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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! For more on the calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to step down or be impeached in light of the recent revelations, we’re going to look at a historical reference, when, “54 Years Ago, a Supreme Court Justice Was Forced to Quit for Behavior Arguably Less Egregious Than Thomas’s.” That’s the headline of an op-ed in The New York Times by Adam Cohen, lawyer, journalist, former member of The New York Times editorial board, author of Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America.
Adam, you write that Justice Abe Fortas’s departure from the court in 1969 is both a blueprint for how lawmakers could respond today and a benchmark of how far we have fallen. Can you lay out this history?
ADAM COHEN: Sure. It is really the most on-point parallel we have historically. And one thing that’s important to note is that what Abe Fortas did is, in many ways, much less bad than what Clarence Thomas did. The amount of money was much smaller. He took $20,000. And as you mentioned, and as Justin mentioned, you know, Clarence Thomas, the amount of island hopping and free plane rides over a 20-year period is staggering, probably well into the millions. So the dollar amount was different, but also Fortas gave the money back, which is something that Clarence Thomas has not done. So, we have a much smaller scandal in many ways.
And what was striking is the bipartisan response that there was in 1969. Fortas ended up resigning from the court, not because Republicans were out to get him — and he was a liberal Democrat — but because Walter Mondale, who was in the Senate, demanded that he resign. One of his biggest supporters in the Senate, Senator Tydings from Maryland, demanded that he resign. He was afraid that he would be impeached by a Democratic Congress. And what’s really striking also is that this is in a time when there was a Republican president, Nixon. So, Democrats were doing this even though they knew that they might, quote, “lose the seat,” a liberal being replaced by a conservative. But these Democrats were so concerned about the integrity of the court, and they kept saying, “What matters is that the public have faith in the court.”
We’re not seeing that at all today. Where are Republicans who are coming out in favor of Thomas stepping down or Thomas doing anything, really, because of the integrity of the court? We don’t have that kind of bipartisanship anymore.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you also talk, Adam, about how the media have responded to this case? Fox News has filled the void by locating, quote, “an expert” to declare that the story about Justice Thomas is politics, plain and simple.
ADAM COHEN: That’s exactly right, yes. The media has — right. The conservative media have defended Clarence Thomas. As you said, they found an expert, who doesn’t seem like much of an expert, to say that it’s not a big deal.
But also, you know, just where are the voices of Chief Justice Roberts, for example? Right? I mean, we saw last year, when there were — when there were leaks of that abortion ruling a year ago, the chief justice immediately launched an investigation: “We have to get to the bottom of this, what’s going on in the court.” Why is he not saying that now? Why is it a much bigger deal that there were leaks of an abortion ruling, which conservatives were upset about, compared to Clarence Thomas apparently ignoring ethics rules for years? Where is the chief justice in this? We’re not hearing from him at all.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And why has the Supreme Court been able to get by for so long with essentially no ethics requirements?
ADAM COHEN: That’s exactly it. It’s the least accountable part of government we have. There is a judicial code of ethics that’s quite — I wouldn’t say strong, but it’s a reasonable code. But it doesn’t apply to the Supreme Court. It applies to lower court judges. Why does it not apply to the Supreme Court? Why do we not have, as I said, investigations internally? Even the liberal justices could be talking out now. If they think that Clarence Thomas is breaking the law, I think they have a duty to say something. So, there’s really no one holding them accountable.
The body that would be doing it is — you know, the one real check on the Supreme Court is impeachment. But right now the House is in the control of the Republicans, so they’re not doing anything. There have been calls from the Senate, which does have a Democratic majority, for an investigation. Maybe that will happen. But this is a broken system, and many people are using this Clarence Thomas scandal to say, you know, we’ve gone on too long without an actual ethics code that applies to the justices, and Congress should pass one now.
AMY GOODMAN: Adam, you wrote a book about the Supreme Court called Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America. Can you relate the ethics scandal that Clarence Thomas is facing today to the theme of your book?
ADAM COHEN: Yeah, it’s a great point, Amy. So, what I argue in the book is that we think of the Supreme Court as being a force for equality and fairness and all that, but if you actually look back to the last 50 years, after Nixon packed the court with conservatives, it’s actually been a force for protecting rich people, for increasing inequality. So, in areas like campaign finance, where they have struck down all these often good laws that Congress passed trying to regulate the amount of money from rich people going into politics; in education, where they’ve ruled in favor of inequality in funding, and on and on and on — so, that has been the theme. We’ve had a court that for 50 years has been really fighting for rich people over poor people. That’s only gotten worse in the last few years, because now we have this 6-to-3 conservative majority. So it’s worse than it’s ever been.
This is very strongly related, because think about when you have corruption, when you have financial corruption, when you have justices taking free trips for 20 years. You know, ProPublica referred to it as “island hopping.” Who is giving that? That’s being given by billionaires, people like Crow, right? Welfare recipients who might have business before the court, they can’t afford to give the justices these luxury vacations. Student loan debt holders — right now there’s a big case before the Supreme Court. If you’re in heavy student loan debt, you’re not able to — you don’t have a yacht to take Clarence Thomas on. So this is yet another way in which the balance is tipped in favor of the powerful and the wealthy.
And, you know, when we talk about this friendship, as Justin was saying, it’s a friendship between Crow and Thomas that was made after Thomas became a justice, so you have to wonder about that. But you also have to wonder, if Clarence Thomas started out ruling in favor of poor people, welfare recipients, took liberal positions, would he continue to get these luxury vacations? I would say not. One of the reasons he’s getting them is because, I would argue, it seems to me, that Crow likes what he’s doing on the court. So this is a way to put one more big thumb on the scale in favor of wealthy people before the court. So it’s very ideologically corrupting.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Adam, Harlan Crow, for all of his power within the Republican Party, we learn he has this Nazi collection, swastika-embossed linens, a signed copy of Mein Kampf. So, a Hitler-embracing megamillionaire, if not billionaire, your thoughts on this?
ADAM COHEN: Yeah, I mean, obviously, he has said he’s just interested in these as historical artifacts, and he’s not in any way a Nazi. That’s his position. Look, I want to accept that, on one level, but on the other hand, I just know that it would creep me out so much to have Hitler’s signature, you know, in my home. And beyond that, I just wouldn’t go out and buy it. I mean, these are — you know, these are really artifacts of something so horrible that — what is the draw? I mean, I don’t know. We’ll have to take him at his word. But it gives me the willies, honestly.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there, Adam Cohen, lawyer, journalist, former member of The New York Times editorial board. We’ll link to your New York Times guest essay, “54 Years Ago, a Supreme Court Justice Was Forced to Quit for Behavior Arguably Less Egregious Than Thomas’s.” Adam Cohen is also author of Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America.
That does it for our show. Democracy Now! produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud and Sonyi Lopez. Our executive director, Julie Crosby. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
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Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow, attends the first day of CPAC at Gaylord National Harbor Resort & Convention, March 2, 2023. (photo: AP)
He called the challenge “Prove Mike Wrong.”
On Wednesday, a private arbitration panel ruled that someone did.
The panel said Robert Zeidman, a computer forensics expert and 63-year-old Trump voter from Nevada, was entitled to the $5 million payout.
Zeidman had examined Lindell’s data and concluded that not only did it not prove voter fraud, it also had no connection to the 2020 election. He was the only expert who submitted a claim, arbitration records show.
He turned to the arbitrators after Lindell Management, which created the contest, refused to pay him.
In their 23-page decision, the arbitrators said Zeidman proved that Lindell’s material “unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data.” They directed Lindell’s firm to pay Zeidman within 30 days.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Zeidman said he was “really happy” with the arbitrators’ decision. “They clearly saw this as I did — that the data we were given at the symposium was not at all what Mr. Lindell said it was,” he said. “The truth is finally out there.”
Zeidman’s attorney, Brian Glasser, said the panel’s decision stands as a warning to others who have made wild allegations about election fraud. “I think the arbitrators thought it important that these claims be vetted, because they’ve done great harm to our country,” he said.
Lindell said in a text to The Post: “They made a terribly wrong decision! This will be going to court!” His attorneys did not reply to a request seeking comment.
A copy of contest rules submitted in the arbitration said disputes would be “resolved exclusively by final and binding arbitration” and noted that arbitration “is subject to very limited review by courts.”
Glasser said the panel’s decision cannot be directly appealed but that Lindell could ask a federal court to quash it on the basis that it represented a “manifest injustice.” The statutory grounds for such a claim are narrow, and it is “extremely rare” for such a claim to succeed, according to Glasser.
Lindell also faces a $1.3 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems and a defamation lawsuit from one of Dominion’s former executives.
In the months after Trump’s 2020 election loss, Lindell spent millions of dollars to finance lawsuits, support right-wing activists nationwide and launch a streaming television station dedicated to amplifying election-fraud falsehoods.
During frequent media appearances, he had advertised his three-day symposium as the event where he would finally provide data proving his claims. And he issued his high-stakes challenge.
“There’s a $5 million prize for anybody that can prove the election data that I have from the 2020 election was false, is not from the 2020 election,” Lindell said on the conservative show “The Glazov Gang,” which streams online.
The data he planned to reveal, he said, were “packet captures” that would demonstrate Chinese government interference. Packet captures, or “pcaps,” are a specific file format that is an industry standard for archiving internet traffic.
“They were captured in real time and preserved. They cannot be altered. … They’re 100 percent evidence,” Lindell said on the show. “So it will show an intrusion. This was an attack from China.”
The symposium, he later told arbitrators, was meant to “do three things: to make the media show up, cyber guys show up, and politicians to open their eyes and say, ‘Hey, we got to check into this.’”
Lindell’s claims that he had packet captures intrigued Zeidman, who has served as an expert for tech firms in intellectual property lawsuits. Describing himself as a “reasonable” and “moderate conservative” who voted twice for Donald Trump, Zeidman told the arbitration panel he was skeptical of Lindell’s claims. But he said he also did not believe Lindell would promote unvetted data, so he thought the conference could offer a “great chance to see history in the making, perhaps an election overturned.”
At the event, Zeidman received the contest rules. There was no mention of disproving Chinese interference, according to contest forms submitted in the arbitration case. Rather, winners would have to prove that the data provided “does NOT reflect information related to the November 2020 election.”
At the symposium, participants interested in the contest were given a badge with a hot-pink dot to indicate they were cyber experts and could enter a room where Lindell’s data was shared.
The files provided to Zeidman and other experts were primarily text or PDF files. Zeidman testified that one was a flow chart purporting to show how elections generally work. Another, when unencrypted, was a list of internet IP addresses, and others were enormous files of what appeared to Zeidman to be random numbers and letters.
The packet captures that Lindell had promised were nowhere to be found, according to Zeidman.
Zeidman laid out his findings in a 15-page report. “I have proven that the data Lindell provides … unequivocally does not contain packet data of any kind and do not contain any information related to the November 2020 election,” he wrote.
Six weeks after the symposium, Zeidman sent a letter to Lindell Management to claim the prize. He got back a denial, and the following month he filed for arbitration, a type of proceeding that allows parties to resolve disputes outside the court system.
The private arbitration proceedings in Lindell’s home state of Minnesota included written briefs, depositions and a three-day hearing in January with sworn testimony from Zeidman, Lindell, subject-matter experts and witnesses. The Post obtained records from the proceeding.
Asked why he had decided to go to the trouble of seeking a hearing, Zeidman testified that he wanted the money and wanted to push back against stolen-election claims. “Mr. Lindell has a lot of followers,” Zeidman said. “He’s making a lot of statements to people that I know, people that are good friends of mine, people that are influential. And they are claiming that he has the data that shows that this election was stolen.”
Zeidman’s lawyers wrote to the panel that the data presented at the symposium contained “no recognizable data in any known data format.”
Lindell testified at arbitration that he did not share what he had described as his key data to support the foreign intrusion claim during the conference. He held off, he said, after a man seeking a selfie poked him in the side as the symposium was nearing an end — an act that Lindell called an assault and said he took as a signal the government might tamper with his central information if he made it public.
Lindell told the panel that, after the incident, his “red team” advisers warned him against making that information public. “They said it could be a poison pill put in the data and we really shouldn’t release the China stuff,” he said.
The arbitrators did not address the substance of Lindell’s claims about vote tampering, noting that they were “not asked to decide whether China interfered in the 2020 election.”
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Clarence Thomas at the swearing-in of Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020. Thomas has insisted his gifts did not have to be reported under federal ethics laws. (photo: Chris Kleponis/EPA)
Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow was linked to a conservative group that had court business while Thomas was on the bench
Thomas confirmed that the Dallas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy were “among our dearest friends”. Thomas admitted, too, that he and his wife Ginni had “joined them on a number of family trips during the more-than-a-quarter-century we have known them”.
The justice, who is the longest-serving member of the nation’s highest court and arguably its most staunch conservative, insisted he had taken advice that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends” did not have to be reported under federal ethics laws. He emphasized that the friend in question “did not have business before the court”.
But a close look at Thomas’s judicial activities from the time he became friends with Crow, in the mid-1990s, suggests that the statement might fall short of the full picture. It reveals that a conservative organization affiliated with Crow did have business before the supreme court while Thomas was on the bench.
In addition, Crow has been connected to several groups that over the years have lobbied the supreme court through so-called “amicus briefs” that provide legal arguments supporting a plaintiff or defendant.
In 2003, the anti-tax group the Club for Growth joined other rightwing individuals and organisations, including the Republican senator Mitch McConnell and the National Rifle Association (NRA), in attempting to push back campaign finance restrictions on election spending.
At the time of the legal challenge, from at least 2001 to 2004, Crow was a member of the Club for Growth’s prestigious “founders committee”. Though little is known about the role of the committee, it clearly commanded some influence over the group’s policymaking.
During the course of a 2005 investigation into likely campaign finance violations by the Club for Growth, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) noted that rank-and-file club members could “vote on an annual policy question selected by the founders committee”.
Crow has also been a major donor to the club, contributing $275,000 to its coffers in 2004 and a further $150,000 two years later.
The 2003 legal challenge championed by the Club for Growth targeted the McCain-Feingold Act, which had been passed with cross-aisle backing the previous year. The legislation placed new controls on the amount of “soft money” political party committees and corporations could spend on elections.
On appeal, a consolidated version of the lawsuit, Mitch McConnell v FEC, was taken up by the supreme court. In a majority ruling, the court allowed the most important elements of the McCain-Feingold Act to stand (though they were later nullified by the supreme court’s contentious 2010 Citizens United ruling).
Thomas was livid. He issued a 25-page dissenting opinion that sided heavily with the anti-regulation stance taken by the Club for Growth and its rightwing allies. Thomas began his opinion by breathlessly accusing his fellow justices of upholding “what can only be described as the most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the civil war”.
By the time Thomas issued his opinion in December 2003 he had already forged his deep relationship with Crow. According to the billionaire, they first met at a conference in Dallas in 1994 – by which time Thomas had already been nominated by George HW Bush to the most powerful court in the land.
The businessman had already showered Thomas with several lavish gifts before the McCain-Feingold challenge reached his court. Thomas disclosed for instance a 1997 flight from Washington to northern California on Crow’s private jet to attend an all-male retreat at Bohemian Grove at which the justice went on to become a regular guest.
There was also a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglass, then valued at $19,000. In 2001 Crow made a $150,000 donation to create a Clarence Thomas wing within the Savannah, Georgia, library the justice frequented as a child.
The federal law 28 US Code section 455 requires any federal judge – including the nine supreme court justices – to recuse themselves from any proceeding “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”.
ProPublica’s explosive investigation earlier this month exposed undeclared gifts and travel that have continued to be bestowed by the billionaire on Thomas to this day. They included a nine-day vacation with Ginni in Indonesia in the summer of 2019 the cost of which probably exceeded $500,000.
In a later report, ProPublica revealed that in 2014 Thomas sold his mother’s home in Savannah to Crow. That transaction was also left undisclosed.
The ProPublica disclosures have prompted a debate about the need for greater scrutiny of the conduct of supreme court justices. Top Democrats have called for an official inquiry into Thomas’s behavior and for all the justices to be subject to a strict ethics code.
The progressive Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking on CNN, decried Crow’s largesse as “very serious corruption” and called for Thomas to be impeached.
Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a non-partisan group which advocates supreme court reform, said that a crisis of trust in Thomas’s ethical judgments had been bubbling below the surface for some time. “The reason that it is so salient now is that the supreme court has grown exponentially in power since Justice Thomas took that first private plane ride in 1997 – when the court becomes the most powerful government body, then ethics issues become all the more critical.”
The Guardian contacted Thomas at the supreme court but did not receive a response.
This week, the normally media-shy Crow, who has assets valued at $30bn and who has donated at least $13m to Republicans, gave an in-depth interview to the Dallas Morning News. He claimed the furore around his relations with Thomas was a “political hit-job” by the liberal media.
He insisted he and Thomas were just friends who spent their time talking about their kids and animals. “We talk about dogs a lot,” he said.
Asked whether he ever considered their friendship as a ticket to quid pro quo, he replied: “Every single relationship – a baby’s relationship to his mom – has some kind of reciprocity.”
Crow’s office, in a statement to the Guardian, disputed any relevance of Crow’s links with the Club for Growth, his friendship with Thomas, and the justice’s opinion in the McConnell v FEC case. “Harlan Crow was not a party to the litigation, was only a financial supporter of Club for Growth, and had no role whatsoever in any Club for Growth litigation decisions.”
The statement continued: “Any insinuation that Justice Thomas wrote his opinion in this case because Harlan Crow was a supporter is ridiculous as Justice Thomas had already expressed these same views in a previous case, Nixon v Shrink MO PAC.”
The billionaire’s office insisted that Thomas’s skepticism of the constitutionality of campaign finance regulation “was established before he had even met Harlan Crow”.
Crow has never personally come before the supreme court, and denies ever trying to influence Thomas on any legal or political issue. But he has served on the boards of at least three conservative groups that have lobbied the supreme court through amicus briefs. Early in his friendship with Thomas, Crow sat on the national board of the now defunct Center for the Community Interest, which filed at least eight amicus briefs in supreme court cases backing rightwing causes such as sweeping crime off the streets and countering pornography.
He has also been a trustee for more than 25 years of the American Enterprise Institute, a thinktank advancing free enterprise ideas that has filed several supporting briefs to the court. In 2001 AEI gave Thomas a bust of Abraham Lincoln then valued at $15,000.
Crow is an overseer of the Hoover Institution, a conservative thinktank based at Stanford University. In February, Hoover senior fellows led an amicus brief filed to Thomas and his fellow justices challenging the $400bn student loan debt-relief program introduced by Joe Biden.
The supreme court is likely to rule on whether the scheme can go ahead this summer. In oral arguments in February, Thomas was among the rightwing justices who hold the supermajority who indicated they were skeptical of the program, raising the possibility that the court will scupper the hopes of more than 40 million Americans eligible for the debt relief.
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Fox News narrowly avoided an embarrassing trial by settling for $787.5 million, but the cost for its far-right rivals may be much steeper. (photo: Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast)
Fox News narrowly avoided an embarrassing trial by settling for $787.5 million, but the cost for its far-right rivals may be much steeper.
While Dominion is now in the rearview mirror for Fox, the voting machine firm still has pending lawsuits against fringe-right cable networks Newsmax and One America News, as well as Trump acolytes Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell, and Patrick Byrne.
Smartmatic, another voting software company implicated in MAGA conspiracies of stealing the 2020 election from Donald Trump, also has an upcoming $2.7-billion suit against Fox and other individuals which has been waved through for trial. And just like Dominion, Smartmatic is suing OAN and Newsmax over their election lies.
Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, currently has the financial strength to absorb the impact of the massive check it will cut to Dominion. The media conglomerate has a market cap of $17.3 billion and an enterprise valuation of $20.6 billion. Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch recently claimed that the company has $4.1 billion on-hand.
Of course, Smartmatic is seeking nearly twice as much as Dominion did, and legal experts feel their defamation case over Fox’s 2020 election coverage is at least as strong as Dominion’s. Fox is also staring down a lawsuit from former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who claims network attorneys coerced her into giving false testimony in the Dominion case. Additionally, the Murdochs and other Fox directors are looking at legal action from Fox shareholders who feel the executives damaged the company by allowing Trump’s election conspiracies to fester on Fox airwaves.
Still, Fox’s resources provide them the opportunity to negotiate huge settlements in these cases and attempt to sweep away the issue without any public apologies or overt admissions of guilt, all while operating as business as usual.
Newsmax and OAN, however, almost certainly do not have that same luxury.
“There is still the possibility of corporate bankruptcy, which could be a reorganization,” University of Tennessee journalism professor Stuart Brotman told The Daily Beast, referencing the tactic used by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after losing a massive defamation case.
Both channels are much smaller than Fox News and don’t enjoy the large corporate backing of the conservative cable giant. Neither company is publicly traded, so it is difficult to assess their valuations.
Conservative businessman Robert Herring, who launched OAN in 2013, pegged the network’s value in 2019 at $250 million. However, that was almost entirely due to the channel’s deal with DirecTV at the time, as an accountant swore under oath at the time that OAN’s value “would be zero” without the AT…T-backed satellite carrier. DirecTV dropped OAN last year, followed by other cable providers.
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, meanwhile, claimed his channel was worth more than $200 million in late 2020. This was just as the pro-Trump network was experiencing exponential audience growth thanks to its full-throated embrace of election denialism—a tactic it used to poach MAGA viewers angry with Fox News over its Arizona call. (The channel’s ratings have fallen substantially since early 2021.)
Just like with Fox News, Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion from both OAN and Newsmax. And while much of Dominion’s argument against Fox focused on the network’s behind-the-scenes freakout over their viewers fleeing for Newsmax and OAN after the 2020 election, the legal strategy is probably much more straightforward against the two smaller far-right channels.
Essentially, the voting-systems company is arguing that both Newsmax and OAN overtly tried to boost their ratings and directly appeal to disgruntled MAGA fans angry by helping to “create and cultivate an alternate reality where... Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud.”
Motions to dismiss these suits by both OAN and Newsmax have been denied, with judges in both cases saying the litigation by Dominion could move forward.
Smartmatic has yet to specify exact figures in its complaints against Newsmax and OAN, but filed separate suits against both companies in November 2021. And judges in both cases ruled that the networks were ordered to face the voting technology company’s defamation litigation in court. In a somewhat ironic twist, the Delaware Superior Court judge who just oversaw Dominion’s case against Fox News is presiding over both the Smartmatic and Dominion lawsuits against Newsmax.
Brotman told The Daily Beast that when it comes to potential settlement offers from OAN and Newsmax to the voting software firms, much of that will revolve around how much their insurance companies are willing to dish out.
“My assumption is that both of those networks are carrying some insurance,” he noted. “And I would assume that the insurance companies are going to be involved in that litigation and the set of potential settlements. So if they had a certain limit on the insurance, the insurance essentially would say we will pay that limit.”
As for whether either network decided to take their chances at trial, or Smartmatic and Dominion decided against accepting a settlement, Brotman pointed out that the cable channels could potentially take the route Alex Jones took after losing his recent defamation cases.
“Then the other issue—if it went to verdict—is whether we’d go through an appellate process, and even at the trial level, whether or not the damage award would be reduced,” Brotman explained. “We don’t know what the damage award is so we don’t know whether there would be a reduction. And of course, there is still the possibility of corporate bankruptcy, which could be a reorganization.”
Furthermore, based on Dominion’s acceptance of a settlement from Fox—one which didn’t include a public apology or on-air retraction from the network’s personalities—Brotman said the company appears to be “satisfied with the money,” and future actions will focus on trying to “maximize the potential settlement amounts.”
Ponying up for back-breaking settlements, losing the verdicts in court, or being forced to go into bankruptcy aren’t the only financial woes OAN and Newsmax face over these lawsuits—both of which likely won’t make it to trial until next year.
“I think the legal expenses are going to be formidable for everybody here,” Brotman pointed out.
Following the Fox News settlement, Newsmax released a statement expressing confidence over their pending case with Dominion.
“Newsmax believes that the facts at issue in Dominion’s case against us are materially different from those that may have driven Fox to settle and no conclusion about Newsmax should be drawn from that settlement,” the network said. “Newsmax stands by its coverage and analysis of the 2020 election and will continue to vigorously defend against the claim.”
OAN has yet to publicly comment on the settlement, and did not respond to a request for comment.
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President Biden meets with Egyptian president Abdel Fatah El-Sisi at a climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November. (photo: Alex Brandon/AP)
The report by the Freedom Initiative, a nonprofit rights organization founded by Egyptian American advocate Mohamed Soltan, found that Cairo and Riyadh have “become more innovative and emboldened” in carrying out transnational repression — the targeting of critics abroad.
While U.S. politicians frequently voice outrage and impose consequences in response to such tactics on the part of adversaries such as China, Iran and Russia, the report argues, policymakers have not meaningfully held Saudi Arabia and Egypt to account — including for behaviors that violate U.S. law and threaten national security.
The findings demonstrate that “U.S. equivocation on rights is a palpable threat to our own citizens, corporations and national interest,” U.S. trial lawyer Jim Walden wrote in the introduction to the report.
The grisly murder and dismembering of Saudi dissident and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi by a squad of hit men inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018 drew global outcry, along with attention to attacks on dissidents outside of the countries they criticize. The CIA concluded after the assassination that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered it. Under President Donald Trump, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 17 people it said were involved.
Even under the brightened spotlight, “we’ve seen authoritarian regimes use kind of novel tactics and become emboldened in how they’re carrying out transnational repression,” said Allison McManus, research director at the Freedom Initiative.
For its report, the organization conducted a survey of 72 people with personal or professional ties to Egypt or Saudi Arabia — many of whom are U.S. citizens and members of the Egyptian and Saudi diasporas — that paints a picture of efforts by the two governments to intimidate dissidents and critics in the United States.
Egyptian human rights advocates and graduate students reported being surveilled by alleged Egyptian operatives at restaurants and public events in Washington. Some respondents reported the Egyptian Embassy had denied them consular services. Some have received death threats, sometimes by callers who identify as Egyptian security officers. Egypt has also put human rights activists and dissidents on trial in absentia, leaving its citizens living in the United States unable to return home, the report says.
Egypt also continues to jail two U.S. legal permanent residents, Hossam Khalaf and Salah Soltan — Mohamed Soltan’s father — whom the United Nations has declared arbitrarily detained, the report says. At least two U.S. citizens have been banned from exiting Egypt. And authorities have “repeatedly” detained family members of individuals living outside of Egypt in retaliation for criticism of the government.
Sherif Mansour, the U.S.-based Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said relatives in Egypt have been arrested and tortured in connection with his rights work in the United States. In 2020, Egyptian authorities arrested his cousin, Reda Abdelrahman, in what the report calls “an act of state hostage-taking intended to silence Mansour.” Abdelrahman was released in 2021 but remains subject to a travel ban.
“We have stopped talking to anyone in our family, for years,” Mansour said in an interview. He doesn’t send his relatives in Egypt greetings for Ramadan anymore.
Saudi Arabia has wrongfully detained or placed travel bans on U.S. citizens, the report says. Eight respondents reported Saudi authorities had detained or disappeared their family members. Four said they had been physically followed while in the United States, and five reported receiving threatening phone calls or messages.
Abdullah Alaoudh, the Freedom Initiative’s U.S.-based Saudi director, said he regularly receives threats to his life on social media from users he suspects of acting at the behest of the Saudi government.
In one comment on Twitter this week, a screenshot of which Alaoudh shared with The Washington Post, a user whose account has since been suspended tweeted: “I hope that you return to Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi people will be waiting for you, and you will be hanged on lampposts at the airport, which is the verdict that every traitor deserves.”
“I don’t think they are joking at all,” Alaoudh said, particularly after “they just got away with murder” in the case of Khashoggi.
The Saudi and Egyptian embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
The tactics leave Egyptian and Saudi dissidents feeling unsafe, no matter where in the world they live. Many of those surveyed reported experiencing feelings of isolation or recurring nightmares, or said they have changed their work or study plans.
The United States has not dramatically changed its policies toward Egypt or Saudi Arabia in response to their repression of dissidents at home and abroad. Trump maintained close ties with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed, even after Khashoggi’s murder.
On the campaign trail, President Biden promised to hold Cairo and Riyadh accountable for human rights abuses, pledging to offer “no blank checks” to Sisi and to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” in response to Khashoggi’s assassination.
His administration released a U.S. intelligence report in 2021 indicating the crown prince approved the plan that led to Khashoggi’s death. The State Department also announced the Khashoggi Ban, a measure to impose visa restrictions on individuals who, acting on behalf of a foreign government, carry out acts of transnational repression targeting journalists, activists or other dissidents. Last year, the FBI created a “fusion center” to coordinate agency efforts on the issue.
But the Biden administration and U.S. lawmakers have not made a substantial effort to curb transnational repression by allies — Egypt and Saudi Arabia in particular — on U.S. soil or against U.S. citizens, the report argues.
The United States has withheld a small portion of funding to Egypt over its human rights record while continuing to provide substantial military aid to Cairo. The State Department in January hailed “a historically strong and growing partnership” with Egypt.
“The Biden administration is trying to do the bare minimum,” Mansour said. Determinations on security aid have been “one of the major tests of whether they are going to put their money where their values are,” he added. “And with Egypt, they have missed that chance once, twice, every time.”
Last year, Biden fist-bumped Mohammed during a visit to the kingdom — and his administration has stepped up cooperation with Saudi Arabia, especially as Russia’s war in Ukraine disrupted global energy markets and as Riyadh pushes for a peace deal in Yemen. Saudi Arabia continues to be one of the top importers of U.S. arms.
The Biden administration banned 76 Saudi citizens from entering the United States in relation to Khashoggi’s murder — but not Mohammed. In November, the Biden administration declared him immune from a lawsuit filed in the United States by Khashoggi’s fiancee and a human rights organization.
“We’ve really seen relationships with Egypt and Saudi Arabia return to business as usual,” McManus said.
The State and Justice Departments did not respond to requests for comment.
The report calls for transnational repression to be codified as a crime under U.S. law. Last month, a bipartisan group of senators led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a bill to that end. An earlier legislative attempt failed.
The FBI, meanwhile, is “taking the issue very seriously,” McManus said. But more training of local law enforcement agencies on responding to reports of transnational repression is needed, especially in places with large diaspora communities, the report says.
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Smoke is seen rising from Khartoum's skyline on Sunday. The Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary group battled for control of the chaos-stricken nation, signaling they were unwilling to end hostilities despite mounting diplomatic pressure to cease fire. (photo: Marwan Ali/AP)
These are just some of the stories civilians living under siege the past five days in Sudan's capital Khartoum have told NPR, when reached by phone.
They describe a dire situation in the city, with no electricity, water or medicine, as they cower amid the brutal urban warfare going on in their residential neighborhoods.
The violence broke out on Saturday between the Sudanese armed forces and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces. The two are vying for power, despite promises that a civilian government would be installed after an October 2021 coup d'etat by the Sudanese military.
"On Saturday morning, April 15, we woke up to the sounds of gunfire, from that morning on we live in fear," says Hipa Salih, a Sudanese journalist. "I think we can die at any time. Nobody can feel safe in Khartoum now."
Her voice raw from breathing in smoke from gunfire and bombings, she says: "The children are crying because they're very, very scared and the house is shaking... all our family stay under the bed, the war planes over us."
Civilians have been shot in the streets
It's impossible for civilians to reach family members from whom they are separated, Salih says, so people are effectively prisoners in their own homes. One woman she knew had tried to move from one location to a safer place with her children — and was shot dead by the RSF.
"They killed her in the middle of the road — she was trying to cover her children and then they shoot her," she says.
Kholood Khair, a researcher and academic who's also hunkered down in Khartoum, says the extreme violence has shocked residents.
"On Saturday morning, everyone was kind of caught unawares," Khair says. "It's the kind of warfare one might expect in a battlefield, but instead it's taking place right in the heart of town. And the problem is for a lot of people that no one is really sure how long this is going to take — and that uncertainty is driving people's anxieties and fears."
Families are separated with no certainty of reuniting with their loved ones, she says. "A friend of mine was separated from her three-year-old daughter on Saturday and hasn't been able to get to her since. And because the streets are unsafe, she's not sure whether she's able to get to her. In addition, she found out just today that their apartment block, where her daughter is, has been hit. So these are the kinds of desperate stories, multiplied by tens of thousands, that exist all over Khartoum."
Duaa Tariq, an art curator, tells NPR she is trapped inside a house with her sister, who is five months pregnant, and two-year-old nephew. They are beginning to run out of food.
"Right now the fight has come to my neighborhood," she says. "Three people were killed two minutes away from my house from anti-aircraft, and yeah, we're very frightened and scared and we're also in a very bad situation in terms of supplies."
Democratic dreams have been repeatedly hijacked by the military
Tariq, 30, is a member of one of Sudan's grassroots pro-democracy resistance committees. She was involved in a peaceful people power revolution in 2019 that brought down President Omar al-Bashir, the North African country's longtime dictator and an indicted war criminal. Since then she's continued her activism, hoping to see a democratic Sudan.
But that dream has been repeatedly hijacked by military forces. First there was the 2021 coup, and now there's the fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF. The two are erstwhile allies — the RSF is a Bashir-created group that grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militia responsible for abuses in Darfur.
Asked if she feels hopeless that democracy will ever come to Sudan now, Tariq is defiant.
"Our neighborhood committees, last night we went out and we did graffiti in the street, just to remind people that our voices are here. We're trying to be heard, because you know the bullets are always louder than people's voices, but we're trying to make it through."
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An ENGIE employee walks past solar panels at the ENGIE Sun Valley Solar project in Hill County, Texas, March 1, 2023. (photo: AFP)
There are more than 450,000 such warehouses nationwide, with nearly 16.4 billion cumulative square feet of flat, sunny rooftop space — or about twice the area of Memphis, Tenn., according to the report, which was released Thursday by the Environment California Research … Policy Center and the Frontier Group.
The rooftops of medium and large warehouses built before 2019 could produce 185.6 terawatt-hours of solar electricity annually — with the greatest potential in California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Georgia, per the report.
“Putting solar panels on the nation’s warehouses would be good for businesses, good for electricity customers, good for the grid and good for the environment,” the authors stated.
Generating the full 185.6 terawatt-hours of solar power would eliminate more than 112 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, the report found. This would be equivalent to removing more than 24 million gasoline-fueled passenger vehicles from the road each year.
Collectively, the warehouses would produce 176 percent of their annual electricity use — enabling these buildings to feed the surplus back into the grid and power surrounding communities, according to the report.
In California, more than 66,000 warehouses and distribution centers have more than 1.5 billion square feet of rooftop space — enough to generate more than 32 terawatt-hours of electricity each year and power nearly 5 million homes, the authors determined.
“California needs more rooftop solar, and expansive, flat warehouse roofs are the perfect spots for solar panels,” said Steven King, a clean energy advocate for the Environment California Research … Policy Center, in a statement.
“More solar on warehouses would help preserve open space, reduce pollution and produce much-needed renewable energy throughout the state,” King added.
The report urges businesses to set ambitious goals for solar installation while calling upon government officials at all levels to implement solar-friendly policies.
Some such policies include sufficient compensation for businesses that generate solar power and deliver environmental benefits to their communities, as well as support for community solar programs, third-party financing tools and streamlined interconnection processes, according to the report.
“Putting solar on warehouse roofs is not just a great environmental decision, it’s also a smart business decision,” Terry Tamminen, president and CEO of AltaSea, a 35-acre ocean innovation hub at the Port of Los Angeles, said in a statement.
“More warehouse owners should use these ideal spots to produce clean energy, avert harmful pollution, increase the value of their property, and save on their electricity bills,” Tamminen added.
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