In June, after greater than two years of investigation, Vance, the Manhattan district lawyer, secured an indictment of the Trump Group and its longtime chief monetary officer, Allen Weisselberg, on felony tax fraud expenses. Quickly Vance’s workplace would start presenting proof to a particular grand jury with the intention of indicting the previous president himself.
Now Vance is out of workplace and his case seems to have unravelled.
The primary indication got here final month when the 2 senior prosecutors main the investigation, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, abruptly resigned. Final week, Pomerantz’s anguished resignation letter emerged within the pages of the New York Instances, all however confirming that Vance’s successor, Alvin Bragg, had cooled on the probe.
“I consider that your determination to not prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the present document, is misguided and utterly opposite to the general public curiosity,” Pomerantz wrote, expressing his perception that the previous president was responsible of “quite a few felony violations” for inflating the worth of his property to be able to safe financial institution loans, tax breaks and different financial advantages.
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It was a very bitter tablet to swallow for Pomerantz. The outstanding New York white collar lawyer had left his personal follow final 12 months to assist Vance push an unprecedented felony investigation of a former president over the end line.
The proof gathered by Vance’s staff could but plague Trump. The findings are anticipated to kind the premise of a lawsuit in opposition to the corporate by the New York attorney-general, Letitia James. As a civil case, a conviction would require a decrease burden of proof.
A preview of that proof in current court docket filings has introduced public ridicule. In certainly one of many such cases, Trump was proven to have overstated the worth of his penthouse by some $200mn. His longtime accountant, Mazars, severed ties after that and related allegations surrounding the valuation of Trump golf golf equipment and workplace towers have been aired.
Trump, in the meantime, has additionally been thrust into authorized jeopardy in Georgia, the place a particular grand jury has been authorised to research doable election interference by the previous president.
Nonetheless, the Manhattan felony investigation was lengthy thought to be essentially the most dire authorized risk going through Trump and his household enterprise. The previous president has repeatedly dismissed the probe as a partisan witch hunt. In fending it off, he was helped by a sturdy defence, the bonds of loyalty and a splash of luck.
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Trump’s pugnacious legal professionals, led by Ron Fischetti, slowed Vance’s march by twice dragging him to the Supreme Courtroom earlier than grudgingly turning over their consumer’s tax paperwork. (In an instance of the small world of New York’s white collar bar, Fischetti is Pomerantz’s pal and former legislation associate).
Then Weisselberg, 74, who has served the Trump household for greater than 40 years, remained steadfast in his refusal to co-operate with the federal government — even when his kids have been threatened with expenses. He has pleaded not responsible to expenses that he didn’t pay taxes on greater than $1.7mn in advantages over time, together with automobiles, lease and faculty charges, allegedly provided by the Trump Group.
“They pinned an excessive amount of on Weisselberg, considering he was going to co-operate. And I feel they only didn’t perceive this is sort of a household enterprise,” one lawyer concerned within the case stated.
The brand new DA, a revered former prosecutor, has not defined his reasoning. In a press release this week, his spokesperson stated “the investigation continues”, and {that a} “staff of skilled prosecutors is working daily to comply with the info and the legislation”.
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In the meantime, a blame sport has commenced as to who fumbled the Trump case.
Pomerantz urged in his letter that Bragg had confirmed a scarcity of nerve. “No case is ideal. Regardless of the dangers of bringing the case could also be, I’m satisfied {that a} failure to prosecute will pose a lot larger dangers when it comes to public confidence within the truthful administration of justice,” he wrote.
However others fault Vance for saddling a rookie DA with a flawed case that risked far-reaching and flamable ramifications in a politically polarised nation. “These are low-level felonies, and Trump can beat them,” one other lawyer concerned within the case stated.
Vance, this particular person believed, ought to have introduced expenses beneath his personal identify months in the past, or dropped the matter. Others go as far as to complain that Bragg is being made a scapegoat after years of prosecutorial construct up that whetted the urge for food of anti-Trump partisans.
As it’s, the brand new DA has had a rocky begin. He issued a memo on his first day ordering employees to keep away from jail sentences for a lot of crimes simply as the town was changing into unsettled by an increase in violent crime. Bragg, a revered former prosecutor who campaigned as a progressive Democrat, has struggled to regain his footing since.
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There may be the extra prosaic view that two DAs merely reached totally different judgments about an imperfect case. Daniel Goldman, who served as counsel for the Democrats on Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, known as Pomerantz’s scrape with Bragg “the kind of disagreement that line prosecutors and their superiors have on a regular basis”.
Vance, who declined to remark, is aware of shut calls: In 2012, he pissed off some staffers by opting to drop a separate investigation of two of Trump’s kids, Donald Jr and Ivanka, for allegedly mendacity to potential consumers about condominium gross sales at a Trump growth in Manhattan. That case, he concluded, merely couldn’t have been proved to a jury past an inexpensive doubt.
All events appear to agree the present Trump case was by no means going to be a straightforward one. It will require main a jury by means of a dense thicket of property valuations arrived at for banking, insurance coverage, tax and advertising and marketing functions. With out Weisselberg’s co-operation, it was not clear there could be a star witness to help with that process.
Michael Cohen, the one-time Trump fixer whose 2019 Congressional testimony prompted Vance and James to open their investigations, would hardly qualify as a dependable witness after pleading responsible to tax and marketing campaign finance evasion and mendacity to the Senate.
Trump, both canny or technically-inept, or maybe each, is thought to keep away from electronic mail, depriving prosecutors of potential proof displaying that he ordered valuations to be inflated with malign intent.
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Even when such issues might be established, his banks and insurers wouldn’t make for sympathetic victims, a number of legal professionals agreed. Deutsche Financial institution, Trump’s greatest lender, is meant to conduct its personal due diligence earlier than extending loans slightly than counting on unaudited monetary statements issued by a developer and actuality tv star whose braggadocio is a part of his model.
Reflecting on the case, one lawyer summoned the irritating hole for a prosecutor between believing somebody was responsible of against the law after which having the ability to show it past an inexpensive doubt in court docket. “A grand jury would possibly indict a ham sandwich,” this particular person stated, borrowing a well-known line from the previous New York choose Sol Wachtler. “However any individual has to strive the ham sandwich.”
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In the wake of the devastating fires in Los Angeles, many people are referencing the work of the science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Butler, who grew up in Pasadena, was the daughter of a housekeeper and a father who was a shoeshiner. She went on to become the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur “genius” award. Her book “Parable of the Sower,” published in 1993, paints a picture of a California ravished by the effects of climate change, income inequality, political divisiveness and centers on a young woman struggling to find faith and the community to build a new future.
The phrase “Octavia tried to tell us,” which began to gain momentum in 2020 during the pandemic, has once again resurfaced, in part because Butler studied science and history so deeply. The accuracy with which she read the shifts in America can, at times, seem eerily prophetic. One entry in “Parable of the Sower,” which is structured as a journal, dated on “February 1, 2025” begins, “We had a fire today.” It goes on to describe how the fear of fires plague Robledo, a fictional town that feels much like Altadena, a haven for the Black middle class for more than 50 years, where Butler lived in the late ’90s.
In 2000, Butler wrote a piece for Essence magazine titled, “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future.” She wrote: “Of course, writing novels about the future doesn’t give me any special ability to foretell the future. But it does encourage me to use our past and present behaviors as guides to the kind of world we seem to be creating. The past, for example, is filled with repeating cycles of strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity, empire and ashes.”
In one of the last interviews before she died in 2006, Butler spoke to Democracy Now!, an independent news organization, about how she’d been worried about how climate could devastate California . “I wrote the two ‘Parable’ books back in the ’90s,” she said, referring to “Parable of the Sower” and her 1998 follow-up, “Parable of the Talents.” These books, she explained, were about what happens when “we don’t trouble to correct some of the problems we are brewing for ourselves right now. Global warming is one of those problems. And I was aware of it back in the ’80s.” She continued: “A lot of people were seeing it as politics, as something very iffy, as something they could ignore because nothing was going to come of it tomorrow.”
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Lynell George, a writer who lives in Los Angeles and the author of a book on Butler and her creative journey, has spent many years studying Butler’s archives at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. In 2022, we asked George to write about how Butler predicted the world we live in. As so many people are turning to her work during this time of tremendous loss, we wanted to share that story with our readers again.
In her piece, “The Visions of Octavia Butler,” George wrote: “In ‘Parable of the Sower,’ Earth is tipping toward climate disaster: A catastrophic drought has led to social upheaval and violent class wars. Butler, a fervent environmentalist, researched the novel by clipping articles, taking notes and monitoring rain and growth in her Southern California neighborhood. She couldn’t help but wonder, she later wrote, what ‘environmental and economic stupidities’ might lead to. She often called herself a pessimist, but threaded into the bleak landscape of her ‘Parable’ novels are strands of glimmering hope — ribbons of blue at the edges of the fictional fiery skies.”
Read more of George’s “The Visions of Octavia Butler” here.
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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Parts of Donald Trump’s inauguration will be moved inside the US Capitol because of freezing weather that is forecast for Washington on Monday.
It will be the first time since 1985 — when a severe cold snap hit Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration — that a swearing-in ceremony has been moved indoors.
The president-elect announced the revised plans in a Truth Social post on Friday, saying he had ordered the inauguration address, as well as prayers and speeches, to be delivered inside the Capitol Rotunda as Reagan had done four decades ago.
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“There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way,” Trump wrote.
“It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th.”
The National Weather Service said an “enhanced winter storm threat” was in place for Sunday afternoon and evening, and predicted about 2-4 inches of snow would fall, with a “reasonable worst case” scenario of 4-8 inches.
“Bitterly cold wind chills” were expected Monday to Wednesday, the NWS said on Friday, as it forecast temperatures to be “well below freezing” during this period.
The agency is forecasting a high of about -5C at 11am local time on Monday, when the swearing-in ceremony is due to begin, with a wind-chill of -13C that it warned could result in hypothermia or frostbite without appropriate attire.
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Trump said the Capital One Arena — with a capacity of 20,000 — will be opened on Monday for a live viewing of the ceremony, and that he would visit the venue, located about 2km from the Capitol, following his swearing-in.
Other events, including a victory rally at the arena are scheduled for Sunday and inaugural balls set for Monday night, will continue as scheduled, the president-elect said.
Trump encouraged supporters who choose to come to “dress warmly!”
Security contractor Zachary Young alleges CNN defamed him in a November 2021 report, shown above, about Afghans’ fears of exorbitant charges from people offering to get them out of the country after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. CNN says it will defend the report in a trial set to start in a Florida court Monday.
CNN via Internet Archive/Screenshot by NPR
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CNN via Internet Archive/Screenshot by NPR
A Florida jury has found that CNN defamed a security consultant in presenting a story that suggested he was charging “exorbitant prices” to evacuate people desperate to get out of Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.
Jurors found the network should pay $5 million to U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young for lost finances and suffering, and said he was eligible for more in punitive damages. The proceedings turned immediately to expert testimony as both sides presented cases over what punitive damages would be appropriate.
Young sat impassively as the jury’s verdict was read aloud in court.
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The November 2021 story focused on concerns from Afghans that they faced extraordinary costs in a “black market” to secure safe passage for relatives and friends, especially those who had worked with U.S. agencies and organizations and therefore were fearful of the takeover by the Taliban.
Young was the only security contractor named in the piece, however, and a caption warned he offered “no guarantee of safety or success.”
He was not directly accused of operating in a black market in the television or written versions of the story, but the words did appear in the caption in the TV version of the story.
On the witness stand during the trial, CNN editors defended use of the term “black market,” saying it meant operating in unregulated circumstances, such as the chaos of Kabul at that time; Young’s lawyers noted that dictionaries consistently ascribe illegality to the term.
The jury found CNN liable for defamation per se, meaning it had harmed Young by the very words it chose, and for defamation by implication, that is, it had harmed his reputation by the implications that a reasonable reader or viewer might take from the story.
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Young’s lead attorney, Devin Freedman, had argued that CNN willfully damaged Young, costing him millions of dollars and causing irreparable personal harm, and that the network should be punished for it. Toward the very end of his closing arguments, Freedman told the jury they had the rare opportunity to hold the press accountable.
“Media executives around the country are sitting by the phones to see what you do,” Freedman told jurors. “CNN’s executives are waiting in their boardrooms in Georgia to see what you decide. Make the phones ring in Georgia. Send a message.”
After the initial verdict, Judge William S. Henry instructed jurors that they could only find punitive damages against CNN for its actions in the case at hand, not over any other story or issue.
Even so, over the course of the lawsuit, lawyers for Zachary Young acquired internal correspondence showing several editors within CNN held reservations about the solidity of the reporting behind the story.
For example, Fuzz Hogan, a senior director of standards for CNN, acknowledged in testimony under oath that he had approved a “three-quarters true” story. Another editor, Tom Lumley, had said in an internal message that the piece was “80 percent emotion.” On the stand, Lumley said that it still wasn’t his favorite story, but on the grounds of the craft of story-telling involved.
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During the trial, CNN’s lawyers had contended the story’s reporting holds up as fair and true under scrutiny. CNN correspondent Alexander Marquardt had presented viewers with a LinkedIn message from Young saying it would cost $75,000 to evacuate a vehicle with five or six passengers from Kabul to Pakistan. Young said he worked with corporate sponsors, including Bloomberg and Audible, rather than individuals.
On the stand, Young acknowledged that he took a 65% profit margin from the fees he charged, and took inquiries from individuals. He also curtly and coarsely brushed off people inquiring about help who could not afford his fees.
Other groups involving U.S. veterans and non-governmental organizations sought to get Afghans out without such profits, as a former major general testifying on Young’s behalf acknowledged. The retired major general, James V. Young Jr. (not related to Zach Young), said he charged donors for the cost.
CNN’s legal team, led by David Axelrod (the lawyer is not related to the Obama White House official and CNN analyst of the same name) had told jurors they should rely on their own “common sense.”
Axelrod had been able to press Young to concede that some of his claims to potential clients were not borne out by facts; Young had not in fact evacuated people from Afghanistan by air. Nor was he in constant contact with journalists, as claimed.
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In his closing argument, Freedman presented Young as a swashbuckling former CIA operative to explain his curtness in messages to desperate people trying to help people.
On the witness stand, however, Young emerged as emotionally vulnerable himself, weeping during testimony. He recounted that, after the story ran, he became despondent, depressed, alienated from intimacy with his wife, cut off from friends and family members. HIs attorney cited “deep and lasting wounds” from the piece.
The piece was presented initially on CNN’s The Lead With Jake Tapper, and a fuller written version subsequently posted on CNN’s website. A few months later, shortly after Young’s legal team threatened legal actions, a substitute anchor apologized to Young on the air for use of the term “black market” in the story, and said it did not apply to him.
Freedman, Young’s attorney, called the apology insufficient.
“This is what makes this case historic: punitive damages,” Freedman told jurors. “A media company has to face an American jury with the power to punish. That is not a frequent event. Do you believe that CNN should be punished? Do you believe they should send a message to other media companies to avoid this misconduct?”
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This story will be updated after the jury decides on what, if any, punitive damages to award Young.
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