News

Home News Page 61

Report: FBI Raids Home Of Larry Hogan’s Ex-Chief Of Staff

0
Image via Pixabay images

The manhunt for former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s ex-chief of staff is escalating.

The FBI has raided the Florida home of Roy McGrath, just two days after the former chief of staff failed to appear in Baltimore on Monday for the start of his criminal trial.

Joseph Murtha, McGrath’s attorney, confirmed the search in a phone interview with The Associated Press Wednesday afternoon. An FBI spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that agents “conducted court-authorized activity at that residence” but declined to elaborate.

“I haven’t a clue. I didn’t see this coming,” he said. “This behavior is so out of the ordinary for him. Obviously, his personal safety is a concern.”

The U.S. Marshals Service released a wanted poster for McGrath on Tuesday after U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Boardman issued an arrest warrant

https://twitter.com/officer_Lew/status/1635712508752441346

Earlier this week, McGrath’s attorney said he had no reason to believe his client would skip out on court, noting he had a substantive conversation about the case Sunday evening. (RELATED: Federal Judge Issues Arrest Warrant For Former GOP Governor’s Ex-Chief Of Staff)

“I looked forward to seeing him at 8:45 this morning,” Murtha said on the day of McGrath’s scheduled appearance. “Most importantly, I’m concerned. I’m hoping he’s safe. These situations are very stressful, the uncertainty of going to trial can cause people to do things many people don’t think are appropriate. We hope that he’s safe.”

McGrath is facing an eight-count federal indictment stemming from a criminal corruption investigation. Charges include wire fraud, including securing a $233,648 severance payment equal to one year of salary as the head of Maryland Environmental Service. He also faces fraud and embezzlement charges connected to roughly $170,000 in expenses. McGrath has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

McGrath resigned from Hogan’s office a few months after the six-figure payment was reported.

According to Fox News, McGrath gave up his passport in October 2021 as part of terms set in his pretrial release.

Authorities have yet to locate McGrath.

This is a breaking news story. Click refresh for the latest updates.

Trump Special Master Request Rescinded: Report

6
Marine One lifts-off after returning President Donald J. Trump to Mar-a-Lago Friday, March 29, 2019, following his visit to the 143-mile Herbert Hoover Dike near Canal Point, Fla., that surrounds Lake Okeechobee. The visit was part of an infrastructure inspection of the dike, which is part of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee Everglades system, and reduces impacts of flooding for areas of south Florida. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) [Photo Credit: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

The federal judge in Florida who initially granted former President Donald Trump’s special master request has dismissed his lawsuit, marking a sudden end to the monthslong chronicle since the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence.

Following the FBI’s unprecedented search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president requested a third party to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the documents seized from the Florida estate.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of the former president, affirmed an appeals court’s decision that she lacked jurisdiction to appoint a special master to oversee documents taken from his estate and lifted an injunction that blocked investigators from using them in a criminal investigation in the meantime.

By dismissing the lawsuit, titled Trump v. United States, all scheduled hearings over the dispute in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida are canceled, and all pending motions are “denied as moot,” according to a court order.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that Cannon never had the jurisdiction to assign U.S. District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, a semiretired jurist based in Brooklyn, to serve the role of the special master.

“We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant,” Judge William Pryor, an appointee of George W. Bush, wrote for a unanimous panel ruling. “Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so. Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Dearie had expected to complete his review by Friday. The 11th Circuit’s decision came less than two weeks after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the unauthorized transfer of about 100 classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after he left the Oval Office.

This story is developing. Check back with Great America News Desk for the latest updates.

Trump Withdraws Lawsuit Against New York AG

2
Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Former President Donald Trump has withdrawn his lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump attorney Honey Rechtin filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice Friday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The filing states that Trump “voluntarily dismisses his claims in this action” against James “without prejudice.” 

Trump filed the lawsuit in November claiming James abused her position as attorney general to “recklessly injure” him, his family and his businesses. Trump alleged James was pursuing “a relentless, pernicious, public, and unapologetic crusade” against him “with the stated goal of destroying him personally, financially, and politically.”

per reports from The Hill:

After James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump and his three adult children in September over allegations of business fraud, the former president responded by suing the New York attorney general in November. 

Trump claimed that James “abused her position as Attorney General for the State of New York to pursue a vendetta” against him.

In her lawsuit, James accused Trump and his children of falsely inflating and deflating property values to obtain investments and tax and loan benefits, following a three-year investigation into the former president’s business practices.

This story is breaking and will be updated as more information becomes available.

House Committee Set Date to Reveal Trump Tax Returns

1
Gage Skidmore Flickr

The years-long battle into Donald Trump’s tax records could be concluded as soon as this Friday.

A spokesperson for the Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee told multiple news outlets that the disclosure will take place Friday, less than a week before Republicans take control of the lower chamber.

According to The Daily Wire, The panel voted along party lines last week to release Trump’s tax returns following a years-long legal battle capped by the Supreme Court rejecting the former president’s plea to block the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from giving the tax records to the committee.

Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) said the release would happen after a few days, allowing staff to make redactions of sensitive information.

With Trump engaged in a third bid for the White House, his campaign condemned Democrats over the vote to release his tax returns.

“This unprecedented leak by lame-duck Democrats is proof they are playing a political game they are losing,” said Trump’s campaign, according to The Washington Post. “If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans without cause.”

While Democrats have argued that they needed access to Trump’s tax returns for the sake of oversight, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, echoed concerns raised by Trump’s team, saying the disclosure will “set a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reforms.”

The House Ways and Means Committee has already summarized its findings, issuing a report last week that said the IRS failed to adhere to its own policy and audit Trump during his first two years in office, only started one on Trump’s 2016 income tax return the same day in 2019 the panel requested access and failed to complete it by the time Trump left office in January 2021. A supplemental report prepared by Joint Committee on Taxation was also released last week, showing how much Trump paid or did not pay in taxes each year, per CNBC. That review found Trump paid no federal income taxes during his final year as president.

Service Member Fired For Refusing Vax Forced To Pay Back Most Of Signing Bonus

13
President Donald J. Trump is presented with a 10th Combat Aviation Brigade challenge coin following an air assault and gun rain demonstration at Fort Drum, New York, on August 13. The demonstration was part of President Trump's visit to the 10th Mountain Division (LI) to sign the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, which increases the Army's authorized active-duty end strength by 4,000 enabling us to field critical capabilities in support of the National Defense Strategy. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Thomas Scaggs) 180813-A-TZ475-010

A U.S. Army soldier who was fired for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine has been forced to pay back his signing bonus, totaling thousands of dollars.

According to The Daily Wire, the veteran is among the more than 8,400 troops from the military, including some 3,300 Marines, 1,800 soldiers, 1,800 sailors, and 900 airmen who chose to decline the vaccine and be discharged by the Defense Department.

“I’ve deployed multiple times, and I feel like the last thing I had was selling leave days that I earned and was never able to take due to me being deployed or needing that time to prepare for the training cycle,” the service member told Fox News Digital. “I was about to enter a new world with no income, and that extra bit would have been a nice buffer in my rainy day fund to keep me afloat until I was able to find new employment.”

The soldier received a $7,000 bonus when he signed up to serve in the U.S. Army for six years. After he was canned for refusing the vaccine, he was reportedly notified by the U.S. Military that he had to pay back $4,000, a prorated figure of the bonus. The veteran said he was forced to sell 60 of his unused vacation days to make up for the debt.

“The appalling treatment these individuals endured broke the trust that is owed to our citizens and our volunteers. America’s sons and daughters,” the Army member said in a statement. “Until true efforts are made to establish trust, the recruiting and retention shortfalls will only continue. The individuals who make public statements that they are unsure what has contributed to the current recruiting and retention shortfalls need to take a look in the mirror; and perhaps they should resign for the betterment of our Nation.”

Another service member slammed the Department of Defense for falling short “on reestablishing trust for wrongdoings,” calling the signing bonus pay-back “icing on the cake.”

Pentagon officials finally ended the coronavirus vaccine mandate for the U.S. Military in December.

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed a memo that will update records and remove letters of reprimand from troops whose exemption requests for the vaccine were denied.

Former Trump Org. CFO Sentenced to Notorious Prison

2

Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, is expected to be sent to Rikers Island jail in New York after receiving his sentence for his participation in a tax fraud scheme.

Wesselberg, along with other top executives, pled guilty to running the scheme for the past 15 years where he and others received bonuses and other kickbacks designed to save the real estate company money.

On Tuesday, the CFO was sentenced to five months in jail as well as pay nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties, and interest, and serve five years of probation.

Rikers Island is one of New York’s most well-known jails and has become notorious for violence and drug use.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Weisselberg’s sentence comes one month after prosecutors and defense lawyers gave their closing arguments in the criminal tax fraud trial against the Trump Organization, wrapping up the yearslong investigation into the former president’s company and its financial dealings.The former CFO emerged as the prosecutor’s star witness after he testified that he had accepted illegal compensation for his own benefit and hid the payments from the company’s outside accountant. The former CFO continued this practice for years, ending it once Donald Trump was elected president and his company’s business practices came under new scrutiny.

Weisselberg’s testimony strengthened prosecutors’ accusations that the Trump Organization paid for the personal expenses of several company executives without reporting them as income. These payments included paying for the managers’ rent, car lease payments, and other expenses. Prosecutors also alleged the company partially paid these executives as independent contractors rather than company employees.

The Trump Organization pleaded not guilty, and defense lawyers sought to point the finger solely at Weisselberg.

This story is breaking. Click refresh for the latest updates.

Trump Sues Prominent Journalist Bob Woodward

3
Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Former President Donald Trump suing journalist Bob Woodward over interview recordings that Trump alleges he didn’t agree could be included in his audiobook, “the Trump Tapes.”

The lawsuit, filed in the Pensacola division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, names Simon & Schuster Inc. and its parent company Paramount Global as defendants along with Woodward. Trump seeks more than $49 million in damages.

According to The Hill, Trump noted that he consented to Woodward recording their conversations for the purpose of a book, and gave 19 interviews to the veteran journalist in 2019 and 2020, which Woodward included in his 2020 book “Rage” but did not agree to the interviews’ being published via audiobook.

“This case centers on Mr. Woodward’s systematic usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation of audio of President Trump gathered in connection with a series of interviews conducted by Mr. Woodward,” Trump’s team argues in the filing.

“The Defendants’ ongoing concerted efforts to profit off the protected audio recordings and the works they have distributed derived from the protected audio recordings have caused President Trump to sustain substantial damage,” the suit continues.

The former president’s team is pursuing a number of counts against the defendants, including unjust enrichment, violation of Florida trade law and breach of contract. At one point, the filing also alleges that the audiobook misrepresented one of the pair’s interviews through editing. 

Woodward, 79, is one of the two Post journalists that famously broke the Watergate scandal

Jim Jordan Launches First Investigation as Judiciary chair

10
Jim Jordan via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) first investigation as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee will examine President Biden’s “mishandling” of classified documents and the Justice Department’s investigation.

“We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C., private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware, residence,” Jordan and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote in a letter sent Friday to Garland.

“On January 12, 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel to investigate these matters,” they wrote. “The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry.”

“It is unclear when the Department first came to learn about the existence of these documents, and whether it actively concealed this information from the public on the eve of the 2022 elections,” Jordan wrote. “It is also unclear what interactions, if any, the Department had with President Biden or his representatives about his mishandling of classified material. The Department’s actions here appear to depart from how it acted in similar circumstances.”

“In fact, on August 8, 2022, despite the publicly available evidence of President Trump’s voluntary cooperation, you personally approved the decision to seek a warrant for excessive and unprecedented access to his private residence. On August 15, 2022, Committee Republicans wrote to you and FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting documents and information related to the FBI’s raid of President Trump’s residence,” the letter said.

Rep. Jordan’s investigation comes one day after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to examine the matter, former U.S. attorney Robert Hur. The DOJ escalated the matter to a special counsel investigation from a mere review after a second stash of classified documents was found inside the garage of Biden’s Delaware home. The first batch of documents were found inside the D.C., offices of the Penn Biden Center think tank.

DeSantis Receives Unexpected Rescue After Being Called ‘Racist’

0

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis received an unexpected rescue after being called a racist.

Black leaders in Miami apologized to Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis after one of its members called him a racist last week, according to reports from Fox News.

Pierre Rutledge, chair of the Miami-Dade Black Affairs Advisory Board, issued a statement on behalf of his board that apologized to DeSantis for a comment made at their Wednesday meeting from a member who said, “Our governor is racist.”

“We take it to heart when someone uses the term racist,” Rutledge said Friday. “Words matter. And so as chair, I must start by saying we want to pull that back. There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘we’re sorry.’ That’s not what we intended to say or be depicted by anyone. And that’s not the feeling of this board.”

The member labeled DeSantis a racist due to the ongoing controversy of an African-American history Advanced Placement course. Earlier this year, Gov. DeSantis rejected the course because he claimed the content did not focus on Black history, instead, the course contained Black Lives Matter and queer issues. 

DeSantis has defended the decision from his Department of Education to remove the African-American history course, which he said pushes a political agenda.

“This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory,” DeSantis said. “Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda.”

Black leaders and Democrats in Florida have pledged to defend and keep the course in schools.

The College Board removed aspects of the course last Wednesday opposed by DeSantis. The course will be reevaluated by the Florida Department of Education to determine if it is appropriate for schools.

McCarthy Offers Concessions in House Rules Package But Critics Doubt It Will Be Enough

2
Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is getting desperate in his attempts to sway Republican detractors back in his favor.

According to The Hill, Rep. McCarthy offered a number of concessions including allowing a move to “vacate the chair” that would force a vote on ousting the Speaker with the approval of five Republican members, rather than a threshold of at least half of the House GOP Conference that Republicans adopted in an internal rule in November. 

The chamber is also scheduled to create a House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government,” a recognition of a request to increase scrutiny on the Biden administration and intelligence agencies.

In a letter to GOP colleagues, McCarthy — speaking as “Speaker-Designate” — also addressed a request from conservatives to have more representation on committees.

“I will use my selections on key panels to ensure they more closely reflect the ideological makeup of our conference, and will advocate for the same when it comes to the membership of standing committees. This will facilitate greater scrutiny of bills from the start so they stand a greater chance of passing in the end,” the letter from McCarthy said.

However, despite McCarthy’s best attempts to re-attract hardline Republican lawmakers back to his side, some conservatives said after a Sunday conference call that McCarthy is still coming up short.

According to The Washington Examiner:

During the course of the call, multiple members “said they won’t vote for it [the rules package] if Kevin is not Speaker,” one lawmaker told The Examiner. Another member said moderates expressed grievances with the changes to the motion to vacate despite pro-McCarthy lawmakers attempting to sell the package to defectors in hopes it would shift critics’ support toward the California Republican.

“They started [the call] with this new rules package that we’re all about to see and are obviously saying the rules package – it’s great, everyone worked so hard, we got all these great things and they’re gonna be historic. And then [Gaetz] got on there and said, ‘Well, if everyone wants the rules package, we should accept it no matter who the speaker is because if these are good rules are good rules, right?’” the lawmaker said. “But then the mods piled on and said actually, we hate the rules package.”

Following the call, a group of conservatives released a letter saying the California Republican’s changes had come up short of what was needed to secure support.

“Regrettably, however, despite some progress achieved, Mr. McCarthy’s statement comes almost impossibly late to address continued deficiencies ahead of the opening of the 118th Congress on January 3rd. At this stage, it cannot be a surprise that expressions of vague hopes reflected in far too many of the crucial points still under debate are insufficient,” they wrote.

“This is especially true with respect to Mr. McCarthy’s candidacy for Speaker because the times call for radical departure from the status quo — not a continuation of past, and ongoing, Republican failures. For someone with a 14-year presence in senior House Republican leadership, Mr. McCarthy bears squarely the burden to correct the dysfunction he now explicitly admits across that long tenure.”

House Freedom Caucus chairman Scott Perry told The Hill on Sunday, “I think what he’s trying to do is the bare minimum that he needs to try and get to where he can get the votes. And that’s not indicative of somebody that really wants to embrace new ideas, reject the status quo and unify all members in the conference.”