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High on the president’s list is a long-time MAGA ally best known for defending a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes
Trump’s conversations with Parlatore and other newly retained lawyers are part of his broader push to assemble yet another new legal team, both for his current legal woes and for any future ones coming from the FBI and Biden-era DOJ. Throughout the summer, Trump has been quizzing confidants on what they think of specific criminal defense lawyers, throwing out a number of names both big and obscure. In other words, as one Trump advisor describes it, the ex-president is conducting the “Apprentice: Avoid-Federal-Prison Edition.”
Monday’s FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago will likely intensify that search, as the Justice Department broadens and accelerates its investigations into Trump, his team and close associates, and their efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The federal search of the twice-impeached leader of the GOP’s Florida estate, however, appears connected to an investigation into Trump’s retention of classified materials and sensitive presidential documents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida didn’t respond to a request for comment on the raid, as the former president and his team described it.
In recent years, Parlatore has represented retired Navy SEAL and accused war criminal Eddie Gallagher, when Navy prosecutors accused him of committing war crimes in the killing of a 17-year-old ISIS fighter. A military jury rejected murder charges against Gallagher but instead convicted him on one count of illegally posing for a photo with the corpse. Trump intervened in Gallagher’s favor when the Navy tried to take away his Trident pin — a symbol of his membership in the SEALs — as a result of the conviction, and the then-president ultimately granted clemency to Gallagher along with pardoning two other service members accused or convicted of war crimes.
In recent months, Trump and Parlatore have sporadically discussed the possibility of the Department of Justice charging the former president, according to the two people with knowledge of the situation. Sources requested anonymity from Rolling Stone in order to discuss sensitive matters related to former President Trump. As Parlatore’s stock has shot up MAGAland, Trump himself has privately referred to the lawyer as “a killer” (one of the ex-president’s preferred descriptors for attorneys or businesspeople he deems adequately ruthless or effective) who won big for “warrior” Gallagher.
Parlatore has represented a who’s-who of MAGA clients. When the January 6 committee asked Pennsylvania Republican and senate candidate Doug Mastriano to testify about his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and hand over documents, Mastriano turned to Parlatore for legal help. Parlatore has also represented Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police chief and Trump campaign strategist, to handle his interactions with the Jan. 6 committee. Parlatore first represented Kerik in 2009 when he was charged and convicted of tax fraud by federal prosecutors.
Parlatore has also represented the (notably anti-Trump) rapper and TV star, Ice-T. As the New York Post wrote in 2010, Ice-T “was charged with driving with a suspended license, without valid insurance and without a seat belt — charges all now blamed on bad DMV records.”
Officially, the lawyer is already a member of Trump’s legal team, though on a different matter. He is, the New York Post reported in May, probing for ties between the 2020 Biden campaign and a group of 51 former intelligence professionals who sought to downplay the Hunter Biden laptop story in an October 2020 letter.
Even before the feds’ Mar-a-Lago raid, Trump was expanding the legal team that’s negotiating with the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigators about access to executive communications. Trump and his lawyers are arguing such conversations and other materials are protected under executive privilege, and attorneys John Rowley and Evan Corcoran have joined that team, The New York Times reports. A source familiar with the situation confirmed their involvement to Rolling Stone on Monday, adding that the DOJ has talked to the Trump lawyers about whether the ex-president is going to exert executive privilege now that a federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Trump advisers like ex-White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
In Trump’s conversations with his lawyers and allies this summer, Corcoran’s name has also come up as a potential defense attorney for Trump should the Justice Department bring criminal charges against him, according to two people familiar with the matter. A white-collar criminal defense attorney, Corcoran has represented three defendants in January 6-related cases, including Steve Bannon in his criminal case after the former Trump political advisor defied a subpoena from the January 6 committee (Bannon was convicted in July). He has also represented Capitol police officer Michael Angelo Riley, whom prosecutors charged with two counts of obstruction after he allegedly told rioters to remove incriminating photos of themselves at the Capitol, and Frank Scavo, a rioter who organized bus trips to the Capitol and was inside the building during the insurrection. Scavo pleaded guilty in July 2021. Riley has pleaded not guilty and is still awaiting trial.
Corcoran and Parlatore did not respond to emails seeking comment on this story. Reached for comment on Sunday — before the Mar-a-Lago raid — Trump’s spokesman Taylor Budowich wrote back: “President Trump will not be deterred by witch hunts or kangaroo courts from continuing to defend and fight for America, our Constitution, and the Truth.”
There are various ongoing civil and criminal probes into Trump, his business empire, and his accomplices in attempting to overturn the presidential election. According to a source close to the ex-president, Trump has even recently begun asking associates if it is possible that the feds have tapped his phones.
The Justice Department is now investigating then-President Trump’s conduct preceding the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but it hasn’t indicated whether it plans to file charges against him. People advising Trump on this matter say that the former president still needs to retain additional legal firepower for his new team dedicated to this issue, specifically. “The infrastructure for something of that magnitude is not entirely in place yet, but progress is being made,” one of the sources says.
There are some in Trump’s inner sanctum, as well as veterans of his legal teams, who argue that a greater amount of urgency is required.
“There should have been a first-rate criminal lawyer months ago. The number 1 priority for something like this is to prevent an indictment, to engage in extensive preparation long before indictment, and to have a top-rate team in place so the Justice Department knows what they will face if they indict. You win something like this before trial, not at trial,” says celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was on Trump’s first impeachment defense team. “If Donald Trump does not have his top criminal defense lawyer and team on this and in place yesterday, he is doing this all wrong. If he doesn’t have his defense team organized now, it’s malpractice. However, I still think chances of an indictment are small, because someone like Merrick Garland is not going to do that unless it’s really, really a slam-dunk.”
Asked if he’d consider advising a Trump legal team in a situation like this, Dershowitz responded, “On the constitutional issues and legal strategy, I would give advice to a team like that, whether for a Democrat or a Republican.” He added that, as a veteran of a Trump legal team, he has not yet received any calls or outreach on this matter by anybody in the Trump orbit. Dershowitz said that if asked, the first person he would recommend that former President Trump try to hire is attorney Ronald Sullivan, who like Dershowitz has taught at Harvard Law.
“It’s still a remote possibility that charges could be brought, but if charges are brought against former President Trump, he shouldn’t be hiring individual attorneys here or there. He should be hiring a law firm worth of attorneys,” says Steven Groves, formerly a lawyer and then a spokesman in the Trump White House. “You would want to throw dozens of attorneys at this defense. This isn’t going to be like the Mueller probe. It would be much bigger than that.”
Former President Donald Trump. (photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Trump Once Said Only 'The Mob' Uses the Fifth Amendment.
Now He's Invoking It.
“Under the advice of my counsel ... I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” the former Manhattan mogul said in a statement after exercising his right against self-incrimination.
“This is a vindictive and and self-serving expedition, the likes of which this country has never seen before,” he continued. “The United States Constitution exists for this very purpose, and I will use it to the fullest to defend myself against this malicious attack.”
Trump’s embrace of the Fifth Amendment did not mark the end of the Q…A session, which stretched several hours into the afternoon. One possible factor in his decision to stay mute was state Attorney General Letitia James’s collegial relationship with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which continues a parallel criminal probe into Trump’s business practices.
“While we will not comment on specific details, we can confirm that our office conducted a deposition of former president Donald Trump,” said AG spokesman Delaney Kempner. “Attorney General Letitia James took part in the deposition during which Mr. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“Attorney General James will pursue the facts and the law wherever they may lead. Our investigation continues.”
The ex-commander-in-chief’s lawyers alleged in May that James was improperly trying to question Trump in a bid to gather information for the DA’s office.
Trump, during his 2016 presidential campaign, pointedly questioned people who invoked the protection: “The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” And even as the hearing continued, so did Trump’s email solicitation of donations from his supporters.
“I urgently need your help,” read the latest Trump appeal. “Joe Biden and the radical Left are working OVERTIME this month.”
Trump, along with his children Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., had earlier fought a February order by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron requiring they sit for questioning under oath as part of James’ probe of the Trump Organization.
But an appeals court ruled in May that Trump, along with his kids, needed to sit for questioning. The sessions were delayed by the sudden death of Trump’s first wife Ivana last month.
The former president left Trump Tower in Midtown and arrived in lower Manhattan at the Liberty St. office of the N.Y. Attorney General. Secret Service agents and NYPD officers were stationed outside as Trump’s SUV rolled into a parking garage.
He emerged about six hours later, using a social media app to describe James’ office decor as “very plush, beautiful and expensive” and the entire experience as “very professional.” The AG’s office said three months ago that her investigation was near the end and had collected evidence that could lead to legal action.
Donald Jr. and Ivanka Trump recently testified in James’ probe without invoking the Fifth, the New York Times reported. Their brother Eric Trump took the Fifth more than 500 times when he appeared for a deposition in the case, according to court papers, a harbinger of his father’s strategy.
Trump’s appearance came two days after the FBI executed a search warrant at the former commander-in-chief’s Palm Beach, Fla., home as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential and classified documents that may have been taken from the White House, according to reports.
Trump, who was in New York when the raid took place, confirmed that FBI agents searched the sprawling beachfront compound and even “broke into my safe.”
James is investigating whether Trump and his children violated the law through serial manipulation of the values of his properties to obtain loans, tax breaks and other benefits.
The properties in question include the one-term president’s golf clubs in Scotland and Los Angeles and his Seven Spring Estate in Westchester County. Trump listed his 40 Wall St. tower — about a five-minute walk from where he was deposed at the AG’s office — as worth $735 million in a refinancing application for a loan. But it was only worth $257 million, James’ office has said.
In late April, Trump was hit with a civil contempt order for repeated delays in handing the evidence over to James, resulting in $110,000 in fines.
He swore in an affidavit and repeatedly maintained through his attorneys that he had no more evidence to personally surrender, as he never put anything in writing, whether by email or text.
His lawyer Alina Habba told Judge Engoron she had flown to Mar-a-Lago and personally looked for possible outstanding documents and found nothing.
Trump and his family have long argued that James’ investigation was an improper fishing expedition and that she was unfairly in cahoots with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Court documents revealed how tech companies contribute to criminal prosecution of abortions. (photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts say it underscores the importance of encryption and minimizing the amount of user data tech companies can store
When a Facebook staffer posed the dilemma to the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, asking how the platform would protect the user data of individuals seeking abortion care, Zuckerberg said the company’s ongoing push to encrypt messaging would help protect people from “bad behavior or over-broad requests for information”.
But when local Nebraska police came knocking in June – before Roe v Wade was officially overturned – Facebook handed the user data of a mother and daughter facing criminal charges for allegedly carrying out an illegal abortion. Private messages between the two discussing how to obtain abortion pills were given to police by Facebook, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. The 17-year-old, reports say, was more than 20 weeks pregnant. In Nebraska, abortions are banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The teenager is now being tried as an adult.
Court documents filed in June and made public on Tuesday show how tech companies including Facebook contribute to criminal prosecutions of abortion cases. Experts say it also shows the importance of encryption and minimizing the amount of data Facebook stores on its users.
The affidavit in support of the search warrant reveals that a detective with the Norfolk police department asked Facebook for extensive user information for the teen’s mother, Jessica Burgess, dating back to 15 April 2022 including, “profile contact information, wall postings, and friend listing, with Facebook IDs”. The warrant and its details were first published by Motherboard. Authorities also requested all photos Burgess uploaded and was tagged in and her private messages from April to the day the warrant was issued. It’s not clear the extent of the user data Facebook handed over.
The company said the warrants they received in early June did not mention an abortion, but related to a police investigation of a stillborn baby.
“Both of these warrants were originally accompanied by non-disclosure orders, which prevented us from sharing any information about them. The orders have now been lifted,” said a Meta spokesman, Dave Arnold.
Brad Ewalt, an attorney for Burgess declined to comment. Emails seeking comment were left for a lawyer listed as a representative for her daughter on Tuesday afternoon.
Limit data stored by tech companies
True end-to-end encryption would have made it impossible for Facebook to hand over that data, says Albert Fox Cahn, the founder of Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. However, as it exists today, Facebook and Instagram messages are not end-to-end encrypted by default. Instead, consumers have to opt in to encrypt their messages. But privacy advocates and experts like Evan Greer, the director of digital rights group Fight for the Future, say most people don’t have it on.
Plans to make end-to-end encryption, a mechanism that prevents anyone except the sender and the recipient from accessing the contents of the message, the default for Facebook and Instagram was pushed back to 2023. The company already uses end-to-end encryption on its WhatsApp messaging service and had planned to extend that to its Messenger and Instagram apps in 2022, but the global head of safety at Meta, Antigone Davis, said in November 2021 that the company was “taking our time to get this right”.
Burgess was charged with two additional felonies after Madison county authorities served the search warrant, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Documents show Burgess is charged with hiding a dead human body, performing an abortion as a non-licensed doctor and performing an abortion at more than 20 weeks. The latter two are considered felonies in Nebraska.
Privacy advocates argue that one of the only ways tech companies can avoid handing over sensitive abortion related data to law enforcement is to not store it at all. “Expanding end-to-end encryption by default is a part of that, but companies like Facebook also need to stop collecting and retaining so much intimate information about us in the first place,” Greer said.
“Every tech company will tell you the same thing: they comply with law enforcement requests in the jurisdictions where they operate. The only way for companies like Facebook to meaningfully protect people is for them to ensure that they do not have access to user data or communications when a law enforcement agency comes knocking.”
In lieu of that, experts say Facebook could have fought the warrant in court if it chose to. “Even if they lost, it would make it so slow and expensive for police to target this information that they’d likely seek it less often,” Cahn said. “That seems like the least they can do when their own product flaws are leaving this data vulnerable to police searches in the first place.”
There is some precedent for tech companies fighting warrants in court, said Logan Koepke, a project director at Upturn, a non-profit that pushes for policy change that advances equity and justice in the use of technology.
“In the past we’ve seen companies fight over-broad requests, or fight requests that seek to damage or change a product feature in some way,” he said. Koepke pointed to Facebook’s refusal to comply with a wiretapping request for Messenger calls. A judge ultimately ruled in Facebook’s favor. “Generally speaking though, technology companies using legal tools to resist search warrants or subpoenas for user data, is the definitive exception, not the rule,” he said.
Koepke also points out that even if Facebook fought the warrant or made end-to-end encryption the default, police could use other mechanisms to get a hold of those same messages including obtaining a search warrant to directly search the mother or daughter’s phone.
The bottom line, though, Koepke and others maintain, is tech companies should limit the user data they collect and store.
“Every technology company that collects and retains personal, sensitive data (messages, location history, searches, etc.) will likely at some point be served with search warrants from law enforcement in states and jurisdictions where politicians and law enforcement are seeking to prosecute and criminalize people seeking, offering, or facilitating abortions,” Koepke said. “As a result, companies should seek to limit how they collect, retain, or otherwise use data that might be used by law enforcement to glean information about someone’s reproductive health.”
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) arrives for a vote at the U.S. Capitol August 4, 2022 in Washington, DC. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
In the legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act, Sinema intervened twice over the span of a week in ways that mostly benefited rich investors:
- Added a carveout exempting private equity's subsidiaries from the 15% corporate minimum tax (which would have raised $35 billion over a decade)
- Removed a provision narrowing the carried interest loophole (which would have raised $14 billion over a decade)
"They avoided an added tax or added hurdles," Ben Koltun, research director at Beacon Policy Advisors, told Insider. "It's kind of standard operating procedure as usual for the private equity industry. They won by not losing."
The private equity exemption from the corporate minimum tax means any profits generated from smaller companies owned by that sector won't count towards the $1 billion threshold established for large, profitable firms to be taxed. Some experts are beginning to describe it as a new loophole that will be set up in the tax code.
"Even if a company has subsidiaries that do finance-related things, that's still part of the ownership structure," Kimberly Clausing, a tax professor at the UCLA School of Law, told Insider. "And it still contributes to the bottom line for the company as a whole. So it seems like it should also be subject to the minimum tax."
Lawrence Summers, a former Democratic treasury secretary, simply called it a "loophole."
"There is no legitimate public policy argument for the maintenance of carried interest or @SenJohnThune /@SenatorSinema's private equity carve out from the bill," Summers wrote on Twitter, referring to the Senate Republican who authored the changes alongside Sinema.
A spokesperson for Sinema argued that the changes to the original tax plans would support Arizona businesses like plant nurseries and auto detailing shops.
"Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what's best for Arizona. She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona's economic growth and competitiveness," the Sinema spokesperson said.
"At a time of record inflation, rising interest rates, and slowing economic growth, disincentivizing investments in Arizona businesses would hurt Arizona's economy and ability to create jobs," she added.
The carveout appears to stem from a pressure campaign on Sinema that business groups and Republicans mounted over the weekend. They claimed that the 15% corporate minimum tax included a new provision that would hit smaller businesses already struggling with surging expenses from inflation.
A document obtained by Insider likely from private equity lobbyists attacked the provision as a "stealth tax" hitting 18,000 firms employing over 12 million people. It also assailed the measure as putting smaller companies owned by private equity at "a competitive disadvantage."
But that wasn't the case, per experts. "You can't say that this increases taxes on the portfolio companies," Victor Fleischer, a tax and private equity law professor at the UCI School of Law, recently wrote on Twitter. "The incidence falls on the shareholders (and a bit on the wealthy employees) of the sponsor."
The campaign seemed to have an effect on Sinema. She pledged her vote for a GOP amendment from Sen. John Thune of South Dakota that would alter the Democratic bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday. He called it "a real bump in the road" that threatened the bill's path to passage.
During the flurry of last-minute negotiations between Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Thune, and Sinema, Democratic negotiators communicated to Sinema that she was introducing a big loophole in the tax code, per a Democrat familiar. She pursued it anyway.
A room in a Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinic in Waukegan, where abortion providers from Wisconsin are helping to provide access to more patients from their home state now that abortion is nearly banned there. (photo: Manuel Martinez/WBEZ)
"Luckily it's summer," said Hartwig, a nurse midwife at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. "For now he can sleep in. But any getting ready that has to happen will be on my spouse."
She drives at least two hours each way, immersed in audiobooks and podcasts as she drives to a clinic in the northern Illinois suburb of Waukegan. She spends her days in the recovery room, caring for patients who had abortions and checking their vitals before they go home. She also got licensed in Illinois and trained to provide medication abortion, something she'll be able to do virtually through telehealth with patients across Illinois.
Hartwig is essentially working part time in Illinois because when Roe v Wade was overturned in June, a Wisconsin law immediately took effect that bans nearly all abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person. Wisconsin providers want to preserve access for patients, while those in Illinois – long an oasis for abortion rights – need more staff to help treat a surge of people arriving from across the U.S.
The Waukegan clinic is Planned Parenthood of Illinois' busiest for out-of-state abortion patients. After Roe fell, 60% of patients came to this clinic from outside the state – mostly from Wisconsin. In fact, the organization opened in Waukegan two years ago with Wisconsin in mind, knowing that if Roe v. Wade did fall, access to abortion in that state would greatly diminish.
After Roe was struck down, Planned Parenthood organizations in both states announced their partnership. More than a dozen employees from Wisconsin – including doctors, nurses and medical assistants – now commute to Waukegan to help provide care.
"It really required this perfect pairing of supply and demand," said Kristen Schultz, Planned Parenthood of Illinois' chief strategy and operations officer. "They had capacity without local demand, and we had the opposite."
In the month after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision, Illinois became even more of an oasis for people seeking abortions. Dozens of clinics closed across the nation as 11 states in the South and Midwest implemented bans, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that supports abortion rights and tracks the issue.
The influx of patients into Illinois has had another impact. For years, abortion providers have been traveling once or twice a month to other states like Kansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma, where their help was badly needed.
Chicago OB-GYN Dr. Laura Laursen was one of them.
"Now the script is totally flipped," said Laursen, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. "This is where you are needed more than anywhere else."
Anti-abortion groups oppose the Planned Parenthood partnership and are preparing for a marathon effort to restrict abortion rights in Illinois. In a statement after the organization's announcement, Amy Gehrke, executive director of Illinois Right to Life, called it "particularly tragic."
Helping to treat the surge
Inside the Waukegan clinic, there are typical exam tables, ultrasound machines and hardwood floors throughout. There are also signs of what the space used to be – a big bank on a busy retail strip – such as the shiny vault in the staff break room.
Some of the Wisconsin providers commute to Waukegan a few times a week; others a few days a month.
For Hartwig, associate director of clinical services at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, she's able to do more for patients in Illinois than she could back home. Even as a nurse with an advanced degree, she wasn't allowed to provide medication abortion in Wisconsin. But she can in Illinois, according to the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
"This was really just what I was always supposed to do," Hartwig said. "There's nothing that's going to keep me from helping our patients."
Dr. Kathy King, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin's medical director, said while her staff is dedicated to providing these services, it comes at a cost.
"It is a burden on our clinicians and nurses and medical assistants who have young children at home," King said. "It sounds great. Sure, we'll all just travel down to Waukegan five days a week. But the logistics of that and the sacrifice of doing that on just people's day-to-day lives takes a toll."
Still, this sacrifice has helped. With staff from Wisconsin, the Waukegan clinic now has doubled the number of abortion appointments available, and they're still ramping up. This also frees up other staff to treat patients who come for other needs, like birth control and cancer screenings.
There has been a burst of patients from Wisconsin for abortion appointments at all Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinics — a tenfold increase in the month after Roe was overturned, from about 35 patients a month to 350, King said. That doesn't include Wisconsin residents who might have sought abortions with other providers.
A potential model
The Waukegan clinic has ignited interest from abortion providers in other nearby states. Planned Parenthood of Illinois is fielding calls from those in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, for example, Schultz said.
What Illinois needs is more staff to treat more patients. But where will those additional employees come from? The commute from Wisconsin to Waukegan is relatively short compared with providers in Ohio who'd have to cross Indiana to get here.
Across the nation, there are other conversations happening among providers. The National Abortion Federation, which has about 500 facility members including independent abortion clinics and hospitals, is pairing up people who are looking for jobs at clinics with those that need workers, said Melissa Fowler, chief program officer at the federation.
Still, she acknowledged moving isn't a realistic option for everyone.
"People have lives," Fowler said. "They have families. They're deeply rooted in their communities. ... And so a situation like you're seeing in Illinois and Wisconsin is great because people are able to stay connected to their community, not have to move their family and still be able to provide care."
In southern Illinois, many people who work in a clinic in Fairview Heights live across the border in St. Louis. It's a roughly 30-minute commute for Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri.
During her career, she's traveled to Kansas and Oklahoma to provide abortions. Now she's seeing whose expertise she can bring to Fairview Heights, such as doctors and clinic managers in Arkansas who in a post-Roe world now work in a state that has banned nearly all abortions. There's been a big uptick in patients seeking abortions in Fairview Heights recently coming from Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.
"Who's going to provide those services?" McNicholas asked.
Before the June decision, patients in Fairview Heights typically waited three days for an appointment to get an abortion. Now they wait around three weeks — at a clinic that provides abortions six days a week, eight hours a day.
Within the year, McNicholas said the clinic might open its doors seven days a week, 12 hours a day.
She worries even that might not be enough to give quick access to patients.
John Bolton, the former national security adviser. Shahram Poursafi is accused of offering $300,000 to an unidentified hitman to 'eliminate' Bolton. (photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)
Shahram Poursafi, who US says belongs to Revolutionary Guards, offered money to hitman to avenge Suleimani death, DoJ alleges
The Department of Justice said Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, offered the money in November 2021 to an unidentified person in the US to “eliminate” Bolton, apparently to avenge the drone killing of the IRGC commander Qassem Suleimani, in January 2020.
Poursafi is alleged to have said that after Bolton was killed, there would be another job, for which the hitman would be paid $1m.
The person offered the money became an FBI confidential informant, and continued to exchange texts on an encrypted communications app with Poursafi, who is believed to have tried to orchestrate the plot from Tehran. According to US authorities, Poursafi has never visited the US.
“The justice department has the solemn duty to defend our citizens from hostile governments who seek to hurt or kill them,” assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen of the department’s national security division said, unveiling the indictment.
“This is not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to exact revenge against individuals on US soil and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts.”
Iran rejected the allegations late on Wednesday, with foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani saying: “Iran strongly warns against any action against Iranian citizens under the pretext of these ridiculous and baseless accusations.”
Bolton was no longer national security adviser when the drone strike against Suleimani was carried out as the Iranian general was visiting Baghdad on 3 January 2020, but he is a longtime advocate of military action against Iran and a staunch opponent of the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Tehran. Secret Service cars have been reported to have been parked across the road from Bolton’s house in the Washington area at least since early 2022.
In a statement, Bolton thanked the justice department and the FBI for discovering and tracking the plot, and the Secret Service for providing protection. His office at his thinktank, Foundation for American Security and Freedom, confirmed Bolton was not provided with protection by the Trump administration after he was ousted as national security adviser in September 2019, but that protection was provided by the Biden administration.
“While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran’s rulers are liars, terrorists and enemies of the United States,” Bolton said, arguing it showed that the US should not enter into a new nuclear agreement with Tehran, currently being negotiated.
According to an affidavit by the FBI special agent Randi Beck accompanying the charge, Poursafi first contacted a US resident identified as “Individual A” through social media over the course of 2021, and then in October of that year asked the person to take photographs of Bolton, saying they would be for a book Poursafi was writing.
Individual A introduced Poursafi to a second person, who they said was willing to take photographs and videos for a fee. This second person, who became a confidential source for the FBI, is not identified but appeared to live in Texas. The affidavit claims that Poursafi asked if the person had family in Iran, but the response was they did not.
The affidavit claims Poursafi contacted this source in early November using an encrypted messaging app, and asked them to find someone who could “eliminate” a target for $200,000, offering an additional $50,000 to the source as a finder’s fee. The source later told Poursafi they had found someone to do the job (supposedly a Mexican national with links to a drug cartel) but they wanted more money. After consulting with unnamed superiors or associates, Poursafi is alleged to have agreed to pay a total of $300,000.
The first assassination method he is said to have suggested is “by car”, noting that Bolton often took walks in a park. Poursafi allegedly said “his group” would be able to provide protection for the source and the would-be assassin after the job was done.
The source asked for money up front but Poursafi said that his group would be angry with him if they paid money and the killing was not carried out. He claimed his group had long experience of assassination and promised that they had “years of work to do together” with the source and the supposed assassin.
The affidavit said that by this time the FBI had hacked Poursafi’s online accounts and so was able to monitor the dialogue from both ends and also monitor Poursafi carrying out internet searches on Bolton.
At one point in their dialogue, the FBI source is claimed to have asked Poursafi what his experience was with killing and this “type of work”. “Poursafi responded that it was like crossing the street: it was better not to spend too much time looking in one direction, but just to do it,” Beck said in his affidavit.
In many of the reported exchanges between the source and Poursafi, the source asked for reimbursement for expenses in tracking Bolton. Poursafi allegedly said he had argued the source’s case, but “no one could get pre-payment due to a recently failed operation”. The failed operation was not identified.
In place of a payment, in December 2021 Poursafi sent pictures of two plastic bags containing bundles of dollars with the source’s name and the date written on a label in front of them.
The exchanges continued until 28 April this year, with Poursafi’s impatience increasing. On that date, the source is claimed to have finally persuaded Poursafi to send $100 in two payments to the source’s electronic wallet.
A picture of a bearded man wearing IRGC camouflage fatigues said to be Poursafi is shown in the FBI affidavit. .
There's more than this. Just look around.
JOHN BOLTON is such a Whack-A-Ding that a Republican Senate refused to approve him as Ambassador to the UN and he was subsequently an 'recess appointment.'
He was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006, as a recess appointee by President George W. Bush.[9]
MERCER generously supported him and contributed to his Super PAC.
He was an advocate of the Iraq War as a Director of the Project for the New American Century, which favored going to war with Iraq.[8]
Bolton is widely considered a foreign policy hawk and is an advocate for military action and regime change by the US in Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen, and North Korea.[14][15][8][16] A member of the Republican Party, his political views have been described as American nationalist,[17][18] conservative,[19][20][21][22] and neoconservative,[23] although Bolton rejects the last term.[24][25][26] He is a former senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI),[27] and Fox News Channel commentator. He was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney.[28]
Bolton attended Yale University, earning a B.A. and graduating summa cum laude in 1970. He was a member of the Yale Political Union. He attended Yale Law School from 1971 to 1974, where he shared classes with his friend Clarence Thomas, earning a J.D. in 1974.[31]:?12?
NEO CON CHICKEN HAWK:
Vietnam War
Bolton was a supporter of the Vietnam War,[33] but avoided combat through a student deferment followed by enlistment in the Maryland Air National Guard.[29][34][35] During the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. (Draft numbers were assigned by birth date. Numbers 1 to 195 were eventually called up.)[36] As a result of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' decisions to rely largely on the draft rather than on the reserve forces, joining a Guard or Reserve unit became a way to reduce the chances of service in Vietnam.[37]
John Bolton Super PAC
In 2013, Bolton set up the John Bolton Super PAC. It raised $11.3 million for Republican candidates in the 2014 and 2016 elections and spent $5.6 million, paying Cambridge Analytica at least $650,000 for voter data analysis and digital video ad targeting in support of the campaigns of Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and of former U.S. Senator (R-MA) Scott Brown's unsuccessful 2014 bid for a U.S. Senate seat for New Hampshire.[206][207][208] In September 2016, Bolton announced that his Super PAC would spend $1 million on (R-N.C.) Senator Richard Burr's reelection effort by targeting ads at "social media users and Dish Network and Direct TV subscribers".[209]
The Center for Public Integrity analysed the John Bolton Super PAC's campaign finance filings and found that they had paid Cambridge Analytica more than $1.1 million since 2014 for "research" and "survey research".[210] According to Federal Election Commission filings, Cambridge Analytica was paid more than $811,000 by them in the 2016 presidential election;[211] in the same election cycle, the Super PAC spent around $2.5 million in support of Republican U.S. Senate candidates.[210]
Bolton said he aims to raise and spend $25 million for up to 90 Republican candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.[212] In January 2018, Bolton announced a $1 million advertising campaign in support of Kevin Nicholson's bid for the Republican nomination to run against incumbent Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.[212][213] The Super PAC ran an ad campaign in the Green Bay area in January 2018; on March 19, 2018, the Super PAC announced a two-week $278,000 television and radio ad campaign in the Milwaukee area.[214]
Major donors to the John Bolton Super PAC are Robert Mercer, who gave $4 million from 2012 to 2016; Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, and Los Angeles real estate developer Geoffrey Palmer.[206]
After Bolton was appointed National Security Advisor in March 2018, the John Bolton Super PAC and the John Bolton PAC announced that their political activities were suspended temporarily, effective March 31, 2018. The Super PAC's FEC filings showed a balance of $2.6 million in unspent donations at the end of March 2018.[215][216]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bolton
John Bolton's Super PAC Spent Millions On Senators Who Might Vote To Confirm Him
excerpt:
Three of the candidates whom Bolton’s super PAC boosted ? Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) ? could now be in a position to vote for his confirmation as deputy secretary of State.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-bolton-super-pac_n_584f20e7e4b0bd9c3dfe4971
A fisherman catches fish without the need for a boat in Bali, Indonesia. Image courtesy of Benjamin Jones. (photo: Mongabay)
It found that small-scale fishers in 147 coastal villages in four tropical countries — Cambodia, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Indonesia — rely primarily on seagrass meadows, saying these habitats are reliable, suitable, familiar, and accessible. The study, published in June in the journal Ocean … Coastal Management, noted that this finding should prompt a rethink of general perceptions of small-scale fisheries.
“Nearly half of all households we talked to preferred fishing in seagrass over other habitats such as coral, mangroves, open ocean, mud and rock for example,” lead author Benjamin Jones, a doctoral candidate in the department of ecology environment and plant sciences at Stockholm University, said in a statement.
“This was surprising because most people think of reef fisheries as the key tropical small-scale fishery, but we show that its actually engagement in seagrass fisheries that are much more characteristic of households,” Jones added.
Jones and his colleagues analyzed interviews with 1,105 households conducted between 2012 and 2017, where 869 identified as fishers, in areas where both seagrass meadows and coral reefs were present. They found that nearly two-thirds of the fishers used seagrass meadows the most as their fishing ground, either exclusively or as part of multiple options. This was followed by coral reefs, substrates like mud and sand, and deep-water areas, the research found.
The preference for seagrass meadows, they found, included expectations of a big catch and greater fish availability. Many fishers also identified seagrass meadows as being more easily accessible than coral reefs, often without the need for a boat, and less likely to damage equipment such as nets.
The study also found that household income strongly influenced the reliance of fishing households on seagrass meadows. Seagrasses provide resources for those who can’t afford to own motorboats and those who use static fishing fences.
Seagrasses are underwater flowering plants, not to be confused with seaweed, that grow in shallow coastal waters, providing a crucial nursery habitat for young fish of many species. They’re also an important home for marine invertebrates, like sea cucumbers, crabs and prawns. Many experts suggest that a healthy coastal ecosystem with seagrass, mangrove and coral reef habitats can store large quantities of carbon dioxide, filter sediment and debris washing in from the land, and protect against coastal abrasion.
However, seagrass meadows around the world are disappearing at rates that rival those of coral reefs and tropical rainforests, losing as much as 7% of their area each year, according to the IUCN, the global plant and animal conservation authority. Climate change, coastal development, pollution, and the spread of invasive species are some of the top threats to seagrass beds.
Jones and colleagues say their study emphasizes the need for more empirical household-scale data to inform better management of seagrass meadows. Protecting these habitats, in turn, will ensure their sustainability for the marine life and people who depend on them.
“People use and value seagrass for many different reasons, so safeguarding seagrass is vital to ensure that all people, all of the time, have equitable and equal access to the resources seagrass provides,” said study co-author Leanne Cullen-Unsworth, director of research at conservation organization Project Seagrass.
Citation:
Jones, B. L., Unsworth, R. K., Nordlund, L. M., Eklöf, J. S., Ambo-Rappe, R., Carly, F., … Cullen-Unsworth, L. C. (2022). Dependence on seagrass fisheries governed by household income and adaptive capacity. Ocean … Coastal Management, 225, 106247. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2022.106247
This article was originally published on Mongabay.
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