Tag: misc people

Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood gives up law license amid 2020-related disciplinary case | CNN Politics

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Lin Wood, a prominent right-wing attorney and election denier, has given up his law license in an apparent move to stave off disciplinary proceedings tied to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Wood is formally retiring from practicing law, and the disciplinary cases against him in Georgia are being dismissed, according to court filings and a letter Wood sent to the state bar this week. His retirement is “unqualified, irrevocable, and permanent,” the court filings state.

“I have retired from the active practice of law as I have been planning to do since late 2019,” Wood told CNN.

The situation stems from Wood’s conduct after the 2020 election. He filed a series of meritless lawsuit s after then-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, which were filled with debunked theories about massive voter fraud that went nowhere in the courts. He was never formally part of the Trump campaign’s legal team, though he promoted the same election lies that Trump embraced.

“By permitting (Wood) to transfer to Retired Status and thereby prohibiting (Wood) from practicing law in this state or any other state or jurisdiction, the Office of General Counsel believes that it has achieved the goals of disciplinary action, including protecting the public and the integrity of the judicial system and the legal profession,” Robert Remar, an attorney representing the State Bar of Georgia, wrote in a court filing.

In a Telegram post on Wednesday, Wood said, “Anyone who suggests that my voluntary retirement from the GA B.A.R. was out of fear of disbarment, does not know me or has not followed me very long.”

The disciplinary proceedings against Wood are one of several against lawyers who helped Trump in his ill-fated quest to stay in power. His personal attorney at the time, Rudy Giuliani, saw his law license suspended in 2021. And another pro-Trump attorney, John Eastman, is currently in the middle of a disciplinary trial for attempting to subvert Congress’ election certification on January 6, 2021.

These and other lawyers in Trump’s orbit are also being scrutinized in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation into the Trump team’s wide-ranging attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and potentially interfere with the lawful transfer of power.

Long before the 2020 election, Wood became famous for successfully handling high-profile defamation lawsuits, most notably the case of Richard Jewell, the Atlanta security guard who was falsely accused of being the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bomber. But his activities amid the 2020 presidential election became increasingly unhinged, including calling for the execution of senior US officials and promoting QAnon conspiracies.

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April 12, 2021
Instagram lifts ban on anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after launch of presidential bid | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Instagram announced Sunday it had lifted its ban on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist who has launched a presidential bid, two years after it shut down Kennedy’s account for breaking its rules related to Covid-19.

“As he is now an active candidate for president of the United States, we have restored access to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s, Instagram account,” Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Instagram’s parent company Meta said in a statement.

Kennedy, who has a long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, was banned from Instagram in February 2021.

A company spokesperson at the time said Instagram had removed his account for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”

While Kennedy’s Instagram account was banned, his Facebook account remained active. Both platforms are owned by Meta.

Kennedy was a leading anti-vaccination voice during the Covid-19 pandemic, using his social media platforms to sow doubt and misinformation about the shots.

He has promoted false claims about vaccine links to autism and in 2022 compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany.

His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, publicly condemned Kennedy’s remark as “reprehensible” after he invoked Anne Frank, who was murdered by Nazis as a teenager.

Hines distanced herself from him in January 2022, tweeting: “His opinions are not a reflection of my own.”

Kennedy’s return to Instagram, first reported by The Washington Post, will give him access to his more than 769,000 followers.

The decision comes as traditional media and social media companies attempt to navigate a 2024 election campaign fraught with accusations of misinformation and censorship.

On Friday, YouTube announced it would no longer remove content featuring false claims that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen, reversing a policy instituted more than two years ago amid a wave of misinformation about the election.

The decision to reinstate Kennedy comes amid a flurry of activity between the candidate and Silicon Valley.

On Sunday, Twitter

(TWTR) founder Jack Dorsey appeared to endorse Kennedy for president, tweeting a YouTube video titled, “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. argues he can beat Trump and DeSantis in 2024.” Dorsey added in the tweet, “He can and will.”

On Monday, Kennedy is due to take part in a live audio chat on Twitter with the company’s owner Elon Musk.

Meta’s decision to allow Kennedy back on Instagram came a few days after the Democratic presidential candidate publicly complained that the platform was blocking his campaign from creating a new account.

Stone, the Meta spokesperson, told CNN on Sunday that the restriction was a mistake and that the company had resolved the issue.

Meta executives have long maintained they believe political candidates should be able to use its platforms to reach voters, even if those candidates sometimes break rules that would get other users banned from its platforms.

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April 12, 2021
Wagner chief rejects Russian Defense Ministry efforts to rein in his force | CNN

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CNN
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The boss of the Russian private military company Wagner says he won’t sign contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry, rejecting an attempt to bring his force in line.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s comments follow an announcement by the Russian Ministry of Defense Saturday that “volunteer units” and private military groups would be required to sign a contract with the ministry.

The order – signed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu – said the move would “give the voluntary formations the necessary legal status,” and create “unified approaches” to their work.

The order did not name the Wagner group but the move is seen a way of controlling the influential military force.

Prigozhin – who has publicly feuded with defense chiefs – said the move did not apply to Wagner.

“The orders and decrees issued by (Defense Minister Sergei) Shoigu apply to employees of the Ministry of Defense and military personnel. PMC ‘Wagner’ will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram post.

Wagner, he said, would “absolutely” pursue the “the interests of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.”

Prigozhin and Wagner have played a prominent role in the Ukraine war. In May he said his troops had capture Bakhmut in a costly and largely symbolic gain for Russia.

The Wagner chief has previously criticized Russia’s traditional military hierarchy, blaming Russian defense chiefs for “tens of thousands” of casualties and stating that divisions could end in a “revolution.”

He also accused Russian military leaders “sit like fat cats” in “luxury offices,” while his fighters are “dying,” and later accused the Russian Defense Ministry of trying to sabotage his troops’ withdrawal from Bakhmut, claiming the ministry laid mines along the exit routes.

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April 12, 2021
YouTube removed video of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for violating vaccine misinformation policy | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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YouTube said on Monday that it had removed a video of presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being interviewed by podcast host Jordan Peterson for violating its policy prohibiting vaccine misinformation.

A YouTube spokesperson told CNN that the platform removed the video from Peterson’s channel because it does not allow “content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities.”

The platform’s latest move comes as Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, has gained more mainstream attention with his views and recently had his account reinstated on Instagram as a result of his long-shot presidential campaign.

YouTube began cracking down broadly on vaccine misinformation in 2021, following an earlier policy preventing false or misleading claims about Covid-19. At the time, YouTube said it would remove the channels of “several well-known vaccine misinformation spreaders,” including one belonging to the Children’s Health Defense, a group affiliated with Kennedy. (The YouTube channel for Kennedy’s presidential campaign remains active.)

Under its policy, YouTube removes false claims about currently administered vaccines that the World Health Organization and local authorities have approved and confirmed to be safe.

Although YouTube removed the video, it remains available on Twitter, showing the fractured approach to vaccine misinformation across the internet as his campaign gets underway.

In a tweet on Sunday, Kennedy noted YouTube’s removal of the video saying, “What do you think … Should social media platforms censor presidential candidates?”

Kennedy also gained attention for his anti-vaccine views on a different podcast this week.

On Monday, prominent vaccine scientist Peter Hotez said he was accosted outside of his home after a Twitter exchange with podcaster Joe Rogan, who challenged Hotez to debate Kennedy over the weekend.

Hotez had tweeted in support of a Vice article criticizing Spotify’s handling of vaccine misinformation in an interview with Kennedy on Rogan’s show. After Twitter owner Elon Musk and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman weighed in, Hotez said he was “stalked in front of my home by a couple of antivaxxers.”

Kennedy suggested to Hotez that they have a “respectful, congenial, informative debate.” Hotez said he would go on Rogan’s podcast but would not debate Kennedy.

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April 12, 2021
GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy finds some fans in a very Trumpy place | CNN Politics

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West Palm Beach, Florida
CNN
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They wore Trump hats and Trump T-shirts and cheered wildly when former President Donald Trump took the stage to fireworks. But at the Turning Point Action conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, some of the conservative attendees said they had a little space in their hearts for Vivek Ramaswamy – the GOP newcomer running a longshot presidential primary bid against Trump, whom he has promised to pardon if it comes to that.

What they told CNN they liked most was the way Ramaswamy comes across on TV. The 37-year-old extremely wealthy pharmaceutical entrepreneur has never held public office, but he’s quick and assertive, and has become a frequent guest on cable news and conservative YouTube channels. He’s best known for denouncing “wokeness,” which he says has infected American corporations and investment banks that influence them.

Karen Colby – standing next to the sequin-packed “Trump Girl Shop” booth featuring “Theresa’s Concealed Carry Handbags.” – said she’d recently seen Ramaswamy on TV. “I forget what he was actually saying, but I said, ‘Dang, I really like him. I like him a lot,’” said Colby, a Republican from Broward County, Florida. “I like his values. I like what he says. I like his no-nonsense attitude. … If he does not earn the position of president, I would love to see him as vice president. President Trump: if you’re listening, choose Vivek.”

In Republican primary polls, Ramaswamy is competitive with seasoned politicians, though still in single figures and far behind Trump. CNN did not encounter a Turning Point attendee who had something nice to say about former Vice President Mike Pence, who many saw as having betrayed Trump by certifying the 2020 election results. The pro-Trump crowd did not like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has been critical of the former president. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was popular at the conference last year, he’s now fallen out of favor with this crowd amid his challenge to Trump, according to Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet.

But that didn’t kill their appetite for one of DeSantis’s signature issues: “wokeness.” And on that subject, they found a lot to like in Ramaswamy, who wrote a book called “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.” His argument is that corporations make statements about liberal social values and climate change at the expense of their profits, and that that is bad for investors and consumers.

Dolan Bair, a student at Wheaton College in Illinois, found Ramaswamy’s argument convincing. He thought a lot of big companies “push more liberal agendas,” and “maybe the government should not allow them to hold their liberal values over their consumers and their employees.”

Sure, Apple and Google were private companies, he said, but they’re so large he couldn’t avoid them. He could buy a different beer than Bud Light but there wasn’t a good option for a non-woke search engine.

Bair believed gay people had been treated unfairly, even imprisoned, in the past. “But at what point does Pride Month go away?” he asked. “When does when does Pride Month become two months? When does it become Pride Year?” CNN asked how a Pride Year – with more rainbow merchandise at Target, for instance – would affect him personally. “They could be using their money to go into R&D for better products, or lowering their product prices,” he said, echoing an argument made by Ramaswamy.

Sam Mathew was the most ardent Ramaswamy supporter CNN found, decked out in merch bearing the campaign’s slogan, “Truth.” “I like the way Vivek delivers the message on how to bring the country together by following the truth,” Mathew said. What did he mean by truth? “Truth, basically, to me, is exposing the lies,” he said.

Ramaswamy campaigns on “10 truths,” starting with “God is real,” and “There are only two genders.” CNN asked Mathew why the gender issue was so important, given the scale of national and global problems. “If you don’t have a base, where there’s a man and a woman – and if you’re confusing the young generation with a third gender, or a fourth gender, or a fifth gender – then the whole concept of humanity is lost,” Mathew said.

Mathew, an Indian American like Ramaswamy, immigrated to the US in the late 80s and went to college in Michigan. Back then, he saw hardly any other Indians in his neighborhood. Mathew knew racism existed. But since the Obama administration, he said, there was too much focus on race from elites. He felt liberal social values were being “pushed” through “constant bombarding” from news media, teachers’ unions, and universities. “I don’t know much about what is being taught, but from what I hear, it’s mostly telling Black kids that White people are bad, in simple terms,” Mathew said.

In the conference’s presidential straw poll, Trump won 86% of votes. When attendees were asked for their second choice, Ramaswamy got 51%.

As Trump was about to take the stage at the conference, CNN got a text from Kolvet, the Turning Point spokesperson, asking if If there was interest in an interview with Ramaswamy, a man who has raised his profile with his openness to all media – from network TV to niche podcasts. Shortly before the interview began, Ramaswamy got an email from Jordan Peterson asking him to come for another podcast chat. Peterson is a Canadian psychology professor best known for his opposition to what he calls “cultural Marxism” and his advice to young men that they stand up straight and clean their rooms.

In his interview with CNN – as he has in many, many other venues – Ramaswamy went to his central point and said wokeness was a “symptom of a cultural cancer” that was filling a hole in the hearts of people who had lost their national identity.

“I think the way we win is by taking a long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves who we really are as individuals – it is not just our race, it is not just our sexual identity or our gender, it is not just our political affiliation,” Ramaswamy said. “Ask ourselves, ‘Who am I as an individual?’ I’m not riding some tectonic plate of group identity. I am me. You are you,” he said.

“I think the right way to deal with what I view as the last final burning embers of racism is to let that quietly burn out rather than trying to put that fire out by accidentally throwing kerosene on it,” Ramaswamy said.

Turning Point had set up a wall with three-foot cardboard cutouts of all the candidates’ faces, and invited conference-goers to write what they thought of each on sticky notes. On Ramaswamy’s face, most views had been positive – “the future,” “unite us plz,” “Vivek have my children,” “Trump’s VP.”

But there was a dark side: two messages had white nationalist references. On one, a Star of David crossed out with the word “soon.” On the other, “1488,” which combines code for a slogan about protecting White children with code for “Heil Hitler.”

Ramaswamy said he had not seen the notes or ever heard of the 1488 meme. He knew racism still existed and had experienced it. But people faced a choice, he said, whether to “wallow” in it.

When CNN pointed out the notes to Kolvet, the Turning Point spokesperson, he took them down.

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April 12, 2021
Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The New York grand jury hearing the case against Donald Trump was set to break for several weeks. The former president’s lawyers believed on Wednesday afternoon they had at least a small reprieve from a possible indictment. Trump praised the perceived delay.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had other plans.

Thursday afternoon, Bragg asked the grand jury to return an historic indictment against Trump, the first time that a current or former US president has been indicted. The surprise move was the final twist in an investigation that’s taken a long and winding road to the history-making charges that were returned this week.

An indictment had been anticipated early last week – including by Trump himself, who promoted a theory he would be “arrested” – as law enforcement agencies prepared for the logistics of arraigning a former president. But after the testimony of Robert Costello – a lawyer who appeared on Trump’s behalf seeking to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen – Bragg appeared to hit the pause button.

Costello’s testimony caused the district attorney’s office to reassess whether Costello should be the last witness the grand jury heard before prosecutors asked them to vote on an indictment, multiple sources told CNN.

So they waited. The next day the grand jury was scheduled to meet, jurors were told not to come in. Bragg and his top prosecutors huddled the rest of the week and over the weekend to determine a strategy that would effectively counter Costello’s testimony in the grand jury.

They called two additional witnesses. David Pecker, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, appeared on Monday. The other witness, who has still not been identified, testified on Thursday for 35 minutes in front of the grand jury – just before prosecutors asked them to vote on the indictment of more than 30 counts, the sources said.

Trump and his attorneys, thinking Bragg might be reconsidering a potential indictment, were all caught off-guard, sources said. Some of Trump’s advisers had even left Palm Beach on Wednesday following news reports that the grand jury was taking a break, the sources added.

After the indictment, Trump ate dinner with his wife, Melania, Thursday evening and smiled while he greeted guests at his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a source familiar with the event.

The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump has been ongoing for years, dating back to Bragg’s predecessor, Cy Vance. Its focus shifted by mid-2020 to the accuracy of the Trump Org.’s financial statements. At the time, prosecutors debated legal theories around the hush money payments and thought they were a long shot. At several points, the wide-ranging investigation seemed to have been winding down – to the point that prosecutors resigned in protest last year. One even wrote a book critical of Bragg for not pursuing charges against Trump released just last month.

The specific charges against Trump still remain under seal and are expected to be unveiled Tuesday when Trump is set to be arraigned.

There are questions swirling even among Trump critics over whether the Manhattan district attorney’s case is the strongest against the former president amid additional investigations in Washington, DC, and Georgia over both his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at his Florida resort.

Trump could still face charges in those probes, too, which are separate from the New York indictment.

But it’s the Manhattan indictment, dating back to a payment made before the 2016 presidential election, that now sees Trump facing down criminal charges for the first time as he runs again for the White House in 2024.

It was just weeks before the 2016 election when Cohen, Trump’s then-lawyer, paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.) Cohen was later reimbursed $420,000 by the Trump Organization to cover the original payment and tax liabilities and to reward him with a bonus.

That payment and reimbursement are keys at issue in the investigation.

Cohen also helped arrange a $150,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal to kill her story claiming a 10-month affair with Trump. Trump also denies an affair with McDougal. During the grand jury proceedings, the district attorney’s office has asked questions about the “catch and kill” deal with McDougal.

When Cohen was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 2018 and pleaded guilty, he said he was acting at the direction of Trump when he made the payment.

At the time, federal prosecutors had determined they could not seek to indict Trump in the scheme because of US Justice Department regulations against charging a sitting president. In 2021, after Trump left the White House, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York decided not to pursue a case against Trump, according to a recent book from CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

But then-Manhattan District Attorney Vance’s team had already picked up the investigation into the hush money payments and begun looking at potential state law violations. By summer 2019, they sent subpoenas to the Trump Org., other witnesses, and met with Cohen, who was serving a three-year prison sentence.

Vance’s investigation broadened to the Trump Org.’s finances. New York prosecutors went to the Supreme Court twice to enforce a subpoena for Trump’s tax records from his long-time accounting firm Mazars USA. The Trump Org. and its long-time chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg were indicted on tax fraud and other charges in June 2021 for allegedly running an off-the-books compensation scheme for more than a decade.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the charges last year and is currently serving a five-month sentence at Rikers Island. Prosecutors had hoped to flip Weisselberg to cooperate against Trump, but he would not tie Trump to any wrongdoing.

Disagreements about the pace of the investigation had caused at least three career prosecutors to move off the investigation. They were concerned that the investigation was moving too quickly, without clear evidence to support possible charges, CNN and others reported last year.

Vance authorized the attorneys on the team to present evidence to the grand jury near the end of 2021, but he did not seek an indictment. Those close to Vance say he wanted to leave the decision to Bragg, the newly elected district attorney.

Bragg, a Democrat, took office in January 2022. Less than two months into his tenure, two top prosecutors who had worked on the Trump case under Vance abruptly resigned amid a disagreement in the office over the strength of the case against Trump.

On February 22, 2022, Bragg informed the prosecution team that he was not prepared to authorize charges against Trump, CNN reported. The prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned the next day.

In his resignation letter, Pomerantz said he believed Trump was guilty of numerous felonies and said that Bragg’s decision to not move forward with an indictment at the time was “wrong” and a “grave failure of justice.”

“I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating,” Pomerantz wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by CNN.

At that point, the investigation was focused on Trump’s financial statements and whether he knowingly misled lenders, insurers, and others by providing them false or misleading information about the value of his properties.

Prosecutors were building a wide-ranging falsified business records case to include years of financial statements and the hush money payments, people with direct knowledge of the investigation told CNN. But at the time, those prosecutors believed there was a good chance a felony charge related to the hush money payment would be dismissed by a judge because it was a novel legal theory.

Dunne and Pomerantz pushed to seek an indictment of Trump tied to the sweeping falsified business records case, but others, including some career prosecutors, were skeptical that they could win a conviction at trial, in part because of the difficulty in proving Trump’s criminal intent.

Despite the resignations of the prosecutors on the Trump case, Bragg’s office reiterated at the time that the investigation was ongoing.

“Investigations are not linear so we are following the leads in front of us. That’s what we’re doing,” Bragg told CNN in April 2022. “The investigation is very much ongoing.”

At the same time that Bragg’s criminal investigation into Trump lingered last year, another prosecution against the Trump Org. moved forward. In December, two Trump Org. entities were convicted at trial on 17 counts and were ordered to pay $1.6 million, the maximum penalty, the following month.

Trump was not personally charged in that case. But it appeared to embolden Bragg’s team to sharpen their focus back to Trump and the hush money payment.

Cohen was brought back in to meet with Manhattan prosecutors. Cohen had previously met with prosecutors in the district attorney’s office 13 times over the course of the investigation. But the January meeting was the first in more than a year – and a clear sign of the direction prosecutors were taking.

As investigators inched closer to a charging decision, Bragg was faced with more public pressure to indict Trump: Pomerantz, the prosecutor who had resigned a year prior, released a book about the investigation that argued Trump should be charged and criticized Bragg for failing to do so.

“Every single member of the prosecution team thought that his guilt was established,” Pomerantz said in a February interview on “CNN This Morning.”

Asked about Bragg’s hesitance, Pomerantz said: “I can’t speak in detail about what went through his mind. I can surmise from what happened at the time and statements that he’s made since that he had misgivings about the strength of the case.”

Bragg responded in a statement saying that more work was needed on the case. “Mr. Pomerantz’s plane wasn’t ready for takeoff,” Bragg said.

Prosecutors continued bringing in witnesses, including Pecker, the former head of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer. In February, Trump Org. controller Jeffrey McConney testified before the grand jury. Members of Trump’s 2016 campaign, including Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks, also appeared. In March, Daniels met with prosecutors, her attorney said.

And Cohen, after his numerous meetings with prosecutors, finally testified before the grand jury in March.

The second week of March, prosecutors gave the clearest sign to date that the investigation was nearing its conclusion – they invited Trump to appear before the grand jury.

Potential defendants in New York are required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury weighing charges.

Behind the scenes, Trump attorney Susan Necheles told CNN she met with New York prosecutors to argue why Trump shouldn’t be indicted and that prosecutors didn’t articulate the specific charges they are considering.

Trump, meanwhile, took to his social media to predict his impending indictment. In a post attacking Bragg on March 18, Trump said the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week.”

“Protest, take our nation back,” Trump added, echoing the calls he made while he tried to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump’s prediction would turn out to be premature.

Trump’s call for protests after a potential indictment led to meetings between senior staff members from the district attorney’s office, the New York Police Department and the New York State Court Officers – who provide security at the criminal court building in lower Manhattan.

Trump’s lawyers also made a last-ditch effort to fend off an indictment. At the behest of Trump’s team, Costello, who advised Cohen in 2018, provided emails and testified to the grand jury on Monday, March 20, alleging that Cohen had said in 2018 that he had decided on his own to make the payment to Daniels.

Costello’s testimony appeared to delay a possible indictment – for a brief time at least.

During the void, Trump continued to launch verbal insults against Bragg, calling him a “degenerate psychopath.” And four Republican chairmen of the most powerful House committees wrote to Bragg asking him to testify, which Bragg’s office said was unprecedented interference in a local investigation. An envelope containing a suspicious white powder and a death threat to Bragg was to delivered to the building where the grand jury meets – the powder was deemed nonhazardous.

The grand jury would not meet again until Monday, March 27, when Pecker was ushered back to the grand jury in a government vehicle with tinted windows in a failed effort to evade detection by the media camped outside of the building where the grand jury meets.

Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump’s who had a history of orchestrating so-called “catch and kill” deals while at the National Enquirer, was involved with the Daniels’ deal from the beginning.

Two days after Pecker’s testimony, there were multiple reports that the grand jury was going into a pre-planned break in April. The grand jury was set to meet Thursday but it was not expected to hear the Trump case.

Instead, the grand jury heard from one last witness in the Trump case on Thursday, whose identity is still unknown. And then the grand jury shook up the American political system by voting to indict a former president and 2024 candidate for the White House.

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April 12, 2021
‘Maybe they don’t exist’: Republicans question legitimacy of alleged audio recordings of Biden bribery scheme | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa claimed on the Senate floor earlier this week that the foreign national who allegedly bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter has 17 audio recordings of their conversations but questioned whether those tapes even existed in an interview with CNN days later.

“I don’t even know where they are. I just know they exist, because of what the report says. Now, maybe they don’t exist. But how will I know until the FBI tells us, are they showing us their work?” Grassley said Thursday.

And Grassley is not the only Republican questioning the validity of the supposed tapes.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, who is overseeing the GOP investigation into the Biden family business dealings and has been quick to make the alleged bribery scheme a focus of his work, admitted to not knowing whether the tapes were legitimate.

“We don’t know if they’re legit or not, but we know that the foreign national claims he has them,” Comer said of the alleged recordings during a Tuesday interview on Newsmax.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who also serves on the Oversight panel and has made the Department of Justice and FBI a target of his investigative efforts, told CNN of the tapes, “I have no reason to doubt anything Senator Grassley says, but I don’t know if they exist or not.”

And Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who led his own investigation into the Biden family in 2020 and has long peddled the notion of wrongdoing, said in a separate Newsmax interview, “I’m not even aware that we verified those recordings exist.”

The tapes are the latest unverified allegations Republicans have raised as they’ve launched investigations into the Biden family’s business dealings as well as the work of the FBI. While Republicans have used their subpoena power to go after the Biden family’s foreign business dealings, they have still not established a direct link to President Biden.

Grassley first raised the existence of audio recordings after the FBI document that memorializes these allegations redacted them in the version shown to House Oversight Committee members.

Prior to the full committee viewing the redacted document, Comer and the top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, had viewed a version of the document that included mention of the recordings, according to two sources familiar with their briefing.

In a statement to CNN the chairman said, “The FBI’s Biden bribery record contains several investigative leads, but it is unclear what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these allegations.”

The FBI document at the heart of this debate, known as an FD-1023, summarizes multiple conversations a trusted FBI informant had with a foreign national alleging that an executive with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma offered both Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden bribes of $5 million.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump to serve during his administration, said when these bribery allegations came to light he tapped Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady to look into the 1023 form and other claims. Barr has described this effort as a “screening, clearing house function” and said once the information was checked out the allegations were passed on to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who is overseeing an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden. Investigators were unable to corroborate the claims in the 1023.

“That information was checked out, and it was determined that it was not likely to have been disinformation. It doesn’t say whether it’s true or not, but there was no sign there was disinformation. And so it was provided to the ongoing investigation in Delaware to follow up on and check out,” Barr said on Fox last week.

Acting assistant director for the FBI’s office of congressional affairs Christopher Dunham has explained in previous correspondence with Congress that an FD-1023 form is “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from a confidential human source,” and noted that there are strict Justice Department guidelines about when that information can be provided outside of the FBI.

Comer subpoenaed the document last month, and House Republicans have railed against the FBI for continuing to keep an unclassified document under close hold.

“Congress still lacks a full and complete picture with respect to what that document really says. That’s why it’s important that the document be made public without unnecessary redactions for the American people to see,” Grassley said on the floor earlier this week.

House Republicans were poised to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress earlier this month for his refusal to turn over the document, but a last-minute deal between Comer and Wray that included allowing the full committee to view the form halted the contempt proceedings. They are still publicly clamoring for the FBI to provide more detail about what steps were taken to investigate the claims in the document.

Democrats meanwhile continue to dismiss the allegations. The White House continues to frame Republicans’ investigative efforts as politically motivated. White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN, “Everything in their so-called investigation seems to be mysteriously missing: informants, audio tapes, and most importantly of all – any credible evidence.”

Raskin, who has painted the allegations as secondhand, told CNN, “It was thoroughly checked out by the Trump Justice Department, and they couldn’t find anything there. And if anybody would have an incentive to find something there it would have been the Trump Justice Department.”

Another Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, accused Republicans of having alternative motives for surfacing the allegations in the first place.

“What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to muddy the water because Trump is in so much trouble. They got to distract from that and pretend like, you know Joe Biden, which they say he’s sleepy and boring, is now somehow Tony Soprano,” he said.

But Republicans who viewed the version of the FD-1023 form that redacted mention of the audio recordings are continuing to raise questions.

One of those members, GOP Rep. Russell Fry of South Carolina, told CNN, “My assumption was that if they were going to redact things in that document that it would have been names and places and not actual corroborating evidence. So I think it’s unfortunate that the FBI decided to do that. And I look forward to seeing hopefully an unredacted copy of that 1023.”

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April 12, 2021
CNN Exclusive: Biden says war with Russia must end before NATO can consider membership for Ukraine | CNN Politics

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President Joe Biden told CNN in an exclusive interview that Ukraine is not yet ready for NATO membership, saying that Russia’s war in Ukraine needs to end before the alliance can consider adding Kyiv to its ranks.

Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that while discussion of Ukraine’s imminent membership in NATO was premature, the US and its allies in NATO would continue to provide President Volodymyr Zelensky and his forces the security and weaponry they need to try to end the war with Russia.

Biden spoke to Zakaria ahead of his weeklong trip to Europe, which includes a NATO summit in Lithuania where Russia’s war in Ukraine and Zelensky’s push for NATO membership will be among the key issues looming over the gathering.

“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden said. “For example, if you did that, then, you know – and I mean what I say – we’re determined to commit every inch of territory that is NATO territory. It’s a commitment that we’ve all made no matter what. If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.”

Biden said that he’s spoken to Zelensky at length about the issue, saying that he’s told the Ukrainian president the US would keep providing security and weaponry for Ukraine like it does for Israel while the process plays out.

“I think we have to lay out a rational path for Ukraine to be able to qualify to be able to get into NATO,” Biden said, noting that he refused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands before the war for a commitment not to admit Ukraine because the alliance has “an open-door policy.”

“But I think it’s premature to say, to call for a vote, you know, in now, because there’s other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization and some of those issues,” Biden said.

On Friday, the White House announced that the US was sending Ukraine cluster munitions for the first time, a step taken to help bolster Ukraine’s ammunition as it mounts a counteroffensive against Russia. Biden told Zakaria that it was a “difficult decision” to give Ukraine the controversial ammunition, but that he was convinced it was necessary because Ukraine was running out of ammunition.

The NATO meeting also comes as Sweden is seeking to join the Western alliance, a move that has faced resistance from Turkey and Hungary. Biden told Zakaria he was optimistic that Sweden would eventually be admitted to NATO, noting the key holdout, Turkey, is seeking to modernize its F-16 fleet, along with Greece, which has voted to admit Sweden.

“Turkey is looking for modernization of F-16 aircraft. And (Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos) Mitsotakis in Greece is also looking for some help,” Biden said. “And so, what I’m trying to, quite frankly, put together is a little bit of a consortium here, where we’re strengthening NATO in terms of military capacity of both Greece as well as Turkey, and allow Sweden to come in. But it’s in play. It’s not done.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Biden and Zakaria also discussed other key foreign policy challenges, including China, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Biden said that he’s confident Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to replace the US as the country with the largest economy and military capacity in the world, but he said that he believes the US can have a working relationship with Beijing.

“I think there is a way to resolve, to establish a working relationship with China that benefits them and us,” Biden said. “And the last thing I’ll tell you, I also called him after he had that meeting with the Russians about this new relationship, etc. And I said, ‘This is not a threat. It’s an observation.’ I said, ‘Since Russia went into Ukraine, 600 American corporations have pulled out of Russia. And you’ve told me that your economy depends on investment from Europe and the United States. And be careful. Be careful.’”

Biden said Xi didn’t argue with him and noted that China has “not gone full bore on Russia.”

“He talks about nuclear war being a disaster, there is such a thing as security that’s needed,” Biden said of the Chinese leader. “So, I think there’s a way we can work through this.”

Asked whether he would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, Biden said that Israel’s President Isaac Herzog was coming soon to the White House for a visit.

In March, Biden criticized Netanyahu for his now-scrapped plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary, a rare public instance where the two allies were publicly at odds.

Biden told Zakaria that he continued to believe a two-state solution was the correct path forward in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and he criticized some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet for their views on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“It’s not all Israel now in the West Bank, all Israel’s problem, but they are a part of the problem, and particularly those individuals in the cabinet who say, ‘We can settle anywhere we want. They have no right to be here, etc.,’” Biden said. “And I think we were talking with them regularly, trying to tamp down what’s going on and hopefully, Bibi will continue to move toward moderation and change.”

Biden also defended his trip to Saudi Arabia last year, telling Zakaria a number of successes came from the visit, such as establishing Israeli overflights over Saudi Arabia. Asked whether the US would provide the Saudis with a defense treaty and civilian nuclear capacity, as Riyadh has requested, Biden said, “We’re a long way from there.”

“Whether or not we would provide a means by which they can have civilian nuclear power, and/or be a guarantor of their security – I think that’s a little way off,” Biden said.

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April 12, 2021
Pence says he’s ‘not yet convinced’ Trump’s actions on January 6 were criminal | CNN Politics

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Former Vice President Mike Pence said he’s “not yet convinced” that Donald Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, were criminal, as the former president faces a potential indictment over his actions that day.

“I really do hope it doesn’t come to that,” Pence told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview that aired Sunday on “State of the Union.”

“In one town hall after another, across New Hampshire, I heard a deep concern … about the unequal treatment of the law, and I think one more indictment against the former president will only contribute to that sense among the American people,” Pence said. “I would rather that these issues and the judgment about his conduct on January 6 be left to the American people in the upcoming primaries, and I’ll leave it at that.”

Pence, who bucked pressure from Trump when he certified the results of the 2020 election, said Trump’s actions on January 6 were reckless but added he believed history would hold Trump accountable.

Bash asked Pence about a recent radio interview in which Trump spoke of his “passionate” supporters and how they could react to his potential imprisonment, saying, “I think it’s a very dangerous thing to even talk about.”

He told Bash that the rhetoric from Trump “doesn’t worry me, because I have more confidence in the American people.”

“I would say not just the majority, but virtually everyone in our movement are the kind of Americans who love this country, who are patriotic, who are law-and-order people, who would never have done anything like that there or anywhere else,” he said.

Reminded by Bash that Pence was the subject of calls for his hanging during the Capitol riot, the former vice president maintained his stance.

“The people who rallied behind our cause in 2016 and 2020 are the most God-fearing, law-abiding, patriotic people in this country,” he said.

Pivoting from Trump and to argue that people are concerned about “unequal treatment under the law,” Pence pointed to whistleblowers who claimed the IRS recommended charging President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden with far more serious crimes than what he agreed to plead guilty to and alleged political interference in the investigation. Pence vowed to “clean house” among the Department of Justice’s top ranks if he’s elected president.

Pressed on whether he thinks his former boss should be indicted if the DOJ has evidence that he committed a crime, Pence said, “Let me be very clear: President Trump was wrong on that day. And he’s still wrong in asserting that I had the right to overturn the election.”

“But … criminal charges have everything to do with intent, what the president’s state of mind was. And I don’t honestly know what his intention was that day,” the former vice president said.

This story has been updated with additional reaction.

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April 12, 2021
Trump legal team will look to challenge ‘every potential issue’ once indictment is unsealed | CNN Politics

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Donald Trump’s legal team will look to challenge “every potential issue” in his indictment once the charges are unsealed, an attorney for the former president said Sunday.

“We’re not doing anything at the arraignment because that would be showmanship and nothing more because we haven’t even seen the indictment yet. We will take the indictment, we will dissect it, the team will look at every – every – potential issue that we will be able to challenge and we will challenge it,” Joe Tacopina told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Tacopina and other Trump lawyers have done several TV interviews in anticipation of the former President’s first appearance in court Tuesday, when he will learn the charges that the Manhattan grand jury has approved against him.

At times, the lawyers have vowed to ask for the charges to be dismissed. But the full slate of charges still aren’t known. And crucially, a judge will ultimately determine if the law is sound enough for the case to move forward to trial.

Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in an interview with NBC News on Sunday, “We can speculate on what evidence we think they may or may not have, but even with the indictment published, we really will not know what the district attorney’s evidence is and what they would present at trial.”

Vance’s team investigated the case but did not charge it, leaving it under the purview of his successor, Alvin Bragg.

Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in the indictment. The investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office began when Trump was still in the White House and relates to a $130,000 payment made by his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels in late October 2016, days before the presidential election, to silence her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier.

Trump has denied the affair.

The Trump team’s court strategy could center around challenging the case because it may rely on business record entries that prosecutors tie to hush money payments to Daniels seven years ago, beyond the statute of limitations for a criminal case.

Tacopina suggested in TV interviews Sunday that the statute of limitations may be passed, and said the Trump businesses didn’t make false entries.

“They’re not false entries. But assuming they were, they’re misdemeanors way beyond the statute of limitations, so they had to cobble them together to try and get a felony,” he said.

Tacopina on Sunday also said a request to move the case to a different New York City borough isn’t on the table yet for Trump’s legal team.

“There’s been no discussion of that whatsoever,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in another interview. “It’s way too premature to start worrying about venue changes until we really see the indictment and grapple with the legal issues.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct Cy Vance’s comments to NBC.

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April 12, 2021
Convicted spy Robert Hanssen dies in prison | CNN Politics

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Robert Philip Hanssen, who received payments of $1.4 million in cash and diamonds for the information he gave the Soviet Union and Russia, has died, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced Monday. He was 79 years old.

Hanssen had been in custody at Colorado’s USP Florence ADMAX since July 17, 2002.

“On Monday, June 5, 2023, at approximately 6:55 am, inmate Robert Hanssen was found unresponsive at the United States Penitentiary (USP) Florence ADMAX in Florence, Colorado,” a release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. “Responding staff immediately initiated life-saving measures. Staff requested emergency medical services (EMS) and life-saving efforts continued.”

“Mr. Hanssen was subsequently pronounced deceased by EMS personnel,” the release said.

In 2001, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for the government not seeking the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Investigators accused him of compromising dozens of Soviet personnel who were working for the United States, some of whom were executed. He shared details of several US technical operations such as eavesdropping, surveillance and interception of communications. And he gave the Soviets the US plans of how it would react to a Soviet nuclear attack, both in protecting top government officials and retaliating against such an attack.

The

Hanssen case rocked the US intelligence community, exposing major flaws in how the FBI and other agencies vet those with access to the nation’s secrets.

After Hanssen’s treachery was exposed, investigators learned he had full access to the FBI and State Department’s computer systems and would spend hours trawling undetected for classified information. In his 25 years with the bureau, with access to highly sensitive sources and methods about US intelligence efforts targeting the Soviet Union and Russia, Hanssen had never been subjected to a polygraph examination.

After the Hanssen case, the FBI moved to strengthen its so-called insider threat programs aimed at safeguarding the nation’s secrets by closely scrutinizing the finances and travel of personnel with access to classified information, and increasing the use of polygraphs to routinely assess employees for continued allegiance and suitability.

Before Hanssen was exposed, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller said, “security was not a principle priority. There was no security division. The FBI didn’t have enough expertise. We moved to address that.”

Hanssen began spying for the Soviet Union in 1979, three years after he had joined the FBI as a special agent.

The counterintelligence officer worked as a spy for nearly 15 years, during some of the most consequential times for US and Russia relations and continuing past the end of the Cold War. He took a hiatus from spying for four years in the 1980s after being convinced by his wife, Bonnie.

In a letter allegedly written by Hanssen to the Russians, he said that he was inspired as a teen by the memoirs of British double agent Kim Philby.

“I decided on this course when I was 14 years old,” says the letter cited in the FBI’s affidavit. “I’d read Philby’s book. Now that is insane, eh!”

The FBI began surveilling Hanssen in 2000 after he was identified from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative.

After he was caught in 2001, Hanssen told his US interrogators, “I could have been a devastating spy, I think, but I didn’t want to be a devastating spy. I wanted to get a little money and get out of it.”

Hanssen apologized for his actions during his sentencing in 2002. “I am shamed by it. Beyond its illegality, I have torn the trust of so many. Worse, I have opened the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and our children. I hurt them deeply. I have hurt so many deeply,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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April 12, 2021
Blinken says US is ‘working to put some stability’ into relationship with China | CNN Politics

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that the US is attempting to strengthen “lines of communication” with China to avoid conflict between the two superpowers.

“We are working to put some stability into the relationship, to put a floor under the relationship, to make sure that the competition that we’re in doesn’t veer into conflict,” Blinken told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired Sunday. A conflict, the secretary added, “would not be in our interest, their interest, or anyone else’s.”

Blinken, who was speaking on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, made a highly anticipated trip to China last month, becoming the first secretary of state to travel to the country in five years and the most senior US official to make such a mission since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. His visit was followed by similar trips by other high-level Biden administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US climate envoy John Kerry.

“We weren’t doing a lot of talking before. Now we are. We have different groups that are engaged, or about to engage, on discrete issues … that are problems … in the relationship where I believe we can, I think, get to a resolution,” Blinken said. “Now these are early days. The proof will be in the results.”

After days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Beijing, Blinken touted that “progress” had been made toward steering relations back on track.

The two global powers have been increasingly at loggerheads over a host of issues ranging from Beijing’s close ties with Moscow to American efforts to limit the sale of advanced technologies to China.

Earlier this year, a Chinese surveillance balloon that was detected floating across the US and hovering over sensitive military sites before ultimately being shot down by an American fighter plane sent relations plunging to a new low and resulted in Blinken scrapping an earlier Beijing visit.

“I was very clear with my Chinese counterparts,” Blinken told Zakaria, referring to his trip last month. “We will continue to do and say things that China will not like just as they’re going to continue to do and say things we won’t like.”

“The test for us is whether we can manage our way through that, to make sure that we sustain these lines of communication, that we continue to talk, and that we work on, as I said, both dealing with the differences and seeing if we can cooperate,” the secretary said.

CNN previously reported that one of the key issues that did not get resolved during Blinken’s trip was the restoration of military-to-military communications between US and China. Contacts between the countries’ top military officials remain frozen, and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu continues to be under US sanction dating back to 2018 over the purchase of Russian weapons by China’s Equipment Development Department, which Li was in charge of at the time.

Asked by Zakaria whether the US should lift the penalty to alleviate tensions, Blinken said, “Those sanctions don’t prevent the minister from engaging or us engaging with him,” adding that “it is a political decision, in effect, for China to decide whether or not he should be engaging.”

China rejected a meeting between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Shangfu during a security forum in Singapore earlier this year, although the two did speak briefly.

“We’ve made very clear that we think it’s a responsibility to have these military-to-military contacts, to have this dialogue, especially to avoid any miscalculations, any misperceptions of what we’re each doing,” Blinken said. “So, we’ll see where China comes out on this.”

On the Ukraine front, Blinken told Zakaria that Russia has “already lost” the war “in terms of what Russia sought to achieve and what (Vladimir) Putin sought to achieve.”

“The objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate its independence, its sovereignty, to subsume it into Russia. That failed a long time ago,” the secretary said.

Blinken acknowledged that Ukraine’s mission to regain territory captured by Moscow would be “a very hard fight.” He predicted that the counteroffensive against Russia would continue for “several months.”

However, he said, along with the aid, military equipment and training Ukraine is receiving from various countries, Kyiv’s cause represents “the decisive element.”

“Unlike the Russians, Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their future, for their country, for their freedom,” Blinken said.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Blinken’s prediction about a conflict continuing for “several months” was a reference to the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

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April 12, 2021