10 August 22
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Eliot Ness got Al Capone on tax evasion. Merrick Garland may get Donald Trump in a leak investigation.
Donald Trump has yet to face criminal charges for his efforts to incite a violent coup against the United States government. But Monday’s unprecedented FBI search of Trump’s Florida home appears to be part of a criminal investigation into his removal — a better word might be theft — of classified documents after he left the White House.
So instead of being charged as a violent insurrectionist bent on destroying American democracy, Donald Trump may go to jail for a much more mundane reason: He pissed off the nerds at the National Archives, the legal custodians of the missing documents, who then tipped off the Justice Department.
The FBI search really is evidence of a leak investigation — perhaps the biggest in history. But in legal terms, the case doesn’t appear that different from the many leak investigations that Trump’s own Justice Department aggressively prosecuted throughout his time in office. In fact, Trump put enormous pressure on the Justice Department to pursue leaks of classified information while he was president, usually related to negative disclosures in the press about him. Many of the people charged in cases involving leaks of classified information during the Trump administration came in connection to disclosures in the press about Trump or Russia, or both. The Intercept reported last year that the Trump administration had referred a record of at least 334 leaks of classified information to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.
In many cases involving leaks to the press, the Justice Department has wielded a century-old draconian law — the Espionage Act — that can potentially put away the leaker for decades. The government often uses the Espionage Act as a threat to intimidate leakers into pleading to lesser charges; the leakers often end up pleading to some charges related to the mishandling of classified information. The New York Times observed Tuesday that one of the laws that would come with lesser charges than the Espionage Act and which would seem to fit Trump’s case is Section 2071 of Title 18 in the U.S. code; under that law, an official who has custodial responsibility for the documents who then “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys” the records could face up to three years in prison and could be barred from running for federal office again.
Prosecuting under that statute would not seem to require the government to prove that Trump gave documents to foreign spies, the media, or other unauthorized people.
The FBI search, authorized by a search warrant approved by a federal judge, caught Washington by surprise, but it did not come completely out of the blue. A quiet battle between the National Archives, the Justice Department, and Trump has been underway over the issue since last year.
After Trump left office, the National Archives discovered that there were lots of records, documents, and other materials missing from the White House — and began to search for them. They found that Trump had at least 15 boxes of materials that he had taken from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and officials from the archives began to fight with Trump to get them back. When he finally returned the 15 boxes in January 2022, archives officials discovered that they included classified documents, and referred the matter to the Justice Department. The Justice Department opened a grand jury investigation, and a small group of federal agents went to Mar-a-Lago in the spring to look for classified documents. Obviously, Monday’s raid reveals that the Justice Department and the FBI believed that Trump had not been cooperative in their investigation, and that he still had more classified documents hidden away at his home, in violation of federal law.
While it is possible that the FBI search will not lead to criminal charges against Trump, it is really hard to see how U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department would have approved the historic step of an FBI search of a former president’s home without much higher stakes than just a bureaucratic attempt to retrieve missing presidential records. It also seems difficult to believe that the Justice Department would conduct such a politically radioactive search if officials were only considering some slap on the wrist in the case, like the light punishments applied in the past to former CIA Director John Deutch and former national security adviser Sandy Berger.
Clearly, a big question at the heart of the case is what was Trump planning to do with so many highly classified documents after leaving office. When it comes to Trump, it’s hard to go wrong thinking the worst. Clearly, they were documents he thought would somehow benefit him in the future — perhaps in another presidential campaign, in his own private dealings, or even with foreign leaders. It is not too much of a stretch to think that the Espionage Act might apply.
It is also difficult not to see that the case is drenched in irony. As a presidential candidate, Trump constantly attacked Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, supposedly putting classified information at risk. It turns out that the “Lock her up” chant may have used the wrong gender.
Did Daffy Don share the SEARCH WARRANT?
Did Daffy Don share the INVENTORY that the FBI provided to him?
Of course NOT!
That wouldn't rile up the uneducated SHEEP who continue to blindly follow without question.
From HEATHER COX RICHARDSON:
Trump and his supporters have spent the day complaining bitterly about yesterday’s search of Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, painting it an illegal “witch hunt” and threatening to launch a “revolution” over it. A search warrant requires a judge to sign off on the idea that there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and that a search will provide evidence of that crime. While the FBI cannot release the search warrant, Trump has a copy of it and could release it if he wanted to.
Legal analyst Andrew Weissmann, who spent 20 years at the Department of Justice, pointed out on Twitter that the law requires the FBI to give Trump an inventory of what they found. If indeed he wants to claim the search was a witch hunt and he had no government property in his home, he should release the search inventory.
Kyle Cheney at Politico noted that on January 19, 2021, the day before he left office, Trump revoked the authority he had previously given and named seven new loyalists as his representatives to the National Archives with regard to his presidential records. They were Meadows; then–White House counsel Pat Cipollone; then–deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin; lawyer John Eisenberg, who as legal advisor to the National Security Council tried to keep the story about Trump’s call to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky under wraps; Scott Gast, also of the White House counsel’s office during Trump’s term; lawyer Michael Purpura; and lawyer Steven Engel, who argued that Congress could not subpoena White House advisors.
Meanwhile, Sadie Gurman, Alex Leary, and Aruna Viswanatha of the Wall Street Journal reported today that the Mar-a-Lago search came out of the concern of federal agents that Trump had not returned all the classified documents he took from the White House. In January of this year, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of material, including records that had been torn into pieces. Yesterday, federal officials retrieved about 10 more boxes.
National Guard troops at the Capitol after it was overtaken by a violent mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. (photo: Kenny Holston/NYT)
The DOD is the latest part of the federal government to have deleted official phone communications relevant to investigations into the events of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol
Court records published on the website of the watchdog group American Oversight indicate that the Pentagon “wiped” the government-issued phones of senior Defense Department and Army officials who were in charge of mobilizing the National Guard to respond to the Capitol attack, including then-acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The erasing apparently was done in keeping with Defense Department and Army policy for departing employees, according to filings that state: “the text messages were not preserved.”
The admission comes as a blow not just to American Oversight’s efforts to unearth critical communications regarding the attack, but also to the House’s Jan. 6 special committee, which had asked Pentagon leaders to preserve and share all documents related to the riot. It also makes the Defense Department the latest known part of the federal government, including the Secret Service and other parts of the Department of Homeland Security, to have deleted records that could have helped investigators piece together what happened on Jan. 6 — and the degree to which President Donald Trump was responsible for delays in responding.
“From the reporting about the Secret Service and the senior DHS officials, it becomes pretty clear that this is not just a DOD problem, not just an Army problem, but multiagency,” said Dara Silvestre, a spokeswoman for American Oversight.
On Tuesday, the group’s executive director, Heather Sawyer, appealed in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into “DOD’s failure to preserve the text messages of several high-ranking officials on or surrounding the day of the Jan. 6 attack.”
“The apparent deletion of records from Jan. 6 by multiple agencies bolsters the need for a cross-agency investigation into the possible destruction of federal records,” the letter continued.
Last week, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) sent a similar request to Garland, asking him to investigate the missing text messages from the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security.
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Army said: “It is our policy not to comment on ongoing litigation.”
A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the deletions were just standard “process.”
“Nobody was trying to hide or conceal anything,” the official said. “That would be a false narrative.”
American Oversight’s case began as a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, filed with various government agencies less than a week after rioters inspired by Trump attacked the Capitol to try to prevent President Biden from being declared the winner of the 2020 election. Among the documents that were sought were text and Signal messages, Silvestre said. The deletions appear to have been conducted after the FOIA requests were filed.
The Defense Department has produced a handful of heavily redacted emails, but no phone communications, according to the group.
The Pentagon’s admission that it had wiped the phones was included as part of a joint status report filed in March, but only publicized by American Oversight on Tuesday. Silvestre said that in the intervening months, the group has been trying to work with the agencies “to try to get them to release as much as possible,” as there are some phone records that are believed to have been preserved.
The suit is not only seeking records from former senior figures such as Miller and McCarthy. It also has asked for the phone communications of Gen. James McConville, the Army chief of staff, and Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army staff, who still work at the Pentagon and whose texts and secure messages should not have been deleted. According to court records, the Army began a search for those records last September, and another court filing updating the status of that search is expected next month.
Ilhan Omar. (photo: Star Tribune/Getty Images)
The Squad member won her primary, but it was a lot closer than she would have liked.
Samuels ran largely on backlash to Omar’s leftist positions, including her support for defunding the police, which has become a hot-button issue in Minneapolis since the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The congresswoman is one of the most liberal members of the House Democratic Caucus, and she has occasionally bucked the party on major policy votes alongside the rest of the so-called progressive “squad.”
Although he ultimately lost, Samuels’ candidacy appears to have struck a chord with some voters’ distaste for Omar’s progressive approach. At the point the AP called her race, she was only about 2 percentage points ahead.
Leading up to the primary election, Omar remained seemingly unfazed. Not only did she have the benefit of incumbency, but she was backed by a number high-profile progressive figures, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Samuels did benefit from some last-minute endorsements, including from Minneapolist Mayor Jacob Frey. But his challenge ultimately fell short—and he conceded the race to Omar around 10:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday night.
Omar isn’t the first member of the squad to survive a close primary challenge this year. Both Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) faced centrist primary challengers, though they both prevailed with more comfortable margins.
Omar has received primary challenges in years past—including lawyer Antone Melton-Meaux, who she beat by a healthy margin. But the close call Tuesday night may be an indication that another Democratic challenger could take her down in another primary.
Luckily for Omar, her district is heavily Democratic, meaning she likely has two more years to figure out her electability issues, as she faces little chance of losing re-election in the general election this November.
ILHAN OMAR was subjected to AIPAC LIES & ATTACK ADS.
ISRAEL bombed GAZA and the World remained silent.
AIPAC has worked to defeat any candidate who dares to SPEAK ILL OF ISRAEL.
That has to change for the benefit of not only Palestinians, but in order to restore PEACE that ISRAEL has long opposed.
AIPAC $$$ would be better spent promoting PEACE in ISRAEL.
Targeted By AIPAC Ads Over Support for Palestinian Rights, Omar Vows 'No Level of Harassment Will Silence Me'
"The rights of Palestinians and all people yearning for freedom and self-determination will not be ignored."
byJake Johnson, staff writer
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on March 11, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Wednesday vowed not to be deterred from fighting for Palestinian rights after the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC began running ads this week linking the Minnesota Democrat with Hamas, spots that Omar's office condemned as both inaccurate and dangerous.
"Given the number of threats of death and violence the congresswoman receives on a near-daily basis, it's not just irresponsible—it's incitement," Isi Baehr-Breen, Omar's deputy communications director, told The Nation.
On Monday, AIPAC began running a Facebook ad showing Omar's face next to a barrage of rockets. "When Israel targets Hamas," the ad reads, "Rep. Omar calls it an 'act of terrorism.'"
The ad appears to be referencing a tweet last week in which Omar—who has denounced Israel's killing of Palestinians and Hamas rocket attacks—described Israeli airstrikes on civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip as "an act of terrorism" and said that "Palestinians deserve protection."
"This is desperate and deeply offensive," Omar said of AIPAC's ad on Wednesday. "The rights of Palestinians and all people yearning for freedom and self-determination will not be ignored and no level of harassment will silence me or the millions of people demanding peace and justice."
The influential pro-Israel lobbying group has also launched ads in recent days targeting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first Palestinian-American woman ever elected to Congress.
"Israel is under attack," reads a Facebook ad featuring Omar and the four other progressive lawmakers, all of whom have criticized the Israeli government's ongoing, devastating assault on Gaza, an air and artillery campaign that has killed more than 220 Palestinians, wounded many more, and displaced nearly 60,000 in just over a week.
The ads targeting progressive critics of Israel are so egregious that they're drawing rebukes from fervently pro-Israel top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
"I disagree with the statements made by the members, but attacking them in ads does not advance the goal of increasing support for Israel," said Hoyer, a regular speaker at AIPAC's annual conference.
Pelosi, for her part, called the ads attacking Omar "deeply cynical and inflammatory."
"As we always respect Israel's right to defend herself," said Pelosi, "there must be a serious effort on the part of both parties in the conflict to end the violence and respect the rights of both the Israeli and Palestinian people."
As The Nation's Aída Chávez reported Wednesday, "Omar's office is calling on Facebook to immediately remove the ads, which 'blatantly peddle both anti-Muslim hate speech and disinformation,' and on AIPAC to apologize."
Chávez noted that the lobbying organization's latest campaign is "consistent with AIPAC's broader rhetoric; in 2019, the pro-Israel group was forced to apologize and remove at least four Facebook ads saying that Omar, Tlaib, and Representative Betty McCollum, one of the few congressional critics of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, pose a threat 'maybe more sinister' than ISIS."
In a tweet on Wednesday, Tlaib wrote that "to launch such a blatantly Islamophobic attack on Ilhan Omar right now is reprehensible."
"I stand with her to oppose the violence Israel's apartheid government is perpetrating," Tlaib added. "You will not silence those who stand for human rights."
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/20/targeted-aipac-ads-over-support-palestinian-rights-omar-vows-no-level-harassment
Justice Democrats
Help us defend Ilhan Omar from Islamaphobic smears with a donation right now
We’re not surprised that the powerful hawkish lobbying group AIPAC launched Facebook ads attacking Ilhan Omar. Ilhan Omar has been a leading voice in Congress, speaking out against war, but her identity as a Black Muslim woman — and her advocacy on behalf of the Palestinian people — makes her the target of these Islamophobic far-right attacks.
And it isn’t just Ilhan they are going after. For too long, AIPAC has had a stranglehold on American foreign policy. At their last conference, they hosted several Islamophobic speakers — even one pastor who accused President Obama of being Muslim. As Justice Democrats are standing up against the far-right Israeli government, AIPAC is attacking the Squad.
AIPAC targets Ilhan and other members of the Squad because they are afraid of the power of our movement. They know that Justice Democrats will keep fighting for human rights, and enduring peace and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians.
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Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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Ilhan’s primary is in THREE days LEARN ABOUT HER FAKE OPPONENT, DON SAMUELS! WE DON'T WANT HIM IN CONGRESS
Ilhan Omar, one of the most left-wing members of Congress, faces a primary challenger, Don Samuels, backed by an unsavory circle of right-wing billionaires and cops. Despite being an enemy of public schools, he’s calling himself a progressive.
Representative Ilhan Omar, one of the most left-wing members of Congress and a close ally of democratic socialists in Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, will face a primary challenger on Tuesday. Her opponent, former city council and school board member Don Samuels, is pitching himself to the district’s liberal voters as a “progressive.”
His Twitter account emphasizes his liberalism: gun control, protecting abortion rights, public school advocacy, and green jobs. He also wants to strengthen voting rights and make health care more affordable. But if he’s that progressive, why is he challenging Ilhan Omar at all? As usual, following the money provides an answer: Samuels and his campaign are supported by reactionary billionaires who want to get rid of Omar.
When Samuels first ran for Minneapolis School Board in 2014, he was backed by a coalition of billionaires — Michael Bloomberg, Arthur Rock, and Jonathan Sackler — supporting charter schools. In an effort to deceive voters who might otherwise oppose their school privatization schemes, these moguls called their PAC the Minnesota Progressive Education Fund and poured what In These Times magazine called an “unprecedented” amount of money (some $290,000) into two school board candidates. One of these was Samuels.
In the current race, Samuels is backed by even worse interests, including several Republican super PACs funded by the same billionaires that support Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, Laura Loomer, and Kelly Loeffler.
He’s also backed by the same police PACs that support Senator Tom Cotton and Lee Zeldin (the far-right zealot seeking to unseat New York governor Kathy Hochul). (These groups also donated to candidates trying to unseat Omar’s Squad-mates AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley.)
It’s not hard to see why. Samuels has been a staunch opponent of local campaigns to shift funding from the police into other priorities, efforts Omar has supported. Indeed, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis cops, when millions of Americans were pouring into the streets to protest racist police violence, Samuels and his wife were suing the city of Minneapolis to demand that the city hire one hundred additional police officers. (That lawsuit is ongoing.)
Right-wing donors have been hosting fundraisers for Samuels. These include Andy Brehm (a prominent critic of progressive attorney general Keith Ellison), Steve Cramer of the Minneapolis Downtown Council (a prominent opponent of police accountability), and several of Minneapolis’s worst landlords — including one family of billionaires who faced state investigation in 2020 for creating an atmosphere of racial discrimination, harassment, and hostility for their tenants, who were Somali women with children.
The conservative National Review magazine published a fawning profile of Samuels on Thursday, noting that even though he is a Democrat, “there are reasons for conservatives and others on the right to wish him well on Tuesday.” In addition to Samuels’s die-hard police fandom, the National Review writer appreciated his support for charter schools and vouchers and, “most importantly,” emphasized that Samuels had, of any opponent, the best chance of defeating Omar.
The teachers’ union has not fallen for Samuels’s claims to the progressive mantle. (The United Steelworkers and a couple of building trades unions unfortunately are backing him, though Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and other unions are behind Omar.) Greta Callahan, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Education Support Professionals, in an op-ed for the Star Tribune, pointed to Omar’s support for public school teachers and students — from pushing for universal free school lunch during the pandemic, cancellation of school lunch debt, and a permanent end to punitive school lunch policies to standing with striking Minneapolis teachers on the picket line in the freezing winter. (The strike, which called for caps on class sizes and increased mental health support for students, as well as higher teacher pay, was successful.)
In her op-ed, Callahan contrasted the congresswoman’s allegiances with those of her opponent: Samuels not only failed to support the striking teachers but has said he would never send his children to public school and memorably called for burning down one of Minneapolis’s high schools.
Since her election to Congress in 2018, Omar has been an effective fighter not only on education but also on climate, health care, affordable housing, food justice, and greater accountability for the military and military contractors. Among elected officials serving at the federal level, she has also been one of the few outspoken opponents of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
For all these reasons and many more (including, of course, the fact that Omar is Muslim), she has received countless death threats and been singled out for violent harassment by Donald Trump’s followers. She has been the target of knuckle-draggingly ignorant bigotry from her own colleagues, with Representative Lauren Boebert calling her a member of the “jihad Squad.”
Omar’s last primary challenge was animated by Islamophobic elements of this kind. That’s not where Samuels is coming from, but the ruling class and organized cops supporting him are equally dangerous and deserving of defeat.
Given Omar’s courageous positions, it’s easy to understand why right-wing billionaires would want to stop her. But the Democratic voters of Minneapolis should not be fooled by their faux-progressive campaign.
https://www.rsn.org/001/meet-the-fake-progressive-opposing-ilhan-omar.html
The Kherson region of Ukraine has been under control of the Russian forces since the early days of the invasion. (photo: AP)
His name is Vitaliy — we're not using his last name for his safety — and he told us how nervous he was getting about a Russian invasion, especially as troops gathered in Crimea just miles away.
Weeks later, Kherson became the first major city occupied by Russia. It happened so quickly, civilians barely had time to process it, let alone flee.
I have stayed in touch with Vitaliy while his city has remained occupied, and he sends me voice memos through the encrypted messaging app Telegram about what life is like under occupation: What he is worried about, what he is hearing from his friends — anything really.
His messages come almost daily.
For a while, Vitaliy was fairly upbeat. He was worried, of course, but aware that the fighting was worse in other parts of the country, and that Kherson was relatively calm since it was already occupied and the battle had moved on. But as the war drags on, his messages have been getting more desperate.
"I definitely gotta get out of here before June," he tells me in early May. "Because when June comes, I think it will be hell in here, with heavy battles."
Civilian massacres in places like Bucha and Borodyanka have been coming to light. He tells me that he wants to leave Kherson with his mom and go west where he has relatives.
"In June or July, I think our military is going to take action here. I'm afraid that Kherson could be the next Mariupol or Kharkiv," he says.
Vitaliy has heard rumors that the Ukrainian army is moving in, and that they're planning to launch a major offensive to retake the city. He's worried that he will be mobilized to fight — for the Russians.
But then I lose contact with Vitaliy for four days.
When he finally pops back up again, he says Russia has been cutting the internet and cell service, trying to force everyone to switch to Russian SIM cards and networks. This is part of the playbook in areas after Russia takes over.
"That's, like, really horrible. I don't know. I felt like I was stranded on an island," he says.
Vitaliy has been getting around it, finding weak Wi-Fi signal where he can — the corner store down the street, his mom's office when she goes into work. And he tells me he's still making plans to leave. He has heard rumors that the Russian military will open up the roads leading out of the city in mid-May.
"So, going through the checkpoints, I've heard the Russians are actually stealing phones and computers," he says. "And I have, like, a decoy phone. Just my very old phone, I'd say from 2016. So I'm going to use that, and hide my iPhone."
But weeks pass. Russian troops never open the roads. Vitaliy hears rumors that cars have been shot up trying to leave. He doesn't want to risk it.
And then, Vitaliy goes silent again.
I check in.
"Hey there, I'm sorry, I'm here," he finally responds one day with a new voice memo. "I have a horrible experience that I went through."
He tells me that he and his mom went outside the city to a village to visit his grandma.
"Well, that was a really stupid idea. And I knew that was a stupid idea," he says.
The way there was smooth. But on the way back, they were stopped by Russian soldiers. This is the first time Vitaliy has been so close to them.
"He wanted me to give him my phone. And yeah, so I gave him. But I had my decoy phone. And I did not have anything there, no social media, no photos. And, you know, he thought it was pretty suspicious," Vitaliy says.
The soldier had him get out of the car, and started going through his whole phone.
"He was asking, 'What the hell is this?' He was looking for a reason to detain me. And I remember, I thought, that this is it. I thought that I might die today or something. I don't know," Vitaliy trails off. "It's just a crazy feeling. I don't know. I've never felt that before."
The soldiers finally let him go. But Vitaly was clearly shaken. You can hear it in his voice.
"Yeah, but anyway," he says with a nervous laugh, "there's no way that I'm going anywhere right now."
Vitaly tells me he and his mom have decided they're just going to wait it out until the fighting is over and Kherson is hopefully liberated by Ukraine.
"We have our basement we can go to, and we'll just do our best to do anything we can to survive," he says.
But then a little over a week ago, Vitaliy pops back up. He seems excited. He says they've changed their minds again.
He tells me he has a classmate who recently decided to go the other way out — south, through Crimea and into Russia and across the border into Georgia, a place friendly to Ukrainians.
"And he says that you guys got nothing to worry about. I thought it was pretty dangerous, but he kind of, like, convinced me to go," Vitaliy says.
Vitaliy is acutely aware that he is a 22-year-old man — just the right age to be fighting in the army. And the battle is moving closer and closer. So he and his mom pack up and find a friend who is also leaving and can drive.
He clears his phone, deletes our chats, removes me and the other NPR journalists from his contacts.
"Because I know the Russians are looking for people with a pro-Ukrainian side," he explains. "But if they're going to find out that I interact with Americans, I mean, they're going to kill me."
They make one more trip to the village to say goodbye to his grandma — she's going to stay — and they go for it.
"Pretty sure this whole experience is going to look like the movie Argo, if you've ever watched it? Like, starring Ben Affleck," he messages.
Vitaliy is really nervous for the trip.
"It's probably going to be, like, the scariest, the hardest experience that I would go through," he says before he leaves.
Vitaliy tells me not to text him. He'll reach out when it's safe.
And yet again, days go by.
And then last week, an audio message pops up in my Instagram.
"Hey Kat, I got through Russia, and I'm in Georgia now," says a familiar voice.
They made it. Vitaliy is exhausted. They drove mostly at night, were interrogated at checkpoints and waited for hours at border crossings.
But they're finally out of Kherson right as it becomes the center of the next phase of the war. And now the next phase of Vitaliy's life — as a refugee — can begin.
Google is the biggest player in the market for online display ads, which help fund news, sports and entertainment websites. (photo: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)
United States federal scrutiny of Google’s digital advertising operations can be traced back to the Trump administration.
Lawyers with the DOJ’s antitrust division are questioning publishers in another round of interviews to refresh facts and glean additional details for the complaint, said three people familiar with the conversations who asked not to be named discussing an ongoing investigation.
Some of the interviews have already taken place and others are scheduled in the coming weeks, two of the people said. They build on previous interrogations conducted during an earlier stage of the long-running investigation, the people said.
An ad tech complaint, which Bloomberg had reported was in the works last year, would mark the DOJ’s second case against Google following the government’s 2020 lawsuit alleging the tech titan dominates the online search market in violation of antitrust laws.
Still undecided is whether prosecutors will file the case in federal court in Washington, where the search case is pending, or in New York, where state attorneys general have their own antitrust case related to Google’s ad tech business, the people said.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
“Our advertising technologies help websites and apps fund their content, and enable small businesses to reach customers around the world,” said Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels. “The enormous competition in online advertising has made online ads more relevant, reduced ad tech fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers.”
The DOJ’s ad tech probe is an example of the federal government’s push to rein in the largest US technology platforms after nearly a decade during which regulators took little to no action. The Federal Trade Commission has sued Meta Platforms Inc. seeking to force it to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp and is investigating Amazon.com Inc. over its control of online retail.
Apple Inc. is also under investigation by the Justice Department related to its tight control over the App Store. These types of probes are difficult, taking years to prepare and resolve as they wend their way from investigation to litigation and appeals.
Federal scrutiny of Google’s digital advertising operations goes back to the Trump administration. Then-Attorney General William Barr sued the Mountain View, California-based company over its search business instead, alleging the company used exclusive distribution deals with wireless carriers and phone makers to lock out competition.
In December 2020, attorneys general for 16 states and Puerto Rico also sued Google for allegedly monopolizing the online digital advertising market. The suit alleges Google reached an illegal deal with Meta to manipulate the online auctions where advertisers and website publishers buy and sell ad space. Meta isn’t accused of wrongdoing in the states’ lawsuit, though regulators in the UK and Europe have opened a probe into both companies over the agreement, nicknamed Jedi Blue.
Google denies the allegations and has asked a federal judge to dismiss the states’ complaint. A hearing on that request is scheduled for later this month.
The search giant is the biggest player in the market for online display ads, which help fund news, sports and entertainment websites. The company owns tools that help websites sell ads, others that help advertisers buy space and the most widely used platform where online ad auctions take place.
Google controlled about 28.6% of the $211.2 billion in U.S. digital ad spending last year, according to eMarketer, while Facebook made up 23.8% and Amazon 11.6%.
A migrant who was previously detained gets off a van coming from Waco. (photo: Veronica Cardenas/Reuters)
Sixteen immigrant rights organizations filed a complaint against the facility.
The allegation is part of a 102-page complaint against the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny by a group of 15 current and former immigration detainees who allege a "pattern of abuse."
The complaint includes allegations that the guards threatened detainees with solitary confinement and retaliated against them when they filed internal complaints. One petition signed by 130 immigrants at the facility accuses officers of putting detainees in cells without cameras so they can mistreat them.
Other allegations describe unsanitary conditions caused by inadequate clothing, underwear, bedding, and toilets. One incident described in the complaint alleges that five detainees were placed in a holding cell with "one toilet with no privacy, no sink for hand washing, no soap, no toilet paper, and no ability to social distance at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic."
In addition, the complaint alleges that one officer at Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny punched him and broke Eric Martinez's nose while he was restrained and another placed a spit guard over his face as he bled.
"I thought I was going to pass out," Martinez told ABC News.
Martinez claims before the alleged assault in January 2019, he had previously filed a grievance about officers not giving him time in the library to work on his immigration court case, his complaint said.
The complaint against the detention center, which is operated by the Baker County Sheriff's Office and overseen by ICE alleges "officers rushed him and assaulted him" and one sergeant "punched him in the face with a closed fist, breaking his nose."
The guards placed Martinez in solitary confinement for several weeks, where he initiated a hunger strike to protest the conditions, the complaint alleges.
In a disciplinary report of the incident involving Martinez, Baker County Sheriff's Office accused Martinez of becoming combative with officers during a dispute over the TV volume in a dorm and of unruly behavior by detainees in the dorm. According to that report, Martinez refused to let deputies restrain him, causing him to strike a wall at one point.
Baker County Undersheriff Randy Crews told ABC News the allegations against the facility are "not true" and are "distortions."
"I can emphatically say there's no inmates or detainees at our facility being treated inhumanely," he said.
Crews also said that none of the 16 organizations that filed the complaint ever spoke to his staff about the allegations when they visited the facility and that he has never been told by any inspector that detainees are being treated inhumanely.
A spokesperson for ICE told ABC News that the facility underwent an inspection in May 2022, and received an “acceptable rating.”
“ICE takes very seriously the health, safety, and welfare of those in our care. ICE is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care,” the ICE spokesperson said.
That inspection was conducted by a third-party contractor, the Nakamoto Group Inc., which said there were no “areas of concern” and that the facility met ICE standards. The complaint claims the inspection was not properly carried out and that it took place during a hunger strike.
“Because it was a pre-planned inspection, Baker staff were able to select detained people they thought would speak well of the jail, while others who had signed up to speak with inspectors were not permitted to do so,” the complaint said.
In 2019, a Department of Homeland Security inspector general report found that living conditions at Baker and two other facilities across the country "not only violate ICE detention standards, but, in some instances, may also pose a health and safety risk to detainees." The report also stated that detainees at four facilities, including Baker County, "had difficulties resolving issues through the grievance and communication system."
The report said ICE took corrective action to fix the issues that were found in the report.
"The things they talked about were really horrific conditions and abusive treatment. There were some incidents detailed in the complaint that include racist harassment, excessive use of force, instances of physical assault, including the frequent use of pepper spray and physical constraints," Layla Razavi, co-executive director of Freedom For Immigrants, one of the groups that filed the complaint, told ABC News. "Also, retaliation and intimidation as punishment for people who are inside and advocating for themselves."
Andrea Jacoski, director of the Detention Program at Americans for Immigrant Justice, said the allegations at Baker also mirror ones raised at a different facility in Florida. Her organization joined the complaint regarding Baker and was also part of a broader coalition that successfully advocated for ICE to scale back its usage of the Glades County Detention Center after several migrants raised the alarm about allegations of abusive conditions.
Jacoski told ABC News that some former detainees at Glades were transferred to Baker, so they already knew how to advocate for themselves and stage hunger strikes. ABC News spoke to Jacoski on July 28, a week after the complaint was filed, and she said one detainee had already reported that
“One caller said he was experiencing retaliation for reporting and talking about ICE. He said there have been three shakedowns in the last two weeks,” she said.
Martinez had surgery to repair his nose before he was deported to Colombia in October 2019. With the help of a lawyer, he continues to try to obtain footage of what he says happened at the detention center. He said the images will prove that he was attacked.
"If I'm a liar, the video will show that, but I'm telling the truth and it will prove my innocence," he said.
The Galápagos land iguana is making a comeback on Santiago Island. Conservationists say the species is showing signs of being successfully reintroduced. (photo: Galápagos National Park Directorate)
The last person to spot a Galápagos land iguana on Santiago Island in Ecuador was Charles Darwin in 1835. When an expedition team from California arrived in 1906, the iguanas were nowhere to be found.
And though this kind of iguana can still be found on the other Galápagos Islands, it's believed to have been extinct on Santiago for the past 187 years — until now.
A team of scientists and park rangers discovered new lizards of various ages while walking the island in late July, which suggests the species has been successfully reintroduced. And according to Jorge Carrión, director of conservation of the Galápagos Conservancy, the ecosystem is thriving as a result.
The evidence is in the details, he explained. Seeing lizards of different ages and coming across unmarked specimens means the iguanas are breeding in their natural environment.
Before joining the Galápagos Conservancy, Carrión worked for the Galápagos National Park Directorate, the caretakers of the islands' ecosystems and resources. The GNPD is also the authority spearheading the iguana reintroduction project, with funding and assistance coming from the Conservancy.
He said the collaborative has released more than 3,000 land iguanas on the island since January 2019.
Conservationists decided to reintroduce the land iguana after carefully considering how a return of the species would affect the ecosystem. These lizards are what's known as an engineering species, like the Galápagos giant tortoise, in that they play a critical role in maintaining a healthy balance in an ecosystem.
As the primary herbivores on the Galápagos Islands, the land iguanas and tortoises spread seeds across the landscape and help model the plant communities, Carrión explained. Their movement patterns also create open spaces used by other animals.
"This kind of species are critical for ecosystem in general," Carrión said. "In this case it was the justification for the reintroduction of land iguanas, to [return] the natural dynamic to Santiago Island. When engineer species are not present, many imbalances occur in the ecosystem."
What caused the iguanas' extinction?
It's believed that the Galápagos land iguanas were wiped out by invasive species, including feral pigs, cats, goats and donkeys. These unwelcomed animals were introduced to some of the islands, including Santiago, by whalers and other mariners. They wreaked havoc on the ecosystem, devouring plants other species relied on, and some even ate the iguanas.
That is why scientists had to rid the island of non-native animals before the iguanas could be reintroduced. This was accomplished over a nine-year period through the Galápagos Conservancy's Project Isabela, which was completed in 2006.
Carrión said he and his colleagues believe they have learned an important lesson through the reintroduction of the land iguanas: if you remove the source of the ecological disturbance (the invasive species in this case), the ecosystem can recover and return to its natural dynamic.
The Galápagos Conservancy and the National Park Directorate are also working together to reintroduce the giant tortoise on another island. The native tortoise has been extinct on Floreana Island since the 1800s, according to the Galápagos Conservancy, and reintroduction and breeding efforts began in 2017.
The ecosystems found on the Galápagos Islands are home to some of the most fascinating plants and animals in the world. The islands were made famous largely due to Darwin and his 1835 expedition, according to the Conservancy, which led to his theory of evolution by natural selection.
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