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Tag: unrest

  • Biden previews 2024 message by warning that Trump’s movement is a threat to American democracy | CNN Politics

    Biden previews 2024 message by warning that Trump’s movement is a threat to American democracy | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden issued blunt new warnings about ongoing existential threats to US democracy in a major address Thursday, sharpening the central argument in his potential rematch with Donald Trump and asking voters to prioritize the health of American institutions.

    “There’s something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said during his speech in Arizona, where he was also honoring his friend, the late Republican Sen. John McCain. “There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: The MAGA movement.”

    “There’s no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists,” he said, using the acronym for Trump’s political movement. “Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”

    The stark message was Biden’s most forceful attempt at calling out Trump’s antidemocratic behavior since the former president was criminally charged for his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results. It offered a taste of Biden’s forthcoming reelection message, one centered on Trump’s own words and actions as threats to democracy. Biden said his predecessor was guided not by the Constitution or decency, but by “vengeance and vindictiveness.”

    As indictments and arrests of the former president piled up over the summer, Biden remained mostly silent on his predecessor, wary of appearing to intervene in Justice Department business. His most substantive comment on Trump’s myriad legal issues was a sarcastic remark about his mugshot in the Fulton County, Georgia, case.

    But as Trump’s prohibitive lead in the Republican primary remains unchanged – and as Biden’s own standing remains mired in low approval – the president is sharpening his attacks on his most likely 2024 rival as a danger to democracy. Thursday’s speech served as yet another sign that the days of trying to keep Trump at an arm’s length are long gone.

    “Trump says the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever he wants as president,” Biden said, referencing his most likely GOP challenger by name. “I’ve never heard presidents say that in jest.”

    He alluded to Trump’s recent suggestion that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could be executed, and said Republican silence on the comment was “deafening.”

    Stopping the erosion of democratic institutions and values was central to Biden’s decision to run for president in 2020, it will again be core to his reelection campaign, officials said, as he looks to energize voters and donors who have otherwise appeared lukewarm about a rematch between the two men.

    “We should all remember: Democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle. They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up,” Biden said.

    Senior Biden advisers had mulled over the timing and location of Thursday’s speech for weeks. Previously, Biden has sought to harness the symbolic settings of Independence Hall and Gettysburg to issue warnings about the state of American democracy.

    Advisers eyed similar sites pegged to American history on the East Coast before settling on Tempe, Arizona, in part as a way to honor the late Republican Sen. John McCain, whom Biden was friends with for decades and referred to as a “brother.” Biden announced funding to construct the McCain Library, honoring his longtime friend.

    Arizona was also a center of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and a state where voters rejected candidates who denied the results two years later. That effort loomed large in the president’s message.

    “I believe in free and fair elections and peaceful transfer of power. I believe there’s no place in America – none, none, none – for political violence,” Biden said.

    Biden’s advisers also selected the day after the second Republican primary debate, hoping to insert Biden into a news cycle otherwise dominated by the GOP contest. Trump skipped the debate, delivering a speech in Michigan instead as he looks to cut into Biden’s support among union workers.

    The speech came at a moment of political uncertainty for Biden, as he faces persistent questions about his age, disapproval of his handling of the job and an indictment of his son, Hunter. House Republicans held their first hearing in an impeachment inquiry into Biden on Thursday.

    Many senior Democrats believe once voters come to see the 2024 election as a contest between Biden and Trump, the stakes will be clearer and the current president’s standing will improve.

    At one point in his speech, Biden was interrupted by climate activists as he urged the audience to “put partisanship aside, put country first.” Kai Newkirk, one of the protesters, had stood up and called on Biden to take further action to address fossil fuels.

    “I tell you what, if you shush up, I’ll meet with you immediately after this,” Biden said, before resuming remarks.

    “Democracy is never easy – as we just demonstrated,” he joked.

    Newkirk added in a statement later Thursday that he did not hear the president’s offer to meet with him but that he would have “gladly” accepted.

    “I worked hard to elect President Biden, and conscience compelled me to interrupt his speech today to ask why he has yet to declare a climate emergency,” he said in a post on X.

    Top Biden donors, many of whom have agitated for more forceful attacks on Trump at this early stage in the campaign, were informed of the plans for Thursday’s speech by senior Biden advisers during a fundraising retreat in Chicago earlier this month. Biden began previewing his address to donors behind closed doors last week.

    In those remarks, Biden debuted new warnings about his predecessor’s potential return to the White House, testing the material off-camera as he and his team were preparing for Thursday’s address.

    “Let there be no question: Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy. And I will always defend, protect, and fight for our democracy. That’s why I running,” he said at a Broadway theater last week.

    Two days later, he amplified his warnings to a group of lawyers – and said he was confident he could defeat Trump for a second time.

    “I’m now running again. Because guess what? I think that it’s likely to be the same fellow, and it’s likely that I think I can beat him again,” he said.

    Defending democracy is an issue Biden allies believe remains deeply resonant with voters, almost three years after the 2020 contest. The video announcing his reelection opened with footage of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Biden delivered a resounding message in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, warning of “MAGA forces” that “tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people.” Ahead of the speech, Biden convened his communications staff with a group of academics and historians – including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham, who has helped draft his highest-profile addresses – to reflect on the fragile state of the union and compile ideas.

    The White House remains in touch with several of those historians to continue generating ideas, according to officials.

    Democrats say the message worked. The administration and national Democrats have touted the results of the 2022 midterm elections, and the fact that a so-called red wave never materialized as many had predicted, as proof the president’s focus on themes like defending democracy struck a chord.

    Thursday’s remarks were billed by the White House as the president’s fourth major speech on the theme of democracy – Biden spoke to the issue last year to mark the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, as well as days before the midterm elections.

    By also honoring McCain during his speech Thursday, Biden hoped to harken to an era of bipartisanship in Washington that has disappeared in recent years. The comparison is amplified given the current battle over government funding, which appears destined to result in a government shutdown by the end of the week.

    He was joined at the speech by McCain’s widow Cindy, other members of the McCain family and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

    However, one of the state’s senators, Kyrsten Sinema – who was a Democrat until she left the party last year to become an independent – said Biden should use his visit to Arizona to observe the situation at the southern border.

    “It’s well past time for President Biden to see the border crisis first hand and for the administration to do its job, secure the border, and keep Arizona safe. While he’s in Arizona, I’m calling on him to visit the border to actually understand how our communities shoulder the burden of his administration’s failure to address this crisis,” she said in a statement.

    McCain’s death was deeply personal and painful for Biden for a number of reasons, including the fact that McCain had been diagnosed with the same cancer that took the life of Biden’s son, Beau. After laying a wreath near the site where McCain’s plane was shot down in Hanoi this month, Biden said he missed his former Senate colleague.

    “He was a good friend,” Biden said.

    In his eulogy for McCain in the summer of 2018, Biden described his friend as having “lived by a different code – an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, integrity, duty were alive.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Fake placenames with anti-Israel messages flood Google Maps’ depiction of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt | CNN Business

    Fake placenames with anti-Israel messages flood Google Maps’ depiction of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    When Google Maps users navigated to the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday, they might have seen placenames that included, “F**k Israel,” and “May god curse Israel’s Jerusalem.”

    Cyber activists appeared to have targeted the service to post anti-Israel messages, likely by taking advantage of a feature on Google Maps that allows people to create and contribute information about businesses and landmarks that appear on the service.

    CNN found dozens of anti-Israel placenames created in Arabic and English, including one in Arabic that read, “Palestine is free, may god forgive us.”

    There is no evidence that any Google systems were breached or compromised as part of this stunt which, Ben Decker, CEO of online threat analysis company Memetica, described as “cyber vandalism.”

    “Cyber vandalism traces its origins back to the early stages of the internet,” Decker said, “when communities would hack into and deface websites.”

    Google, which also owns the map service Waze, said on Monday it was disabling its live traffic data in Israel and Gaza as Israeli forces prepare for a potential ground invasion of Gaza.

    The company did not say if the action was at the request of the Israel Defense Forces. CNN reached out to the IDF for comment.

    Google took the same action at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year after online researchers used live traffic data to track the movements of Russian troops.

    It is unclear if the targeting of Google Maps with anti-Israeli messages was the result of the company’s decision to disable live traffic data.

    After CNN shared several examples of fake anti-Israel placenames with Google on Tuesday, a company spokesperson said, “On Google Maps, we strive to strike the right balance of helping people find reliable information about local places, and reducing inaccurate or misleading content. We have clear policies for user contributions – we are actively reviewing the examples you shared and are in the process of removing policy-violating content.”

    Many of the fake placenames were still live as of Tuesday evening.

    Memetica’s Decker said cyber vandalism is “a politically agnostic form of hacktivism that has been used by online communities around the world.”

    “The reason cyber vandalism is far more prevalent than real-world vandalism, particularly when it comes to geopolitical conflicts like Israel-Gaza, is that it can be a completely faceless and anonymous act,” he said.

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  • Trump claims he can’t get a fair trial in DC as latest indictment dominates GOP primary | CNN Politics

    Trump claims he can’t get a fair trial in DC as latest indictment dominates GOP primary | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump, who is facing charges in Washington, DC for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, claimed on Sunday that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in the nation’s capital as he continues to rail against his latest indictment.

    “No way I can get a fair trial, or even close to a fair trial, in Washington, D.C. There are many reasons for this, but just one is that I am calling for a federal takeover of this filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

    If he were to ask in court to move his federal criminal case out of Washington, DC, the former president would join three dozen January 6, 2021, riot defendants who have asked to move their cases out of DC.

    No judges – even those appointed by Trump – have ever agreed. And appeals courts and other judges have overwhelmingly kept high-profile cases in the districts where charges are filed.

    Several January 6 defendants have argued that there’s been too much pretrial publicity in DC for a fair trial and that the jury pool in the city would be too biased.

    But the Supreme Court has previously held that trials can still be fair even if they have received widespread publicity, and the DC District Court has used specific questioning of potential jurors and instructions to try to ensure fair trials for January 6 defendants.

    Just last week, prosecutors argued against a Capitol riot defendant’s change of venue request in the DC federal court, arguing that many politically known defendants, including Trump’s adviser Roger Stone, have been fairly tried in the downtown Washington courthouse.

    The court also refused to move the trial of the co-conspirators of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, at a time when the city was also voting heavily Democratic.

    “The fact that most District residents voted against Donald Trump does not mean those residents could not impartially consider the evidence against those charged in connection with the events on January 6,” Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a court filing at the end of July – an assertion that the judges of the DC District Court have widely agreed.

    Still, Trump attorney John Lauro on Sunday cast doubt on the idea that Trump could receive a fair trial in the nation’s capital. In an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Lauro suggested West Virginia as a more diverse alternative.

    “We would like a diverse venue. A diverse jury … that reflects the characteristics of the American people,” Lauro said. Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday, Lauro also advocated for cameras in the courtroom in order to show the public “what kind of prosecution is going on.”

    When Lauro expressed similar concerns about a fair trial at Trump’s arraignment last week, the magistrate judge responded: “I can guarantee everybody that there will be a fair process and fair trial in this court. So let me just respond to that comment, Mr. Lauro, I’m certain of that.”

    The DC appeals court has found that voting patterns shouldn’t play into where a trial is held and that national news coverage can work against the need to move a trial.

    “Scandal at the highest levels of the federal government is simply not a local crime of peculiar interest to the residents of the District of Columbia,” the DC Circuit Court of Appeals found about the Watergate conspirators’ trial in 1976.

    DC jurors on major January 6 cases, including an Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case, sometimes spend days deliberating and have delivered nuanced verdicts, including some acquittals.

    Trump’s latest indictment comes against the backdrop of the 2024 GOP primary contest. Republican candidates have largely sought to walk a fine line between knocking the former president’s growing legal troubles and not alienating his base of supporters.

    GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie on Sunday touted his experience as a prosecutor in the heavily Democratic state of New Jersey on Sunday as he told Bash he always got convictions on political corruption cases.

    “So my view is, yeah, I believe jurors can be fair. I believe in the American people. And I believe in the fact that jurors will listen fairly and impartially,” Christie said.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently made his sharpest condemnation of Trump, told CBS on Sunday he “would hope” Trump can receive a fair trial in Washington.

    Notably, according to the law in DC determined during the Watergate conspirators’ case and other appeals court decisions, defendants can ask for a change of venue, but if they are denied, they can’t appeal it until after the trial takes place.

    That’s one reason why the January 6 defendants’ trials have gone forward without delay even though so many attempted to move their cases out of Washington, DC.

    Other high-profile cases where defendants have tried and failed to move their cases then also failed to overturn their convictions later with appeals include the Enron-related trial of Jeffrey Skilling in Houston and Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, who was tried in Boston.

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  • The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

    The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Fulton County’s sweeping indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 additional co-defendants also includes details involving 30 “unindicted co-conspirators” – people who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges took part in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

    Some of the co-conspirators are key Trump advisers, like Boris Epshteyn, while several others are likely Georgia officials who were the state’s fake electors for Donald Trump.

    One of the unindicted co-conspirators who appears multiple times in the indictment is Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Willis was barred by a state judge from investigating Jones after she hosted a fundraiser last year for Jones’ Democratic opponent when he was a state senator running for lieutenant governor.

    The 98-page document alleges the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who are not named, “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities” across the 41 charges laid out in the indictment.

    “Prosecutors use the ‘co-conspirator’ label for people who are not charged in the indictment but nonetheless were participants in the crime,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor. “We do this to protect the identity and reputation of uncharged people – though they often are readily identifiable – and, at times, to turn up the pressure and try to flip them before a potential indictment drops.”

    CNN was able to identify some of the co-conspirators by piecing together details included in the indictment. Documents reviewed from previous reporting also provide clues, especially the reams of emails and testimony from the House January 6 Committee’s report released late last year.

    CNN has been able to identify or narrow down nearly all of the unindicted co-conspirators:

    The indictment refers to Trump’s speech on November 4, 2020, “falsely declaring victory in the 2020 presidential election” and that Individual 1 discussed a draft of that speech approximately four days earlier, on October 31, 2020.

    The January 6 committee obtained an email from Fitton sent on October 31 to Trump’s assistant Molly Michael and his communications adviser Dan Scavino, which says, “Please see below a draft statement as you requested.”

    The statement Fitton wrote also says in part, “We had an election today – and I won.”

    The indictment states that co-conspirator 3 appeared at the infamous November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, with Rudy Giuliani, one of the defendants in the case. Epshteyn was there.

    A November 19, 2020 photo shows Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.

    The indictment also includes two emails between co-conspirator 3, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, two lawyers who pushed the strategy of then-Vice President Mike Pence trying to overturn the election on January 6, 2021, including one with a draft memo for options of how to proceed on January 6.

    According to emails released by the January 6 committee, Epshteyn was the third person on those emails.

    Individual 4 received an email from co-defendant David Shafer, who was then Georgia’s Republican Party chair, on November 20, 2020, that said Scott Graham Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie,” according to the indictment.

    CNN obtained court documents that show Shafer sent this email to Sinners in November 2020: “Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him.” Hall is one of the 19 defendants charged in the indictment.

    The indictment notes an additional email from December 12, 2020, from Shafer to Individual 4 advising them to “touch base” with each of the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia in advance of the December 14, 2020, meeting to confirm their attendance.

    CNN reporting from June 2022 reveals an email exchange between Sinners and David Shafer on December 13, 2020, 18 hours before the group of alternate electors gathered at the Georgia State Capitol.

    “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

    Kerik’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, confirmed to CNN that his client is the unnamed individual listed in the indictment as co-conspirator 5. The indictment refers to co-conspirator 5 taking part in several meetings with lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Arizona, states Trump was contesting after the 2020 election.

    That included the meeting Kerik attended at the White House on November 25, 2020, with a group of Pennsylvania legislators, along with Trump, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and individual 6.

    Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernie Kerik at Trump National Golf Club on June 13.

    Parlatore took issue with Willis’ definition of co-conspirator in the case of Kerik, saying that the indictment only refers to him in the context of receiving emails and attending meetings.

    The indictment says on November 25, 2020, Trump, Meadows, Giuliani, Ellis, Individuals 5 and 6 met at the White House with a group of Pennsylvania legislators.

    According to the January 6 committee report, Waldron was among the visitors who were at the White House that day, along with Kerik and attorney Katherine Freiss. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Meadows, explained that their conversation with the president touched on holding a special session of the Pennsylvania state legislature to appoint Trump electors.

    The indictment also says on December 21, 2020, Sidney Powell, a defendant in the case, sent an email to Individuals 6, 21 and 22 that they were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    The Washington Post reported last August that the email stated Waldron was among the three people to receive the data, along with Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders.

    Waldron at a hearing in front of Michigan lawmakers in December 2020.

    Waldron is the only person who was involved in both the White House meeting and received the Powell email.

    The indictment says Giuliani re-tweeted a post from co-conspirator 8 on December 7, 2020, calling upon Georgia voters to contact their local representatives and ask them to sign a petition for a special session to ensure “every legal vote is counted.” The date and content of the tweet match a tweet posted by Jones, who was at the time a state senator.

    Burt Jones, Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor

    Jones, who was elected lieutenant governor in November, appears more than a dozen times throughout the indictment as co-conspirator 8, including as a fake elector.

    After the 2020 election, Jones was calling for a special session of the Georgia legislature, something Gov. Brian Kemp and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan refused to do.

    On Thursday, Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, told CNN that he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones’ role in the state’s 2020 election interference case, after a judge blocked Willis from investigating him last year.

    The indictment lists several emails sent to co-conspirator 9 related to preparations for the fake electors who met on December 14, 2020, including an email from Chesebro “to help coordinate with the other 5 contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.”

    According to emails obtained by the January 6 committee, that email was sent to an account belong to the Georgia GOP treasurer, which at the time was Brannan.

    Co-conspirator 9 is also included in the indictment as one of the 13 unindicted co-conspirators who served as fake electors.

    Co-conspirators 10 and 11 are Georgia GOP officials Carolyn Fisher and Vikki Consiglio

    The indictment says on December 10, 2020, Ken Chesebro sent an email to Georgia state Republican Chair David Shafer and Individuals 9, 10 and 11, with documents that were to be used by Trump electors to create fake certificates.

    The January 6 committee obtained as part of its evidence an email from Chesebro sent on December 10 sent to Shafer and three other email addresses. One is for Carolyn Fisher, the former Georgia GOP first vice chair, one is for the Georgia Republican Party treasurer and one is for the Georgia GOP assistant treasurer, the role Consiglio was serving in 2020.

    The email contains attachments of memos and certificates that could be used to help swap out the Biden electors with a slate of electors for Trump.

    Both co-conspirators 10 and 11 also served as fake electors in Georgia.

    Co-conspirators 2 and 8-19 are the fake electors

    Of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 13 are listed as the fake electors for Donald Trump, who signed papers “unlawfully falsely holding themselves out as the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia,” according to the indictment.

    Three of the 16 Georgia fake electors were charged in the indictment: David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathleen Alston Latham.

    The other 13 fake electors, according to the fake electors certificate published by the National Archives, are Jones (co-conspirator 8), Joseph Brannan (co-conspirator 9), James “Ken” Carroll, Gloria Godwin, David Hanna, Mark Hennessy, Mark Amick, John Downey, Daryl Moody, Brad Carver, CB Yadav and two others who appear to be Individuals 10 and 11.

    Several of the fake electors who were not charged are only listed in the indictment for their role signing on as electors for Trump, while others, like Jones, appear in other parts of the indictment as being more actively involved with the alleged conspiracy.

    The indictment says Individual 20 was part of a meeting at the White House on December 18, 2020, with Trump, Giuliani and Powell, known to have discussed the possibility of seizing voting machines.

    The December 18 meeting featured prominently during some of the hearings from the January 6 committee. All but two of the outside advisers who attended have been named as co-defendants in the indictment already: former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

    The meeting featured fiery exchanges between Trump’s White House lawyers and his team of outside advisers, including on whether to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud, according to the indictment and previous details that have been disclosed about the meeting.

    The outside advisers famously got into a screaming match with Trump’s White House lawyers – Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann – at the Oval Office meeting. Cipollone and Herschmann, along with Meadows, pushed back intensely on the proposals, Cipollone and Herschmann testified to the January 6 committee.

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders – who are both affiliated with Byrne’s America Project, a conservative advocacy group that contributed funding to Arizona’s Republican ballot audit. Hayes was a former surfer from Hawaii and Sanders has a cybersecurity background in the private sector.

    The indictment says on Dec. 21, 2020, Sidney Powell sent an email to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler, saying that individual 6, who CNN identified as Waldron, along with individuals 21 and 22, were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    According to the Washington Post, Conan and Todd were the other two people listed on the email to receive the data.

    The final eight co-conspirators listed in the indictment are connected to the effort to access voting machines in Georgia’s Coffee County.

    Co-conspirator 25 and 29 are a Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and analyst Jeffrey Lenberg

    The indictment says that Misty Hampton allowed co-conspirators 25 and 29 to access non-public areas of the Coffee County elections office on January 18, 2021. Logan and Lenberg were the two outsiders granted access to the elections office that day by Hampton, according to surveillance video previously obtained by CNN. No one else was given access to the office that day, according to a CNN review of the footage.

    The indictment also notes that co-conspirator 25 downloaded Coffee County election data that SullivanStrickler then had uploaded to a separate server. Documents previously obtained by CNN show five accounts that downloaded the data – one account belongs to Logan and none of them belong to Lenberg. Still, CNN could not definitively determine who exactly downloaded the data.

    Logan and his company conducted the so-called Republican audit of the 2020 ballots cast in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

    The indictment says that co-conspirator 28 “sent an e-mail to the Chief Operations Officer of SullivanStrickler LLC” directing him to transmit data copied from Coffee County to co-conspirator 30 and Powell. CNN has previously reported on emails Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress | CNN Politics

    Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Donald Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro has been convicted of contempt of Congress for not complying to a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Navarro is the second ex-aide to the former president to be prosecuted for his lack of cooperation with the committee. Steve Bannon was convicted last year on two contempt counts. Bannon’s case is currently on appeal.

    Navarro pledged to appeal based on executive privilege issues.

    “We knew going in what the verdict was going to be. That is why this is going to the appeals court,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. “And we feel – look, I said from the beginning this is going to the Supreme Court. I said from the beginning I’m willing to go to prison to settle this issue, I’m willing to do that.”

    Hear from ex-Trump aide after guilty of contempt verdict

    Asked by CNN if he’s spoken with the former president or reached out for help on legal bills, Navarro called Trump “a rock,” but did not elaborate on any communications.

    “President Trump has been a rock in terms of assistance. We talk when we need to talk,” Navarro said. “He will win the presidential race in 2024, in November. You know why? Because the people are tired of Joe Biden weaponizing courts like this and the Department of Justice.”

    After the verdict was read, Navarro’s lawyers sought a mistrial, raising concerns about any influence alleged protestors may have had when jurors took a break outdoors Thursday afternoon. US District Judge Amit Mehta did not immediately rule on the motion.

    The judge scheduled Navarro’s sentencing for January 12, 2024.

    Tim Mulvey, former spokesperson for House January 6 committee, celebrated the verdict.

    “His defiance of the committee was brazen. Like the other witnesses who attempted to stonewall the committee, he thought he was above the law. He isn’t. That’s a good thing for the rule of law. I imagine that those under indictment right now are getting a good reminder of that right now,” Mulvey told CNN in a statement.

    Prosecutors told the jury during closing arguments Thursday that Navarro “made a choice” not to comply with a February 2022 subpoena.

    Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Aloi said that government only works if people play by the rules and are held accountable if they don’t.

    “The subpoena – it is not hard to understand,” she said, adding that Navarro knew “what he was required to do and when he was required to do it.”

    Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward contested the idea that the subpoena was simple, staying that the subpoena did not specify where in the Capitol complex Navarro was supposed to show up for his deposition.

    He also said that prosecutors failed to prove that Navarro was willful in his failure to comply with the subpoena, arguing that prosecutors hadn’t established that his non-compliance with the demand for testimony was not the result of a mistake or accident.

    “Why didn’t the government present evidence to you about where Dr. Navarro was or what he was doing” on the day of the scheduled deposition, Woodward asked the jury. “Something stinks.”

    Prosecutor John Crabb responded: “Who cares where he was. What matters is where he wasn’t.”

    Crabb repeatedly referred to Navarro as “that man’ while pointing to him, telling the jury at one point, “that man thinks he is above the law.”

    The gestures elicited strong reactions from Navarro, who at times threw up his hand, shook his head or laughed. Woodward eventually jumped up and whispered to his client, and the two stood quietly together for the remainder of the proceeding.

    The jury was attentive during closing arguments, watching carefully as lawyers presented their final case. Navarro stood directly across the room with his hands clasped and stared at jurors intently.

    After the jury was dismissed, Woodward told the judge that the defense was seeking a mistrial because they had learned the jury had taken an outdoor break shortly before rendering the verdict and that during that break, they were around a “number” of January 6-related protestors demonstrating and chanting outside of the court.

    “It’s obvious the jury would have heard those protestors,” Woodward said. “It’s impossible for us to know what influence that would have” on their verdict.

    Crabb challenged the idea that there were protestors in the park next to the courthouse where the jurors took their break. Woodward countered that Navarro himself had been “accosted” earlier in the day by a protestor when he was coming through that park.

    Mehta said he knew that jurors had asked to take their break outside, where they were accompanied by a court security officer, but that he was not aware that protestors were in the park. He told Woodward that he was not going to rule on the mistrial request without receiving more briefing and evidence.

    Navarro was briefly interrupted by protesters when he left the courthouse after the verdict was read Thursday.

    It’s a “sad day for America, not ‘cause … they were guilty verdicts, because I can’t come out and have an honest, decent conversation with the people of America,” Navarro said.

    “People of America, I want you to understand that this is the problem we have right here – this kind of divide in our country between the woke Marxist left and everybody else here. And this is nuts,” he added.

    Navarro joined the Trump White House to advise on trade and became a well-known face of the Trump administration, while earning a reputation for sparring behind the scenes with his White House colleagues.

    He played a prominent role in the administration’s Covid-19 response as well. He led some of the efforts to speed up the deployment of medical supplies and also was a defender of fringe Trump views about the virus, including the former president’s advocacy of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine.

    Navarro was still working at the White House in the period after the 2020 election and lost a pre-trial fight to argue to the jury that Trump asserted an executive privilege that shielded him from the subpoena, and he and his attorneys have signaled that, if convicted, he will raise that and other legal issues on appeal.

    “So today’s ‘Judgment Day,’” Navarro told reporters as he walked into the courthouse Thursday.

    “I have been stripped, stripped of virtually every defense by the court and yet there is some defense left and the reality here is the government has not proved his case,” he said. “Please understand that the Biden-weaponized Department of Justice is the biggest law firm in the world. That’s what I’m fighting against.”

    The trial itself moved forward this week with notable speed and simplicity. It took less than a day for the jury to hear all the evidence in the case.

    Prosecutors put just three witnesses on the stand, all former staff members of the House January 6 committee. The Justice Department used their testimony to make the case that the committee had good reason to subpoena Navarro and that he was informed repeatedly of its demands.

    In her closing argument, prosecutor Aloi told the jury that Navarro “had knowledge about a plan to delay the activities of Congress on January 6.”

    “The defendant was more than happy to share that knowledge” in television interviews and in other public remarks, Aloi said, “except to the congressional committee that could do something about” preventing a future attack.

    Woodward sought to paint the mention about the attack on the Capitol and the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power as a distraction.

    “This case is not about what happened on January 6,” Woodward said in his closing argument.

    Navarro’s defense team engaged in only brief cross examination, questioning just one of the government’s witnesses. His lawyers were focused on the element of the charge that requires a showing that Navarro was willful and deliberate in his decision not to comply with the subpoena – meaning that his lack of compliance was not the result of an inadvertent mistake or accident.

    The defense did not put on any witnesses of their own, having abandoned a plan to call an FBI agent who worked on the Justice Department probe into Navarro for questioning on the lack of DOJ investigating into Navarro’s whereabouts on the day his committee deposition was scheduled.

    Navarro’s service as a Trump White House aide has generated continuing legal troubles for the former trade adviser – troubles that go beyond the criminal case.

    The Justice Department brought a civil lawsuit against him to obtain government records from Navarro’s personal email account that were withheld from the National Archives upon his departure from government. He has appealed the ruling against him in that case.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • EU warns Elon Musk of ‘penalties’ for disinformation circulating on X amid Israel-Hamas war | CNN Business

    EU warns Elon Musk of ‘penalties’ for disinformation circulating on X amid Israel-Hamas war | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    European officials warned X on Tuesday that the company formerly known as Twitter appears to have been hosting misinformation and illegal content about the war between Hamas and Israel, in potential violation of the European Union’s signature content moderation law.

    In a letter addressed to X owner Elon Musk, Thierry Breton, a top European commissioner, said X faces “very precise obligations regarding content moderation” and that the company’s handling of the unfolding conflict so far has raised doubts about its compliance.

    As a platform subject to Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA), X could face billions in fines if regulators conclude that violations have occurred. X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The warning letter highlights X’s potentially vast legal exposure as it battles a wave of bogus claims linked to the war that have been attributed to everything from fake White House press releases to false news reports and out-of-context videos from unrelated conflicts or even video games.

    Much of the problematic content appears to stem from platform changes made under Musk’s supervision, Breton suggested in the letter, which he shared on X.

    For example, he wrote, X announced over the weekend that it was making it easier for accounts to qualify for newsworthiness exceptions to its platform rules. The change to X’s Public Interest Policy made it so that accounts no longer require a minimum of 100,000 followers to qualify; they need only be “high profile” accounts that, as before, represent current or potential government officials, political parties or political candidates.

    Removing the follower threshold and replacing it with a celebrity standard leaves it “uncertain” what content, particularly “violent and terrorist content that appears to circulate on your platform,” will be removed, Breton wrote.

    Under the DSA, which became enforceable for large platforms in August, companies must also act swiftly when officials highlight content that violates European laws, which X may not be doing, Breton warned.

    “We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite flags from relevant authorities,” Breton wrote.

    “I remind you that following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed,” he added.

    In an exchange on X, Musk replied to Breton. “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports,” Musk wrote. “Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that that the public can see them.”

    Breton posted back: “You are well aware of your users’ — and authorities’— reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk. My team remains at your disposal to ensure DSA compliance, which the EU will continue to enforce rigorously.”

    The EU letter comes as misinformation about the conflict continues to spread widely across X.

    On Tuesday, the investigative journalism group Bellingcat said a fake video designed to look like a BBC News report was circulating on social media.

    The video falsely claimed Bellingcat found evidence that Ukraine had smuggled weapons to Hamas. Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, said the report was “100% fake.”

    In an effort to make the video look like a real BBC News report, its creators used graphics almost identical to what the BBC uses in its own online video reports.

    The video circulated on Telegram and was shared by at least one verified account on X.

    X did not remove the fake BBC News video, but it did append a small label under the video noting it is “manipulated media.”

    In response to a question about the fake video, a BBC spokesperson said, “In a world of increasing disinformation, we urge everyone to ensure they are getting news from a trusted source.”

    Shayan Sardarizadeh, a BBC News reporter, wrote on X Tuesday, “The video is 100% fake.”

    Since taking over, Musk has laid off large swaths of X’s content moderation and policy teams, prompting backlash from civil society groups, which have warned about an increased threat of misinformation and hate speech.

    In what he called an effort to deter the creation of automated accounts, Musk also eliminated the traditional verification badges that once reassured users of an account’s authenticity, replacing it with a paid system that has allowed any user to receive a verification badge without undergoing an identity check. Misinformation experts have said that the move undermined users’ ability to determine the credibility of any given account, particularly during a fast-moving news event.

    But Musk himself has directly contributed to the chaos, at one point sharing – and then deleting – a post recommending that users follow an account that has been known to share misinformation, including a fake report earlier this year of an explosion at the Pentagon.

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  • TikTok steps up efforts to counter misinformation about Israel-Hamas war | CNN Business

    TikTok steps up efforts to counter misinformation about Israel-Hamas war | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    TikTok is stepping up efforts to counter misinformation, incitement to violence and hate relating to the Israel-Hamas war on its online platform, it announced Sunday, days after the European Union (EU) warned social media companies they risked falling foul of the bloc’s content moderation laws.

    As part of its measures, TikTok is launching a command center to coordinate the work of its “safety professionals” around the world, improving the software it uses to automatically detect and remove graphic and violent content, and hiring more Arabic and Hebrew speakers to moderate content.

    TikTok said in a statement that, following the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7, it had “immediately mobilized significant resources and personnel to help maintain the safety of [its] community and integrity of [its] platform.”

    “We do not tolerate attempts to incite violence or spread hateful ideologies,” it added. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for content praising violent and hateful organizations and individuals.”

    The firm, owned by China’s ByteDance, said it had already removed more than 500,000 videos and shut down 8,000 livestream videos from the “impacted region” since the Hamas attack.

    As the conflict escalates — Israel has blocked the provision of electricity, food, fuel and water to Gaza, and has been signaling it is preparing for a ground invasion of the area — millions have turned to social media for updates, while misinformation has proliferated on these sites.

    One recent TikTok video, seen by more than 300,000 users and reviewed by CNN, promoted conspiracy theories about the origins of the Hamas attack, including false claims that it was orchestrated by the media.

    Last week, the EU told social media companies they needed to better protect “children and teenagers from violent content and terrorist propaganda” on their platforms.

    EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote to TikTok Thursday, in a letter shared on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying the company had 24 hours to detail the steps it was taking to comply with EU rules on content moderation. Breton has sent similar letters to X, Google and Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook.

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  • 21 US service members suffered minor injuries in recent drone attacks, Pentagon says | CNN Politics

    21 US service members suffered minor injuries in recent drone attacks, Pentagon says | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A total of 21 US service members reported “minor injuries” as a result of drone and rocket attacks on coalition military bases in Iraq and Syria last week, according to the Pentagon.

    “Between Oct. 17-18 (ET), 21 US personnel received minor injuries due to drone attacks at Al Assad Airbase, Iraq, and Al-Tanf Garrison, Syria,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Wednesday. “All members returned to duty.”

    Defense officials told CNN earlier Wednesday that while all of the personnel have since returned to duty, several continue to be monitored for any additional side effects or injuries. The number of injured personnel has risen as more US troops have reported symptoms in the days following the attacks.

    “It is important to note, in some cases, service members may report injuries such as (traumatic brain injury) several days after attacks occur, so numbers may change. We will continue to work closely with US Central Command to provide updates as appropriate,” Ryder said.

    CNN previously reported that multiple troops sustained minor injuries from the attacks, though the exact number was unclear.

    Ryder said Tuesday that US and coalition forces have been attacked at least 10 separate times in Iraq, and three separate times in Syria since October 17, via a mix of one-way attack drones and rockets. US officials have attributed the attacks to Iranian proxy groups operating in the region and have warned of a potential for significant escalation by these groups in the near term.

    NBC News was first to report the number of minor injuries in Syria and Iraq.

    Officials told CNN earlier this week that at this point, Iran appears to be encouraging the groups rather than explicitly directing them. One official said Iran is providing guidance to the militia groups that they will not be punished – by not getting resupplied with weaponry, for example – if they continue to attack US or Israeli targets.

    The attacks have ramped up amid the US’ support for Israel in its war against Hamas and intensified following a hospital blast in Gaza that Palestinian militants and Israel have blamed on each other. US intelligence officials said on Tuesday that the explosion happened when a rocket launched by a Palestinian militant group broke apart in midair and the warhead fell on the hospital.

    Iran supports a number of proxy militia groups in countries across the region through the IRGC-Quds Force, and Tehran does not always exert perfect command and control over these groups. How willing those groups are to act independently is a “persistent intelligence gap,” noted one source.

    But a senior defense official said the US believes that the proxies are being funded, armed, equipped and trained by Iran, and the US therefore holds Tehran responsible for their actions.

    Officials across the administration have reiterated in recent days that the US is preparing for a potential escalation, preparing both defense and offensive capabilities should it become necessary to respond.

    The US has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and around 900 in Syria as part of the anti-ISIS coalition, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement last weekend that he was deploying additional air defense systems to the region in response to the attacks, including a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system and additional Patriot batteries.

    Iran warned on Sunday that the situation could escalate. In a conference with his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor in Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that the Middle East is like a “powder keg,” according to quotes published by state-aligned Tasnim news.

    “Any miscalculation in continuing genocide and forced displacement can have serious and bitter consequences, both in the region and for the warmongers,” Abdollahian said, referring to the US and Israel.

    The Iranian foreign minister also warned the US and Israel that “if crimes against humanity do not stop immediately, there is the possibility at any moment that the region will go out of control.”

    CORRECTION: This headline and story have been corrected to reflect an updated statement from the Pentagon on the number of US service members injured in recent drone attacks.

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  • Biden administration formally designates military takeover in Niger as a coup | CNN Politics

    Biden administration formally designates military takeover in Niger as a coup | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration on Tuesday formally declared that the military takeover in Niger was a coup – a determination that will keep a significant amount of US military and foreign assistance to the West African nation on hold.

    The decision was made because “we’ve exhausted all available avenues to preserve constitutional order in Niger,” a senior administration official said Tuesday.

    Niger – once a key partner to the US – saw a breakdown of democratic order in late July when military putschists seized power and placed President Mohamed Bazoum under house arrest.

    In the months since, US and international partners have urged the military junta, which calls itself the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (CNSP), to restore democratic leadership, but those efforts have been rebuffed.

    CNN first reported last week that the formal coup determination was expected.

    As a result of Tuesday’s decision, the foreign assistance programs to the Nigerien government that were paused in August will remain suspended. In addition, $442 million in Millennium Challenge Corporation funding has been halted, the senior administration official said.

    Humanitarian assistance will continue, the official added.

    In addition, counterterrorism operations will remain paused, a second senior administration official said, as will US “activities to build the capacity of the Nigerien armed forces through security cooperation programs.” Other security cooperation that is not subject to restrictions because of the coup determination will also remain suspended until the coup leadership “takes action towards restoring democratic governance,” this official said.

    However, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations out of Agedaz Air Base will continue “focused on force protection, monitoring for threats to our forces, including threats from violent extremist organizations,” another official said.

    The second official noted that the US military presence in Niger had already been “consolidated” into two locations, and there are not plans at this time to change the force posture.

    US Ambassador to Niger Kathleen FitzGibbon, who arrived in the country in August, will remain, the first official said. She has not presented her credentials “but she is engaging in informal discussions with CNSP leaders, mainly to protect our staff and our interests and to handle logistical issues,” they said.

    “We’ve informed the CNSP already of our need to suspend certain assistance programs” due to the coup designation, the official said.

    On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Bazoum. The first official said they have no indication of when Bazoum might be released from house arrest, but indicated he may have to leave Niger.

    In the weeks following July’s military takeover, there were some concerns that Russian mercenary groups like the Wagner Group would try to take advantage of the situation, particularly given their presence in neighboring Mali.

    “I’m sure that they (the Wagner Group) would like to try and look for openings in Niger to see if they could take advantage,” the first official said Tuesday.

    “So far, we have not seen any evidence that they have succeeded, and I think largely because the CNSP recognizes that there would be nothing positive that could result from their involvement,” they said.

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  • Bob Graham Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Bob Graham Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Bob Graham, former United States senator and Democratic governor of Florida.

    Birth date: November 9, 1936

    Birth place: Coral Gables, Florida

    Birth name: Daniel Robert Graham

    Father: Ernest “Cap” Graham, Florida state senator, dairy farmer and cattle rancher

    Mother: Hilda (Simmons) Graham, teacher

    Marriage: Adele (Khoury) Graham (1959-present)

    Children: Kendall, Suzanne, Cissy and Gwen

    Education: University of Florida, B.A., 1959; Harvard Law School, LL.B., 1962

    Graham’s family operates dairy, beef cattle and pecan farms in Florida and Georgia.

    Was a primary author of portions of the Patriot Act that dealt with improving and sharing intelligence between US and foreign agencies.

    Co-chaired the congressional investigation into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

    Voted against going to war with Iraq in 2003.

    Graham’s daughter, Gwen, represented Florida’s 2nd Congressional District (Tallahassee), 2015-2017.

    1966-1970 – Member of the Florida House of Representatives.

    1970-1978 – Member of the Florida Senate.

    1979-1987 – Governor of Florida.

    January 3, 1987-January 3, 2005 – US Senator representing Florida.

    2001-2003 – Chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

    January 31, 2003 – Undergoes heart surgery to repair a valve.

    February 27, 2003 – Files papers to form a presidential campaign committee.

    May 6, 2003 – Formally launches his presidential campaign.

    October 6, 2003 – Announces he is dropping out of the presidential race.

    November 3, 2003 – Announces that he will not seek reelection to the Senate in 2004.

    September 2004 – Graham’s book “Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War on Terror,” written with Jeff Nussbaum, is published.

    2005-2006 – Senior Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

    2006 – The Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida is established.

    May 16, 2008 – Congressional leaders appoint Graham to chair the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. In December 2008, the commission issues a report, saying it is likely a WMD attack will occur somewhere in the world by 2013 if nothing is done to enhance security.

    2009 – Graham’s book “America, The Owner’s Manual: Making Government Work for You,” written with Chris Hand, is published.

    May 2010 – President Barack Obama establishes a commission led by Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency Commissioner William Reilly on the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill and offshore drilling. The commission ends its work in January 2011.

    June 2011 – Graham’s first novel, “Keys to the Kingdom,” is published.

    September 2012 – Graham calls for the investigation into the September 11 terrorist attacks be reopened. He asserts that Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the attacks has been covered up.

    January 2014 – Graham visits Cuba as part of a group sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in order to investigate Cuban plans to drill for oil offshore.

    September 9, 2016 – Graham has an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the release of more documents related to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

    November 24, 2020 – Graham’s children’s book, “Rhoda the Alligator,” is published.

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  • DC grand jury that handed up 2020 election indictment against Trump meets again | CNN Politics

    DC grand jury that handed up 2020 election indictment against Trump meets again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal grand jury reconvened on Tuesday for the first time since handing up an indictment last week against former President Donald Trump related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    CNN spotted grand jury members at the federal courthouse in Washington, an indication that the investigation into election interference is not over.

    The grand jury has been hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol for nearly a year. In the Trump indictment, prosecutors refer to six unnamed co-conspirators, raising questions about whether they also could face charges in the case.

    One of the co-conspirators identified by CNN is ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. On Monday, Bernie Kerik, a longtime Giuliani associate who coordinated with him after the 2020 election, met with investigators at the special counsel’s office. Kerik spoke with investigators about Giuliani’s efforts to try to uncover election fraud in 2020, according to his attorney Tim Parlatore.

    Prosecutors allege in the indictment that the co-conspirator identified as Giuliani “was willing to spread knowingly false claims” about supposed election fraud.

    A political adviser to Giuliani, Ted Goodman, previously told CNN that they were acting in good faith and that the indictment “eviscerates” the First Amendment.

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  • US intel agencies hunt for evidence of Iranian role in Hamas attack on Israel | CNN Politics

    US intel agencies hunt for evidence of Iranian role in Hamas attack on Israel | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US intelligence community is digging through its stores of data and tasking the nation’s spy agencies to hunt for fresh clues to determine whether Iran played a direct role in Saturday’s deadly attack on Israel by Hamas, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.

    Even as the US believes Iran is “complicit” in the attack, given its years of support to the Palestinian militant group, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that the administration still does not have direct evidence linking Tehran to the planning and execution of the assault.

    “We’re looking to acquire further intelligence,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House. “But as I stand here today, while Iran plays this broad role – sustained, deep and dark role in providing all of this support and capabilities to Hamas – in terms of this particular gruesome attack on October 7, we don’t currently have that information.”

    Privately, multiple intelligence, military and congressional officials with access to classified intelligence tell CNN the same thing that Sullivan said publicly: No direct evidence has been found indicating Iran was directly involved.

    “Waiting to see if we get a smoking gun in the intel,” said one military official.

    Israeli intelligence is also going back and examining previous evidence, a senior Israeli official told CNN.

    “I doubt that Iran had no knowledge whatsoever,” the official said. “We’ve seen meetings and we’ve seen the close coordination between them.”

    US and Israeli intelligence had no advance warning of the attack – something US officials say is stunning given the scale of the assault – and now, the Biden administration is treading cautiously.

    Iran has for years been Hamas’ chief benefactor, providing it with tens of millions of dollars, weapons and components smuggled into Gaza, as well as broad technical and ideological support.

    Hamas maintains a degree of independence from the Iranian regime. Tehran doesn’t have advisers on the ground in blockaded Gaza, according to former security officials and other regional analysts, and it doesn’t command the group’s activities.

    But the unprecedented scale of the weekend’s attack – combined with analysts’ broad belief that Iran sees the attack as a net positive for its interests in the region – have fueled questions of whether Hamas could have pulled off such a sophisticated operation without direct Iranian assistance.

    “We spend a lot of time and resources worrying about what Iran is doing and how to counter what Iran is doing,” a State Department official said. “This certainly opens up a new chapter in that discussion.”

    In 2022, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said publicly that the group had received about $70 million from Iran that year and that it used the money to build rockets. A State Department report from 2020 found that Iran provided about $100 million annually to Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas.

    Former US officials say there is little question the massive stockpile of weapons used in Saturday’s attack was acquired and assembled with help from Iran.

    “Hamas didn’t build the guidance system and those missiles in Gaza,” said retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former commander of US Central Command. “They got them from somewhere. And the technology assistance to put it together certainly came from Iran – where else would it have come from?”

    Still, the Biden administration has for days stopped short of attributing a role in the tactical planning and execution of the attack to Tehran, and current and former US intelligence analysts who spoke to CNN cautioned that past Iranian support to the group isn’t enough evidence to prove its direct involvement.

    “Even if they didn’t give the instruction, you see it in the support,” said Zohar Palti, the former head of the Political-Military Bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Defense. “Is Hamas a complete Iranian proxy that does everything Iran wants? No. But the relationship is much closer than it was even three years ago.”

    Tehran has denied any involvement in the attack, even as it has lauded it publicly. Israel has also expressed caution publicly.

    “We have no evidence or proof” that Iran was behind the attack, Maj. Nir Dinar, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told Politico on Monday. “We are 100 percent sure that the Iranians were not surprised.”

    Privately, some US officials believe it’s likely Iran had at least some involvement in the planning of the attack. But those personal assessments are largely based on the belief that Iran would likely look for any opportunity to disrupt the fragile negotiations that had been in the works to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saturday’s attack is widely seen as having endangered those talks.

    Other analysts say it’s equally likely that Iran would have wanted to maintain its distance from any Hamas operation against Israel — even if it was aware of the attack in advance.

    It is not in Iran’s interest to have more direct involvement, said Norm Roule, the former national intelligence manager for Iran at the CIA.

    “Iran identifies regional proxies and then provides them with the political, financial and security support to dominate their particular geography,” Roule said. “Iran encourages military operations, but its proxies manage those actions.”

    Fire burns in Ashkelon, Israel. after rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

    It’s possible that Iran provided some operational and planning support in advance of the attack, but that it told Hamas, “You’re on your own once it happens,” said Mike Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who specializes in Iran-backed proxy groups.

    “This looks like Hamas learned some very significant new tricks from someone else and that may well have been the Iranians,” Knights said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Iran is up for broadening the war.”

    The relationship between Iran and Hamas has evolved over the years. In the early days of the Syrian civil war a decade ago, Hamas and Iran found themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.

    For years, the two had a fraught relationship driven by two different Islamist ideologies: Sunni Muslim Hamas and Shia Muslim Iran. But Hamas saw Iran’s influence expanding in the region, especially as America’s shrinking role in the Middle East created a power vacuum for Tehran to exploit, according to Michael Milshtein, the former head of the Department for Palestinian Affairs in the Israeli military’s intelligence directorate.

    More recently, Tehran has stepped up the training assistance it provides Hamas inside Iran, according to a former Western defense official. “Iran was being more proactive in logistics and training of these people,” the former official said. “They’ve gone full on in last few years … with explicit desire to destabilize” the region.

    According to Knights, the closest relationship that Shia Iran now has with any Sunni group is Hamas. Tehran has “provided Hamas with precision loitering munitions drone systems that it has not even provided the Iraqi militias, (with) which it has had relationships since the 1980s.”

    “This suggests a level of actual operational arming, training, equipping that we’ve only previously seen with Lebanese Hezbollah, and then with the Houthis in Yemen,” Knights said.

    But Hamas is not a proxy of Iran, Milshtein said. Unlike terror groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas maintains a large degree of independence from Tehran, even as the assistance has dramatically expanded.

    “Hamas became comfortable getting close to Iran,” Milshtein said, but the relationship remains largely based on military cooperation. Hamas received Iranian weapons and military technology, and learned from the Iranians about planning operations. But the power to make a decision remained with Hamas’ leadership.

    “Everything we have seen in the last four days, we can’t say it’s an Iranian plan or an Iranian effort,” Milshtein said. “It’s a Hamas plan that got Iranian help.”

    US intelligence officials are also working to understand Hamas’ immediate motivation for launching the attack. Unlike the Palestinian Authority, the militant group does not recognize Israel and is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

    Broadly, the more than 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip live in crowded and substandard conditions, partly as a result of a yearslong Israeli blockade and recurring airstrikes on the densely populated enclave.

    McKenzie and others said Hamas was likely motivated by its own parochial cause more than it was by any interest in disrupting normalization talks.

    “I think the Hamas calculation is very little on normalization,” McKenzie said. “I think it’s less the larger geostrategic things in the theater.

    “It’s the Hamas-Israeli relationship, not the larger, ‘What does this mean to Saudi Arabia?’”

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  • US increases pressure on Ukraine to do more to counter corruption | CNN Politics

    US increases pressure on Ukraine to do more to counter corruption | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US is increasingly urging Ukraine to do more to combat governmental corruption, issuing several notices to Kyiv in the last few weeks indicating that certain kinds of US economic aid will be linked to Ukraine’s progress in reforming its institutions, multiple US officials told CNN.

    The Biden administration’s commitment to supporting Ukraine’s military remains undiminished. But officials have made clear recently that other forms of US aid are potentially in jeopardy if Ukraine does not do more to address corruption.

    Congress has not yet approved the administration’s request for $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine, with some Republicans wary of providing so much money without robust oversight and conditions attached.

    “The message to the Ukrainians has always been that if any of these funds are misappropriated, then it jeopardizes all US aid to the country,” one US official familiar with the efforts told CNN.

    The State Department issued a formal diplomatic note, also known as a demarche, to Ukraine in late summer that said the US expects Ukraine to continue pursuing various anti-corruption and financial transparency efforts in order to keep receiving direct budget support, three officials familiar with the matter told CNN. The demarche has not been previously reported.

    The US has provided Ukraine with over $23 billion in direct budget support since the war began, according to the Congressional Research Service. This money is separate from military aid and allows Ukraine to continue providing essential services to its citizens like emergency first responders, health care, and education. It is disbursed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the World Bank to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance.

    The demarche also emphasized the need for Ukraine to implement critical reforms under Ukraine’s International Monetary Fund program, including those related to anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), a source familiar with the matter said.

    In a statement to CNN, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington said that Ukraine has moved “ambitiously” to pass reforms, including on its IMF program.

    “We have conducted these reforms initiated by Ukraine with the help and support from the US, EU and other friends,” the statement says. “And their practical support to our Cabinet of ministers as well as our (National Bank of Ukraine), General Prosecutors office and anticorruption agencies is appreciated and valued…In all our obligations with IMF, EU and other international donors as well as USA, Ukraine delivers on this front.”

    The administration has been public about its desire to help Ukraine fight corruption throughout its war with Russia. But private diplomatic discussions about the issue have ramped up in recent weeks, as questions have swirled about whether Congress will approve the administration’s funding request for Ukraine.

    National Security adviser Jake Sullivan met with a delegation of Ukrainian anti-corruption officials to discuss their efforts just last month, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while in Kyiv in early September, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.

    Asked by CNN about the US push to get Ukraine to tackle corruption, Miller said that he would not detail “specific conversations, other than to say that it continues to be a high priority for us that we raise with our Ukrainian counterparts, and it continues to be a priority for Ukraine. And we have seen them take action in response to specific requests that we have made as recently as the past few weeks.”

    Separately, the White House has drafted a list of reforms Ukraine should implement in order to continue receiving US financial assistance and move toward integrating into Europe.

    The draft, first reported by Ukrainska Pravda, was shared with the US embassy in Kyiv and members of the Donor Coordination Platform, a mechanism launched in January to better coordinate international financial support flowing into Ukraine. The reforms are not a condition for receiving military aid, a US official said.

    “This list was provided as a basis for consultation with the Government of Ukraine and key partners as part of our enduring support to Ukraine and its efforts to integrate into Europe, a goal the United States strongly supports,” the US embassy in Kyiv said in a statement.

    The White House document outlines changes Ukraine could make within three months, six months, one year and 18 months.

    Many of the proposals – including strengthening the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, enhancing the independence of the supervisory boards of Ukrainian state-owned companies, and constitutional court reform – are also requirements for EU membership and benchmarks for the IMF.

    “Reforms in the energy sector, a bastion of corruption and oligarchic control, are essential to cementing Ukraine’s European integration,” the State Department said in a strategy memo for Ukraine posted on its website in August.

    The memo added that “Ukraine must maintain stable financial management of its economy in order to continue to fight the war, rebuilt the economy, and achieve its goal to become a prosperous, democratic, western country. Ukraine must slay the corruption dragon once and for all.”

    The Ukrainian embassy said in its statement to CNN that Ukrainian officials signed an “energy memorandum” during their visit to Washington last month, and that Ukraine has passed a European-style law aimed at preventing abuses in wholesale energy markets. The White House document says implementation of that law should occur by April 2024.

    Zelensky, for his part, has been eager to show the US, EU and NATO that he is cracking down on corruption, particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He recently cleaned house at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, firing his defense minister and several senior defense officials, and launched a number of high-profile raids earlier this year against officials suspected of graft.

    Ukraine considers the direct budget support it gets from the US and other foreign allies to be vital to keeping its economy afloat.

    “We are grateful that this money arrives as grants, because this does not affect the state debt of Ukraine, and this is a very important factor in these difficult times,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Blinken last month, referring to the US’ direct budget support for Ukraine.

    That money is also the “most closely scrutinized” form of aid to Ukraine, a senior Democratic Senate aide told CNN. “The Ukrainians know they have to account for every single penny. The Ukrainians making the decisions know that accountability is a key to their continuing to get funds. It’s been a consistent point of messaging from the administration. Which is fair considering all the support we’re giving them.”

    USAID’s inspector general and Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor signed a memorandum of understanding in July aimed at strengthening USAID’s ability to probe any misuse or abuse of funds by Ukraine, including the direct budget support.

    The US intends to provide up to $3.3 billion in direct economic aid to Ukraine if Congress authorizes its $24 billion supplemental request for Ukraine.

    That supplemental request is now in limbo, however.

    Congress passed a short-term bill on Saturday to continue funding the government through mid-November, but the legislation does not include additional money for Ukraine. Republicans have increasingly questioned the wisdom of the funding and called for greater oversight of it, though some remain opposed to supporting Ukraine as a matter of principle, regardless of Kyiv’s anti-corruption efforts.

    The Pentagon, meanwhile, is also taking new steps to better monitor US military aid flowing to Ukraine. The Defense Department inspector general announced last month that it will be establishing a new team in Ukraine to monitor ongoing US security assistance to Kyiv, which has totaled more than $43.7 billion since the start of the Biden administration.

    It will mark the first time the DoD IG will have personnel based in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, said spokeswoman Megan Reed.

    The White House noted in its draft list of priorities for Ukraine that the Ukrainian MoD should “redesign” its armament and procurement processes to better reflect NATO standards of “transparency, accountability, efficiency and competition in defense procurement.”

    Another issue that has come up in recent weeks is the question of whether Zelensky will move to hold a presidential election in March 2024. Sen. Lindsey Graham has pushed for an election, saying it will demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to freedom and democracy in the face of Russia’s invasion.

    Zelensky has said that holding an election in wartime would be complicated and expensive, noting that international observers must be allowed in to ensure the results are internationally recognized. But he said last month that he is ready to do so “if it is necessary.”

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  • Here’s what Donald Trump’s return to X could mean for the platform’s business | CNN Business

    Here’s what Donald Trump’s return to X could mean for the platform’s business | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Nine months after Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account on the social network previously known as Twitter, the former president has returned to what was once his platform of choice for communicating with the country.

    The return of Trump – who used to be one of the site’s most prominent, if controversial, users – could mark a turning point for the company now called X after months of turbulence. Trump, who has nearly 87 million followers, could attract a wide set of viewers, especially in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, where he is the front-runner for the Republican nomination. But it could also present a new set of challenges for the social network, including for its effort to revive its ad business, if Trump decides to resume regularly posting on the platform at all.

    Trump on Thursday night posted on the platform for the first time since January 2021, when he was suspended for violating Twitter’s rules against glorification of violence in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. On Thursday, he posted a photo of his mug shot – the first such photo of a US president in history – after his surrender in Georgia on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results there. He also added a link to a fundraiser.

    Trump’s return appeared to be welcomed by X owner Musk, who has been encouraging politicians and public figures to post on the site in a bid to improve user numbers. He shared Trump’s X post saying, “Next-level.” Later, appearing to reference the former president without explicitly naming him, Musk posted that “the speed at which your message on this platform can reach a vast number of people is mind-blowing.”

    X declined to comment for this story.

    If Trump decides to return to regularly posting on X, it could be a major boon to the platform’s effort to attract an audience as it faces increased competition. In the wake of controversial policy decisions by Musk, a slew of Twitter copycats have popped up as users seek alternative platforms, including Meta’s Threads, which rolled out a key update this week. The week of July 17, traffic to then-Twitter was down more than 9% compared to the same period in the prior year, according to the most recent public report from web traffic intelligence firm Similarweb.

    Musk’s changes at the company have also irked some advertisers, weighing on X’s core business.

    When he was president, Trump’s posts on what was then Twitter often moved the markets, set the news cycle and drove the agenda in Washington – a fact that benefited the company in the form of countless hours of user engagement and almost certainly could again. And while Trump has remained mostly on his own platform, Truth Social, since he was suspended from many mainstream social networks in early 2021, X would give him a larger reach as he vies for the 2024 Republican nomination.

    Trump’s return “should have a positive impact on [X’s] engagement at a time when it needs it,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte told CNN in an email Friday.

    (It’s not clear how Musk – who has often been X’s main character since his takeover, thanks in some cases to his own policy decisions – would feel about sharing the spotlight.)

    That engagement could be a selling point for X in its quest to lure advertisers back to the platform. But Trump’s return could also raise fresh concerns for advertisers, some of whom have pulled back their spending on the platform over fears that their ads could run next to controversial or potentially objectionable content as Musk has reduced content moderation on the site.

    Musk said last month that the company still had negative cash flow because of a 50% decline in revenue from its core ad business, although CEO Linda Yaccarino said weeks later the company is now “close to break-even.”

    And while X’s leadership has said advertisers are returning thanks to new brand safety controls, at least two brands recently paused their spending on the platform after their ads were run alongside an account celebrating the Nazi party. (X suspended the account after it was flagged and said ad impressions on the page were minimal.)

    Trump frequently pushed boundaries when he was active on Twitter. For years, the platform took a light-touch approach to moderating his account, arguing at times that as a public official, the then-president must be given wide latitude to speak. Now, if Trump returns to his old habits – the former president has, for example, continued to falsely claim in posts on Truth Social that the 2020 election was stolen – Musk could be forced to decide whether to risk alienating additional advertisers or compromise his stated commitment to “free speech.”

    Forte said he will be closely watching the impact of Trump’s return on Twitter’s advertising business. “The increased engagement should be favorable, but there is a risk that heightened controversy could hamper ad sales,” he said.

    And it’s not yet clear whether Trump will actually return to being active on X beyond Thursday’s post, which was essentially a fundraising appeal, and similar to what he posted on Truth Social. After Facebook restored Trump’s account earlier this year, many of his posts on that platform have been aimed at directing users to donate or volunteer for his campaign.

    What’s more, after making his return to X, Trump appeared to try to clarify where his loyalty lies. “I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL. IT IS MY HOME!!” Trump posted on the X competitor platform.

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  • Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

    Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Election officials in key states have recently rejected calls to unilaterally remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot and are saying courts should decide whether he’s disqualified by the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”

    The secretaries of state who oversee elections in Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire and Minnesota have recently said they don’t have the power on their own to invoke the 14th Amendment and block Trump from the presidential ballot.

    These officials, which include Democrats and Republicans, come from states comprising 45 electoral votes.

    Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said Thursday in a Washington Post op-ed that this unilateral approach was “misguided” and “the courts” should decide.

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that this would “reinforce the grievances of those who see the system as rigged and corrupt.”

    A provision of the 14th Amendment, which was approved after the Civil War, says any American official who takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution is disqualified from holding future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.

    However, the Constitution doesn’t spell out how to enforce this ban, and it has been applied only twice since the late 1800s, when it was used against former Confederates.

    Liberal advocacy groups and some leading conservative legal scholars believe this arcane provision applies to Trump because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and block the peaceful transfer of power and for inciting the attack on the US Capitol.

    Trump denies wrongdoing regarding the January 6, 2021, attack and says these candidacy challenges have “no legal basis.” He has pleaded not guilty to separate federal and state indictments that charged him with crimes stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

    The left-leaning groups have filed major lawsuits in Minnesota and Colorado, asking courts to prohibit election officials from putting Trump’s name on the ballot. But some of these experts have also claimed the provision is “self-executing,” meaning that election officials involved in the ballot-printing process can simply disqualify Trump on their own.

    That more aggressive approach is now being rejected by election officials in key states.

    “Many states do not have a law on the books empowering the secretary of state to judge the eligibility of presidential candidates,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert who teaches at the Notre Dame Law School. “It’s no surprise that many secretaries would disclaim any such power.”

    The Democratic secretary of state in Minnesota and the GOP secretary of state in New Hampshire also said they won’t block Trump from the ballot without court intervention.

    “As long as he submits his declaration of candidacy and signs it under the penalty of perjury, pays the $1,000 filing fee, his name will appear on the presidential primary ballot,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan told reporters Wednesday.

    Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech for People, which is one of the organizations behind the anti-Trump candidacy challenges, said his group will “continue to press this critical matter in the courts” so election officials will “carry out their duty to bar Trump from their state ballots.”

    “While some secretaries of state may claim that they do not have the authority to follow the constitutional mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the bottom line remains that Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on any state ballot based on his role of inciting, mobilizing, and facilitating the January 6th insurrection,” Fein said in a statement.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Between 100 and 300 believed killed in Gaza hospital blast, according to preliminary US intelligence assessment | CNN Politics

    Between 100 and 300 believed killed in Gaza hospital blast, according to preliminary US intelligence assessment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US intelligence community assesses that there likely were between 100 to 300 people killed in the blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and there was “only light structural damage at the hospital,” according to an unclassified intelligence assessment obtained by CNN that adds more detail to the initial assessment released Wednesday finding Israel was not responsible for the strike.

    The unclassified assessment sent to Capitol Hill by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence adds more detail to the US intelligence community’s initial assessment released Wednesday that Israel was not responsible for the strike on the hospital.

    “Israel Probably Did Not Bomb Gaza Strip Hospital: We judge that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday [17 October] at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip,” the assessment states. “Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, and open-source video and images of the incident.”

    The US intelligence community also estimates the number of deaths from the hospital at the “low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum,” according to the assessment, a lower number than figures initially cited by Hamas of more than 500.

    The intelligence community “observed only light structural damage at the hospital,” with no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters, according to the assessment.

    “We see only light damage to the roofs of two structures near the main hospital building, but both structures remained intact,” the assessment states.

    The US intelligence community released its initial assessment on Wednesday that Israel was not responsible after President Joe Biden stated publicly while in Israel that the strike appeared to have been “the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.” Biden is giving a primetime address from the Oval Office on Thursday evening.

    The National Security Council has said that the Biden administration plans to publicize as much intelligence as it can about the strike amid accusations that Israel was responsible for the blast.

    “We will be sharing that information with our friends and partners in the region we have shared as much of that information as we can publicly,” Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said on “CNN This Morning” on Thursday.

    The assessment states that intelligence indicates that “some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip assessed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by Palestine Islamic Jihad” and that the militants were still investigating.

    “We continue to work to corroborate whether the explosion resulted from a failed PIJ rocket,” the ODNI assessment states.

    “We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life,” the assessment states. “The United States takes seriously the deaths of all civilians, and is working intensively to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

    Finer told CNN that the assessment of the hospital strike was a warning to the danger of drawing conclusions amid the fog of war. “I think this is a cautionary note for governments in the region, and frankly for press, in responding to each and every twist and turn in a conflict,” he said.

    The Biden administration has been debating how much raw intelligence to declassify underpinning its assessment that the deadly blast at the Gaza hospital was caused by an errant rocket from a Palestinian militant group — not a missile from Israel, according to a senior administration official.

    The White House believes that providing a clearer assessment to the public would be useful in trying to establish a clear and accurate narrative of events, this official said, noting it hasn’t reached a conclusion about how effective raw intelligence would be in that effort.

    The debate a reflects growing concern that the US and Israel have lost control of the narrative spiraling out of Gaza that Israel was to blame for those killed in the hospital blast on Tuesday evening.

    Former intelligence officials and sources familiar with current US intelligence were skeptical that there was anything the US might make public that would be believed in the Arab world.

    “Unfortunately, the narratives have already spread and solidified at this point,” said one US official.

    Following a classified Capitol Hill briefing Wednesday afternoon, a bipartisan group of senators urged the Biden administration to make public as much of the intelligence as possible.

    “A part of the focus also has to be lowering the temperatures in some of the countries that have had reasonably good relationships with Israel — think Jordan, think Egypt,” Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican from North Carolina, told reporters on Wednesday. “That’s more of the focus now.”

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  • EU launches probe into disinformation campaigns as X says ‘hundreds’ of Hamas-affiliated accounts removed | CNN Business

    EU launches probe into disinformation campaigns as X says ‘hundreds’ of Hamas-affiliated accounts removed | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    X says it has removed “hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts” and taken down thousands of posts since the attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group, even as the European Commission formally opened an investigation into X after a previous warning about disinformation and illegal content on its platform linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

    The platform, formerly known as Twitter, was given 24 hours by the European Union earlier this week to address illegal content and disinformation regarding the conflict or face penalties under the bloc’s recently enacted Digital Services Act.

    CEO Linda Yaccarino responded to EU official Thierry Breton in a letter dated Wednesday that she posted to X. She said the company had “redistributed resources and refocused internal teams who are working around the clock to address this rapidly evolving situation.”

    “There is no place on X for terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups and we continue to remove such accounts in real time,” Yaccarino wrote.

    “X is… addressing identified fake and manipulated content during this constantly evolving and shifting crisis,” she added. The platform had “assembled a leadership group to assess the situation” shortly after news broke about the attack, Yaccarino said.

    European Union officials are now assessing X’s compliance with the DSA and have asked the company to start responding to investigators by as early as Oct. 18.

    The probe covers X’s “policies and practices regarding notices on illegal content, complaint handling, risk assessment and measures to mitigate the risks identified,” the Commission said in a release.

    “X is required to comply with the full set of provisions introduced by the DSA since late August 2023,” the release added, “including the assessment and mitigation of risks related to the dissemination of illegal content, disinformation, gender-based violence, and any negative effects on the exercise of fundamental rights, rights of the child, public security and mental well-being.”

    X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Beyond X, European officials have sent similar warnings to Meta and TikTok in recent days.

    The announcement did not name the Israel-Hamas war. But this week, EU officials sent a letter to X owner Elon Musk warning that if an investigation finds that the company had failed to meet its legal obligations in connection with content about the war, it could face steep penalties, including billions in fines.

    A slew of mischaracterized videos and other posts went viral on X over the weekend, alarming experts who track the spread of misinformation and offering the latest example of social media platforms’ struggle to deal with a flood of falsehoods during a major geopolitical event.

    Since the attack on Israel, Yaccarino said X had acted to “remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content” that break its rules on violent speech, manipulated media and graphic media. It had also responded to more than 80 “take down requests” from EU authorities to remove content.

    “Community Notes” — which allow X users to fact check false posts — are visible on “thousands of posts, generating millions of impressions,” she wrote.

    According to Yaccarino, notes related to the conflict take about five hours on average to show up after a post is created, a revelation that could fuel concerns that fake or manipulated content is being seen by thousands — or in some cases millions — of people before being moderated.

    The DSA is one of the most ambitious efforts by policymakers anywhere to regulate tech giants and companies face billions in fines for violating the act.

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  • Who are the Trump co-conspirators in the 2020 election interference indictment? | CNN Politics

    Who are the Trump co-conspirators in the 2020 election interference indictment? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The historic indictment against Donald Trump in the special counsel’s probe into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election says that he “enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts.”

    The charging documents repeatedly reference six of these co-conspirators, but as is common practice, their identities are withheld because they have not been charged with any crimes.

    CNN, however, can identify five of the six co-conspirators based on quotes in the indictment and other context.

    They include:

    Among other things, the indictment quotes from a voicemail that Co-Conspirator 1 left “for a United States Senator” on January 6, 2021. The quotes in the indictment match quotes from Giuliani’s call intended for GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, as reported by CNN and other outlets.

    Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement that “every fact Mayor Rudy Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good faith basis President Donald Trump had for the actions he took during the two-month period charged in the indictment,” adding that the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment.”

    Among other things, the indictment says Co-Conspirator 2 “circulated a two-page memorandum” with a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election while presiding over the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021. The indictment quotes from the memo, and those quotes match a two-page memo that Eastman wrote, as reported and published by CNN.

    Charles Burnham, an attorney for Eastman, said the indictment “relies on a misleading presentation of the record,” and that his client would decline a plea deal if offered one.

    “The fact is, if Dr. Eastman is indicted, he will go to trial. If convicted, he will appeal. The Eastman legal team is confident of its legal position in this matter,” Burnham said in a statement.

    The indictment says Co-Conspirator 3 “filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia” on November 25, 2020, alleging “massive election fraud” and that the lawsuit was “dismissed” on December 7, 2020. These dates and quotations match the federal lawsuit that Powell filed against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

    An attorney for Powell declined to comment.

    The indictment identifies Co-Conspirator 4 as “a Justice Department official.” The indictment also quotes an email that a top Justice Department official sent to Clark, rebutting Clark’s attempts to use the department to overturn the election. The quotes in that email directly match quotes in an email sent to Clark, according to a Senate report about how Trump tried to weaponize the Justice Department in 2020.

    CNN has reached out to an attorney for Clark.

    Among other things, the indictment references an “email memorandum” that Co-Conspirator 5 “sent” to Giuliani on December 13, 2020, about the fake electors plot. The email sender, recipient, date, and content are a direct match for an email that Chesebro sent to Giuliani, according to a copy of the email made public by the House select committee that investigated January 6.

    CNN has reached out to an attorney for Chesebro.

    The indictment says they are “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” The indictment also further ties this person to the fake elector slate in Pennsylvania.

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  • US military to conduct additional interviews with witnesses of Kabul airport bombing | CNN Politics

    US military to conduct additional interviews with witnesses of Kabul airport bombing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The senior US general for the Middle East has ordered additional interviews be conducted regarding the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, which killed 13 US service members during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US military announced Friday.

    The additional interviews are the result of an internal review ordered by the commander of US Central Command Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who directed US Army Central commander Lt. Gen. Pat Frank in June to review public testimony about the bombing for any new information not included in CENTCOM’s previous report.

    “The purpose of these interviews is to ensure we do our due diligence with the new information that has come to light, that the relevant voices are fully heard and that we take those accounts and examine them seriously and thoroughly so the facts are laid to bare,” said a statement from CENTCOM spokesman Michael Lawhorn.

    Though the interviews don’t constitute a formal reopening of the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack, this represents an effort by the military to re-examine testimony after members of those killed have expressed anger and dissatisfaction with the original review.

    It’s unclear if the new interviews will include Afghans who witnessed the blast, which killed more than 170 Afghan civilians.

    When pressed on whether the interviews would include Afghans, Lawhorn said it would be “up to the Supplementary Review Team to decide who to interview.”

    “I cannot be explicit about anything that the Supplementary Review Team may or may not decide to review in the future,” Lawhorn said.

    CENTCOM released a lengthy after-action review last year that included statements from more than 100 witnesses. Many service members interviewed gave conflicting recollections about the person they were on the look-out for – some said no description seemed to fit clearly, or that they didn’t see anyone fitting the description they’d been given before the blast, while others said they believed they saw the person in question in the crowd.

    Among the differing recollections of what happened on August 26, 2021, is testimony from Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was seriously injured in the blast and who has said he was not interviewed in CENTCOM’s original investigation.

    Vargas-Andrews testified before Congress in March that Marines had requested permission to shoot who they believed to be the suicide bomber, but never got permission.

    “Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety,” Vargas-Andrews said.

    Lawhorn’s statement said that Vargas-Andrews’ public comments “made statements about his experience that contained new information not previously shared by any other witness.” Frank’s review also found that additional service members were not interviewed due to “their immediate medical evacuation in the aftermath of the attack.”

    “These interviews will seek to determine whether those not previously interviewed due to their immediate medical evacuation possess new information not previously considered, and whether such new information, if any, would affect the results of the investigation, and to ensure their personal accounts are captured for historical documentation,” he added.

    The news comes just weeks after Gold Star family members of some of the 13 US troops who were killed in the Abbey Gate bombing demanded answers before Congress, saying they did not feel that they’d been given the full truth about what happened to their loved ones.

    Lawhorn’s statement said that the next of kin of the 13 service members who were killed “are currently being informed of the supplementary interviews.”

    The process for the interviews will begin “in the coming days,” Lawhorn said. Kurilla has requested an update on those interviews within 90 days, but has directed Frank to “take whatever time is necessary to ensure each of the witnesses not interviewed as part of the investigation have an opportunity to share their experience and perspective.”

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  • How to block graphic social media posts on your kids’ phones | CNN Business

    How to block graphic social media posts on your kids’ phones | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Many schools, psychologists and safety groups are urging parents to disable their children’s social media apps over mounting concerns that Hamas plans to disseminate graphic videos of hostages captured in the Israel-Gaza war.

    Disabling an app or implementing restrictions, such as filtering out certain words and phrases, on young users’ phones may be sound like a daunting process. But platforms and mobile operating systems offer safeguards that could go along way in protecting a child’s mental health.

    Following the attacks on Israel last weekend, much of the terror has played out on social media. Videos of hostages taken on the streets and civilians left wounded continue to circulate on varying platforms. Although some companies have pledged to restrict sensitive videos, many are still being shared online.

    That can be particularly stressful for minors. The American Psychological Association recently issued a warning about the psychological impacts of the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza, and other research has linked exposure to violence on social media and in the news as a “cycle of harm to mental health.”

    Alexandra Hamlet, a clinical psychologist in New York City, told CNN people who are caught off guard by seeing certain upsetting content are more likely to feel worse than individuals who choose to engage with content that could be upsetting to them. That’s particularly true for children, she said.

    “They are less likely to have the emotional control to turn off content that they find triggering than the average adult, their insight and emotional intelligence capacity to make sense of what they are seeing is not fully formed, and their communication skills to express what they have seen and how to make sense of it is limited comparative to adults,” Hamlet said.

    If deleting an app isn’t an option, here are other ways to restrict or closely monitor a child’s social media use:

    Parents can start by visiting the parental control features found on their child phone’s mobile operating system. iOS’ Screen Time tool and Android’s Google Family Link app help parents manage a child’s phone activity and can restrict access to certain apps. From there, various controls can be selected, such as restricting app access or flagging inappropriate content.

    Guardians can also set up guardrails directly within social media apps.

    TikTok: TikTok, for example, offers a Family Pairing feature that allows parents and guardians to link their own TikTok account to their child’s account and restrict their ability to search for content, limit content that may not be appropriate for them or filter out videos with words or hashtags from showing up in feeds. These features can also be enabled within the settings of the app, without needing to sync up a guardian’s account.

    Facebook, Instagram and Threads: Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and threads, has an educational hub for parents with resources, tips and articles from experts on user safety, and a tool that allows guardians to see how much time their kids spend on Instagram and set time limits, which some experts advise should be considered during this time.

    YouTube: On YouTube, the Family Link tool allows parents to set up supervised accounts for their children, screen time limits or block certain content. At the same time,YouTube Kids also provides a safer space for kids, and parents who decide their kids are ready to see more content on YouTube can create a supervised account. In addition, autoplay is turned off by default for anyone under 18 but can be turned off anytime in Settings for all users.

    Hamlet said families should consider creating a family policy where family members agree to delete their apps for a certain period of time.

    “It could be helpful to frame the idea as an experiment, where everyone is encouraged to share how not having the apps has made them feel over the course of time,” she said. “It is possible that after a few days of taking a break from social media, users may report feeling less anxious and overwhelmed, which could result in a family vote of continuing to keep the apps deleted for a few more days before checking in again.”

    If there’s resistance, Hamlet said should try to reduce the time spent on apps right now and come up with an agreed upon number of minutes each day for usage.

    “Parents could ideally include a contingency where in exchange for allowing the child to use their apps for a certain number of minutes, their child must agree to having a short check in to discuss whether there was any harmful content that the child had exposure to that day,” she said. “This exchange allows both parents to have a protected space to provide effective communication and support, and to model openness and care for their child.”

    TikTok: A TikTok spokesperson, which said the platform uses technology and 40,000 safety professionals to moderate the platform, told CNN it is taking the situation seriously and has increased dedicated resources to help prevent violent, hateful, or misleading content on the platform.

    Meta: Meta similarly said it has set up a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to monitor and respond to the situation. “Our teams are working around the clock to keep our platforms safe, take action on content that violates our policies or local law, and coordinate with third-party fact checkers in the region to limit the spread of misinformation,” Meta said in a statement. “We’ll continue this work as this conflict unfolds.”

    YouTube: Google-owned YouTube said it is providing thousands of age-restricted videos that do not violate its policies – some of these, however, are not appropriate for viewers under 18. (This may include bystander footage). The company told CNN it has “removed thousands of harmful videos” and its teams “remain vigilant to take action quickly across YouTube, including videos, Shorts and livestreams.”

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