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Tag: us federal departments and agencies

  • Republican congressman says Tuberville’s hold on military nominations is ‘paralyzing’ and a ‘national security problem’ | CNN Politics

    Republican congressman says Tuberville’s hold on military nominations is ‘paralyzing’ and a ‘national security problem’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, a Republican, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military nominations is “paralyzing” and a “national security problem.”

    “The idea that one man in the Senate can hold this up for months … is paralyzing the Department of Defense,” McCaul said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    “I think that is a national security problem and a national security issue,” the Texas congressman said.

    Tuberville, of Alabama, has delayed the confirmations of more than 300 top military nominees over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members and their families who have to travel to receive abortion care. Tuberville says the Pentagon’s reproductive health policies violate the law, but Pentagon officials have pointed to a Justice Department memo that says the policies are lawful.

    A spokesperson for Tuberville said McCaul’s view “just isn’t accurate.”

    “No one can stop (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer from holding votes on these nominations. He just doesn’t want to,” spokesperson Steven Stafford wrote in an email to CNN. “It’s also inaccurate because acting officials are in all of these roles. In some cases these acting officials are the nominees for permanent roles. No jobs are open or going undone right now.”

    One senator can hold up nominations or legislation in the chamber, and Tuberville’s stance has left three military services to operate without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history.

    It’s possible to confirm each nominee one by one, but Senate Democrats have argued that would take up valuable floor time – despite a five-week recess in August.

    McCaul said on Sunday that he wishes Tuberville would reconsider his stance and that the Republican Party is working on the abortion travel policy issue through the National Defense Authorization Act.

    “But to hold up the top brass from being promoted … I think is paralyzing our Department of Defense,” he said.

    The hold on promotions, which began in March, has been a growing source of public scrutiny. The three US military service secretaries told CNN last week that Tuberville’s blockage is aiding communist and autocratic regimes, and is being used against the US by adversaries such as China.

    In July, active-duty military spouses hand-delivered a petition to Schumer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Tuberville signed by hundreds of military family members who were “deeply concerned and personally impacted by Senator Tuberville blocking confirmation of senior military leaders.”

    Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told CNN’s Tapper on Sunday that if elected president, she would put an end to the reimbursement policy for travel for abortion care. Haley, whose husband is in the South Carolina Army National Guard, said military families should not be used as political pawns.

    “I’m not saying that Sen. Tuberville is right in doing this, because I don’t want to use them as pawns. But if you love our military and are so adamant about it, then go and make Congress, Republicans and Democrats, have to go through person by person,” the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador said.

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  • 'Change is necessary': Coast Guard pledges reforms after mishandling reports of sexual assault | CNN Politics

    'Change is necessary': Coast Guard pledges reforms after mishandling reports of sexual assault | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US Coast Guard, rocked by allegations that its leaders for years concealed damning information about sexual assaults and other serious misconduct, released a highly critical report Wednesday acknowledging it had “failed to keep our people safe,” while vowing to make reforms that would better protect them.

    After spending 90 days speaking with hundreds of service members, reading through more than 170 written comments and “sifting through a mountain of data,” an internal review team said it had heard a resounding message from the workforce that “these failures and lack of accountability are entirely unacceptable” and that leaders “must do something about it.”

    “Too many Coast Guard members are not experiencing the safe, empowering workplace they expect and deserve (and) trust in Coast Guard leadership is eroding,” the authors wrote in the roughly 100-page report, noting that they had heard from victims of sexual assault and harassment stretching from the 1960s to the current day who “expressed deep rooted feelings of pain and a loss of trust in the organization.”

    The scathing internal review was launched after CNN exposed a secret criminal investigation, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, which found that serious misconduct had been ignored and, at times, covered up by high-ranking officials. It wasn’t until CNN started asking questions about Fouled Anchor this spring that Coast Guard leaders rushed to officially brief Congress on the scandal — leading to outrage on both sides of the aisle, multiple government investigations and proposed legislation.

    CNN’s coverage of Fouled Anchor and subsequent reporting revealing that Coast Guard leaders declined to prosecute a retired officer for sexual misconduct “have led people to experience feelings ranging from disappointment to outrage,” the report said.

    “For so many victims, there are even deeper levels of broken trust: in leaders who failed them in preventing and responding to sexual violence; in a military justice system with antiquated legal definitions of rape; in non-existent support programs for those impacted prior to 2000,” it stated. While the report outlined a number of changes made in the last two decades, it also acknowledged that reforms to date have not been enough to prevent assaults and properly support victims.

    The review did not seek to hold past perpetrators or officials involved with the Fouled Anchor cover-up accountable, saying multiple government investigations launched by Congress remained ongoing.

    Instead, it looked to the future and focused on preventing future assaults and other misconduct, describing the report as a “road map aimed at improving” the agency’s culture.

    Along with the report’s findings, the Coast Guard announced a series of actions directed by the agency’s leader, Commandant Linda Fagan, through recommended changes to everything from training and victim support services to strengthening processes for holding perpetrators accountable.

    “This report acknowledges the Coast Guard’s failures and uses them to inform a way ahead, rebuild trust, and set the baseline for organizational growth,” the document states, noting that many of the actions require additional funding and authority to implement.

    Among the reforms are the creation of a mentorship program for victims to help them navigate the aftermath of a sexual assault, the development of a “safe to report” policy so that victims are not penalized for collateral minor misconduct (such as alcohol use at the time of an incident), more secure locks on Coast Guard Academy bedrooms and improved oversight of the school and its cadets – including a new chain of command for the academy head.

    Fagan also directed officials to better keep tabs on the academy’s hallmark “Swab Summer” training program, which is run by upperclassmen at the academy, and to consider strengthening policies that allow the agency to reduce pension payments for those found to have committed misconduct.

    The report was the Coast Guard’s most expansive response to the growing criticism of its handling of misconduct. And while it was being released publicly, and members of Congress had been briefed on its contents earlier, the report was specifically addressed to “U.S. Coast Guard workforce, past and present.”

    “You made it clear that you want and expect our Service to confront this issue and make it better. You want our Service to deliver meaningful change,” the report stated. “Whether you’re a member who has a story to share — or the shipmate standing beside them — this is our time. Let’s get it right.”

    While the Coast Guard is focused on the future, members of Congress are still determined to get answers about past failures as well.

    “This new report still does not hold anyone accountable for past failures—particularly those at the Coast Guard Academy,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, where the Coast Guard Academy is located. Murphy and other lawmakers have continued to slam the agency for its failure to be transparent about sexual assault and other misconduct. “It does lay out a modest plan to improve oversight, training, and support for survivors, but a report is nothing more than paper until concrete steps are taken.”

    Democratic Senators Maria Cantwell and Richard Blumenthal also criticized how, despite calling this effort an “accountability” review, the Coast Guard still failed to hold anyone to task for the mishandling of sexual assault cases. Cantwell reiterated the importance of an independent investigation, saying she is looking forward to seeing the results of the probe currently being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General.

    Earlier this year, CNN reported how former Commandant Karl Schultz and his second-in-command, Vice Commandant Charles Ray, failed to act on plans to share the findings of Fouled Anchor with Congress and the public. Ray resigned from his position at a Coast Guard Academy leadership institute soon after, but no other current or former Coast Guard officials have publicly faced any consequences.

    “Current Coast Guard personnel are being told to trust their leadership, but their leaders aren’t holding predecessors accountable,” K. Denise Rucker Krepp, a former Coast Guard officer and former chief counsel of the Maritime Administration wrote in a recent letter to Congress, describing how she had attended a “community healing” event sponsored by the Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association last month.

    “Before my first cup of coffee I learned about a woman who was raped shortly after joining the service. She never told her parents about the crime,” she wrote. “While washing my hands in the bathroom, another woman shared that she was raped while attending the Coast Guard Academy in the late 1990s. Another woman shared that she was gang-raped by three students at the school and had spent two-thirds of her life on medication because of the crimes that occurred almost 40 years ago.”

    Next week, more survivors of sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy are slated to share their experiences publicly in a Congressional hearing. The hearing, announced just yesterday, is part of an ongoing Senate probe launched in reaction to the Fouled Anchor cover-up.

    Do you have information or a story to share about the Coast Guard past or present? Email melanie.hicken@cnn.com and Blake.Ellis@cnn.com.

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  • Biden defers to Justice Department in first public answer on special counsel investigation into his son | CNN Politics

    Biden defers to Justice Department in first public answer on special counsel investigation into his son | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Friday said he had no comment and deferred to the Department of Justice when asked for his reaction to the special counsel appointment in the case of his son, Hunter Biden.

    “I have no comment on any investigation that’s going on,” the president said during a trilateral news conference with the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David. “That’s up to the Justice Department, and that’s all I have to say.”

    The answer to a reporter’s question was the first time the president had spoken publicly about the appointment of a special counsel since David Weiss was elevated to the role last week. Biden had previously ignored reporter questions on the matter.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that Weiss – a Trump-appointed US attorney who has been leading an investigation into Hunter Biden for years – had been given special counsel status after plea talks between the Justice Department and the president’s son fell apart. Weiss asked for the new authority after plea talks to resolve tax and gun charges fell apart.

    The probe appeared to reach its conclusion when a plea deal was announced in June. In a two-pronged agreement, Hunter Biden planned to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and prosecutors would drop a separate felony gun charge in two years if he stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug tests.

    Federal prosecutors also agreed to recommend probation, and no jail time, for the president’s son. The GOP had criticized the plea deal, accusing Weiss of giving Hunter Biden preferential treatment.

    But at a stunning three-hour court hearing last month, the deal nearly collapsed under scrutiny from the federal judge overseeing the case. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said the intertwined deals to resolve the tax and gun charges were “confusing,” “not straightforward,” “atypical” and “unprecedented.” At the end of that hearing, she ordered the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s lawyers to file additional legal briefs defending the constitutionality of the agreement. Weiss said last week that the talks had failed.

    By naming Weiss as a special counsel, Garland gave him further independence from the Justice Department as he embarks on an unprecedented trial against the son of the sitting president, and as Republicans claim the department is politicized.

    The probe into Hunter Biden is now one of two special counsel investigations – the other being an inquiry into his father’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Senate and the vice president’s office – that both appear poised to extend for months to come. But the probe into Hunter Biden is among the most sensitive subjects inside the West Wing.

    Multiple Biden advisers conceded privately this week that special counsels have a history of uncovering information they hadn’t set out initially to discover. The fact that the probe into Hunter Biden is also a delicate family matter, people close to Biden say, is creating a level of personal angst unlike any other challenge for the president.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Microsoft to appeal IRS request for nearly $29 billion in back taxes | CNN Business

    Microsoft to appeal IRS request for nearly $29 billion in back taxes | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft plans to contest a US Internal Revenue Service request for an additional $28.9 billion in back taxes for the years 2004 to 2013, the company said in a securities filing Wednesday.

    The demand is the result of a yearslong audit by the IRS into Microsoft’s past accounting practices. In particular, the agency took issue with how the company “allocated profits … among countries and jurisdictions,” Microsoft said in the filing.

    “The IRS says Microsoft owes an additional $28.9 billion in tax for 2004 to 2013, plus penalties and interest,” the company said. It noted that the IRS’s determination is not final and does not include up to $10 billion in taxes Microsoft paid under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that could reduce its final bill.

    The company said it plans to appeal the IRS request, a process that will likely take several years.

    “We believe we have always followed the IRS’s rules and paid the taxes we owe in the U.S. and around the world,” the company said in the filing. “Since 2004, we have paid over $67 billion in taxes to the U.S.”

    Microsoft noted that as it prepares to work through the IRS Appeals Process — and, potentially, the courts — the company believes its current “allowances for income tax contingencies are adequate.”

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  • Colonizing Mars could be dangerous and ridiculously expensive. Elon Musk wants to do it anyway | CNN Business

    Colonizing Mars could be dangerous and ridiculously expensive. Elon Musk wants to do it anyway | CNN Business

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    Austin, TX
    CNN Business
     — 

    Elon Musk has spent nearly two decades rallying SpaceX fans around his goal of colonizing Mars, something world governments aren’t currently attempting — in part because of the unfathomable price tag such a mission will entail.

    Musk, the company’s CEO and chief engineer, refers to his interplanetary ambitions more like a sci-fi protagonist with a moral calling than an entrepreneur with a disruptive business plan.

    “If there’s something terrible that happens on Earth, either made by humans or natural, we want to have, like, life insurance for life as a whole,” Musk said during a virtual Mars conference on Aug. 31. “Then, there’s the kind of excitement and adventure.”

    SpaceX’s plans for a Red-Planet settlement bring up numerous technological, political and ethical questions. One of the most challenging hurdles may also be financial: Not even Musk has ventured to guess an all-in cost estimate.

    The last space program that came close to Musk’s interplanetary travel ambitions was NASA’s Apollo program, the mid-20th Century effort that landed six spacecraft and 12 astronauts on the moon. Apollo cost well over $280 billion in today’s dollars, and, in some years, NASA was taking up more than 4% of the entire national budget. The space agency, which in more recent years has received less than half of one percent of the federal budget, is mapping its own plans to return humans to the moon and, eventually, a path to Mars.

    But the agency has not indicated how much the latter could cost, either.

    Musk’s personal wealth has ballooned to about $100 billion — at least on paper — thanks in no small part to a series of stock and stock awards from his electric car company, Tesla. Musk has also repeatedly said that he hopes profits from SpaceX’s other businesses, including a satellite-internet venture that is currently in beta testing, will help fuel development of his Mars rocket. SpaceX has also raised nearly $6 billion from banks and venture capitalists, swelling into one of the most highly-valued private companies in the world, according to data firm Pitchbook. Presumably, at least some investors will one day be looking to cash out.

    And that begs the question: Is there money to be made on Mars?

    SpaceX is likely still many, many years from developing all the technology a Mars settlement would require. The company is in the early stages of developing its Starship, a massive rocket and spaceship system that Musk hopes will ferry cargo and convoys of people across the at-minimum 30 million-mile void between Earth and Mars. Musk has estimated Starship development will cost up to $10 billion, and Musk said Aug. 31 that SpaceX will look to launch “hundreds” of satellites aboard Starship before entrusting it with human lives.

    If it proves capable of the trek to Mars, settlers will need air-tight habitats to shield them from toxic air and the deadly radiation that rains down on its surface.

    “It’s not for the faint of heart,” Musk said. “Good chance you’ll die, and it’s going to be tough going…It’d better be pretty glorious if it works out.”

    But for at least the first 100 years that humans have a presence on Mars, the economic situation will be dubious, said Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, which recently launched the Perseverance rover to further study the planet robotically.

    Musk does have a plan for making Mars an attractive destination for long-term living: Terraforming, a hypothetical scenario in which humans make Mars more Earth-like by pumping gases into the atmosphere. It’d be an attempt to use the same greenhouse gases causing the climate crisis on our home planet to make Mars’ atmosphere thicker, warmer and more hospitable to life. Musk has promoted the idea that the process could be kicked off by dropping nuclear bombs on the planet.

    The idea of terraforming arose from scientists who were kicking around ideas, Meyer said, but not from anyone who thought it was something humans could or should do.

    “It was an intellectual exercise,” Meyer said. But there’s barely any oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere. And there’s an infinitesimally small amount of water, meaning it will be extremely difficult to grow crops, much less create a Mars-wide water cycle. It’s not even clear if there are enough resources on Mars to make terraforming possible at all.

    Musk, in a photo posted to his Instagram, wears one of SpaceX's

    “I think ‘Total Recall’ has the right idea,” he joked. “You’d need to use some alien technology.”

    Musk has also acknowledged that terraforming will be extremely resource-intensive. But the concept is ingrained in SpaceX lore, so much so that the company sells t-shirts saying “Nuke Mars” and “Occupy Mars.”

    Musk is frequently seen wearing one.

    Values and valuations

    There are no known resources on Mars that would be valuable enough to mine and sell back to Earthly businesses, Meyer said. “Part of the reason [scientists are] interested in Mars is — it’s pretty much made of the same stuff as Earth,” he told CNN Business.

    Musk has previously suggested that he agrees, noting that the resources on Mars would likely be valuable only to settlers hoping to build up industries on the planet. He noted eight years ago that the only “economic exchange” between Mars and Earth dwellers would be “intellectual property.”

    Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, has days that are roughly as long as Earth days. But it's a smaller planet, its temperatures average -81 degrees Fahrenheit, and its atmosphere is much thinner and comprised mostly of carbon dioxide.

    Money-making ambitions aside, the idea that Mars could one day become home to a metropolis and — potentially — a tourist destination is acknowledged by mainstream scientists like Meyer, NASA’s lead Mars expert.

    Meyer said that, 20 years ago, he attended a presentation about Mars business and tourism. “I went in pretty skeptical of this… and coming away I was thinking, ‘Well, [there are] some pretty reasonable ideas,” he said, adding that he now embraces the idea that businesspeople could make space travel more accessible.

    Meyer added that, in his mind, it’s not if Mars travel will one day be a profitable venture, but when.

    Musk hasn’t expanded on his ideas for making money on Mars, but his musings about exporting intellectual property echoed a book written by Robert Zubrin, an influential but polarizing figure in the space community and a longtime Musk ally.

    “Ideas may be another possible export for Martian colonists,” Zubrin, who heads the Mars Society, wrote in his oft-cited 1996 book, “The Case for Mars.”

    To look towards a potential future of humanity, Zubrin looks to its past.

    “Just as the labor shortage prevalent in colonial and 19th century America drove the creation of Yankee Ingenuity’s flood of inventions, so the conditions of extreme labor shortage…will tend to drive Martian ingenuity.”

    In a recent interview with CNN Business, Zubrin stood by those ideas, arguing American colonization has worked. Zubrin again harkens back to the colonization of North America as an example of how would-be Mars colonists might fund their trip.

    “If you say, okay, you want to go to Mars, you’re going to want to offer something,” Zubrin said. “If you look at Colonial America, a middle-class person could travel to America by liquidating their farm. But, the proceeds would give them a one-way ticket. But if you are working, what you could do is sell your labor for seven years. Remember the indentured servants?”

    “So there’ll be some selection for, like, you know, if you can pay it, you can go on your own terms — but if you can’t…effectively it’s like $300,000 which is about what a working person can make in seven years, or what a middle class person can put together by selling their house,” Zubrin added.

    Zubrin, who has worked with conservative think tanks but says he is not politically affiliated, also acknowledged that colonization can go hand-in-hand with exploitation: “If somebody says, ‘But won’t there be exploitation there?’ Well sure, that’s what people do to each other all the time.”

    (Musk has not expounded on his thoughts about colonialism, and he donates to both US political parties.)

    To be clear: The story of American colonialism also included chattel slavery and the brutalization and erasure of many native populations.

    “There aren’t native Martians,” Zubrin said.

    But Damien Williams — a teacher and PhD student at Virginia Tech who studies the intersection of advanced technologies, ethics and societies — warns that the stories we may tell ourselves about America and exploring outer space can leave out key context.

    A prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft is seen at the company's Texas launch facility on September 28, 2019 in Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas

    It’s still unclear, for example, who Musk envisions as the first Mars settlers. NASA astronauts? Ultra-wealthy thrill-seekers? SpaceX employees?

    “This competitive stance of expansion and exploration, it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Williams, who also works with the advocacy group Just Space Alliance, said. But, when it comes to a private company using resources that international treaties say do not belong to anyone — “Who’s been brought in and how? Who’s been left out and why? These things matter.”

    Musk’s use of the word “colonization” also belies a long history of Americans and other Western nations enriching themselves by exploiting and enslaving others. And when it comes to colonizing another planet, it’s not just the microbial lifeforms that may exist on Mars that should be concerned. Without clearly defined objectives and agreements, SpaceX’s colony could create a “contentious sphere of conflict,” Williams said.

    “The values that we take with us into space exploration should be front and center,” he added.

    SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

    Update: This story has been updated with additional quotes from Robert Zubrin regarding how Mars settlers might pay for their journey.

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  • Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization | CNN Business

    Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    US prosecutors opened a landmark antitrust trial against Google on Tuesday with sweeping allegations that for years the company intentionally stifled competition challenging its massive search engine, accusing the tech giant of spending billions to operate an illegal monopoly that has harmed every computer and mobile device user in the United States.

    In opening remarks before a federal judge in Washington, lawyers for the Justice Department alleged that Google’s negotiation of exclusive contracts with wireless carriers and phone makers helped cement its dominant position in violation of US antitrust law.

    The Google case has been described as one of the largest US antitrust trials since the federal government took on Microsoft in the 1990s, and involves some similar arguments about the tying of multiple proprietary products. The multi-week trial is expected to feature witness testimony from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as other senior executives or former employees from Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung.

    The effects of Google’s alleged misconduct are vast, DOJ lawyer Kenneth Dintzer told the court.

    “This case is about the future of the internet, and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” Dintzer said, adding that Google pays more than $10 billion a year to Apple and other companies to ensure that Google is the default or only search engine available on browsers and mobile devices used by millions.

    Also anticompetitive, the Justice Department said, are Google’s contracts to ensure that Android devices come with Google apps and services — including Google search — preinstalled.

    The deals guarantee a steady flow of user data to Google that further reinforces its monopoly, the US government said, leading to other consequences such as harms to consumer privacy and higher advertising prices.

    “This feedback loop, this wheel has been turning for 12 years, and it always turns to Google’s advantage,” Dintzer said. The practice ultimately affects what consumers see in search results and prevents new rivals from gaining scale and market share, he added.

    For Google’s opening statement, attorney John Schmidtlein said that Apple’s decision to make Google the default search engine in its Safari browser demonstrates how Google’s search engine is the superior product consumers prefer.

    “Apple repeatedly chose Google as the default because Apple believed it was the best experience for its users,” he said.

    The Google case “could not be more different” from the historic Microsoft litigation at the turn of the millennium, Schmidtlein continued.

    Where the Microsoft case revolved around that company’s alleged harms to Netscape, a small browser maker, the Google case is based on claims that Google search has harmed a much larger and more powerful entity: Microsoft and its Bing search engine, Schmidtlein said.

    “Google competed on the merits to win preinstallation and default status” on consumer devices and browsers, he insisted, attacking Microsoft as a failed search engine developer.

    “The evidence will show that Microsoft’s Bing search engine failed to win customers because Microsoft did not invest [and] did not innovate,” Schmidtlein added. “At every critical juncture, the evidence will show that they were beaten in the market.”

    And Schmidtlein argued that forbidding Google from being able to compete for default status on browsers and devices would lead to its own harms to competition in search, stating that contracts ensuring that Android devices come with certain apps preinstalled such as Google Maps and Gmail also promotes competition — against Apple.

    “Google’s Android agreements are important components of a business model that has sustained the most important competitor to Apple for mobile devices in the United States,” Schmidtlein said.

    Google has previously said that consumers choose Google’s search engine because it is the best and that they prefer it, not because of anticompetitive practices.

    But DOJ prosecutors said Tuesday that they plan to present evidence in the case that Google knew what it was doing was illegal and that the company “hid and destroyed documents because they knew they were violating the antitrust laws.”

    “The harm from Google contracts affects every phone and computer in the country,” Dintzer said.

    Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, and Rep. Ken Buck from Colorado were in attendance for the opening. Buck, a vocal tech industry critic, is the former top Republican on the House antitrust subcommittee — which in 2020 released a widely publicized investigative report finding that Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook enjoyed “monopoly power.”

    Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs and Chief legal officer of Alphabet Inc., arrives at federal court on September 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. Google will defend its default-search deals in an antitrust trial against the U.S. Justice Department which begins today.

    The trial marks the culmination of two ongoing lawsuits against Google that started during the Trump administration.

    In separate complaints, the Justice Department and dozens of states accused Google in 2020 of abusing its dominance in online search but were eventually consolidated into a single case.

    Google’s search business provides more than half of the $283 billion in revenue and $76 billion in net income Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recorded in 2022. Search has fueled the company’s growth to a more than $1.7 trillion market capitalization.

    “This is a backwards-looking case at a time of unprecedented innovation,” said Walker in a statement, “including breakthroughs in AI, new apps and new services, all of which are creating more competition and more options for people than ever before. People don’t use Google because they have to — they use it because they want to. It’s easy to switch your default search engine — we’re long past the era of dial-up internet and CD-ROMs.”

    The trial may also be a bellwether for the more assertive antitrust agenda of the Biden administration.

    At the time the lawsuit was first filed, US antitrust officials did not rule out the possibility of a Google breakup, warning that Google’s behavior could threaten future innovation or the rise of a Google successor.

    Separately, a group of states, led by Colorado, made additional allegations against Google, claiming that the way Google structures its search results page harms competition by prioritizing the company’s own apps and services over web pages, links, reviews and content from other third-party sites.

    But the judge overseeing the case, Judge Amit Mehta in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, tossed out those claims in a ruling last month, narrowing the scope of allegations Google must defend and saying the states had not done enough to show a trial was necessary to determine whether Google’s search results rankings were anticompetitive.

    Despite that ruling, the trial represents the US government’s furthest progress in challenging Google to date. Mehta has said Google’s pole position among search engines on browsers and smartphones “is a hotly disputed issue” and that the trial will determine “whether, as a matter of actual market reality, Google’s position as the default search engine across multiple browsers is a form of exclusionary Conduct.”

    In January, meanwhile, the Biden administration launched another antitrust suit against Google in opposition to the company’s advertising technology business, accusing it of maintaining an illegal monopoly. That case remains in its early stages at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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  • Fact check: Republicans make false, misleading claims at first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Republicans make false, misleading claims at first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is holding its first hearing Thursday in the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden – and Republicans on the committee have made a series of false and misleading claims, as well as some other claims that have left out critical context.

    Below is a CNN fact check. This article will be updated as additional fact checks are completed.

    Republican Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in his opening remarks at the hearing on Thursday that the committee has uncovered how “the Bidens and their associates created over 20 shell companies” and “raked in over $20 million between 2014 and 2019.”

    Facts First: The $20 million figure is roughly accurate for Joe Biden’s family and associates, according to the bank records subpoenaed by the committee, but the phrase “the Bidens and their associates” obscures the fact that there is no public evidence to date that President Joe Biden himself received any of this money. And it’s worth noting that a large chunk of the money went to the “associates” – Hunter Biden’s business partners – not even Biden’s family itself.

    So far, none of the bank records obtained by the committee have shown any payments to Joe Biden. And a Washington Post analysis in August found that, of about $23 million in payments the committee had identified from foreign sources, nearly $7.5 million went to members of the Biden family – almost all of it to Hunter Biden – and the rest to people Hunter Biden did business with. (The Post also questioned the use of the vague phrase “shell companies,” noting that “virtually all of the companies” that had been listed by the committee at the time had “legitimate business interests” or “clearly identified business investments.”)

    A Republican aide for the House Oversight Committee disputed the Post’s analysis on Thursday, saying that bank records obtained by the panel actually show that, of $24 million in payments between 2014 and 2019, $15 million went to members of the Biden family and $9 million went to associates. CNN has reached out to the Post for comment; the committee has not publicly released the underlying bank records that would definitively show the breakdown in payments.

    The records obtained by the committee have shown that during and after Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president, Hunter Biden made millions of dollars through complex financial arrangements from private equity deals, legal fees and corporate consulting in Ukraine, China, Romania and elsewhere. Again, Republicans have not produced evidence that Joe Biden got paid in any of these arrangements.

    Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio repeated a false claim about Hunter Biden that CNN debunked when Jordan made the same claim last week.

    Jordan claimed that Hunter Biden himself said he was unqualified to sit on the board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings.

    “Hunter Biden’s not qualified, fact number two, to sit on the board. Not my words, his words. He said he got on the board because of the brand, because of the name,” Jordan said Thursday.

    Facts First: It’s not true that Hunter Biden himself said he wasn’t qualified to sit on the Burisma board. In fact, Hunter Biden said in a 2019 interview with ABC News that “I was completely qualified to be on the board” and defended his qualifications in detail. He did acknowledge, as Jordan said, that he would “probably not” have been asked to be on the board if he was not a Biden – but he nonetheless explicitly rejected claims that he wasn’t qualified, calling them “misinformation.”

    When the ABC interviewer asked what his qualifications for the role were, he said: “Well, I was vice chairman on the board of Amtrak for five years. I was the chairman of the board of the UN World Food Programme. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. Bottom line is that I know that I was completely qualified to be on the board to head up the corporate governance and transparency committee on the board. And that’s all that I focused on. Basically, turning a Eastern European independent natural gas company into Western standards of corporate governance.”

    When the ABC interviewer said, “You didn’t have any extensive knowledge about natural gas or Ukraine itself, though,” Biden responded, “No, but I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board – if not more.”

    Asked if he would have been asked to be on the board if his last name wasn’t Biden, Biden said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not.” He added “there’s a lot of things” in his life that wouldn’t have happened if he had a different last name.

    A side note: Biden had served as the board chair for World Food Program USA, a nonprofit that supports the UN World Food Programme, not the UN program itself as he claimed in the interview.

    Jordan cited new documents obtained from IRS whistleblowers, made public by House Republicans on Wednesday, to argue that the Justice Department improperly blocked investigators from asking about Joe Biden in a 2020 search warrant related to Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings.

    “We learned yesterday, in the search warrant…examining Hunter Biden electronic communications, they weren’t allowed to ask about Political Figure 1,” Jordan said. “Political Figure number 1 is the big guy, is Joe Biden.”

    Facts First: This is highly misleading. The Justice Department official who gave this instruction said Joe Biden’s name shouldn’t be mentioned in the search warrant because there wasn’t any legal basis to do so. Furthermore, this occurred during Trump’s presidency, so it doesn’t prove pro-Biden meddling by the Biden-era Justice Department.

    The August 2020 email from a deputy to now-special counsel David Weiss, the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor who is leading the Hunter Biden probe, said the warrant was for “BS,” an apparent reference to Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm that represented Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden was on the board.

    The Weiss deputy said in the email that “other than the attribution, location and identity stuff at the end, none if it is appropriate and within the scope of this warrant” and that “there should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” according to emails released by House Republicans. Another document released by the GOP confirm that Joe Biden is “Political Figure 1.”

    Before obtaining a search warrant, investigators need to establish probable cause and secure approval from a judge. If federal prosecutors believed the references to Joe Biden weren’t within the legal scope of what the warrant was looking for, it wouldn’t have been appropriate or lawful to include them.

    Comer said in his opening remarks that the committee recently uncovered “two additional wires sent to Hunter Biden that originated in Beijing from Chinese nationals; this happened when Joe Biden was running for president of the United States – and Joe Biden’s home is listed on the beneficiary address.”

    Facts First: This lacks important context. Comer was correct that the committee has found evidence of two wire transfers sent to Hunter Biden from Chinese nationals in the second half of 2019, during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, but he did not explain that Joe Biden’s home being listed as the beneficiary address doesn’t demonstrate that Joe Biden received any of the money. Nor did he explain that there may well be benign reasons for the inclusion of the address. Hunter Biden has lived at his father’s Wilmington, Delaware, home at times and listed that address on his driver’s license; Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement to CNN this week that the address was listed on these transfers simply because it was the address Hunter Biden used on the bank account the money was going to, which Lowell said Hunter Biden did “because it was his only permanent address at the time.”

    “This was a documented loan (not a distribution or pay-out) that was wired from a private individual to his new bank account which listed the address on his driver’s license, his parents’ address, because it was his only permanent address at the time,” Lowell said in the statement. “We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda.”

    White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday: “Imagine them arguing that, if someone stayed at their parents’ house during the pandemic, listed it as their permanent address for work, and got a paycheck, the parents somehow also worked for the employer…It’s bananas…Yet this is what extreme House Republicans have sunken to.”

    Comer told CNN this week his panel is trying to put together a timeline on where Hunter Biden was living around the time of the transfers, which occurred in July 2019 and August 2019. Joe Biden was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary at the time.

    Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina claimed at the Thursday hearing, “We already know the president took bribes from Burisma,” a Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors.

    Facts First: Mace’s claim is false; we do not “already know” that Joe Biden took any bribe. The claim about a bribe from Burisma is a completely unproven allegation. The FBI informant who relayed the claim to the FBI in 2020 was merely reporting something he said he had been told by Burisma’s chief executive. Later in the hearing, a witness called by the committee Republicans, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, called “the bribery allegation” the most concerning piece of evidence he had heard today – but he immediately cautioned that “you have to only take that so far” given that it is “a secondhand account.”

    According to an internal FBI document made public by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa earlier this year over the strong objections of the FBI, the informant said in 2020 – when Donald Trump was president – that the CEO of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, had claimed in 2016 that he made a $5 million payment to “one Biden” and another $5 million payment to “another Biden.” But the FBI document did not contain any proof for the claim, and the document said the informant was “not able to provide any further opinion as to the veracity” of the claim.

    Republicans have tried to boost the credibility the allegation by saying it was in an FBI document and that the FBI had viewed the informant as highly credible. But the document merely memorialized the information provided by the informant; it does not demonstrate that the information is true. And Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer testified to the House Oversight Committee earlier this year that he had not been aware of any such payments to the Bidens; Archer characterized Zlochevsky’s reported claim as an example of the Ukrainian businessman embellishing his influence.

    Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, falsely claimed that Hunter Biden never paid taxes on his foreign income.

    He said Hunter Biden “failed to pay any taxes” on the millions of dollars he got from Ukrainian companies, and that this shows how “the Biden family doesn’t have to” pay taxes.

    “Who’s going to write the check for the money Hunter Biden didn’t pay?” Burchett asked, adding that “hardworking Americans” would end up footing the bill.

    Facts First: This is false. Hunter Biden repeatedly missed IRS deadlines, and his conduct was so egregious that federal investigators believe it was criminal, but he eventually belatedly paid all of his back taxes, plus interest and penalties, to the tune of about $2 million.

    Documents from Hunter Biden’s criminal cases indicate that he repeatedly missed tax deadlines, even though he had the funds and was repeatedly warned by his accountant and business partners. He was prepared to plead guilty to two misdemeanors in July, for failing to pay taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, before the plea deal collapsed.

    But there’s a difference between failing to pay taxes on time and failing to pay taxes at all. In 2021, while the criminal investigation was still underway and before any charges were filed, Hunter Biden paid roughly $2 million to the IRS to cover all the back taxes, plus penalties and interest.

    Hunter Biden was able to make the massive payment thanks to a roughly $2 million loan from a friend and attorney who has been supporting him during his legal troubles, according to court filings.

    Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York accused a Republican member of the committee, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, of cutting out “critical context” from an image of a purported text message that Donalds displayed earlier in the Thursday hearing. Ocasio-Cortez also said that Donalds had displayed a “fabricated image.”

    The dispute was over an image Donalds showed of a purported 2018 text message from the president’s brother James Biden to the president’s son Hunter Biden – provided by IRS whistleblowers and released by House Republicans on Wednesday – in which James Biden purportedly wrote, “This can work, you need a safe harbor. I can work with you father [sic] alone !! We as usual just need several months of his help for this to work.”

    After showing the image, Donalds asked a witness at the committee, “If you saw a text message like this between the president’s brother and the president’s son, wouldn’t you be concerned about them trying to give plausible deniability for the president of the United States to not have any knowledge of said business dealings?”

    Facts First: Donalds didn’t invent the James Biden text message, but Ocasio-Cortez was correct that Donalds left out critical context – specifically, context that showed there was no sign that the purported text exchange between James Biden and Hunter Biden was about business dealings. The information released by House Republicans this week appeared to show that James Biden’s purported text about getting “help” from Joe Biden came in direct response to a purported Hunter Biden text saying he could not afford alimony, school tuition for his children, food and gas “w/o [without] Dad.” Donalds did not display this purported Hunter Biden text at the Thursday hearing.

    In other words, when James Biden purportedly mentioned the possibility of several months of help from Joe Biden, he gave no indication he was referring to some sort of business transaction, much less the foreign transactions that House Republicans have been focused on in their investigations into the president. But Donalds didn’t make that clear.

    With that said, Ocasio-Cortez herself could have been clearer about what she meant when she claimed the image Donalds showed was “fabricated.”

    The contents of the purported James Biden text Donalds displayed were not made up, according to the IRS whistleblowers. What appeared to be novel was the graphic Donalds used; he showed the text in a form that made it look like a screenshot from an iPhone text conversation, with white words over a blue background bubble. The House Republican spreadsheet that the words were taken from did not include any such graphics, and, again, it did include the preceding purported Hunter Biden message that Donalds didn’t show.

    Republican Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas said at the Thursday hearing, “In an interview back in 2019 with The New Yorker, even Hunter admitted that he talked to his dad about business, specifically Burisma.”

    Facts First: This needs context. The 2019 New Yorker article in question reported that Hunter Biden said he recalled Joe Biden discussing Burisma with him “just once” in a brief exchange that consisted of this: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’”

    It’s fair for Fallon to say that this counts as Joe Biden discussing business with his son, but Fallon did not mention how brief and limited Hunter Biden said the purported discussion was.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • FBI sees increase in reported threats in wake of attacks in Israel | CNN Politics

    FBI sees increase in reported threats in wake of attacks in Israel | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The FBI has seen an increase in reported threats in the US amid the Israel-Hamas war, Director Christopher Wray told reporters on a call Sunday.

    “Here in the US, we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil,” Wray said.

    Most threats have been deemed not credible by the agency, a senior FBI official said during the call, but Jewish and Muslim institutions have been targeted.

    The FBI, along with the Department of Homeland Security, last week issued a public service announcement and a bulletin to law enforcement agencies around the US warning of possible threats related to the war abroad.

    The FBI official noted that over the past week, the agency has seen an uptick in rhetoric targeting “Jewish people as well as Muslim institutions.”

    FBI officials have also been meeting with leaders in Jewish and Muslim communities across the US as the threats increase. The goal of these meetings, both in person and over the phone, has been to tell leaders “if you see something that concerns you, please let us know because we want to keep you safe,” the FBI official said.

    Wray also noted that the FBI is working to help “identify all Americans who’ve been impacted in (Israel), including those who remain unaccounted for.”

    Fifteen Americans are still unaccounted for after the attacks, according to the State Department, and over two dozen Americans were killed.

    “Our victim services specialists are working closely with victims and their families, here and abroad,” the director added.

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  • Jeff Sessions Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Jeff Sessions Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Jeff Sessions, former US attorney general and former Republican senator of Alabama.

    Birth date: December 24, 1946

    Birth place: Selma, Alabama

    Birth name: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III

    Father: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Jr., business owner

    Mother: Abbie (Powe) Sessions

    Marriage: Mary Blackshear Sessions (1969-present)

    Children: Mary Abigail, Ruth and Samuel

    Education: Huntingdon College, B.A., 1969; University of Alabama, J.D., 1973

    Military service: US Army Reserve, 1973-1986, Captain

    Religion: Methodist

    Is an Eagle Scout.

    Served on the Senate Budget, Judiciary, Armed Services, and Environment and Public Works Committees.

    Voted against both of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

    Supported building fencing along the US border, saying in 2006 that “good fences make good neighbors.”

    Was an opponent of the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill.

    1973-1975 – Practices law in Alabama.

    1975-1977 – Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.

    1981-1993 – US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.

    1986 – President Ronald Reagan nominates Sessions to become a federal judge. The Senate Judiciary Committee opposes the nomination following testimony that Sessions made racist remarks and called the NAACP and ACLU “un-American.”

    1995-1997- Alabama Attorney General. During this time, an Alabama judge accuses Sessions of prosecutorial misconduct related to the handling of evidence in a case but ultimately, Sessions is not disciplined for ethics violations.

    1996 – Elected to the US Senate. Reelected in 2002, 2008 and 2014.

    1997–February 2017 – Republican senator representing Alabama.

    February 2, 2009 – Votes in favor of the confirmation of Eric Holder as attorney general.

    April 23, 2015 – Votes against the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general.

    February 28, 2016 – Becomes the first sitting US senator to endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

    November 18, 2016 – President-elect Trump announces he intends to nominate Sessions to be the next attorney general.

    January 3, 2017 – An NAACP sit-in to protest the nomination of Sessions as US attorney general ends when six people are arrested at Sessions’ Mobile, Alabama, office.

    February 8, 2017 – After 30 hours of debate, the US Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general by a 52-47 vote.

    March 1, 2017 – The Washington Post reports that Sessions failed to disclose pre-election meetings with the top Russian diplomat in Washington. Sessions did not mention either meeting during his confirmation hearings when he said he knew of no contacts between Trump surrogates and Russians.

    March 2, 2017 – Sessions recuses himself from any involvement in a Justice Department probe into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

    March 10, 2017 – The DOJ abruptly announces the firing of 46 US attorneys, including Preet Bharara of New York. Bharara said that during the transition, Trump asked him to stay on during a meeting at Trump Tower.

    April 3, 2017 – The Department of Justice releases a memorandum ordering a review of consent decrees and other police reforms overseen by the federal government in response to complaints of civil rights abuses and public safety issues. During his confirmation hearing, Sessions expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of Justice Department interventions in local police matters.

    July 21, 2017 – The Washington Post reports that Sessions discussed policy-related matters with Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak before the 2016 election, according to intelligence intercepts. Sessions had previously claimed that he did not talk about the campaign or relations with Russia during his meetings with Kislyak.

    October 4, 2017 – In a memo to all federal prosecutors, Sessions says that a 1964 federal civil rights law does not protect transgender workers from employment discrimination and the department will take this new position in all “pending and future matters.”

    November 14, 2017 – During a House judiciary committee hearing, Sessions says he did not lie under oath in earlier hearings regarding communications with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign, and denies participating in any collusion with Russia. Sessions also says the DOJ will consider investigations into Hillary Clinton and alleged ties between the Clinton Foundation and the sale of Uranium One.

    January 4, 2018 – Sessions announces that the DOJ is rescinding an Obama-era policy of non-interference with states that have legalized recreational marijuana. The reversal frees up federal prosecutors to pursue cases in states where recreational marijuana is legal.

    March 21, 2018 – Sessions issues a statement encouraging federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for certain drug-related crimes, as mandated by law. Seeking capital punishment in drug cases is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to combat opioid abuse.

    May 7, 2018 – Sessions announces a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossings, warning that parents could be separated from children if they try to cross to the United States from Mexico. “If you cross the border unlawfully, even a first offense, we’re going to prosecute you. If you’re smuggling a child, we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don’t want your child to be separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally.” On June 20, Trump signs an executive order that will keep far more families together at the border.

    May 30, 2018 – Trump again expresses regret for choosing Sessions to lead the Justice Department. In a tweet, he quotes a remark from Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) who said that the president could have picked someone else as attorney general. “I wish I did!,” Trump tweets. He had first said that he was rethinking his choice of Sessions as attorney general during a July 2017 interview with the New York Times.

    June 2018 – More than 600 members of the United Methodist Church issue a formal complaint against Sessions, arguing that the US government’s “zero tolerance” policy on immigration, which was separating migrant parents from their children at the US-Mexico border, violates church rules and may constitute child abuse. On August 8, church officials confirm that the charges filed against Sessions have been dropped.

    August 23, 2018 – In response to Trump saying during a Fox News interview that Sessions “never took control” of the Justice Department, Sessions issues a rare statement, saying, “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in…While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations…”

    November 7, 2018 – President Trump asks Sessions to resign, effectively firing him. “At your request I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions writes in a letter delivered to White House chief of staff John Kelly.

    November 7, 2019 – Announces he is running for his former Alabama Senate seat.

    July 14, 2020 – Sessions loses the Alabama Senate GOP primary runoff to former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville.

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  • How Biden’s SAVE student loan repayment plan can lower your bill | CNN Politics

    How Biden’s SAVE student loan repayment plan can lower your bill | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    While the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program in late June, a separate and significant change to the federal student loan system is moving ahead.

    Eligible borrowers can now enroll in a new income-driven repayment plan that could lower their monthly bills and reduce the amount they pay back over the lifetime of their loans.

    If borrowers apply this summer, the changes to their bills would take effect before payments resume in October after the yearslong pandemic pause.

    Once the plan, which Biden is calling SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), is fully phased in next year, some people will see their monthly bills cut in half and remaining debt canceled after making at least 10 years of payments.

    Unlike Biden’s blocked one-time forgiveness program, the new repayment plan will provide benefits for both current and future borrowers who sign up for it.

    But the benefits will come at a cost to the government. Estimates vary, depending on how many borrowers end up enrolling in the plan, ranging from $138 billion to $475 billion over 10 years. As a comparison, Biden’s student loan forgiveness program was expected to cost about $400 billion.

    The SAVE repayment plan has gone through a formal rulemaking process at the Department of Education. The agency has previously created several other income-driven repayment plans in the same manner without facing a successful legal challenge.

    Some parts of the SAVE plan will be implemented this summer and others will take effect in July 2024. Here’s what borrowers need to know.

    Currently, there are several different kinds of income-driven repayment plans for borrowers with federal student loans. The new SAVE plan will essentially replace one of those, known as REPAYE (Revised Pay As You Earn), while the others are phased out for new borrowers.

    Under these plans, payments are based on a borrower’s income and family size, regardless of how much outstanding student debt is owed.

    There is also a forgiveness component. After making at least 10 years of payments, a borrower’s remaining balance is wiped away.

    Borrowers must have federally held student loans to qualify for the SAVE repayment plan. These include Direct subsidized, unsubsidized and consolidated loans, as well as PLUS loans made to graduate students.

    Parents who took out a federal PLUS loan to help their child pay for college are not eligible for the new repayment plan.

    Borrowers with Federal Family Education Loans, known as FFEL, or Perkins Loans that are held by a commercial lender rather than the government will need to consolidate into a Direct loan in order to qualify.

    Private student loans do not qualify for the new SAVE repayment plan or any other federal repayment plan.

    Borrowers can apply for the SAVE plan by submitting a recently updated application for income-driven repayment plans found here.

    The application may be available intermittently during an initial beta testing period, according to the Department of Education. If the application is not available, try again later.

    Applications submitted during the beta period will not need to be resubmitted once a full website launches later this summer.

    Borrowers can expect to receive an email confirmation after applying.

    People who are already enrolled in the REPAYE repayment plan will be automatically switched to the SAVE plan.

    Borrowers can log in to StudentAid.gov and go to their My Aid page to see what repayment plan they are enrolled in.

    The Department of Education says that it will process applications submitted this summer before payments resume in October.

    “It may take your servicer a few weeks to process your request, because they will need to obtain documentation of your income and family size,” according to the department’s website.

    Under the SAVE plan, monthly payments can be as small as $0.

    Other income-driven repayment plans already offer a $0 monthly payment for some borrowers. But the new SAVE plan lowers the qualifying threshold.

    A single borrower earning $32,800 or less or a borrower with a family of four earning $67,500 or less will see their payments set at $0 if enrolled in SAVE.

    Increase in protected income threshold: Like in existing income-driven repayment plans, a borrower’s discretionary income, generally what’s left after paying for necessities like housing, food and clothing, will be shielded from student loan payments.

    The new SAVE plan recalculates discretionary income so that it’s equal to the difference between a borrower’s adjusted gross income and 225% of the poverty level. Existing income-driven plans calculate discretionary income as the difference between income and 150% of the poverty level.

    This change will result in lower payments for borrowers.

    Interest limit: Under the new payment plan, unpaid interest will not accrue if a borrower makes a full monthly payment.

    That means that a borrower’s balance won’t increase even if the monthly payment doesn’t cover the monthly interest. For example: If $50 in interest accumulates each month and a borrower has a $30 payment, the remaining $20 would not be charged.

    Lower payments for married borrowers: Married borrowers who file their taxes separately will no longer be required to include their spouse’s income in their payment calculation for SAVE. This could lower monthly payments for two-income households.

    Automatic recertification: Borrowers will now be able to allow the Department of Education to access their latest tax return. This will make the application process easier because borrowers won’t have to manually provide income or family size information. It will also allow the department to automatically recertify borrowers for the payment plan on an annual basis.

    Cut payments in half: Payments on loans borrowed for undergraduate school will be reduced from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.

    Borrowers who have loans from both undergraduate and graduate school will pay a weighted average of between 5% and 10% of their income based upon the original principal balances of their loans.

    For example, a borrower with $20,000 from their undergraduate education and $60,000 from graduate school will pay 8.75% of their income, according to a fact sheet provided by the Biden administration.

    Shorter time to forgiveness: Currently, borrowers who pay for 20 or 25 years under an income-driven repayment plan will see their remaining balance wiped away.

    Under the new SAVE plan, those who borrowed $12,000 or less will see their debt forgiven after paying for just 10 years. Every additional $1,000 borrowed above that amount would add one year of monthly payments to the required time a borrower must pay.

    Borrowers who consolidate their loans will receive partial credit for their previous payments toward forgiveness.

    Borrowers will also automatically receive credit toward forgiveness for certain periods of deferment and forbearance, as well be given the option to make additional “catch-up” payments to get credit for all other periods of deferment or forbearance.

    Automatically enroll struggling borrowers: Borrowers who are 75 days late on their payments will be automatically enrolled in the best income-driven plan for them, as long as they have agreed to allow the Department of Education to securely access their tax information.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • FBI searching for Proud Boy after he disappears days before January 6 sentencing | CNN Politics

    FBI searching for Proud Boy after he disappears days before January 6 sentencing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Christopher Worrell, a member of the Proud Boys who was convicted in a bench trial on seven charges related to his actions during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, was scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Washington on Friday but is now missing, according to court records and the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

    “We are interested in hearing from any members of the public who might have information regarding Mr. Worrell’s whereabouts,” Patty Hartman, a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, told CNN in a statement.

    The FBI has released a wanted poster for Worrell, 52, saying he “violated conditions of release pending sentencing.”

    “Christopher John Worrell is wanted for violating conditions of release pending sentencing on federal charges related to the violence at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021,” the poster states. “A federal arrest warrant was issued for Worrell in the United States District Court, District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., on August 15, 2023.”

    Worrell’s attorneys declined to comment.

    Worrell has been under house arrest in Florida. His case had become a cause célèbre in right-wing circles because of his health issues while in jail and claims that officials had dragged their feet in getting him medical treatment for a broken finger. He is also diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and at one point he contracted Covid-19 while at the jail.

    Worrell’s sentencing was canceled on Tuesday and a bench warrant for his arrest was issued, according to court records.

    Federal prosecutors were seeking a 14-year sentence for Worrell, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum which was submitted on Sunday.

    “Worrell was found guilty, after a bench trial in which he perjured himself, of assaulting a group of police officers with a deadly and dangerous weapon in order to thwart Congress’s certification of the 2020 electoral vote and the peaceful transition of power,” prosecutors wrote in the memorandum.

    The FBI asked that anyone with information on Worrell’s whereabouts contact their local FBI office or the nearest American embassy or consulate.

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  • Watchdog agency increases its pandemic unemployment benefits fraud estimate to as much as $135 billion | CNN Politics

    Watchdog agency increases its pandemic unemployment benefits fraud estimate to as much as $135 billion | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    As much as $135 billion in fraudulent Covid-19 pandemic unemployment insurance claims were likely paid out, according to a report released Tuesday by the US Government Accountability Office.

    The whopping figure, which equates to as much as 15% of total unemployment benefits distributed during the pandemic, is a notable bump up from the $60 billion the watchdog agency had previously estimated in January.

    In comments on a draft of the GAO report, the Department of Labor said the office is likely overestimating the actual amount of fraud. However, the department’s Office of Inspector General in February said in testimony before a House committee that at least $191 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits payments could have been improper, with “a significant portion attributable to fraud.”

    The GAO pushed back on the department’s assertions in its report and stood by the methodology used.

    “Given that not all potential fraud will be investigated and adjudicated through judicial or other systems, the full extent of UI fraud during the pandemic will likely never be known with certainty,” the GAO report said. “Therefore, it is appropriate to rely on estimates, such as ours, to make more comprehensive conclusions about the extent of fraud in the UI programs during the pandemic.”

    The findings released on Tuesday shed light on the numerous schemes to steal money from a range of hastily implemented pandemic relief programs, which have drawn the attention of congressional lawmakers and prompted legislative action. Last year, President Joe Biden signed two bipartisan bills into law aimed at holding individuals who commit fraud under pandemic relief programs accountable.

    “My message to those cheats out there is this: You can’t hide. We’re going to find you. We’re going to make you pay back what you stole and hold you accountable under the law,” the president said at the time.

    The House of Representatives also passed a bill in May that would help recover fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits paid out during the pandemic. The bill, however, has not been brought to a vote in the Senate.

    Fraud within the nation’s unemployment system skyrocketed after Congress enacted a historic expansion of the program in March 2020. State unemployment agencies were overwhelmed with record numbers of claims and relaxed some requirements in an effort to get the money out the door quickly to those who had lost their jobs.

    But the enhanced payments and lax controls quickly attracted criminals from around the world. States and Congress subsequently tightened their verification requirements in an attempt to combat the fraud, particularly in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which allowed freelancers, gig workers and others to collect benefits for the first time.

    More than $888 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits were paid from the end of March 2020 through early September 2021, when all the pandemic enhancements ended nationwide, according to the Labor Department Office of Inspector General.

    The GAO report said the “unprecedented demand for benefits and need to quickly implement the new programs increased the risk of fraud.”

    Other pandemic relief programs were also the target of criminals. The GAO in May flagged 3.7 million recipients of Small Business Administration funds as having “warning signs consistent with potential fraud.” The SBA doled out $1 trillion to help small businesses during the pandemic through measures including the Paycheck Protection Program and Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. More than 10 million small businesses were assisted.

    Some of the fraudulent claims have been recouped. States identified $5.3 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits overpayments and has recovered $1.2 billion, according to the GAO.

    A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday that as of August 30, the department has charged more than 3,000 people for pandemic related fraud.

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  • FCC to reintroduce rules protecting net neutrality | CNN Business

    FCC to reintroduce rules protecting net neutrality | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The US government aims to restore sweeping regulations for high-speed internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, reviving “net neutrality” rules for the broadband industry — and an ongoing debate about the internet’s future.

    The proposed rules from the Federal Communications Commission will designate internet service — both the wired kind found in homes and businesses as well as mobile data on cellphones — as “essential telecommunications” akin to traditional telephone services, said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The rules would ban internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing down access to websites and online content.

    In addition to the prohibitions on blocking and throttling internet traffic, the draft rules also seek to prevent ISPs from selectively speeding up service to favored websites or to those that agree to pay extra fees, Rosenworcel said, a move designed to prevent the emergence of “fast lanes” on the web that could give some websites a paid advantage over others.

    With Tuesday’s proposal, the FCC aims to restore Obama-era regulations that the FCC under Republican leadership rolled back during the Trump administration.

    But the proposal is likely to trigger strong pushback from internet providers who have spent years fighting earlier versions of the rules in court.

    Beyond their immediate impact to internet providers, the draft rules directly help US telecom regulators address a range of consumer issues in the longer run by allowing the FCC to bring its most powerful legal tools to bear, Rosenworcel said. Some of the priorities the FCC could address after the implementation of net neutrality rules include spam robotexts, internet outages, digital privacy and high-speed internet access, said Rosenworcel in a speech at the National Press Club Tuesday to announce the proposal.

    Rosenworcel said reclassifying internet service providers as essential telecommunications entities — by regulating them under Title II of the FCC’s congressional charter — would provide the FCC with clearer authority to adopt future rules governing everything from public safety to national security.

    Rosenworcel argued, “without reclassification, the FCC has limited authority to incorporate updated cybersecurity standards into our network policies.”

    She added that traditional telephone companies currently cannot sell customer data, but those restrictions do not apply to ISPs, which are regulated differently. “Does that really make sense? Do we want our broadband providers selling off where we go and what we do online?”

    Regulating internet providers using the most powerful tools at the FCC’s disposal would let the agency crack down harder on spam robotexts, Rosenworcel said, as spammers are “constantly evolving their techniques.”

    And the proposed rules could promote the Biden administration’s agenda to blanket the country in fast, affordable broadband, she argued, by granting internet providers the rights to put their equipment on telephone poles.

    “As a nation we are committed, post-pandemic, to building broadband for all,” she said. “So keep in mind that when you construct these facilities, utility poles are really important.”

    The FCC plans to vote Oct. 19 on whether to advance the draft rules by soliciting public feedback on them — a step that would precede the creation of any final rules.

    Net neutrality rules are more necessary than ever, Rosenworcel said in her speech, after millions of Americans discovered the vital importance of reliable internet access during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rosenworcel also made the case that a single, national standard on net neutrality could give businesses the certainty they need to speed up efforts to blanket the nation in fast, affordable broadband.

    But Rosenworcel’s push is already inviting a widespread revolt from internet providers that make up some of the most powerful and well-resourced groups in Washington.

    The proposal could also lead to more of what has helped make net neutrality a household term over the past decade: Late-night segments by comedians including John Oliver and Stephen Colbert; in-person demonstrations, including at the FCC’s headquarters and at the home of its chair; allegations of fake, AstroTurfed public comments and claims of cyberattacks; and even threats of violence.

    The latest net neutrality rulemaking reflects one of the most visible efforts of Rosenworcel’s chairwomanship — and one of her first undertakings since the US Senate this month confirmed Anna Gomez as the agency’s fifth commissioner, breaking a years-long 2-2 partisan deadlock at the FCC that had prevented hot-button initiatives from moving forward.

    The draft rules also show how a continued lack of federal legislation to establish a nationwide net neutrality standard has led to continued flip-flopping rules for ISPs with every change of political administration, along with a patchwork of state laws seeking to fill the gap.

    If approved next month, the FCC draft would be opened for public comment until approximately mid-December, followed by an opportunity for public replies lasting into January. A final set of rules could be voted on in the months following.

    For years, consumer advocacy groups have called for strong rules that could prevent ISPs from distorting the free flow of information on the internet using arbitrary or commercially motivated traffic rules.

    In contrast, ISPs have long argued that websites using up big portions of a network’s capacity, such as search engines or video streaming sites, should pay for the network demand their users generate. European Union officials are said to be considering just such a proposal.

    A third rail of broadband policy

    In attempting to revive the agency rules, the FCC is once again touching what has become the third rail of US broadband policy: Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, the law that gave the FCC its congressional mandate to regulate legacy telephone services.

    Tuesday’s proposal moves to regulate ISPs under Title II, which would give the FCC clearer authority to impose rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization of websites. The draft rules are substantially similar to the rules the FCC passed in 2015, the people said. The rules were upheld in 2016 by a federal appeals court in Washington in the face of an industry lawsuit.

    Soon after that ruling, however, Donald Trump won the White House, leading him to name Ajit Pai, then one of the FCC’s Republican commissioners, as its chair. Among Pai’s first acts as agency chief was to propose a rollback of the earlier net neutrality rules. The FCC voted in 2017 to reverse the rules, with Pai arguing that the repeal would accelerate private investment in broadband networks and free the industry from heavy-handed regulation. The repeal took effect in 2018.

    In the time since, ISPs have refrained from doing the kind of blocking and preferential treatment that net neutrality advocates have warned could occur, but Rosenworcel’s proposal highlights how concerns about that possibility have persisted.

    The Biden administration on Tuesday praised the FCC’s plan to reintroduce net neutrality rules for broadband providers.

    “President Biden supports net neutrality so that large corporations can’t pick and choose what content you can access online or charge you more for certain content,” said Hannah Garden-Monheit, special assistant to the president for economic policy. “Today’s announcement is a major step forward for American consumers and small businesses and demonstrates the importance of the president’s push to restore competition in our economy.”

    Net neutrality began as a bipartisan issue, with the George W. Bush administration issuing some of the earliest principles for an open internet that led to FCC attempts at concrete regulation in 2010 and again in 2015.

    The telecom and cable industries have long opposed the use of Title II to regulate broadband, arguing that it would be a form of government overreach, that telephone-style regulations are not suited for digital technologies, and that it would discourage private investment in broadband networks, hindering Americans’ ability to get online.

    “Treating broadband as a Title II utility is a dangerous and costly solution in search of a problem,” said USTelecom, a prominent industry trade group, in a statement Tuesday. “Congress must step in on this major question and end this game of regulatory ping-pong. The future of the open, vibrant internet we now enjoy hangs in the balance.”

    The reference to net neutrality as a “major question” offers clues about possible future litigation involving the proposal, as the Supreme Court has increasingly invoked the “major questions” doctrine to scrutinize federal agency initiatives.

    In her speech Tuesday, Rosenworcel acknowledged the coming pushback — as well as past incidents involving supporters of strong net neutrality rules.

    “I have every expectation that this process will get messy at times,” Rosenworcel said. “In the past, when this subject came up, we saw death threats against [former Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai] and his family. That is completely unacceptable, and I am grateful to law enforcement for bringing the individual behind these threats to justice. We had a fake bomb threat called in to disrupt a vote at the agency. We had protesters blocking [former Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler] in his driveway and keeping him from his car. We saw a dark effort to tear down a pro-net neutrality nominee for the agency.”

    Part of what made the FCC’s 2015 rules particularly controversial, however, was that classifying ISPs as Title II providers meant the agency could theoretically attempt to set prices for internet service directly, a prospect that ISPs widely feared but that the FCC in 2015 promised not to do.

    Tuesday’s proposal makes the same commitment, the people said, forbearing from 26 provisions of Title II and more than 700 other agency rules that could be seen as intrusive. The draft rules also prohibit the FCC from forcing ISPs to share their network infrastructure with other, competing internet providers, the people said, a concept known as network unbundling.

    On top of fierce industry pushback in the FCC’s comments process, the proposal could also lead to legal challenges against the FCC. While the 2015 net neutrality rules survived on appeal, suggesting the current FCC may be on firm ground to issue the current proposed rules, the draft comes as the Supreme Court has moved to reconsider the power of federal agencies by scrutinizing courts’ decades-long deference to their expert authority.

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  • State Department advises all Americans overseas ‘to exercise increased caution’ in worldwide alert | CNN Politics

    State Department advises all Americans overseas ‘to exercise increased caution’ in worldwide alert | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US State Department on Thursday advised all US citizens worldwide “to exercise increased caution” due to “increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, (and) demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.”

    The issuance of the worldwide caution alert is a significant message amid protests that have erupted throughout the Middle East in response to the Israel-Hamas war, with many demonstrators targeting US diplomatic compounds.

    State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Thursday that “we take a number of factors into consideration when making that determination” to issue a worldwide alert.

    “It’s not necessarily any one thing but everything that we’re watching around the world,” he said at a State Department briefing.

    In the past week, the State Department has raised the Travel Advisory for Lebanon and Israel to the highest level and has authorized non-emergency US government personnel and family members to depart. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a cable to diplomatic posts worldwide ordering them to undertake emergency security reviews, CNN reported Wednesday.

    The State Department last issued a worldwide alert in August 2022 in the wake of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, warning that “supporters of al- Qa’ida, or its affiliated terrorist organizations, may seek to attack U.S. facilities, personnel, or citizens.”

    The notice issued Thursday advises US citizens abroad to “stay alert in locations frequented by tourists” and to enroll in the State Department’s “Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive information and alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency overseas.”

    Todd Brown, a retired senior State Department official who worked in diplomatic security for more than 30 years, said the potential threat situation around the Israel-Hamas war “surpasses anything I have seen before in the lease with the potential to get even worse.”

    “Emotions and the temperature is as high as I can ever imagine it has been,” he told CNN earlier Thursday.

    Brown said the threat of escalation “isn’t just confined to the Middle East,” but could also spread to Europe as anger over the Israeli government’s actions towards Gaza grows.

    “I do think that people should give some thought to their trips and not blindly think, ‘Oh, everything’s okay,’ or ‘I’m going into a European capital,” he told CNN, noting that he even advised his own daughter to postpone a trip for the time being.

    He said US embassies will be evaluating their security posture and whether they need to call in additional security personnel like Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) Marines. They may also ask the host government to provide additional security.

    The State Department will also be looking at whether to authorize or order personnel and family members to depart from embassies, noting this is particularly likely in places like Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. Brown said that the State Department takes into consideration things like whether the diplomats’ housing is spread out and if it is a diplomatic post that allows children when deciding whether to allow or order personnel to leave.

    Brown said that the optics of withdrawing personnel “does come into play to some degree, but I don’t think it’ll be the overriding factor if there truly are people in harm’s way in the community, and it’s a way to make people safer.”

    The State Department will also be looking at whether to restrict the movement of diplomats within the country for safety reasons. Some diplomatic posts already have these restrictions.

    “This is one I think is really, really concerning, and no doubt everybody’s got their eye on the ball closely here,” Brown said.

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  • FCC issues historic $300 million fine against the largest robocall scam it has ever investigated | CNN Business

    FCC issues historic $300 million fine against the largest robocall scam it has ever investigated | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday cracked down on a massive illegal robocall operation responsible for billions of auto-warranty scam calls in recent years, with regulators imposing a record $300 million fine on what authorities said is the largest such network it has ever investigated.

    The globe-spanning illegal operation violated US telecom laws by making more than five billion robocalls to more than half a billion phone numbers over the course of just three months in 2021, the FCC said in a release Wednesday.

    But the campaign had been in existence for even longer, the FCC added. Using a multitude of shell companies, aliases and fly-by-night phone providers allegedly under their control, the people behind the network — which CNN has previously reported on — had sought to dupe unwitting consumers into buying shoddy service contracts for their vehicles since 2018.

    The ringleaders of the operation, Roy Melvin Cox Jr. and Aaron Michael Jones, were repeat offenders who had already been under judicial orders not to engage in telemarketing.

    A breakthrough in enforcement came last July, when Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against the network that outlined many of the operation’s details, including its organizational structure. At the same time, the FCC directed US voice providers to stop carrying calls originating from providers used by the network.

    Within weeks, third-party industry estimates showed an 80% reduction in the volume of auto-warranty spam calls in the United States, and on Thursday, the FCC said the move ultimately led to a 99% reduction in such calls.

    The Ohio AG’s lawsuit had been the culmination of a joint state and federal investigation that also highlighted the growing effectiveness of technology and policies aimed at beating back the tide of illegal robocalls.

    For example, improvements in call-tracing have allowed investigators to quickly identify the source of unwanted, automated calls, while additional FCC policies have enabled regulators to block entire voice providers from the US telephone network for robocall violations.

    The partnership between the FCC and Ohio officials has also been replicated with 46 other states, the District of Columbia and Guam, with Hawaii and New Mexico joining the list on Thursday, the FCC said.

    It is now up to the Justice Department to collect on the federal fine, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement, adding that in the future, Congress should authorize the FCC to seek payment through the courts directly on its own.

    “We know the scam artists behind these calls are relentless — but we are coming for them and won’t stop until we get this junk off the line,” Rosenworcel said.

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  • FBI agent contests whistleblower claims in Hunter Biden case, transcript shows | CNN Politics

    FBI agent contests whistleblower claims in Hunter Biden case, transcript shows | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The FBI agent managing the team on the Hunter Biden criminal case testified to the House Judiciary Committee that US Attorney David Weiss had ultimate authority over the case, contesting testimony brought forward by whistleblowers.

    Thomas Sobocinski, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore field office, told committee investigators in a closed-door interview last week that from his perspective, Weiss had the authority to bring forward whatever charges he wanted in whatever venue he preferred.

    “It was my understanding that David Weiss had the authority, and at no point did I ever differ from that,” Sobociniski said, according to a copy of his interview transcript obtained by CNN. “There’s never been anything in my view that changed that.”

    Sobocinski’s transcript, which was first reported by The Washington Post, comes as House Republicans continue to investigate allegations that the criminal case of President Joe Biden’s son was mishandled. It’s all part of the House GOP impeachment inquiry into the president, even though Republicans have yet to find evidence that the president did anything illegal.

    Sobocinski’s testimony disputes a number of claims from an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower about a key October 2022 meeting including FBI and IRS agents, Weiss, and other Justice Department prosecutors that occurred at a critical point in the criminal probe. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who was in the meeting and worked on this case, said Weiss revealed in that meeting that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed. Shapley provided his notes on that meeting and email exchanges about it to Congress to support his claim. The notes say, “Weiss stated – He is not the deciding person.”

    But Sobocinski was also in that October 2022 meeting and said Weiss never said that.

    “I went into that meeting believing he had the authority, and I have left that meeting believing he had the authority to bring charges,” Sobocinski testified.

    Reflecting on Shapley’s accusation of Weiss, Sobocinski said, “In my recollection, if he would have said that, I would have remembered it.”

    In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee responding to Sobocinski’s testimony, Shapley’s legal team contested Sobocinski’s testimony, noting that Shapley took notes of the October 2022 meeting while Sobocinski did not.

    “Mr. Sobocinski apparently acknowledged that he took no notes in the meeting, nor did he document it in any contemporaneous fashion afterwards,” wrote Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt and attorney Mark Lytle, according to the letter obtained by CNN. “By contrast, SSA Shapley took notes during the meeting. These notes, combined with his fresh memory of the meeting, formed the basis for the email he sent later that day and corroborate his current recollection.”

    House Republicans responded to the comments saying that the whistleblowers, Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, a 13-year IRS special agent with the Criminal Investigation Division, were “wholly consistent.”

    “Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler have been wholly consistent throughout their disclosures to Congress, and the only people who haven’t are people like David Weiss, Merrick Garland, and their liberal cronies,” said Russell Dye, a spokesperson for Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican.

    Sobocinski also disputed Shapley’s claim that Weiss said in the October 2022 meeting he was denied special counsel status and denied venues to bring forward charges.

    Sobocinski told the House Judiciary panel he was informed of Weiss’ special counsel status the day Attorney General Merrick Garland announced it last month, and that Weiss was not previously denied special counsel status as Shapley has claimed.

    “I don’t have a recollection with him saying that there or at any point in my communication with Mr. Weiss,” Sobocinski said. “That would have been a total 180 from all our previous conversations about authorities.”

    When asked if anybody at FBI headquarters ever prevented Weiss from taking any steps or accessing any necessary resources, Sobocinski replied, “Not that I’m aware of.”

    Sobocinski told congressional investigators that he did raise concerns repeatedly about the pace of the investigation into Hunter Biden.

    “I would have liked for it to move faster,” he said.

    Republicans on the committee raised the question of why Weiss was eventually given special counsel status if Weiss had the ultimate authority as Sobocinski has argued. Sobocinski acknowledged that Weiss would be the best person to answer these questions, and more specifics about how special counsel status was granted.

    On whether Weiss was denied venues to bring forward charges against the president’s son, Sobocinski said he only had “high-level conversations” about the specific charges, but from his understanding “there was a process” within the Justice Department for US attorneys to bring forward charges outside of their district that involved a lot of “bureaucracy” but was “not a permission issue.”

    “Without going into specifics, there were discussion about taxes and venue,” Sobocinski said. “And, once again, Mr. Weiss had the authority to bring it.”

    Shapley’s notes on the October 2022 meeting included that an FBI agent asked the group if they were concerned about the investigation being politicized. Sobocinski noted that part of why the meeting was called was in response to a media leak about the status of the criminal investigation. He told congressional investigators that he wanted to ask anyone in the room if they felt the investigation into the president’s son had been politicized, and he said no one in the room, not even Shapley, raised any concerns.

    “I wanted to go on record in the room of the leaders who were involved in this investigation,” Sobocinski said. “Thought that it was no, and nobody in that room raised their voice to say anything other.”

    Sobocinski also addressed broader claims made about how the Hunter Biden criminal investigation has been handled. To discredit GOP claims that prosecutors colluded with Hunter Biden’s Secret Service by informing them they wanted to interview Hunter, Sobocinski said that as a former Secret Service agent, he said it was “expected” for an investigative entity to speak with him ahead of interviewing a protectee of his. Sobocinski also said he is not aware of any evidence that the Department of Justice has retaliated against the IRS whistleblowers who have come forward.

    The Department of Justice sent Sobocinski a letter the day before his interview giving him permission to discuss the details of the October 7, 2022, meeting and Weiss’ authority on the case. But Sobocinski was not permitted to discuss the ongoing criminal investigation.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Major Supreme Court cases to watch in the new term | CNN Politics

    Major Supreme Court cases to watch in the new term | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Looking at an upcoming Supreme Court term from the vantage point of the first Monday in October rarely tells the full story of what lies ahead, but the docket already includes major cases concerning the intersection between the First Amendment and social media, gun rights, racial gerrymandering and the power of the executive branch when it comes to regulation.

    The court will still determine if it will hear oral arguments on issues such as medication abortion and transgender rights, not to mention the possibility of a flurry of emergency requests related to the 2024 election.

    Here are some of the key cases on which the court will hear oral arguments this term:

    After the Supreme Court issued a major decision last year expanding gun rights nationwide, lower courts began reconsidering hundreds of firearms regulations across the country under the new standard crafted by Justice Clarence Thomas that a gun law passes legal muster only if it is rooted in history and tradition.

    On the heels of that decision, a federal appeals court invalidated a federal law that bars an individual who is subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. That law, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, “is an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.”

    The Biden administration has appealed, saying the ruling “threatens grave harms for victims of domestic violence.”

    In 2019, nearly two-thirds of domestic homicides in the United States were committed with a gun, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

    Lawyers for Zackey Rahimi, a man who was prosecuted under the law in 2020 after a violent altercation with his girlfriend, have urged the justices to let the lower court opinion stand, arguing in part that there is no law from the founding era comparable to the statute at hand.

    Racial gerrymandering: South Carolina congressional maps

    Justices will consider a congressional redistricting plan drawn by South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature in the wake of the 2020 census. Critics say it was designed with discriminatory purpose and amounts to an illegal racial gerrymander.

    The case focuses the court’s attention once again on the issue of race and map drawing and comes after the court ordered Alabama to redraw the state’s congressional map last term to account for the fact that the state is 27% black. The decision, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, surprised liberals who feared the court was going to make it harder for minorities to challenge maps under Section 2 of the historic Voting Rights Act.

    In the latest case, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black voter named Taiwan Scott, are challenging the state’s congressional District 1 that is located along the southeastern coast and is anchored in Charleston County. Although the district consistently elected Republicans from 1980 to 2016, in 2018 a Democrat was elected in a political upset, though a Republican recaptured the seat in 2020.

    The person who devised the map has testified that he was instructed to make the district “more Republican leaning,” but that he did not consider race. He did, however, acknowledge that he examined racial data after drafting each version and that the Black voting age population of the district was likely viewed during the drafting process.

    A three-judge district court panel struck down the plan in January, saying that race had been the predominant motivating factor. “To achieve a target of 17% African American population,” the court said, “Charleston County was racially gerrymandered and over 30,000 African Americans were removed from their home district.”

    Expert explains why Justice Thomas’ gifts from wealthy friends are problematic

    In the latest attack against the so-called administrative state, the justices are considering whether to overturn decades old precedent to scale back the power of federal agencies, impacting how the government tackles issues such as climate change, immigration, labor conditions and public health.

    At issue is an appeal from herring fishermen in the Atlantic who say the National Marine Fisheries Service does not have the authority to require them to pay the salaries of government monitors who ride aboard the fishing vessels.

    In agreeing to hear the case, the justices signaled they will reconsider a 1984 decision – Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council – that sets forward factors to determine when courts should defer to a government agency’s interpretation of the law. First, they examine a statute to see if Congress’ intent is clear. It if is – then the matter is settled. But if there is ambiguity – the court defers to the agency’s expertise.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that the agency was acting within the scope of its authority under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and said the fishermen are not responsible for all the costs. The regulation was put in place to combat overfishing of the fisheries off the coasts of the US.

    Representing the fishermen, former Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that the government exceeded its authority and needs direct and clear congressional authorization to make such a demand. “The ‘net effect’ of Chevron,” Clement said, is that it “incentives a dynamic where Congress does far less than the Framers anticipated, and the executive branch is left to do far more by deciding controversial issues via regulatory fiat”

    For the second time in recent years, the court is taking aim at a watchdog agency created to combat unfair and deceptive practices against consumers, in a case that could deal a fatal blow to the future of the agency and send reverberations throughout the financial services industry.

    At the center of the case at hand is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an independent agency set up in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown that works to monitor the practices of lenders, debt collectors and credit rating agencies.

    Congress chose to fund the CFPB from outside the annual appropriations process to ensure its independence. As such, the agency receives its funding each year from the earnings of the Federal Reserve System. But the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals held last year that the funding scheme violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, that, the court said “ensures Congress’ “exclusive power over the federal purse.”

    According to the CFPB, the agency has obtained more than $18.9 billion in ordered relief, including restitution and canceled debts, for more than 195 million consumers, and more than $4.1 billion in penalties, in actions brought by the agency against financial institutions and individuals that have broken federal consumer financial protection laws.

    A handful of other agencies have similar funding schemes including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

    Three years ago, the Supreme Court limited the independence of the CFPB by invalidating its leadership structure. A 5-4 court held that the structure violated the separation of powers because the president was restricted from removing the director, even if they had policy disagreements.

    Agency regulatory authority: Securities and Exchange Commission

    The justices are looking at the in-house enforcement proceedings of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in another case that invites the conservative majority to pare back the regulatory authority of federal agencies.

    The court’s decision could impact whether the SEC and other agencies can conduct enforcement proceedings in-house, using administrative courts staffed with agency employees, or whether such actions must be brought in federal court.

    On one side are critics of such agency courts who argue that they allow federal employees to serve as prosecutors, judges and jury, issuing rulings that could particularly hurt small businesses. On the other side are those who point out that several agencies, including the Social Security Administration, have such internal proceedings because the topics are often complex and the agency has more expertise than a federal judge.

    The case arose in 2013 after the SEC brought an enforcement action against George Jarkesy, who had established two hedge funds with his advisory firm, Patriot28, for securities fraud.

    The 5th Circuit ruled that the SEC’s proceedings deprive individuals of their Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury. In addition, the court said that Congress had improperly delegated legislative power to the SEC, which gave the agency unconstrained authority at times to choose the in-house administrative proceeding rather than filing suit in district court.

    In December, the court will examine the historic multibillion-dollar Purdue Pharma bankruptcy settlement with several states that would ultimately offer the Sackler family broad protection from OxyContin-related civil claims.

    Until recently, Purdue was controlled by the Sackler family, who withdrew billions of dollars from the company before it filed for bankruptcy. The family has now agreed to contribute up to $6 billion to Purdue’s reorganization fund on the condition that the Sacklers receive a release from civil liability.

    The Biden administration, representing the US Trustee, the executive branch agency that monitors the administration of bankruptcy cases, has called the plan “exceptional and unprecedented” in court papers, noting that lower courts have divided on when parties can be released from liability for actions that caused societal harm.

    “The plan’s release ‘absolutely, unconditionally, irrevocably, fully, finally, forever and permanently releases’ the Sacklers from every conceivable type of opioid-related civil claim – even claims based on fraud and other forms of willful misconduct that could not be discharged if the Sacklers filed for bankruptcy in their individual capacities,” Prelogar argued in court papers.

    For the second year running, the justices will leap into the online moderation debate and decide whether states can essentially control how social media companies operate.

    If upheld, laws from Florida and Texas could open the door to more state legislation requiring platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to treat content in specific ways within certain jurisdictions – and potentially expose the companies to more content moderation lawsuits.

    It could also make it harder for platforms to remove what they determine is misinformation, hate speech or other offensive material.

    “These cases could completely reshape the digital public sphere. The question of what limits the First Amendment imposes on legislatures’ ability to regulate social media is immensely important – for speech, and for democracy as well,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, in a statement.

    “It’s difficult to think of any other recent First Amendment cases in which the stakes were so high,” Jaffer added.

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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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  • Incident involving US warship intercepting missiles near Yemen lasted 9 hours | CNN Politics

    Incident involving US warship intercepting missiles near Yemen lasted 9 hours | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A US warship that intercepted drones and missiles near the coast of Yemen on Thursday encountered a larger and more sustained barrage than was previously known, shooting down 4 cruise missiles and 15 drones over a period of 9 hours, according to a US official familiar with the situation.

    The USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that traversed the Suez Canal heading south on Wednesday, intercepted the missiles and drones as they were heading north along the Red Sea. Their trajectory left little doubt that the projectiles were headed for Israel, the official said, a clearer assessment than the Pentagon’s initial take.

    A sustained barrage of drones and missiles targeting Israel from far outside the Gaza conflict is one of a series of worrying signs that the war risks escalating beyond the borders of the coastal enclave.

    In addition to protests at US embassies across the Middle East, US and coalition forces in Syria and Iraq have come under repeated attack over the past several days.

    On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen and were launched “potentially towards targets in Israel.” At the briefing, Ryder said three land-attack cruise missiles and “several” drones.

    Some of the projectiles were traveling at altitudes that made them a potential risk to commercial aviation when they were intercepted, the US official said. The drones and missiles were intercepted with SM-2 surface-to-air missiles launched from the USS Carney.

    US interceptions of Houthi launches are exceedingly rare, making the timing of this incident, as tensions rise in Israel, more significant. In October 2016, the USS Mason deployed countermeasures to stop an attempted attack in the Red Sea targeting the Navy destroyer and other ships nearby. In response, the US fired sea-launched cruise missiles at Houthi radar facilities in Yemen.

    On Wednesday, one-way attack drones targeted two different US positions in Iraq, according to US Central Command. One of the attacks resulted in minor injuries. One day later, the At-Tanf garrison in Syria, which houses US and coalition forces, was targeted by two drones, which also caused minor injuries.

    Early Friday morning in Iraq, two rockets targeted the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center near the airport, which houses US military, diplomatic and civilian personnel, according to another US defense official. One rocket was intercepted by a counter-rocket system, while the second hit an empty storage facility, the official said. No one was injured as a result of the rocket attack.

    The US has not assigned attribution for any of the recent attacks in Iraq and Syria, though Iranian proxies have carried out similar drone and rocket attacks against US forces in both countries in the past.

    The US military has carried out strikes on Iranian-backed militias as a response to previous such attacks against US forces, but the Pentagon would not say anything yet about its intentions.

    “While I’m not going to forecast any potential response to these attacks, I will say that we will take all necessary actions to defend US and coalition forces against any threat,” said Ryder. “Any response, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.”

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  • ‘This isn’t some random dude with a duffel bag’: To catch fentanyl traffickers, feds dig into crypto markets | CNN Politics

    ‘This isn’t some random dude with a duffel bag’: To catch fentanyl traffickers, feds dig into crypto markets | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration has intensified its focus on tracing cryptocurrency payments that some of the most dangerous Mexican drug cartels use to buy fentanyl ingredients from Chinese chemical companies, the latest step in a renewed attempt to crack down on the multibillion-dollar fentanyl trade that kills thousands of Americans each year.

    The use of digital currency has exploded among fentanyl traffickers, with transactions for fentanyl ingredients surging 450% in the last year through April, according to data from private crypto-tracking analysis firm Elliptic.

    Federal agents are doing everything they can to catch up. While US diplomats have made fentanyl a point of emphasis in high-level talks with Mexican and Chinese counterparts, behind the scenes, a multi-agency effort is underway to keep pace with the rapidly changing nature of how fentanyl is financed and trafficked into the US. The work goes beyond the cartels to include tracking dark-web forums where Americans buy fentanyl.

    Current and former law enforcement officials from across the federal government described to CNN the digital-first tactics the administration is developing to disrupt the fentanyl trade.

    The Drug Enforcement Agency is investing in crypto-tracing software and identifying the cartels’ most sophisticated money launderers. The IRS has its most tech-savvy agents tracing payments on dark web forums. And a Department of Homeland Security investigations unit is leading a team of forensic specialists to pore over digital clues from stash houses near the Mexican border.

    Federal agents have been tracking the cartels’ finances and supply routes for years, but DHS, in particular, has ramped up its surveillance efforts in recent weeks, multiple US officials told CNN.

    There have been some notable busts recently, including nearly five tons of fentanyl seized this spring along the border. But there is still a lot of work left to do, officials caution, and the impact of the current surge may not be felt for months down the road.

    Agents have focused on the activities of two Mexican cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which officials say account for the majority of fentanyl on US streets. Sinaloa Cartel, in particular, has developed sophisticated crypto operations to finance its fentanyl business.

    “We’re dealing with a Fortune 50 company, which is what the Sinaloa Cartel is,” a US official with knowledge of the matter told CNN. “This isn’t some random dude with a duffel bag” selling fentanyl in daylight.

    Cryptocurrency has enhanced cartels’ ability to smuggle fentanyl into the US by allowing them to move vast sums of money instantaneously across a decentralized, digital banking system – all without having to deal with actual banks.

    “The speed the criminals can muster, it’s very hard for law enforcement to keep up,” said one top DEA official, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to describe the agency’s counter-narcotics work.

    Cash is still king for the cartels and often preferred for local operations. But the expanded use of digital currency at both the supply and demand ends of the drug trade has made some traditional law enforcement methods obsolete. For example, drug dealers might hold fewer in-person meetings to hand over cash, reducing the opportunities for stakeouts by federal agents, said Jarod Koopman, head of the IRS’s Cyber and Forensics Services division.

    Cryptocurrency “eliminates the potential for hand-to-hand transactions,” said Koopman, whose team focuses on illicit financial flows, including dark-web purchases that are multiple steps removed from when the cartels get the drugs over the US border. “So now it’s … in a different world where some of the contacts might be online and we’re trying to facilitate or do transactions in a different manner.”

    But digital money also leaves a trail that investigators can follow.

    Federal agents have found cryptocurrency addresses written down on scraps of paper at stash houses in Arizona, Scott Brown, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in that state, told CNN.

    In another case, DHS agents monitored a cartel-connected crypto account for over a year until it sent $200,000 to an accountant they were using to launder money, Brown said. After the accountant used the money to buy property in the US, federal agents are working to seize the property, he said.

    A “significant portion” of fentanyl is sold over the dark web and paid for in cryptocurrency, Brown said, adding: “That is a vulnerability that we can attack much like we attack the money movements in a traditional narcotics investigation.”

    Most of the fentanyl that enters the US comes from ingredients made in China that are then pressed into pills – or packed in powder – and smuggled in from Mexico by drug cartels, according to the DEA.

    A US indictment unsealed in June illustrates the scope of the problem. Just one Chinese chemical company allegedly shipped more than 440 pounds of fentanyl to undercover DEA agents in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency. It was enough drugs to kill 25 million Americans, according to prosecutors.

    The two cartels, Sinaloa and CJNG, have used their control of the fentanyl trade to develop sophisticated money-laundering techniques that exploit cryptocurrency, according to US officials.

    “We’ve identified people in the cartels that specialize in cryptocurrency movements,” the senior DEA official told CNN, describing longstanding efforts to surveil both the cartels.

    The Sinaloa Cartel has made hundreds of millions of dollars from the fentanyl trade, according to the Justice Department. Run by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the cartel has allegedly used airplanes, submarines, fishing boats and tractor trailers to transport fentanyl chemicals and other drugs. Four of the “Chapitos,” as Guzmán’s sons are known, are under indictment in the US for fentanyl trafficking, money laundering and weapons charges.

    With their father in jail, the younger generation of Sinaloa leaders is making more of an effort to cover their tracks and avoid law enforcement scrutiny, including by using cryptocurrency, the senior DEA official told CNN.

    In one case, the Sinaloa Cartel laundered more than $869,000 using cryptocurrency between August 2022 and February 2023, according to a US indictment unsealed in April. But that was likely just a fraction of the Sinaloa money laundered during that time, based on the huge profits the cartel has made in recent years.

    The scheme involved two of the cartel’s top money launderers directing US-based couriers to pick up cash from fentanyl traffickers and deposit the money to cryptocurrency accounts controlled by the cartel, the indictment said.

    “Not every seizure is going to get you to Chapo Guzman,” said Brown, the DHS official in Arizona. “It’s certainly more impactful when we can go after the people that are behind the production of the drugs, behind the production of the precursors, behind the movement of the money, behind running the transportation cells.”

    That’s why Brown and his colleagues are trying to make the most of a huge series of fentanyl busts in Arizona and California this spring, when agents seized nearly five tons of the deadly drug, worth over $100 million.

    Evidence was quickly shipped to a forensics lab in Northern Virginia, where DHS analysts hunted for digital clues – things like a common cell phone number called by drug runners near border towns or, better yet, a cryptocurrency account connected to one of the Mexican cartels, according to Brown.

    Based in Phoenix, Brown’s office oversees a recently announced federal task force that aims to thwart drug sales online by infiltrating dark-web forums and tracking crypto payments. The goal is to find “another vulnerability [in] the larger cartel infrastructure” that agents can attack, he said.

    The cartels “are very willing to invest in technology,” Brown said. “That’s one of the things that we need to be equally willing to do.”

    Crypto-based transactions can be traced publicly, giving US officials a much clearer picture of the Mexican cartels’ reliance on Chinese chemical companies to produce fentanyl.

    The Chinese government banned the sale of fentanyl in 2019. But Chinese chemical companies have since shifted to making fentanyl ingredients instead of the finished product, according to US officials and outside experts.

    A recent CNN investigation dug into the activities of US-sanctioned Chinese chemical companies that advertise fentanyl ingredients. When one sanctioned company shut down, another company launched, and told CNN it purchased the sanctioned company’s email, phone number and Facebook page to “attract internet traffic.”

    While the amount of fentanyl directly mailed to the US from China fell dramatically following the 2019 Chinese ban, according to a Brookings Institution study, US officials say Chinese companies are still producing and exporting large quantities of fentanyl ingredients.

    This January 2019 photo shows a display of fentanyl and meth that was seized by federal officers at the Nogales Port of Entry.

    Chinese companies selling ingredients to make fentanyl have received cryptocurrency payments worth tens of millions of dollars over the last five years, enough to potentially produce billions of dollars’ worth of fentanyl sold in the US and other markets, according to research from crypto-tracking firms.

    One of the firms, London-based Elliptic, found 100 China-based chemical companies touting fentanyl, fentanyl ingredients or equipment to make the drugs that accepted payments in cryptocurrency.

    Elliptic didn’t identify any cartel-controlled crypto accounts that sent money to the Chinese companies. That could be due to the cartels’ use of middlemen to buy ingredients and the fact that fentanyl traffickers in Europe also buy from the Chinese companies, according to US officials and cryptocurrency experts interviewed by CNN

    But that data is still only a partial picture of the problem. The Chinese chemicals industry is worth over a trillion dollars, according to some estimates, and comprises tens of thousands of companies, most of them doing legitimate business.

    “It’s impossible to know how many of [those companies] are actually sending chemicals over” to the US that can be used to make fentanyl, a former DEA agent who worked in Mexico told CNN. The former agent spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

    Barring more cooperation from the Chinese government on the issue, which US officials say has been limited, the Biden administration has sanctioned and secured federal indictments against several Chinese companies allegedly involved in the production of fentanyl. Federal agents, meanwhile, follow the money and look for opportunities to seize it.

    “You can at least try to pinch off the financial flow to [the Chinese companies] and then … follow that money trail to whether it’s the Mexican cartels or if it’s in Guatemala or other places, for the actual supply,” Koopman told CNN.

    Cryptocurrency has also allowed cartels to diversify the way they move money around the world. The cartels have a network of money launderers in dozens of countries, from Thailand to Colombia, the senior DEA official said.

    These money launderers, known as “spinners,” might receive drug money in one type of cryptocurrency and convert it to another to try to obscure the source of the funds.

    “They might take Bitcoin and then buy Ethereum with it, and then send the Ethereum to the cartel members,” the senior DEA official said, referring to different types of cryptocurrencies. “The cartels have insulated themselves so they’re not receiving the cryptocurrency directly.”

    The cartels also use “mixing” services, or publicly available cryptocurrency tools, to try to obscure the source of their digital money, the DEA official said. That process is also favored by North Korean hackers who launder stolen cryptocurrency to support Pyongyang’s weapons program, CNN investigations have found.

    The volatility of cryptocurrency means the cartels often quickly look to convert their crypto to cash by moving it through a series of virtual currencies, the senior DEA official told CNN.

    But there are moments in the laundering process where federal agents can strike. A cryptocurrency exchange serving a customer in Mexico might be headquartered in the US, allowing federal agents to issue a subpoena and potentially seize money.

    For Brown, the DHS agent in Arizona, the issue is personal: one of his employees had a family member who died of a fentanyl overdose after buying the drug online , he said.

    “My people are burned out, and yet they come to work and work exceedingly hard every day,” Brown told CNN.

    But he’s optimistic when the subject turns to high-tech methods to hunt the cartels.

    “Are they as anonymous as they think they are? Absolutely … not.”

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