A long-serving aide to former President Donald J. Trump was captured on security camera footage moving boxes out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida, both before and after the Justice Department issued a subpoena in May demanding the return of all classified documents, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The footage showed Walt Nauta, a former military aide who left the White House and then went to work for Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, moving boxes from a storage room that became a focus of the Justice Department’s investigation, according to the people briefed on the matter. The inquiry has centered on whether Mr. Trump improperly kept national security records after he left the White House and obstructed the government’s repeated efforts to get them back.
As part of its investigation, the Justice Department has interviewed Mr. Nauta on several occasions, according to one of the people. Those interviews started before the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 and carted off more than 11,000 documents, including about 100 that bore classification markings. Mr. Nauta has answered questions but is not formally cooperating with the investigation of Mr. Trump’s handling of the documents.
His lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., declined to comment. Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, accused the Biden administration of “colluding with the media through targeted leaks in an overt and illegal act of intimidation and tampering.”
MOSCOW, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent on Monday and ordered the Russian army to launch what Moscow called a peacekeeping operation in the area, upping the ante in a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war.
Putin told Russia’s defence ministry to deploy troops into the two breakaway regions to “keep the peace” in a decree issued shortly after he announced recognition for Russia-backed separatists there, drawing U.S. and European vows of new sanctions.
It was not immediately clear the size of the force that Putin was dispatching, when they would cross the border into Ukraine and exactly what their mission would be.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony to sign documents, including a decree recognising two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent entities, with leaders of the self-proclaimed republics Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin seen in the background, in Moscow, Russia, in this picture released February 21, 2022. Sputnik/Alexey Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS
In a lengthy televised address, Putin, looking visibly angry, described Ukraine as an integral part of Russia’s history and said eastern Ukraine was ancient Russian lands and that he was confident the Russian people would support his decision. read more .
Russian state television showed Putin, joined by Russia-backed separatist leaders, signing a decree recognising the independence of the two Ukrainian breakaway regions along with agreements on cooperation and friendship.
Defying Western warnings against such a move, Putin had announced his decision in phone calls to the leaders of Germany and France earlier, both of whom voiced disappointment, the Kremlin said.
Moscow’s action may well torpedo a last-minute bid for a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. The rouble extended its losses as Putin spoke, at one point sliding beyond 80 per dollar. read more
Patients were in the lobby, waiting, the moment it became a post-Roe America.
The staff at Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services Clinic in San Antonio had just received a call from their attorney: abortion procedures in Texas would have to stop immediately. The dozen or so patients in the lobby on Friday morning would have to be turned away. The clinic staff would have to be the ones to tell them.
Andrea Gallegos, the clinic’s administrator, and the rest of the staff walked out and addressed the room: “The supreme court made this decision today and, unfortunately, your geographical location affects your bodily autonomy,” she said they told waiting patients.
Gallegos watched each word land like a blow. People cried. They screamed. They begged for help, she said. It was “complete despair”.
Hours later, the clinic had emptied of all but those who had received their abortions hours or minutes before Roe v Wade, the 50-year-old court case that enshrined abortion as a right, was overturned by the supreme court on Friday, leaving the question of abortion access up to individual states. Only those with follow-up appointments could be seen.
Gallegos and her staff called about 20 people who were scheduled to come in later that day. Some were caught off guard, Gallegos said. “Why today? Why the day of their appointment did this happen?” patients asked her.
Those turned away were patients who were now outside an already small window: in September, Texas banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy. That law was the first in a series of abortion restrictions passed in states across the country in the last year that served as a preview of life after Roe.
Texas also has a “trigger” law that would ban abortions from the moment of conception and would go into effect as soon as about two months from now. But in the chaos of Friday’s ruling, clinics across the state chose to cease all abortion services in case the ban would come into effect even sooner. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, said on Friday that, under a separate pre-Roe ban in the state, “abortion providers could be criminally liable for providing abortions starting today”.
Across Texas and other states where trigger bans are in place and where, hour-by-hour, abortion is being completely outlawed, the same scene was playing out simultaneously: waiting rooms were emptied. Waitlists were pulled up. Phone calls were made to people who had their abortions scheduled.
At Whole Woman’s Health clinics across Texas, staff received notice in a conference call on Friday morning. Marva Sadler, the senior director for clinical services for Whole Woman’s, an abortion provider with locations in five states, said clinic managers brought patients in from the lobby one by one to deliver the news.
“Each patient was given the opportunity to have their reactions and their emotions privately,” Sadler said, conversations clinic staff had become well versed in having over the 10 months since Texas’s ban had passed.
It was difficult to be an abortion provider in the only state at the time to ban the procedure so early in gestation, Sadler said.
Now that that reality is rippling through America, “you realize it’s so many more people and so many more families that are going to be devastated and affected,” she said. “It’s really hard to wrap your mind around.”
When the news hit as she was driving, she pulled over to the side of the road and wept before she addressed her staff. Then she got to work calling her clinics in other states where abortion is still legal. Could they take patients? Could they help coordinate travel?
Gallegos is also working to refer patients out to clinics in nearby states – Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico – where abortion is still protected. But many of their patients are low-income. They were choosing an abortion in part because they feared being unable to afford a child. They don’t have the funds to travel.
“These are patients that oftentimes are already mothers, they are already taking care of children, some are living paycheck-to-paycheck,” Gallegos said. “These are the folks that are going to be forced into having another child if they can’t make it out of state, and those effects, all the way around, are just devastating. Several say, ‘How am I supposed to do this? I took off work to be here today and now you want me to travel?’”
Clinic staff is gripped by uncertainty. Many have been providing abortion services for decades. A physician at the San Antonio clinic was providing abortions pre-Roe, Gallegos said – and now he must consider how he will do that “post-Roe”, she notes. Sadler has been working to provide abortion access for about two decades.
She said the fall of Roe only strengthens her determination, and that of her colleagues, to continue providing reproductive care, in whatever form, as long as they’re able.
Her staff is standing by, she said.
“If I told them we could see patients at midnight tonight,” Sadler said, “I have no doubt that every last one of them would show up without question.”
London — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was fighting for his political survival on Wednesday after a number of high-profile resignations shook the foundations of his government and fueled doubt as to whether he’ll be able to hang on as leader of his party, and the country.
The resignations came in response to the latest in a long series of scandals to engulf Johnson, this one involving Chris Pincher, former government minister. Pincher, who recently resigned after being accused of groping two men, was appointed as deputy chief whip by Johnson, who initially claimed he did not know about any previous, specific allegations of misconduct against Pincher. Johnson’s office changed the official account of what the prime minister knew two times over the last week, as new information came to light.
Sinking ship?
On Tuesday, two of Johnson’s most important cabinet ministers, finance minister Rishi Sunak and health minister Sajid Javid, resigned, publishing scathing letters online.
“The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently, and seriously… I believe these standards are worth fighting for, and that is why I am resigning,” Sunak wrote. ” In preparation for our proposed joint speech on the economy next week, it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different.”
“The tone you set as a leader, and the values you represent, reflect on your colleagues, your party, and ultimately the country,” former health minister Sajid Javid said. “I served you loyally as a friend, but we all serve the country first. When made to choose between those loyalties there can be only one answer.”
Johnson quickly replaced the ministers, but a string of other resignations — numbering at least 38 in total, according to the BBC — showed the threat to his government was not over.
Crisis after crisis
Over the past few months, Johnson narrowly survived a vote of no confidence by his party and was fined by police for violating COVID-19 restrictions during Britain’s pandemic lockdown, when he attended parties at his official residence.
But for those who recently resigned, the Pincher scandal and questions it raised about Johnson’s credibility as a leader appeared to be the last straw.
Media reports contradicted the initial story conveyed by Johnson’s office, which stated that he didn’t know anything about specific allegations against Pincher. The prime minister then changed his line and said he had been aware of some allegations, but that they had not amounted to formal complaints.
That was followed by a former senior civil servant alleging publicly that Johnson had been briefed “in person” about a previous formal complaint against Pincher, prompting accusations that Johnson had lied. Johnson responded by saying he had failed to recall that specific briefing, and that he regretted not acting on the information.
On Wednesday, during a weekly gathering of parliament, Johnson was repeatedly criticized and urged by a number of ministers from opposition parties to step down. He responded by saying that he believed the government shouldn’t walk away when times are tough.
“Treading the tightrope between loyalty and integrity has become impossible in recent months, and Mr. Speaker, I will never risk losing my integrity,” Javid, the former health minister, said in his resignation statement, which he delivered at the gathering. Javid said he had given the prime minister the benefit of the doubt for the last time.
“The problem starts at the top, and I believe that is not going to change,” Javid said.
As the meeting wrapped up, lawmakers could be heard shouting: “Bye, Boris!”
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