Month: June 2020

Special counsel Robert Mueller examined whether President Donald Trump lied to him in written answers during the Russia investigation, a possibility House Democrats have said they continue to look into even after Trump’s impeachment.

With fresh detail, the special counsel’s investigation also documented how several Trump campaign officials heard from the then-candidate about WikiLeaks releases that ultimately helped his campaign, a new version of the Mueller report said on Friday.

The revelations come from sections of Mueller’s final investigative report, on Russian interference in the 2016 election, re-released on Friday with fewer redactions.

The new disclosures largely relate to the 2016 election efforts of convicted former Trump adviser Roger Stone and his interactions with his long-time friend Trump.There’s no proof that Trump’s campaign illegally conspired with suspected Russian hackers who leaked stolen Democratic files to WikiLeaks, and no Americans were charged with such a crime.

Yet Mueller documented many instances where Trump campaign officials welcomed the Russians and WikiLeaks’ mischief in 2016, including when it related to Stone…..

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/politics/mueller-report-rerelease-fewer-redactions/index.html

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Nearly three months after Louisville Metro Police officers fatally shot Breonna Taylor in her South End apartment, the department has released the incident report from that night.

Except, it is almost entirely blank.

The four-page report lists the time, date, case number, incident location and the victim’s name — Breonna Shaquelle Taylor — as well as the fact that she is a 26-year-old black female.

But it redacts Taylor’s street number, apartment number and date of birth — all of which have been widely reported.

And it lists her injuries as “none,” even though she was shot at least eight times and died on her hallway floor in a pool of blood, according to attorneys for her family.

It lists the charges as “death investigation — LMPD involved” but checks the “no” box under “forced entry,” even though officers used a battering ram to knock in Taylor’s apartment door.

It also lists under the “Offenders” portion of the report the three officers who fired in Taylor’s apartment, fatally shooting her — Sgt. Jon Mattingly, 47; Myles Cosgrove, 42; and Brett Hankison, 44…..

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2020/06/10/breonna-taylor-shooting-louisville-police-release-incident-report/5332915002/

In March of 2019, a Williamson County sheriff’s deputy began chasing 40-year-old Javier Ambler after he failed to dim his headlights to oncoming traffic.

Javier Ambler was driving home from playing poker on March 28, 2019, when he failed to dim the headlights of his SUV to oncoming traffic.

A Williamson County sheriff’s deputy initiated a stop and began chasing him for the minor traffic violation. After Ambler apparently refused to pull over, a pursuit that lasted 22 minutes and ended when Ambler’s Honda Pilot crashed north of Downtown Austin.

Minutes later, Ambler, a 40-year-old father of two, was dying on a neighborhood street.

Records obtained by the KVUE Defenders and the Austin American-Statesman reveal that deputies used Taser stun guns on him at least three times, even as he told them multiple times that he had a heart condition and could not breathe.

The circumstances of Ambler’s March 28, 2019, death have never been revealed. The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office tried to shield information from release since receiving its first request in February. 

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/investigations/defenders/javier-ambler-death-investigation-williamson-county-sheriffs-live-pd/269-9065fe1e-bb16-439f-a008-fa74f741d5b4

They own sports teams and newspapers. They travel in Gulfstreams and mega-yachts. They buy Renoirs and Matisses and entire buildings in New York, London, and Miami.

They give endowments to museums, think tanks, and universities. Most came from nothing in the collapsing Soviet Union and now they have everything, including their own definitional category: oligarchs.

More than mere billionaires, they are the plenipotentiaries of illiberal or autocratic governments, and their fortunes, empires, and freedoms depend entirely on their willingness to carry out the bidding of those governments.

And for decades, they have been waging a not-so-quiet assault on the First Amendment, using litigation threats and public relations teams to stifle or silence critical journalism on their activities.

As our report “Kill the Messenger,” published last month by the Free Russia Foundation, explains, oligarchs are even more thin-skinned than Donald Trump when it comes to media scrutiny.

Where these men don’t manage to get a story killed, retroactively “edited,” or wholly taken offline, they still create a deterrent against newsgatherers who would sooner not pursue an investigation than be forced to go the rounds with someone with far greater resources.

As our report makes clear, outdated civil litigation rules have become a playground for the foreign-born super-rich to smother stories that are squarely in the American interest to be published.

“Kill the Messenger” features anecdotes from prominent American reporters (who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity) detailing just how vitiating writing and publishing an expose on an oligarch can be….

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/06/03/how-to-shield-investigative-journalism/

The death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis has drawn historic levels of interest in police misconduct and drawn condemnation from law enforcement leaders nationwide.

As a reporter covering law enforcement for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, and now in partnership with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, I use investigative reporting techniques to strengthen police accountability. 

Other journalists do the same. But, in truth, any citizen can apply the same methods to ensure the law enforcement system they’re funding is serving them well.

Police culture can be insular and tough to penetrate.

But I’ve been surprised by how often it’s possible, though time consuming, to expose important issues by requesting and examining records and data from police departments and other government agencies and engaging citizens and key leaders.

So here are five techniques concerned citizens, journalists and policymakers can use to examine police conduct in their communities…..

https://www.propublica.org/article/i-cover-cops-as-an-investigative-reporter-here-are-five-ways-you-can-start-holding-your-department-accountable