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    Far-right group Project Veritas admits it had ‘no evidence’ of voter fraud in Pennsylvania

    The far-right political agitator James O’Keefe and the Project Veritas organization he once led have admitted that they had “no evidence” backing up widely spread claims of voter fraud at a Pennsylvania post office during the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden.O’Keefe and Project Veritas made that admission Monday after settling a lawsuit filed against them by Robert Weisenbach, the postmaster of Erie, Pennsylvania, in state court, concluding one of the more prominent legal battles spurred by Republican lies that Donald Trump was defrauded out of another term in the White House.“Neither Mr Weisenbach nor any other [postal] employee in Erie, Pennsylvania, engaged in election fraud or any other wrongdoing related to mail-in ballots,” O’Keefe said in a statement published Monday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “I am aware of no evidence or other allegation that election fraud occurred in the Erie post office during the 2020 presidential election.”Claims by an Erie mail carrier and Trump supporter named Richard Hopkins thrust his local post office into the center of rightwing conspiracy theories seeking to delegitimize Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Hopkins maintained in a signed affidavit that he had overheard Weisenbach discuss illicitly backdating mail-in ballots, which overwhelmingly favored Biden after Trump urged his supporters to vote in person instead despite vaccines meant to limit the spread of Covid-19 still not being widely available at the time.But Hopkins recanted his sworn allegations after Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator who was then leader of the chamber’s judiciary committee, cited them to support his calls for a federal investigation into ballot tampering.Hopkins sought to cast doubt on his retraction soon after, saying in a YouTube video: “I did not recant my statements.” But Monday, Hopkins confirmed he was wrong to have besmirched Weisenbach.“I only heard a fragment of the conversation [involving] Weisenbach and reached the conclusion that the conversation was related to nefarious behavior,” Hopkins said in a statement released along with O’Keefe’s. “As I have now learned, I was wrong. Mr Weisenbach was not involved in any inappropriate behavior concerning the 2020 presidential election.”Hopkins’s statement alluded to the results of a US post office inspector general’s investigation which cleared Weisenbach and his colleagues of wrongdoing. The statement also apologized to Weisenbach, his family and his post office employees, along with anyone who was “negatively” affected by Hopkins’s falsehoods. “I implore everyone … to leave the Weisenbach family alone and allow them to return to their normal, peaceful lives,” Hopkins’s statement added.Neither Project Veritas nor Weisenbach’s attorney, David Houck, could immediately be reached for comment. But Houck confirmed to NBC News that Monday’s statements from O’Keefe and Hopkins came after they had agreed to settle Weisenbach’s lawsuit.Houck did not elaborate on any other terms of the settlement.“The only comment I’m allowed to make about it is that the case was filed, litigated, and settled to the satisfaction of the parties,” Houck said to NBC.O’Keefe’s and Hopkins’s statements Monday inspired heaps of schadenfreude in some quarters. A comment on X from Bill Grueskin, who spent six years as academic dean of the prestigious Columbia Journalism school, summarized the general reaction.“Sorry to take down a couple of your heroes, but it appears that James O’Keefe and Project Veritas got something wrong,” Grueskin wrote while sharing screencaptures of Monday’s mea culpas.Despite Trump supporters’ claims to the contrary, election integrity experts consider the 2020 race to be the most secure ever. In a rare instance of an improperly reported voting result from the 2020 election, a Virginia county confirmed in January that Trump had been awarded 2,237 ballots more than he should have, and Biden was short changed nearly 1,650.O’Keefe and Project Veritas earned notoriety for video stings – often involving hidden cameras – which targeted progressives. One of his more prominent stings took down the community activism group Acorn, whom O’Keefe duped by posing as a pimp aspiring to establish a brothel.Another aimed at US senator Mary Landrieu during her final term in office saw O’Keefe and three associates plead guilty in 2010 to entering federal property under false pretenses. O’Keefe was sentenced to three years of probation and a fine of $1,500.O’Keefe resigned from Project Veritas in February 2023 after the group’s governing board found that he had “spent an excessive amount of donor funds in the [previous] three years on personal luxuries” and filed a civil complaint against him.In September, Project Veritas suspended its operations and laid off most of its employees. Then, Hannah Giles resigned as chief executive of Project Veritas in December, alleging that “illegality” and “financial improprieties” in the past had left the nonprofit “an unsalvageable mess”. More

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    ‘The threat isn’t over’: the expert arguing to the supreme court Trump is an insurrectionist

    When Jill Habig had an office down the hall from Kamala Harris in California, Barack Obama was US president, abortion was a constitutional right and January 6 was just another date on the calendar. A lot has happened since then.On Thursday Habig, now president of the non-profit Public Rights Project (PRP), hopes her arguments will persuade the supreme court that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who should be disqualified from the 2024 presidential election.Habig has filed an amicus brief on behalf of historians contending that section 3 of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which bars people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office, applies to Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.The brief gives the supreme court’s originalists, who believe the constitution should be interpreted as it would have been in the era it was written, a taste of their own medicine. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are self-declared originalists while Samuel Alito has described himself as a “practical originalist”.“Our goal was to bring an originalist historical perspective to the supreme court as it considered the meaning of section 3 of the 14th amendment,” Habig, a former special counsel to then California attorney general Harris, says by phone from Oakland. “The point we make with our historian colleagues is that the history of section 3 is actually very clear. It demonstrates that section 3 was intended to automatically disqualify insurrectionists.”The amicus brief, led by historians Jill Lepore of Harvard and David Blight of Yale, cites debates from the time in which senators made clear that their view that the provision that would not only apply for former Confederates but to the leaders of rebellions yet to come.View image in fullscreenHabig adds: “It was intended to apply not only to the civil war but also to future insurrections and it bars anyone who has betrayed an oath to uphold the constitution from becoming president of the United States.”The supreme court will hear arguments on a Colorado case in which Trump was stricken from the ballot; a decision in Maine is on hold. Other states have ruled in favor of keeping Trump on the ballot. The flurry of decisions have prompted debate over whether Trump can be fairly considered to have committed insurrection even though he has not been found guilty in a court of law – at least not yet.Habig, who founded the PRP in 2017, says yes. “It’s clear historically that there was no requirement of a conviction or even of charges, that the framers intended section 3 to be self-executing. The brief goes through a number of examples of people who had taken part in the secession and been on the Confederate side actually petitioning Congress for exceptions. There’s a lot of evidence that it was self-executing. There was no need for a particular conviction.”She adds: “The evidence that we have seen and heard and watched with our own eyes over the last few years has made it quite clear that President Trump lost an election in 2020 and has spent the months and years since then trying to overturn the results of that election in a variety of ways, including people marching to the Capitol and invading the Capitol.”Indeed, Blight has pointed out that the US Capitol was never breached during the civil war but was on January 6. Habig comments: “It’s difficult to argue with a straight face that these activities don’t qualify for section 3.”Still, there are plenty of Republicans, Democrats and neutrals who warn that the 14th amendment drive is politically counterproductive, fueling a Trumpian narrative that state institutions are out to stop him and that Joe Biden is the true threat to democracy. Let the people decide at the ballot box in November, they say.Habig counters: “It’s important to note that the American people did decide in 2020. We had a political process and then we had a president of the United States who attempted to overturn that political process. ”View image in fullscreenSpectacular as it was, the January 6 riot did not occur in a vacuum. Habig and her work at the PRP place it in a wider context of a growing movement to harass and threaten election officials and to interfere with the administration of elections. She perceives a direct line between Trump’s “big lie” and threats to democracy across the country today.“Regardless of this particular case, the threat isn’t over. It’s actually intensifying. We’re just seeing an array of efforts to rig the rules of the game against our democracy and it’s part of why we’re investing a lot of resources into protecting election officials this cycle, and to litigating and advancing voting rights and free and fair elections this year.”How did America get here? A turning point was the supreme court’s 5-4 decision in 2013 to strike down a formula at the heart of the Voting Rights Act, so that voters who are discriminated against now bear the burden of proving they are disenfranchised. Since then states have engaged in a barrage of gerrymandering – manipulating district boundaries so as to favor one party – and voter suppression.Habig reflects: “The gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the supreme court left states to themselves to rewrite the rules of the game in a variety of ways that disenfranchised voters and continued to rig maps against their systems and fair representation.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’ve seen the supreme court take itself out of the game of protecting other fundamental rights like abortion and throw that back into the states. What that’s creating is a lot of volatility at the state and local level as officials try to rewrite the rules or pick up the pieces and protect their constituents’ rights. What we’re trying to do is help state and local officials across the country use the power that they have to fight back and advance civil rights in all the ways that they can.”The PRP is building a rapid response hub to provide legal support for 200 election officials to combat harassment and intimidation and targeting election deniers. It is pursuing litigation against gerrymandering, the disqualification of legitimate ballots and state officials who try to prevent voters weighing in on ballot measures to advance abortion rights.“This is an all out effort to make sure that we don’t have death by a thousand cuts for our democracy this year,” Hebig says. “We are potentially less likely to see one central threat like we did on January 6 or even in the 2020 election. We’ve seen some of the larger counties like Maricopa county, Arizona, Philadelphia, Detroit et cetera, who have been targets in the past, have more resources to fight back.“What we’re most concerned about is the soft underbelly of our democracy, which is the smaller, less-resourced jurisdictions that just don’t have all of the capacity they need to push back against this harassment and intimidation. Because of our decentralised system, election deniers who are intent on disrupting our elections and disrupting the outcome of our election don’t have to mount a huge effort in one place.“They can pick apart jurisdiction by jurisdiction, invalidate 250 ballots here, and a thousand ballots there and 500 there, challenge absentee ballots, disrupt targeted polling places and that in the aggregate can actually change election results, sow disillusionment and distrust in our system and have the same or even worse aggregate outcome in terms of undermining the integrity of our election. That’s what we’re mobilising to prevent.”There was no greater measure of America’s ailing democracy than the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the ruling that effectively made abortion legal nationwide, by supreme court justices appointed by presidents who lost the national popular vote. But since then, in a series of ballot measures in individual states, abortion rights have prevailed.Habig reflects: “Every single time that has been put to voters, abortion rights have won. As a result, we’re actually starting to see a lot of overlap between the reproductive rights fight and the democracy fight because this battle over abortion is fuelling additional efforts to break the rules and prevent voters from having a meaningful say in their rights. We’re mobilising on both fronts because the future of both is interconnected.”View image in fullscreenPRP says it has worked with local elected officials to provide legal guidance and filed dozens of amicus briefs in key reproductive rights cases, secured legal access to abortion for 6.5 million people. Habig explains: “We’re working with state and local officials to overturn criminal abortion bans at the state level.“We’re working to poke holes in existing criminal bans when there’s not a path to overturn them right away. Then we’re working to hold crisis pregnancy centers accountable for deception of women and patients; these are anti-abortion centers that masquerade as health clinics that provide comprehensive healthcare. We’re looking at this multi-pronged approach state by state and across the country.”Habig, a political strategist who was deputy campaign manager for Harris’s first Senate election campaign in 2016, has no doubt that democracy and abortion rights will play a big part in the November election.“I appreciate President Biden’s clarity on democracy and the constitution and his leadership on the issue. I do think it’s important for people to understand what democracy means and for their real lives. It can sound abstract sometimes and like an academic debate but bringing it down to the level of, do you have autonomy over your future and your community, do you have autonomy over your own body, is important for people.”She adds: “That’s why we’ve seen in cases when we’re talking about the fundamental right to vote, people get that. When we’re talking about their autonomy, they get it. When they’re talking about their dignity in the workplace, people get that and feel that on a visceral level. It’s important that we work to build a democracy that actually delivers so that people can feel the value of it in their daily lives.” More

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    Trump ally Jim Jordan subpoenas Fani Willis for potential grant money misuse

    The US House judiciary committee has subpoenaed Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, for records related to the use of federal grant money in prosecutions and the potential misuse of those funds.The subpoena escalates the conflict between Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican congressman, judiciary committee chair and ardent defender of Donald Trump, and Willis, whose office charged the former president and 18 others with 41 counts over interfering with a Georgia election and illegally attempting to undo Biden’s victory in Georgia.Willis responded to the subpoena on Friday. She said: “These false allegations are included in baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the prior administration who was terminated for cause. The courts that have ruled found no merit in these claims. We expect the same result in any pending litigation.”She went on to tout the office grant programs and said they are in compliance with Department of Justice requirements.The back and forth between Jordan and Willis began last year with correspondence Jordan sent on 24 August, the day Trump stood for a mugshot at the Fulton county jail. Jordan’s letter suggested Willis had subjected Trump to “politically motivated state investigations and prosecutions due to the policies they advanced as president”, and that any coordination her office had with federal prosecutors may have been an improperly partisan use of federal money.Willis’s scorching response in subsequent replies said the inquiry offends principles of state sovereignty and the separation of powers; that it interferes with a criminal investigation; that Trump is not immune to prosecution simply because he is a candidate for public office; and that Jordan himself was “ignorant of the US constitution”.The Republican-led committee opened a formal investigation into the Willis’s office in December.Willis has been under fire over the past month after allegations of an improper relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired to work on the Trump case in Fulton county.Jordan sent a letter to Nathan Wade on 12 January, asking for his cooperation in his committee’s inquiry into “politically motivated investigations and prosecutions and the potential misuse of federal funds”. The letter notes Wade’s billings for meetings with the federal January 6 committee, which the letter characterizes as partisan. “There are open questions about whether federal funds were used by [Fulton county] to finance your prosecution,” the letter states.Willis responded on Wade’s behalf 12 days later.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Your letter is simply a restatement of demands that you have made in past correspondence for access to evidence in a pending Georgia criminal prosecution,” she said in the reply.“As I said previously, your requests implicate significant, well-recognized confidentiality interests related to an ongoing criminal matter. Your requests violate principles of separation of powers and federalism, as well as respect for the legal protections provided to attorney work product in ongoing litigation.” More

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    US orders ‘multi-tier response’ against Iran-backed militia – video

    The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched against an Iran-backed militia. Austin added that while it signalled a dangerous moment in the Middle East, the United States would work to avoid a wider conflict. The strikes are expected to take place in Syria and possibly Iraq after three US soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan More

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    ‘I’m Singaporean’: TikTok CEO grilled by US Senator repeatedly about ties with China – video

    US senator Tom Cotton repeatedly asked TikTok’s Singaporean chief Shou Zi Chew about his ties with China and if he had ever belonged to the Chinese Communist party during a hearing over alleged online harms to children. It was the first appearance by Chew before lawmakers in the US since March, when the Chinese-owned short video app company faced harsh questions, including some suggesting the app was damaging children’s mental health and that user data could be passed on to China’s government. More

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    Prosecutor in Trump elections case will not have to testify on alleged romance

    Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor in the case against Donald Trump over his alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election has entered into a “temporary agreement” with his estranged wife, according to a filing posted on social media. This agreement means that special prosecutor Wade will avoid having to testify in a court hearing that was scheduled for Wednesday.During the now-canceled hearing, Wade was expected to shed light on his financial dealings and purchase of plane tickets for himself and Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis in 2022 and 2023, according to the Washington Post. The pair have been under increased scrutiny since 8 January when Michael Roman, a veteran Republican operative and one of the former president’s co-defendants filed a motion to Fulton county’s superior court that sought to disqualify Willis and Wade from the case.Roman alleged that the pair were in a romantic relationship and that Wade, who was hired by Willis, used his attorney’s fees paid to him by the district attorney’s office to purchase vacations for the pair. Roman argued that while Wade was allowed to spend his earnings as he pleased, him using the money to Willis’s benefit in the form of flights and hotel stays presented a conflict of interestskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWade’s credit statements, made public via a motion filed in his divorce proceedings, show that Wade paid for two trips for him and Willis; one to Miami in October 2022 and another to the Napa Valley in April 2023. Neither attorney has publicly confirmed or denied a relationship.Wade filed for divorce from his wife Joycelyn Wade on 2 November 2021, the day after Willis appointed him as special counsel in the Trump case, court records show. The divorce grew ugly after Joycelyn complained that her estranged husband was withholding information about his finances, including income from working on the Trump case.Willis was expected to respond to the allegations in a court filing that was due on 2 February, but the agreement between the Wades will allow her to avoid filing. More

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    US historians sign brief to support Colorado’s removal of Trump from ballot

    Twenty-five historians of the civil war and Reconstruction filed a US supreme court brief in support of the attempt by Colorado to remove Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from running for office.“For historians,” the group wrote, “contemporary evidence from the decision-makers who sponsored, backed, and voted for the 14th amendment [ratified in 1868] is most probative. Analysis of this evidence demonstrates that decision-makers crafted section three to cover the president and to create an enduring check on insurrection, requiring no additional action from Congress.”Lawyers for Trump argue that the presidency is not an “office” as described in the 14th amendment, that only congressional action can stop someone from running, and that Trump did not incite an insurrection.Trump was impeached in Congress (for the second time) for inciting an insurrection: the Capitol attack of 6 January 2021, an attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden now linked to nine deaths, more than 1,200 arrests and hundreds of convictions.Impeached with the support of 10 House Republicans but acquitted when only seven Senate Republicans voted to convict, Trump now dominates his party and its presidential primary, 91 criminal charges (17 for election subversion), civil trials and ballot challenges notwithstanding.Maine has also sought to remove Trump from its ballot, a ruling delayed, like that in Colorado, while the supreme court considers the issue. Oral arguments are set for 8 February.Amicus briefs allow interested parties to make relevant arguments. Earlier this month, nearly 180 Republicans joined a brief in support of Trump.The 25 historians – among them James McPherson of Princeton, the pre-eminent civil war scholar – pointed to 1860s congressional debate.“Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, a Democratic opponent of the 14th amendment, challenged sponsors as to why section three omitted the president. Republican Lot Morrill of Maine … replied, ‘Let me call the senator’s attention to the words “or hold any office civil or military under the United States”.’ Johnson admitted his error; no other senator questioned whether section three covered the president.”The historians also cited Andrew Johnson, in 1868 the first president impeached, referring to himself as “chief executive officer”.Pointing out that section 3 of the 14th amendment is self-executing, and that “no former Confederate instantly disqualified from holding office under section three was disqualified by an act of Congress”, the historians also noted that Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, cited his own disqualification as reason an indictment for treason should be quashed.“Contemporary information provides direct evidence of the enduring reach of the 14th amendment,” the historians wrote. “Congress … chose to make disqualification permanent through a constitutional amendment.“Republican senator Peter Van Winkle of West Virginia said, ‘This is to go into our constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present.’ To this end, the Amnesty Acts of 1872 and 1898 did not pardon future insurrectionists.”The historians also said “adverse consequences followed” amnesty, many ex-Confederates winning office and “participat[ing] in the imposition of racial discrimination in the south that vitiated the intent of the 14th and 15th amendments to protect the civil and political rights of the formerly enslaved people.”The historians concluded: “The court should take cognisance that section three of the 14th amendment covers the present, is forward-looking, and requires no additional acts of Congress for implementation.”Some political and legal observers have suggested Trump should be allowed to run regardless of the constitution, because to bar him would be anti-democratic.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a forthcoming article for the New York Review of Books, seen by the Guardian, Sean Wilentz of Princeton – an eminent historian not part of the supreme court brief – calls such arguments “risible”.“By their reasoning,” Wilentz writes, “Trump’s misdeeds aside, enforcement of the 14th amendment poses a greater threat to our wounded democracy than Trump’s candidacy. In the name of defending democracy, they would speciously enable the man who did the wounding and now promises to do much more.”Trump and allies including Elise Stefanik of New York, a House Republican leader, have refused to commit to certifying the result should Trump lose in November.Wilentz continues: “Whether motivated by … fear of Trump’s base, a perverted sense of democratic evenhandedness, a reflexive hostility toward liberals, or something else, [commentators who say Trump should stay on the ballot] betray a basic ignorance of the relevant history and thus a misconception of what the 14th amendment actually meant and means. That history, meanwhile, has placed the conservative members of the supreme court in a very tight spot.”Wilentz says justices who subscribe to originalism, a doctrine that “purports to divine the original intentions of the framers [of the constitution] by presenting tendentious renderings of the past as a kind of scripture”, will in the Colorado case have to contend with evidence – as presented by the historians’ brief – of what the framers of the 14th amendment meant.Recently used to remove the right to abortion and to gut voting rights, originalism now threatens, Wilentz says, to become a “petard … exploding in the majority’s face.”He also writes: “The conservative majority of the supreme court and the historical legacy of the [Chief Justice John] Roberts court have reached a point of no return. The law, no matter the diversions and claptrap of Trump’s lawyers and the pundits, is crystal clear, on incontestable historical as well as originalist grounds … the conservatives face a choice between disqualifying Trump or shredding the foundation of their judicial methodology.”If the court does not “honour the original meaning of the 14th amendment and disqualify Donald Trump”, Wilentz writes, “it will trash the constitutional defense of democracy designed following slavery’s abolition; it will guarantee, at a minimum, political chaos no matter what the voters decide in November; and it will quite possibly pave the way for a man who has vowed that he will, if necessary, rescind the constitution in order to impose a dictatorship of revenge.” More

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    Liz Cheney: potential Trump running mate Elise Stefanik is ‘a total crackpot’

    Elise Stefanik of New York, a top House Republican and a leading contender to be Donald Trump’s presidential running mate, is “a total crackpot”, the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said.Cheney threw the barb on Tuesday, in response to a statement in which Stefanik called the House January 6 committee on which Cheney was vice-chair “illegitimate and unconstitutional” and claimed it “illegally deleted records”.Cheney said: “This is what Elise Stefanik⁩ said, in a rare moment of honesty, about the … attack on our Capitol.”Cheney posted Stefanik’s statement from 6 January 2021, the day Trump supporters stormed Congress after he told them to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, a riot now linked to nine deaths; she added: “One day she will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot. History, and our children, deserve to know.”In her original January 6 statement, Stefanik lamented “truly a tragic day for America” and “condemn[ed] the dangerous violence and destruction that occurred today”. The perpetrators, she said, “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.Stefanik also “prayed” that “colleagues on both sides of the aisle, their staffs, and all Americans … remain safe”, and thanked police, the national guard and Capitol staffers for “protecting the People’s House and the American people”.Trump was impeached for inciting the riot, with the support of 10 House Republicans, but acquitted at trial in the Senate when only seven Republicans voted to convict. He currently faces 91 criminal charges – 17 for election subversion – as well as civil suits and attempts to keep him off the ballot for inciting an insurrection. Regardless, he dominates presidential primary polling.Stefanik is chair of the House Republican conference, the fourth-ranking Republican position.Earlier this month, she declined to commit to certifying the 2024 election and told NBC she had “concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages”, referring to the more than 1,200 people arrested over the riot, of whom hundreds have been convicted.Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who sat with Cheney on the House January 6 committee, put the “hostages” remark down to Stefanik’s ambition.“Does she no longer believe violence is ‘unacceptable’ and ‘must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law’?” Raskin asked. “Does her change of heart have anything to do with wanting to be Trump’s running mate?”Cheney – Stefanik’s predecessor as conference chair – was one of two Republicans who defied party leaders to join the January 6 committee. The other, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, retired. Cheney lost her position and then her Wyoming seat to a Trump-backed rival.Notwithstanding her status as the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, membership of the Republican establishment and strongly conservative views, she has not come back to the fold.On Tuesday, Stefanik did not immediately comment on Cheney’s “crackpot” remark. More