U.S. prosecutors have called an offsides on the British billionaire owner of Tottenham Hotspur soccer team, charging him with a “brazen insider-trading scheme,” in which he passed secret stock tips worth millions to his girlfriends, private pilots and assistants for years.
Joe Lewis, 86, who is one of the richest people in the United Kingdom, is accused of taking inside information about companies in which he was a large investor and handing it out to people around him for them to use to get rich.
“Notwithstanding his vast personal wealth, Lewis provided the inside information to his employees, romantic partners, and friends as a way to give them compensation and gifts,” federal prosecutors wrote in an indictment filed in New York.
Prosecutors say Lewis, who Forbes has estimated to be worth $6.1 billion, carried on with the scheme from 2013 through 2021, helping his employees and friends make millions of dollars in illicit gains.
Some people who benefited from Lewis’ loose lips included staff on his private, $250 million super yacht, the Aviva.
In some cases, prosecutors allege Lewis gave his pilots short-term, $500,000 loans to buy stock and then pay him back after they scored big based on his tips.
“Thanks to Lewis, those bets were a sure thing,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “That’s classic corporate corruption. It’s cheating and it is against the law.”
Lewis’ private equity company, Tavistock Group, has investments in hundreds of companies ranging from agriculture, sports, resort properties and life-sciences businesses. The firm owns works of art by painters like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Gustav Klimt.
Investigators say Lewis shared information about publicly-traded life-science groups Solid Biosciences SLDB, +0.88%
and Mirati Therapeutics MRTX, -2.43%,
as well as beef producer Australian Agricultural Co. AAC, -2.79%
and a special purpose acquisition company, BCTG.
Prosecutors also allege that he hid how much of a stake he owned in cancer therapeutics company Mirati “through a pattern of false filings and misleading statements” in order to manipulate markets.
A message sent to representatives of Tavistock wasn’t immediately returned.
Making his fortune as a currency trader, Lewis became more widely known when he acquired the Tottenham football club in 2001 for $35.5 million.
He has lived as a tax exile in the Bahamas for years.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. has submitted a revised proposal for its stock-conversion plan, after a judge rejected a settlement Friday that would have given a green light to the deal.
In a letter to investors that was posted Sunday on Twitter, AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron said that a modified proposal was filed Saturday with the Delaware Chancery Court intended to address the court’s concerns. If the court agrees, Aron said he hopes to implement the plan “as soon as possible.”
Movie-theater chain AMC AMC, +1.62%
has wanted to turn its its so-called APE APE, -2.17%
— or AMC Preferred Equity — preferred units into common stock as part of its battle to eliminate debt. But Delaware Chancery Court Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn on Friday rejected a settlement with opposing shareholders that would have allowed that conversion to move forward. That sent AMC shares rocketing more than 60% higher in after-hours trading Friday.
“AMC must be in a position to raise equity capital,” Aron stressed in his letter Sunday, saying that if the company is unable to do so, the risk of running out of cash in 2024 or 2025 rises.
“The risk of financial collapse is not whimsical,” Aron said, noting the bankruptcies of rival theater chain Cineworld/Regal and retailer Bey Bath & Beyond.
AMC shares are up 8% year to date, but have sunk 54% over the past 12 months.
AMC Entertainment shares soared 70% after-hours Friday after a judge rejected a proposed court settlement that would have cleared the way for the movie-theater giant to complete a set of equity transactions enabling it to issue substantially more shares.
Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. rocketed more than 60% higher on Friday after a judge in Delaware shot down a settlement that would have allowed the movie-theater chain to move ahead with a plan, maligned by some investors, to dump more shares onto the market, according to reports.
AMC AMC, +1.62%
has wanted to turn its its so-called APE — or AMC Preferred Equity — preferred units into common stock. But Delaware Chancery Court Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn rejected an earlier settlement that would have allowed that conversion to move forward.
But not every investor was on board with the plan, amid worries about share dilution.
“At this juncture, the Court’s only task is to approve or reject the proposed settlement,” wrote in the ruling, obtained by Bloomberg Law. “The focus of the settlement is on the claims presented in this case. The Court cannot address issues that do not pertain to the fairness of the settlement.”
“Such issues raised by AMC stockholders include theories about synthetic shares, Wall Street corruption, dark pool trading, insider trading and RICO violations, and a request for a share count,” the ruling continued. “The Court’s role is limited to considering settlement-specific issues, like the strength of the plaintiffs’ claims, the consideration the class would receive, and the scope of the release the class would give in exchange for that consideration.”
“To cut to the chase, the settlement cannot be approved as submitted,” the ruling added later.
AMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday asked an appeals court to temporarily block Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. while it challenges a ruling earlier this week green-lighting the deal.
The FTC on Thursday asked U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to postpone her ruling — which she promptly denied — and also appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to pause the acquisition “to preserve the status quo” while the case is reviewed, claiming it is likely to succeed in its appeal.
According to the filing, the FTC claims the judge applied the wrong legal standard to its request for a preliminary injunction, and erred in a number of other matters.
The deal is set to close in the coming days, and letting it happen will “irreparably harm the public interest and the FTC,” regulators said.
In a response filed with the court, Microsoft said the FTC “failed to carry its burden on independent, fact-based grounds” and “dragged its heels” before appealing.
“The court has already found that it would be inequitable” to order an injunction that could lead to “the potential scuttling of the merger,” Microsoft said, in asking for the FTC’s request to be denied.
The FTC has claimed the tie-up of a major videogame platform — Microsoft’s MSFT, +1.62%
Xbox — with a major videogame publisher — Activision ATVI, -0.51%
makes the wildly popular “Call of Duty,” among other titles — would be harmful to the videogame industry and consumers.
Microsoft has pledged to keep “Call of Duty” available to Sony’s SONY, +2.82%
PlayStation console for 10 years, and will make it available for Nintendo’s 7974, -0.36%
Switch and some cloud-gaming platforms.
In her ruling clearing the deal Tuesday, Corley said the FTC did not show “this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition.”
Bloomberg News reported late Thursday that Microsoft and Activision are considering giving up some control of their cloud-gaming business in the U.K. to win approval of British regulators, who — if the U.S. appeals court does not act — are the final hurdle to the deal closing on time.
The Federal Trade Commission late Wednesday filed notice that it will appeal a judge’s ruling this week that gave Microsoft Corp. the green light to proceed with its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc.
“The District Court’s ruling makes crystal clear that this acquisition is good for both competition and consumers,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, said in a statement.” We’re disappointed that the FTC is continuing to pursue what has become a demonstrably weak case, and we will oppose further efforts to delay the ability to move forward.”
The FTC has claimed the tie-up of a major videogame platform — Microsoft’s MSFT, +1.42%
Xbox — with a major videogame publisher — Activision ATVI, -1.09%
makes the wildly popular “Call of Duty,” among other titles — would be harmful to the videogame industry and consumers.
“The facts haven’t changed,” an Activision spokesperson said Wednesday. “We’re confident the U.S. will remain among the 39 countries where the merger can close. We look forward to reinforcing the strength of our case in court, again.”
Microsoft has pledged to keep “Call of Duty” available to Sony’s SONY, +1.78%
PlayStation console for 10 years, and will make it available for Nintendo’s 7974, +1.63%
Switch and some cloud-gaming platforms.
The deal faces a July 18 deadline, and still must gain regulatory approval in the U.K.
Tuesday’s ruling was yet another antitrust setback for the FTC, which has failed to do much to rein in Big Tech, and one analyst told MarketWatch on Tuesday that the regulators need to do ” a much better job of picking their battles,”
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s defeat as it sought to block Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard is yet another setback for an increasingly toothless regulator that needs to pick better battles with Big Tech.
“With these 10-year contracts that Microsoft made across the board with so many vendors, Nvidia NVDA, +0.53%,
Nintendo and others, 10 years is a really long time, in my opinion,” said Sarah Hindlian-Bowler, an analyst at Macquarie Equity Research, in an interview Tuesday. “It is long enough to cover the arrival and maturity of the cloud gaming market….She understands that 10 years is a very long long time to make a guarantee of this kind.”
Hindlian-Bowler said that she had been in the minority of Wall Street analysts in not believing the U.S. government would be able to block this deal.
“The assumption that this somehow decreases the market is going to prove to be wildly incorrect,” she said, adding that she does not believe that the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority will be able to block the deal either.
The latest upset at the FTC was also not too surprising to other Capitol Hill watchers, especially in the light of other high-profile setbacks by the agency and its once-heralded commissioner, Lina Khan. When she was sworn in as chair of the FTC in mid-2021, Khan was hailed as the sheriff who would rein in Big Tech.
“It’s hard to say I am surprised by the ruling because Khan has had a fairly unsuccessful track record,” said Owen Tedford, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors. “The regulators are pushing the boundaries, deals that previously would have gone unchallenged have now gone challenged. And they are breaking precedent because Khan and company have expressed a dislike of settlements.”
“I think that the FTC is in need of some change, in need of some refreshing and in need of doing a much better job of picking their battles,” said Hindlian-Bowler. “This does feel toothless, a lot of the fights they are picking are toothless. And unfortunately, they are missing the real battle. They are missing TikTok, they are missing the real fights where we actually have national security at risk.”
In February, one of the Republican commissioners on the FTC resigned, and wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing Khan of disregarding the rule of law and due process.
Compared to the European Union, which has had far more success implementing regulation to rein in Big Tech, the U.S. is still much weaker. “The EU seems to be having somewhat more success, levying big fines, getting these companies to change,” said Beacon’s Tedford. “The EU has passed these bills, but the U.S., despite these efforts, has not gotten there and is not going to get there for the next two years.”
Money spent by Big Tech to lobby Congress in a huge part of the problem, whereas in Europe, “those lawmakers feel less beholden,” he added.
More than a century ago, President Teddy Roosevelt, known for his “speak softly and carry a big stick” foreign policy, also used his bully pulpit to bust industrial monopolies.
If Khan and her staff want to follow his lead and rein in Big Tech, they need to start picking their future battles more carefully — and carry bigger sticks.
BEIJING (AP) — The U.S. recommended Americans reconsider traveling to China because of arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans and the risk of wrongful detentions.
No specific cases were cited, but the advisory came after a 78-year-old U.S. citizen was sentenced to life in prison on spying charges in May.
It also followed the passage last week of a sweeping Foreign Relations Law that threatens countermeasures against those seen as harming China’s interests.
China also recently passed a broadly written counterespionage law that has sent a chill through the foreign business community, with offices being raided, as well as a law to sanction foreign critics.
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including issuing exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries, without fair and transparent process under the law,” the U.S. advisory said.
“U.S. citizens traveling or residing in the PRC may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime,” it warned.
“ Similar U.S. advisories issued for the semiautonomous Chinese regions of Hong Kong and Macao.”
The advisory also said that Chinese authorities “appear to have broad discretion to deem a wide range of documents, data, statistics, or materials as state secrets and to detain and prosecute foreign nationals for alleged espionage.”
It listed a wide range of potential offenses from taking part in demonstrations to sending electronic messages critical of Chinese policies or even simply conducting research into areas deemed sensitive.
Exit bans could be used to compel individuals to participate in Chinese government investigations, pressure family members to return from abroad, resolve civil disputes in favor of Chinese citizens and “gain bargaining leverage over foreign governments,” the advisory said.
Similar advisories were issued for the semiautonomous Chinese regions of Hong Kong and Macao. They were dated Friday and emailed to journalists on Monday.
The U.S. had issued similar advisories to its citizens in the past, but those in recent years had mainly warned of the dangers of being caught in strict and lengthy lockdowns while China closed its borders for three years under its draconian “zero-COVID” policy.
China generally responds angrily to what it considers U.S. efforts to impugn its authoritarian Communist Party–led system. It has issued its own travel advisories concerning the U.S., warning of the dangers of crime, anti-Asian discrimination and the high cost of emergency medical assistance.
China had no immediate response to the travel advisory on Monday.
Details of the accusations against the accused spy John Shing-Wan Leung are not available, given China’s authoritarian political system and the ruling Communist Party’s absolute control over legal matters. Leung, who also holds permanent residency in Hong Kong, was detained in the southeastern city of Suzhou on April 15, 2021 — a time when China had closed its borders and tightly restricted movement of people domestically to control the spread of COVID-19.
The warnings come as U.S.-China relations are at their lowest in years, over trade, technology, Taiwan and human rights, although the sides are taking some steps to improve the situation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a long-delayed visit to Beijing last week and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is making a much-anticipated trip to Beijing this week. China also recently appointed a new ambassador to Washington, who presented his credentials in a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.
Other incidents, however, have also pointed to the testiness in the relationship. China formally protested last month after Biden called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a “dictator,” days after Blinken’s visit.
Biden brushed off the protest, saying his words would have no negative impact on U.S.-China relations and that he still expects to meet with Xi sometime soon. Biden has also drawn rebukes from Beijing by explicitly saying the U.S. would defend self-governing Taiwan if China, which claims the island as its own territory, were to attack it.
The White House’s John Kirby discusses President Joe Biden’s priorities when it comes to Ukraine, China and other national-security matters. Kirby, who will be interviewed by MarketWatch’s Victor Reklaitis, is the strategic-communications coordinator for Biden’s National Security Council.
Biden said his blunt statements regarding China are “just not something I’m going to change very much.”
The administration is also under pressure from both parties to take a tough line on China, making it one of the few issues on which most Democrats and Republicans agree.
Along with several detained Americans, two Chinese-Australians, Cheng Lei, who formerly worked for China’s state broadcaster, and writer Yang Jun, have been held since 2020 and 2019, respectively, without word on their sentencing.
Perhaps the most notorious case of arbitrary detention involved two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were detained in China in 2018, shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer and the daughter of the tech powerhouse’s founder, on a U.S. extradition request.
They were charged with national-security crimes that were never explained and released three years later after the U.S. settled fraud charges against Meng. Many countries labeled China’s action “hostage politics.”
Student-loan payments are poised to resume this fall without smaller balances now that the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked President Joe Biden’s loan cancellation plan.
The Biden administration’s loan forgiveness initiative would have canceled up to $10,000 of debt for eligible borrowers, and in some cases up to $20,000.
But the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled on Friday that the executive branch overstepped its authority by trying to wipe out billions in student loan debt on its own.
“Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree,” Chief Judge John Roberts said, writing for the 6-3 majority.
Now it’s time for more than 40 million borrowers with federal student loans to figure out their next move. They are staring at more than $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. Add on private student loans, and the number climbs to $1.7 trillion.
Federal student loan payments have been on hold since March 2020.
On Friday, the Department of Education filed notice saying it would embark on a regulatory process that would seek an alternative pathway to student-debt relief. Activists have focused on a provision in the Higher Education Act, allowing the Department of Education to “compromise, waive, or release,” any right to collect on student loans.
Approximately 26 million people had either applied for loan forgiveness or were already eligible for the relief as of late last year, the White House said.
Here’s what to know.
When do student-loan payments restart?
In October, according to the Department of Education. Expect more specifics soon on those payments. “We will notify borrowers well before payments restart,” the department said.
While payments start coming in October, interest starts accumulating on the loans in September. Loan balances have not been accumulating interest since the payment pause started in March 2020, during the pandemic’s early days.
“We will also be in direct touch with borrowers and ramping up our communications with servicers well before repayment resumes to ensure borrowers and their families are receiving accurate and timely information about the return to repayment,” an Education Department spokesperson said.
There’s a range of estimates on how much student-loan borrowers typically pay each month on their loans.
According to Bank of America data, $180 was the median monthly student-loan payment as of January 2020. Federal Reserve research before the pause said the average monthly payment was $393, while the median payment was $222.
Can I lower my payments?
Possibly yes, with a range of income-driven repayment plans through the Education Department. These plans are supposed to make repaying loans more affordable by letting borrowers modify their monthly payments based on their income.
While these plans already exist, the department is reworking them. As a result, more monthly income will be shielded from the calculations on what a person could repay for student loans each month, meaning payments will become more affordable. While the revised plans are not in effect yet, the existing plans are up and running.
Many people will likely struggle to fit a student-loan bill back into their budget — the question is how far that financial hardship will go. Student-loan payments would be hitting at a time when car loan and credit-card delinquencies are already rising from their pandemic lows, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Part of the Biden administration’s Supreme Court arguments pointed to the possible economic consequences of resuming student-loan payments without canceling some of the debt.
Without cancellation, there will be a “surge” of loan defaults and delinquencies once payments resume, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices during oral arguments earlier this year.
When deciding which debts have to get paid first, a student-loan bill might fall behind other monthly debts like a mortgage or a credit-card bill.
Anywhere from roughly one-third to three-quarters of borrowers could miss their first student-loan bill when payments resume, according to projections from the credit score company VantageScore.
A missed first payment — in theory — could eventually lead to an average 49- to 82-point reduction in a credit score ranging from 350 to 850, VantageScore researchers said.
However, President Biden on Friday announced a temporary “ramp-up” — a 12-month grace period for borrowers who miss student-loan payments. If borrowers miss payments during this time, they won’t be reported to any of three main credit bureaus — Equifax EFX, +0.37%,
TransUnion TRU, +1.06%
and Experian EXPGF, +0.80%
— and they won’t go into default.
The ramp-up will run from Oct. 1, 2023 through Sept. 30, 2024.
“This is not the same as the student-loan pause, but during this period — if you miss payments — this ‘on ramp’ will temporarily remove the threat of default or having your credit harmed,” Biden wrote in a tweet Friday.
Prior to the payment pause and Biden’s ramp-up announcement, loan servicers waited for a borrower to miss three straight payments before they reported it to the credit reporting bureaus, according to Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance.
In the meantime, brace for potentially long call hold times, curtailed hours and loan servicer glitches, borrower advocates say. It stems back to Congressional cuts on the funding for vendor contracts that handle the day-to-day details of student-loan repayments.
The Supreme Court knocked down the Biden administration’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for a wide swath of borrowers, the court announced Friday.
The decision means that the White House won’t move forward with the plan for now, though it’s possible officials could try to launch a new version of the debt-forgiveness initiative using a different legal authority. Roughly 26 million borrowers applied for or were automatically eligible for debt relief under the Biden administration’s plan, which canceled up to $10,000 in student debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 and up to $20,000 in federal loans for borrowers who met that criteria and also used a Pell grant in college.
Americans owe $1.7 trillion of student loans and the White House had estimated that more than 40 million borrowers would benefit from the initiative. But almost as soon as the Biden administration announced the debt-forgiveness plan last year, opponents looked for ways to challenge it legally. Ultimately, two cases made it to the high court.
In one case, two student-loan borrowers sued over the debt-relief plan in part because the Department of Education didn’t submit it for public comment. That, they said, resulted in an initiative that arbitrarily left out or limited the amount of relief available to some student loan borrowers, like themselves. The suit filed by the borrowers was backed by the Job Creators Network, a conservative advocacy organization co-founded by Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, who also supported former President Donald Trump.
Six Republican-led states brought the other case on the basis that canceling debt could harm their state coffers.
The court considered two issues in these cases. The first is whether the plaintiffs had standing, or the ability to bring a lawsuit because they’ve been directly harmed by the policy. The second is whether the Biden administration overstepped in its executive authority when issuing the policy. In order for the justices to reach the second issue, or the merits of the case, they had to find that the plaintiffs had standing to sue.
Legal experts, including some who believed the Biden administration didn’t have the authority to authorize the debt-relief plan, were skeptical of the notion that the parties bringing the cases had standing to sue. During oral arguments in February, the court’s three liberal justices also questioned whether the parties who challenged debt forgiveness were actually injured by the policy.
In addition, one of the members of the court’s conservative wing, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, asked pointed questions about the six states’ argument that they had standing to sue in part because the debt-relief plan would injure the state of Missouri. That claim surrounded the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, a state-affiliated organization that services federal student loans. The states had argued if MOHELA lost accounts due to the debt-relief plan, its revenue would decline and that loss would hurt Missouri because of MOHELA’s ties to the state.
Despite these questions, Barrett agreed with the court’s five other conservative judges and found that the states have standing to sue. The three liberal justices dissented.
“MOHELA is, by law and function, an instrumentality of Missouri,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “It was created by the State, is supervised by the State, and serves a public function. The harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself.”
The court’s decision in the states’ suit allowed the justices to get to the merits of the case. The parties challenging the debt-relief plan argued that the Department of Education went beyond the authority Congress delegated it in discharging student debt. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued to the justices that in canceling student debt, the Secretary of Education acted “within the heartland” of the authority Congress provided to him under the HEROES Act, a 2003 law that aims to ensure student-loan borrowers aren’t left worse off by a national emergency.
The court’s conservative majority sided with the states, with a 6-3 decision, striking down the debt-relief plan in its current form.
“The HEROES Act allows the Secretary to ‘waive or modify’ existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, but does not allow the Secretary to rewrite that statute to the extent of canceling $430 billion of student loan principal,” Roberts wrote.
In the months leading up to the court’s decision, White House officials said there was no backup plan for if the Supreme Court knocked down the debt-forgiveness initiative. Advocates and activists have said that student-loan repayments shouldn’t resume until the Biden administration fulfills its promise to cancel some student debt.
The bill President Joe Biden signed in June to raise the nation’s debt limit requires that the Department of Education end the pause on federal student loan, interest payments and collections 60 days after June 30, 2023. Interest on federal student loans will resume starting September 1 and payments will start to come due in October, according to the Department’s website.
Advocates and activists have said for years that the Higher Education Act provides the Secretary of Education with the authority to discharge student loans. In ruling that the HEROES Act didn’t authorize the Biden administration’s debt-relief plan, the court left the option open for the Biden administration to create a loan-forgiveness program authorized under the HEA.
The court’s decision marks the latest development in a more-than-decade-long push to get the government to cancel student debt en masse. The idea, which has its origins in the Occupy Wall Street movement, made it to the presidential campaign stage during the 2020 cycle and was adopted by the White House last year.
Proponents of student debt cancellation and the Biden administration, have expressed concern that without some kind of relief a large swath of borrowers could slip into delinquency and default with the return of student loan payments later this year.
Shares of Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. slumped in the extended session Tuesday following a report that the Biden administration is considering a new ban on sales of AI chips to China.
Nvidia shares NVDA, +3.06%
A fell 3% after hours, following a 3.1% gain to close at $418.76, while AMD shares AMD, +2.68%
also fell 3%, after a 2.7% gain in the regular session to close at $110.39.
Late Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported the Commerce Department could further block sales of AI chips to China unless U.S. companies first obtain a special license.
The ban would follow upon similar actions last year that threatened $400 million in Nvidia sales, but the company found a workaround in supplying a version of products that avoided the ban.
Both Nvidia and AMD have launched new AI chips this year: Nvidia in March and AMD earlier in the month. Last year’s release of Open AI’s ChatGPT generative AI — with billions of dollars invested by Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +1.82%
— resulted in an explosion of interest in artificial-intelligence technology, prompting luminaries to herald the technology as the biggest thing in tech since … you name it.
News of the possible ban happened to follow a claim earlier in the day from Baidu Inc. BIDU, +3.09%
on the Chinese search company’s blog, which said its Ernie 3.5 version AI outperformed ChatGPT’s earlier version “in comprehensive ability scores,” and its latest iteration, GPT-4, which was released in mid-March, “in several Chinese-language capabilities.”
Shares of Super Micro Computer Inc. SMCI, +4.47%, which have benefited from AI, also declined 3% after hours, while shares of Intel Corp. INTC, +2.28%,
which supplies chips to data centers, saw shares decline 1% after hours.
The INFORM Consumers Act, which went into effect Tuesday, aims to limit the sales of stolen and counterfeit products on e-commerce platforms.
The measure, which requires e-commerce sites to verify and disclose information about their high-volume third-party sellers, was passed into law following a lobbying campaign to address counterfeit products after being left out of the bipartisan Chips and Science Act last year.
All online marketplaces, including eBay, Etsy, Poshmark and Amazon’s third-party sales platform, will now be required to collect information from high-volume sellers, defined as those selling 200 items or more totaling at least $5,000 over the previous 12 months. These third-party sellers must submit information such as a government-issued ID, a bank-account number, a working email address and phone number, and a taxpayer identification number.
Customers will also be able to find the verified contact information for bigger third-party sellers — those with sales of over $20,000 a year — and to get in touch with them outside of the e-commerce platform. In the past, consumers often had to engage within the platform operator in order to communicate with a seller.
Those bigger sellers will also have their full names and physical addresses listed on their product pages in addition to their contact information, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s business guide.
“This is a game changer,” said Teresa Murray, director of the consumer watchdog office at U.S. PIRG, a nonprofit that lobbies on behalf of the public interest. “For bad guys, stealing items has generally been the difficult part. Selling things online once you’ve stolen them is easy. We hope that with the INFORM Act, it’s not nearly as easy in the future.”
“‘The only people opposing this may be thieves.’”
— Teresa Murray, U.S. PIRG
The act goes into effect just weeks before Amazon Prime Day, when the world’s biggest e-commerce site rolls out discounts for Prime members. This year, Prime Day will be held over two days, on July 11 and 12.
Several e-commerce platforms, including Amazon and eBay, supported the INFORM Consumers Act. TechNet, a national network of technology CEOs and senior executives representing what it calls the innovation economy, wrote to leaders in Congress last December, saying the law would improve consumer safety and increase transparency.
In a statement provided to MarketWatch, eBay EBAY, +2.32%
said it “fully supports transparency and is committed to a safe selling and buying experience for our customers. We were proud to support” the law “to protect consumers from bad actors who seek to misuse online marketplaces, while also ensuring important protections for sellers. We are fully prepared to comply with the new law.”
Etsy ETSY, +3.45%
said it “has long been supportive of the INFORM Act passing into law, as a balanced and thoughtful approach to make the ecommerce landscape safer for both consumers and sellers.” In a statement provided to MarketWatch, the company said, “We are taking appropriate steps to comply with the INFORM Act requirements.”
Amazon AMZN, +1.45%
and Poshmark, owned by South Korea–based Naver Corp. 035420, -0.59%,
did not immediately respond to MarketWatch requests for comment.
Some analysts, however, said the new law lacks stronger protections that were included the SHOP SAFE Act, an earlier bill that did not get passed by Congress. The INFORM Act, they noted, does not hold online platforms liable when a third party sells harmful counterfeit products or when the platform has not followed certain best practices.
“Notably, the legislation is supported by Amazon and other marketplaces as it’s seen as a watered-down bill that would head off more stringent legislation like the SHOP SAFE Act,” Ben Koltun, director of research at Beacon Policy Advisors, wrote in a note last year.
So how can consumers spot counterfeit or stolen items? A guide from PIRG has tips, such as keeping an eye out for products with suspiciously low prices or featuring misspellings or mislabeling or low-quality, photoshopped photos in their listings.
PIRG also cautions consumers about purchasing medications online. Always check the legitimacy of online pharmacies, it says.
“Many online marketplaces haven’t been doing enough to protect consumers from sellers who appear to be peddling stolen or counterfeit goods,” Murray said. “The only people opposing this [new law] may be thieves.”
Less than 48 hours before being found dead in prison, Jeffrey Epstein met with his lawyers to sign a new version of his last will and testament.
The disgraced financier had been under psychological observation from a previous episode in which he was found hanging in his prison cell, but the provocative step of signing a new will went unnoticed by prison officials until after Epstein’s death.
That lapse was one of many missteps and missed opportunities to stop Epstein from killing himself sometime in the early morning hours of Aug. 10, 2019, contained in an official report released Tuesday by the Department of Justice’s internal, investigative watchdog.
The report stands by the initial determination that Epstein’s death was the result of suicide as there were no signs of foul play or that anyone had been anywhere near his cell after he was last seen alive by prison guards the night before.
But the report also lays out in detail Epstein’s final days, including a number of curious steps he took in that time and a series of serious protocol breaches made by prison staff that would contribute to him being left unwatched long enough to kill himself.
Epstein was arrested on July 6 of that year on federal sex-trafficking charges. He was ordered held without bail and eventually placed in the special housing unit of the Manhattan Correctional Center in New York while he awaited trial. There, inmates were kept in their cells for 23 hours a day, although Epstein spent much of his time meeting with his attorneys, the report said.
From the beginning, Epstein had a cellmate. On the night of July 23, the cellmate began banging on the cell door and screaming for the guards. When officers arrived, they found Epstein hanging from the bunk bed ladder with an orange piece of cloth wrapped around his neck.
The officers pulled Epstein down and managed to resuscitate him. When he later came to, he initially said he thought his cellmate had tried to kill him, but later said he could not recall what had happened. An investigation could not definitively conclude what had happened, the DOJ report said.
Following the episode, Epstein was placed on suicide watch — in which he was continuously monitored by staff. When prison psychologists later determined that Epstein was no longer a risk to himself, they downgraded his status to “psychological observation,” meaning he could be returned to a cell and not be kept under continual watch.
Curiously, Epstein said he wanted his original cellmate back. When prison officials said they weren’t sure that was such a good idea, Epstein replied: “Yeah, but I don’t understand, you know, we were bunkies, everything was cool,” the report quoted him as saying.
On July 30, prison staff were informed that Epstein needed to be assigned an “appropriate cellmate,” and he was housed with another inmate in a cell just 15 feet away from the guard station. That inmate later reported that Epstein was allowed to sleep on a mattress on the floor and was given an extra blanket, in violation of prison rules.
On August 8, Epstein signed the new will. The following morning, Epstein’s cellmate was transferred out of the prison, leaving Epstein alone.
Later that day, more than 2,000 pages of documents were publicly released as part of court proceedings against Epstein’s long-time companion, Ghislaine Maxwell. The documents included extensive information that was damaging to Epstein.
Maxwell was found guilty in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
That evening, after meeting with his lawyers, Epstein was allowed to place an unmonitored phone call. The report said that while Epstein claimed he was calling his mother, he actually phoned “someone with whom he allegedly has a personal relationship,” the report stated.
Epstein was last seen alive in his cell at 10:40 p.m. and was discovered dead by prison staff at 6:30 a.m. the following morning. He was once again found hanging from the upper bunk with a cord tied around his neck.
According to the report, prison officials discovered extra sheets and bedding in the cell. An investigation revealed that the prison guards on duty that night, failed to conduct rounds of the cell block and check on Epstein every 30 minutes like they were supposed to, meaning Epstein was unwatched for nearly eight hours.
The guards were later charged with falsifying records to show that they had done the required rounds while they were actually sleeping and surfing the internet. The two guards later reached deferred prosecution agreements with the federal prosecutors, in which charges against them were dropped after they performed community service and kept out of trouble for six months.
Some of the prison cameras in the cell block also had been malfunctioning for weeks so that while they provided a live feed of the area, they failed to record. A nearby camera that was fully operational showed no one entering the area after the guards last locked Epstein in his cell at 10:40 p.m. the night before he was found dead, the report said.
An autopsy showed no signs of foul play or that Epstein had struggled with anyone prior to his death. Officials say they believe he had hanged himself.
A federal judge late Tuesday approved a request by the Federal Trade Commission to temporarily block Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order in order to “maintain the status quo,” and set a evidentiary hearing to be held June 22-23 on whether a preliminary injunction should be issued.
The deal was set to be finalized as soon as this Friday. Tuesday’s order said the deal may not close until at least five days after the court’s preliminary injunction ruling.
The acquisition has raised antitrust concerns that Microsoft MSFT, +0.74%,
with its Xbox gaming console, could withhold hit Activision Blizzard ATVI, +1.17%
videogame franchises such as “Call of Duty” and “Overwatch” from competing console platforms.
“This loss of competition would likely result in significant harm to consumers in multiple markets at a pivotal time for the industry,” the FTC said in its filing Monday.
In a statement Tuesday evening, a Microsoft spokesperson said: “Accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the gaming market. A temporary restraining order makes sense until we can receive a decision from the court, which is moving swiftly.”
ROME (AP) — Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longest-serving premier despite scandals over his sex-fueled parties and allegations of corruption, died, Italian media reported Monday. He was 86.
Italian news agency LaPresse reported Berlusconi’s death after he was hospitalized on Friday for the second time in months for treatment of chronic leukemia.
Berlusconi was hospitalized in Milan on April 5 with a lung infection stemming from the disease, said Dr. Alberto Zangrillo, his personal physician. He also suffered over the years from heart ailments, prostate cancer and was hospitalized for COVID-19 in 2020.
A onetime cruise ship crooner, Berlusconi used his television networks and immense wealth to launch his long political career, inspiring both loyalty and loathing.
To admirers, the three-time premier was a capable and charismatic statesman who sought to elevate Italy on the world stage. To critics, he was a populist who threatened to undermine democracy by wielding political power as a tool to enrich himself and his businesses.
His Forza Italia political party was a coalition partner with current Premier Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader who came to power last year, although he held no position in the government.
Silvio Berlusconi, Giorgia Meloni (C), Matteo Salvini and other members of right-wing coalition speak to the media on October 21, 2022 in Rome, Italy.
Getty Images
His friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin put him at odds with Meloni, a staunch supporter of Ukraine. On his 86th birthday, while the war raged, Putin sent Berlusconi best wishes and vodka, and the Italian boasted he returned the favor by sending back Italian wine.
As Berlusconi aged, some derided his perpetual tan, hair transplants and live-in girlfriends who were decades younger. For many years, however, Berlusconi seemed untouchable despite the personal scandals.
Criminal cases were launched but ended in dismissals when statutes of limitations ran out in Italy’s slow-moving justice system, or he was victorious on appeal. Investigations targeted the tycoon’s steamy so-called “bunga bunga” parties involving young women and minors, or his businesses, which included the soccer team AC Milan, the country’s three biggest private TV networks, magazines and a daily newspaper, and advertising and film companies.
Karima El-Mahroug, a.k.a. Ruby (C), reacts as members of the media approach on February 15, 2023 at a Milan special courthouse, following a court decision acquitting Berlusconi of bribing witnesses to lie about his “bunga bunga” parties in an underage prostitution case.
AFP via Getty Images
Only one led to a conviction — a tax fraud case stemming from a sale of movie rights in his business empire. The conviction was upheld in 2013 by Italy’s top criminal court, but he was spared prison because of his age, 76, and was ordered to do community service by assisting Alzheimer’s patients.
He still was stripped of his Senate seat and banned from running or holding public office for six years, under anti-corruption laws.
He stayed at the helm of Forza Italia, the center-right party he created when he entered politics in the 1990s and named for a soccer cheer, “Let’s go, Italy.” With no groomed successor in sight, voters started to desert it.
He eventually held office again -– elected to the European Parliament at age 82 and then last year to the Italian Senate.
Berlusconi’s party was eclipsed as the dominant force on Italy’s political right: first by the League, led by anti-migrant populist Matteo Salvini, then by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, with its roots in neo-fascism. Following elections in 2022, Meloni formed a governing coalition with their help.
He suffered personal humiliations as well. Berlusconi lost his standing as Italy’s richest man, although his sprawling media holdings and luxury real estate still left him a billionaire several times over.
In 2013, guests at one of his parties included an under-age Moroccan dancer whom prosecutors alleged had sex with Berlusconi in exchange for cash and jewelry. After a trial spiced by lurid details, a Milan court initially convicted Berlusconi of paying for sex with a minor and using his office to try to cover it up. Both denied having sex with each other, and he was eventually acquitted.
The Catholic Church, at times sympathetic to his conservative politics, was scandalized by his antics, and his wife of nearly 20 years divorced him, but Berlusconi was unapologetic, declaring: “I’m no saint.”
Berlusconi insisted that voters were impressed by his brashness.
“The majority of Italians in their hearts would like to be like me and see themselves in me and in how I behave,” he said in 2009, during his third and final stint as premier.
His second term, from 2001-06, was perhaps his golden era, when he became Italy’s longest-serving head of government and boosted its global profile through his friendship with U.S. President George W. Bush. Bucking widespread sentiment at home and in Europe, Berlusconi backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
As a businessman who knew the power of images, Berlusconi introduced U.S.-style political campaigns — with big party conventions and slick advertising — that broke with the gray world of Italian politics, in which voters essentially chose parties and not candidates. His rivals had to adapt.
Berlusconi saw himself as Italy’s savior from what he described as the Communist menace — years after the Berlin Wall fell. From the start of his political career in 1994, he portrayed himself as the target of a judiciary he described as full of leftist sympathizers. He always proclaimed his innocence.
When the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement gained strength, Berlusconi branded it as a menace worse than Communism.
His close friendship with longtime Socialist leader and former Premier Bettino Craxi was widely credited for helping him become a media baron. Still, Berlusconi billed himself as a self-made man, saying, “My formula for success is to be found in four words: work, work and work.”
He boasted of his libido and entertained friends and world leaders at his villas. At one party, newspapers reported the women were dressed as “little Santas.” At another, photos showed topless women and a naked man lounging poolside.
“I love life! I love women!” an unrepentant Berlusconi said in 2010.
He occasionally selected TV starlets for posts in his Forza Italia party. “If I weren’t married, I would marry you immediately,” Berlusconi reportedly said in 2007 to Mara Carfagna, who later became a Cabinet minister. Berlusconi’s wife publicly demanded an apology.
Berlusconi was nicknamed “Papi” — or “Daddy” — by an aspiring model whose 18th birthday bash he attended, also to his wife’s irritation. Later, self-described escort Patrizia D’Addario said she spent the night with him on the evening that Barack Obama was elected U.S. president in 2008.
From his cruise ship entertainer days, Berlusconi loved to compose and sing Neapolitan songs. Like millions of Italians, he had a passion for soccer, and often was in the stands at AC Milan.
He delighted in flouting political etiquette. He sported a bandanna when hosting British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his estate on the Emerald Coast of Sardinia, and it was later revealed he was concealing hair transplants. He posed for photos at international summits making an Italian gesture — which can be offensive or superstitious, depending on circumstances — in which the index and pinkie fingers are extended like horns.
US President Barack Obama (R) speaks with Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a meeting at the G8 Summit at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario, on June 26, 2010.
AFP via Getty Images
He stirred anger after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States by claiming Western civilization was superior to Islam.
When criticized in 2003 at the European Parliament by a German lawmaker, Berlusconi likened his adversary to a concentration camp guard. Years later, he drew outrage when he compared his family’s legal woes to what Jews must have encountered in Nazi Germany.
Berlusconi was born in Milan on Sept. 29, 1936, the son of a middle-class banker. He earned a law degree, writing his thesis on advertising. He started a construction company at 25 and built apartment complexes for middle-class families on Milan’s outskirts, part of a postwar boom.
But his astronomical wealth came from the media. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he circumvented Italy’s state TV monopoly RAI by creating a de facto network in which local stations all showed the same programming. RAI and his Mediaset network accounted for about 90% of the national market in 2006.
When the “Clean Hands” corruption scandals of the 1990s decimated the political establishment that had dominated postwar Italy, Berlusconi filled the void, founding Forza Italia in 1994.
His first government in 1994 collapsed after eight months when an ally who led an anti-immigrant party yanked support. But aided by an aggressive campaign that included mass mailings of glossy magazines recounting his success story, Berlusconi swept to victory in 2001.
Shuffling his Cabinet occasionally, he stayed in power for five years, setting a record for government longevity in Italy. It wasn’t easy.
A Group of Eight summit he hosted in Genoa in 2001 was marred by violent anti-globalization demonstrations and the death of a protester shot by a police officer. Berlusconi faced fierce domestic opposition and alienated some allies by sending 3,000 troops to Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. For a time, Italy was the third-largest contingent in the U.S. coalition.
At home, he constantly faced accusations of sponsoring laws aimed at protecting himself or his businesses, but he insisted he always acted in the interest of all Italians. Legislation passed when he was premier allowing officeholders to own media businesses but not run them was deemed by his critics to be tailor made for Berlusconi.
An admirer of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Berlusconi passed reforms that partially liberalized the labor and pension systems, among Europe’s most inflexible. He also was chummy with Putin, who stayed at his Sardinian estate, and he visited the Russian leader, notably going to Crimea after Moscow illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.
In 2006, as Italy was ridiculed as “the sick man of Europe,” with its economy mired in zero growth and its budget deficit rising, Berlusconi narrowly lost the general election to center-left leader Romano Prodi, who had been president of the European Union Commission.
In 2008, he bounced back for what would be his final term as premier. It ended abruptly in 2011, when financial markets lost faith in his ability to keep Italy from succumbing to the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis. To the relief of economic powerhouse Germany, Berlusconi reluctantly stepped down.
Health concerns dogged him over the years. He underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 1997. In November 2006, he fainted during a speech, and the next month flew to the U.S., where he received a pacemaker at the Cleveland Clinic. He underwent more heart surgery in 2016.
During a political rally in 2009, a man threw a souvenir statuette of Milan’s cathedral at Berlusconi, fracturing his nose, cracking two teeth and cutting his lip.
Berlusconi was first married in 1965 to Carla Dall’Oglio, and their two children, Marina and Piersilvio, were groomed to hold top positions in his business empire. He married his second wife, Veronica Lario, in 1990, and they had three children, Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi.
The federal criminal indictment against former-president Donald Trump alleging he illegally kept classified documents after leaving the White House reads like a textbook manual on how not to handle top-secret files.
Federal prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office detail a litany of alleged missteps, willful obfuscation and breaches of security in how Trump stored, shared and even tried to hide from investigators what he had taken with him when he left office in 2020.
On Friday, a federal judge in Florida unsealed the 37-count indictment against Trump on charges of willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, scheming to conceal and making false statements and representations.
Trump has insisted he is innocent and has vowed to fight in court.
Here are six of the most serious allegations contained in the 49-page indictment:
1. The most secret of secrets
Prosecutors were vague about exactly what kind of classified information was contained in the files Trump allegedly retained upon leaving office, but they did provide broad descriptions of what type of material was there, including sensitive details about national defense.
Other categories included:
White House intelligence briefings about foreign countries
Details about the military capabilities of certain foreign countries
Information on the nuclear capabilities of a foreign country
Documents detailing communications with the leader of a foreign country
Military contingency planning by the United States
Details of U.S. nuclear weapons
Documents detailing plans of an attack in a foreign country
2. Don’t mind those boxes
Prosecutors allege that Trump was extremely careless in how he stored dozens of boxes which contained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to his residence at the Mar-a-Lago social club in Palm Beach, Fla.
At various points over the two years Trump kept the papers, the boxes were kept on a stage in a public ballroom, in a bathroom and shower, his home office, his bedroom and an unsecured storage room adjacent to a closet where bottles of liquor were stored.
In one episode, a Trump staffer found a stack of boxes had fallen over in the storage room, spilling documents marked as classified onto the floor.
3. Hey, check these out
On at least two occasions, Trump showed off certain classified documents to people who lacked any kind of security clearance, including a writer working on a book and a representative of a political action committee.
In July 2021, prosecutors say Trump whipped out a classified document detailing a proposed plan of attack on a foreign country.
“Look what I found, this was [the senior military official’s] plan of attack, read it and just show … it’s interesting,” Trump was recorded as saying, according to the indictment.
“It is like, highly confidential,” he allegedly said. “Secret. This is secret information.”
Two months later, Trump allegedly showed a classified map of a foreign country where fighting is ongoing to a representative of his political action committee. Trump noted that “he should not be showing the map,” and warned the official “not to get too close.”
4. Can’t we just keep this stuff?
After receiving subpoenas demanding he return all the classified material he had taken with him, Trump asked his lawyers if they could just not send it all back, or tell the government that they went through all the boxes and hadn’t found anything.
“Well, what if we, what happens if we don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” Trump is quoted as saying by federal prosecutors.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we didn’t have anything here?” Trump asked, according to the indictment.
“Well look, isn’t it better if there are no documents?” he further asked, the court documents claimed.
Later, after Trump’s lawyers had gone through the boxes and uncovered dozens of classified documents, Trump allegedly asked if they could just make anything really damning disappear, the court filing said.
“He made a funny motion as though —well okay, why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there is anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out. And that was the motion he made. He didn’t say that,” one of the lawyers, who was not named in the filing, was quoted as telling prosecutors.
5. Documents from many sensitive agencies
The documents investigators recovered came from a wide gamut of U.S. government agencies, the indictment said, including:
The CIA
Department of Defense
The National Security Agency
The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
The National Reconnaissance Office
The Department of Energy
The Department of State
6. If my lawyers don’t know about it …
Prosecutors say that Trump purposefully worked with his personal valet to hide boxes of documents from his own lawyers as they worked to return classified material to the government.
During a 10-day period in the late spring of 2021, prosecutors say Trump’s valet, Waltine Nauta, moved 64 boxes from a storage room to Trump’s office for him to go through before his lawyers could examine them. Prosecutors say Nauta later moved just 30 boxes back to the storage for the lawyers to sift through. Some of those boxes were later sent to Trump’s other home in Bedminster, N.J.
Nauta has also been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheming to conceal and making false statements or representations.
The federal indictment of Donald Trump in a classified documents probe has been unsealed, a day after the former president was charged in the case.
Trump — currently the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination — faces 37 criminal counts including charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and obstructing justice.
The federal indictment of Donald Trump in a classified documents probe has been unsealed, a day after the former president was charged in the case.
Trump — currently the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination — faces 37 criminal counts including charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and obstructing justice.
Earlier Friday, Trump shook up his legal team in the wake of the indictment.
In a video on Truth Social Thursday night, Trump called the new probe a “hoax” and said he’s an “innocent man.” And in a fundraising pitch, Trump showed no signs of slowing his campaign, saying: “I only grow that much more confident that we WILL win back the White House and SAVE our country in 2024!” There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution to prevent Trump from running for president.
Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, was also charged in the indictment. Nauta went to work at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after leaving the White House.
The 49-page document accuses the former president of ignoring Justice Department demands to return documents he had taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and even directing aides to help him hide the records sought by the government. Nauta was seen on surveillance camera removing boxes at Mar-a-Lago.
Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the investigation, said in a rare public appearance on Friday that he was seeking a “speedy trial.”
“It is very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” Smith said. He also invited the public to read the full indictment “to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”
Trump has already been indicted in a separate case in New York and faces other investigations in Georgia and in Washington that could lead to criminal charges.
Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Analysts are predicting that the indictment could help Trump in the GOP primary, but not in the November 2024 election vs. President Joe Biden. Biden, asked about the indictment on Friday, said he had no comment.
“We continue to think that indictments are a neutral to positive factor for Trump in a primary setting, while being a serious vulnerability when the general election rolls around,” Tobin Marcus, an Evercore ISI analyst, wrote in a note on Friday.
Meanwhile, shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC, -0.70%,
the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) looking to take Trump’s Truth Social platform public, were down fractionally after climbing in morning trading Friday.
Victor Reklaitis and the Associated Press contributed.
Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s been indicted in the federal investigation into classified documents in his possession, and has been summoned to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday.
In a pair of posts late Thursday on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he was informed of the indictment by his attorneys. Shortly after, Trump sent a fundraising email to supporters, calling the investigation “witch hunt.”
There was no immediate confirmation from the U.S. Justice Department. The New York Times and Washington Post, among other media outlets, confirmed the indictment, citing unnamed sources.
In a four-minute video posted on Truth Social on Thursday night, Trump claimed “the whole thing is a hoax” and said “I’m an innocent man.” Later, during an interview on Fox News, Trump said he plans on pleading not guilty, “of course.”
The indictment is reportedly under seal and the exact charges are not yet clear. But Trump attorney James Trusty, appearing Thursday night on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” said Trump faces at least seven charges, including an Espionage Act charge — which he called “ludicrous”” — willful retention of documents, “several obstruction-based-type charges” and making false statements.
Reports this week had indicated an indictment was looming. On Wednesday, it was revealed that Trump was being investigated by a federal grand jury in Florida, in addition to one in Washington. That likely indicated Florida was a more appropriate venue for the charges, experts told the Associated Press.
Several media outlets had also reported Trump’s attorneys had been issued a target letter, which often precedes an indictment.
The investigation has centered around classified documents that were wrongly in Trump’s possession after he left office. After returning some documents to the National Archives, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last year and recovered more than 100 additional documents that had been marked classified.
Special counsel Jack Smith has been leading the documents investigation, as well as a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In April, Trump — who was the first president to be impeached twice — became the first former president to be indicted, and pleaded not guilty in Manhattan court to 34 felony charges of falsifying records to cover up hush-money payments. He would also be the first former president to face federal charges.
Being indicted would not disqualify Trump, who has already entered the 2024 presidential race, from running for office. “Probably it will enhance my numbers,” Trump said of an indictment earlier this year.
