The filing is the latest except in the department’s increasingly public effort to criminally investigate efforts by Trump and his allies to disrupt the transfer of power and overturn the 2020 election. It’s also the latest indication that the Justice Department considers the Eastman matter a high priority — it has dispatched its top investigators in matters connected to Trump, including Assistant US Attorney Thomas Windom — to litigate the matter. Last month, Windom revealed that the department had obtained a second search warrant for Eastman’s phone to govern matters that might be covered by attorney-client privilege.
Eastman’s demand that the government give his phone back and destroy all any information copied from it would be a “complete purge of the documents from the Government’s investigatory files,” according to the Justice Department, and “would cause substantial detriment to the investigation, as well as seriously impede any grand jury’s use of the seized material in a future charging decision. The law does not support such action.”
Among Eastman’s complaints: The seizure of his phone, for which a search warrant was obtained, was effectuated by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which typically investigates wrongdoing by department employees. Eastman, on the other hand, is a private attorney. But the department said his argument was simply incorrect. The inspector general has authority to pursue evidence from private parties if it relates to potential “criminal wrongdoing that adversely affects the Department.”
“As a matter of common sense, he is incorrect: an investigation of wrongdoing by one individual routinely involves obtaining evidence from others, particularly in cases involving conspiracies,” Dohrmann writes.
Eastman had also alleged his Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the FBI agents made him unlock his phone with facial recognition, but the Justice Department said the warrant had permitted agents to “obtain a physical characteristic of the movant,” like Eastman’s face, “using their independent knowledge as to what characteristic would be relevant for accessing the seized device.”
The department’s most pointed retort to Eastman came over his complaint that he was not presented with the search warrant prior to having his phone seized.
“In the movant’s professorial view, he should have been provided a copy of the warrant prior to its execution, and then apparently given time (minutes? hours?) to read and analyze it so that he ‘would have been able to call the officer’s attention to the several constitutional infirmities evident on the face of the warrant, thus preventing the unconstitutional seizure in the first place,’” DOJ noted, “all while agents stood in a parking lot, in an open-carry state, knowing that the movant was authorized to carry a concealed weapon.”
The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) fired back against President Biden over a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that would spend billions of dollars to hire thousands of new IRS agents, and cautioned that the new bureaucrats could be used to target conservative groups.
If passed, tens of billions of dollars from the bill would go toward hiring 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents. The bill passed in the Senate on Sunday with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. It now heads to the House for a likely vote at the end of the week.
“Joe Biden is building an army of IRS agents to harass and bully the middle class. It’s something that should concern every American taxpayer. The IRS targeted conservatives during the Obama Administration, so it’s fair to wonder whether Joe Biden will use his new IRS Army to attack conservatives,” said NRCC chairman, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., in an exclusive statement provided to Fox News Digital.
REPUBLICANS SAY DEMOCRATS WILL ‘PAY THE PRICE’ IN MIDTERMS FOR PASSING MASSIVE SPENDING BILL
Sen. Joe Manchin has denied claims that the Inflation Reduction Act will raise taxes on individuals making under 400k per year. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Emmer, who according to Politico is rumored to be in the running for House GOP Whip, may have reason to sound the alarm over IRS targeting if Republicans retake the House in November. In 2013, the tax collection agency was accused of delaying and adding extra scrutiny to the processing of nonprofit tax status applications of conservative organizations. After a two-year investigation by the FBI, the Department of Justice announced it declined to seek criminal charges related to the case.
DEMOCRATS’ INFLATION REDUCTION ACT IS ‘ECONOMIC MALPRACTICE’: ECONOMIST
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., introduced the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 after months of negotiations. In addition to new IRS agents, the bill spends hundreds or billions of dollars on a litany of Democratic Party spending priorities such as climate change and green energy.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin introduced the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Despite the name of the bill, it’s unclear if the legislation will have any meaningful impact on inflation reduction.
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) reported that Americans making under $400,000 a year would have their taxes increased as a result of the act. The committee also concluded that the new bill would increase tax revenue by $16.7 billion on Americans earning less than $200,000 a year.
Sen. Bernie Sanders agreed with Republicans that the new bill would have little impact on inflation.
While speaking on the Senate floor prior to the vote, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., referred to the bill as the “so-called” Inflation Reduction Act, and acknowledged that it would have “minimal impact” on reducing inflation.
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Member of the House of Representatives are expected back in Washington, DC, to debate and vote on the bill as early as this Friday.
Aubrie Spady is a college associate for Fox News Digital.
ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani will not appear as scheduled Tuesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia, his lawyer said.
A judge last month had ordered Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury Tuesday.
But Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, told The Associated Press on Monday that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, had excused Giuliani for the day.
Nothing in publicly available court documents indicates that Giuliani is excused from appearing, but McBurney has scheduled a hearing for 12:30 pm Tuesday to hear arguments on a court filing from Giuliani seeking to delay his appearance. In a court filing Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked the judge to deny Giuliani’s request for a delay and to instruct him to appear before the special grand jury as ordered.
Willis opened an investigation early last year, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request.
Last month she filed petitions seeking to compel testimony from seven Trump advisers and associates, including Giuliani. Because they don’t live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involves getting a judge in the state where they live to order them to appear.
New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 issued an order directing Giuliani to appear before the special grand jury on Aug. 9 and on any other dates ordered by the court in Atlanta.
Giuliani’s legal team last week asked Willis’ office to delay his appearance, saying he was unable to travel because of a medical procedure. That request was rejected after Willis’ team found evidence on social media that he had traveled since his medical procedure.
A Giuliani attorney then clarified to Willis’s team that Giuliani is not cleared for air travel, but Willis still refused to postpone his appearance, the motion says.
In her Monday court filing, Willis wrote that her team had obtained records indicating that between July 19 and July 21, Giuliani bought multiple airline tickets, including tickets to Rome, Italy, and Zurich, Switzerland, for travel dates between July 22 and July 29 Willis said her team offered to provide alternative transportation — including bus or train fare — if Giuliani wasn’t cleared for air travel.
Giuliani had also offered to appear virtually, for example by Zoom, his motion says.
“It is important to note here that Mr. Giuliani is no way seeking to inappropriately delay, or obstruct these proceedings or avoid giving evidence or testimony that is not subject to some claim of privilege in this matter,” the motion says, noting that Giuliani had appeared virtually before the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and testified for more than nine hours.
“Mr. Giuliani is willing to do the same here under conditions that replicate a grand jury proceeding,” the motion says.
In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identified him as both a personal attorney for Trump and a lead attorney for his campaign.
She wrote that he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani allegedly showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers.
Within 24 hours of that hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the site. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote.
Evidence shows that Giuliani’s appearance and testimony at the hearing “was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says.
The Senate passed a sweeping budget package Sunday intended to bring financial relief to Americans, but not before Republican senators voted to strip a proposal that would have capped the price of insulin at $35 per month for many patients.
A proposal that limits the monthly cost of insulin to $35 for Medicare patients was left untouched. But using a parliamentary rule, GOP lawmakers were able to jettison the part of the proposal that would apply to privately insured patients.
How the Inflation Reduction Act might impact you — and change the US
Seven Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the broader price cap, but that wasn’t enough for passage. A number of Republican senators who voted for the proposal to be removed come from states with some of the highest mortality rates for diabetes, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Lowering the price of drugs such as insulin, which is used by diabetics to manage their blood sugar levels, is widely popular with voters, polling shows. Senate Democrats denounced Republicans for voting against relief for Americans struggling to pay for the lifesaving drug.
More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, and about 7 million require insulin daily to manage their blood sugar levels.
Here’s what we know about how Americans would be affected by the Senate vote:
Republicans block cap on insulin costs for millions of patients
What would the insulin price cap do?
The insulin price cap, part of a larger package of proposals to cut prescription drug and other health-care costs, was intended tolimit out-of-pocket monthly insulin costs to $35 for most Americans who use insulin.
More than 1 in 5 insulin users on private medical insurance pay more than $35 per month for the medicine, according to a recent analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The same analysis found that the median monthly savings for those people would range from $19 to $27, depending on their type of insurance market.
The average Medicare patient using insulin paid $54 for prescriptions, according to KFF, an increase of nearly 40 percent since 2007.
With the Republican vote to strip the provision, only Medicare recipients would be eligible for the cap. The legislation still must pass the House.
Why is insulin so expensive?
Insulin was discovered in Canada in the 1920s, and the researchers, who won the Nobel Prize, sold their patent to the University of Toronto for $3. Since then, the drug has become a major commercial enterprise.
The global insulin market is dominated by US-based Eli Lilly, the French company Sanofi and the Danish firm Novo Nordisk. A report released in December by Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee accused the drugmakers of repeatedly raising their prices in lockstep and working to “maintain monopoly pricing,” allegations the companies have denied.
In a statement, Novo Nordisk said the complexities of the US health-care system influence the insulin market and that “many factors” determine what a person pays out of pocket for insulin. The company said net prices for its products have “continued to decline over the past 5 consecutive years.” A Sanofi spokesperson said in a statement that “despite rhetoric about insulin prices,” the net price of its insulin has failed for seven straight years, “making our insulins significantly less expensive for insurance companies.”
Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A generic insulin is slated to come on the market in 2024 and could help drive down prices.
Researchers also blame issues such as increasingly complicated supply chains for the dramatic rise in drug prices over the past decade. US insulin prices are well above the average price paid in other developed countries, according to a government report.
A Yale University study found insulin is an “extreme financial burden” for more than 14 percent of Americans who use it. These people are spending more than 40 percent of their income after food and housing costs on the medicine.
What does this mean for uninsured patients and Medicaid recipients?
The legislation doesn’t limit the cost of insulin for uninsured patients, despite last-minute lobbying from some House lawmakers to add in such protections. Uninsured Americans with diabetes are more likely to be using less costly formulations of insulin compared with those on private insurance or Medicaid, yet they have a higher tendency to pay full price for the lifesaving medication, according to a 2020 report from the Commonwealth Fund, a health care think tank.
For those on Medicaid, many don’t have co-pays for insulin, though some states may have modest amounts beneficiaries must pay, such as $2 for a standard prescription, according to Sherry Glied, dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
But in general, costs for those with diabetes can vary widely from person to person, except for those on Medicaid.
“There’s no average person with diabetes, right, and so no two people are managing their diabetes in the exact same way,” said Aaron Turner-Phifer, advocacy director for JDRF, an organization funding research into Type 1 diabetes. “Folks are taking different types of insulin, they’re taking them via pens, they’re taking them via pumps, some are using different devices. … The amount of insulin that they’re taking varies from person to person”
What are Republicans saying about the insulin price cap?
Many Republicans have opposed the $35 cap, saying the measure did not address the root problem of skyrocketing insulin prices. Instead, they said, it would force insurance companies to pass on the cost through premiums.
The cap would have also been a major win for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections in November, possibly feeding GOP opposition to the proposal.
Still, other Republicans decried what they have called “socialist” government interference in the free market. “Today it’s the government fixing the price on insulin,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “What’s next, gas? Food?”
Did President Donald Trump lower the price of insulin?
In 2020, PresidentDonald Trump claimed that he had drastically lowered the price of insulin: “Insulin, it’s going to — it was destroying families, destroying people. The cost,” Trump said in a debate. “I’m getting it for so cheap it’s like water.” His statement from him drew criticism from patient advocates and people still struggling to afford their medication.
In 2020, drugmakers reduced the cost of insulin for some patients who lost jobs, health insurance or both as a result of the pandemic.
Trump signed an executive order to lower the price of insulin as one of his final health-care acts in office. The ruling was narrow, experts said, and would have lowered the cost of insulin for certain patients who go to certain federally qualified health centers.
It was rescinded by the Biden administration. Health officials said at the time that the rule would have imposed “excessive administrative costs and burdens” on health centers — and reduced resources for other health services.
Where have Democrats and Republicans historically stood on insulin prices?
Both Democrats and Republicans have blasted the high price of insulin, including in congressional hearings and in bipartisan investigations. But they’ve taken different approaches toward curbing the cost of the medicine.
Republicans have long proposed alternatives to Democrats’ drug-pricing measures. In the House, key GOP lawmakers have released plans to place a monthly $50 cap on insulin and its supplies for those in Medicare’s drug benefit after seniors hit their deductibles. In the Senate, top-ranking Republicans have crafted a bill to make permanent an existing temporary pilot project that gives those on Medicare the option to get a voluntary prescription drug plan where insulin costs $35 per month.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan pair of senators unveiled legislation in June aimed at tackling the cost of insulin, which was the result of months of work to forge a compromise. But the legislation hasn’t come up for a vote and faces daunting political odds in its quest to obtain 10 Republican votes to pass the bill in the Senate.
Evan Halper, Bryan Pietsch and Tony Romm contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — A nurse who was allegedly driving 90 mph when she ran a red light and slammed into traffic in Windsor Hills, killing six people, will be charged with murder and could face a 90-year sentence, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said Monday.
Nicole Linton, 37, will be charged with six counts of murder and five counts of gross vehicular manslaughter, Gascón said.
If convicted of all charges, she faces a potential sentence of 90 years to life in prison.
Linton was hospitalized after the crash, but was booked into jail over the weekend. She was initially being held on $2 million bail but records indicated that amount was increased to $9 million.
Authorities say Linton was speeding in a Mercedes when she ran a red light at the intersection of La Brea and Slauson avenues on Thursday. She slammed into multiple vehicles, and three of them were engulfed by flames.
Linton is a traveling nurse from Houston who was working in the Los Angeles area. Police are looking into whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash.
On Monday, Gascón said so far police have not developed evidence of alcohol use but they are continuing to investigate.
RELATED: Woman was heading to prenatal checkup with infant son, boyfriend before deadly Windsor Hills crash
Among the dead were Asherey Ryan, who was more than eight months pregnant, along with her boyfriend Reynold Lester and their unborn baby, named Armani Lester. Asherey’s 11-month old son Alonzo Quintero was also killed. They were heading to a prenatal doctor’s appointment at the time of the crash.
“A young family was destroyed in the blink of an eye,” Gascón said.
Gascón said the six murder charges include Asherey’s unborn child, but the charge of manslaughter cannot legally apply.
After hitting their car, Linton’s Mercedes then collided with a Nissan Altima and killed two women inside, who have not been publicly identified.
She also careened into an SUV carrying a family of seven. They all incurred minor injuries. Several other vehicles were also struck.
Family members and community members gathered at the intersection Sunday to remember the lives lost.
“She was such a beautiful lady,” said Jean Martin of Windsor Hills, who attended the vigil. “You know she was a good mom. To her family de ella, be sure to take the life and time you had and cherish that.”
A growing memorial of flowers, photos and candles was placed at the intersection in memory of the victims.
“His body was damn near cremated on the corner,” said Lester’s aunt, Shanita Guy. “For what? For what?”
Family members and community activists also called for safety improvements at the intersection, which they say has seen other serious crashes.
They also called for Linton to face the maximum penalty allowed by law if convicted.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Asherey’s family with funeral expenses.
McMullin is running as an independent in the mold of Romney or Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.), a novel strategy that requires support from Democrats, independents and anti-Trump Republicans in a deep-red state. He says the race is “close,” citing public polls showing him within 5 points; during an interview, Lee handed over an internal poll showing him up by 14.
Even as a clear underdog, McMullin is making it the most competitive Utah Senate race in perhaps 30 years. It’s a remarkable test of McMullin’s unproven theory that he can topple a conservative by running a one-on-one race with no Democratic spoiler. The matchup is as much about the last six years of the Republican Party — and Lee’s place in it — as it is about McMullin’s half-court heave of a political strategy.
“I’m taking it very seriously,” Lee said in an interview. “It’s still closer than I’d like it to be.”
During a 35-minute interview, McMullin says his state deserves two Romneys and vowed that “I will be in a coalition in the Senate as I am in Utah, with other pro-democracy senators.” Yet how he’d make that work without joining either the GOP or Democratic side of the aisle is a nagging question.
Even if the Senate ends up 50-49 next year with his one vote swinging control of the chamber from one party to another, McMullin underscored that he would not caucus with either party. Since the 1950s, independents elected to the Senate have caucused with either Republicans or Democrats, according to the Senate Historical Office.
McMullin insisted he would still receive committee assignments despite his stance. Lee scoffed disapprovingly at that: “I don’t think anyone knows how that would work, because it isn’t done.” To Sen. McMullin, the Republican said, is in a “no-man’s land.”
Several Senate Republicans privately believe if Lee has a vulnerability, it’s his “heck no” attitude that results in fewer home-state accomplishments than an incumbent might like come reelection time. McMullin hammers Lee as someone who “gets nothing done for Utah.”
Going strictly by the numbers, Lee is one of the most reliable “no” votes in the Senate. At times he’s tag-teamed with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), including on a fight to defund Obamacare that ended in a 2013 government shutdown.
“Yes, I voted no a lot,” Lee explains. “A lot of bills that are coming forward are harmful to the American people and horrible to Utah.”
Part of the race is also hinging on Jan. 6, 2021. Lee’s text messages favorably discussing Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election are becoming a campaign-trail cudgel for McMullin, who argues that his rival betrayed party principles to support the former president’s baseless claims.
“When you advise spurious legal challenges to a free and fair election that were designed to convince tens of millions of Americans that the election was stolen … that is not what a constitutional conservative does,” McMullin said.
Lee counters that he was merely exploring the validity of the Trump team’s “unusual and surprising” legal arguments about widespread fraud: “So I made phone calls. The rumors were not true. And I voted to certify the election.”
Though he came to enjoy a close relationship with Trump, Lee is not a down-the-line Trump Republican. The Utahn recalled telling Trump at the start of his presidency that if you “fight to protect and restore federalism and separation of powers, you have no greater ally. And so far as you undermine those things, I will be a thorn in your side.”
Since Lee prevailed in 2010 over then-Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) in the state GOP’s complicated nomination process, he’s become one of the most libertarian senators, forming cross-party alliances on topics like military intervention overseas and criminal justice reform. He said in an interview for this story that he’d probably support writing same-sex marriage into law if religious liberty exemptions are added to the bill, a similar view to McMullin.
Yet Lee’s never faced a real reelection threat. He won his two previous general election campaigns by 29 points and 41 points, respectively.
And McMullin didn’t quite come out of nowhere; the state’s highest-ranking Democratic official said she backed McMullin’s campaign after seeing he was raising money and mounting a credible challenge.
“If they had a really weak launch, I don’t know that former Congressman Ben McAdams and I would have done what we did,” said Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, who ran against Romney in 2018 and helped shape the state party’s pro -McMullin strategy.
It’s not clear if Democrats in DC will follow the Utah Democratic Party into McMullin’s camp, though. A Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee helped said the organization is “keeping an eye on the race.”
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) described Democrats as “angry” McMullin has won over the state party after his past life as a Republican.
“Mike Lee’s going to win,” Cruz said, slamming Democrats for trying to “prop up a candidate like McMullin to confuse and deceive voters.”
The well-funded GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund “will be there if [Lee] needs us,” said a spokesperson. But in a sign of how awkward the race is for Utah Republicans, who are split between the politics of Romney and Trump, a spokesperson for Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Utah) said he was “unavailable” for an interview.
“There’s never been a race like this,” said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), who supports Lee.
The DSCC endorsed independent Al Gross in Alaska’s 2020 Senate race, but the races aren’t quite parallels. Lee is more polarizing than Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who ended up beating Gross by 12 points, and Alaska elected a Democratic senator as recently as 2008. Democrat Frank Moss’ Senate win in 1970 was the last time a non-Republican won a Senate race in Utah.
As such, Lee’s campaign against McMullin is simple. Lee handed over a McMullin flier that shows the independent supporting expanded gun background checks, labor unions and “voting rights legislation in Congress.”
Lee argued that McMullin can’t “convince the Democratic Party not to run a candidate and to back you instead — and then campaign on a Democratic agenda, supporting a Democratic president — and pretend to be ideologically neutral.”
In fact, McMullin is open about his more progressive positions. He said he would consider weakening the filibuster, he would probably have supported Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson plus bipartisan bills on infrastructure, gun safety and microchips.
McMullin hasn’t given a yes-or-no answer on how he would vote on Democrats’ party-line climate, tax and health care legislation — I said there are parts he likes and parts he does not.
He draws the line at Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill. But overall, McMullin thinks campaigning as a future bipartisan gang member is a winner.
Romney “is in the room where it happens,” McMullin said. “I will take that approach.”
McMullin’s apparent role model said he still doesn’t think he will choose sides but accepted that praise: “Anytime anybody thinks I’m a good guy, I’m complimented,” Romney said in an interview. “I’ve worked with Mike a lot and appreciate the work we do together. But both are good friends, and I’m going to stay out.”
Lee responded that though “it’d be great to have” Romney’s backing, “I plan, intend and expect to win with or without it.”
The jet was aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier, when it blew overboard on July 8, the release said.
The service members who recovered the aircraft used a remotely operated vehicle to attach “specialized rigging and lift lines” to the jet while it was underwater. After attaching the rigging, the recovery team then attached a lifting hook to the rigging to “raise the aircraft to the surface” of the ocean and “hoist it” onto the multi-purpose construction vessel Everest, a separate motor vessel that can be used for a variety of purposes in the ocean, the release said.
Once the aircraft had been recovered from the depths of the ocean and put on the MPV Everest, the team transported the aircraft to a “nearby military installation,” the release said. The aircraft will then be transported from the military installation to the US, the release added.
The team that recovered the aircraft included service members from several different naval units, among them members from Task Force (CTF) 68, Naval Sea Systems Command’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, service members assigned to the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, Naval Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic and US Sixth Fleet, the release said.
“The rapid response of the combined team… allowed us to conduct safe recovery operations within 27 days of the incident,” Lieutenant Commander Miguel Lewis, US Sixth Fleet salvage officer, said in the statement. “Our task tailored team operated safely and efficiently to meet the timeline.”
The father and son convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery were both given an additional sentence of life in prison Monday on federal hate crime charges, while their neighbor was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
A judge also required that Travis McMichael, 36, Greg McMichael, 66, and William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, serve their sentences in state prison, not federal prison as had been requested by their attorneys.
“A young man is dead. Ahmaud Arbery will be forever 25. And what happened, a jury found, happened because he’s Black,” US District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said during Greg McMichael’s sentencing.
The McMichaels and Bryan, who are all white, were found guilty in February on federal hate crime charges in the killing of Arbery, a Black man who was running in their neighborhood when the defendants confronted him in February 2020. The three men were convicted of all of the federal charges against them, including hate crimes, attempted kidnapping and the use of a firearm to commit a crime.
Prosecutors sought life sentences for all three men.
However, Godbey Wood said she thought it was necessary to distinguish Bryan from the McMichaels, in part because unlike his neighbors, he did not bring a gun with him when the men chased Arbery.
“It is not lost on the court that two men brought guns to that situation that had their worst effect and you weren’t one of them,” she said. She added, however, that Bryan was “still deserving of an awfully long sentence.”
“By the time you serve your federal sentence, you will be close to 90 years old. But again, Mr. Arbery never got the chance to be 26,” she said. “I determined that the sentence imposed is a very long summary and it is one that has been earned.”
Prosecutor Tara Lyons called the sentencing hearings “the end of at least one chapter in an excruciatingly painful journey for Ahmaud Arbery’s family, for his community and for an entire nation that has wept for Ahmaud.”
The men were sentenced separately, in back-to-back trials on Monday.
Amy Lee Copeland, Travis McMichael’s attorney, asked during his sentencing that the judge allow her client to serve his sentence in federal prison because, she said, he had received “hundreds of threats” and would probably be killed in state custody. AJ Balbo, an attorney for Greg McMichael, told the judge he was medically “not fit” to serve his sentence in state prison.
Both Copeland and Balbo also said they were concerned about an investigation by the Department of Justice into inmate violence in the Georgia state prison system.
The prosecution and members of Arbery’s family asked that the McMichaels serve their sentences in state prison.
Travis McMichael, whose sentence is life plus 10 years, declined to speak before the judge announced her decision.
His father, whose life sentence includes an additional seven years, addressed Arbery’s family, telling them “the loss you’ve endured is beyond description. There’s no words for it.”
He added that he “never wanted any of this to happen. There was no malice in my heart, or my son’s heart, that day.”
The older McMichael also apologized to his son, saying he should have “never put him in that situation.”
Bryan also apologized to Arbery’s family.
“I’m sorry, I am, for what happened to him on that day. I never intended any harm to him,” Bryan said. “And I never would have played any role in what happened if I knew then what I know now.”
Marcus Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery’s father, said ahead of the sentencing that “these three devils have broken my heart into pieces that cannot be found or repaired” and asked the court to give the stiffest sentence possible.
“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said.
Wanda Cooper-Jones, Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, said Travis McMichael “took my baby son.”
“I feel every shot that was fired every day,” she said.
The federal case followed a state trial in November in which the men were convicted of murder and given life sentences. They have appealed their convictions in that case.
The federal hate crimes trial centered on the history of the three men and their racial bias, a motive that prosecutors in the state case largely avoided, even though Arbery’s killing gained national attention as the United States was reckoning with systemic institutional racism and bias in policing. .
The McMichaels and Bryan chased Arbery, 25, through their coastal Georgia neighborhood in trucks. The men, who spotted Arbery running by their homes, cornered him, and Travis McMichael fatally shot him with a shotgun. Bryan filmed the fatal encounter on his cellphone.
The men were arrested months after the shooting, following the release of Bryan’s phone video and growing national attention. The case was then taken over by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Ahmaud Arbery.Courtesy of Family
Arbery’s family and civil rights leaders have likened his death to a modern-day lynching.
The McMichaels attempted to plead guilty to the hate crime charges before trial, but the plea agreement was rejected by the judge after Arbery’s parents protested that the men would be able to serve their time in federal prison instead of state.
Federal prosecutors worked to establish that Arbery’s murder was driven by the men’s strong prejudices against Black people. Witnesses included an FBI analyst who went through the men’s social media history and neighbors and former co-workers of the McMichaels, who all testified that the father and son made troubling racist jokes, rants and statements and were open about their negative feelings toward Black people .
The defense said the messages and social media posts were taken out of context and that even though they had said troubling things, they insisted the men were not driven by their racial bias to pursue and kill Arbery.
This month, Greg McMichael’s attorney asked the judge not to impose a life sentence, although he said his client still deserves “a substantial period of incarceration,” The Associated Press reported. McMichael’s defense team also asked the judge for a transfer to federal prison, where he could avoid serving time for the murder in Georgia’s state prison system.
The lone survivor of the lightning strike that killed three people outside the White House was saved by quick-thinking Secret Service agents — and her Dr. Martens boots, according to her mom.
Californian student Amber Escudero-Kontostathis was struck last Thursday while raising money in Washington, DC, for refugees — even though it was her 28th birthday.
While three others were killed in the strike — including a fellow young Californian — Escudero-Kontostathis was revived by agents who raced to the scene with a defibrillator, her mom, Julie Escudero, told the Ventura County Star.
“The Secret Service men saved her,” Escudero said. “I’ve been trying to find out their names so I can personally thank them. They revived her.”
Amber Escudero-Kontostathis was the lone survivor of four hit by lightning outside the White House last Thursday — her 28th birthday.LinkedIn
In a series of emotional Facebook updates, Escudero detailed how doctors believe the lightning that struck her daughter “went through her toes and out her left arm.”
That likely meant her daughter was saved by the thick rubber “Airwair” soles on Dr. Martens’ boots absorbing some of the impact, her mom speculated.
Escudero-Kontostathis — who was with her husband, Achilles, in DC — has already left intensive care and taken her first steps unaided, said her mom, who flew from California to be by her daughter’s side.
“The trauma doctor came up [Friday] and said she’s an ‘absolute miracle,’” her mom told the local outlet.
Amber Escudero-Kontostathis was the lone survivor of four hit by lightning that was caught on camera striking at the foot of the White House last ThursdayREUTERS
In her Facebook posts, Escudero also detailed how her daughter “is literally blowing all the doctors away with the progress her body is making.”
Still, she is suffering “unbearable” pain from a large burn on her stomach that makes it feel like it’s “on fire” — and is suffering crushing “survivor’s guilt” after learning the three others hit all died, her mom said.
Escudero-Kontostathis had a Monday meeting scheduled with a trauma counselor.
And she has also “made the connection to the other 3 wonderful people who passed,” her mom said, referring to bank VP Brooks Lambertson, 29, as well as James Mueller, 76, and Donna Mueller, 75, childhood sweethearts from Wisconsin celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary.
The three killed included James Mueller, 76, and Donna Mueller, 75, childhood sweethearts from Wisconsin celebrating their 56th wedding anniversaryFacebook/WISN 12 NEWS
“She wants to reach out to their families,” her mom said Monday. “She cares so much for others, it will be hard for her.”
Escudero-Kontostathis is also anxious about missing the start of her masters-degree course at John Hopkins at the end of this month.
Escudero said she was “beyond grateful and humbled” that friends had started a GoFundMe that as of Monday afternoon had raised more than $40,000 to help with medical costs.
“I literally fell to my knees when I saw the GoFundMe page. I truly have no words!” she said.
Former President Donald Trump appears to have flushed ripped-up government documents down the toilet after all, new photos revealed on Monday.
New York Times’ reporter Maggie Haberman obtained the document dump photos for “Confidence Man,” her forthcoming book on the Trump White House.
Despite Trump’s denials, the photos show scraps of paper in two toilet bowls with his distinctive handwriting on them.
Former President Donald Trump arrives to deliver the final remarks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022. (Shafkat Anowar/AP)
“Some (Trump) aides were aware of the habit, which he engaged in repeatedly,” Haberman told Axios, which published the incriminating potty pics. “It was an extension of Trump’s term-long habit of ripping up documents that were supposed to be preserved.”
According to the report, one of the photos is of a toilet in the White House while another is from a foreign trip.
[ Trump denies White House toilet document dump ]
It’s impossible to tell the subject of the destroyed documents. But the name “Stefanik,” apparently a reference to upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik (RN.Y.), is legible on one piece of paper.
Trump derived the new report through his spokesman, Tyler Budowich.
“You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan,” said Budowich.
The twice-impeached president was notorious for ripping up documents in his frequent rages, forcing aides to collect scraps that later had to be taped back together and submitted to the National Archives.
Trump also took several boxes stuffed with records, including papers marked “CLASSIFIED” with him to his Florida estate when he left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021.
The actions could violate the Presidential Records Act, which says that such records are government property and must be preserved.
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