WASHINGTON – Hundreds are facing charges after an elaborate, years-long sting in which the FBI secretly ran a phone encryption program that officials say criminals unwittingly used to facilitate drug transactions worldwide.
ANOM, the FBI’s encrypted device company, was used by more than 300 criminal organizations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe that unknowingly communicated about narcotics shipments and exchanged incriminating pictures, including ones showing cocaine hidden in food shipments, according to the Justice Department.
Eight hundred have been arrested from around the world. Several tons of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine have been seized, as well as different currencies totaling $48 million, officials said.
“This was an unprecedented operation in terms of its massive scale, innovative strategy and technological and investigative achievement,” Randy Grossman, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said Tuesday when officials announced the unsealing of federal indictments in San Diego. “Hardened encrypted devices usually provide an impenetrable shield against law enforcement surveillance and detection. The supreme irony here is that the very devices that these criminals were using to hide from law enforcement were actually beacons of law enforcement.”
Seventeen foreign nationals are facing racketeering conspiracy charges that carry up to 20 years in prison.
The investigation, dubbed Operation Trojan Shield, began after the FBI dismantled a Canadian encryption device company in 2018 and forced criminals to find other ways to communicate. The FBI and the Australian Police Force created ANOM, which officials said was similar to the blind carbon copy email function. Every text message, photo, and audio sent through the platform – more than 27 million in all – was collected and stored in a server and reviewed by the FBI.
Officials said demand for ANOM grew in 2020 and 2021 following the dismantling of other encryption companies used by criminals.
The subject of encryption has been a controversial issue for law enforcement officials, technology companies and privacy advocates.
For instance, the Justice Department and Apple had been in a tug of war over whether the tech giant should help investigators by unlocking iPhones used by suspects in high-profile shootings. Last year, Apple refused to create a backdoor that would allow investigators to bypass the encryption features in the phones belonging to the shooter who killed three people at a Navy base in Pensacola, Florida.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has publicly said he will not support the For the People Act, a sweeping set of voting rights measures.
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Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has publicly said he will not support the For the People Act, a sweeping set of voting rights measures.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Sen. Joe Manchin praised a Tuesday morning meeting with civil rights leaders, calling it “constructive” and “informative,” but maintained his opposition to a sweeping set of election overhaul measures known as the For the People Act.
“I don’t think anybody changed positions on that. We’re just learning where everybody’s coming from,” the West Virginia Democrat told Capitol Hill reporters after the meeting, which included the heads of the National Urban League, the NAACP, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and others.
The meeting came two days after Manchin announced in an op-ed for the Charleston Gazette-Mail that he wouldn’t support the elections reform and voting rights bill, citing a lack of bipartisanship.
“Congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials,” he wrote.
Manchin’s opposition is seen as a death knell for the legislation, which every other Democratic senator is co-sponsoring and which Democrats argue is the necessary remedy to efforts by Republican-led states to pass restrictive election laws.
Despite Manchin’s steadfast stance on the legislation, NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the meeting “productive” and said he believes Manchin is someone “committed to making democracy work.”
“Our goal was to establish and build the relationship [with Manchin], and we accomplished that,” he told NPR. “Now the real work starts, because the commitment from the senator and from us is that we would maintain the dialogue and work as hard as possible to come up with a solution that can actually become policy.”
He added: “The work of the NAACP in this moment is around the outcome to protect the rights of voters, and one meeting won’t solve that.”
Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, also said it was a good first meeting.
“[Manchin] was very much in a listening mode. He shared his viewpoints,” she told NPR. “He seemed to really have a deep concern that our democracy is really at a crossroads.”
Campbell said she discussed in the meeting how the filibuster has historically been used to block civil rights legislation.
“And here we are in 2021 with a Senate … that could actually stop the ability to make voting rights reform when we are having an all-out assault on voting rights all over this country.”
Since Democrats hold the thinnest of majorities in the Senate, either they need 10 Republicans to join them in supporting the legislation, which is extremely unlikely, or they need to eliminate the filibuster and allow the bill to advance with a simple majority, something Manchin has repeatedly said he opposes.
Speaking with CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Manchin said he wants to work to get Republicans on board with passing a voting rights bill.
“I’m going to fight for this, and I think the Republicans will fight for this and understand we must come together on a voting rights bill in a bipartisan way,” he said.
Manchin supports HR 4, also known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.
But that measure is also unlikely to get support from 10 Republican senators.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the voting rights legislation is intact and that the Supreme Court struck down only a piece on preclearance because it decided the conditions had changed since the law was passed.
“So there’s no threat to the Voting Rights Law. It’s against the law to discriminate in the voting on the basis of race already, and so I think [the Lewis bill] is unnecessary,” he told reporters.
Johnson, of the NAACP, commended Manchin for his support of HR 4 but said it’s not encompassing of everything that he believes is needed.
“That piece of legislation is important as you look forward, but there’s some recent activity that we also have to address by states like Georgia and several other jurisdictions so that individuals have access to voting free and clear from voter suppression methods,” he said.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told reporters Tuesday morning that “it’s not an either-or proposition” between the two pieces of legislation.
“I’m glad that we have the John Lewis bill, appropriately named in his honor,” he said. “But let’s be clear: John Lewis spent his last 10 years fighting for the provisions of the For the People Act, because he understood that over the last decade, we’ve seen an assault on voting rights across our country that sought to roll back the very protections that he fought for.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues Tuesday that HR 4 won’t be ready until the fall and shouldn’t be considered a “substitute” for HR 1, the For the People Act.
“Congressman John Lewis wrote 300 pages of H.R. 1 to end voter suppression,” she wrote. “It would be our hope to have this pass the House and Senate in a bipartisan way.”
Democrats plan to hold a vote on the measure this month, even though it’s expected to fail.
His former boss, Tom Gregg, and his wife, showed up to the memorial for Aiden on the Walnut Avenue overpass above the 55 Freeway.
“We didn’t see any violent tendency in him,” Gregg said. “We have a lot of employees and I don’t think anyone triggered HR and said this guy has this and this.”
Gregg also said Eriz had just text him on Thursday asking for his job as an auto-body technician back. Eriz had quit in January.
“He reached out and texted me that the grass wasn’t greener and wanted to know if he could come back to Platinum. And we actually told him to meet with the GM and find a location for him. But we had no clue this transpired a few weeks ago,” Gregg said.
On his social media accounts, Eriz posted videos of himself firing shotguns, handguns and a machine gun.
The white Volkswagen station wagon at the center of the 17 day manhunt was found Monday evening, hidden in the garage of a Whittier home in a quiet neighborhood. Property records indicate that the homeowner, a woman, is a relative of Eriz. A neighbor, Kevin DeSilva, said a grandmother lives in the Whittier home, but has been on vacation for several weeks.
White Volkswagen station wagon believe to be used during the 55 Freeway shooting May 21.
“I’m guessing that he had parked the car here and thought that no one would find it,” DeSilva told CBSLA’s Nicole Comstock. Investigators echoed that sentiment, saying they believe the woman didn’t know the car had been stashed in her garage.
Neighbors who witnessed investigators towing the vehicle away mentioned that they were talking about how one of the suspects eventually confessed to where the car was hidden.
The VW is registered to the parents of the second suspect, 23-year-old Wynne Lee who grew up in Diamond Bar. Investigators believe that Lee was driving the car when Eriz shot 6-year-old Aiden Leos from the passengers side.
Wynne Lee, 24, arrested in connection to 55 Freeway shooting of 6-year-old Aiden Leos. (Source OC District Attorney)
Six years ago, Lee was featured in an article for Kaiser Health News as a teenager, where she talked about struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts.
“When I started going through depression, at first…I was just…I was lost,” Lee can be seen saying in the video interview.
Her family home was searched by investigators late last night, although no one answered the door today.
A neighbor of the Lee family, Roxanna Polio, said the situation is extremely upsetting.
“It really breaks my heart because they are a lovely family,” Polio said Monday.
At the overpass memorial for Aiden Leos, Gregg said that Platinum Collision has been receiving death threats for their affiliation to Eriz, but made clear that their concern tonight is not for themselves.
“Road rage is a real thing,” DeSilva said,” and hopefully this teaches people to think twice about making gestures on the road and also reacting towards other people’s gestures.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has eased travel recommendations for more than 110 countries and territories, including Japan just ahead of the Olympics.
The CDC’s new ratings were first reported by Reuters and posted on a CDC website on Monday, include 61 nations that were lowered from its highest “Level 4” rating that discouraged all travel to recommending travel for fully vaccinated individuals, the agency confirmed on Tuesday.
Another 50 countries and territories have been lowered to “Level 2” or “Level 1,” a CDC spokeswoman said. Countries ranked lowest for COVID-19 risks now include Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Iceland, Belize and Albania.
Among those now listed at “Level 3,” are France, Ecuador, Philippines, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Honduras, Hungary, and Italy.
A U.S. State Department official said it was in the process of revising its travel advisory to reflect the CDC changes.
As of early Tuesday, the State Department had lowered its ratings on more than 90 countries and territories, including for Japan.
On May 24, the State Department had urged against travel to Japan, citing a new wave of coronavirus cases before the Tokyo Olympics are set to begin July 23.
The State Department warning raised concerns and prompted the White House to reaffirm its support for Tokyo’s plan to hold the Games this summer and for U.S. athletes competing there despite a new wave of infections and low vaccination rate in the host country.
Foreign spectators have been banned, and organizers are expected to make a decision late this month on domestic spectators.
The CDC said the change comes after it revised its criteria for travel health notices. The CDC said it has also revised its rating for the United States to “Level 3” from “Level 4.”
The agency said the new criteria for a Level 4 “avoid all travel” recommendation has changed from 100 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 to 500 cases per 100,000.
The agency added that many countries have lower ratings “because of the criteria changes or because their outbreaks are better controlled.” The CDC said it expects more countries to get lower, more favorable travel ratings.
Other countries being lowered to “Level 3” include Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Libya, Panama, Poland, Denmark and Malaysia.
Many of the countries that now have lower ratings remain on the U.S. government’s list of countries subject to severe travel restrictions – and most have been subject to the restrictions since early 2020.
The United States bars nearly all non-U.S. citizens who have within the previous 14 days been to China, the United Kingdom, Ireland, India, South Africa, Brazil, Iran and the 26 Schengen nations in Europe without border controls.
Asked why the United States is maintaining the warnings even though some countries now have low infection rates subject to the restrictions, while others with high rates are exempt, CDC Director Rochelle Wallensky said on Tuesday the issue is subject to “an interagency conversation, and we are looking at the data in real time as to how we should move forward with that.”
The United States also has been in discussions with Canada and Mexico – both of which had recommendations eased on Tuesday – on how to eventually lift or revise restrictions at U.S. land borders that bar non-essential travel.
Officials ruled Everard’s death was a result of compression of the neck.
At Tuesday’s hearing, when asked how he pleaded to the rape and kidnapping charges, Couzens spoke only to reply, “Guilty, sir.”
Four members of Everard’s family, including her parents, Jeremy and Susan, were present at the Old Bailey court to bear witness to Couzens’ admission.
Following the news of her death, Everard’s family paid tribute to her in a statement describing her as “strong and principled.”
“Sarah was bright and beautiful – a wonderful daughter and sister. She was kind and thoughtful, caring and dependable,” the family statement said. “She always put others first and had the most amazing sense of humour.
“She was strong and principled and a shining example to us all. We are very proud of her and she brought so much joy to our lives.”
Couzens is next scheduled to appear in court on July 9.
The Senate released a report Tuesday morning identifying widespread security and intelligence failures that led to the deadly January 6 assault on the Capitol. The analysis includes multiple recommendations to address the failures and protect the Capitol from possible future attacks.
In a rare bipartisan joint interview, the Democrats and Republicans leading the investigation sat down with CBS News’ Kris Van Cleave for a candid conversation about what went wrong and allowed a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol.
Asked about what surprised them the most in learning about the investigation, Democrat Senator Gary Peters said it was “the intelligence failure.”
“How long it took the Defense Department to respond,” Republican Senator Roy Blunt answered.
His fellow GOP Senator Rob Portman said it was the total lack of preparedness on part of the Capitol Hill police that shocked him.
And Senator Amy Klobuchar said, “sadly it was the frontline officers who were left to defend us, to defend our staff, and to defend democracy.”
The Senate report is the result of two hearings, thousands of documents and numerous interviews over the past five months. Their recommendations could lead to new funding to increase Capitol security so what happened that day does not happen again.
It also found that warning signs were missed by federal law enforcement and by Capitol police.
“Part of the reason it was overlooked, is that people were saying, ‘Well, this just can’t happen. And these groups of folks, they can’t do that.’ Well, now we know they can. We know that what happens on the internet can be translated into physical action on the Capitol grounds or in towns across this country,” Peters said. “We’ve got to treat domestic terrorism with the seriousness that it deserves.”
Portman said the officers there that day were put “in an impossible position.”
“They didn’t have adequate training, they didn’t have adequate equipment, they didn’t have adequate barriers. They didn’t have adequate communication. They didn’t have the intelligence to know it was coming and yet they valiantly supported the effort to protect the Capitol, protecting the vice president, protecting all members of Congress, protecting democracy,” he said.
Around 75% of the officers working on January 6 did not have protective equipment like helmets and shields, according to the new report. One unit wasn’t able to access their gear because it was in a locked bus.
Some riot shields had been improperly stored and shattered when used.
“When the acting chief of staff of the Army was asked about, ‘How come this didn’t come together right away?’ And he said you know, ‘National Guards are incredible but you just can’t pick this moment to have it be like a pick-up game.’ That they’re all just going to be able to combine with no contingency plan in place,” Klobuchar said. “He said this was a Super Bowl of attacks and you need a plan in place of how this is going to work.”
The Minnesota Democrat acknowledged it probably would not have happened without President Trump’s encouragement.
“His false claims of this election is what led to this insurrection,” she said.
Portman, who is retiring in 2022, said finding the motivation behind the attack was not the Senate report’s goal.
“It was about ‘okay, once it happened, what did we do here in the Capitol and how could this have happened, and how can we ensure this never happens again?'” he said.
“I think you’re going to find a lot of information that you can only find in one way, and that’s to pursue this through the legal system and that will lead you in new places if it’s necessary to go there,” he said.
Klobuchar said more needs to be done.
“Our country needs this 9/11-style commission to get to the bottom of all this,” she said. “While the prosecutions are going on you could be looking at the causes and everything, but our mission right now was to protect this Capitol going forward.”
The Senate Rules Committee and Committee for Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs jointly made 20 recommendations, including appointing a new Capitol police chief, bolstering training, enhancing communication between the law enforcement agencies, improving coordination across all levels of government and evaluating threats of violence on social media.
Most changes, the senators believe, can be adopted immediately — marking a rare moment of agreement in a divided Congress.
“We believe that our duty was not just to say what a mess this was and we disagree,” Klobuchar said.
Portman said he wants to send a message that “we can figure this out together.”
Senators Blunt and Klobuchar plan to release a bill simplifying the rules around how quickly the National Guard could be deployed in the event of an attack like January 6.
In response to the report, the U.S. Capitol police said in a statement that it welcomes the analysis and “agrees improvements are needed specific to intelligence analysis and dissemination.”
It goes on to insist, “at no point prior to the 6th did it receive actionable intelligence about a large-scale attack.”
E. Jean Carroll (center), who says former President Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s, speaks to reporters as she leaves the courthouse in New York following an October hearing in her defamation lawsuit. The Justice Department said Tuesday it will continue its defense of Trump.
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E. Jean Carroll (center), who says former President Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s, speaks to reporters as she leaves the courthouse in New York following an October hearing in her defamation lawsuit. The Justice Department said Tuesday it will continue its defense of Trump.
John Minchillo/AP
The Biden Justice Department is forging ahead with a controversial legal effort started under former President Donald Trump to intervene on Trump’s behalf in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by a writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
E. Jean Carroll leveled the accusations against Trump in her memoir published in 2019. Trump denied the allegations and accused Carroll of lying to sell books.
Carroll sued the then-president for defamation, but the suit has been caught up in litigation since the Trump-era Justice Department attempted to step in on Trump’s behalf and make the government the defendant instead of the now-former president.
In its filing late Monday, the Justice Department — now under the Biden administration — sought to continue its defense of Trump while distancing itself from his alleged actions.
“Then-President Trump’s response to Ms. Carroll’s serious allegations of sexual assault included statements that questioned her credibility in terms that were crude and disrespectful,” Brian Boynton, the acting head of the department’s Civil Division, wrote in the brief. “But this case does not concern whether Mr. Trump’s response was appropriate. Nor does it turn on the truthfulness of Ms. Carroll’s allegations.”
Instead, Boynton said, it boils down to a few legal questions, including whether a president is an “employee of the government” and whether Trump’s denials were made within the scope of his office.
The department said the answer to both questions is yes, and therefore under federal law it said the government should be able to replace Trump as defendant in the case.
If the department were to succeed in its efforts, legal experts said the move would effectively end the case because the federal government can’t be sued for defamation.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, slammed the Justice Department’s decision to continue the Trump-era effort to intervene.
“The DOJ’s position is not only legally wrong, it is morally wrong since it would give federal officials free license to cover up private sexual misconduct by publicly brutalizing any woman who has the courage to come forward,” she said on Twitter. “Calling a woman you sexually assaulted a ‘liar,’ a ‘slut,’ or ‘not my type’ — as Donald Trump did here — is NOT the official act of an American president.”
Calling a woman you sexually assaulted a “liar,” a “slut,” or “not my type” — as Donald Trump did here — is NOT the official act of an American president. We remain confident that Judge Kaplan’s decision will be affirmed by the Second Circuit.
The new filing is the latest development in the case since the Trump-era Justice Department first took the unusual step of seeking to intervene in the lawsuit last year.
The Justice Department and then-Attorney General William Barr came under fierce criticism for the move, which opponents argued was one in a series of actions the department took under Barr that benefited Trump or his friends.
A federal judge in October denied the Justice Department’s initial attempt to step in on Trump’s behalf. Trump appealed the decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, where the matter now stands.
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Even Mr. Macron’s most vehement critics expressed support. Marine Le Pen, the head of the far-right National Rally party and Mr. Macron’s main opponent in next year’s presidential elections, said it was “unacceptable” to physically attack the head of the French Republic.
“I am Emmanuel Macron’s first opponent, but he is the president,” Ms. Le Pen said at a news conference in eastern France. “One can fight him politically, but one cannot be violent in any way against him.”
Mr. Macron has shown an appetite for shaking hands, mingling with crowds, and vigorously debating ordinary citizens on the street, even more so over the past weeks as France lifts pandemic-related restrictions and moves closer to the 2022 presidential election, scheduled for next spring. But his style — part professorial, part adversarial — has sometimes made for rough interactions that quickly go viral and that critics say are proof he is out-of-touch and dismissive.
He once scolded a French student for calling him by nickname, infamously lectured an out-of-work gardener that finding a job was so easy that “if I crossed the street, I’d find you one,” and, as economy minister, snapped back at a union activist that “the best way to pay for a suit is to work.”
More recently, he expressed frustration over criticism of his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by complaining that France was a country with “66 million prosecutors.”
Mr. Macron has also become the focus of intense anger from those who see him as a pro-business “president of the rich,” especially after the unrest of the Yellow Vest movement, and protesters have on occasion heckled and booed him. In July of last year, one group of angry demonstrators shouted at Mr. Macron and his wife as they were taking an impromptu walk in the Tuileries Garden of Paris.
Strolling up to citizens on the street is much easier for French leaders, whose movements are far less restricted by security services than their American counterparts. In the afternoon following the incident, Mr. Macron was back at it again, chatting with locals and posing for selfies on crowd-packed streets in the city of Valence.
LAS VEGAS — A Bay Area mother who was wanted on suspicion of murder has been arrested after her son was found dead along a Las Vegas trail, authorities announced Tuesday.
Samantha Moreno Rodriguez was taken into custody in Denver by the Denver Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force, which is led by the FBI. She is expected to be booked into a Denver-area jail on one count of open murder, pending extradition to Las Vegas.
Authorities issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Rodriguez, a San Jose resident, on Monday. During a press conference, officials identified the 35-year-old mother as the suspect in her 7-year-old son Liam Husted’s killing.
Liam’s body was recovered May 28. Investigators said Rodriguez and Liam were last seen in San Jose on May 24. On the morning of May 26, they were seen in Laguna Beach and that afternoon in Victorville.
Liam’s body was found two days later in a rural area of Las Vegas behind a bush, at a trailhead, and just off of a main highway, authorities said.
Many Bay Area residents expressed outraged upon learning of the news Monday.
“You have to be in a different kind of place to do that your own child,” said Louis Armendariz of San Jose.
San Jose Police Department investigators were alerted to the disappearance of both Rodriguez and her son by a family friend who saw coverage of the Las Vegas case, and believed there might be a connection.
A British cop on Tuesday admitted to raping and killing Sarah Everard after snatching her as she walked home in London.
Wayne Couzens, 48, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey courthouse on Tuesday to kidnapping and raping the 33-year-old marketing executive whose death in March sparked a national awakening over women’s safety.
Sarah Everard was reported missing by her boyfriend on March 4, 2021.AFP PHOTO / METROPOLITAN POLICE via Getty Images
“Responsibility for the killing is also admitted,” his attorney, Jim Sturman, told the court, although Couzens has yet to be asked to enter a plea on a murder charge as medical reports are still being prepared.
Everard’s family was in the London court Tuesday as the Metropolitan Police officer entered his pleas via videolink from Belmarsh Prison.
Police Officer Wayne Couzens admitted to killing Sarah Everard.Kent Messenger / SWNS
The father of two from Deal in Kent responded, “Guilty, sir” to the charge of kidnapping Everard “unlawfully and by force or fraud” on March 3, and then also raping her after her disappearance.
The officer — who worked for Scotland Yard’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command unit — sat with his head bowed throughout the 20-minute hearing, London’s Evening Standard said.
He was remanded in custody until his next hearing, on July 9, when the murder charge is expected to be addressed, the Standard said. A provisional trial had been set for October.
Everard was reported missing by her boyfriend on March 4 after she had visited a friend in Clapham in south London. Grainy CCTV footage showed her walking home before she was snatched by Couzens.
Her body was found a week later in woods in Kent, more than 50 miles from where she was taken.
The Metropolitan Police said last week that a post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as “compression of the neck.”
Women across the UK started sharing experiences of being threatened or attacked following the disappearance and killing of Sarah Everard.EPA/METROPOLITAN POLICE
Everard’s disappearance and killing caused a nationwide outcry, with women sharing experiences of being threatened or attacked — or simply facing the everyday fear of violence when walking alone.
In Australia, police used information as the operation was underway to seize 3.7 tons of drugs, 104 weapons, and some $35 million in cash. During that time, the alleged criminals had no idea why their drugs were being seized, and their plots foiled, police said.
BREAKING AT 5 A.M. — “Senators reveal further Capitol riot security failures in bipartisan report,”by Nicholas Wu, reporting on the chamber’s bipartisan, 100-page Jan. 6 autopsy: “Capitol security officials tracking threats of violence on Jan. 6 saw social media posts as early as late December 2020 about a plot to breach the complex — complete with maps of the building’s tunnels and explicit threats of violence against members of Congress.
“‘Surround every building with a tunnel entrance/exit. They better dig a tunnel all the way to China if they want to escape,’ wrote one user on a pro-Trump blog. ‘Bring guns. It’s now or never,’ another user wrote. … [Yet e]ven as the pro-riot chatter continued and tips came into the intelligence division, the full body of knowledge about what would become a deadly threat was not conveyed to the rest of Capitol Police leadership, rank-and-file officers or other law enforcement partners.” More on this below, but first …
MANCHIN MEETS HIS CRITICS — A host of Black and civil rights leaders will visit Sen. JOE MANCHIN to discuss voting rights this morning — two days after the West Virginia moderate announced his opposition to Democrats’ top legislative priority on the matter, the For the People Act (aka H.R. 1/S. 1). We’re told the meeting was recommended by National Urban League President and CEO MARC MORIAL, and was set up a few weeks ago.
Those who know Manchin tell us the senator’s mind isn’t exactly open to persuasion on S. 1 as he heads into this meeting. So, we asked some of the participants how they plan to approach it. Here’s what we heard back.
DERRICK JOHNSON, president and CEO of the NAACP, kept expectations low in an interview Monday night: “The goal of the meeting for us in the civil rights leadership is to establish and build the relationship. There was no particular item on the agenda, but we will have a conversation about our policy priorities and hopes to open up the dialogue so that we can, in fact, have the type of give-and-take opportunity to ensure that all Americans are supported.”
Johnson said he plans to remind Manchin of the steps he took as secretary of state in West Virginia to expand voting.
We’ll be watching especially closely what Rev. AL SHARPTON, who will also be attending, has to say afterward. Sharpton has had some choice words for Manchin (and Arizona Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA) in the past, telling Eugene in March: “The pressure that we are going to put on Sinema and Manchin is calling [the filibuster] racist and saying that they are, in effect, supporting racism.”
— Other attendees include NAACP Legal Defense Fund President SHERRILYN IFILL and Morial, per NYT’s Astead Herndon.
QUIET S. 1 OPPOSITION? — Manchin might be the only avowed skunk at the S. 1 garden party, but privately a couple of Democratic senators aren’t happy with how expansive the bill is either, per multiple sources familiar. They’re apparently afraid to say so on the record; in fact, every Senate Democrat except Manchin co-sponsored the bill.
That tells you how powerful the progressive base is right now: so powerful that some Democrats are keeping their mouths shut in order to avoid antagonizing it.
SO WHY IS THIS BILL SO CONTROVERSIAL? Our Zach Montellarohas a good read on some of its most contentious provisions. The measure would combat restrictions to voting access that GOP legislatures have adopted recently — as well as mandate nationwide mail-in voting, same-day voter registration and at least two weeks of early voting.
But Zach notes that H.R. 1/S. 1 also includes provisions long opposed by the GOP and even some Democratic constituencies. They include:
— Effectively nullifying some voter ID requirements.
— Instituting new donor disclosure requirements for dark money spending in politics. (The ACLU also opposes this provision as overly broad.)
— Creating a new public financing system for campaigns. (Moderate Democrats privately hate this provision.)
— Shifting the power to redistrict from state legislatures to a national commission. (Several Congressional Black Caucus members dislike this idea.)
SO WHAT’S NEXT ON VOTING RIGHTS IN THE SENATE? S. 1 isn’t passing; that is a fact. But Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER has signaled he will bring the bill to the floor anyway. For one, it gets progressives off his back as he can at least say he tried. For another, it gives him a campaign issue to gin up his base to try to keep the Senate in 2022.
However, Manchin — and more than a few voting rights activists— wants the chamber to pass H.R. 4, a narrower bill that could counter some of the efforts by GOP legislatures. It would resurrect DOJ oversight of voting laws in states with a history of racial discrimination or voter suppression, giving muscle to enforcement. Manchin has said he’d go one step further and make the provision apply to all 50 states.
So far, however, Alaska Sen. LISA MURKOWSKI is the only Republican who’s publicly joined Manchin in his effort. And late Monday night, NBC’s Sahil Kapurreported that H.R. 4, named after the late civil rights icon JOHN LEWIS, faces a “steep uphill climb” in the Senate as well. “It’s a challenging one,” Murkowski told Kapur. “You got to find an awful lot of Republicans to join us on this.”
— One other option HuffPost’s Igor Bobic and Arthur Delaney wrote about Monday night as well: an amended S. 1.They note that “even the left-leaning editorial board of The New York Times argued over the weekend that Democrats should pass a narrower bill, calling their current proposal ‘poorly matched to themoment,’ adding that it ‘attempts to accomplish more than is currently feasible.’” Full story
Good Tuesday morning, and thanks for reading Playbook. Keep reading for a photo of a topless senator. And don’t hesitate to drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri.
BIDEN’S TUESDAY: The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10:15 a.m.
The White House Covid-19 response team and public health officials will brief at 10:15 a.m. Press secretary JEN PSAKI, NEC Deputy Director SAMEERA FAZILI and Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness PETER HARRELL will brief at 1 p.m.
HARRIS’ TUESDAY:
— 10:05 a.m. CST: VP KAMALA HARRIS and Mexican President ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR will witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Mexico on development programs in the Northern Triangle.
— 10:10 a.m.: Harris and López Obrador will take an official photo at the Palacio Nacional.
— 10:20 a.m.: Harris and López Obrador will participate in a bilateral meeting.
— 1:40 p.m.: The VP will meet with women entrepreneurs at the Sofitel Mexico City Reforma.
— 3 p.m.: Harris will meet with labor leaders at the Sofitel Mexico City Reforma.
— 4:35 p.m.: Harris will deliver remarks and take questions from press at the Sofitel Mexico City Reforma.
— 5:30 p.m.: The VP will participate in a virtual embassy meet and greet with embassy personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
— 6:45 p.m.: Harris will depart Mexico City en route to Washington, D.C., where she is scheduled to arrive at 11:35 p.m. EDT.
THE SENATE will meet at 10 a.m. to take up district judge nominations. It will vote at 3 p.m. on moving forward with the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee at 10 a.m. and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 2:15 p.m. IRS Commissioner CHARLES RETTIG will testify before the Senate Finance Committee at 10 a.m. Acting OMB Director SHALANDA YOUNG will testify before the Senate Budget Committee at 11 a.m.
THE HOUSE will meet at 10 a.m. in a pro forma session. HHS Secretary XAVIER BECERRA will testify before the House Ways and Means Committee at 10 a.m. VA Secretary DENIS MCDONOUGH will testify before the House Veterans Affairs Committee at 10 a.m. Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO will testify before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee at 2 p.m.
PLAYBOOK READS
PHOTO OF THE DAY
SUN’S OUT, GUNS OUT … SPOTTED: Sen. TOM CARPER (D-Del.) pumping gas into his minivan — shirtless. We asked his office if bare-chested bravado is the senator’s regular look when he’s driving around his home state in warm weather. “Sen. Carper has one message,” his spox CAMPBELL WALLACE wrote back. “The pristine five-star beaches of Delaware are back and open for business.” (See you at Dewey and Rehoboth!)
THE WHITE HOUSE
A HEADLINE YOU WOULD NOT EXPECT TO SEE —“Biden Justice Department defends Trump in suit over rape denial,”by Josh Gerstein: “The Biden administration is pressing on with a controversial Justice Department defense of President DONALD TRUMP in a defamation lawsuit brought by a writer who accused him of raping her at a New York City department store in the 1990s. The brief filed on Monday night with a federal appeals court is an illustration of how administrations of sharply different political outlooks often flock to the same legal positions in court, even if it means seeming to excuse or immunize alleged bad conduct by their predecessors.
“In the filing with the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department insisted that it was not endorsing Trump’s conduct toward the writer, E. JEAN CARROLL, even as it argued that a law governing suits against federal officials justified the government’s move to take over the former president’s defense in the case.”
HARRIS’ MESSAGE — “Harris’ blunt message in Guatemala: ‘Do not come’ to U.S.,”by Sabrina Rodríguez: “Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Central America this week on a delicate diplomatic mission: Offer a message of hope to the people of Guatemala and other countries in the region. But discourage them from trying to cross the U.S.’ southern border because they won’t be welcomed on the other side.Her approach, on her first foreign trip as vice president, was clear: Be blunt.
“That won plaudits from local activists and civil society leaders as a solid start, but also highlighted the gulf that remains between the U.S. and Guatemalan governments, particularly when it comes to cracking down on corruption. Harris’ ability to close that gulf will, ultimately, be the most important test of her fledgling diplomatic skills, not to mention her political agility as she positions herself for a possible future presidential run.”
THE MORNING MANCHIN
THE ULTIMATE SURVIVOR’S REELECTION THREAT — “How Joe Manchin Survives as a Democrat in West Virginia,”by NYT’s Nate Cohn: “It is far too soon to evaluate Mr. Manchin’s chances in 2024, but early indications are not promising. Mr. Manchin voted to convict Mr. Trump at his impeachment trial in February, and he has been front and center in major legislative debates over enacting President Biden’s agenda.
“According to the Cooperative Election Study, a prominent academic survey, Mr. Manchin had just a 33 percent approval rating in October 2020, while 51 percent disapprove of his performance.
“Mr. Manchin’s departure, whether in 2024 or thereafter, will mark the end of an era. There will be no Senate Democrat whose electoral history and coalition are so completely at odds with the new activist base of the party. Progressives will be free from the burden of trying to lure a senator with such a conservative voting base.”
… WHOSE COLLEAGUES WON’T SAY A WORD — “The left hates Joe Manchin. His fellow Senate Dems are staying quiet,” by Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine: “Joe Manchin is sparking outright fury from liberals — with some Black Democrats invoking Jim Crow laws and MITCH MCCONNELL as they blast the West Virginian’s resistance to a sweeping elections bill. Manchin’s fellow Senate Democrats are being far more conciliatory….
“[A]ngst is quietly rising inside the Democratic caucus over Manchin’s approach… [But] those who serve alongside Manchin generally see nothing to gain by ticking off their mercurial colleague, at least in public. That’s not just because of how desperately they need Manchin to confirm President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Democrats also will have to rely on his vote if they try to push through a sweeping infrastructure spending bill on party lines.”
CONGRESS
MORE ON THE LOPSIDED 1/6 REPORT — Expect a lot of chatter today and in the coming weeks about the Capitol Police’s failure to recognize the looming threat of violence on Jan. 6. But as we read through the Senate Rules and Homeland Security committees’ joint report, we couldn’t help but notice how much blame the chamber is putting on the agency sworn to protect them — and how little the panels said aboutTrump and the White House.
Indeed, the report barely mentions Trump’s own failure to act that day. The panels didn’t try to subpoena former White House advisers, pursuing a narrow scope to begin with.
The report comes as some officers are struggling with PTSD. Others have quit. Two have killed themselves. Many officers want answers about what took the National Guard so long to respond that day. As Wu reported, Sen. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.), chair of the Rules Committee, said their report was supposed to show “united concern about the leadership of the Capitol Police,” not individual officers. But there’s no denying that the report fails to satisfy the curious.
Look for the document to up the pressure on Democratic leaders to announce next steps for a broader, more detailed investigation, now that the bipartisan commission failed.
POLITICS ROUNDUP
OBAMA SOUNDS AN ALARM — “Obama criticizes Republicans for embracing 2020 falsehoods,”CNN: “Former President BARACK OBAMA said Republicans have been ‘cowed into accepting’ a series of positions that ‘would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,’ telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is worried about the state of democracy in the United States …
“[S]ome [of] the former president’s most searching commentary came when asked about the root causes to the deep divisions in the country, rifts that Obama attributed, in part, to questions about sources of information and race. ‘We occupy different worlds. And it becomes that much more difficult for us to hear each other, see each other,’ Obama said, something the former president attributed to a nationalization of both media and politics. … The solution, Obama said, is more face-to-face meetings where people are hearing each other’s struggles and stories.”
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
2024 WATCH — “DeSantis cashes in on rising star status with big-money blitz,”by Alex Isenstadt: “The first-term Republican governor is set to hopscotch across Southern California for a half-dozen reelection fundraisers this week, including stops in Los Angeles, Irvine and Manhattan Beach. He will also head to Las Vegas, where former Nevada state Attorney General ADAM LAXALT is slated to host a high-dollar event. In the weeks to come, [RON] DESANTIS is expected to make a fundraising tour through the Northeast as well.
“The blitz comes as DeSantis draws widespread interest from Republican Party donors eyeing the next generation of party leaders, who have praised him for his anti-coronavirus lockdown policies and his combativeness toward the media. With the prospect of a Donald Trump comeback bid still uncertain, many contributors scoping out the party’s bench are flooding DeSantis with five-, six-, and even seven-figure checks for his 2022 campaign in Florida.”
CUOMO INVESTIGATION EXPANDS — “Federal Prosecutors Subpoena Material Related to Andrew Cuomo’s Book,”by WSJ’s Jimmy Vielkind and Corinne Ramey: “Prosecutors working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn asked for communications related to Mr. Cuomo’s October 2020 book, ‘American Crisis,’ including contracts and materials used to pitch the book to publishers, the people said. They said the subpoenas indicated prosecutors are interested in nursing-home issues in the book, which more broadly recounted the governor’s response to the pandemic.”
HARD TIMES —“Newsmax turned down embattled Republican Matt Gaetz for a job,” by Reuters’ Mark Hosenball: “Gaetz contacted Newsmax early this year, a source at the outlet said. That was around the time that news broke Gaetz was the subject of a federal investigation into possible sex trafficking of a minor. …
“‘Newsmax has had no plans to hire Rep. Gaetz,’ said BRIAN PETERSON, a spokesperson for the website. A source familiar with Newsmax’s policies said: ‘Earlier this year, (Gaetz) reached out and said he might leave Congress early and was interested in TV work.’ The three-term Florida congressman’s approach to Newsmax management was ‘just a conversation’ and Newsmax ‘never told him we were interested’ in hiring him, the source said.”
WHAT WE’RE READING
THE GILDED AGE, from the 1880s to the 1900s,was a time of progress but also hideous retrenchment. How did the U.S. let segregation take hold, ensuring that racial inequities would scar the country for decades? The reason is the Supreme Court struck down civil rights, refused to enforce voting rights and approved the separate-but-equal doctrine. How did economic inequality become so vast — so insanely out of control — that a handful of rich families lived in Versailles-like palaces dripping with gold while immigrant workers lived 10 to a room in New York tenements? The reason is the Supreme Court struck down antitrust actions, declared the federal income tax to be unconstitutional and invalidated efforts to impose labor standards.
One jurist, usually standing alone, rose up furiously in opposition to all these decisions. He was Supreme Court Justice JOHN MARSHALL HARLAN, and his dissents lit a path for future generations to overturn those decisions. If the court had listened to Harlan in the first place, the country would have been spared untold amounts of suffering.
Now is a good time to ask why Harlan saw things so differently from all his colleagues, and how today’s Americans can replicate his courage and vision. That’s the theme of “The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero,” which will be published by Simon & Schuster today. Written by POLITICO’s PETER S. CANELLOS, it is, in the words of Publishers Weekly, a “masterful” evocation of a period in American history marked by judicial and economic extremes.
ADAM HOCHSCHILD, who, as author of “King Leopold’s Ghost” and “Bury the Chains,” is no stranger to narratives of gross injustice, writes, “Peter Canellos has vividly brought to life an absolutely fascinating story that I’m embarrassed I didn’t know: A man raised in a slave-owning family who became one of the greatest champions of civil rights in the history of the Supreme Court, his lone-dissenter opinions cited decades after his death. John Marshall Harlan needs to be added to our pantheon of American heroes.”
DESSERT/THE MUNCHIES
The appropriately named Mike Baker of NYT tweets about “Joints for Jabs” — the latest in ever-more-creative efforts by various states to induce people to get vaccinated.
“You can now get a free joint with your covid vaccine in Washington State,”he writes. “Cannabis retailers can give the joints to adults who get an on-site vaccine.”
PLAYBOOKERS
BIDEN TECH GURU IS LOADED … IN BITCOIN — “Top White House tech critic Tim Wu holds more than $1M in Bitcoin,”by Daniel Lippman: “Tim Wu, a tough critic of tech companies’ power, owns between $1 million and $5 million in Bitcoin, as well as between $100,001 and $250,000 in Filecoin, which is a storage platform for cryptocurrency, according to the disclosure. His investment in Bitcoin is his largest holding in his financial portfolio.
“Wu joined the Biden administration in March as special assistant for technology and competition policy to the president at the National Economic Council. While Wu will not have any involvement in developing policies about cryptocurrency in that role, the disclosures show that one of Big Tech’s most prominent critics is also invested in an asset class that is a major tech world obsession.”
SPOTTED: U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry seated at Gate B14 in Boston waiting to board the 5:30 p.m. American Airlines flight to DCA on Monday. Pic
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Lynda Tran is now senior adviser and director of public engagement at DOT. She most recently was a partner at 270 Strategies and a CBS News political contributor.
— Jeanne Moran is now a policy comms manager at Facebook, where she focuses on content and safety. She most recently was a senior director at Forbes Tate Partners.
STAFFING UP — Elizabeth Peace now works in the office of comms at the Department of the Interior. She most recently was director of corporate comms at the Corona Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
TRANSITIONS — Rebecca Christopher is joining Invariant to head its digital media practice. She previously was at Purpose, Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign and the DNC. … Miriam Cash is now deputy comms director for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). She previously was press secretary for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). … Morgan Butler is now engagement and outreach manager for public policy at Twitter. She most recently was digital director for House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.). …
… Former Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) is joining Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity as national outreach director. … Sophie White will be an associate at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. She previously was legislative director at the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) … former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) … Tim Grieve … Cory Fritz of FTI Consulting … Matt Whitlock … Bloomberg’s Patrick Garrigan … The Atlantic’s Justin Peligri … Eric Kuhn … Sarah Hashemi … Jonathan Collegio of the National Automobile Dealers Association … Kelsey Harkness … Roger Hickey of Campaign for America’s Future … Taylor Mason of KPM Group … Jennifer Dunn of Wells Fargo … Lindsey Wagner-Oveson of Handshake … Paul Winfree of the Heritage Foundation … Strategic Partners & Media’s Russ Schriefer … CNN’s Sonia Moghe … WaPo’s Kris Coratti Kelly … The Bulwark’s Hannah Yoest … Erin Gorman Van Alsten … Chris Good … Lale Morrison … Tom Davidson … Laura Hayes … Kim Duffy … POLITICO’s Mike Shaw, Arjun Kakkar, Emily Keith and Hira Ahmad … Jim Cicconi … Donald Sussman … Julianna Margulies
Send Playbookers tips to [email protected]. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross.
In an exclusive report for “Hannity,” investigative journalist Sara Carter traveled to Guatemala City, as Vice President Harris was also visiting the Northern Triangle country, and reported that the Guatemalan people do not trust Joe Biden and do not want American taxpayer-funded aid, which they believe will simply add to the corruption in the nation’s government and the might of the already-powerful trafficking cartels.
Carter told host Sean Hannity she spoke to people both in Guatemala City – the capital – and San Rafael, a town farther to the west near Quetzaltenango.
“They can tell you they don’t trust the United States, they don’t trust the funding coming to Guatemala,” Carter said of the people in San Rafael. “They say that it’s 30 years of a broken system that just aids and abets nothing more than the drug cartels and human traffickers and crime and corruption inside the city.”
People in the capital city of Guatemala were no less amused by Harris’ visit, where Carter witnessed civilian activists and other constituencies coming together to protest the Vice President’s arrival and her meeting with President Alejandro Giammattei.
“They belonged to civilian groups, citizen groups, NGOs, saying that they wanted trade, not aid. They did not want to be bribed,” she said.
The groups’ concern in Guatemala City was largely that the millions to trillions in aid the Biden administration plans to send to the country in an attempt to quell the migrant crisis likely won’t be fruitful.
One fear the citizens expressed was that funds allocated to “anti-corruption” agencies could be used to empower those bureaucracies to instead target political opponents and dissidents.
Carter said they feel that the commissions where the money is being allocated could be weaponized and used against political opponents.
“This is a very tough time in Guatemala. This is a tough time in Central America. What they are hoping for is some bilateral talks that actually bring trade back to Central America so that we can see and stop the influx of people; migrants leaving this part of the world for the United States,” Carter said.
“They say they are very concerned about this but they’re not going to be able to resolve the problem unless the United States tells the truth and faces the facts, and comes to terms with what’s happening here in the region.”
Recently, Guatemala has been one of the jumping-off points for migrants seeking to transit through Mexico to the United States, at entry points such as Tecun Uman, where they often cross the Suchiate River into the Mexican state of Chiapas.
A gun nut and his girlfriend were identified by California authorities on Monday as the suspects arrested in connection to the road-rage shooting death of 6-year-old Aiden Leos as new details emerged in the case.
Marcus Anthony Eriz allegedly shot Aiden Leos during a road rage incident.Instagram
Marcus Anthony Eriz, 24, and Wynne Lee, 23, were busted Sunday at their home in Costa Mesa and are expected to be charged in Leos’ May 21 murder.
Authorities said at a Monday press conference that Eriz is believed to be the gunman and Lee the driver, KABC reported.
It has previously been reported that a male passenger in a white Volkswagen fired shots, hitting Aiden, after cutting off a car driven by the boy’s mother, Joanna Cloonan on 55 Freeway.
The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Eriz and Lee are being held on $1 million bail and are set for a Tuesday court appearance, according to Orange County jail records cited by KNBC.
According to posts on his Instagram page obtained by KABC, Eriz was a gun fanatic, posing on a range with them for several pictures.
Eriz also identified as an auto-shop worker, though the place of work listed on his since-redacted page is not current, according by KABC.
Marcus Anthony Eriz firing a gun in an Instagram video.Instagram
The owners of Platinum Collision told the outlet that Eriz stopped working for them in January.
One of the owners, Stephanie Gregg, spoke out against the shooting and called it “devastating,” the report said.
“To have any kind of link is just too much,” she said.
(CNN)Former President Barack Obama said Republicans have been “cowed into accepting” a series of positions that “would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,” telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is worried about the state of democracy in the United States in an exclusive interview that aired Monday.
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