affirmed to be likely unlawful.

    “The fact remains that the Supreme Court previously allowed the same map that they just determined unconstitutionally, and systemically diluted Black votes be used in the 2022 election,” the Congressional Black Caucus said in a statement.

    In Alabama, lower courts said early last year that the state’s congressional map likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power. The courts ordered it redrawn in a way that was expected to produce a second majority-Black district, which would have shifted the partisan makeup of the state’s congressional delegation from 6-1 to 5-2.

    But, in February 2022, the Supreme Court put those decisions on hold until the justices could hear and decide the case themselves.

    At the heart of the dispute in the Alabama case was the way that, under longstanding Supreme Court precedent, race was used to determine if a map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures “not equally open to participation by members” of a protected class, like racial minorities. Alabama was putting forward an argument for a supposedly “race-blind” approach to VRA redistricting compliance, that if endorsed, would have defanged the provision.

    Already, the Supreme Court led by Roberts had gutted a separate provision of the VRA that required certain jurisdictions (including Alabama and other states in the South) with a history of racially discriminatory voting policies to get federal approval for the maps that they drew.

    The Supreme Court’s emergency move last year to allow the Republican-drawn Alabama map to stay in place had cascading effects in lawsuits across the country.

    Some cases, like a challenge brought to Alabama’s state legislative redistricting plan, were put on hold.

    In a Georgia case that concerned both the congressional and state legislative redistricting plans, a federal judge said that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in at least some of the districts they were challenging, but he declined to grant the preliminary injunction, in part citing the Supreme Court’s emergency order.

    The Supreme Court, meanwhile, also froze a lower court order in a legal challenge brought against Louisiana’s congressional map that made similar arguments as the Milligan case, as Louisiana legislators had drawn just one majority-Black district of the six districts in the 33% percent Black state.

    The justices paused the case, where a federal judge was preparing to redraw the Louisiana map if the Republican lawmakers refused to do so, and said they were taking up the lawsuit but putting it on hold until the Milligan case was decided.

    Now the challengers’ lawyers in that case are anticipating that the Supreme Court will send it back to lower courts, where they were poised to prevail under the approach to VRA redistricting cases that the justices have now left undisturbed.

    Cases in Texas, Mississippi and elsewhere that inched ahead while the Milligan case was pending will go to trial without the threat that the challengers would need to prove their case under a drastically different Section 2 standard.

    “If anything, we no longer need to make adjustments that we had potentially been preparing for because the state of the law remains unchanged,” said Texas Civil Rights Project attorney Sarah Chen, whose group is involved in several challenges to Texas maps, including a lawsuit over Galveston County’s redistricting plan.

    “The Supreme Court did not endorse the radical changes proposed by Alabama in their arguments, the same changes that are also endorsed by opposing counsel in this Galveston redistricting matter,” Chen added.

    While challenges to statewide maps are what get the most national attention, the ruling’s effect on how the VRA is applied to local races like county commission elections and school board seats “is really going to impact voters’ everyday lives,” according to Christie, the Alabama voting rights attorney, who said that Thursday’s opinion will be “huge” in a newly filed challenge to a county commission map in the state.

    “Attorneys who file these types of lawsuits are going to be encouraged to pursue these cases knowing that the VRA precedent is there,” he said.

    Even before they get into a courtroom, voting rights advocates see the Milligan ruling as valuable for discouraging state and local map drawers from diminishing the political power of communities of color, as it squelched expectations that the Supreme Court was about to make VRA challenges more difficult to bring.

    “I am disappointed in today’s Supreme Court opinion but it remains the commitment of the Secretary of State’s Office to comply with all applicable election laws,” Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, the defendant in the Alabama case, said in a statement after the ruling.

    In North Carolina, voting rights advocates had been reeling from a major defeat with the state Supreme Court recently ruling that North Carolina courts couldn’t police partisan gerrymandering. (Litigation over the state’s congressional plan is also before the Supreme Court in a legal dispute that does not concern the Voting Rights Act). They are finding a silver lining in that, thanks to Thursday’s ruling, the GOP legislators will be redrawing North Carolina’s political maps knowing Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters remain in force.

    “We would hope that they would really take this decision to heart that they would make a genuine good faith effort to comply with Section 2,” said Hilary Harris Klein, the senior counsel for voting rights with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

    Thursday’s ruling, said Deuel Ross, the deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, “puts state legislatures and local redistricting bodies on notice that the Voting Rights Act is here to stay and if they deny communities of color the representation they deserve, that they will face lawsuits.”

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  • Google hit with lawsuit alleging it stole data from millions of users to train its AI tools | CNN Business

    Google hit with lawsuit alleging it stole data from millions of users to train its AI tools | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Google was hit with a wide-ranging lawsuit on Tuesday alleging the tech giant scraped data from millions of users without their consent and violated copyright laws in order to train and develop its artificial intelligence products.

    The proposed class action suit against Google, its parent company Alphabet, and Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind was filed in a federal court in California on Tuesday, and was brought by Clarkson Law Firm. The firm previously filed a similar suit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI last month. (OpenAI did not previously respond to a request for comment on the suit.)

    The complaint alleges that Google “has been secretly stealing everything ever created and shared on the internet by hundreds of millions of Americans” and using this data to train its AI products, such as its chatbot Bard. The complaint also claims Google has taken “virtually the entirety of our digital footprint,” including “creative and copywritten works” to build its AI products.

    Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google’s general counsel, called the claims in the suit “baseless” in a statement to CNN. “We’ve been clear for years that we use data from public sources — like information published to the open web and public datasets — to train the AI models behind services like Google Translate, responsibly and in line with our AI Principles,” DeLaine Prado said.

    “American law supports using public information to create new beneficial uses, and we look forward to refuting these baseless claims,” the statement added.

    Alphabet and DeepMind did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The complaint points to a recent update to Google’s privacy policy that explicitly states the company may use publicly accessible information to train its AI models and tools such as Bard.

    In response to an earlier Verge report on the update, the company said its policy “has long been transparent” about this practice and “this latest update simply clarifies that newer services like Bard are also included.”

    The lawsuit comes as a new crop of AI tools have gained tremendous attention in recent months for their ability to generate written work and images in response to user prompts. The large language models underpinning this new technology are able to do this by training on vast troves of online data.

    In the process, however, companies are also drawing mounting legal scrutiny over copyright issues from works swept up in these data sets, as well as their apparent use of personal and possibly sensitive data from everyday users, including data from children, according to the Google lawsuit.

    “Google needs to understand that ‘publicly available’ has never meant free to use for any purpose,” Tim Giordano, one of the attorneys at Clarkson bringing the suit against Google, told CNN in an interview. “Our personal information and our data is our property, and it’s valuable, and nobody has the right to just take it and use it for any purpose.”

    The suit is seeking injunctive relief in the form of a temporary freeze on commercial access to and commercial development of Google’s generative AI tools like Bard. It is also seeking unspecified damages and payments as financial compensation to people whose data was allegedly misappropriated by Google. The firm says it has lined up eight plaintiffs, including a minor.

    Giordano contrasted the benefits and alleged harms of how Google typically indexes online data to support its core search engine with the new allegations of it scraping data to train AI tools.

    With its search engine, he said, Google can “serve up an attributed link to your work that can actually drive somebody to purchase it or engage with it.” Data scraping to train AI tools, however, is creating “an alternative version of the work that radically alters the incentives for anybody to need to purchase the work,” Giordano added.

    While some internet users may have grown accustomed to their digital data being collected and used for search results or targeted advertising, the same may not be true for AI training. “People could not have imagined their information would be used this way,” Giordano said.

    Ryan Clarkson, a partner at the law firm, said Google needs to “create an opportunity for folks to opt out” of having their data used for training AI while still maintaining their ability to use the internet for their everyday needs.

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  • The largest newspaper publisher in the US sues Google, alleging online ad monopoly | CNN Business

    The largest newspaper publisher in the US sues Google, alleging online ad monopoly | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, is suing Google, alleging the tech giant holds a monopoly over the digital ad market.

    The publisher of USA Today and more than 200 local publications filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court on Tuesday, and is seeking unspecified damages. Gannett argues in court documents that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, controls how publishers buy and sell ads online.

    “The result is dramatically less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals, while Google enjoys exorbitant monopoly profits,” the lawsuit states.

    Google controls about a quarter of the US digital advertising market, with Meta, Amazon and TikTok combining for another third, according to eMarketer. News publishers and other websites combine for the other roughly 40%. Big Tech’s share of the market is beginning to erode slightly, but Google remains by far the largest individual player.

    That means publishers often rely at least in part on Google’s advertising technology to support their operations: Gannett says Google controls 90% of the ad market for publishers.

    Michael Reed, Gannett’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that Google’s dominance in the online advertising industry has come “at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else.”

    “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the online economy,” Reed added. “Without free and fair competition for digital ad space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms.”

    Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, told CNN that the claims in the suit “are simply wrong.”

    “Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize – in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” Taylor said in a statement Tuesday. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue.”

    He continued: “We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”

    The legal action from Gannett comes as Google faces a growing number of antitrust complaints in the United States and the European Union over its advertising business, which remains its central moneymaker.

    EU officials said last week that Google’s advertising business should be broken up, alleging that the tech giant’s involvement in multiple parts of the digital advertising supply chain creates “inherent conflicts of interest” that risk harming competition.

    Earlier this year, the Justice Department and eight states sued Google, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and similarly calling for it to be broken up.

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  • Twitter accused of failing to pay millions in employee bonuses after Musk takeover | CNN Business

    Twitter accused of failing to pay millions in employee bonuses after Musk takeover | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Twitter failed to pay out annual bonuses to staff after its acquisition by billionaire Elon Musk despite repeated assurances from executives in the lead-up to the deal closing that the company would do so, according to a new lawsuit filed on behalf of employees.

    The lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco federal court on Tuesday by Mark Schobinger, who was a senior director of compensation at Twitter until he left the company late last month. The suit is seeking class action status for former and current Twitter employees who did not receive their 2022 bonus.

    “We estimate about a couple thousand employees would have been eligible for the bonuses,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney representing Schobinger, said in a statement to CNN. “While I don’t have an exact number, we expect the amount owed is in the tens of millions.”

    Twitter, which has cut much of is public relations team, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    The complaint states that after it was announced that Musk was acquiring the social media company last April, “many employees raised concerns” over the fate of “their compensation and annual bonus” if and when the deal closed.

    In the months leading up to Musk completing his acquisition of Twitter, company executives repeatedly promised employees that 2022 bonuses would be paid out at 50% of the target, according to the complaint. “The promise was repeated following Musk’s acquisition,” the complaint said.

    Despite the promises, however, Twitter has yet to pay out bonuses, the lawsuit says. Schobinger left the company last month following “Twitter’s reneging on various promises it had made to employees, including its failure to pay promised bonuses,” according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions taken by former Twitter employees after Musk’s acquired the company and slashed 80% of the staff in an urgent bid to cut costs.

    Liss-Riordan previously brought multiple proposed class action suits against Twitter, including on behalf of female employees and disabled employees. Another suit was filed by a group of former employees who accused Twitter of breach of contract because it allegedly failed to follow through on promises to allow remote work and provide consistent severance benefits after the acquisition.

    Twitter has denied the breach of contract allegations in the lawsuit brought by former employees about remote work and severance. The proposed class action suits on behalf of female and disabled employees were dismissed by federal judges last month. The suits were later refiled.

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  • Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta alleging copyright infringement | CNN Business

    Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta alleging copyright infringement | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors are suing Meta and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, alleging the companies’ AI language models were trained on copyrighted materials from their books without their knowledge or consent.

    The pair of lawsuits against OpenAI and Facebook-parent Meta were filed in a San Francisco federal court on Friday, and are both seeking class action status. Silverman, the author of “The Bedwetter,” is joined in filing the lawsuits by fellow authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey.

    A new crop of AI tools has gained tremendous attention in recent months for their ability to generate written work and images in response to user prompts. The large language models underpinning these tools are trained on vast troves of online data. But this practice has raised some concerns that these models may be sweeping up copyrighted works without permission – and that these works could ultimately be served to train tools that upend the livelihoods of creatives.

    The complaint against OpenAI claims that “when ChatGPT is prompted, ChatGPT generates summaries of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works—something only possible if ChatGPT was trained on Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.” The authors “did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training material for ChatGPT,” according to the complaint.

    The complaint against Meta similarly claims that the company used the authors’ copyrighted books to train LLaMA, the set of large language models released by Meta in February. The suit claims that much of the material used to train Meta’s language models “comes from copyrighted works—including books written by Plaintiffs—that were copied by Meta without consent, without credit, and without compensation.”

    The suit against Meta also alleges that the company accessed the copyrighted books via an online “shadow library” website that includes a large quantity of copyrighted material.

    Meta declined to comment on the lawsuit. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The legal action from Silverman isn’t the first to focus on how large language models are trained. A separate lawsuit filed against OpenAI last month alleged the company misappropriated vast swaths of peoples’ personal data from the internet to train its AI tools. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on the suit.)

    In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to acknowledge more needed to be done to address concerns from creators about how AI systems use their works.

    “We’re trying to work on new models where if an AI system is using your content, or if it’s using your style, you get paid for that,” he said at an event.

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  • Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden made false claims about a variety of topics, notably including gun policy, during a series of official speeches and campaign remarks over the last two weeks.

    He made at least five false claims related to guns, a subject on which he has repeatedly been inaccurate during his presidency. He also made a false claim about the extent of his support from environmental groups. And he used incorrect figures about the population of Africa, his own travel history and how much renewable energy Texas uses.

    Here is a fact check of these claims, plus a fact check on a Biden exaggeration about guns. The White House declined to comment on Tuesday.

    Beau Biden and red flag laws

    In a Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut, Biden spoke of how a gun control law he signed in 2022 has provided federal funding for states to expand the use of gun control tools like “red flag” laws, which allow the courts to temporarily seize the guns of people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. After mentioning red flag laws, Biden invoked his late son Beau Biden, who served as attorney general of Delaware, and said: “As my son was the first to enforce when he was attorney general.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. Delaware did not have a red flag law when Beau Biden was state attorney general from 2007 to 2015. The legislation that created Delaware’s red flag program was named the Beau Biden Gun Violence Prevention Act, but it was passed in 2018, three years after Beau Biden died of brain cancer. (In 2013, Beau Biden had pushed for a similar bill, but it was rejected by the state Senate.) The president has previously said, correctly, that a Delaware red flag law was named after his son.

    Delaware was far from the first state to enact a red flag law. Connecticut passed the first such state law in the country in 1999.

    Stabilizing braces

    In the same speech, the president spoke confusingly of his administration’s effort to make it more difficult for Americans to purchase stabilizing braces, devices that are attached to the rear of pistols, most commonly AR-15-style pistols, and make it easier to fire them one-handed.

    “Put a pistol on a brace, and it…turns into a gun,” Biden said. “Makes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon – a higher-caliber bullet – coming out of that gun. It’s essentially turning it into a short-barreled rifle, which has been a weapon of choice by a number of mass shooters.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claims that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a gun and increases the caliber of a gun or bullet are false. A pistol is, obviously, already a gun, and “a pistol brace does not have any effect on the caliber of ammunition that a gun fires or anything about the basic functioning of the gun itself,” said Stephen Gutowski, a CNN contributor who is the founder of the gun policy and politics website The Reload.

    Biden’s assertion that the addition of a stabilizing brace can “essentially” turn a pistol into a short-barreled rifle is subjective; it’s the same argument his administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has made in support of its attempt to subject the braces to new controls. The administration’s regulatory effort is being challenged in the courts by gun rights advocates.

    Gun manufacturers and lawsuits

    Repeating a claim he made in his 2022 State of the Union address and on other occasions, Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in California on Monday: “The only industry in America you can’t sue is the – is the gun manufacturers.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false, as CNN and other fact-checkers have previously noted. Gun manufacturers are not entirely exempt from being sued, nor are they the only industry with some liability protections. Notably, there are significant liability protections for vaccine manufacturers and, at present, for people and entities involved in making, distributing or administering Covid-19 countermeasures such as vaccines, tests and treatments.

    Under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, gun manufacturers cannot be held liable for the use of their products in crimes. However, gun manufacturers can still be held liable for (and thus sued for) a range of things, including negligence, breach of contract regarding the purchase of a gun or certain damages from defects in the design of a gun.

    In 2019, the Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Remington Arms Co. to continue. The plaintiffs, a survivor and the families of nine other victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, wanted to hold the company – which manufactured the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the 2012 killing – partly responsible by targeting the company’s marketing practices, another area where gun manufacturers can be held liable. In 2022, those families reached a $73 million settlement with the company and its four insurers.

    There are also more recent lawsuits against gun manufacturers. For example, the parents of some of the victims and survivors of the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, have sued over the marketing practices of the company that made the gun used by the killer. Another suit, filed by the government of Buffalo, New York, in December over gun violence in the city, alleges that the actions of several gun manufacturers and distributors have endangered public health and safety. It is unclear how those lawsuits will fare in the courts.

    – Holmes Lybrand contributed to this item.

    The NRA and lawsuits

    At a campaign fundraiser in California on Tuesday, Biden said the National Rifle Association, the prominent gun rights advocacy organization, itself cannot be sued.

    “And the fact that the NRA has such overwhelming power – you know, the NRA is the only outfit in the nation that we cannot sue as an institution,” Biden said. “They got – they – before this – I became president, they passed legislation saying you can’t sue them. Imagine had that been the case with tobacco companies.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. While gun manufacturers have liability protections, no law was ever passed to forbid lawsuits against the NRA. The NRA has faced a variety of lawsuits in recent years.

    Machine guns

    At the same Tuesday fundraiser in California, Biden said that he taught the Second Amendment in law school, “And guess what? It doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own.” One example Biden cited was this: “You can’t own a machine gun.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. The Second Amendment does not explicitly say people cannot own certain weapons – and the courts have not interpreted it to forbid machine guns. In fact, with some exceptions, people in more than two-thirds of states are allowed to own and buy fully automatic machine guns as long as those guns were legally registered and possessed prior to May 19, 1986, the day President Ronald Reagan signed a major gun law. There were more than 700,000 legally registered machine guns in the US as of May 2021, according to official federal data.

    Federal law imposes significant national restrictions on machine gun purchases, and the fact that there is a limited pool of pre-May 19, 1986 machine guns means that buying these guns tends to be expensive – regularly into the tens of thousands of dollars. But for Americans in most of the country, Biden’s claim that you simply “can’t” own a machine gun, period, is not true.

    “It’s not easy to obtain a fully automatic machine gun today, I don’t want to give that impression – but it is certainly legal. And it’s always been legal,” Gutowski said in March, when Biden previously made this claim about machine guns.

    California, where Biden made this remark on Tuesday, has strict laws restricting machine guns, but there is a legal process even there to apply for a state permit to possess one.

    The ‘boyfriend loophole’

    In the Friday speech to the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden said “we fought like hell to close the so-called boyfriend loophole” that had allowed people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to buy and possess guns if the victim was not someone they were married to, living with or had a child with. Biden then said that now “we finally can say that those convicted of domestic violence abuse against their girlfriend or boyfriend cannot buy a firearm, period.”

    Facts First: Biden’s categorical claim that such offenders now “cannot buy a firearm, period” is an exaggeration, though Biden did sign a law in 2022 that made significant progress in closing the “boyfriend loophole.” That 2022 law added “dating” partners to the list of misdemeanor domestic violence offenders who are generally prohibited from gun purchases – but in a concession demanded by Republicans, the law says these offenders can buy a gun five years after their first conviction or completion of their sentence, whichever comes later, if they do not reoffend in the interim.

    It’s also worth noting that the law’s new restriction on dating partners applies only to people who committed the domestic violence against a someone with whom they were in or “recently” had been in a “continuing” and “serious” romantic or intimate relationship. In other words, it omits people whose offense was against partners from their past or someone they dated casually.

    Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said there are “definitely some gaps” in the law, “so it’s not a blanket end-all be-all,” but she said it is “really a step in the right direction.”

    Biden said at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Saturday: “Let me just say one thing very seriously. You know, I think this is the first time – and I’ve been around, as I said, a while – in history where, last week, every single environmental organization endorsed me.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that every single environmental organization had endorsed Biden. Four major environmental organizations did endorse him the week prior, the first time they had issued a joint endorsement, but other well-known environmental organizations have not yet endorsed in the presidential election.

    The four groups that endorsed Biden together in mid-June were the Sierra Club, NextGen PAC, and the campaign arms of the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council. That is not a complete list of every single environmental group in the country. For example, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, Earthjustice and Greenpeace, in addition to some lesser-known groups, have not issued presidential endorsements to date.

    Biden’s claim of an endorsement from every environmental group comes amid frustration from some activists over his recent approvals of fossil fuel projects.

    In official speeches last Tuesday and last Wednesday and at a press conference the week prior, Biden claimed that Africa’s population would soon reach 1 billion. “You know, soon – soon, Africa will have 1 billion people,” he said last Wednesday.

    Facts First: This is false. Africa’s population exceeded 1 billion in 2009, according to United Nations figures; it is now more than 1.4 billion. Sub-Saharan Africa alone has a population of more than 1.1 billion.

    At a campaign fundraiser in Connecticut on Friday, Biden spoke about reading recent news articles about the use of renewable energy sources in Texas. He said, “I think it’s 70% of all their energy produced by solar and wind because it is significantly cheaper. Cheaper. Cheaper.”

    Facts First: Biden’s “70%” figure is not close to correct. The federal Energy Information Administration projected late last year that Texas would meet 37% of its electricity demand in 2023 with wind and solar power, up from 30% in 2022.

    Texas has indeed been a leader in renewable energy, particularly wind power, but the state is far from getting more than two-thirds of its energy from wind and solar alone. The organization that provides electricity to 90% of the state has a web page where you can see its current energy mix in real time; when we looked on Wednesday afternoon, during a heat wave, the mix included 15.8% solar, 10.2% wind and 6.6% nuclear, while 67.1% was natural gas or coal and lignite.

    In his Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden made a muddled claim about his past visits to Afghanistan and Iraq – saying that “you know, I spent a lot of time as president, and I spent 30-some times – visits – many more days in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim that he has visited Afghanistan and Iraq “30-some times” is false – the latest in a long-running series of exaggerations about his visits to the two countries. His presidential campaign said in 2019 that he made 21 visits to these countries, but he has since continued to put the figure in the 30s. And he has not visited either country “as president.”

    At another campaign fundraiser in California on Monday, Biden reprised a familiar claim about his travels with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is, like him, a former vice president.

    “It wasn’t appropriate for Barack to be able to spend a lot of time getting to know him, so it was an assignment I was given. And I traveled 17,000 miles with him, usually one on one,” Biden said.

    Facts First: Biden’s “17,000 miles” claim remains false. Biden has not traveled anywhere close to 17,000 miles with Xi, though they have indeed spent lots of time together. This is one of Biden’s most common false claims as president, a figure he has repeated over and over in speeches despite numerous fact checks.

    Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in 2021 that Biden and Xi often did not even travel parallel routes to their gatherings, let alone physically travel together. The only apparent way to get Biden’s mileage past 17,000, Kessler found, is to add the length of Biden’s flight journeys between Washington and Beijing, during which Xi was not with him.

    A White House official told CNN in early 2021 that Biden was adding up his “total travel back and forth” for meetings with Xi. But that is very different than traveling “with him” as Biden keeps saying, especially in the context of his boasts about how well he knows Xi. Biden has had more than enough time to make his language more precise.

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  • Tax prep companies shared private taxpayer data with Google and Meta for years, congressional probe finds | CNN Business

    Tax prep companies shared private taxpayer data with Google and Meta for years, congressional probe finds | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Some of America’s largest tax-prep companies have spent years sharing Americans’ sensitive financial data with tech titans including Meta and Google in a potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted advertising, according to a seven-month congressional investigation.

    The report highlights what legal experts described to CNN as a “five-alarm fire” for taxpayer privacy that could lead to government and private lawsuits, criminal penalties or perhaps even a “mortal blow” for some industry giants involved in the probe including TaxSlayer, H&R Block and TaxAct.

    Using visitor tracking technology embedded on their websites, the three tax-prep companies allegedly sent tens of millions of Americans’ personal information to the tech industry without consent or appropriate disclosures, according to the congressional report reviewed by CNN.

    Beyond ordinary personal data such as people’s names, phone numbers and email addresses, the list of information shared also included taxpayer data — details about people’s filing status, adjusted gross income, the size of their tax refunds and even information about the buttons and text fields they clicked on while filling out their tax forms, which could reveal what tax breaks they may have claimed or which government programs they use, according to the report.

    The report, which drew on congressional interviews and written testimony from Meta, Google and the tax-prep companies, also found that every taxpayer who used TaxAct’s IRS Free File service while the tracking was enabled would have had their information shared with the tech companies. Some of the tax-prep companies still do not know whether the data they shared continues to be held by the tech platforms, the report said.

    “On a scale from one to 10, this is a 15,” said David Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former consumer protection chief at the Federal Trade Commission, the country’s top privacy watchdog. “This is as great as any privacy breach that I’ve seen other than exploiting kids. This is a five-alarm fire, if what we know about this so far is true.”

    It is also an example, Vladeck said, of why the United States needs federal legislation guaranteeing every American a basic right to data privacy — an issue that has languished in Congress for years despite electronic data becoming an ever-larger part of the global economy.

    The congressional findings represent the latest claims of wrongdoing to hit the embattled tax-prep industry after a report last year by the investigative journalism outlet The Markup highlighted the tracking practice.

    Wednesday’s bombshell report adds to those earlier revelations by identifying a previously unreported category of data that was allegedly being collected and shared: the webpage titles in online tax software that can reveal what tax forms users have accessed, said an aide to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who helped lead the congressional probe. For example, taxpayers who entered information about their college savings contributions or rental income may have done so on webpages bearing titles reflecting that information, which would then have been shared with the tech companies, the aide said.

    During the probe, Meta told investigators it used the taxpayer data it received to target third-party ads to users of its platform and to train its artificial intelligence algorithms, the report said. The Warren aide told CNN it was unclear whether Meta knew it was inappropriately using taxpayer data at the time. A Meta spokesperson said the company instructs its partners not to use its tools to share sensitive information and that Meta’s systems are “designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect.”

    The technology behind the data collection, known as a tracking pixel, is commonly used across the entire internet. A small snippet of code that website owners can insert onto their sites, tracking pixels gather information that can help companies, including but not limited to Meta and Google, understand the behavior or interests of website visitors.

    Because of the tracking technology used by TaxAct, TaxSlayer and H&R Block, “every single taxpayer who used their websites to file their taxes could have had at least some of their data shared,” the report said.

    The tax-prep companies at the center of the investigation told lawmakers the collected data had been scrambled to help protect privacy, according to the report. But the report also said some of the tax-prep firms themselves were not fully aware of how much information was being exposed to the tech platforms, and the report cited past FTC research concluding that even “anonymized” data can be easily reverse-engineered to identify a person.

    The pixels’ use in a taxpayer context resulted in the “reckless” sharing of legally protected data that could put taxpayers at risk, according to the report by Warren and her Democratic colleagues Sens. Ron Wyden; Richard Blumenthal; Tammy Duckworth; and Sheldon Whitehouse; Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats; and Democratic Rep. Katie Porter.

    The FTC, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration “should fully investigate this matter and prosecute any company or individuals who violated the law,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Tuesday to the agencies and obtained by CNN. The FTC and DOJ declined to comment; the IRS and TIGTA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In a statement, H&R Block said it takes client privacy “very seriously, and we have taken steps to prevent the sharing of information via pixels.” Wednesday’s report said H&R Block had testified to using the tracking technology for “at least a couple of years.”

    TaxAct and TaxSlayer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The report said TaxAct had been using Meta’s tools since 2018 and Google’s since about 2014, while TaxSlayer began using Meta’s tools in 2018 and Google’s in 2011. The investigation found that all three tax-prep companies had discontinued their use of Meta’s pixel after The Markup’s report last November.

    Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, received an initial inquiry letter from the lawmakers in December but was not a focus of Wednesday’s report because the company did not use tracking pixels to the same extent, the investigation found.

    Tax preparation firms have faced mounting scrutiny in recent years amid reports that many have turned to data harvesting as a business model and that the largest among them have spent millions lobbying against legislation that could make it easier for Americans to file their tax returns. An IRS report this year found that 72% of Americans would be interested in using a free, electronic tax filing service if it were provided by the agency as an alternative to private online filing services. The IRS plans to launch a pilot version of that service to a limited number of taxpayers in the 2024 tax filing season.

    Google told CNN it prohibits business customers from uploading to its platform sensitive data that could be traced back to a person.

    “We have strict policies and technical features that prohibit Google Analytics customers from collecting data that could be used to identify an individual,” a Google spokesperson said. “Site owners — not Google — are in control of what information they collect and must inform their users of how it will be used. Additionally, Google has strict policies against advertising to people based on sensitive information.”

    Wednesday’s report focuses more heavily on Meta’s use of taxpayer data, the Warren aide told CNN, because Google did not appear to have used the information for its own commercial purposes as overtly as Meta and the investigation was unable to fully determine whether Google may have used the data for other applications.

    The allegations could nevertheless create extensive legal risk for both the tech companies as well as the tax-preparation firms, according to tax and privacy legal experts.

    The tax-prep companies could face billions in fines under US tax law if the federal government decides to sue, said Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. In addition, the US government could seek criminal penalties.

    “The scope of ‘taxpayer information’ is broad by design,” Rosenthal said, adding that tax-prep companies can be sued for “knowingly” or “recklessly” leaking that information. “The companies shouldn’t be sharing it in a way that some third party could obtain it.”

    Theoretically, he said, the tax code also affords individual taxpayers the right to file private lawsuits against the tax-prep companies. But most if not all of those firms require customers to submit to mandatory arbitration that could realistically make bringing a private claim more challenging, said the Warren aide.

    Apart from the tax code, both the tech giants as well as the tax-prep firms could also face civil liability from the FTC — which can police data breaches and hold companies accountable for their commitments to user privacy — and potentially from state governments that have their own privacy laws on the books, said Vladeck.

    Depending on the strength of the allegations, the tax-prep companies could quickly be forced into a binding settlement, said a former FTC official who requested anonymity in order to speak more freely.

    “If the facts are really strong, these companies would probably rather settle than go to court. This is very embarrassing,” the former official said. “It could be a mortal blow to the tax prep companies.”

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