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Trial in Alleged Plot to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor Nears End

Published

3 years ago

April 1, 2022

Trial in Alleged Plot to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor Nears End

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The federal government’s accusations have been jarring: A number of males with militia ties had schemed to abduct Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan at her trip house. The group, prosecutors and witnesses stated, had held a sequence of “area coaching workout routines” and mentioned killing or stranding her in a ship in the midst of Lake Michigan.

Because the trial of 4 males unfolded during the last month, federal prosecutors introduced a barrage of alarming messages and surreptitious recordings that they stated revealed the group’s plan to storm Ms. Whitmer’s house, get rid of her safety element and detonate a bridge to gradual any police response to the kidnapping. One other man, a former co-defendant who pleaded responsible earlier than the trial, testified that he hoped the kidnapping would spark off a civil warfare and stop Joseph R. Biden Jr. from turning into president.

Testimony through the trial, one of many highest-profile home terrorism prosecutions in latest reminiscence, has supplied a glimpse into more and more brazen and violent discourse amongst some on the far proper. However the case has additionally raised questions on when hateful political speech and gun possession cross a line from constitutionally protected acts to crimes.

The lads on trial on the federal courthouse in Grand Rapids have been amongst 14 arrested in October of 2020, earlier than there was any try to hold out a plan.

When closing arguments start Friday morning, protection attorneys are anticipated to claim that there by no means was any agency plot to abduct Ms. Whitmer, a Democrat, and that their shoppers, who might face life in jail if convicted, have been lured into the discussions by a community of F.B.I. informants and undercover brokers. Prosecutors are anticipated to explain the defendants — Brandon Caserta, Barry Croft, Adam Fox and Daniel Harris — as threats to America’s democratic order who spoke overtly about political violence as their frustration with Covid-19 restrictions mounted earlier than the 2020 election. Ms. Whitmer, a first-term governor with a nationwide profile, took a extra restrictive method to the pandemic in 2020 than another Midwestern governors, holding many guidelines in place even when case numbers dropped.

“Which Governor goes to finish up dragged off and hung for treason first?” Mr. Croft posted on Fb in Could 2020, in keeping with an F.B.I. agent who examined his account.

One other F.B.I. agent testified that Mr. Caserta had posted that January in regards to the Second Modification giving folks the suitable to “kill brokers of the federal government after they turn out to be tyrannical.” In Could, close to the peak of the pandemic lockdowns, that F.B.I. agent stated Mr. Caserta had posted that it was “about time People use” the Second Modification “for its meant objective.”

Prosecutors stated Mr. Croft, who lived in Delaware, repeatedly traveled to the Midwest for weapons coaching and conferences through the summer time of 2020, together with a nighttime “recon” mission to the governor’s trip house close to Elk Rapids, Mich., a rural city about 250 miles northwest of Detroit. A number of of the lads ended up driving aimlessly down her road as a result of that they had written down the unsuitable deal with for the home.

On that very same journey, an undercover F.B.I. agent who supplied to promote the lads explosives stated he had joined Mr. Fox to scout out the bridge that, in keeping with prosecutors, the lads hoped to destroy to forestall the police from reaching Ms. Whitmer’s house after their deliberate abduction. When the agent noticed one other bridge close by, he testified that Mr. Fox had stated they need to blow it up, too.

All 4 defendants face kidnapping conspiracy expenses. Mr. Croft, Mr. Fox and Mr. Harris are additionally accused of plotting to explode the bridge and are charged with conspiracy to make use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Federal and state prosecutors charged 14 males as a part of their investigation. Two males pleaded responsible to a federal cost and testified earlier than the jury listening to the federal case in opposition to the 4 males. Eight different males have been charged in state courtroom.

The disagreement on the coronary heart of the federal case, about when rhetoric turns into a prison conspiracy, was on show Thursday when Mr. Harris, 24, a Marine Corps veteran, took the witness stand. He was the one defendant to testify on his personal behalf through the trial.

Mr. Harris’s lawyer repeatedly requested him whether or not he had agreed to kidnap the governor. Again and again, Mr. Harris stated no.

However when prosecutors confronted him with chat messages about taking pictures Ms. Whitmer, he acknowledged sending them, together with one through which he urged posing as a pizza supply driver and killing her when she answered the door.

Throughout a tense cross-examination, Mr. Harris appeared in his personal approach to distinguish speech from actions from the witness stand on Thursday. Mr. Harris repeatedly used crude language to explain Dan Chappel, a army veteran who contacted regulation enforcement and have become an F.B.I. informant after saying that he had turn out to be involved about social media posts by militia members. Mr. Chappel pretended to befriend Mr. Harris and the opposite males and at occasions helped to arrange coaching outings for the group, all whereas surreptitiously recording their conversations and reporting again to brokers.

“Phrases damage you? Phrases scare you?” Mr. Harris stated beneath cross-examination, referring to Mr. Chappel, who had testified earlier within the trial that he feared the group’s anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric would escalate into violence.

Mr. Harris stated he thought of Mr. Chappel to be the group’s chief.

A number of of the lads who have been charged had been members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a militia group that held coaching outings and took part in Second Modification protests, together with some on the Michigan Capitol. However prosecutors and protection attorneys have described a mix of overlapping anti-government ideologies among the many defendants, together with Three Percenter, boogaloo motion and anarchist affiliations.

Mr. Harris testified Thursday that he had lengthy been involved about an eventual breakdown in civil order. He stated that a few of his messages displayed in courtroom have been about actions he would take after such a breakdown occurred, not a couple of explicit plot to kidnap the governor, as prosecutors have urged. Mr. Harris stated he didn’t think about Ms. Whitmer to be a tyrant however thought she was unhealthy at her job.

All through the trial, prosecutors displayed a trove of high-powered rifles and physique armor that they stated would have been used within the assault on Ms. Whitmer. Additionally they exhibited Hawaiian shirts, that are continuously worn by boogaloo adherents, and the anarchist flag that the F.B.I. seized from the condo of Mr. Caserta.

In response, protection attorneys have urged that the prosecution is criminalizing the train of First and Second Modification rights. “The anarchy flag — there’s nothing unlawful about hanging political flags, is there?” Michael Hills, an lawyer for Mr. Caserta, requested an F.B.I. agent.

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Under Trump’s Big Tent, Republicans Are Starting to Clash

Published

6 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Under Trump’s Big Tent, Republicans Are Starting to Clash

Democrats have long been viewed as the big-tent party — a proudly noisy collection of differing views and competing interests, often prompting headlines describing them as “in disarray.”

Now, Donald J. Trump’s commanding victory may be ushering in a big-tent era for Republicans.

Even before he takes the oath of office on Monday, cracks in his freshly expanded coalition have emerged. With their divides, the incoming president and his party are being forced to confront a reality that has often tripped up Democrats: A bigger tent means more room for fighting underneath it.

In recent weeks, some congressional Republicans have dismissed Mr. Trump’s threats of military force against Greenland. Republicans from farm states have squirmed at his plans to impose new tariffs on all goods entering the United States. Opponents of abortion have grumbled about his selection of an abortion rights supporter for his cabinet. Mr. Trump’s embrace of tech billionaires has troubled conservatives who blame their companies for censoring Republican views and corrupting children.

And last week, a fight over the direction of immigration policy prompted Stephen K. Bannon, an architect of Mr. Trump’s political movement, to attack Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a key Trump adviser, as a “truly evil person.”

“The big battles are all on our side of the football — meaningful, tough,” Mr. Bannon told The New York Times.

This wide range of internal fights over policy and power may be run-of-the-mill in politics, but they are somewhat extraordinary for the Trump-era Republican Party. Since Mr. Trump, a former Democrat unbound by strict ideology, effectively hijacked the party in 2016, the internal clashes have largely been between two clear factions: the traditional Republicans and the Republicans who embraced Mr. Trump.

But eight years later, most of the old guard has been thoroughly conquered or converted. Mr. Trump is entering a Washington where nearly all Republicans consider themselves part of his movement. They just don’t all agree on what, exactly, that means.

Inauguration Day will offer a vivid display of the new crosscurrents in the party. When he takes the oath of office, Mr. Trump will be joined not only by Vice President JD Vance, who spent years railing against big tech, but by at least four technology executives who are part of a crop of industry moguls who warmed to Mr. Trump in recent months, pouring money into his inauguration committee.

For most of his political career, Mr. Trump has been laser-focused on pleasing the voters who elected him. In his first term, Mr. Trump largely worried about holding on to his core group of supporters: white, working-class voters.

But with a bigger, more diverse coalition, that task has grown more complicated and far less clear. Mr. Trump’s victory in November was marked by notable gains in traditionally liberal cities and suburbs and among the Black, Latino, female and younger voters who have long been central to the Democratic Party’s base.

While those voters largely supported Mr. Trump’s goals of lowering prices and curbing illegal immigration, it’s unclear whether they also support the full scope of conservative policies — like ending automatic citizenship at birth and banning abortion nationwide — that some of his hard-right supporters are eager to implement.

“This is the most racially diverse incoming governing coalition for a G.O.P. since at least 1956, and that has the potential to change things,” said Ralph Reed, a Republican strategist and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, who said he had attended every Republican inauguration over the past four decades. “But they’re good challenges to have.”

Newt Gingrich, who was speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, pointed to two policy debates that will help show whether the party is ready to cater to its new voters.

One is whether Republicans support a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, a cohort of immigrants who were brought to the country as children. Stripping them of their legal status comes with the political risk of alienating moderate voters, Mr. Gingrich said.

A second test, he said, would be whether Republicans can muscle through a tax bill before July 4 in order to stimulate the economy and help the party keep control of the House through the 2026 midterms.

“There will be mistakes and confusion and tension, but there will also be enormous changes,” he said.

Mr. Trump doesn’t have much wiggle room in Congress, where even slight ideological differences could have an outsize impact on his ability to enact his agenda. The party’s slim, three-vote margin in the House means that any Republican lawmaker has the power to slow down legislation, if not scuttle it entirely. In the Senate, Republicans have 53 votes, leaving little room for dissent on a majority vote.

During his first term, Trump’s grip on his voters — backed up by frequent political threats — stifled most opposition within the party. Whether his political hold remains as strong in his second — and final — term remains to be seen.

Republican strategists say there are plenty of issues where there is broad agreement across the party, including expanding the tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration and curbing illegal immigration.

Even within those issues, the challenge may be in the details. Already, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Musk have tangled over H-1B visas, a skilled-worker immigration program that has long been a key source of labor for Silicon Valley. Mr. Trump suspended H-1B visas during his first term, but last month seemed to indicate support for keeping the program.

The debt ceiling has created distance between Mr. Trump and deficit hawks in his party, including members of the House Freedom Caucus who last month refused to free him of the spending constraint.

Republicans also disagree over setting a new corporate tax rate and how much of the new tax cuts should be paid for by slashing spending.

A group of Republicans from swing districts in New Jersey, New York and California have vowed to block the tax bill unless a cap on a state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, is raised significantly. Many other Republicans oppose the measure, which would largely benefit wealthier families in blue states.

Foreign policy is another area with considerable intraparty divides, particularly over ending the war in Ukraine and over the role Russia should play in the region. Whether Republicans follow Mr. Trump’s lead and take a softer position toward Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, may offer hints of the party’s direction on America’s traditional alliances abroad.

Still, Brad Todd, a Republican strategist, said no one understood the temperature of the Republican Party quite like Mr. Trump, who spends hours calling different lawmakers, donors and activists to get their views.

“Trump is not ideological,” Mr. Todd said. “He’s a pragmatic, practical person. He is a populist in that he wants to do popular things.”

News

Donald Trump says he discussed TikTok in first call with Xi Jinping since 2021

Published

8 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Donald Trump says he discussed TikTok in first call with Xi Jinping since 2021

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Donald Trump has held his first call with China’s President Xi Jinping since leaving the White House in 2021, with the two leaders discussing the fate of TikTok just before the Supreme Court upheld a law to ban the app in the US.

The conversation between the leaders was their first in four years and came just two days before the law is due to take effect, forcing app stores to stop offering it to users.

“I just spoke to Chairman Xi Jinping of China. The call was a very good one for both China and the U.S.A.,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform on Friday. “We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the two leaders agreed to “set up a channel of strategic communication to keep in regular touch on major issues of shared interest”.

While it painted a positive picture of the call, the ministry said Xi warned Trump that the US should approach the “Taiwan question” with “prudence”.

Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has refused to rule out using force to occupy the island.

Trump’s incoming national security team has been in contact with Beijing, but the call between the Chinese leader and incoming US president marks the first direct conversation between the men in four years.

The call comes three days before Trump is inaugurated at a ceremony that will be attended by China’s vice-president Han Zheng, marking the first time a top Chinese official has attended a US inauguration.

The Financial Times reported last week that Xi would send an envoy to Washington after Trump invited the Chinese leader to attend the event.

Some Trump advisers had hoped Beijing would send Cai Qi, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee who is very close to Xi and wields much more power than Han, who sometimes stands in for Xi in ceremonial roles.

Washington and Beijing are waiting to see what kind of China policy Trump will unveil at the start of his administration. He has threatened to impose tariffs on imports from China and many other countries but it is unclear whether he will do so to gain leverage for negotiations with Beijing or whether he will start negotiations over a possible trade deal with China and apply tariffs if the talks are not successful.

The conversation comes two days before US app stores are obliged to stop carrying TikTok, the video-sharing app that has been downloaded by more than 170mn Americans. The law — upheld in a Supreme Court ruling on Friday morning — bans the app unless its Chinese owner ByteDance sells the platform.

Trump has expressed support for TikTok, raising questions about whether his administration will prosecute companies that violate the law.

US-China relations plummeted to their lowest point since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979 during the Biden administration over issues ranging from US export controls to differences over Taiwan.

While Biden and Xi succeeded in partially stabilising relations over the past year, the countries remain at loggerheads over a range of issues, including Chinese support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Trump has named several vocal China hawks to serve in his administration, including Mike Waltz as US national security adviser and Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

Scott Bessent, the nominee for Treasury secretary, this week said Trump would push China to buy more US agricultural produce, such as corn and soyabeans which were part of a narrow trade deal he did with China last time.

Bessent said Trump would also be aggressive in imposing export controls that would affect China. Beijing has frequently slammed the Biden administration for introducing tough export controls on chips and technology related to artificial intelligence in an effort to slow down the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army.

But China experts are watching closely to see if some of the technology billionaires in Trump’s orbit, such as Elon Musk, will attempt to convince the incoming president to take a less tough stance on the issue.

Additional reporting by Joe Leahy in Beijing

News

A California fifth grader interviews his firefighter father

Published

8 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

A California fifth grader interviews his firefighter father

Old photo of fire captain Shane Lawlor and his two sons at a Santa Monica Fire Station. Lawlor has been a firefighter for 17 years. He was dispatched last week to the Pacific Palisades and is still fighting the fires there.

Jaleh Lawlor

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Jaleh Lawlor

When the fires in Los Angeles broke out just over one week ago, fire captain Shane Lawlor was quickly dispatched to the Palisades. He has been at work ever since. On his first day, Lawlor was on his team’s fireline for 20 hours straight with no breaks for food or sleep. He’s still working the fireline and has been sleeping on-site or at his station in Santa Monica when he’s not on duty.

Back at his home in Carlsbad, Calif., Lawlor’s son, Cian Lawlor, is a fifth grader and budding journalist at Magnolia Elementary School. The 11-year-old has a new podcasting kit that his family recently got him for Christmas.

Earlier this week, NPR asked Cian to interview his dad over Zoom. It was the first rest day since the fires began for Lawlor, who took the call from his post at the Santa Monica Fire Department Station 2. Cian was at their home in Carlsbad, a few hours south of L.A. This was also the first time the father and son had connected in a week.

“I’m glad he gets to do this and help people in need,” Cian says about his dad’s job. “He puts out his heart for the greater good.”

This interview was prepared and conducted by Cian, with help from Magnolia Elementary’s broadcasting club, MagTV’s director, Andrew Luria. The photos were taken by Cian’s friend and fellow Magnolia student journalist, Eivan Wheyland. NPR sat in on their conversation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Cian Lawlor, 11, interviews his dad, Shane Lawlor, over Zoom. Cian is a budding journalist and member of his school’s broadcasting club, MagTV. He came up with his own questions for this interview.

Eivan Wheyland

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Eivan Wheyland

Cian Lawlor: What goes through your mind when you’re fighting fires such as this one? Were you scared?

Shane Lawlor: Scared? Not so much. But definitely, you have to take care of yourself. You have to understand your surroundings. It is so fast-moving, and there’s so much going on that hearing important radio traffic that could be very important is very difficult. Making sure that you know when you are in the wrong place and you’ve got to get out of there is very, very important.

Cian: How did this fire compare in its size and damage to the other fires you have fought?

Lawlor: There’ve been big fires in California in the past that I’ve been on, but nothing like this for pretty much everyone.

I used to live in Santa Monica before, so I do know a lot of the neighborhoods that have been affected and those neighborhoods are all gone. They’re not even there anymore.

In terms of the size of the fire, I haven’t seen anything bigger in my career. I don’t think very many people have. And in terms of the scope of the damage, it has been obviously just utterly devastating.

Cian: What were the winds like and how did they affect the fire and the job you were doing?

An urban search and rescue team from Mexico combs through the ruins of a beachfront house searching for victims in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire in Malibu, Calif., on Tuesday.

A helicopter drops water on Mandeville Canyon as the Palisades Fire rages Saturday in Los Angeles.

Lawlor: The wind makes you think that you are doing a good job on one side of a nice house, but then you go around the corner and the wind has caused the fire to start on the other side of the house. So you are kind of wasting your time and you need to redirect. So it just makes it very challenging.

The biggest effect on me was what we call embercasting. And that’s just small, tiny little bits of embers that blow off a tree or a building when they’re burning and they kind of whip around you. They can come up behind you. They’re all over and when they’re blowing it makes it very difficult to do your job.

Those embers are what start other fires. So you’re constantly protecting yourself from those hot embers in that wind and you’re constantly chasing the new fires that they’re starting. So that makes it very, very difficult.

Cian: When you look at the destruction and all the homes lost in the fires, what is your reaction?

Lawlor: It starts with a sense of disappointment that you couldn’t have saved a lot or more of these homes. And then it moves on to sympathy for the folks who have lost those homes.

And then you also kind of get a sense of appreciation for the fact that we still have a home to go to. We have to appreciate what we have, because there’s plenty of families who don’t have a home or anything like that anymore.

Screengrab from the video chat between Cian and his father.

NPR

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NPR

Cian: Tell me something that happened that made you really proud.

Lawlor: I’m very proud of the crews that were around me. They really did everything in their capabilities to save each and every home. They were working so hard all day and all night. No food, no anything for hours and hours, no sleep just to try and save whatever they could. That’s a big sense of pride.

Cedric Meadows (left), director of outreach, and Anthony Conley, director of support services, at the nonprofit shelter Covenant House California.

Buster Balloon shows off a puppet to children at the Vidiots theater.

Cian: What is the morale like at the department now?

Lawlor: There’s definitely fatigue, physical fatigue, and there’s definitely mental fatigue from it. But we’re doing okay. Everyone is very appreciative of all the support we’ve been shown. There is so much food and so many well-wishers coming to our fire stations that it really gives us a boost every day to keep going, knowing that we’re hopefully making just a little difference in someone’s life.

Cian: Are you still currently fighting fire? What does your job look like on a daily basis now?

Lawlor: Yes, I am. I’m currently assigned to the Palisades Fire. We started on 12-hour shifts, and now we’re working full 24-hour shifts. So you’re talking to me on my rest day. It’s as much a physical rest as it is a mental break. And then I will be reporting back for my 24-hour shift at 6 a.m. tomorrow, and I’ll be there for another 24 hours. So we are still directly engaged on the fire line, which is literally the very edge of the fire, where if the fire is going to kick up again, that’s where it will start.

You have people who hike in and they use tools to put in hoseline along the entire perimeter of this fire. And if anything comes up, now there’s a hoseline in place and they can fight it. Does that answer your question buddy?