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      Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred over 2020 election, DC panel recommends

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      Rudy Giuliani’s law license should be revoked over his work on a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results on behalf of then president Donald Trump, a Washington DC attorney ethics committee has recommended.He now faces being disbarred in the capital after the review panel late on Friday condemned the lawyer and ex-politician for aggressively pursuing the false assertions Trump made about his defeat by Democratic rival and now US president Joe Biden.Giuliani “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence”, wrote the three-member panel in a report that details the errors and unsupported claims the former mayor of New York City made in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to overturn the election result.Between the November 2020 election day and the January 6 insurrection by supporters of Trump at the US Capitol, Giuliani and other Trump lawyers repeatedly pressed claims of election fraud that were untrue and almost uniformly rejected by federal and state courts.He is the third lawyer who could lose his ability to practice law over what he did for Trump: John Eastman faces disbarment in California, and Lin Wood this week surrendered his license in Georgia.“Mr Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy,” wrote the panel members, Robert Bernius, Carolyn Haynesworth-Murrell and Jay Brozost.“The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments,” they wrote. “It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done.”Giuliani has already had his New York law license suspended for false statements he made after the election. The Washington review panel’s work will now go to the DC court of appeals for a final decision.Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, called for support from Washington lawyers and criticized the panel’s work as “the sort of behavior we’d expect out of the Soviet Union”.Giuliani ran a short and disastrous campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2008 election.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting. More

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      Armed man wanted for role in Capitol attack arrested near Obama’s house

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      A man armed with explosive materials and weapons, and wanted for crimes related to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, was arrested late on Thursday in the Washington DC neighborhood where the former US president Barack Obama lives, law enforcement officials said.Taylor Taranto, 37, was spotted by law enforcement officials a few blocks from the former president’s home and fled, though he was chased by Secret Service agents. Taranto has an open warrant on charges related to the insurrection, two law enforcement officials said. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing case and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.They said Taranto also had made social media threats against a public figure. He was found with weapons and materials to create an explosive device, though one had not been built, one of the officials said.No one was injured. It was not clear whether the Obamas were at their home at the time of the arrest.Washington’s Metropolitan police department arrested Taranto on charges of being a fugitive from justice. The explosives team swept Taranto’s van and said there were no threats to the public.Taranto was a US navy veteran and a webmaster for the Republican party in Franklin county, in Washington state, according to the Tri-City Herald newspaper. He told the newspaper in an interview last year that he was volunteering for the Republican party.It was not clear what, exactly, Taranto is accused of doing in the 2021 riot, where supporters of then president Donald Trump smashed their way into the Capitol, beat police officers and pursued leading politicians, while also invading a congressional chamber in a vain effort to overturn Trump’s defeat at the 2020 presidential election before Joe Biden’s victory being certified by Congress.More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol attack. More than 600 of them have pleaded guilty, while approximately 100 others have been convicted after trials decided by judges or juries. More than 550 riot defendants have been sentenced, with over half imprisoned. More

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      Modi’s Visits Abroad Help to Build His Image in India

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      For an audience in India, the prime minister is linking his diplomatic reception abroad, and himself, to the country’s growing importance on the world stage.His grip on the levers of national power secure, his hold on India’s domestic imagination cemented, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increasingly turned to advancing himself on a new horizon: the global stage.With a packed diplomatic calendar that includes India’s hosting of the Group of 20 summit later this year, Mr. Modi is building an image going into his re-election campaign as a leader who can win respect and investment for his vast nation. The state visit accorded to Mr. Modi in Washington, which ends on Friday, is perhaps the biggest prize yet in that quest.“It’s not just about a fairer bargain abroad,” said Ashok Malik, a former government adviser who is the India chair at the Asia Group, a consulting firm. “It’s also that ‘my investments in key foreign policy relations are actually helping to build the Indian economy and therefore create opportunities for Indians at home and strengthen India overall.’”At home, Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has continued to sideline institutions that were once important checks on the government. It has persisted in its vilification of the country’s 200 million Muslims, even as Mr. Modi used an exceedingly rare news conference in Washington to claim that there was no discrimination against anyone in India.But abroad, world leaders eager to court an ascendant India have offered little pushback. And often, they have given Mr. Modi invaluable fodder for an information campaign that shapes perceptions of him among many Indian voters who are ecstatic to see their country’s importance affirmed.Eid-al Fitr prayers in Chennai, India, in April. Mr. Modi used a news conference in Washington to claim that there was no discrimination against anyone in India, including the country’s huge Muslim minority.Idrees Mohammed/EPA, via ShutterstockWhen Mr. Modi traveled to Australia last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese referred to him as “the boss” in front of an arena in Sydney packed with about 20,000 people. Mr. Modi then returned to New Delhi to a large crowd gathered for his welcome at 6 in the morning, telling supporters that the grand welcome for him abroad was about India, not him.On Friday, as Mr. Modi was wrapping up his meetings in the United States before arriving in Egypt for another grand greeting, his political party and the large sections of the broadcast media friendly to him reveled in the reception he had gotten from President Biden and other American leaders.The red carpet in Washington played perfectly into one of Mr. Modi’s talents: He can build a media campaign out of virtually anything, projecting himself as the only leader who can expand India’s economy and usher a nation coming into its own to new heights.While opposition leaders back home were holding their largest gathering yet, hoping to find a formula for uniting to challenge the prime minister in elections early next year, Mr. Modi was reaching for the world.Social media was flooded with montage videos, set to regal background music, of Mr. Modi making a grand entrance into the House of Representatives for his address to a joint session of Congress. The speech, after which several lawmakers sought Mr. Modi’s autograph, made him one of only a very small number of world leaders to have addressed that body twice.Another video online kept count of the number of times Mr. Modi received applause or standing ovations during his speech. A third cut to dramatic images of Mr. Modi contrasting him with the dynastic leaders who came before him, advancing a constant narrative that he represents a subversion of the old elite that long ruled India.“History tells us that powerful people come from powerful places. History was wrong,” a deep voice intones in the video. “Powerful people make places powerful.”Congress offers a standing ovation for Mr. Modi’s speech on Capitol Hill on Thursday.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesMr. Modi’s next major opportunity to appear as a global statesman will come in September when India welcomes the Group of 20 leaders, a summit meeting he has framed to his support base as his bringing the world to India.His government has turned promotion for the meeting into a roadshow, hosting hundreds of G20 events, so many that foreign diplomats in New Delhi quietly complain about travel fatigue. Cities and towns across India are decked out with billboards bearing the G20 logo — which cleverly incorporates the lotus, a symbol both of India and his Bharatiya Janata Party — and pictures of Mr. Modi.In promoting the G20 presidency, Mr. Modi has taken to frequently describing India, the world’s most populous nation, as the “mother of democracy.” Abroad, however, he has pursued a transactional brand of diplomacy built not on practicing democratic values, but on what best serves Indian economic and security interests, and what elevates India in the world.The image of “a rising India, a new India being seen more seriously abroad” helps Mr. Modi politically, Mr. Malik said. But Mr. Modi is also investing heavily in U.S. relations with an eye toward how they could help an Indian economy that is struggling to create enough jobs for its huge young population and that must put up a fight against an aggressive China next door.“Addressing China is not just about soldiers and weapons at the border, it’s also about building economic alternatives to what China offers,” Mr. Malik said.Supporters of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party cheer during a rally in Bengaluru, India, last month.Manjunath Kiran/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe list of agreements between the United States and India, announced at the end of a bilateral meeting at the White House, was long, covering defense, space and a wide range of technological cooperation.Defense cooperation, in particular — including deals on Indian manufacturing of General Electric jet engines and purchasing Predator military drones — received a major boost after what had been a history of reluctance and bureaucratic hurdles on both sides. Dr. Tara Kartha, a former senior official in India’s security council who dealt with U.S. on defense, said the agreement on aircraft engines was “an affirmation of trust” that would help the military partnership beyond the smaller steps of the past two decades.“Each country is trying to get past its bureaucratic constrains,” she said. “Until the bureaucracy can catch up, there will be frustrations.”Among ordinary Indians on the streets of New Delhi, opinions of Mr. Modi’s diplomatic efforts were divided.Vijay Yadav, a 26-year-old taxi driver, said Mr. Modi’s outreach abroad could not cover for how India’s economy was struggling to create enough jobs.“I saw on Instagram a news feed which was constantly touting Mr. Modi’s trip to America as if no other Indian leader had been there before,” he said. “Firstly, he must get down to solving the problems of his own countrymen before he goes abroad to project himself as a hero.”Nidhi Garg, 41, who has inherited a vegetable and fruit shop from her father, said her heart swelled each time she saw Mr. Modi representing India abroad.“Today, wherever you see, the name of our nation is being taken,” she said. “The first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when they mention the word India, they immediately connect it to Prime Minister Modi.”Suhasini Raj More

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      Trump donor whose family died in Washington plane crash lost other daughter in diving tragedy

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      A leading Republican donor whose family members were killed in a plane crash in Virginia on Sunday following a pursuit by US military jets lost another daughter in a scuba diving tragedy almost 30 years ago, it was reported on Monday.John Rumpel, a Florida businessman and frequent contributor to Donald Trump’s political operation, said his daughter Adina Azarian, 49, and two-year-old granddaughter were among four victims of the crash that caused a security scare when the plane flew over restricted airspace in Washington DC.Another daughter, Victoria, 19, was killed in a diving accident in 1994, the Daily Beast reported, and Rumpel and his wife, Barbara, an executive with the National Rifle Association, later named an assisted living facility in their home town of Melbourne, Florida, in her honor.On Sunday, Rumpel, 75, millionaire owner of Florida’s Encore Motors franchise, said nobody could have survived the crash of the Cessna Citation twin-engine jet near Montebello, Virginia, on Sunday afternoon.It is believed the pilot of the jet, who was also killed alongside the Rumpel family’s nanny, lost consciousness en route from Tennessee to Long Island, New York, causing it to stray into airspace over the capital.The North American aerospace defense command (Norad) scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to intercept the Cessna, but they did not shoot it down, military officials said.Sonic booms from the jets were heard in Virginia and Maryland as they raced to catch up with the light aircraft, sending some residents into a brief panic.“They all just would have gone to sleep and never woke up,” Rumpel, who is also a pilot, told the New York Times in a brief emotional interview.“It descended at 20,000ft a minute and nobody could survive a crash at that speed.He said his family members were returning to their home in East Hampton, New York, after spending four days with Rumpel and his wife in North Carolina.Joe Biden was playing golf with his brother near Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, at the time, and was briefed on the crash, the Washington Post reported.The White House said the sonic boom was “faint” where the Bidens were golfing, and referred questions over security arrangements for the president to the Secret Service.Records show that the Rumpels are regular donors to conservative political causes, including Trump’s failed 2020 campaign for re-election to the White House, and Ron DeSantis’s re-election as Florida governor last year.The two Republicans are the leading candidates for their party’s presidential nomination for next year’s general election.According to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware, the plane appeared to reach the New York area and made a nearly 180-degree turn, flying a straight path down over DC with the flight ending in Virginia.The sonic boom caused consternation among many residents in the capital region, who took to Twitter to report hearing a loud noise that shook the ground and walls.A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was expected to reach the crash site on Monday.The Federal Aviation Administration said the rules under which the plane was flying did not require it to have a type of data recorder known as a black box. Generally, black boxes help investigators determine why plane crashes may have occurred.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      ‘They fought for freedom’: the nightly vigil to sanctify the January 6 rioters

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      The clock had just struck 9pm when Jeff Sabol, a Colorado man accused of dragging a police officer down a flight of stairs at the US Capitol on January 6 and beating him, placed a call from inside Washington’s jail.Dozens of yards and several layers of concrete and razor wire away, on E Street Southeast, Tommy Tatum, a hulking Mississippian who had been present at the Capitol on January 6 but not arrested, stood with a microphone in one hand and a cellphone in the other.“Hey, are you guys out there? We’ve had some technical difficulties for a variety of reasons,” Sabol’s voice rang out from the phone and over a sound system, drawing cheers from a group of about 15 people who had gathered, carrying American flags and wearing shirts with slogans such as “Abolish the FBI”.Sabol’s voice grew echoey, and the sounds of others filled the room behind him. “Thirty seconds!” he cried.And then, the two groups, one confined behind the jail’s walls over charges they attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to keep Donald Trump from losing power and the other made up of their friends and loved ones on the sidewalk outside, sang the American national anthem in unison: “O say can you see …”Thus concluded the 303rd evening of the “Freedom Corner”, perhaps the only regular public protest by Trump supporters in America’s capital city, where the demand is accountability – not for the former president, but for the government they believe is persecuting them.The target of their demonstration is Washington DC’s city jail, where an overwhelmingly Black inmate population has long endured terrible conditions. Over the past two years, the Freedom Corner protesters have been joined by some of the hundreds of people swept up in the sprawling federal investigation into the violence on January 6, prompting demonstrators to gather outside on a corner sandwiched between the building and the tilted headstones of the Congressional Cemetery to decry the injustice within.“These are really good guys. They’re fathers, they’re uncles, they’re veterans. Most of them have served this country. They fought for us, they fought for our freedom,” said Helena Gibson, a regular attendee of the vigil who was present at the Capitol on January 6 but said she did not enter the building.“Because these are really great amazing mentors, stand-up men, they don’t deserve what’s happening to them.”The storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters immediately after a speech by the then president has been linked to nine deaths, and saw the halls of the 223-year-old building turned into a war zone. Rioters surrounded and beat overwhelmed police officers, sent lawmakers and the then vice-president, Mike Pence, fleeing and attacked with such violence his Secret Service detail asked others to say goodbye to their families for them.But the Republican party’s right wing has invested in downplaying the incident, even though the mayhem played out on live television, was explored in detail by a bipartisan congressional committee who said Trump and his allies may have broken the law, and is the subject of an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith that could lead to charges against the former president.On the same day last March when the Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired an episode of his now-cancelled show featuring footage he claimed proves the January 6 rioters were, in fact, “sightseers”, the Republican congressman Mike Collins tweeted: “I’ve seen enough. Release all J6 political prisoners now.”In the unlikely event that happens, they would be met with open arms on Freedom Corner. Ringed in by orange traffic barriers and watched by several police cars, attendees set out snacks on a portable table, run the banners of Donald Trump and the United States up a flagpole and livestreamed the entire two-and-a-half-hour gathering on multiple cellphones.“I definitely think people committed crimes that day. I mean, it’s never been our opinion, my opinion, that no one should be charged,” said Nicole Reffitt, a Texas woman whose husband, Guy Reffitt, was last year sentenced to seven and a quarter years in prison after a jury convicted him of obstructing Congress, interfering with police officers and threatening his own children – one of whom turned him in to the authorities.“I believe my husband was overly charged. And, you know, and then he was persecuted for the events of that day, and not necessarily for what he really did.”The vigils began last year on the day her husband was sentenced, said Reffitt, one of the first attendees at Freedom Corner, along with Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot dead by police in the Capitol during the attack. Since then, they have attracted activists from across the country.Carrying a pole with a US flag over her shoulder, as some of the rioters did during the attack, Jamie Crowe said she has traveled to Freedom Corner more than 30 times from Pennsylvania “to support the people that are patriots that marched to the Capitol peacefully”.Though polls have found about a quarter of Republican voters approve of January 6, a majority of Americans do not share that view. Crowe said she was not in Washington when the attack happened, but watched coverage on television.Asked how she could view the same images the rest of America did yet reach a different conclusion about the riot, Crowe said: “I love this country more than you can imagine.”As she spoke, the vigil was holding its nightly roll call of those who died and had been arrested. “Hero,” the crowd intoned with the bang of a tambourine after each name.“And we’ll do like we do every night. We’ll say her name,” Tamara Perryman announced after the names were read, then led the crowd in repeating, “Ashli Babbitt, Ashli Babbitt.”“We just want justice, fair justice, like anybody would want,” said Perryman, whose husband, Brian Jackson, was arrested last year on charges related to lobbing a flagpole at officers defending the Capitol.“If throwing that flag was truly assault, then give him his assault charge and let him go home. Because that is not a year in prison, nor is it eight to nine years in prison [the sentence he could face’],” Perryman said.Last year, 34 January 6 defendants, including Reffitt’s husband, Guy, signed a document submitted in a federal court filing asking that they be moved to the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay if conditions in Washington’s jail do not improve.“My husband’s never been in jail, so I had no idea how the system was,” Reffitt said, describing how her husband has endured inedible food and has slept without a pillow, because prisoners are not allowed to have them.“These are humans in here, and this is not how you rehabilitate anybody,” Reffitt said.Melissa Wasser, policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, sees plenty to protest at the city’s jail. Her group has sued over detention conditions, and documented everything from flooding in the facility’s showers to instances where staff has punished prisoners by withholding food and water.“I’m glad that there there’s been more coverage of the jail in these conditions. Again, you know, it should not have taken the complaints of these white January 6 defendants and their families for people to act on this,” Wasser said. “Local residents, advocates, family members of the mostly Black residents have been raising these problems for years.” A spokesperson for the city’s department of corrections declined to comment.Statistics released in January show 90% of those in the department’s custody are Black in a city where the group makes up about 45% of the population. In a database National Public Radio maintains of January 6 defendants, most appear to be white.“These guys and their families were shocked beyond belief. They could not believe that an American citizen of any stripe, of any race, of any criminal background could be treated this way,” said Joe McBride, an attorney who has represented multiple January 6 defendants, three of whom ended up in the capital city’s lock-up.“These guys were like, ‘I have rights, rights, I have rights.’ And I had to explain to them, at great pain, that their government doesn’t give a flying fuck about them.”But McBride is no fan of detainees’ tendency to call up the Freedom Corner on prison phones to chat, nor of the developing community of counter-protesters.“It was good for a time, but it appears to me that that event has reached its natural conclusion, and could potentially now be causing more harm than good,” he said.In a solidly Democratic city where many residents feel put upon by repeated instances of pro-Trump demonstrators showing up from out of town during his presidency, Freedom Corner may be Washington’s most hated regular protest, and has attracted a dedicated group of opponents.On Monday’s Memorial Day holiday, the Freedom Corner crew marched from the Capitol to their usual spot about two miles away, but were joined along their route by their chief nemesis: a livestreamer named Anarchy Princess.“Terrorists coming, watch out, there’s terrorists behind me,” the counter-protester, wearing a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses, cried into a megaphone as the group walked. “The Nazis are behind me, Trump’s little cry baby losers, they insurrected the Capitol, are behind me. Fuck Ashli Babbitt!”As the group neared their destination, where a large and noisy group of counter-protesters had also massed, video showed Witthoeft – Babbitt’s mother – pushing Anarchy Princess, and later grabbing a megaphone she was using to broadcast siren noises and smashing it on the ground. Police arrested Witthoeft the following day.Witthoeft was released later on Tuesday evening, and told the Guardian she planned to keep the vigils up “until I feel like I’m done doing what I need to do, and I don’t feel that way yet”. Anarchy Princess could not be reached for comment.After finishing their singing of the national anthem on Tuesday evening, the group on the corner trained their eyes on the prison’s windows, where January 6 detainees have, in the past, been able to make their lights flicker in a tribute to their streetside supporters. That wasn’t happening that night.“They’ve moved them so we can no longer see them flashing the lights,” said a protester who went by the pseudonym Dude and sported a gray camouflage National Rifle Association hat.Perryman wasn’t so sure. Earlier in the night, Sean McHugh, who was found guilty in April of charges related to attacking Capitol police officers with bear spray, had called Freedom Corner and said he had to move cells because of a mold outbreak.“Some things truly are coincidence and just a matter of happenstance,” Perryman said. “But it is easy to get into that mindset where, ‘Oh gosh, are they really messing with me or am I just paranoid?’ You know what I mean?” More

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      Far-right Oath Keepers founder sentenced to 18 years over January 6 attack

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      Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was sentenced on Thursday to 18 years in prison, after being convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on Congress.Prosecutors sought a 25-year term. Lawyers for Rhodes said he should be sentenced to time served, since his arrest in January 2022.Before handing down the sentence, the US district judge, Amit Mehta, told a defiant Rhodes he posed a continued threat to the US government, saying it was clear he “wants democracy in this country to devolve into violence”.“The moment you are released, whenever that may be, you will be ready to take up arms against your government,” Mehta said.Rhodes claimed the prosecution was politically motivated.“I’m a political prisoner and like President Trump my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” he said.Rhodes also noted that he never went inside the Capitol on January 6 and insisted he never told anyone else to do so.But members of the Oath Keepers took an active role on 6 January 2021, when a mob incited by Donald Trump smashed its way into the Capitol, attempting to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Prosecutors successfully made the case that Rhodes and his group prepared an armed rebellion, including stashing arms at a Virginia hotel, meant for quick transfer to Washington DC.Other members of the Oath Keepers, some convicted of seditious conspiracy, are due to be sentenced this week and next. Members of another far-right group, the Proud Boys, will face sentencing on similar convictions later this year.Nine deaths have been linked to the January 6 attack, including suicides among law enforcement. More than 1,000 arrests have been made and more than 500 convictions secured.In court filings in the Oath Keepers cases, prosecutors said: “The justice system’s reaction to January 6 bears the weighty responsibility of impacting whether January 6 becomes an outlier or a watershed moment.”Like all other forms of Trump’s attempted election subversion, the attack on Congress failed. In the aftermath, Trump was impeached for a second time, for inciting an insurrection. He was acquitted by Senate Republicans.Laying out Trump’s actions after the 2020 election, the House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals to the justice department. The former president still faces potential indictments in state and federal investigations of his election subversion and role in the attack on Congress. Nonetheless, he remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year.At Thursday’s hearing, speaking for the prosecution, the assistant US attorney Kathryn Rakoczy pointed to interviews and speeches Rhodes has given from jail repeating Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and saying the 2024 election would be stolen too.In remarks just days ago, Rhodes called for “regime change”, Rakoczy said.People “across the political spectrum” want to believe January 6 was an “outlier”, Rakoczy said. “Not defendant Rhodes.”A defense lawyer, Phillip Linder, denied Rhodes gave orders for Oath Keepers to enter the Capitol on January 6. But he told the judge Rhodes could have had many more Oath Keepers come to the Capitol “if he really wanted” to disrupt certification of the electoral college vote.In a first for a January 6 case, Judge Mehta agreed with prosecutors to apply enhanced penalties for “terrorism” under the argument that the Oath Keepers sought to influence the government through “intimidation or coercion”.Judges in previous sentencings had shot down the justice department request for the so-called “terrorism enhancement”, which can lead to a longer prison term, but Mehta said it fitted Rhodes’s case.“Mr Rhodes directed his co-conspirators to come to the Capitol and they abided,” the judge said.Asked if Mehta’s acceptance of the enhancement boded ill for others found guilty of seditious conspiracy, Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, Virginia, said prosecutors “argued that the judge should apply the enhancement because the ‘need to deter others is especially strong because these defendants engaged in acts that were intended to influence the government through intimidation or coercion – in other words, terrorism’.“The judge then stated, ‘It’s hard to say it doesn’t apply when someone is convicted of seditious conspiracy.’“Mehta apparently accepted that argument in imposing the sentence today and may well apply it to others who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy, as he has heard the evidence presented.” More

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      DC officer leaked information to Proud Boys leader, indictment alleges

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      A Washington DC police officer was arrested on Friday on charges that he lied about leaking confidential information to Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio and obstructed an investigation after group members destroyed a Black Lives Matter banner in the nation’s capital.An indictment alleges that Metropolitan police department lieutenant Shane Lamond, 47, of Stafford, Virginia, warned Tarrio, then national chairman of the far-right group, that law enforcement had an arrest warrant for him related to the banner’s destruction.Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before Proud Boys members joined the mob in storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Earlier this month, Tarrio and three other leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges for what prosecutors said was a plot to keep the then president, Donald Trump, in the White House after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.A federal grand jury in Washington indicted Lamond on one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements.The indictment accuses Lamond of lying to and misleading federal investigators.Lamond is expected in court on Friday and is on administrative leave.Lamond, who supervised the intelligence branch of the police department’s Homeland Security Bureau, was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys.His attorney, Mark Schamel, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.Schamel has previously said that Lamond’s job was to communicate with a variety of groups protesting in Washington, and his conduct with Tarrio was never inappropriate and said his client “doesn’t share any of the indefensible positions” of extremist groups.The Metropolitan police department said it would do an internal review after the federal case against Lamond is resolved.Lamond’s name repeatedly came up in the Capitol riot trial of Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders.Messages introduced at Tarrio’s trial appeared to show a close rapport between the two men, with Lamond texting “hey brother”.Tarrio’s lawyers had wanted to call Lamond as a witness, but were stymied by the investigation into Lamond.Lamond used the Telegram messaging platform to give Tarrio information about law enforcement activity around July 2020, according to prosecutors.In December 2020, Lamond told Tarrio about where competing antifascist activists were expected to be.Jurors who convicted Tarrio heard testimony that Lamond frequently provided the Proud Boys leader with internal information about law enforcement operations before Proud Boys stormed the Capitol. More

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      UN rebukes Washington over reports it eavesdropped on secretary general

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      The United Nations has raised concerns with the United States over reports that it eavesdropped on the private conversations of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and other senior officials.“We have made it clear that such actions are inconsistent with the obligations of the United States as enumerated in the Charter of the United Nations and the convention on the privileges and immunities of the United Nations,” said a UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, on Tuesday.The comments followed a number of articles reporting that leaked Pentagon files appear to show Washington was closely monitoring conversations between the secretary general and his aides.The Washington Post reported this week that the documents included embarrassing allegations that Guterres had expressed frustration with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and “outrage” when his plans to visit a war-torn region of Ethiopia were rebuffed.It followed a BBC report last week that the US felt Guterres was too sympathetic to Russian interests when he helped broker the Black Sea grain deal amid fears of a global food crisis. According to the broadcaster, one classified Pentagon file indicated that Guterres preferred to preserve the deal even if it meant accommodating Russian interests.The UN’s implied rebuke on Tuesday comes as Washington scrambles to contain the fallout of the worst leaks of US intelligence in at least a decade.The classified reports were part of a trove of hundreds of secret national security documents, published on the online gaming platform, Discord, and revealed secrets about US, allied and Ukrainian military deployments, US penetration of Russian intelligence and military networks, and US intelligence eavesdropping on key allies, including South Korea and Israel.Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old air national guardsman was arrested last week on suspicion of leaking hundreds of secret defence documents and charged under the Espionage Act. In response to the leaks, Pentagon has moved to tighten access to classified information while the Department of Defense reviews its security procedures.According to the BBC, a Pentagon assessment describing private conversations between the UN chief and his deputy, concluded: “Guterres emphasised his efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export,” and that he would do this, “even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals”.The secretary general’s approach, one document reportedly said, was “undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine”.The documents viewed by the Post suggest that Guterres was “really pissed off” after an appearance with Zelenskiy in March. During the visit, Guterres was reportedly surprised Ukrainian officials photographed him at a public presentation of medals to uniformed soldiers and later shared the images in a way that suggested Guterres had congratulated Ukrainian military personnel.The secretary general, who has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN charter and international law, “emphasized that he made a point of not smiling the entire time”, according to the leaked US assessment.Last week, Dujarric said Guterres was “not surprised” that he was allegedly spied on by the US. “Unfortunately, for various reasons, it allows such private conversations to be distorted and made public.”The US has a long history of eavesdropping on allied leaders, including United Nations officials.The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of dozens of world leaders, including the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and UN diplomats, according to revelations made public by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.And in 2003, a secret memo detailed an “aggressive surveillance operation” against UN security council delegations in New York as part of a campaign to win support for going to war against Iraq. More