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      Jonathan Braun, Whose Sentence Was Commuted by Trump, Is Charged With Assault

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      Jonathan Braun, whose drug sentence was commuted by Donald Trump shortly before he left office, was charged on Long Island, the latest incident to raise questions of how clemency applications were vetted.Ever since Donald J. Trump issued a series of pardons and commutations as he left office, he and his allies have defended his administration’s vetting of clemency candidates, claiming they went through a vigorous screening process.But the case of one of those convicts — a New York drug dealer and predatory lender named Jonathan Braun, who had a history of violence and faced an array of other legal problems — has stood out and raised doubts about how rigorous the vetting was.On Tuesday, the police on Long Island arrested Mr. Braun after he allegedly punched his 75-year-old father-in-law in the head. Mr. Braun struck his father-in-law twice as he tried to protect his daughter from Mr. Braun, who was chasing after her while the couple had an argument in their home, according to the Nassau County District Attorney’s office.Mr. Braun’s wife, according to court documents, told police that Mr. Braun had assaulted her twice in the past five weeks. On July 17, the court documents said, Mr. Braun threw his wife off a bed onto the floor, “causing her substantial pain and bruising her legs.”Last week, on Aug. 12, Mr. Braun threw her to the floor and punched her in the head multiple times “causing her substantial pain, bruising” to her arms, legs and head and causing her to feel dizzy, the documents said.Mr. Braun pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors asked for bail but a judge released him without it.“He was released on his own recognizance after pleading not guilty and will address the allegations judicially,” said Mr. Braun’s lawyer, Marc Fernich.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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      Defense Dept. Contractor Arrested With Dozens of Classified Documents

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      Investigators are still trying to determine why the contractor, Gokhan Gun, who became an American citizen in 2021, hoarded so many documents.A Defense Department contractor was arrested on Friday with dozens of highly classified documents he had obtained using his security clearance, as he prepared to depart for a trip to Mexico, according to prosecutors.The contractor, Gokhan Gun, an electrical engineer born in Turkey who now lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, printed thousands of documents at his work for the Air Force. Many were unclassified, but some were “batches of documents from the top secret network,” according to an 11-page complaint unsealed in a Virginia federal court.Mr. Gun is charged with illegally obtaining and retaining national defense secrets.The case is one of several instances in recent years in which soldiers and civilians working for the military improperly retained military secrets. In March, a young Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, accused of posting secret intelligence reports online, pleaded guilty in exchange for a 16-year sentence and an agreement to document his activities to the authorities.Investigators are still trying to determine why Mr. Gun, who became an American citizen in 2021, hoarded so many documents. He nonchalantly carried them out of his office in rolled-up wads in plastic shopping bags, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case.Mr. Gun, who frequently travels overseas and owns homes in Virginia, Texas and Florida, was taken into custody early Friday by F.B.I. agents who arrived to execute a search warrant at his house in Falls Church, Va. He was preparing to leave for what he described as a fishing trip with friends, intending to board a flight to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that left at 6:52 a.m.Agents confronted him in his driveway as he awaited a ride share driver. Among his luggage they found a black backpack that contained a document marked top secret and a listing of his security clearances.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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      Alongside the Trump-Russia Inquiry, a Lesser-Known Look at Egyptian Influence

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      The Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller investigated whether a Trump adviser was part of an Egyptian plan, never proven, to funnel $10 million to the 2016 Trump campaign.In the summer of 2017, as the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was starting his investigation, his agents and prosecutors were chasing potentially explosive allegations about foreign influence over Donald J. Trump and his campaign.C.I.A. intelligence relayed to the special counsel’s office suggested that senior leaders of a foreign adversary had signed off on secretly funneling millions of dollars — with the help of a Trump campaign adviser acting as “a bag man” — to Mr. Trump in the final days of the 2016 election.Interviews and other evidence obtained by the special counsel’s office showed that indeed Mr. Trump had lent his campaign a similar amount of money in the final days of the race — and, after beating Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump immediately struck a far more favorable tone toward the country than his predecessors.The country in question, however, was not Russia. It was Egypt.Seven years after Mr. Mueller’s team dug in on those allegations, people familiar with the investigation acknowledged that while much of the country’s attention was focused on ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, the most concrete lead Mr. Mueller’s team initially had about potential foreign influence over Mr. Trump involved Egypt. The people familiar with the inquiry discussed details of it on the condition of anonymity.While Mr. Mueller has often been criticized for not moving aggressively enough to investigate Mr. Trump’s personal and financial ties to Russia, his team took invasive steps to try to understand whether Mr. Trump or his campaign had received financial backing from Cairo.Mr. Trump’s foreign business ties and efforts by foreign interests and government to influence him have come under scrutiny again as he seeks to return to the White House. The little-known investigation into possible Egyptian influence shows both the intensity of past efforts to explore the issue and how they have fueled Mr. Trump’s long-running assertions that he has been subject to a “witch hunt.”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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      Ex-Green Beret Goudreau, Who Planned Failed Venezuela Coup, Is Arrested

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      Jordan Goudreau, 48, had taken credit for a failed coup attempt against Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. He faces federal charges of illegal arms smuggling.A former U.S. Green Beret who orchestrated a disastrous failed coup attempt against the authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in 2020 was arrested Tuesday in New York on federal arms smuggling charges.The federal authorities accused Jordan G. Goudreau, 48, and a co-conspirator, Yacsy Alexandra Alvarez, of exporting military-style rifles, night vision devices, lasers, silencers and other military equipment without a license to Colombia beginning in November 2019 for use in carrying out “activities in Venezuela,” the Justice Department said in a news release on Wednesday.The charges appear to refer to the botched cross-border raid carried out in May 2020 by dozens of armed, self-declared freedom fighters, including former Venezuelan soldiers and former American Special Forces operators, who aimed to topple Mr. Maduro.Mr. Goudreau, of Melbourne, Fla., who did not participate in the raid, publicly took credit for the failed incursion known as Operation Gideon, which he said he had planned with disaffected Venezuelan officials. The audacious rebellion left observers around the world wondering why a decorated former U.S. Special Forces soldier who had served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan was leading a foreign insurrection.A group of only about 60 men had planned to land on Venezuelan soil near the capital, Caracas, from speedboats and ultimately capture Mr. Maduro. But they were repelled by the Venezuelan security forces. Six men were killed and 13 others were detained, including two former Green Berets who were said to have been recruited by Mr. Goudreau, according to The Associated Press. The Americans were sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Venezuelan authorities in August 2020 but were released in a prisoner exchange deal with the United States late last year.Mr. Goudreau and Ms. Alvarez, a Venezuelan national who lives in Tampa, Fla., face charges of conspiracy to violate export laws, smuggling goods from the United States and violating federal firearm export control acts, prosecutors said.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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      3 Men With White Supremacist Ties Sentenced in Plan to Attack Power Station

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      Two of the men met through a neo-Nazi online forum and recruited other people to join their scheme, which was rooted in white supremacist ideology, prosecutors said.Three men with white supremacist ties, including two former U.S. Marines, were sentenced to prison last week after plotting to destroy a power station in the northwestern United States, the U.S. Department of Justice said.The men, Paul James Kryscuk, 38; Liam Collins, 25; and Justin Wade Hermanson, 25; received separate sentences on Thursday for charges related to what the Justice Department described as a racially motivated scheme to attack a power grid.The men gathered information on weapons and explosives, manufactured firearms and stole military gear, prosecutors said.Mr. Kryscuk, of Boise, Idaho, was found in October 2020 with a handwritten list of about a dozen places in Idaho and surrounding states that were home to components of the power grid for the northwestern United States, prosecutors said.The Justice Department did not disclose details about where the men wanted to carry out an attack or their ultimate goal. Sentencing documents on the public court system were not available.Mr. Collins, of Johnston, R.I., received the longest sentence of 10 years for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms. Mr. Kryscuk was sentenced to six years and six months for conspiracy to destroy an energy facility. Mr. Hermanson, of Swansboro, N.C., was sentenced to one year and nine months for conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate.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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      How a U.S. Antidoping Law Fueled Global Tensions

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      The Olympics are opening amid outright antagonism between international sports authorities and the United States over American investigations into the handling of doping allegations abroad.In the tumultuous final weeks of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, he signed into law, with little fanfare, bipartisan legislation that gave the United States vast new powers to police doping at competitions like the Olympics.The law authorized the Justice Department to criminally prosecute coaches, trainers, doctors and sports officials from around the world involved in facilitating doping, even if the event was held outside the United States.Nearly four years later, simmering anger among global athletic authorities about use of the law has exploded into public conflict. That has left the Olympic and antidoping movements unsettled as the Summer Games prepare to open on Friday in Paris and raised new questions about the reach of U.S. law enforcement powers abroad.The Justice Department is continuing to investigate whether Chinese antidoping authorities and the World Anti-Doping Agency — the organization, known as WADA, that is supposed to ensure a level playing field in sports — covered up the positive tests of nearly two dozen elite Chinese swimmers who went on to win medals at the last Summer Games.Some of those swimmers are competing again in Paris.The backlash from the investigation intensified on Wednesday when the International Olympic Committee announced that it had awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. The award came with a stunning catch: The committee, deeply unnerved by the U.S. investigation, insisted on the right to rescind the decision if the United States continues to take actions “where the supreme authority of the World Anti-Doping Agency in the fight against doping is not fully respected.”The move set up a situation in which the bid may be contingent on the results of a Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation and led to new salvos between two camps. On one side are the I.O.C. and WADA, and on the other are Travis Tygart, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Congress and advocates for athletes.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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      Texas Woman Is Sentenced to 15 Years in Fraud Scheme

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      Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, stole over $100 million from a youth development grant program for children of military families, spending the money on a lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said.A Texas woman who stole over $100 million from a youth development grant program for children of military families and spent the money to fund a lavish lifestyle was sentenced on Tuesday to federal prison, the authorities said.The defendant, Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, pleaded guilty in March to five counts of mail fraud and five counts of filing a false tax return, according to a criminal court docket.Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the Western District of Texas sentenced Ms. Mello on Tuesday to 180 months, or 15 years, in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas. According to federal prosecutors, Ms. Mello was a civilian employee for the U.S. Army and worked as a financial manager for a child and youth grant program at the Fort Sam Houston Base in San Antonio. Part of her job was to determine whether funding was available for various organizations that applied to the grant program, called the 4-H Military Partnership Grant.Around the end of 2016 through at least August 2023, Ms. Mello formed a fraudulent business called Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development, which she used to steal Army funds by falsely claiming it provided services to military members and their families, prosecutors said. In some cases, Ms. Mello forged her supervisor’s digital signature on the paperwork, they said.Ms. Mello used her “experience, expert knowledge of the grant program, and accumulated trust,” to swindle her colleagues, prosecutors said.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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      Gunman Appears to Have Acted Alone, but Motives Remain Unclear

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      The 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania appears to have acted alone, F.B.I. officials said on Sunday, but investigators remain unsure of his motives and political beliefs and have not yet been able to determine what evidence might be on his cellphone.Agents found what officials described as a “rudimentary” explosive device in the gunman’s vehicle, and possible explosives were also found at his residence, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.F.B.I. officials confirmed that the gunman’s father had legally purchased the AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting. But they said it was not clear whether the father gave his son the weapon or whether he took it without permission.Kevin Rojek, the F.B.I. special agent in charge in Pittsburgh, said the family was cooperating with the investigation.Dozens of federal investigators scrambled to determine why the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., climbed atop a nearby building and squeezed off a volley of shots on Saturday evening that injured Mr. Trump, killed a man attending the rally with his family and left two other people at the site critically injured before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper.F.B.I. officials said Mr. Crooks did not have a history of mental illness or criminal activity.He does not appear to have left behind any written statement that could easily explain his motivations or provide clues to any external connections or influences, according to a senior law enforcement official.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