Investigative Roundup Editor Brian Harrod's Team Highlights The Best In Investigative Reporting, As well As, Provide News Analysis And Detailed Reports
Police in Columbus, Ohio were caught on video throwing a protester into an unmarked van and driving away.
Multiple videos posted to social media on show unmarked vans stopping near a group of protesters.
Men in jeans and SWAT vests jump out of the vans holding assault-style rifles.
“Stay back!” one officer orders protesters as they search for an apparent suspect.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/columbus-paramilitary-police-with-assault-weapons-jump-out-of-unmarked-vans-to-abduct-protester/
The Department of Justice confirmed the existence of a legal memorandum penned by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) outlining the department’s rationale for declining to charge President Donald Trump with obstruction of justice based on the Mueller Report.
However, the DOJ is refusing to provide the legal justification OLC relied upon in reaching the conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge Trump, only releasing a heavily redacted version of the memo after protracted litigation.
“Internal DOJ emails suggest that Barr’s team may have been preparing to absolve the president regardless of what the Mueller report said. In an April 7 email, Engel makes reference to an action memo,’ another undisclosed document that may have been the group’s playbook for clearing the president or obfuscating the damning evidence of obstruction compiled by the Special Counsel,” the report stated.
“The centrality of Engel and OLC’s involvement in the effort to exonerate the president is yet another example of the office, under current political leadership, serving as an extension of the White House Counsel’s office rather than an independent office.”
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/doj-refusing-to-release-secret-memo-detailing-rationale-for-not-charging-trump-with-obstruction-in-mueller-probe/
Alternate links: Google News | Twitter
FIRST AMENDMENT WIN: The judge reviewing the case found defamation claim to be a load of bull.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) cannot sue Twitter for defamation over the contents of tweets posted by a fake account posing as Nunes’ cow, a Virginia judge ruled Wednesday.
Nunes in 2019 filed a $250 million lawsuit against three Twitter accounts as well as the service itself alleging defamation, negligence, and conspiracy.
One of the three accounts belongs to an identifiable person, Republican political strategist Liz Mair.
The other two are unnamed fake accounts: One, @DevinCow, posing as Devin Nunes’ cow, and the other, @DevinNunesMom, posing as Nunes’ mother.
https://twitter.com/DevinCow/status/1275914013751140352
The so-called cyanide bomb was not the work of some rogue actor or terrorist cell. It had been installed by a federal employee on official business.
The biggest surprise from the article:
In May 2019, DeFazio and Republican congressman Matt Gaetz re-introduced a bill, dubbed “Canyon’s Law”, that seeks to ban cyanide bombs nationwide.
Jeff Merkley of Oregon has introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
“I do not like the idea that if I am wandering on public land or my children are wandering on it or my wife, that we can stumble across and be poisoned by an exploding cyanide device or that our dog might be killed,” said Merkley.
M-44s are “something that impinges on the ability of all of us who are co-owners of public lands to safely enjoy them”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/26/cyanide-bombs-wildfire-services-idaho
Vice President Mike Pence tried to paint a reassuring picture of the U.S. battle against Covid-19 citing “truly remarkable progress” during a briefing Friday while Dr. Anthony Fauci pleaded for Americans to take the virus more seriously.
Pence insisted all 50 states “are opening safely and responsibly”
I guess VP Pence is not aware that both Florida and Texas are re-closing in some areas because they did not reopen safely and responsibly enough.
The US coronavirus death toll has edged toward the 125,000 mark and cases have risen by nearly 40,000 in the largest single-day increase seen since the pandemic began.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8462285/U-S-coronavirus-death-toll-edges-125-000-cases-rise-40-000-largest-daily-increase.html
Gov DeSantis played politics with this virus, and the people of Florida lost. And are losing….
Florida Smirked at New York’s Virus Crisis; Now It Has Its Own
In late April, as new coronavirus cases in Florida were steadily decreasing, Gov. Ron DeSantis began crowing how his state had tamed the pandemic. He credited his decision to impose a state-specific quarantine on New York, then the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak.
The move earned him praise in the White House and the ire of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York.
Months later, Cuomo has clearly not forgotten.
“You played politics with this virus and you lost,” Cuomo said on Thursday when asked in an interview about DeSantis’s earlier boasts.
Remember when he refused to close the beaches during Spring Break? Pure political calculation when realistic scientific evidence was there that he ignored.
Florida is where nearly 1/4 retirees who spend most of the day indoors with the AC on?
Don’t be surprised to see the state lose 1/8 of its population.
Protests against the use of deadly force by police swept across the country in 2015.
Demonstrators marched in Chicago, turned chaotic in Baltimore, and occupied the area outside a Minneapolis police station for weeks. Protesters repeatedly took to the streets of Ferguson, Mo., where a white police officer had killed a black teenager the previous year and fueled anew a national debate about the use of force and how police treat minorities.
That year, The Washington Post began tallying how many people were shot and killed by police. By the end of 2015, officers had fatally shot nearly 1,000 people, twice as many as ever documented in one year by the federal government.
With the issue flaring in city after city, some officials vowed to reform how police use force.
The next year, however, police nationwide again shot and killed nearly 1,000 people. Then they fatally shot about the same number in 2017 — and have done so for every year after that, according to The Post’s ongoing count. Since 2015, police have shot and killed 5,400 people.
Even amid the coronavirus pandemic and orders that kept millions at home for weeks, police shot and killed 463 people through the first week of June — 49 more than the same period in 2019. In May, police shot and killed 110 people, the most in any one month since The Post began tracking it.
The year over year consistency has confounded those who have spent decades studying the issue.
Most of these shootings draw little or no attention beyond a news story.
Since The Post began tracking the shootings, black people have been shot and killed by police at disproportionate rates — both in terms of overall shootings and the shootings of unarmed Americans.
The number of black and unarmed people fatally shot by police has declined since 2015, but whether armed or not, black people are still shot and killed at a disproportionately higher rate than white people.
Some of the most incendiary moments in recent years involving police and race occurred without a gunshot.
Wisconsin has received an F+ grade from the American Civil Liberties Union for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in prisons, the group said in a report released Thursday.
“The report analyzed all states’ responses to the pandemic in jails and prisons.
Nine states received D grades. The rest, except for Illinois, which was not graded because of pending litigation, received F grades,” Emily Hamer reports for the Wisconsin State Journal.
The report comes despite criminal justice reform advocates’ calls for Gov. Tony Evers to cut populations at overcrowded prisons to protect vulnerable inmates.
But as Wisconsin Watch reported in May, Evers refuses to wield his power to release inmates despite campaigning on a promise to cut prison populations by 50%. Inmates say overcrowding leaves them regularly too close to their peers and staff at a time when experts call distance a top tool for slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Wisconsin receives an F+ grade for handling of COVID-19 in prisons — Wisconsin State Journal
https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2020/06/wisconsin-covid-19-update-6-26-20/
NBC10 investigative reporter Claudia Vargas examines the Philadelphia Police Department’s residency policy and how it impacts where officers live.
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/investigators/where-philadelphia-police-live-by-zip-code-and-the-crime-that-occurs-there/2447849/
The former financial director of Habitat for Humanity of North Idaho has been jailed since December on suspicion she stole money from a Georgia food bank, and investigators believe she may also be responsible for bilking the Hayden-based nonprofit of more than $50,000 before that.
Julie Anne Nutter, 54, has been in custody in the Bibb County Jail since Dec. 6, facing 11 counts of felony theft, according to court records.
The Macon Telegraph newspaper reported last week that the charges stem from suspicions Nutter used the credit card of the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank to make fraudulent purchases at businesses that included a body waxing studio, a spa, a tire store and “an Idaho flower shop.”
Nutter took the job in Georgia after a nearly three-year stint with the Habitat for Humanity of North Idaho, which she left in June 2017.
Investigative reports filed by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office indicate that officials in Hayden raised concerns in December 2017 about potential thefts totaling $57,045.
Nutter, who served as the nonprofit’s chief financial officer, was suspected as the only employee who could have stolen the cash.
Investigators believe she deposited money into her own accounts rather than those belonging to Habitat for Humanity after examining the nonprofit’s books and bank accounts belonging to Nutter.
The investigation took nearly two years. A Kootenai County warrant was issued for Nutter’s arrest in November. By then, she had left the Georgia food bank.
The Kootenai County district court case against Nutter was placed under seal, according to the clerk’s office.
James Casper, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of North Idaho, declined in an email to comment on the “ongoing legal issues” surrounding Nutter, citing the advice of legal counsel.
Casper also said that once Habitat for Humanity alerted the sheriff’s office to the fraud, it was asked by law enforcement not to make any public statements so as not to interrupt an ongoing criminal investigation.
The food bank based in Macon, Georgia, where Nutter previously worked, issued a statement indicating a background check conducted before she started her employ there raised no red flags and that insurance would likely cover the losses.
Investigative documents in Georgia did not say how much money is believed to have been stolen from the food bank….
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/25/investigators-former-financial-chief-at-north-idah/