Search warrants have offered new insights into a crash that killed a 15-year-old girl in December.
According to search warrants, the car was filled with teens who were leaving a wrestling tournament to pick up food and then drive back.
The warrants said the driver turned without the right of way on Dec. 5 at the intersection of Louis Stephens Road and Morrisville Parkway, which authorities said caused the crash.
The crash killed Lena Goff and injured several passengers in the car. The warrants said that based on the driver’s license level, she was not supposed to have more than one non-family member in the car. At the time of the crash, authorities said she had three.
Authorities charged the driver with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and failing to yield.
A traffic stop in Flagler County on Dec 31. led to the rescue of a missing 11-year-old boy and the arrest of registered sex offender Darnell Hairston. Once separated from Hairston, the 11-year-old victim immediately told a deputy he had been kidnapped, was in danger, and feared for his life.Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies secured the visibly traumatized child before Hairston attempted to flee on foot and was arrested. The child, who had been missing for three days, was taken to a local hospital.FCSO said the victim told them how Hairston had lured him to a wooded campsite in Flagler Estates, where he was choked unconscious.The child stated that when he woke up, he was threatened with a knife and a firearm, tied up with shoelaces and an extension cord, and had duct tape placed over his mouth.Also found in the truck with Hairston and the 11-year-old was a fifteen-year-old boy, who faces charges for allegedly fleeing from deputies in the truck before ramming into a cruiser and crashing. According to an arrest report, the fifteen-year-old and the eleven-year-old were in a group chat on Snapchat where the 11-year-old was talking about Hairston being a sexual predator because of what he did to an unnamed victim. Sheriff Rick Staly said this may have been related to a sexual assault under investigation in saint Johns County, allegedly involving Hairston. “The fifteen-year-old was aware of this information and told Hairston, and it appears that they concocted a plan to lure the 11-year-old to this rural area in Flagler county and then kidnap him and hold him,” Staly said. “Now what they were going to do after that we don’t know…”According to the arrest report, at one point, Hairston told him, “he could cut his throat right now, or he could be respectful and shoot him in the head, front or back.” “Told us that he thought they were going to kill him,” Staly said of the 11-year-old.According to information from the Sheriff’s Office, the victim was held at the campsite for multiple days and forced to hide on the floorboard of Hairston’s truck, covered by a blanket, during travel.Search warrants executed on Hairston’s vehicle, his Hastings residence, and the campsite—with assistance from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office—recovered evidence consistent with the child’s statements, including duct tape, video surveillance equipment, and weapons.Detectives determined that Hairston was aware the child was missing and endangered, but could not provide a motive for keeping the child from his parents.Sheriff Rick Staly commented, “Clearly, thanks to ‘see something, say something’ and our deputies recognizing the victim was very afraid, we rescued a missing child who was in fear Hairston had planned to kill him.”The investigation remains active and ongoing. The second juvenile who allegedly stole Hairston’s vehicle and fled the traffic stop was arrested on charges including grand theft of a motor vehicle. He is in the custody of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and is being investigated as a possible co-conspirator in the kidnapping, which may lead to additional charges.Hairston was initially held on a $125,000 bond for resisting arrest and attempting to disarm a law enforcement officer. However, a subsequent investigation by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Major Case Unit resulted in additional charges being served via a warrant on Friday, Jan. 2. These charges include kidnapping of a child under 13, aggravated child abuse, battery by strangulation, and robbery with a deadly weapon. Hairston is currently being held without bond at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility.
Once separated from Hairston, the 11-year-old victim immediately told a deputy he had been kidnapped, was in danger, and feared for his life.
Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies secured the visibly traumatized child before Hairston attempted to flee on foot and was arrested.
The child, who had been missing for three days, was taken to a local hospital.
FCSO said the victim told them how Hairston had lured him to a wooded campsite in Flagler Estates, where he was choked unconscious.
The child stated that when he woke up, he was threatened with a knife and a firearm, tied up with shoelaces and an extension cord, and had duct tape placed over his mouth.
Also found in the truck with Hairston and the 11-year-old was a fifteen-year-old boy, who faces charges for allegedly fleeing from deputies in the truck before ramming into a cruiser and crashing.
According to an arrest report, the fifteen-year-old and the eleven-year-old were in a group chat on Snapchat where the 11-year-old was talking about Hairston being a sexual predator because of what he did to an unnamed victim.
Sheriff Rick Staly said this may have been related to a sexual assault under investigation in saint Johns County, allegedly involving Hairston.
“The fifteen-year-old was aware of this information and told Hairston, and it appears that they concocted a plan to lure the 11-year-old to this rural area in Flagler county and then kidnap him and hold him,” Staly said. “Now what they were going to do after that we don’t know…”
According to the arrest report, at one point, Hairston told him, “he could cut his throat right now, or he could be respectful and shoot him in the head, front or back.”
“Told us that he thought they were going to kill him,” Staly said of the 11-year-old.
According to information from the Sheriff’s Office, the victim was held at the campsite for multiple days and forced to hide on the floorboard of Hairston’s truck, covered by a blanket, during travel.
Search warrants executed on Hairston’s vehicle, his Hastings residence, and the campsite—with assistance from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office—recovered evidence consistent with the child’s statements, including duct tape, video surveillance equipment, and weapons.
Detectives determined that Hairston was aware the child was missing and endangered, but could not provide a motive for keeping the child from his parents.
Sheriff Rick Staly commented, “Clearly, thanks to ‘see something, say something’ and our deputies recognizing the victim was very afraid, we rescued a missing child who was in fear Hairston had planned to kill him.”
The investigation remains active and ongoing. The second juvenile who allegedly stole Hairston’s vehicle and fled the traffic stop was arrested on charges including grand theft of a motor vehicle. He is in the custody of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and is being investigated as a possible co-conspirator in the kidnapping, which may lead to additional charges.
Hairston was initially held on a $125,000 bond for resisting arrest and attempting to disarm a law enforcement officer. However, a subsequent investigation by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Major Case Unit resulted in additional charges being served via a warrant on Friday, Jan. 2. These charges include kidnapping of a child under 13, aggravated child abuse, battery by strangulation, and robbery with a deadly weapon. Hairston is currently being held without bond at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility.
SALEM — A Lynn man was arrested on three counts of distributing cocaine following a joint operation by Salem and Lynn police.
The Criminal Investigation Divisions of the Salem and Lynn police departments completed a lengthy joint investigation on Thursday with the arrest of Derrick Poe of 46 Mall St., Apartment 4, in Lynn on three counts of distributing a Class B substance.
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SALEM — A Lynn man was arrested on three counts of distributing cocaine following a joint operation by Salem and Lynn police last Thursday.
On Dec. 18, the Criminal Investigation Divisions (CID) of the Salem and Lynn police departments completed a lengthy joint investigation with the arrest of Derrick Poe of 46 Mall St., Apartment 4, in Lynn, on three counts of distributing a Class B substance.
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SALEM — A Lynn man was arrested on three counts of distributing cocaine following a joint operation by Salem and Lynn police last Thursday.
On Dec. 18, the Criminal Investigation Divisions (CID) of the Salem and Lynn police departments completed a lengthy joint investigation with the arrest of Derrick Poe of 46 Mall St., Apartment 4, in Lynn, on three counts of distributing a Class B substance.
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NEXT 15 MINUTES. A COMMUNITY CAME TOGETHER IN ORLANDO TONIGHT TO REMEMBER A YOUNG TATTOO ARTIST WHO THEY SAY WAS KILLED IN A POLICE INVOLVED SHOOTING DURING A RAID AT THAT BUSINESS. WESH TWO DAVID JONES HAS THE STORY. SAY THIS WOULD MEAN THAT OUR CHILDREN, OUR CHILDREN, NOT ON OUR WATCH, NOT ON OUR WATCH. A TEARFUL NIGHT OF REMEMBRANCE FOR A 20 YEAR OLD TATTOO ARTIST NAMED CALEB WILLIAMS. WE STAND, WE STAND. OUT. WE STAND. SAY LOUDER. WE STAND. THEY MARKED THE VIGIL WITH A BALLOON RELEASE HONORING THE YOUNG FATHER. THEY SAY WILLIAMS WAS AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER IN FRIDAY’S STANDOFF, AND POLICE INVOLVED SHOOTING. YOU’RE FIGHTING TO PROTECT PEOPLE, NOT KILL THEM. FAMILY AND FRIENDS LENT WILLIAMS MOM, NATALIE BURCH, ESCRIBANO SUPPORT AS SHE DEMANDED ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HER SON’S SLAYING. THIS WAS NOT THIS WAS NOT MEANT FOR HIM. HE DIDN’T HAVE NO WARRANT. HE DIDN’T HE. HE WASN’T ARMED. THEY LITERALLY HE WAS AT THE WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME. HE WAS RIGHT, RIGHT BEHIND. HE WAS RIGHT BEHIND HIM. AND HE JUST HE JUST HE WAS JUST THERE. WESH TWO WAS OVER THE SCENE FRIDAY. IT WAS A SWAT STANDOFF. ORLANDO POLICE SAY THEY ARRIVED ON SCENE AT 2:00 IN THE AFTERNOON TO SERVE A WARRANT ON, QUOTE, MULTIPLE SUSPECTS. THEY GAVE RAP SHEETS FOR THE INDIVIDUALS, BUT DID NOT SAY IF ANY HAD BEEN ARRESTED. FOLLOWING THE STANDOFF AND A SHOOTING MINUTES AFTER THEY ARRIVED. THEY DIDN’T IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AT ALL. THERE WAS NO NOTHING, NO NOTHING. NOT ONE TIME, HE LITERALLY WAS JUST WALKING DOWN A HALLWAY AND CAUGHT THE BULLET, POLICE SAID. SOMEONE WENT OUTSIDE OF THE BUSINESS WITH A AK 47 STYLE RIFLE. OFFICERS SAY THEY SHOT AT THE SUSPECT AS THE INDIVIDUAL RETREATED INSIDE WHEN THEY MADE ENTRY. AN HOUR LATER, THEY SAY THEY FOUND A SUSPECT DEAD. WILLIAMS COMMUNITY SAYS HE WAS NEVER A SUSPECT SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE SCENE. HE WAS SERVING A WARRANT, A REAL WARRANT. YOU WOULD HAVE. OFFICER WOULD HAVE CAME IN AND GAVE IT TO YOU. YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO COME IN LIKE THAT IN DUE TIME. LIKE I SAID, I DON’T SAY, I DON’T SAY, LONG LIVE CALEB CAN. HE’S STILL STANDING WITH US. HE’S STILL STANDING HERE. BUT I PROMISE YOU, FOR HIS SON, FOR HIS MOTHER. WE’RE GOING TO SPEAK. COVERING ORA
Community holds vigil to remember tattoo artist who died after Orlando police standoff
A tearful vigil held Sunday evening for a slain tattoo artist and young father culminated in a balloon release and calls for accountability in the SWAT standoff that ultimately took his life.Family identified the man who was killed during Friday’s police standoff as Kaleb Williams, a 20-year-old tattoo artist working at the parlor at Edgewater and Lee in Orlando. The Orlando Police Department said a search warrant was being served at the business around 2 p.m. Friday, and less than five minutes later, police opened fire from outside of the business as a person holding an “AK-47 style” rifle exited and then reentered the parlor.According to OPD, “multiple suspects” were being served a search warrant “related to drugs and firearms,” with the department also providing a lengthy rap sheet for the suspects.When police officers entered the business around an hour later, they found a person dead.Ultimately, OPD has not said whether anyone is in custody following Friday’s events.But the family of Williams disputed OPD’s account of what happened, saying their loved one was not a “suspect” and should have never died.”This was not meant for him,” said Williams’ mother, Natalie Birch-Escribano. “He didn’t have no warrant, he wasn’t armed, they literally, he was at the wrong place, wrong time.”Williams was at work doing tattoos at the time all of this went down Friday afternoon.”They didn’t identify themselves at all, at all. There was no nothing, no nothing,” she said. “He literally was just walking down a hallway and caught the bullets.”WESH 2 has followed up with OPD to ask about any arrests made, whether Williams was the subject of the search warrant, and whether police were still working to identify other suspects.But the department said Friday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would be handling the investigation of the events.”You’re fighting to protect people, not kill them!” said Williams’ best friend, Blair Gusmas. “I don’t say long live Kaleb, because he’s still standing with us. He’s still here. But I promise you, for his son, for his mother, we are going to speak.”
ORLANDO, Fla. —
A tearful vigil held Sunday evening for a slain tattoo artist and young father culminated in a balloon release and calls for accountability in the SWAT standoff that ultimately took his life.
Family identified the man who was killed during Friday’s police standoff as Kaleb Williams, a 20-year-old tattoo artist working at the parlor at Edgewater and Lee in Orlando.
The Orlando Police Department said a search warrant was being served at the business around 2 p.m. Friday, and less than five minutes later, police opened fire from outside of the business as a person holding an “AK-47 style” rifle exited and then reentered the parlor.
According to OPD, “multiple suspects” were being served a search warrant “related to drugs and firearms,” with the department also providing a lengthy rap sheet for the suspects.
When police officers entered the business around an hour later, they found a person dead.
Ultimately, OPD has not said whether anyone is in custody following Friday’s events.
But the family of Williams disputed OPD’s account of what happened, saying their loved one was not a “suspect” and should have never died.
“This was not meant for him,” said Williams’ mother, Natalie Birch-Escribano. “He didn’t have no warrant, he wasn’t armed, they literally, he was at the wrong place, wrong time.”
Williams was at work doing tattoos at the time all of this went down Friday afternoon.
“They didn’t identify themselves at all, at all. There was no nothing, no nothing,” she said. “He literally was just walking down a hallway and caught the bullets.”
WESH 2 has followed up with OPD to ask about any arrests made, whether Williams was the subject of the search warrant, and whether police were still working to identify other suspects.
But the department said Friday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would be handling the investigation of the events.
“You’re fighting to protect people, not kill them!” said Williams’ best friend, Blair Gusmas. “I don’t say long live Kaleb, because he’s still standing with us. He’s still here. But I promise you, for his son, for his mother, we are going to speak.”
ESSEX — The town’s police chief said a backpack cushioned its 11-year-old wearer when a car struck the electric scooter the child was riding. Now police are on the lookout for the driver.
Police are looking for an Enfield man who they believe is connected to a series of break-ins that occurred Tuesday morning.
In a post on Facebook, Enfield Police Department said that around 6:45 p.m., officers conducted a search warrant on a home on East Alsop Street in response to a string of break-ins that occurred Tuesday morning.
The department said the suspect, Travell Scott, evaded arrest by running out the back door which lead officers to pursue him. Police could not apprehend him.
The post included a photo of items taken from the house that police said yielded substantial evidence of the break-ins. They said felony charges are forthcoming for Scott.
The investigation is ongoing.
EPD added that if you have been a victim of a breaking and entering with items missing, email epdtip@gmail.com with your name, address, phone number, a list of missing items and a date/time of a suspected break-in. If your car was broken in, add the make, model, color and license plate number.
Federal authorities are now pursuing a misdemeanor charge against David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union California, who was arrested during the first day of a series of immigration raids that swept the region.
Prosecutors originally brought a felony charge of conspiracy to impede an officer against Huerta, accusing him of obstructing federal authorities from serving a search warrant at a Los Angeles workplace and arresting dozens of undocumented immigrants on June 6.
On Friday, court filings show federal prosecutors filed a lesser charge against Huerta of “obstruction resistance or opposition of a federal officer,” which carries a punishment of up to a year in federal prison. The felony he was charged with previously could have put him behind bars for up to six years.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles declined to comment.
In a statement, Huerta’s attorneys, Abbe David Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said they would “seek the speediest trial to vindicate David.” The lawyers said that “in the four months that have passed since David’s arrest, it has become even clearer there were no grounds for charging him and certainly none for the way he was treated.”
“It’s clear that David Huerta is being singled out not for anything he did but for who he is — a life-long workers’ advocate who has been an outspoken critic of its immigration policies. These charges are a clear attempt to silence a leading voice who dared to challenge a cruel, politically driven campaign of fear,” the statement read.
The labor union previously stated that Huerta was detained “while exercising his First Amendment right to observe and document law enforcement activity.” Huerta is one of more than 60 people charged federally in the Central District of California tied to immigration protests and enforcement actions.
Two recent misdemeanor trials against protesters charged with assaulting a federal officer both ended in acquittals. Some protesters have taken plea deals.
In a statement Friday, Huerta said he is “being targeted for exercising my constitutional rights for standing up against an administration that has declared open war on working families, immigrants, and basic human dignity.”
“The baseless charges brought against me are not just about me, they are meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice. I will not be silenced,” he said.
Huerta was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles for days, prompting thousands of union members, activists and supporters to rally for his release. California Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla also sent a letter to the Homeland Security and Justice departments demanding a review of Huerta’s arrest.
A judge ordered Huerta released in June on a $50,000 bond.
The case against Huerta centers on a June 6 workplace immigration raid at Ambiance Apparel. According to the original criminal complaint filed, Huerta arrived at the site around noon Friday, joining several other protesters.
Huerta and other protesters “appeared to be communicating with each other in a concerted effort to disrupt the law enforcement operations,” a federal agent wrote in the complaint.
The agent wrote that Huerta was yelling at and taunting officers and later sat cross-legged in front of a vehicle gate to the location where law enforcement authorities were serving a search warrant.
Huerta also “at various times stood up and paced in front of the gate, effectively preventing law enforcement vehicles from entering or exiting the premises through the gate to execute the search warrant,” the agent wrote in the affidavit.
The agent wrote that they told Huerta that if he kept blocking the Ambiance gate, he would be arrested.
According to the complaint, as a white law enforcement van tried to get through the gate, Huerta stood in its path.
Because Huerta “was being uncooperative, the officer put his hands on HUERTA in an attempt to move him out of the path of the vehicle.”
“I saw HUERTA push back, and in response, the officer pushed HUERTA to the ground,” the agent wrote. “The officer and I then handcuffed HUERTA and arrested him.”
According to a statement from SEIU-United Service Workers West, SEIU California State Council, and the Service Employees International Union, “Huerta was thrown to the ground, tackled, pepper sprayed, and detained by federal agents while exercising his constitutional rights at an ICE raid in Los Angeles.” Video of his arrest went viral.
“Despite David’s harsh treatment at the hands of law enforcement, he is now facing an unjust charge,” the statement read. “This administration has turned the military against our own people, terrorizing entire communities, and even detaining U.S. citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to speak out.”
Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, posted a photo on the social media site X of Huerta, hands behind his back, after the arrest.
“Let me be clear: I don’t care who you are — if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted,” Essayli wrote. “No one has the right to assault, obstruct, or interfere with federal authorities carrying out their duties.”
In an interview with Sacramento TV news oulet KCRA last month, Essayli referred to Huerta as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “buddy” and said he “deliberately obstructed a search warrant.”
While speaking with reporters in June, Schiff said Huerta was “exercising his lawful right to be present and observe these immigration raids.”
“It’s obviously a very traumatic thing, and now that it looks like the Justice Department wants to try and make an example out of him, it’s all the more traumatic,” Schiff said. “But this is part of the Trump playbook. They selectively use the Justice Department to go after their adversaries. It’s what they do.”
MAGNA, Utah (ABC4) — The FBI evacuated several homes in Magna Friday after agents discovered potentially hazardous materials while executing a federal search warrant.
The search took place near 2700 South and 8500 West. Officials said the warrant is sealed, so no further details about the investigation have been released.
Specialized FBI teams, along with Unified Police and Fire, are working to identify and remove any dangerous materials inside the residence.
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Authorities said they are making every effort to minimize disruption while ensuring the neighborhood is safe.
“The safety of the community is our top priority,” the FBI said in a statement.
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BEVERLY — The execution of a search warrant Wednesday has resulted in the arrest of a 58-year-old Beverly man on charges of drug trafficking.
On Wednesday evening, members of the Beverly Police Drug Control Unit, with assistance from Salem police and detectives, executed a search warrant at the Beverly home of David Davis, 58, and charged him with trafficking over 100 grams of cocaine.
A search of Davis’ home and vehicle located approximately 119 grams of cocaine in baggies of various sizes, a digital scale, and $1,033 in cash.
A Beverly police detective was bitten by a dog while serving the search warrant. He was taken to Beverly hospital for treatment of injuries to his arm.
Davis was taken into custody at the scene and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday in Salem District Court. He is being held on $10,000 bond, and a probable cause hearing has been set for July 24 in Salem District Court.
The search was a result of an ongoing investigation.
More than 1,000 pages of confidential documents from a federal criminal investigation into the Los Angeles city attorney’s office and the Department of Water and Power will be unsealed, a federal judge signaled Friday.
The Times and Consumer Watchdog had requested the documents to better understand the government’s criminal case and whether former City Atty. Mike Feuer bore any culpability for a scandal involving a sham lawsuit and an extortion plot. Feuer has long denied wrongdoing.
In a tentative ruling, U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. said the documents, which consist mainly of dozens of search warrants filed during the government’s investigation, will be unsealed, with personal data redacted.
The names of public officials, along with individuals who are “wrongdoers,” will not be redacted, Blumenfeld said at a hearing Friday — a blow to prosecutors who had sought to keep the officials’ names from the public.
The Times and Consumer Watchdog are expected to work with the U.S. attorney’s office to ready the documents for release in the coming weeks.
Much of Friday’s hearing centered on Feuer and whether an FBI agent’s alleged assertions that Feuer lied to a grand jury and lied to the FBI should be redacted.
The FBI agent’s purported comments, made in an affidavit for a search warrant, were revealed in court by a defendant, Paul Paradis, at his sentencing in November.
Paradis, a former attorney turned cooperating witness for the federal government, pleaded guilty to accepting a nearly $2.2 million kickback from another attorney working on the DWP case and was sentenced to 33 months in prison.
Paradis had ingratiated himself at City Hall, befriending top city officials. An outside lawyer from New York, he was retained by Feuer’s office to help with litigation related to the DWP, then went on to secure separate contracts at the DWP.
Later, he secretly recorded high-ranking city officials and was present when armed agents raided the home of DWP general manager David Wright, who is serving a six-year sentence after conspiring to give Paradis a lucrative contract.
Jerry Flanagan, an attorney for Consumer Watchdog and The Times, told Blumenfeld that the FBI agent’s comments amounted to an “opinion” that wasn’t subject to federal rules that require grand jury information to be kept confidential. Flanagan also argued that the “cat is out of the bag” because Paradis had publicly revealed the alleged comments.
Blumenfeld appeared concerned about protecting the secrecy of the grand jury process and said he would rule later on the issue.
Feuer has said he had no knowledge of any crimes. In a 2022 letter, the U.S. attorney’s office told Feuer that he wasn’t a target in their criminal investigation.
When asked by The Times last November about the FBI agent‘s alleged statements, Feuer pointed to the 2022 letter.
Feuer also told The Times last year that he gave the U.S. attorney’s office his phone in 2020, but investigators did not search his home or office.
A former state assemblymember and L.A. City Council member, Feuer ran for L.A. mayor in 2022 but dropped out shortly before the primary. Last month, he finished fourth in the primary for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Adam B. Schiff.
The 1,400 pages of search warrants and other documents requested by The Times and Consumer Watchdog were issued between 2019 and 2021.
Court filings by prosecutors in the criminal case make clear that some individuals, including city officials who remain anonymous in the filings, took part in or were aware of various schemes.
The criminal prosecution centered on a 2015 class-action lawsuit brought by DWP customers over massive errors caused by a new billing system at the utility.
The lawsuit was covertly written by Paradis, then working for Feuer’s office, who handed the suit to an outside attorney to file against the city.
The goal, according to prosecutors, was to settle all the claims by various DWP customers on terms advantageous to the city.
Prosecutors also uncovered other unethical and illegal schemes, including an illicit payment involving the city attorney’s office.
Blumenfeld said at Friday’s hearing that he expected the name of one person, Julissa Salgueiro, to remain unredacted in the search warrants and other documents.
“Ms. Salgueiro is a quintessential wrongdoer,” Blumenfeld said, describing why her name should be unredacted.
Prosecutors have never named or charged Salgueiro, but their court filings refer to a former employee of a Beverly Hills law firm who threatened to reveal the city’s collusive lawsuit over the DWP billing errors.
The employee had “stolen or improperly retained” documents showing the collusive lawsuit and demanded money for their return, prosecutors said in court documents.
Thomas Peters, a top aide to Feuer, was charged with aiding and abetting extortion after being ordered by unnamed city staff to take care of the employee’s threats, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors never charged any other senior staff members from the city attorney’s office.
Salgueiro’s attorney, William Pitman, told The Times on Friday that he “respectfully disagrees with Judge Blumenfeld’s opinion.” His client has never been charged, indicted and has no criminal history, he said.
“With regard to the unsealing motion, Ms. Salguiero was never notified [of the case],” said Pitman.
A woman who walked into a popular Texas megachurch Sunday afternoon with a long gun and her 7-year-old son opened fire before she was killed by law enforcement officers on scene. The gunfire left the child in critical condition and another man injured, officials said.
Authorities are now probing the shooting at televangelist and pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church – roughly 6 miles from downtown Houston.
The woman, identified in a search warrant as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, entered the church shortly before 2 p.m. wearing a trench coat and backpack and opened fire, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said in a Sunday afternoon news conference.
Officers “shot and killed her in self-defense” after she pointed her weapon at them, according to the search warrant released Monday by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.
Her son was shot in the head during the shooting and remains in the hospital Monday in critical condition, the police chief said. It’s unclear who fired the shot that injured the child. CNN has reached out to police for more information.
Police have not shared details about a possible motive in the shooting. The injured man was shot in the leg, sought treatment at a hospital and was released, Finner said Monday. The search warrant identified him as Tom George Thomas.
The gunfire unfolded while the church was “in between services” and preparing to go into a Spanish service, Osteen said in Sunday’s news conference.
“I can only imagine if it would have happened during the 11 o’clock service,” he said.
Authorities say a woman opened fire at Lakewood Church on Sunday in Houston, Texas. – Jennifer Lake/SIPAPRE/Sipa/AP
2 off-duty law enforcement officers confronted the shooter
Moreno entered the church accompanied by her son. “Once she entered, at some point she began to fire,” the chief said. One federal law enforcement source told CNN she fired around 30 rounds.
Two off-duty officers were present: a 28-year-old Houston Police Department officer and a 38-year-old agent with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, both with less than five years of service. The two officers engaged the shooter and she was struck, the police chief said. She was pronounced dead at 2:07 pm local time.
The shooter used a legally purchased AR-15 with a “Palestine” sticker on it, police said. A federal law enforcement source previously told CNN “Free Palestine” was written on the gun. She also had a .22 caliber weapon in her bag which was not used in the attack, according to a federal law enforcement source. Investigators are trying to determine whether she was politically motivated or a disturbed individual, the source said.
“I want to commend those officers. She had a long gun and it could have been a lot worse,” Finner said. “But they stepped up and they did their job, and I want to thank them for that.”
Both officers who engaged with the shooter will be placed on administrative duty pending the investigation, as is protocol with officer-involved shootings, Finner said.
“It’s traumatic not only for our community but it’s certainly traumatic for the officers who had to take a life and we worry about their mental health as well, so our prayers are with them,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said in Sunday’s news conference.
In this screen grab taken from video provided by KTRK-TV, authorities respond Sunday to a shooting at Lakewood Church, the Houston megachurch of celebrity pastor Joel Osteen. – KTRK-TV ABC13/AP
Shooter had history of criminal charges and mental health problems
Information from Moreno’s social media accounts and local authorities paints a portrait of a single mother with a history of mental health challenges going through the ups and downs of trying to turn her life around and launch a business.
During a Monday news conference, Houston Homicide Commander Christopher Hassig said the shooter used multiple aliases, including both male and female names. Moreno was put under an order for emotional detention in 2016 and she has a mental health history documented by Houston police, Hassig said.
Records from the Texas Department of Public Safety show Moreno had a string of arrests for minor offenses over the last two decades, including possession of marijuana, an assault, illegal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and a forgery charge. But in her 30s, she described herself on social media as the founder of a real-estate and financial services firm. By her own account on social media pages, she is involved in sales of everything from new condos to shopping malls.
A social media post in March 2020 shows a screenshot of a form letter from Lakewood Church thanking Moreno for her donation.
A search warrant identified the person who opened fire at Lakewood Church in Houston as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36. – Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office
A CNN review showed the story of a bitter custody battle between Moreno and representatives for her ex-spouse’s family played out on her social media accounts. In 2022, when she had her divorce proceeding transferred to county court, according to an attorney who represented her, Moreno was also arrested on a weapons charge, a misdemeanor, which was cleared with two days’ time served in the Fort Bend County Jail.
According to police, there was some sort of family dispute between the shooter and her ex-husband and ex-husband’s family, some of whom are Jewish.
“This might possibly be where all this stems from,” Hassig added. He said police also found antisemitic writings connected with the shooter.
Attorney William Capasso said he represented Moreno in 2021-2022 and told CNN Genesse Ivone Moreno went by the name Jeffrey Moreno Carranza at the time.
Capasso said he later withdrew as her attorney and she represented herself in divorce proceedings.
“I am deeply saddened to learn that Ms. Moreno may be responsible for the tragic events that occurred at the Lakewood Church and pray for the recovery of (the child) and for all of the people that were affected by this terrible tragedy,” Capasso.
Police have said they believe Moreno acted as a “lone wolf” and is not part of a larger group.
Woman also threatened a bomb
Moreno threatened that she had a bomb, but authorities searched her vehicle and backpack and found no explosives, the Houston police chief said.
She was also spraying “some type of substance on the ground,” Finner said, but he did not share further details. Peña said fire authorities were on scene and were going to “take our time to ensure that any issue, any risk that we see is properly vetted.”
“Right now, I can safely say that we have not found anything that is of concern to our community or to this location, but we’re going to take our time to ensure that we look at every aspect,” the fire chief added.
The search warrant for Moreno’s home said she had yellow rope similar to a detonation cord and “substances consistent with the manufacture of explosive devices.”
CNN has reached out to the Houston Fire Department for further information.
On Sunday night, authorities searched Moreno’s home in Conroe, Texas, in connection with the shooting, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed Monday. Spokesperson Melissa Garcia told CNN the ATF-Houston Division was one of the law enforcement agencies involved in the search. The home is about 50 minutes north of Lakewood Church.
The warrant includes searching for any ammunition, firearms, explosives, cell phones, and computers in the home, among other items.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has been in contact with local and state officials and offered “the full support and resources” of the state to help the community.
“Join Cecilia and me in praying for his community during this difficult time and for the brave men and women in blue who acted quickly to respond to this tragedy,” Abbott added.
First responders and members of law enforcement surround the area after a shooting at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston on Sunday. – Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters
Witness describes ‘erratic’ sound of shots and screaming
With a background in television production, Osteen took over his father’s church in 1999 and built a huge following. His services draw 45,000 attendees to the church weekly, in addition to people around the nation who tune in for online and television sermons, according to his website.
“We’re devastated,” Osteen said. “We’ve been here 65 years and to have somebody shooting at your church…”
A woman who was inside the church at the time of the shooting told CNN affiliate KHOU Osteen was greeting people after the end of the service and she was among the last to meet him.
Carlos Gonzalez, a worship singer, hugs a fellow churchgoer after a shooting at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston. – Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters
Soon after, she told the news station, she heard repeated bangs, almost like “mechanical sounds.”
“It almost sounded like folding tables were being dismantled and dropped to the floor,” she said. “But they were erratic.”
Then, the woman said she heard another set of gunshots and saw people screaming and running. She ran into a room and squeezed inside with multiple other people, including a child. The group put two large wooden slats on the door to keep it from opening, and then, they began to pray.
“We were thankful,” she said. “We could have been a casualty. We could have been shot.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Raja Razek, Andy Rose, Ashley Killough, John Miller, and Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.
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In a desolate stretch of California desert off U.S. Highway 395, Franklin Noel Bonilla made one last desperate plea to save his life.
“I’ve been shot,” he told 911 dispatchers in Spanish, according to authorities. “I don’t know where I am.”
Officials tracked the coordinates of the phone call to a dirt road in the remote desert community of El Mirage, about 50 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
There they made a horrific discovery: six men with gunshot wounds, four of them with severe burns, and two abandoned vehicles, one of which was pocked with bullet holes.
Authorities think the massacre was the result of a dispute over illegal marijuana, and it marks the latest act of shocking violence in isolated areas of California where a black market for pot has flourished.
Hundreds of pot farms have cropped up across the desert region, bringing crime and fear with them, according to residents and law enforcement officials.
In the last year alone, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said its marijuana enforcement teams served 411 search warrants for illegal marijuana grows. They found 14 “honey oil” labs, 655,000 plants and 74,000 pounds of processed marijuana. Eleven search warrants were executed in the immediate area where the slayings took place.
“The plague is the black market of marijuana and certainly cartel activity, and a number of victims are out there,” Sheriff Shannon Dicus said.
A Times investigation last year uncovered the proliferation of illegal cannabis in California after the passage of Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana in the state. Although the 2016 legislation promised voters that the legal market would hobble illegal trade and its associated violence, there has been a surge in the black market.
Growers at illegal sites can avoid the expensive licensing fees and regulatory costs associated with legal farms. Violence is a looming threat at these operations, authorities said, because illicit harvests yield huge quantities of cash to operators who can’t use banks or law enforcement for protection.
In 2020, six people were found shot to death at a property in Aguanga, a small community in rural Riverside County east of Temecula. A seventh victim later died at a nearby hospital.
The victims were immigrants from Laos and were found at a large-scale illegal marijuana cultivation and processing site — a “major organized-crime type of an operation,” Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said at the time.
It is hard to determine the number of homicides tied to illegal pot farms. But a Times review in 2021 found at least five Mojave Desert killings in 2020 and 2021 that investigators said were connected to pot farming.
Black markets can thrive despite the legalization of the product, according to Peter Hanink, a professor of sociology and criminology at Cal Poly Pomona.
“It doesn’t matter what the product is,” he said. “If there’s sufficient demand and the thing is valuable enough, you’ll get a black market.”
Cartels in Mexico have traditionally carved up and delegated certain areas to different groups so they don’t have to kill each other to make money, Hanink said. At the beginning of a black market, when there’s more instability, there could be violence that results from regional groups competing over the same area. Hanink said the El Mirage slayings could’ve been between competing groups, based on the grisly nature of the crime.
“The sheer violence and the extent of the violence — burning the bodies and how extreme it was, it’s the sort of thing that suggests someone is trying to send a message,” he said.
Hanink stressed, however, that he doesn’t believe Mexican cartels were involved in the San Bernardino County killings, because the FBI, Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration haven’t gotten involved. The fact that the investigation involves only the Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol indicates it’s a local California matter, he said.
“Mexican cartels tend to stay local to Mexico, and they very rarely try to do things within the U.S. because they don’t want to involve U.S. law enforcement,” he said. “If you have executions being ordered by parties in other countries, that becomes a case of U.S. security interest.”
Bill Bodner, former special agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles Field Division, agreed that while Mexican cartels have previously been involved in the illegal marijuana business, most have shifted to synthetic drugs, such as methamphetamine and fentanyl.
Illegal marijuana trade has also become unprofitable for the cartels, he said, because of the risk of getting shipments seized at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Bodner said disputes at illegal grows usually involve the theft of product or cash and, in some cases, workers seeking to get paid.
“Don’t forget, it’s a criminal business run by criminals, so they’re going to pay as little as they can,” Bodner said.
The marijuana black market has thrived in California in recent years, as growers try to circumvent taxes, feeding an unlicensed, unregulated industry and, at times, making its way into legitimate dispensaries as well, Bodner said.
In 2019, an audit by the United Cannabis Business Assn. found nearly 3,000 unlicensed dispensaries and delivery services were operating in the state — at least three times more than legal, regulated businesses.
Four years later, Bodner believes the black market has only gotten larger in California.
“The number of unlicensed grows, conservatively, has doubled,” he said.
At first, deputies saw cardboard, rubber tires, broken bottles and bullet casings littering the ground when they drove out to the remote El Mirage location on Jan. 23. There were two abandoned vehicles nearby, one of them riddled with bullet holes. Then they found the bodies.
Four of the six victims have been identified: Franklin Noel Bonilla, 22; Baldemar Mondragon-Albarran, 34; and Kevin Dariel Bonilla, 25. The fourth is a 45-year-old man, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. They were all Latino, possibly Honduran nationals, and lived in Adelanto and Hesperia, authorities said.
After the brutal slayings, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department served search warrants in Apple Valley, Adelanto and the Los Angeles County area of Piñon Hills. They arrested five men in connection with the killings — Toniel Baez-Duarte, 34; Mateo Baez-Duarte, 24; Jose Nicolas Hernandez-Sarabia, 33; Jose Gregorio Hernandez-Sarabia, 34, and Jose Manuel Burgos Parra, 26.
Authorities say they believe everyone involved in the killings has been arrested and there are no outstanding suspects.
When serving warrants, detectives recovered eight firearms. They will undergo forensic examinations to determine whether any were used in the slayings, said Michael Warrick, a sergeant in the specialized investigation division of the Sheriff’s Department.
Warrick wouldn’t comment on whether the slayings were cartel-related but said there were “certain things at the scene that show a level of violence that obviously raises some interesting questions for us.”
When Special Counsel Jack Smith announced last week that a federal grand jury had indicted former President Donald Trump, he made a point of saying that the government would “seek a speedy trial in this matter, consistent with the public interest.” Whether Trump gets one could determine whether he goes to prison for his alleged crimes.
In just over 18 months, Trump could be serving as president again, at which point he’d be in a position to attempt to pardon himself or instruct the Department of Justice to dismiss its case against him. That might seem like a long way away, but for the nation’s tortoiselike federal-court system, it’s not. Complex, high-profile cases sometimes take years to get to trial, and former federal prosecutors told me that, even under the fastest scenarios, Trump’s trial won’t begin for several months and potentially for more than a year. Trump may well be waiting for a trial when voters cast their presidential ballots next fall. Although Smith will do all he can to hurry up the prosecution, the former president’s legal team could move to dismiss the charges—though that would almost certainly be futile—and file other pretrial motions in order to bog down the process.
“There’s a pretty obvious incentive from [Trump’s] point of view for delaying this,” Kristy Parker, a lawyer at the advocacy group Protect Democracy who tried cases for 15 years at the Justice Department, told me. “That is especially true if he understands that the evidence against him is significant and that the chances of him being convicted of these offenses are pretty high.”
Different federal courts operate at different speeds. The Eastern District of Virginia, for example, has long been known as “the rocket docket”; it’s raced through even high-profile cases such as the 2018 trial of Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort. Trump’s trial will occur in the Southern District of Florida and will reportedly be overseen by one of his own appointees, Judge Aileen Cannon. “Federal judges have enormous control over their courtrooms and over the schedule and timing of their cases,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia and Texas, told me. “Some are very good at docket management, and some are not.” Having served as a judge for less than three years, Cannon hasn’t developed much of a reputation either way.
Cannon presided over a lawsuit Trump filed last year after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate. She issued a series of rulings favorable to him. Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat and a former federal prosecutor who served as a top counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, told me it was “concerning” that Cannon would apparently run the former president’s trial. “It was pretty clear that her initial rulings did not follow the law but followed some preconceived personal and political viewpoints, and there’s no place for that in the judiciary,” Goldman said. Indeed, the conservative Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a pair of Cannon’s decisions, including one that barred the government from accessing some of the documents that the FBI recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
Another former Democratic co-counsel during the Trump impeachment, Norm Eisen, has called for Cannon to recuse herself or be taken off the case.
If Cannon stays on the case, she will have fairly wide latitude to set its tempo. She will be responsible for scheduling any pretrial motions and hearings, determining what evidence is admissible, and ruling on potentially time-intensive challenges that Trump’s lawyers could bring.
In their indictment, the prosecutors estimated that a trial would take 21 days in court—not an especially long trial for a case of such magnitude. The timeline suggests the government believes it has a pretty “straightforward” argument, Parker said.
The fact that this case centers on documents Trump had in his possession—illegally, the government argues—means that he may have already seen a significant portion of the evidence the Justice Department has on him. Theoretically, that could speed up the discovery process that occurs before any trial. But cases that involve classified documents tend to take longer, former prosecutors told me, because the court will have to determine who can access sensitive materials and how to protect government secrets before and during a trial. Most of the pretrial rulings that Cannon could make are subject to appeal, and those delays can quickly add up.
Another scheduling complication is that Trump is facing another criminal trial, in New York, on charges that he falsified business records, and he could face yet another indictment and trial in Georgia related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s Manhattan trial is scheduled for March, which would be about 10 months after his indictment in that case and right in the middle of the Republican primary season. (Although the cases are in different jurisdictions, the 10-month lag could be a rough guide for how long Trump’s federal trial will take to get under way.)
One of the biggest questions Cannon may face is whether the election should factor into her decisions about how soon to schedule a trial and whether to agree to delays that Trump might seek. Parker argued that the election is a legitimate consideration. “We are in uncharted territory,” she said, “and quite frankly, I would think that a court would want to try to get this matter resolved ahead of that point.” Even if Trump’s trial concludes before the 2024 election, however, it’s unlikely that (if he’s convicted) his appeals will be exhausted by then.
The former prosecutors I spoke with could only guess at what would happen if Trump were elected president while awaiting trial or sentencing. The case would likely proceed after the election, and the Constitution doesn’t explicitly bar convicted felons from taking office. Whether Trump could pardon himself is a matter of debate; no president has ever tried, but in 1974, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion stating that a presidential self-pardon would be unconstitutional. Even if Trump did not attempt to pardon himself, though, he could lean on or simply direct his appointees in the Justice Department to drop the case against him. He’d surely argue that, by electing him, voters had rendered a verdict more legitimate than any jury’s.
For all the legal wrangling to come, Trump’s ultimate fate may yet rest with the voters. If he is the Republican nominee, they will have what amounts to the final word on his future, political and otherwise. “These cases are important, but they are not magic wands,” Parker said. “They will not relieve the voting public of its problems.”
And that was before Jordan, with incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, repeatedly insisted the FBI had colluded with “Big Tech” to undermine former president Donald Trump by “suppressing” information about Hunter Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election.
It was also before reports surfaced that Kevin McCarthy, in his bid to secure the votes as speaker, promised far-right members of his caucus that he would authorize investigations into the Justice Department’s treatment of the insurrectionists who rioted in support of Trump on January 6. This was also before McCarthy threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Two months before taking power, the new House Republican majority has signaled that its investigative agenda will channel the preoccupations of the former president and his die-hard base of supporters. But it has set this course immediately after a midterm election in which voters outside the core conservative states sent an unmistakable signal of their own by repeatedly rejecting Trump-backed candidates in high-profile senate and gubernatorial races. That contrast captures why the GOP’s plans for aggressive investigations of President Joe Biden may present as much political risk for the investigators as it does for the targets.
House Republicans and their allies are confident that the investigations will weaken Biden in advance of the 2024 presidential election. “This is not just superficial stuff—this is damaging stuff,” former Republican Representative Tom Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee, told me.
But the new majority’s focus on airing echo-chamber conservative obsessions risks further stamping the GOP as the party of Trump precisely as more Republican leaders and donors insist the recent election results demonstrate the need to move beyond him.
“All these folks are coming out saying, ‘Turn the page; move forward’ … and I think this is really a problem if some of these [House] members are going to continue to look back and embrace Trump at a time when we saw the most Trumpian candidates get their heads handed to them,” former Republican Representative Charlie Dent told me.
The choices confronting GOP leaders on what—and how—to investigate encapsulates the much larger challenge they will face in managing the House. This month’s midterm election left the GOP with a House majority much smaller than it expected. The results also created a kind of split-personality caucus operating with very different political incentives.
Most incoming House Republicans represent districts in Trump country: 168 of them hold seats that Trump won by 10 percentage points or more in 2020. Another three dozen represent more marginal Republican-leaning seats that Trump carried by fewer than 10 points two years ago.
But the GOP majority relies on what will likely be 18 members (when all the final votes are counted) who won districts that voted for Biden in 2020. Eleven of those 18 are in New York and California alone—two states that will likely become considerably more difficult for Republicans in a presidential-election year than during a midterm contest.
For the Republicans from the hard-core Trump districts, demonstrating a commitment to confronting Biden at every turn is crucial for preempting any possible primary challenges from their right, says the Democratic consultant Meredith Kelly, a former communications director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But, as Dent told me, the Republicans precariously holding the Biden seats have the “polar opposite” incentive: “They need to have bipartisan victories and wins.”
Amid that cross-pressure, many analysts second the prediction of outgoing Democratic Representative David Price of North Carolina, a political scientist who has written several books about Congress, that the new GOP House majority is not likely to pass much legislation. The problem, Price told me, is not only the partisan and ideological fracture in the GOP caucus, but that its members do not have “an agenda that they campaigned on or they are committed to.”
All members of the GOP caucus might agree on legislation to extend the Trump tax cuts, to promote more domestic energy production, or to increase funding for border security. But resistance from the Republicans in blue and purple districts may frustrate many of the right’s most ambitious legislative goals, such as repealing elements of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, passing a national ban on abortion, and forcing cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
With their legislative opportunities limited, House Republicans may see relentless investigation of Biden and his administration as a path of least resistance that can unite their caucus. And, several observers in both parties told me, all sides in the GOP are likely to support efforts to probe the White House’s policy record. Such targets could include the administration’s handling of border security, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and how it is allocating the clean-energy tax credits and loan guarantees that the Inflation Reduction Act established.
But Republicans have already indicated they are unlikely to stop at such conventional targets.
Jordan, in his letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this month, warned of coming investigations into the Justice Department’s treatment of Project Veritas; allegations that the department has targeted conservative parents as “domestic terrorists” for their actions at school-board meetings; and the department’s decision making in the choice to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
At the press conference last week with Jordan, Comer declared that evidence from the GOP’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s business activities, including information obtained from his laptop, “raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national-security risk.”
Jordan, asked at that press conference about the reports that McCarthy has committed to an investigation of the prosecution and treatment of the January 6 rioters, refused to deny it, instead repeating his determination to explore all examples of alleged politicization at the Justice Department. At one point, Jordan, an unwavering defender of Trump through his two impeachments, delivered an impassioned attack on federal law enforcement that reprised a long list of familiar Trump grievances. “When is the FBI going to quit interfering with elections?” Jordan excitedly declared.
Jordan doesn’t even represent the outer edge of conservative ambition to use House investigations to settle scores for Trump. Earlier this week, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida tweeted that when Republicans take the majority, they “should take over the @January6thCmte and release every second of footage that will exonerate our Patriots!”
That might be a bridge too far even for McCarthy. But as he scrambles to overcome conservative resistance to his bid for speaker, he has already shown deference to demands from the Trump-country members who constitute the dominant block in his caucus. One example was the report that he promised Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that he would allow some investigation into treatment of the January 6 rioters. Another came in his appearance along the Texas border this week. McCarthy went beyond pledging oversight of the Biden administration’s border record to raise the much more incendiary (but also Fox-friendly) notion of impeaching Mayorkas.
Dent, the former GOP representative, told me that on all these fronts, House Republicans risk pushing oversight to a confrontational peak that may damage its members from marginal seats at least as much as it hurts Biden—particularly if it involves what he described as airing Trump grievances. “These rabbit holes are just fraught with political peril in these more moderate districts,” Dent said.
Democrats hope that the coming GOP investigations will alienate more voters than they alarm. Several Democratic strategists told me they believe that the focus on so many conservative causes will both spotlight the most extreme Trump-aligned voices in the Republican caucus, such as Jordan and Greene, and strike swing voters as a distraction from their kitchen-table concerns.
Leslie Dach, a veteran Democratic communications strategist now serving as a senior adviser to the Congressional Integrity Project, a group mobilizing to respond to the investigations, told me the GOP inquiries will inexorably identify the party with the same polarizing style of Trump-like politics that voters just repudiated in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. “We saw in this election that voters reject the Trump playbook and MAGA politics, but that is exactly what they will see in these hearings,” he said.
Congressional investigations always carry the risk of disclosures that could hurt or embarrass Biden and other officials. And whatever they find, investigations also promise to divert significant amounts of the administration’s time and energy. The White House has already staffed up a unit in the counsel’s office dedicated to responding to the inquiries. Cabinet departments are scrambling to do the same.
Recognizing the potential political risk, several Republican representatives newly elected in Biden districts have already urged their party to move slowly on the probes and instead to prioritize action on economic issues. Their problem is that McCarthy already has given every indication he’s likely to prioritize the demands for maximum confrontation from his caucus’s pro-Trump majority.
“If past is prologue, Kevin McCarthy will fall much on the side of the ruby-red Republican base and the pro-investigation, pro-culture-war side,” Kelly says. “He’s never proven able to stand up to the fringe.” And that means the new members from Biden-leaning districts who have provided the GOP its narrow majority have reason to sweat almost as much as the Biden administration over the swarm of investigations that House Republicans are poised to unleash.
If Donald Trump committed crimes on his way out of the White House, he should be subject to the same treatment as any other alleged criminal. The reason for this is simple: Ours is a government of laws, not of men, as John Adams once observed. Nobody, not even a president, is above those laws.
So why did I feel nauseous yesterday, watching coverage of the FBI executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate?
Because this country is tracking toward a scale of political violence not seen since the Civil War. It’s evident to anyone who spends significant time dwelling in the physical or virtual spaces of the American right. Go to a gun show. Visit a right-wing church. Check out a Trump rally. No matter the venue, the doomsday prophesying is ubiquitous—and scary. Whenever and wherever I’ve heard hypothetical scenarios of imminent conflict articulated, the premise rests on an egregious abuse of power, typically Democrats weaponizing agencies of the state to target their political opponents. I’ve always walked away from these experiences thinking to myself: If America is a powder keg, then one overreach by the government, real or perceived, could light the fuse.
Think I’m being hysterical? I’ve been accused of that before. But we’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans abandon their faith in the nation’s core institutions. We’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans become convinced that their leaders are illegitimate. We’ve seen what happens when millions of Americans are manipulated into believing that Trump is suffering righteously for their sake; that an attack on him is an attack on them, on their character, on their identity, on their sense of sovereignty. And I fear we’re going to see it again.
It’s tempting to think of January 6, 2021, as but one day in our nation’s history. It’s comforting to view the events of that day—the president inciting a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election—as the result of unprecedented conditions that happened to converge all at once, conditions that are not our national norm.
But perhaps we should view January 6 as the beginning of a new chapter.
It’s worth remembering that Trump, who has long claimed to be a victim of political persecution, threatened to jail his opponent, Hillary Clinton, throughout the 2016 campaign, reveling in chants of “Lock her up!” at rallies nationwide. (Republicans did not cry foul when the FBI announced an investigation into Clinton just days before the election.) It was during that campaign—as I traveled the country talking with Republican voters, hoping to understand the Trump phenomenon—that I began hearing casual talk of civil war. Those conversations were utterly jarring. People spoke matter-of-factly about amassing arms. Many were preparing for a day when, in their view, violence would become unavoidable.
I remember talking with Lee Stauffacher, a 65-year-old Navy veteran, outside an October Trump rally in Arizona. “I’ve watched this country deteriorate from the law-and-order America I loved into a country where certain people are above the law,” Stauffacher said. “Hillary Clinton is above the law. Illegal immigrants are above the law. Judges have stopped enforcing the laws they don’t agree with.”
Stauffacher went on about his fondness of firearms and his loathing of the Democratic Party. “They want to turn this into some communist country,” he said. “I say, over my dead body.”
This sort of rhetoric cooled, for a time, after Trump’s victory. But then came Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion. And the subsequent arrests of some of the president’s closest confidants. Then came the first impeachment of Trump himself. By the time his reelection campaign got under way, Trump was fashioning himself a wartime president, portraying himself on the front lines of a pitched battle between decent, patriotic Americans and a “deep state” of government thugs who aim to enforce conformity and silence dissent.
On December 18, 2019, the day he was impeached for the first time, Trump tweeted a black-and-white photo that showed him pointing into the camera. “THEY’RE NOT AFTER ME … THEY’RE AFTER YOU,” read the caption. “I’M JUST IN THE WAY.”
As I hit the road again in 2020, crisscrossing the nation to get a read on the Republican base, it was apparent that something had changed. There was plenty of that same bombast, all the usual chesty talk of people taking matters into their own hands. But whereas once the rhetoric had felt scattered—rooted in grievances against the left, or opposition to specific laws, or just general discomfort with a country they no longer recognized—the new threats seemed narrow and targeted. Voter after voter told me there had been a plot to sabotage Trump’s presidency from the start, and now there was a secretive plot to stop him from winning a second term. Everyone in government—public-health officials, low-level bureaucrats, local election administrators—was in on it. The goal wasn’t to steal the election from Trump; it was to steal the election from them.
“They’ve been trying to cheat us from the beginning,” Deborah Fuqua-Frey told me outside a Ford plant in Michigan that Trump was visiting during the early days of the pandemic. “First it was Mueller, then it was Russia. Isn’t it kind of convenient that as soon as impeachment failed, we’ve suddenly got this virus?”
I asked her to elaborate.
“The deep state,” she said. “This was domestic political terrorism from the Democratic Party.”
This kind of thinking explains why countless individuals would go on to donate their hard-earned money—more than $250 million in total—to an “Election Defense Fund” that didn’t exist. It explains why others swarmed vote-counting centers, intimidated poll workers, signed on to shoddy legal efforts, flocked to fringe voices advocating solutions such as martyrdom and secession from the union, threatened to kill elections officials, boarded buses to Washington, and ultimately stormed the United States Capitol.
What made January 6 so predictable—the willingness of Republican leaders to prey on the insecurities and outright paranoia of these voters—is what makes August 8 so dangerous.
“The Obama FBI began spying on President Trump as a candidate,” Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee tweeted this morning. “If they can do this to Trump, they will do it to you!”
“If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you,” read a tweet from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They followed up: “The IRS is coming for you. The DOJ is coming for you. The FBI is coming for you. No one is safe from political punishment in Joe Biden’s America.”
“If there was any doubt remaining, we are now living in a post constitutional America where the Justice Department has been weaponized against political threats to the regime, as it would in a banana republic,” the Texas Republican Party tweeted. “It won’t stop with Trump. You are next.”
It won’t stop with Trump—that much is certain. The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, all but promised retaliation against the Justice Department should his party retake the majority this fall. Investigations of President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were already more or less guaranteed; the question now becomes how wide of a net congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to exact vengeance on behalf of Trump and appease a fuming base, cast in probing other people close to the president and his administration.
Assuming that Trump runs in 2024, the stakes are even higher. If Biden—or another Democrat—defeats him, Republicans will have all the more reason to reject the results, given what they see as the Democrats’ politically motivated investigation of the likely Republican nominee. If Trump wins, he and his hard-line loyalists will set about purging the DOJ, the intelligence community, and other vital government departments of careerists deemed insufficiently loyal. There will be no political cost to him for doing so; a Trump victory will be read as a mandate to prosecute his opponents. Indeed, that seems to be exactly where we’re headed.
“Biden is playing with fire by using a document dispute to get the @TheJusticeDept to persecute a likely future election opponent,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted. “Because one day what goes around is going to come around.”
And then what? It feels lowest-common-denominator lazy, in such uncertain times, to default to speculation of 1860s-style secession and civil war. But it’s clearly on the minds of Americans. Last year, a poll from the University of Virginia showed that a majority of Trump voters (52 percent) and a strong minority of Biden voters (41 percent) strongly or somewhat agreed that America is so fractured, they would favor red and blue states seceding from the union to form their own countries. Meanwhile, a poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland showed that one in three Americans believes violence against the government is justified, and a separate poll by NPR earlier this year showed that one in 10 Americans believes violence is justified “right now.”
It’s hard to see how any of this gets better. But it’s easy to see how it gets much, much worse.
We don’t know exactly what the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago. We don’t know what was found. What we must acknowledge—even those of us who believe Trump has committed crimes, in some cases brazenly so, and deserves full prosecution under the law—is that bringing him to justice could have some awful consequences.
Is that justice worth the associated risks? Yesterday, the nation’s top law-enforcement officers decided it was. We can only hope they were correct.
