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    F.B.I. Agents in Southeast Asia Paid for Sex While Police Stood By, Watchdog Says

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    Solicitation of prostitutes took place over several years even as employees were training to combat human trafficking, according to a document released to The Times in a lawsuit.F.B.I. agents stationed overseas had sex with prostitutes in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand, even as some bureau employees attended training meant to combat human trafficking, a practice that often exploits vulnerable women, according to an investigation by the Justice Department’s watchdog.The document, made public on Thursday in response to a lawsuit by The New York Times, covers activity from 2009 to 2018, and describes F.B.I. employees paying for or accepting sex while socializing with each other and with the police in several countries, portraying a lascivious culture where women were freely used for sex.The previously unreleased information gives the fullest picture to date of damning conduct by F.B.I. agents abroad, resolving some of the unanswered questions from a scandal that began under the first Trump administration and was largely kept quiet for years as government lawyers argued against disclosing details. They come as the new F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has promised to remake the bureau.Prostitution is prevalent in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand but illegal in all three countries. The F.B.I., which has made combating sex trafficking a priority, prohibits employees from paying for sex.The F.B.I. did not immediately respond to a request to comment.Some of the activity happened when officials were in other countries for conferences or events. In 2017, F.B.I. officials visiting Bangkok for an event twice went to bars where they negotiated for sex in the company of the police, the report says.That same year, the Royal Thai Police co-hosted a training course with the F.B.I. and Homeland Security Investigations, a law enforcement agency within the Homeland Security Department, on combating human trafficking.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      LeShon Johnson, Ex-N.F.L. Running Back, Ran Major Dogfighting Kennel, U.S. Says

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      Federal investigators say that they seized 190 pit-bull-type dogs from the former player, who previously pleaded guilty to state dogfighting charges in 2004.The federal authorities said this week that they had broken up a major dogfighting kennel in Oklahoma led by the former National Football League running back LeShon Johnson, seizing 190 pit-bull-type dogs in what they described as the most ever taken from a single person in a federal case.In a news release, the Justice Department said on Tuesday that a 21-count indictment against Mr. Johnson, 54, had recently been unsealed in federal court in Muskogee, Okla. He was arrested on March 20 and arraigned the same day before being released, according to court documents.Mr. Johnson, who played for the Green Bay Packers, the Arizona Cardinals and the New York Giants in the 1990s, is facing felony charges of possessing and trafficking dogs for use in an animal fighting venture. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.He previously pleaded guilty to state dogfighting charges in 2004 and received a five-year deferred sentence.“The F.B.I. will not tolerate criminals that harm innocent animals for their twisted form of entertainment,” Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, said in a statement. “The F.B.I. views animal cruelty investigations as a precursor to larger, organized crime efforts, similar to trafficking and homicides.”Courtney R. Jordan, a lawyer for Mr. Johnson, declined to comment on Wednesday.Investigators say that Mr. Johnson “selectively bred ‘champion’ and ‘grand champion’ fighting dogs — dogs that have respectively won three or five fights” as part of his criminal enterprise, which was known as Mal Kant Kennels and was based in Broken Arrow, Okla., and Haskell, Okla.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      E.P.A. Offers No New Evidence in Battle Over $20 Billion in Climate Grants

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      Nonprofit groups have sued the agency to get access to grants approved by Congress to fund climate and clean energy projects across the country.In a legal filing Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency did not provide direct evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse in a $20 billion climate grant program that the agency canceled citing “unacceptable risk.”For weeks, the grant program has been mired in controversy, with its funds frozen, as the E.P.A. attempted to claw back money that was approved by Congress for clean energy programs. At least three of the grant recipients have filed lawsuits seeking access to the funds they were promised.Last week, a federal judge ordered the E.P.A. to justify its moves to freeze the funds and cancel the program. The motion stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Climate United, a nonprofit group that was supposed to receive $7 billion under the initiative.But in response to the judge’s order on Monday, the E.P.A. did not present new direct evidence. Instead, it referred to unidentified media reports as well as a video released last year by Project Veritas, a conservative group known for using covert recordings to embarrass its political opponents.The video, filmed in a social setting, showed an E.P.A. staff member at the time, talking about the outgoing Biden administration’s efforts to quickly spend federal money. He compared it to throwing “gold bars” off the Titanic. A lawyer for the former staff member has since said he was not referring to the $20 billion grant program.But Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, has seized on the video and has repeatedly suggested the grants were vulnerable to fraud. At the request of the Trump administration, the $20 billion allocated to eight nonprofit groups have been frozen in accounts held at Citibank.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kash Patel Pushes Command Changes at F.B.I.

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      Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, is pushing ahead with a plan to decentralize the agency’s command structure and divide the bureau into three regions, according to an internal email obtained by The New York Times.The move will mean that in effect, the top agents in 52 field offices around the country will no longer answer to the deputy director, a significant departure from the way the bureau has done business.Instead, those field offices will report to three branch directors at headquarters who will be in charge of the East, West and Central regions. The remaining three F.B.I. offices and the largest in the country — New York, Washington and Los Angeles — will answer to the deputy director.“These changes are meant to empower our S.A.C.s through improved engagement and leadership connections,” said the email, which was sent on Friday, referring to special agents in charge, who typically oversee field offices in a given region.It represents a shift after a quarter-century of an F.B.I. run under a structure put in place by Robert S. Mueller III after the Sept. 11 attacks. The model was established to address administrative lapses and bolster efforts to deter terrorism. In Mr. Patel’s iteration, he has appointed a total of five branch directors, eliminating the executive assistant directors who previously managed the F.B.I. on a daily basis.The announced changes were not unexpected, as Mr. Patel has already moved to reduce the number of F.B.I. employees working at headquarters and push them into the field, making good on a pledge he made before becoming director. His efforts have drawn praise from President Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Justice Dept. Speech Shows a Renewed Quest for Vengeance

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      Presidents and prosecutors have for generations appeared in the Great Hall of the Justice Department to announce important anti-crime initiatives or to offer plaudits for the fundamental tenet of the rule of law, while maintaining distance from the detailed workings of the department itself.When President Bill Clinton addressed the Great Hall in 1993, he used the occasion to discuss the crime bill he was trying to push through Congress. Eight years later, when President George W. Bush appeared there to dedicate the building in honor of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he declared that everyone who worked at the department did so to “serve the public in the cause of justice.”But when President Trump appeared in the gilded room on Friday afternoon, he did something different: He delivered a grievance-filled attack on the very people who have worked in the building and others like them. As he singled out some targets of his rage, he appeared to offer his own vision of justice in America, one defined by personal vengeance rather than by institutional principles.“These are people that are bad people, really bad people,” Mr. Trump said. “They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country, but in the end, the thugs failed and the truth won.”Among those Mr. Trump lashed out at were Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who took the lead in fighting his attempts to challenge his loss in the 2020 election, and Mark F. Pomerantz, a prosecutor who worked on an early version of a criminal case against him in Manhattan; efforts in the case ultimately led to Mr. Trump’s conviction last year on dozens of state felony charges.His anger rising, Mr. Trump went on to assail Mr. Pomerantz’s former boss, Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and the former special counsel, Jack Smith, who had accused him in separate criminal indictments of illegally holding on to classified materials and of using lies and fraud to remain in office at the end of his last term in the White House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Who Shot at Pipeline and Power Station Gets 25 Years in Prison

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      Cameron M. Smith, 50, a Canadian who wanted to bring more attention to climate change, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution for damage he caused in the Dakotas.A Canadian man who, in an attempt to raise awareness about climate change, used a high-powered rifle to fire shots at a pipeline in South Dakota in 2022 and a power station in North Dakota in 2023 was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in federal prison.The man, Cameron M. Smith, 50, who pleaded guilty last September in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., to two counts of destruction of an energy facility for the vandalism, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution.In July 2022, Mr. Smith used a high-powered Bushmaster rifle to fire rounds into a transformer and pump station that was part of the Keystone Pipeline in Clark County, in eastern South Dakota, according to court records. The act caused about $500,000 in damage and disrupted the pipeline, which carries oil from Canada through the United States, records show. Electrical service to some customers in North Dakota was also disrupted, prosecutors said.Ten months later, in May 2023, Mr. Smith again used a Bushmaster rifle to shoot at the Wheelock electric substation near Ray, in northwest North Dakota, causing about $1.2 million in damage, court records show. All energy facilities are federally protected, and damaging them can be deemed an act of terrorism if an attack is intended to “affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate,” according to the Justice Department. Judge Daniel Traynor of U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., found that Mr. Smith’s actions had met that definition — a finding reflected in the sentence he handed down.Mr. Smith, whose lawyer said he is autistic, was an online marketer who was renting a small home on the Oregon coast at the time of his arrest. He was not working at the time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Officials Take Down List of Federal Properties for Possible Sale

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      On Tuesday, the Trump administration identified more than 440 federal properties that could be sold off, a list that included high-profile buildings like the headquarters of the F.B.I., Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services.By Wednesday morning, the entire inventory had been taken down, replaced by an agency web page that said the list of properties was “coming soon.”The General Services Administration, an agency that manages the federal real estate portfolio, had already revised the list at least once. In the hours after it was published, about 100 properties, including many in the Washington, D.C., area, were removed.The changes stirred up confusion over the Trump administration’s plan to offload a vast amount of federal property. Officials at the General Services Administration said the “disposal” of the buildings could help save hundreds of millions of dollars and ensure that taxpayers do not have to pay for “underutilized federal office space.” But the list swiftly came under criticism by some Democratic lawmakers and others who worried about the potential impact on government services across the country.The agency did not immediately respond to inquiries as to why the list had been removed. More

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      Dozens of Canadians Are Charged in $21 Million ‘Grandparent Scam’

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      The conspirators called older adults and posed as their grandchildren in need of bail money after a fake arrest, federal prosecutors said.They sat in call centers in Montreal and targeted older Americans, claiming to be grandchildren in need of bail money after an arrest. In all, federal prosecutors said, more than two dozen Canadians defrauded hundreds of vulnerable Americans out of $21 million over three years in what the authorities called a “Grandparent Scam.”On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont announced that 25 Canadian nationals had been charged with conspiring to defraud Americans in 45 states. All of those accused are from Ontario or Quebec, and 23 had been arrested in Canada as of Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors said.According to prosecutors, the conspirators placed phone calls from centers in and near Montreal between the summer of 2021 and June 4, 2024, as part of the scheme.“Today’s arrests are the result of domestic collaboration as well as our critical international partnerships with our colleagues in Canada, Sûreté du Québec and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” Michael J. Krol, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations in New England, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Tackling transnational crime is one of our greatest priorities and we’re working hand-in-hand with our neighbors to dismantle organized criminal groups that threaten our safety and security.”The call centers were managed by five Canadians who were charged with money laundering in addition to the conspiracy charge that all of those charged face, according to court records.“These individuals are accused of an elaborate scheme using fear to extort millions of dollars from victims who believed they were helping loved ones in trouble,” Mr. Krol said in the statement.The conspirators also told the older adults that there was a “gag order” that prevented them from discussing their relative’s predicament with other family members, the U.S. attorney’s office said.The callers used a variety of tactics to obtain money from the older Americans, according to court records. The most common tactic was to pose as a young relative who had just been arrested after a car accident.After the victims turned over the money, it was eventually transmitted to Canada, the authorities said, noting that some of the transactions involved cryptocurrency.The 25 Canadians whose indictments were unsealed on Tuesday joined nine Americans who had previously been charged in the “Grandparent Scam,” the authorities said.Contacts for those charged or their lawyers were not immediately available.If convicted, the five managers would face a maximum of 40 years in prison, while the other alleged conspirators would face a maximum of 20 years in prison.The F.B.I. warned that grandparent schemes targeting older adults are common. One such scheme figured in the plot of the 2024 movie “Thelma,” starring June Squibb, which followed a 93-year-old woman on a journey to reclaim the money that had been stolen from her. More

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      F.B.I. Returns Materials Taken From Mar-a-Lago to Trump

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      Among the items taken from the president’s Florida residence were files that investigators said contained classified material and formed the central evidence in one of the criminal cases against him.The F.B.I. on Friday gave President Trump the boxes of materials the bureau had seized during a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022, the White House announced.Files that investigators said contained classified material were among the thousands of items taken in the search, and they had formed the central evidence in a criminal case charging Mr. Trump with illegally taking them when he left office after his first term and blocking the government’s efforts to retrieve them.But a judge unexpectedly threw out the charges last year, and prosecutors dropped their appeal to reinstate them after Mr. Trump was re-elected in November. Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, said at the time that the charges had been dismissed because of a department policy that barred filing charges against a sitting president.Mr. Trump repeatedly argued that he had a legal right to the documents despite their classification. After the case was dropped, the president and his allies said they would seek the return of the files that had been seized.Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that happened Friday afternoon.“The F.B.I. is giving the president his property back that was taken during the unlawful and illegal raids,” Mr. Cheung said. “We are taking possession of the boxes today and loading them onto Air Force One.”Mr. Cheung told reporters that the boxes of materials taken from Mar-a-Lago were loaded onto Air Force One before the president’s departure for Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening. Alina Habba, the counselor to the president, told reporters that the boxes included personal items from Mr. Trump and his family.In his own statement, the president said he wanted to make the materials “part of the Trump Presidential Library.”“The Department of Justice has just returned the boxes that deranged Jack Smith made such a big deal about,” he said, adding, “I did absolutely nothing wrong.” More